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The Unity of Community Part 3

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Philippians 2:1–4

All right, Philippians 2, starting in verse 1.

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.

(Philippians 2:1–4)

Opening Prayer

Let’s pray. Father, we pray for the fall party that is coming up, that your hand would be upon that, that the gospel going forth would be received and there’d be much fruit, Lord, from your gospel going forth. We pray for us to have servant’s hearts, to pitch in, to make that an event, Lord, that pleases and glorifies you. We thank you for the opportunity that we can partner with SCCHE. We pray, Lord, your blessing upon them and on the different homeschool and co-ops and the different schools, Lord, in our area, God, that they would walk in a manner where they fear you, where they honor you, where they glorify you in all aspects and all respects, Lord, that they would walk before you, God. Father, we pray for your mercy upon us as a nation, for this state, for our county, God, that you would return us to you, corporately as a nation, that we would return, Father. And that today, the gospel would go forth from many, many, many pulpits and would bring conviction in people’s hearts, that they would hear it, be convicted of their sin, they would repent and turn to you and trust in you. We pray you’d be gracious to do that, Lord. We pray for the fellow pastors here in St. Charles County, Lord, that they would continue to stand bold for you, that they would preach the whole counsel of God, that you would go forth from their pulpits. And Lord, help us now as we look into your Word, that we would receive from you, Lord. Send your Spirit to open up our spiritual eyes, so we can see these things clearly. Clearly, that we can receive them, then we can walk them out, for your glory. Amen.

Review: The Basis and Marks of Unity

All right, let’s review the last couple of sermons that we’ve been going through just very briefly, but we’ve been talking about unity. So this is really part three of the unity of community. The first sermon on unity was the basis of unity, and it’s really found in verse 1, where the basis of unity is encouragement in Christ, comfort from the love of God, participation in the Spirit, and then having affection and sympathy. So really that’s the foundation for unity, and the foundation comes from whom? It comes from the triune God, right? So we see in that verse, we see the different members of the Trinity giving us the foundation for unity to occur. Then last week we saw the marks of unity. So if there is unity, what are we going to be seeing? What will be on display as we walk together in unity with one another? And that we saw four things. One, we saw that we’d have the same mind. Two, that we’d have the same love. Three, that we’d be in full accord. And then four, that we’re going to be of one mind. So the idea is this. If there is unity, if there’s unity, this is what you’ll see.

The Means of Unity

We’re going to look at the means of unity. What do I mean? I mean that how do we achieve it? How do we get unity? We see what their marks of unity are. So if we see this is what will be displayed, but now we’re going to see, hey, how do we get there? How do we actually arrive at unity? Things that we are called to. If we walk those things out, then we’ll have the marks of unity and we will have unity. So there’s five ways that we can see that we can achieve it. Let’s just name them real quick, and it’s really coming from verses 3 and 4. The first is that you won’t have selfish ambition. The second is you won’t have conceit. The third is you’ll have humility. The fourth is that you’ll count others more important than yourself. And then the fifth is that you’ll consider others’ interests above your own.

No Selfish Ambition

So let’s start first with selfish ambition. This word selfish ambition or selfishness has to do with self-seeking. Self-seeking. Now, if you think about it, if you’re self-seeking, is that unifying or is that divisive? That’s divisive, right? Everyone’s going to be looking for themselves, and that just lays a foundation for divisiveness to occur. This word only appears a few times in the New Testament. And interestingly, it’s found nowhere else in Greek literature. Why? Because people didn’t like to talk about it. People didn’t want to discuss it. And Paul, again, kind of coins a term here and uses it in a particular way to emphasize something to the Philippians. So they understand what he’s talking about when it comes to selfishness. The word communicates an idea of division that is willing to tear others apart. In fact, we see it used, if you look back in Philippians 1, he uses the same term in verse 17. He says, “The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.” So there we see him using this term talking about [audio unclear].

No Conceit

No. The dictionary definition is someone who is excessively proud. You ever been around someone who is conceited? I mean just excessively proud, think they be the best. Well here we are being told, okay, so no selfish ambition, no conceit. This person who is conceited is the person that always has to one-up you. So you tell a story and then they have a story that’s always better. So you tell a story about getting attacked by a dog and what’s their story going to be? They got attacked by dogs or a bigger dog or it was really a pack of wolves, right? I mean, it’s always going to one-up. Why? Because they want the attention, they want the focus, they want the glory. There’s nothing glorious about it, but they want the glory. So this word connotes an idea of exaggerated self-evaluation. Exaggerated self. I mean, hopefully at times, really somewhat regularly, you kind of do a little self-evaluation. In fact, we just took the Lord’s Supper, and Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11, we’re supposed to evaluate ourselves. There’s a couple other places in Scripture the same idea is there. So you, you know, you self-evaluate. Well, the one who is conceited exaggerates their self-evaluation. So they’re probably not doing really well in five or six areas, but they just kind of water it down. No, they’re doing all right. Everything’s okay. They don’t recognize or acknowledge areas where they’re weak, and the areas maybe they have some strengths and they’re doing okay, they puff those up even more. So they think very highly of themselves. Everyone else is second in their mind and they’re first. Listen, we don’t want to have an elevated opinion of ourselves. We don’t want to. It’s against Christ. But this is how, sadly, many people get to the top in the corporate world, right? You got to look out for number one. Look out for number one. But these two things, selfish ambition and conceit, they’re unity killers. They are unity killers. They kill it, they destroy it, they take it down. It’s all about me, me, me. What’s best for me? What helps me? What makes me happy? What brings me pleasure? Listen, brothers and sisters, any hint of that needs to be repented of, needs to be forsaken. So there’s a better way. And it’s the other three that we’re going to talk about. There’s a better way. There’s a biblical way.

Humility

Now in verse 3 he says, “but in humility.” So humility, I’m going to say really for all four of these verses and actually really for maybe this entire section which it stretches into verse 8. Really, humility is kind of like the canopy over this section. Humility is the better way. So this word is a compound of the concepts of being humble, the Greek tapeinos, and then to think, phroneō. The idea is you’re thinking, what are you thinking? And you’re thinking really properly of yourself, but truly lowly of yourself. The idea is this, how do I not elevate myself? How do I get rid of empty glory? Will you think lowly of yourself? Properly understood. You reorient your mind to think biblically and see what the Bible has to say about your condition, your state, your soul. I mean, look at what Jesus says in Matthew. Hold your place in Philippians, but look at what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 20. In verse 25, Matthew 20, Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” So is the word humility used in this passage? No. But the idea is present, right? So Jesus himself, what does it say in verse 28? I think this is one of the most powerful verses in the New Testament. The Son of Man came not to be served. Now, what was his life, a life of service to others. So he came not to be served, but to serve [audio unclear] the people. But what does he himself say? He came to serve. Listen, if Jesus has every right to require, even demand, service, and he’s like, nope, I’m here on a mission, like how much more should we, regardless of our position, regardless of our position in our family, regardless of our position in the church, regardless of our position at work, no, we can serve. We can serve. God’s economy is the way to the top is being humble and lowly. The way of the world is push everyone out of the way, do whatever you have to do to get there. You know, fight, claw, scramble to get to the top. That’s not God’s economy. You want God’s economy? You’re at the bottom. First time I was involved with ministry and helping out, Tim Ward, one of the pastors here years ago, discipled me and I was helping out with the youth group and I was all excited about it. Guess what task he gave me when I first started serving there? Bathrooms. Yeah, someone else apparently had the same lesson taught to them. Yeah, cleaning the toilets. Cleaning the toilet. That’s probably about as low as you can go [audio unclear] in humility. It’s like, hey, where do you need me? Where can I serve? Point the way. Maybe I don’t want to do that. All right. One of the best ministries I was ever involved in after I cleaned the toilet, it felt like a couple of years, but it was probably only a couple of weeks. But I was asked to serve in the junior high ministry. I was like that. I was again, new believer, pretty immature, but I was like, uh, like that’s kind of below me. It ended up being one of the best ministries I ever served in and super enjoyed doing it. So sometimes the Lord blesses us because we, okay, like you have your expectations for things, you have your idea of what things might look like, the Lord wants our obedience. So did I want to serve in the junior high ministry? Absolutely not. God was gracious. I started serving there because that’s what I was asked to do, even though I didn’t want to, and he changed my heart on it, become one of the ministries that I loved greatly.

So humility, in the Greco-Roman literature of the time, you go back to the time of Jesus, what was being written, usually, actually not usually, always humility was used in a pejorative sense, in a negative sense. Humility was not a virtue back then. Guess what? It’s really not a virtue today. I know people will talk about it. The world will talk about it. It’s not a virtue. But what do we see from Jesus? Our standard isn’t the culture back then. Our standard isn’t the culture today. They don’t get to decide what we’re supposed to do, how we’re supposed to act, which direction we’re supposed to go. No, our direction is Jesus. What does he say? Listen, Matthew 11:29: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Lowly is the same word that we’re looking at here. It’s the first part of the compound. Lowly, I mean, that’s how Jesus is describing himself. Now, was he always gentle in the sense that we think? No, he rebuked the Pharisees. He flipped over tables. So yet, he did those things, right? So, and you can see, to the broken and the hurting, how did Jesus act? He’s very gracious, very kind. To the hard-hearted, what did he do? He gave a tough word. He gave a hard word. And if we’re actually humble, we will realize that there’s areas in our lives that we need to hear the tough word. We might not want to hear the tough word, but there’s areas in our lives where we’re probably hardened to. Maybe we don’t have like a hardened heart, but there’s areas where we’ve become hardened to particular sins or ideologies or worldviews or whatever it might be. So you don’t just want me to stand up here every week and give out lollipops and cotton candy. Now you need some tough meat sometimes to come at you. So you got to be prepared for that. You got to have your heart sensitized so when that comes at you, you have to be willing to receive it.

What was the attitude of the apostles? Look at Acts chapter 20. Verse 17, Acts 20, now from Miletus, he, this is talking about Paul, Paul sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. And when they came to him, he said to them, “You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia,” [audio unclear] “testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.” So I mean, he gives essentially like a little testimony of what he did during his time in Ephesus. But notice how he marks it, serving the Lord with all humility. Does that mean he was all super nice and gracious all the time and kind and never gave them a tough word? No. No. It is loving and kind, and you can act in humility and deliver tough words. You can draw lines in the sand that won’t be crossed, and you can still walk with gentleness and humility. So Paul, out of the different things he could have said, what’s it? With all humility. And what do the elders say, no, that wasn’t true? No, I mean, they’re in agreement. Look at 1 Peter, we see the same thing. Chapter 5. Starting in verse 5 he says this: “Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.” I mean, three times, brothers and sisters, three times in two verses he mentions humility. Look back at it. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with what? Humility. I mean, that’s like the garment. Even Colossians talks about that. That’s the garment that we’re putting on. We’re wearing humility. We’re supposed to have it. We’re wearing it. That’s our garment. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility. No one’s excepted from it, all of you. There’s no exceptions. We’re all walking around. We should all be wearing the garment of humility. With humility, what are we doing? Toward one another, right? I mean, you can be as humble as you might possibly think, but humility is displayed. And it’s displayed by doing something for others. If you walk around trying to just display your humility by not doing anything, then you don’t really have it. It’s either pride or false humility. No, humility. How do you do that? You display it towards one another. Why? By serving them, by interacting with them, by loving them. So with humility toward one another, and then we see, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be opposed by God. That’s not a good thing. It’s not good. If God opposes you, that’s a bad place to be. Who does he oppose? The proud. But what does he do? He gives grace to the humble. So then we get the command, verse 6, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time, he may exalt you. There’s that economy again, right? The first will be last, the last will be first. Humble yourself in whatever situation you find yourself in, God knows you’re walking in humility, you’re practicing humility, you’re displaying humility, and God knows. God knows. Maybe you’re being treated unjustly. God knows. And what does he say? At the proper time? I mean, the proper time for you is like five minutes after you’ve been doing it. I get it. Tough situation. You’re like ready for it to be over. But God’s proper time and your proper time rarely line up. And his proper time is usually about 10 times to 100 times longer than your proper time, and usually even longer than that. But trust that he has a proper time. He’s got a proper time, and he’ll deal with it and he’ll address you and he’ll work with you. So what do we see? This is important. It’s important to the Holy Spirit. He wants us walking in humility towards one another, every single one of us. Luke, this is Jesus speaking, Luke 14, he says this, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

I don’t know, I know maybe a lot of you aren’t, maybe a football fan, maybe you don’t watch NFL, but the season just kicked off this past Monday, and one of the players on the Cowboys has self-proclaimed himself to be the best wide receiver in the NFL. That’s always a bad idea to make a claim like that. Maybe unless you’re in contract negotiations, right, then you’re kind of pining for yourself. But I mean, I’m the best, I’m the best, I’m the best, I’m the best, right? And so the kickoff for the season, there’s only one game on, everyone’s watching it. And what does he do? He drops two easy passes. Two easy passes. That the best receiver in the NFL wouldn’t drop. True? Well, I mean, the Lord, I don’t know where he’s at, you know, spiritually, pray for him, but the Lord was clearly humbling him. You walk around talking about how great you are and then you don’t act very great. That’s a humble piece of pie you’re eating. In my opinion, it cost his team the game. If he would have made those catches, completely different game. It’s really interesting. You look at one of the people I actually believe displays this the best. You look at U.S. history as Robert E. Lee. If you ever read his biography, it’s actually very powerful. He was approached by a farmer one time in his career, and the farmer addressed him as Colonel. I mean, Robert E. Lee, one of the greatest generals in American history. After a while, the farmer’s like, oh, I would sure like to meet General Lee. And Robert E. Lee’s like, well, actually, I’m him. And so then the farmer felt really embarrassed, and stupid, right? Like, oh, I’m talking to this guy, and he’s this great figure. I didn’t even realize it. Well, you can’t really fault the farmer because Robert E. Lee had on the uniform and stripes of a colonel. And so the farmer’s like, part of the reason I was a little confused was you had on the outfit of a colonel. And here’s what Robert E. Lee responds. He says, “The truth is that the rank of colonel is about as high as I ought ever to have gotten.” That’s humility. That’s humility. Even when the war broke out between the states, he resigned his post and joined the Confederacy. Everyone is assuming he would receive the proper rank, but he didn’t think, he didn’t assume that and he didn’t think that and he was willing and had planned on signing up as a private. They quickly found that out and put him in the proper position. Humility again, like I said, is not a virtue according to the world. It’s a weakness. Now you won’t really ever find anyone criticizing humility. You won’t hear, oh, humility—it’s hard to find quotes on that. I did find one though. Here’s Frank Lloyd Wright: “Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change.” Our president is anything but humble. There’s no humility in our president. There’s really not. It’s not a virtue today. Many of our leaders might talk about having it. They rarely display it. They rarely display it. But our judge is not what the world says, or how the world acts. Our judge is the living God, and he is the one who tells us. And humility comes from knowing who you are before God. When you start to have a better understanding of who you are before God, it really helps you to start walking in humility.

Count Others More Important

Now I’ll probably talk about this here, but when you’re focused on the Lord, you’re in the best position to look at others rightly and love them properly. Which really leads into our next point of count others more important. Count others more important, back in Philippians. So count is from a verb that means more than just having an opinion. I think some versions might say reckon. It refers to, as one theologian said, a carefully thought out conclusion based on the truth. It does not mean to pretend that others are more important, but to believe that others actually are more important. And it is clear that Paul has in mind a view of others that is not natural to man, and it is extremely difficult even for believers to achieve. So you want help in this area, then look at your own heart. Because we can try to judge other people’s hearts even though we shouldn’t, and no man knows the heart, God says, but sadly we routinely do it. We can try to do that, but there is one heart that we can judge probably pretty accurately. And that’s our own heart. Because each one of us knows our own hearts the best. Now sometimes we can deceive ourselves, I get that. But if we’re honest about our hearts, like we know, unlike any other person, the wickedness, the darkness, the vileness that lies there. True. We know the thoughts that we’ve had. We know the acts that we’ve committed, we know the words that we’ve said, maybe just in our mind, maybe in the car when no one else is around. But we know. And God knows, but we know. And nobody else knows, but we know. And that alone should help us walk in humility, because we know what’s going on in our heart. We know. And we don’t know what’s going on in other people’s hearts. We might think we know, but we don’t always know. We can try to guess. We don’t know. So take the condition of your heart. Let that help give a little mercy and grace towards other people as you try to count them more important. You can’t count others more important if you think more highly of yourself than you should. You can’t do this if you’re always right. You know, you talk to someone, they always have to, you know, they’re always right. That’s not humility. You can’t count others more important if you always have to make the last point, if you always have to be right on every subject. You can’t do this. So you have to forsake that. Here’s what it says in Romans 12: “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment.” Basically, have an honest assessment of where you’re really at. Don’t be duped. Don’t be deceived by your own self or by Satan. No, realize where you’re truly at. Realize your place apart from Christ. What are you without Christ? You’re lost. You’re forsaken. You’re deserving of the eternal wrath and damnation of God. That’s what you are without Christ. So whatever God’s blessed you with, it doesn’t matter if you’re a believer or unbeliever, whatever God’s blessed you with, your gifts, you’ve invested in the talent like you should. But those things initially, in the parable of the talents, right? It’s not like the person just happens upon the talent. They’re given the talent. They’re given the talent. Some one, some three, some five. But it’s given to them. They didn’t do any work for that talent. That’s one of the points of the parable. No work done, given the talent. To do what? To take care of it. To be a steward. To nurture it. So, whatever your giftings, wherever God’s blessed you, you might be financially, might be intellectually, might be athletically, listen, the Lord can take it away. So when we’re talking about counting others more important, like in part realize your place. Realize that. Yes, and realize the humility it first took to get saved, but the humility you need to keep walking in your salvation. If you’re proud, you’re not going to get saved. That’s a fact. Why? God opposes the proud. If you’re proud, you’re going to not think you need God. Why? Because you can do it on your own. [audio unclear] When I first got saved, there was this guy. He won’t mind me telling this story. He probably would mind because it’s going to kind of give him some props. But when I first got saved, there was this guy that my friend wanted to reach out to. And I was like, oh, dude, that dude is so prideful I hated being around him. I mean, he was so prideful. He knew everything. And the sad thing was he did know everything, actually. He actually had a good reason for his pride, in a sense. But he always had to be right. He always knew everything. He did everything great. I just loathed being around this guy. But my friend was always like, oh, we got to reach out to him. We got to reach out to him. I’m like, look, there’s other people we can reach out to. Okay. But no, I’m like, okay, whatever. We’ll do that. So he goes on a retreat. You know, they have a college retreat. On the retreat he gets saved. Ends up getting saved and becomes the most humble person I’ve ever known to this day. Very humble. Rob Myers, we support him with his ministry to the deaf. Most prideful person before Christ. Honestly, I don’t know a more humble person. Very humble person. And guess where you see that displayed is his service in his life. You just, you know, if you got to know him, you’d see him, he’s just a servant. And I mean, it’s a great illustration of before and after Christ, right? Now, if we get saved at younger ages, we don’t always see that. Praise the Lord, honestly, we don’t see this dark contrast. But if you got saved later in life, there should be a contrast. It should be stark. All right, very clear with Rob. Great example of walking in humility and displaying it.

Look to the Interests of Others

So count others more important, yes, but then there’s another step. There’s another step. I mean, so you’re thinking of them as more important, but then you gotta act on it. You gotta act on it. So you’ve counted them more important but now you put it into action. You look out for them. You look out for the interests of others. You’re giving close attention and special consideration to the needs of those around you. Now, notice what it’s not saying. It doesn’t say don’t look out for your own interests. Some versions I think, I think the NASB says like merely, don’t merely look out for your own interests. So, you can look out for your own interests. You can have self-interest. What is it saying back in Philippians? “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” So you’re looking out for the interests of others. So you’re asking what’s best for your family, what’s best for your church, what’s best for your friends. I mean, it reaches far and wide. It’s not just your immediate circle of people that you like to hang out with. They’re included, but it’s further reaching. Coworkers, extended family, next-door neighbors. This is normal operating procedure for a man or woman of God, looking out for the interests of others. Listen, our culture rejects this notion of others’ interests above our own, of looking out for others’ interests. It’s all about self-love. You know, you do you, do what you think. And you do what’s best for you, I’m going to do me. I’m going to do what I think is best for me. You hear people talk about, get rid of toxic people in your life. Listen, if you got rid of all the toxic people in your life, there wouldn’t be anyone left. And you’d probably have to leave too. Okay? I mean, seriously, we’re all toxic in one shape or form or another. Okay, we’re all sinners. We’re all going to sin against people in grievous ways. Okay, so if you try to get rid of all the toxic people, I mean, you’re just going to have a lot of yes-men in your life. They won’t ever push back, they won’t say anything. You know, whatever you want to do, good, bad, they’ll support it. That’s a yes-man. You’ll surround yourself only with people that support you, all right? That’s not going to help you. I mean, you think about it, you have people that want to chop off perfectly healthy body parts. And they have supporters. They’re like, yeah, like, we support you. Like, what is that? That’s the sin of empathy that we’re talking about. Allie Beth Stuckey, she has her book, she calls it Toxic Empathy. That works. But, you know, so you have these people, they want to chop off perfectly healthy body parts, and their supporters are telling them, that’s a good thing. We support you. And these friends supposedly have compassion. And anyone who pushes back is what? A hater. Is cold. Is mean. There’s no love. No, the loving and compassionate thing to do is to speak out against that, to help that person realize something’s not right. You need some help. Let me help you. So this message of me first is shouted over and over again. Just about every commercial is about what’s in it for you. All right, so I mean, if you are an NFL fan and you got a game on, watch those commercials today. I mean, maybe you shouldn’t actually. But watch them with a discerning eye today and be like, hey, what’s the message they’re trying to communicate? And over and over again, it’s, this is for you. This is about you. Do what’s best for you. This is going to help you. It’s about you. Well, listen, we need to realize that we need to reject that. You have to be consciously on the lookout for it. You should always have like your spiritual radar going. But yet you have to reject that. You have to see it for what it is. Call it out for what it is. And you have to make sure, like, the world in various ways is constantly trying to plant these seeds in your mind. They’re trying to plant these seeds in your soul. You have to be on the lookout for it and don’t let it land on the soil of your soul. Don’t give it place to start trying to grow and bear fruit. You have to reject it. You have to realize there’s a better way and it’s God’s way. But brothers and sisters, let me tell you, it’s a narrow path. It’s a narrow path. You want to walk the narrow path. And a lot of people want the broad, the wide, the easy way. They don’t want the narrow path. That’s the path of Jesus. And if you’re walking on that path, guess what you find out. You want to be with him, you want to be in his presence, you want to walk with him, you want to enjoy the fellowship with him. It’s the narrow path. That isn’t always the easy path, but it’s the narrow path. And guess what you find out? Yeah, that narrow path gets pretty narrow at times. But you have a gracious Savior right there with you helping navigate. It’s just like you just got your hand, you know, like, and you’re just following him. And he’s showing you which way to go, and there’s a hole over here, and you need to avoid this over here. I mean, you’re just following him. Now on a narrow path, if you’ve got a guide, you’re going to be all right. You can be like, okay, it’s a little slippery here, watch right there. You’ve got a guide. Well, what better than the God of the universe to guide you on the walk of life? And there he is with you on the narrow path. Choose the narrow path. That’s the better way. It’s the path of righteousness.

So what does all this mean? It means two things. We need to drive out certain attitudes, okay? Certain attitudes we need to take, selfish ambition and conceit. Drive those out from your life. Get rid of them completely. Then we need to bring in certain attitudes. Think of others as more significant. Look out for others’ interests. Walk in humility. So you’re getting rid of certain things, but you’re also bringing in certain things. And of all those things listed, if you, you know, I don’t usually do this, so take note, but list those things somewhere today or do it in your mind right now mentally, and say, hey, which one or two of those do I need to work on? Which one or two of those? Is there some selfishness in there that really needs to be rooted out? What about conceit? Or maybe the humility that, I mean, you’re just lacking there. You need to be better in the humility. Maybe you can’t have others more important than yourself. Like the way you think about people, you’re just like that, yeah, that’s not good. I have a little opinion of people. Well, repent of it, right? And then let the Scriptures flood your heart and mind on this subject. Or maybe it’s looking out for others and you’re like, yeah, I kind of have been pretty selfish. I do kind of look out for me more than I’m really thinking about what’s best for others. So one or two, and then by God’s grace and mercy through his Holy Spirit, endeavor to address those through repentance and action. Listen, on all these things, I’m not talking about us just doing this on Sundays at church. That’s easy. 90 minutes. Anybody can do that. I’m talking about doing it as a lifestyle. I’m talking about doing it and having it be who you actually are. I’m talking about being known for this. That’s what I’m talking about. Not something you occasionally do, but it’s wove into the fiber and fabric of who you are. That’s not possible. That’s not possible apart from the mercy of God. But he’s equipped us. We saw in verse 1, we have the love of God. We have the participation of the Spirit. We have the encouragement in Christ. So God himself has equipped us to be able to do this. His Spirit is living in us, we can walk in righteousness. So I’m talking about being known for this and walking it out faithfully. Let’s pray.

Closing Prayer

Lord, I pray you’d send your Spirit right now. It talks about in John, his work, and part of it is to convict us of sin, to show us where we’re missing the mark, where we’re falling short. So whatever these five might be, Lord, if there’s one or two, and there likely is where people are falling short, I pray and ask you to speak to them right now, because we want to glorify you more and more. Why? Because we want to walk in righteousness before you so that your kingdom can go forth. Your ministry can abound. [audio unclear] Do your work. Your mercies are new every day, that you pour grace upon grace upon grace. Thank you for being loving, kind, and merciful to us. We love you. Amen.