November 1, 2026 | Sidekicks and Spotlights

Sidekicks and Spotlights: The Joy of Self-Forgetfulness | Phil. 2:1-4

Philippians 2:1–4

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (ESV)

In Philippians 2:1–4, Paul calls believers to find joy in a shared life of humility, love, and unity. In "Sidekicks and Spotlights: The Joy of Self-Forgetfulness," Jed Gillis explains how Christ gives encouragement, comfort, fellowship, affection, and sympathy through his people. Those gifts move us to remember one another with gratitude, take initiative in love, and stay focused on what matters most. Paul challenges the selfish ambition and conceit that make us fight for the spotlight, calling us instead to count others more significant than ourselves and pay careful attention to their needs. Because Jesus is King, we are free to honor and serve others. The sermon invites us to ask God for specific ways to put humility into practice and to depend on Christ to grow that love in us.

Transcript of Sidekicks and Spotlights: The Joy of Self-Forgetfulness | Phil. 2:1-4

Who Is the Main Character?

Philippians chapter 2, beginning in verse 1, and we'll be looking through, uh, the first four verses this week.

As we do that, I want you to think about there is a kind of, of comic stereotype in stories, in movies, in, in all of these different, uh, ways that we tell stories. There's a kind of comic character. Maybe you'll think of some when I describe it. The kind of character who is, is not the main character, but constantly thinks they're the main character.

Maybe you can remember some of those. The kind who thinks they are the most competent and the best, but they're really not. The kind who thinks they're the hero, but they're really not. Maybe some of these names, if you're familiar with some of these stories, will ring a bell for you. If you've seen How to Train Your Dragon, Snotlout, the little short guy, who's always like, "I'm the hero, and the girls must love me." And you're like, "No, they don't, I promise." And we laugh at it, right?

Or maybe you've seen The Office, and it, it's Dwight Schrute, who's way too convinced of his own importance. And we go, "You're really not as good as you think you are."

There's different characters like this, and when we see a character who always jumps into the spotlight and always tries to take the spotlight when, in fact, they really don't belong, we laugh at it. That's part of what that does in these stories, is provide a moment of comic relief.

And yet, in many times in our lives, I think we live that way. I live like I'm the main character when I'm not. Or I jump into the spotlight and try to advance myself or fulfill something about myself. I do all of these things when, in fact, I don't belong there. It doesn't feel funny when I do it. But when we see it played out on a TV screen or in a book, we laugh at it.

So I want you to think in terms of who's the main character, in terms of who's in the spotlight, as I read what Paul says in the first four verses of chapter 2.

Paul says, "If there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others."

And if you're familiar with the passage, you know he goes on to describe Christ's mind of humility, which we'll look at more next week as really the, the cosmic example of this kind of humility.

Encouragement and Fellowship in Christ

But this week, we're just gonna spend our time in these first four verses. I want you to think about this list in verse one. His first question, it's not phrased like a question, but we could think of it as a question. Is there encouragement in Christ? Is there exhortation in Christ? This word is for one who comes alongside and, and helps.

It's if you imagine if you're running in a race, and there are times when somebody comes alongside and says, "You're doing great. You got this." And that's encouragement. There's also times when somebody comes alongside and says, "Pick it up. You're too slow right now." That's also encouragement. It's maybe a little less fun to us.

But encouragement and exhortation, they, they go together, and it fits in this word. Paul says, "If there is any encouragement in Christ." In your spiritual life, have there been times in your life when, when you are going forward, you're walking along the path, and Christ through His word or through some other means, He encourages you? You say, "Keep going." Are there times when He comes alongside and says, "Hey, pick it up. You need to run harder. You need to fight for godliness more"? Like, yes, He does this. This encouragement happens.

I was struck a, a few months ago, couple months ago, I was driving back from somewhere else, spending time with God, just thinking through some of the things in my life and, and I was complaining a little to God.

Thankfully, God can handle that and knows how to talk to us. And it was interesting because many times when I feel the encouragement of Christ, it feels like, you know, a warm hug. It's like, "Oh, Jesus loved me so much. He cares for me," and there's this comfort and encouragement in that way. This time it didn't feel like that.

I was, I was saying, "God, why, why'd you put this circumstance in my life, and this in my life, and why did I make these choices?" And they're just different things that were rolling around in my head, and it was as if Jesus said, "Don't you think I know how to shape my children?" And it was comforting, but it didn't feel like a warm hug at that moment.

It was the other side of encouragement. He starts with this, "Is there encouragement and exhortation in Christ?" If we could go around the room, I know many of you would say, "Here's how Jesus encouraged me in my life. Here's how He prodded me in my life." We'd say, "Yes, Paul, there is encouragement in Christ."

Well, the next phrase: "If there's any comfort from love." Have you ever felt the love of Christ so strongly that you felt comfort from it? Maybe in the, the really hard moments of life? Maybe in moments that aren't so hard. You say, "There's comfort that has come in my life because of Jesus, because He is at work." That's ... This is Paul's opening salvo to this section. Is there encouragement in Christ? Is there comfort from love?

Is there any fellowship in the Spirit? We talked about fellowship. This is the same word he uses earlier in this chapter to talk about being participants or partakers of the gospel. It's the Greek word koinōnia. Do you have fellowship? Uh, when we talked through this, you could go back a few weeks and see when we talked about this in chapter one, we said fellowship is really a deep kind of friendship, a personal connection between people who share the same allegiance or loyalty, because they share the same treasure, and they live it out in their actions.

So when you have a common action based on a common loyalty with a common treasure, and you do that together, there's this deep friendship, this deep connection that Scripture calls fellowship. Do you have that kind of connection in Jesus? Does Jesus fellowship with you in His Spirit in that way? Do you treasure the same things Jesus does? Are you committed to the same things Jesus is? Do you act as George prayed earlier, as the hands and feet of Jesus, doing what He would do here on this earth?

Paul sets us up with this question. He says, "If you know Jesus, is there encouragement? Is there comfort? Is there fellowship?"

We often think of fellowship as being, like, horizontal. It's between me and you. It's between people. But that's not the way it's always used. Uh, 1 John speaks differently. Th- there, John says, "I'm writing this truth so that his readers would have fellowship with him." And then he goes on to say, "And my fellowship is with the Father, and with the Son, Jesus Christ."

It's like, if I could go back to your maybe day school days, some of you remember the transitive property in math, right? It's like, if A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C. That one. I- in some ways, fellowship is like that. If I have fellowship with God, so I have a shared allegiance and loyalty and treasure. If I have that, and you have deep, true fellowship with me, then we all have fellowship with God, because we love and treasure and value and we're committed to the same things. So Paul says, "Does that exist? Is there a real deep friendship between you and the Spirit of God?"

Is there any affection? This word is, is like the deep emotional word. Like the kind of feeling you get when you first have your first child, and you see that baby and you hold that baby, and everything about the way you think about babies is different. Whether you say, oh, maybe you really love babies. Maybe you don't, but when it's your baby and you're holding them, you're like, "Oh, yeah." Instantly, inside you go, "I love this child." That's affection. Is there any affection from God for you? The same way we feel about that baby when you hold them, does God look at you as His child and go, "I just love this child. I just love them"?

Or any sympathy? Sometimes we get this weak, watered-down idea of sympathy, like it's just this sentimental thing. It, it's like concern for misfortune. When something bad happens with this person, you don't go, "Oh, well, whatever, that's their problem." Sympathy says, "Oh, I'm concerned about that. I care for them. How do I help them?"

This is Paul's description at the very beginning, starting with the word if, but the point isn't to express doubt. He's not saying, "Oh, maybe there's not comfort from love. Maybe there's not encouragement from Christ. Maybe there's not fellowship." He's saying, "You know good and well if you have Jesus and His Spirit lives within you, you know all of these things are there. You know they're, they're true." If that's the case, then he's gonna go on in just a minute. 

Christ Cares for Us Through His People

Before we leave this first verse, though, I want you to think, it says for the first one, "Is there any encouragement in Christ?" It says for the third one, "Any participation in the Spirit." So we could say, does he only want me to think about my relationship to God, or is there something bigger, not just my relationship to God, but maybe our relationship to each other?

In other words, are we supposed to think, "Jesus encourages me. Jesus comforts me. I have fellowship with Jesus. I have affection from Jesus. I have sympathy. That's all I need. That's all that ever could help me." Are we supposed to think that way, or are we supposed to say, "How does that come to me?" Part of it is through God's people.

And if you look back at what the way he's been talking in chapter one... Go back and look at verse five. Paul talks about because of your partnership, literally fellowship, it's the same word, because of your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. In other words, he doesn't go back and say, "Look, I have all the fellowship I need in God. You get with the program or don't, doesn't matter, 'cause I have God." He doesn't do that. He says, "I have fellowship with God, and how does that fellowship come to me? Through your fellowship in the gospel as well."

Or look at verse eight. Paul says, "God is my witness, I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus."

So they weren't supposed to just think, "Jesus loves me, that's all I need." They were supposed to say, "Jesus loves me, and how do I see that? Through Paul and, and God's people loving me." See, Paul doesn't separate his life with Jesus or God directly and say, "Well, that's totally separate from his life with God's people."

Instead, he points to all of these things that happen in our community. Verse 14, "Most of the brothers having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment." He doesn't use the word encouragement there, but that's what it is. They were encouraged by what happened to Paul. Or verse 16, Paul says, "These people do this out of love." He's comforted by the fact that people are preaching Christ.

In other words, if we look at chapter 2 verse 1 and say encouragement, comfort, fellowship, affection, sympathy, Paul says, "I have that through Jesus." And Paul also says, "Here's how that comes to me, is through Jesus' people." Both of those are true.

That shouldn't surprise us because we also have passages like Romans 12, where Paul says, "Having gifts that differ according to God's grace, use the gifts." Well, what are those gifts? There's a longer list, but among others, service, loving one another, exhortation, same word as encouragement, comfort, having genuine love.

I think sometimes we separate our individual lives from our community life in a way that impoverishes both.

So I think we need to pause. When you think in Christ there's encouragement and comfort and fellowship and affection and sympathy, you shouldn't expect those things to flow to you from Christ if you're not connected to God's people, because that's the normal way he does it. Now, if you happen to one day be imprisoned in solitary confinement for 20 years or two days, doesn't really matter, Jesus can comfort you without anybody else being in the room. But the normal way He does it is to flow through His people.

So we need to ask, does that flow through you? Do you bring the encouragement of Christ to people around you? Do you bring comfort to the people around you? Do you bring fellowship, not suspicion or distrust? Do you bring affection for God's people, not duty? "I guess I have to." Say, "I love God's people." That's supposed to flow through all of us.

I want to encourage you, if you read that list and you say, "I wish I felt more of encouragement and comfort and affection and sympathy," of all those things, I'd encourage you to pray and think, "How can I connect more to God's people who can do that?" Because that's the normal means.

I think when I grew up, and some of you know some of my background, some of you don't. When I grew up, we went to a lot of different churches. We moved a fair amount. For a while, uh, my parents were raising deputation on, uh, to work at a home office of a mission board. So one year we were in 51 different churches out of 52 weeks. Um, and then even the, the longest I remember being at a church was just a couple years.

And there was some beauty of that. There was some good, because I learned a whole lot of different people and how they could still fellowship around the gospel even though there were a wide range of different beliefs and practices. Of course, there was some good to that.

What I missed was the deep connection of one body that really knows you. Of being able to pour out yourself to one body and being able to look at somebody else who says they know me and they know my problems and they know my struggles, but we have this deep fellowship.

God wants you to be connected to His people. And I, and I want to encourage you, if you think, "I want comfort and encouragement from God," you need to be taking steps to connect with His people.

Complete My Joy

So this is his first verse. If that stuff is there, if there's encouragement, comfort, affection. And remember, this was originally oral. It wasn't made to be, to be read the same way. So we can parse the words like I just did and say, "Here's what encouragement means. Here's what fellowship means." And that's helpful. It helps us understand more because God inspired each word. We can do that, but remember, it wasn't originally meant for everybody to have a copy of God's Word in front of them. So in some ways, this, this was more about the, the building, um, sequence of these things than the specifics. If I were to read it like this:

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any, any comfort from love, any fellowship in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy.

See, the point isn't actually all the details of the meanings. It's the feel. He's saying you start thinking about the benefits of knowing Jesus and knowing Jesus' people, or looking back in chapter one of being a citizen of heaven. You think about those benefits, there's more and more and more, and it just builds.

And he gets to this statement, "Complete my joy." That's a really interesting statement because Paul's already said back in chapter one, "I always make my prayer with joy." Like, Paul sure sounds like you have joy. Okay, let's keep going. Get down to verse 18. "Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice." He's got joy already. He's already talked about joy. He says, "When Jesus is proclaimed, when Christ is honored in my body, when I think of you all and your faith, I have joy." Then he gets to chapter two, says, "There's something missing in my joy, so fill up my joy. Complete my joy."

There's something that Paul, sitting where he is in jail, or Paul traveling without God's people doing what they are supposed to do, he says, "My joy's not full. It's not complete. I don't have all the joy I need to walk through this life."

I'm pretty sure all of us feel that way sometimes. I don't have all the joyful fruit I want in the way that I minister to people and encourage them and build relate. I don't have all of that joy that I want.

So Paul tells them, "If any of these good things are really there—encouragement, fellowship, affection—if those things are real in Jesus and in His people, then you complete my joy," and he's gonna go on to say how. How is it that he's gonna complete that?

But before we look at that, I want you to notice there's nothing unspiritual about saying that good interaction among God's people fills your joy. I think sometimes we go, the really spiritual people would say, "Nope, Jesus is the only one I need." Paul doesn't do that. He's not the only one. I said First John talks this way also. He says, "I'm writing these things to you that my joy may be complete." Exact same language. There's nothing unspiritual about saying the kind of joy God wants for you is to be connected to God's people who are growing in the way they have unity and the way they have love. That's part of filling up the joy of your salvation. God meant for it to be that way. 

One Mind, One Love, One Purpose

So he says, "Complete my joy by," and in verse two he's gonna give you four things. I'll give you a single word for each and I'll, I'll explain. By having the right mindset, the right love, the right unity, and the right focus.

That's how they're gonna fill up his joy. So he starts by saying, "By being of the same mind." This doesn't mean, uh, that you would think all the exactly the same things. That's not the point. It's not that you're gonna have the same opinion. It's not that, like, all of us are gonna cheer for the same college football team. It's not even that all of us are going to have the same opinion about, you know, what we should have for a fellowship meal or something like that. It's not even that all of us would say, you know, we have some people going to India. It's not that everybody says, "I guess we should all go to India." That, that's not the point.

The point is there's the same mindset. That's what this word means, the same perspective. If we went back to chapter 1 verse 7, this was used already. Paul says, "It is right for me to feel this way about you all because I hold you in my heart, for you are partakers with me of grace." Literally the word feel there is, it's right for me to have this mindset. And we talked about it when we went through that. Mindset means we remember one another. Intentionally, continually we remember with joy and gratitude, one another. So Paul says, "Complete my joy by having that mindset, that same perspective. Complete my joy by always remembering each other with joy and gratitude. Complete my joy by having that mindset."

Then, "By having the same love." Again, he's just really taking the same themes he wrote about already. If you go back to verse 9, he talks about praying that their love would abound more and more and more and more. Paul says, "Complete my joy by having this kind of initiative-taking love for one another," even when you know their weaknesses, even when you know they have problems, but you show love towards them.

That's how you fill up joy for the Apostle Paul. Think about where he is. He's sitting in prison. Most of us go, "Fill up my joy by, like, making it a little more comfortable. Fill up my joy by letting me be released. Fill up my joy by any number of things that make my life easier." Paul says, "No, that's not what completes my joy. What completes my joy is that God's people have the same perspective towards one another, and have the same love towards one another, and have the same unity."

Here it's written, "Being in full accord." That's how ESV translates it. Literally being of one soul. He's like, he's not interested in God's people only having an external kind of unity. See, we can show up and not appear to be fighting each other. That's not the same thing as being like-souled, being of the same soul. He drives you to this internal sense of unity. There's a lot of times God's people gather together and there aren't, like, big church splits. There's not obvious external problems. That's not the same thing. That's not what he's asking for. He says, "Complete my joy by having this deep unity all the way to the core of who you are."

And then it almost sounds like he's repeating the same thing. He says, "And of one mind." Literally you could say like, "And of the one mind." There's an emphasis on it. So the first one in this verse is have the same mindset, and it's kinda general. This, the last one here is have the focus on the right thing. That's why I used the word focus earlier. Paul says, "One way to complete my joy is for you to remember what's truly important and to stay focused on it."

So think back and try to put in the same flow verse one and verse two. If you know there are these incredible benefits of encouragement, and joy, and comfort, and affection, if you know that's true in Jesus, and you know it comes through God's people, Paul says, "There's something lacking in my joy. I want you to complete my joy." What... How? By having the same perspective on what's important, by having the same love, this abounding, initiative-taking love for one another, by being united to the core of who you are, and by focusing on the right thing.

Which is an interesting question. We could flip that around and say, "So what would make Paul's joy incomplete?" So disunity, arguments, and divisions. Disinterest. That's the opposite of the kind of love he's talking about, right? The opposite isn't necessarily hate, just not interested in caring for that person. That would make his joy incomplete. If you had unity that was on the outside but not all the way on the inside, that would make his joy incomplete. If you did all the right stuff externally, but you lost focus on the main thing as God's people, that would make his joy incomplete.

I think it's worth asking, do those things rob your joy? I-if we're really honest, many times I think we'd say, "What would complete my joy?" Probably being able to pay my bills a little easier, maybe relational peace at home and feeling like I was good enough at the things I did or something like that or my circumstances being easier. There, there are many things we would say, "Oh, that would complete my joy," is what it feels like.

I'm challenged. I think we should all be challenged by Paul saying, "No, what completes my joy, even if I'm sitting in jail, even if I'm not freed, even if I'm going to die here, what completes my joy is God's people having the same perspective and love and this deep unity and focus." That gives me all the joy I need.

Reject Selfish Ambition and Conceit

So he continues then and gives you a negative side. So if that's the positive, one side, you go, "Do these things," here's, "Don't do these things." Verse three, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit." I want you to sit with that word nothing for a second. It's a comprehensive word. That, that word needs to rock our boat a little bit. Do nothing from these motives. Not do some things, not occasionally, not... N- n- no, no, do nothing from self-ambition or conceit.

The word for ambition, we could say self-advancement. That's when you evaluate your choices based only or primarily on you. What gets me further ahead? It's when you only love others after you think about, "How much is this gonna cost me?" Or, "How much is this going to gain me?" When you only show love like that, it's really about you.

That's selfish ambition. It's like my illustration at the beginning. It's the person who only wants to do the right thing so that they can jump in the spotlight and say, "I'm the hero." They only wanna do the right thing if at the end of the day it benefits them. They only wanna love if it helps them have better reputation in front of others.

Or the exact same words used in chapter one to say some people were preaching Christ, he says, out of selfish ambition. Same word. There the idea is, is they were preaching Christ, but so that people would look at them and go, "Oh, what a great preacher of Jesus." They build up their tribe and their following.

Do nothing from self-advancement or selfish ambition. I wanna pause here and say that's not quite the same thing. He's not saying, "Don't do anything that's good for you." That's, that's different. Jesus tells you, "Lay up treasure in heaven." Why? 'Cause it's good for you. Right? Jesus tells you all kinds of things, like, "This is what's truly best for you." But He's not... He says, "Don't do anything that comes from this selfish, 'I've gotta claw my way into the spotlight. I have to be seen as better.'"

Do nothing like that. There's a big difference between ministering or preaching Christ to advance yourself or grow your Instagram following, and preaching Christ because He's worthy. Those are very different, even though the same words come out of your mouth. There's a big difference between parenting well so people look at you and think you're a good parent, and parenting well because Jesus is worthy. The same words may come out. But the motive is very different.

And by the way, if you want a good way to check your motive, ask yourself, "How do I respond when people don't respect me for what I'm doing?" In other words, if you're parenting well because you want people to think well of you as a parent and somebody comes and says, "I don't think you're doing that right," how's that go over? If you're ministering well, if you're teaching a, a, a Sunday school class or if you're, uh, talking, you know, discipling a brother or sister or you're doing that and they say, "I don't think you're really thinking about the spiritual life the right way," you get angry? Defensive? Or you just say, "I'm gonna keep going, doing what's good. Jesus is worthy." It'll tell you what you're really looking for, often. Do nothing from self-advancement.

We get this word conceit. Literally, uh, maybe you have an older translation will translate it vainglory. It- it's literally empty glory. It's a compound word that's a combination of those two.

Interestingly, there's this guy who wrote, uh, about the way this was used in ancient Greek philosophy, and he describes it this way. He says, "It's a kind of belief or opinion or boast," so there's a couple different ideas, but, "A belief or a boast that produces irrational fears and unfulfillable desires." In other words, this person feels emptiness in themselves, and they try to fill it with something by boasting, by believing something. But at the end of the day, it still leaves them empty with fears they can't solve and desires they can't satisfy. That's what vainglory means.

This was why, by the way, we laugh when we see a story and we see the sidekick who's trying to horn his way into the spotlight. We laugh in part because they think they're important, but we know they're just empty and they're trying to fill themselves up. That's vainglory. That's the word that's translated here conceit.

Or maybe we could say it this way, do nothing from self-fulfillment. Do nothing trying to fill up... Try, let me rephrase that. I thought about saying it that way, and it was the wrong way to say it, and I changed it in my notes, and then I messed it up.

Do nothing depending on yourself to fill the emptiness you feel. Do nothing depending on yourself to f- fill up that emptiness.

If we're honest, there's a lot of times our actions are motivated by self-advancement, how do I get in the spotlight, or self-fulfillment, how do I feel better when I feel empty?

Count Others More Significant

Do nothing that way. Instead, the positive side is in humility. A different attitude entirely. In humility, not, not false modesty. This, this isn't like, well, you act like, uh, you have no strengths. No, we all have strengths. We all have gifts. It's humility that says, "I know my weaknesses and I know my strengths, but I don't make too much or too little of either one."

That's not the point. But instead, because Paul knows, like we do, like humility's kind of a vague word. Like, "What's that mean, Paul? Can you help me out?" Well, he does. He keeps going. Says, "In humility," here's what you do, "count others more significant than yourselves." The word is count is, it's done intentionally. If I tell you, "Count others more significant than yourselves," you know that requires you to take an action. You don't accidentally walk into it. He says, "Think about it this way. You won't always naturally do that. You won't stumble into it. So instead, intentionally take initiative to go, 'I'm gonna count this person as more significant than myself.'"

When he says others, it's the same word as one another. Like, throughout the New Testament, he'll say things like, "Love one another. Be kind to one another." He speaks of, of God's people. He tells you your responsibility with God's people is to do these things for one another. So count one another, specifically within the church, although it could apply outside of that. Count one another more significant, or we could say more important, or having a higher status or higher rank. Count them that way.

This was, by the way, crazy for an ancient world. Like, we hear the word humility and we think humility is, is a good thing. They didn't. Uh, they were against pride or, or what they called hubris, like this extreme crazy pride. But when they heard the word humility, they thought of like a, a s- a groveling, kind of shriveling, weak person. When Paul says in humility, an ancient Greek hearer goes, "No, no, nobody should be humble." I know that's weird for us, right? We hear it and go, "Of course you're supposed to have humility." They would've heard that and said like, "No way. You want me to be what?"

Paul says, "Count one another in humility. Count one another more significant, more important than yourselves." And I wanna go back to that one. It's a comparative statement. Paul does not let you off the hook easy in this passage. He doesn't say, "Count them as really important as long as you're more important. Count them as valuable as long as you're, you know, more valuable." No, he leaves it at comparative. Count others as more significant than you. The comparison is the whole point. Count others as more significant. 

Look to the Interests of Others

"Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." Now, depending on your translation, you may see the words not only may be in italics, and the word interests may be in italics, 'cause both of those are interpretive choices trying to make sense of what's there.

Literally, you could say, "Let each of you look not to his own, but also to others." Now, they have to figure out how to make that make sense in English, so they add some things there to help you understand it, and that's, that's fine. But literally, it says, "Let each of you look not to his own." Say, "My own what?" Well, interest makes sense, but you could say anything that you think is yours, that you own. We could say your interests, your needs, your agenda, your comfort, your emotional wellbeing, your protection. Like, don't look to your own. That feels really harsh, right? And we wanna say, "Wait a minute. You mean really don't look at all to those things?"

No, because notice the word also in the second half of the sentence. That's, that's there. That's not added. So he says, "Let each of you look not to your own, but also to the interests of others." Paul's assuming you are going to look after your life in some ways. Scripture assumes this all the, all the time. We say things like, "Love your neighbor as yourself." That assumes you love yourself. Scripture assumes that. Paul's assuming it, but he says to get your attention, because at least if you're like me, if somebody says, "Look not only to yourself," I'm like, "Oh, good. I can look to myself." Like, look not to your own. It's a strong statement, which then is backed up a little, but also to others.

That's part of counting others more significant than yourselves. He's just explaining the same thing.

And I want you to think about how often you expend effort in your life. You're thinking about, "What's gonna make my life better? How do these people respond to me? What's this situation at work? How is my personal life? How are all these gonna help me be better?" You're looking after your own interests. You're looking after something, and you wanna know more about yourself, what makes you tick. You wanna know more about your situation. You wanna know all kinds of things. You wanna gain more and more and more information so that you can look after whatever you think is important to you. That's kind of built into this word look.

One commentator said this about the word look. Here was his definition: "Exert effort in continually acquiring information with concern to respond appropriately." In other words, when it's your life, you say, "How can I learn more and more and more information about it so that I can respond well?" Paul says, "Do that for others."

Be that interested in saying, "What can I learn about this person so that I can help them grow in Jesus? What can I learn about this person so that I can comfort and encourage and bring sympathy and all those good things from the beginning?" Continually learning, how can I do that better for others? When he says look, he doesn't just mean, "Oh, you happen to see it. I guess I'll try to fix something for someone else." Like, no, intentionally be gathering more and more information to live this way. That's part of the humility that's there.

Or if we wanted to put it in a parallel, we could have said earlier, do nothing from self-advancement, do nothing from self-fulfillment, and do nothing from self-protection, protecting my own.

Jesus Is King

So I'd ask you, where are you doing those things today? Where's your life driven by those motives? And instead say, "How do I live this out for the glory of Jesus?" These are strong, challenging verses. Say, like, "How on earth am I supposed to do that, Paul? That feels impossible. How am I supposed to really count others more significant than myself? And won't I just get taken advantage of?" And all these questions come to our mind.

Put this back into the overall context. Now that we walked through those four verses, put it back into the context. Our deep allegiance to Jesus, that's what he's been talking about from the beginning. Our deep allegiance to Jesus means that we've already known the encouragement, and comfort, and fellowship, and affection, and sympathy that comes from Him and to His people. We know that. Now, if we live out that loyalty to Jesus, it transforms us so that we have the same perspective, and the abounding love, and the deep unity, and focus on what's really important. That's the foundation. Because of your loyalty to Jesus, because of this shared unity, because of all of the blessings we have in Christ, therefore, we do nothing from self-advancement, self-fulfillment, or self-protection, because I don't have to be king.

Jesus is.

If that feels impossible to you, you say, "How on earth am I supposed to live like that, Paul?" Keep going back to who's on the throne and who's in the spotlight. 'Cause we all tend to be like sidekicks who wanna steal that spotlight a little bit, and that's why it's self-advancement, self-fulfillment, self-protection. Instead of saying, "Jesus is King. He's the one in the spotlight, which means I don't have to fight you for the spotlight. I wanna encourage you, I wanna lift you up, I wanna honor you, I wanna count you more significant." 'Cause at the end of the day, I'm not the main character and neither are you. Jesus is.

Put Humility into Practice

So this week I'd encourage you to ask a few questions. How can I count others more significant than myself? Or how can I look after theirs and not just mine? How do I do that? And, and you might say something like, "Well, I know I need to think more of others and be less concerned with myself." Okay, how? And I'm not gonna be able to go through all of that today, 'cause it would take hours to talk through different options.

But I want you to spend time with God. Say, "God, I need more of that in my life. How?" And don't be satisfied with vague answers like, "Oh, I just need to spend less time on myself, maybe less time on my entertainment, or less time on this, or maybe..." Whatever it is, it doesn't really matter. Don't be satisfied with vague answers.

Then go, "Okay, how am I gonna do that?" Ask yourself how as many times as you need to until you get to something you say, "Okay, I can pursue this. I can try to count others more significant than myself." Ask God to bring you specific ways to exert effort or look to acquire more information, to know more about people, to know more about how to love God so that you can count them more significant than yourselves.

Ask yourself, how can I complete the joy of God's people through my mindset and my love and my unity and my focus? And again, run down that. Go, "Okay, God, how do I do that? How do I do that?" See, we can say these are great sounding ideas with absolutely no idea of how to do it. And God's gonna be the best person, obviously, to teach you exactly how. If your heart says, "I want that, God. Help me know how." How do I fill out God's joy for God's people?

And then I'd ask you, are you really connected to God's people in a way that you feel all of those benefits that come through God's people from Christ? If you say the church, not necessarily this church, could be, but if you say the church just doesn't really bring encouragement and comfort to me. Well, we are sinful and we fail sometimes, absolutely. But also ask, how connected am I to those people? Does the same comfort and encouragement flow through me to them? 'Cause that's Jesus' normal way of caring for us through his body.

God calls us to humility. He calls us to care for one another on purpose. He calls us to have love that abounds and grows more and more and more. And if that feels impossible to you, that's because in your flesh, in your effort, it absolutely is. But you look to Jesus on his throne saying, "My allegiance is to my King." Pray for him to work through you to show love, to grow in those ways. And our King loves to do that.

So I invite you to just take a moment, bow your heads in prayer. Respond to God's truth. Ask him to work within you. And then we'll sing together.