Conquering concurrence

This week's verses are Philippians 2:3-5:

Instead of being motivated by selfish ambition or vanity, each of you should, in humility, be moved to treat one another as more important than yourself. Each of you should be concerned not only about your own interests, but about the interests of others as well. You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had

Paul is giving some good advice here on church life. And if church is something you live, rather than somewhere you go, Paul might be giving us good advice here on life itself. And how often do we get timeless good advice in a short paragraph? The Bible is awesome!

So what is selfish ambition? It's something done selfishly to get you something you want. Think about people going to a networking event and talking to tons of people they don't care about and never will, just to promote their book or get their resumé in the hands of the right person. They're ambitious, and they're doing things that seem sincere on the surface, but what they are ultimately doing is selfish.

Sometimes we go to church out of selfish ambition. "Maybe this will get me closer to heaven. Maybe I'll meet someone there who I can burden with my problems. Maybe if I sing enough songs or sit through enough dry sermons, I will level up and become a saint. Maybe if I give extra money, God will ignore my wretchedness." It's fleshy striving. It's grinding away, going through the motions, trying to game the system in your favor. Don't do it!

And what about vanity? Vanity is doing something because of how it makes you look. Vanity is the pharisee blowing the trumpets before he gives to the poor. Vanity is joining the worship team because you love the sound of your own voice. Vanity is volunteering at the soup kitchen for how it will look on Instagram. Vanity motivates us because of the lies it lets us tell about who we really are.

What Paul says, is that instead of those things we should practice humility. Humility treats others as more important than itself. The humble person goes to that networking event or to Sunday church because they want to discover who all of those people really are and see how they can help build them up. They don't stop caring about themselves. They may still have a book to sell or a resumé to share. It just isn't their primary motivation. And instead of using others to glorify the vain self, they use the self to glorify others.

Why does Paul recommend this way of living? It's not going to make you richer or get you more followers. He recommends it because it is the attitude Jesus Christ had towards us. His actions weren't to build a name and a comfortable retirement for himself. They were to glorify his Father in heaven and to save us from hell.

The great thing about these verses is they're short enough for us to meditate on them. We can ask ourselves, "is this how I am living? Am I selfishly ambitious? Am I vain? Am I humble? Who is more important? Me or my neighbor? Me or God? Could I imagine Jesus living the way I live?" Pray and search your heart.

We live in a world where we are encouraged by the spirit of this world to turn on each other and try to get ahead at their expense. We're taught to believe other people are subhuman because of their political beliefs or because they happen to disagree on this or that issue. These verses are a great way to cut through that nonsense and disarm it. Regardless of the messaging that pervades our world in these divisive days, we should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had.