Selflessness — Anton Bosch

Christ’s Humility and the Call to Consider Others

Philippians chapter 2, I'm going to speak again on verse 4. I felt that maybe you didn't get this last week, but really, no, I just didn't feel that I'd extended, expended that which is on my heart, and as I prayed over this this week, I was concerned to come back to this verse because it is such a very important verse and really the heart of the letter to the Philippians.

So I'm going to speak on Philippians 2, 4 again, but we're going to read verses 1 through 11. Philippians chapter 2, verses 1 through 11. Therefore, if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men.

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Self-Love and the Condition of the Church

So just look at verses 3 and 4 again. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look not out only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

And in Timothy, and maybe you could turn to Timothy with me, keep your finger on Philippians because we'll be referring to that again, but in 2 Timothy chapter 3, you'll remember, is a list of the spiritual attributes of the church, of Christians in the latter times.

And remember that this is not a list of a description of the condition of the world. This is a condition of the church. Verse 1 of 2 Timothy 3 says,. Notice that in the last days perilous times will come.

And we know that this is the church that he is speaking about because he says that they have, in verse 5, a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. Now the world does not have a form of godliness.

It's the church that has, or when I say the church, the visible church or the so-called church, that has a form of godliness but denies the power of the gospel. And remember that the power of the gospel lies in its transforming power, in its ability to change.

And so Paul is talking here about Christians who have not changed, who look just like the rest of the world. But notice in verse 2, the very first of these attributes, men will be lovers of themselves.

Men will be lovers of themselves. And you say, well, what does that have to do with Philippians? Well, this is the converse, this is the opposite of Philippians. Look not just out for your own interest, but look out for the interests of others.

But when we are lovers of ourselves, the interests of others are secondary at best. They may not even feature on the horizon. And in fact, the situation that we find in modern day Christianity is that men have become lovers of themselves.

They love themselves more than they love God. They love themselves more than they love His Word. And they love themselves more than they love one another. And this is the spirit of the age. This is the way it is in the world.

But it is also a part of the judgment of God that has come upon Christians and has come upon those who claim to be Christians, but in fact love themselves more than they love God. And the problem is we say, well, you know, I really need to love myself.

And that's exactly where the problem is, because we have been subjected to teaching for the last 20, 30 years that Christians need to learn to love themselves. Now the reality is, and we've said this many times, we don't need to be taught how to love ourselves unless we are seriously dysfunctional.

We all have too high an opinion of ourselves, and that includes every single one of us. We love ourselves by our very nature. That is the human condition we are born into us is the need for self-preservation, the need to survive.

And in order to survive, we need to love ourselves. We need to protect ourselves. But the problem is that we take that to an extreme and we get to a place where I am really the center of the universe.

Everything revolves around me. I know that you say, well, that's not me. Well, the reality is that all of us have become part of this problem, because it has become so much part of the state of the church and the state of the world today that we don't even recognize it within ourselves and we don't even recognize it amongst one another.

Self-Centeredness in the Selfie Generation

You know, we live in what they call the selfie generation. What is that all about? It's just about taking pictures of myself. And so what's the problem with that? The problem is that it is symptomatic of the fact that I am the center and the focus of everything, that I need to constantly be taking pictures of myself in every kind of environment because I'm just so beautiful.

I'm just so wonderful. It's all about me. And, folk, I really believe that as Christians we need to wake up to the fact that it is not all about me. And it's not about me being the center of the universe, but in fact that God needs to be the center of the universe and that the body of Christ needs to be the center of the universe.

I was horrified the other day to discover that one of my Facebook followers from England believes that there are many conspiracies. We know that there are people who hold on to these various conspiracies.

One of those conspiracies is that we have been deceived to believe that the world is round and that the world revolves around the sun. This is a huge conspiracy. The truth really is that the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around the earth.

Now you can see that for yourself if you get up early enough in the morning, you'll see the sun comes up over there and then the sun sets down there. So what's happening? The sun is moving. Now, folk, you have to be blind to not understand that in fact the earth is round and that the earth is not the center of the solar system, but that the sun is the center of the solar system.

And you remember that this was something that they discovered a few hundred years ago, and that some of the men who came to understand this, Copernicus, were kicked out of the church because they said, no, the earth is not flat, the earth is round, the earth is not the center of the solar system and of the universe, but in fact it is just a very small part of that big universe.

Now, the reality is that we seem to believe today that even though the earth may be round and we believe that the earth may be just a small part and a small speck in God's universe, but somehow in all of that I am the center of the universe.

Everything revolves around me. Everything revolves around what I want and what I desire and my goals and my desires and my needs. Now we've just heard from one of the youngest members in the congregation a few seconds ago, you heard that scream.

Now, that little baby believes quite rightly at that stage that everything revolves around him, and it does. That's God's order. That's the way God makes us, that the little babies need to be cared for and need to be provided for, and everybody has to run around them, and when they have a need, everyone has to be there to help them with those needs.

One of the amazing things are that we need to grow up, and when we grow up, one of the things that comes with growing up is that I'm no longer the center of the focus, and toddlers struggle with this when a little brother or little sister comes along because now suddenly I'm not the big cheese around here, now there's somebody else who's demanding more attention than I am, and they don't know how to handle that, but the problem is that we get to become adults, and we still can't handle that, that somebody else gets a little bit more attention than I do, that I'm not the center of everything and everybody doesn't run around me, and yet this is the disease of this age, but it's not a new problem because you remember that Paul says that in the last days, and we've spoken about this recently, chapter 3, verse 1, that in the last days, the last days has been going for 2 ,000 years, this is an old problem, and yet it seems to be aggravated, it seems to be increasing as the time goes on, as we seem to become more and more inward focused, and we expect everything and everyone to run around us, and to focus around us, but you know, it results in all sorts of dysfunction, not just within ourselves, but within society.

Self-Seeking Wisdom and Its Consequences

If you turn with me to James chapter 3, and in James, he speaks about two different kinds of wisdom, and I'm not going to get into that in much detail, but 2 Timothy chapter 3, and verse 13, who is wise and understanding among you?

Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. A very simple statement, he says if you think that you are wise, well, then that wisdom needs to be manifest in your conduct, in the way that you live.

Wisdom is not something which just happens in the mind, it's something that happens in and affects the way that I live, then verse 14, but if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, now there's that word self-seeking which is translated in most other places in the New King James as selfish ambition, but for some reason the translators chose to translate it here as self-seeking, but it's really the same thing, making yourself the focus, making everything about me, seeking to promote yourself.

In fact, I don't know if you, and I'm just going to come back to James, but I just noticed, and I pray that as we sing these hymns, we will pay attention to the things that we sing, and just a little hint, I can sing probably all of these hymns off by heart, but if you paid attention to, you'll see that I actually read the words in the book when I sing, not because I don't know the words or the tune, but because I need to remind myself of what is actually written in these great hymns.

But in number 407, which I think was the first one we sang this morning, and the third verse says, Yes, tis sweet to trust in Jesus, just from sin and self to cease. I don't know if you've ever noticed that.

From sin and self to cease. That's really what we're talking about this morning. That's what Paul is talking about in Philippians, to come to an end of sin and of self. And it's interesting that the hymn writer puts these two things at the same level, sin and self.

Now there's an old little saying that you may have come across, that sin is made up of three letters, and the middle of those three letters is the letter I. The center of sin is I. Now you can think about that, go right back to Adam and Eve.

What was the problem with sin? Has God said, No, I. I want to be like God. I can do this. I don't have to. It's about me, I, and myself. Back in James 3, verse 14,. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth.

In other words, he's saying, if you are self-seeking, you don't have wisdom. That's the argument. Verse 15, This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, and demonic. So the wisdom that results in, because remember, he begins this argument and he says, your wisdom results in conduct.

If you have divine wisdom, godly wisdom, it will result in a certain kind of conduct. If you have the other kind of wisdom, it's going to result in a different kind of conduct. That conduct is self-seeking.

Now he explains where that wisdom comes from, where that knowledge comes from. And he says, verse 15, This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, and demonic. Now, I want for us just to think about that for one moment.

He is saying, self-seeking is the evidence of a certain mindset, a certain way of thinking. That way of thinking is not divine. That way of thinking is earthly. In other words, it's the way that the world thinks.

It is sensual, and it's not sensual in the sense of sexual, it's sensual in the sense that it has to do with what I can see with my senses, what I see, what I taste, what I touch, what I hear, and so on.

And so it is that which has to do with this world and with my physical being. But ultimately it is devilish. It is devilish. In other words, the wisdom that results in self-seeking comes from the devil.

That mindset comes from the devil. Because remember, that was at the heart of the temptation in the beginning. Don't worry about God. Don't worry, Eve, about the consequences it's going to have on Adam.

Adam, don't worry about the consequences it's going to have on the rest of the human race. You do what you want to do. It's the devilish thinking. And so, a very, very serious statement. Now, he says, verse 16, where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing will be there.

Where envy and self-seeking, and I'm just focusing on the self-seeking right now, results in confusion and every evil thing. Selfishness results in chaos, confusion, disarray. And folk, while we say, well, it's my right to protect myself, to think about myself, to think of myself first.

But what that does is it results in chaos. It results in chaos in my relationship with God. Because in my relationship with God, I'm not seeking His will, I'm seeking my will. When I pray, my will be done in heaven, as it's done here on earth.

In other words, God, you better do what I want to do. It creates chaos in my relationships within the context of the family, husbands and wives. Each one wanting his rights, wanting what he wants at the expense of everyone else.

And it creates chaos within the church, and it creates chaos in the world. Much of the dysfunction that we're witnessing right now as we come up to the election is about selfishness. It's about doing, I'm going to do what I want to do.

I don't care about the rights of the nation. I don't care about the rights of society. I'm going to do my thing. And folks, that is the epitome, that is the grandest exposure of that kind of selfishness and of self-centeredness, and it results in chaos.

And many times, Christians say, well, I don't understand why I have these problems in my relationships. Why I have these problems in relating to other members of the body of Christ. Why my relationship with God doesn't work the way it should?

Because it's all about me. It's not about anything else. And so self-centeredness, self-seeking results in confusion and every evil thing. The problem is that we say, well, you know, I have my rights.

At least I've got to look out for me. I've got to look out for my rights. But that's exactly the problem, is that in our relationships, each one is looking out for his own rights, instead of looking out for someone else.

Mutual Care in Marriage and the Church

Now just think about it, it's very logical. If in a relationship between two people, each one is covering his own back, looking out for himself, what kind of relationship does that create? A relationship of grabbing.

I want, I want, I want, it's for me. I don't care about you, it's about me. And what does that do? Well, I'm sure you've seen toddlers. One of the first words they learn is, mine, mine. And some people are married for many years and it's still mine.

But just think about the opposite of that. If each is looking, because that's the point that he's making in Philippians, if each is looking out for the needs of others, well, if I'm looking out for your needs, and you're looking out for my needs, what do we have?

We don't have a subtractive situation where each one is trying to get out of the relationship what he can at the expense of everybody else, and resulting in an overdrawn situation. I use this illustration when I speak to folk about marriage, and yet this is very real.

You can't keep going to the ATM and taking money out, and never putting anything in, because sooner or later the money is going to be gone. And in our relationships, in our marriages, in our relationships in the body of Christ, if you're just taking, taking, taking all the time, it's going to end up bankrupt.

And no wonder many relationships are bankrupt, because each one is trying to rob the other one blind of love, of affection, of time, of all these things that make a rich marriage. And there's that word rich.

How do we get rich? We don't get rich by taking all the time, we get rich by putting in, by investing. I've forgotten the name of the richest man, one of the richest men in America, Buffett. I think we can learn a lot from him.

I think he still drives, and I can learn from him, he still drives the same car he's had for 20 years or something, lives in the same house he did for 40 years, and yet he's one of the wealthiest men, because he's learned that it's about investing, it's not about spending, it's about putting in, it's not about taking out.

And folk, our marriages and our relationships and our church would be so much richer if we all invested, put in to one another, instead of trying to get my rights, trying to get what I want, trying to get what I need, but instead looking out for one another.

Now folk, here's the thing, and it's very logical, and I want you to just see this in the way it is. If each one of us is looking out for his own interests, how many people are looking out for your interests?

One, just you, because what's everybody else doing? They're looking out for their interests. But if each of us are looking out for one another's interests, how many people are looking out for your interests?

Fifty, or more. Now folk, I'd rather have fifty than one, and yet in our selfishness we say, no, I just want one, I just want me. And in fact the way that the Lord designed the church is that we have the richness and the blessing of the whole body of Christ, that each one is looking out for one another's interests, each one is meeting one another's needs, and so we have the blessing of many looking out for us, rather than just me having to cover my own back.

Folk, it's very simple, it's very logical, and yet it's contrary to our human nature, because this is not the world's way of doing it, this is God's way of doing things, and we'll see in a moment from Matthew that God's way of doing things is very, very different.

Rights, Responsibilities, and Biblical Love

You say, well, I do have my rights. You know, here's something I've just come to understand over time in the last few years, because we emphasize our rights, our human rights. Yes, we have rights, but you know the reality is that there is not a single human right, this is just a conclusion I've come to, that I can exercise which is not at the expense of someone else.

The greater I emphasize my rights, the greater it impacts on others. Just think of freedom of speech, and I'm not contradicting the inalienable rights which we have as Americans, but we have freedom to speak.

But the more we exercise our freedom to speak, the more we hurt and impact others, and I'm not suggesting that we must surrender those rights, but I want us to think about it. Are those rights based on a biblical principle or are they based on humanistic principles?

And so we bring that attitude into the church and we say, well, I have my rights, but none of the rights that we want to exercise go without impact on others. The fact that I get something out of it, the fact that I have certain things I can do, means that that limits and poses restrictions on others.

And I'm not making a political statement, I'm not commenting on the Bill of Rights, I'm commenting on our spiritual approach and our spiritual attitude. In fact, if you go to the New Testament, if you go into the Old Testament, you'll find that the scriptures do not emphasize our rights, but they emphasize our responsibilities, our responsibilities to the whole.

Right through the Old Testament, the people of Israel, it wasn't about what I can do, it's about what we can do as a nation and my responsibility to the nation, my responsibility to God. And so asserting our own rights always is at the expense of someone else's rights.

Giving Preference to Others

Let's go to Romans chapter 12, and I want you to look at two scriptures in Romans, and I'm purposely going to these various scriptures because I want you to see that these are not ideas that I've just come up with in my own mind, but that they are very much part of the teaching, and we could have gone to many, many more scriptures, but they are very much integral to the teaching of the New Testament.

Romans chapter 12 and verse 10. Be kindly affectionate to one another, kindly affectionate with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another, giving preference to one another. What does that mean?

If you have preference, it means that you have first dibs, isn't it? But he says, give that to someone else. Don't claim the preference. Literally, when you get to the door, let someone else go first.

And it's not really about going through the door, it's about an attitude, setting others ahead of yourself. Didn't he say in Philippians, esteeming others greater than yourself, giving preference to others.

In Romans chapter 15 and verses 1 through 3, we then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak and not to please ourselves. What's he talking about? Our rights. He's talking here about legalism, and I have rights to eat meat because I'm not bound by the law, Paul is saying.

And so he's saying, yes, in the church we have certain rights, and those rights are biblical rights. We are not bound by the law, we are under grace, and so we can do certain things. We have rights to do those things.

But he says, even though we have those rights, we are not to please ourselves. We are not to do things that please me. Why? Verse 2, let each of us please his neighbor for his good. That's a little bit different to what we've been saying earlier on.

Let each please his neighbor for his good. So Paul is saying, I can do certain things. I can eat meat. I can even eat meat that has been sold in the shambles which was offered to idols. I don't have a problem, he says, because the idols are nothing.

But he says, I won't do it because I want to please my brethren. Now, folks, we're not talking here about trying to get one another's favor in the sense of, well, trying to buy favor with one another.

This is a genuine desire to serve one another. And saying, I'm not going to do certain things, even though I may do those things, because I want to serve my brethren. I don't want to cause a stumbling block.

I don't want to do something that may in some way harm them or upset them. Let each of us please, verse 2, his neighbor for his good, leading to edification or to building up. Verse 3, for even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.

And I'm going to come back to that idea again. Can you imagine what the world would be like if we lived this way? We'd get to the stop sign and we'd be waiting for someone else to go ahead. Because one of the hardest things for me to figure out when I came here was to figure out that when you get to the stop sign, it's not who gets there first, who goes first.

It's who intimidates more than the other one. And that's why you need a big truck. So you can really just, when you get there, go. But folks, this illustrates the problem. And we bring the problem into the church.

And we say, well, you know, it's my rights. It's what I want. It's about me. It's about myself. And so everything in the family has got to run around me. Everybody's got to eat what I want to eat. Everybody's got to eat when I want to eat.

Everybody's got to do this the way I want to do it. And we wonder why things don't run smoothly. And yet when we do it God's way and we say, well, it's not what I want. Let's do what you want for a change.

Husbands, when last have you listened to your wife? Wife, when last have you actually listened to your husband and done what that person wanted rather than what you want? Look, this is real. I don't want to become more personal than that.

But I notice some people looking at one another when, in fact, the problem is really with the one who's giving the looks. And I'm not looking at anyone in particular. In Matthew chapter 20, and when we went through the book of Matthew, we looked at this passage, and I want to get back here again.

Servanthood Instead of Status

Matthew chapter 20. And you remember we made reference to this last week, and we will make reference to it again as we look at Philippians. When they come to the upper room and there's the issue about who's going to wash the feet, who's the least.

But it was around this time that the mother of the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, come to the Lord Jesus. And she says, I want when you come into the kingdom, I want for one of my sons to sit on your right and the other one to sit on your left.

And I'm sure that there would have been a dispute amongst them as to who was actually going to get the right hand rather than the left hand. And then in verse 24, when the ten heard it, they were greatly displeased with the two brothers.

Now, I love that verse because it is just so graphic, it is so illustrative of this problem. So you see the picture. The two boys get their mother probably, it's probably them that got their mother to go and speak to Jesus.

And so she says, you know, I want each to sit on the other ten. Why are the ten are upset with the two? Because they're so carnal. They're so worldly in their thinking. Right? No. Why are the ten upset with the two?

Because they wanted those spots. They were upset that they asked first, when in fact each one of them felt that they were entitled to sit on the left and the right. You say, well, where's that in the Bible?

When they came to wash the feet. That illustrated that each one felt he was better than the next one. And so not only were they not going to wash the feet, they wanted to sit at the right and the left of the throne.

And then verse 25, Jesus called them to himself and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Says that's the way it is in the world.

Those who have power, those who have authority, they wield that power. Verse 26, yet it shall not be so among you. Now we touched on this on Tuesday night in a different context, where Paul writes to Timothy and he says that those who are in the world chase after money, but you, O man of God, in other words, you are different.

And here's exactly the same idea. Jesus is saying that's how the pecking order works in the world. That's how the hierarchical system works in the world. But he says, yet it shall not be so amongst you.

In other words, the way that the relationships function in the body of Christ is not to be based on the way that it works in the world. And yet we've taken that worldly system and we brought it exactly into the church.

And so we just have a different kind of hierarchy. So we have members and deacons and elders and pastors and bishops and the list goes on. But he says, it shall not be so among you, but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant.

Greatness is not exhibited in the wielding of power or of self-assertion, but greatness is exhibited in a servant heart. Verse 26, it shall not be so among you. Verse 27, sorry, and whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave.

So verse 26 says, he who desires to be great, the Greek word mega, let him be your servant. Greek word diakonos, literally servant. But then verse 27, who desires to be first, the Greek word protos. We came across that idea a few moments ago.

Let him be your slave, doulos. Slaves of one another. Not just servants, but slaves. And remember that the essence of being a slave is not having rights. Slaves have no rights. And we are slaves of God because He has bought us with a price.

We don't have rights. And folk, when we come into our relationships, whether it be in the marriage or whether it be in the body of Christ, and when we assert our own rights, that's when things go wrong.

And you say, well, what if I surrender all my rights? Then somebody's going to just walk all over me. And so there's a whole set of teachings that you can get written by two psychologists for Christians, apparently, called boundaries.

You need to set your boundaries. But that whole idea is contrary to the Scriptures. Now I know you're very worried right now because you say, if I'm going to be my wife or my husband or the body of Christ's slave, then they're going to walk all over me.

Well, what do you think they did with Jesus? You say, well, I don't think that's right. It isn't right. But remember the point in Philippians, that he humbled himself, became obedient to the death of the cross.

And then what happened? God highly exalted him and given him that name, which is above every name. You see, it's not about the honor that you can get from other people. It's not the respect you can get from your husband or your wife or from anyone else.

It's the honor that comes from the Lord. Promotion is neither from the east nor the west, says Proverbs, but it comes from the Lord. And if the Lord exalts us, if the Lord honors us, if the Lord glorifies us, and even if it is not in this life, but it is in the future life, that's all that matters.

And yet we're so concerned about our influence, our impact, our status, our position in this life. And so Jesus says, it shall not be so among you, whoever desires to become great, let him be your servant.

Whoever desires to be first, let him be your slave. Verse 28, just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Our example is Jesus. And if he was willing to wash the feet, if he was willing to die on that cross, should I not be willing to die for my husband, for my wife, for my family, for the body of Christ?

Selflessness Demonstrated Through Sacrificial Giving

And will God not honor and respect that? And folk, this is a mindset, this is an attitude that we need to, that needs to happen as a result of a work that God does in our hearts. And that finds its expression in the way that we live.

And we can say, well, you know, I'm very humble. I'm very not self-seeking at all. But remember what James says, is that your wisdom is declared by your conduct. And you say, well, you don't know, brother, you don't know what's in my heart.

No, I don't know what's in your heart, but I can see what you do. And selflessness results in giving. And I'm almost done. How do we know the selflessness of the Lord Jesus except at the cross of Calvary?

And as we come to the Lord's table this morning, we're reminded again that He commends His love towards us. He proves, He manifests, He shows His love in that He died for us at the cross of Calvary. And true selflessness is manifest in a giving attitude, in giving time, giving attention.

Spoke earlier about selfies. And I still didn't get my Christmas present for this for last year. For those who've forgotten, I want the selfie stick so I can beat people who take selfies. But the other side of the coin is that we go to the restaurant and everybody sits on their cell phones, not giving attention.