Well, hey, I'm so glad every single one of you is here and it
is a good day to worship. I'm glad you're here because God
is good and we have the opportunity to worship and serve
Him today. So congratulations for being
here. It's good to have you.
We love you guys, all of you. By the way, Tuesday is veteran's
day and so we're going to have a lunch.
And I know we talked about in pre service, but right after
service, if you are a veteran, you are invited to the luncheon.
But right now I wanted to take a moment and say, would any
veterans or active service military, would you please stand
and can we just acknowledge them and say thank you for their
service? Thank you all so much for
serving our country. And, and I, I don't ever want to
take for granted the fact the, the freedoms that we have and,
and your service that helped us and, and serving our country
and, and serving God at that. Today, we're going to continue
talking about being humble. And, and, and I want to say
this, humility is not an option for the follower of Christ.
Humility is a calling. It's not, you know, if you get
there, it's not, you know, just in case you're a super
Christian, then you should be humble.
Humility is what we are called to as Christians.
So the big question I have for you today is this is it enough?
Is it enough? And I'll explain that as we go.
But Philippians chapter 2 is where we're at.
And verse one talks about the good things that God has done
for us that Jesus has has done for us.
It has the four ifs and, and, and really those ifs are more
rhetorical because we know that God is good and that God is
doing good things. And so the question I have for
you today is, is it enough? I, I read a story this week and,
and this is a true story. There were two authors that this
sounds like a joke. I'm starting, but it's not a
joke. There are two authors and, and
they were at a party of, at the House of a billionaire.
He's a hedge fund manager. And one of those authors had
written a famous book And and the other author just came to
realize and and said to that one said, listen, did do you
understand that the guy whose house we're at this party made
more in one day than your famous book made across all of its
entirety? Isn't that incredible?
I mean, think about does it ever blow your mind just how much
money some people make and have? And and and so this one, and
this is this is legit. This happened.
The one author said this to the other like he made more in one
day than you made with that entire book and everything
you've done. And the other author looked back
at him and said, yeah, but I have something that he will
never have. He said, well, what is that?
And he said enough, I have enough.
I share that. And and that is true, that
happened. I share that because we live in
a world that is chasing enough. You know that, right?
We're chasing enough, enough money, enough popularity, enough
power, enough, enough likes or shares, enough, whatever it is.
We live in a world that is chasing enough.
And in Philippians Chapter 2 today, the question is, is it
enough for us? Do we have enough?
Stand with me. We're in Philippians 2.
I'm going to read verse one through 11.
We're really focusing on verse 3 and 4 today, but I'm going to
read the whole thing. And I just want to remind you
that we are called to be humble. This is not a mere suggestion.
This is who we're called to be. If you are a follower of Christ
and and listen, if you're not a follower of Christ, I want you
to know that there is nothing better in the world than
following Jesus. But if you're a follower of
Christ, you are called to be humble.
So this is Philippians chapter 2.
This is Paul's letter to the church at Philippi says
Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united
with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing
in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy
complete by being like minded, having the same love, being one
in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish
ambition or vain conceit. Rather in humility value others
above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of
you to the interests of others and your relationship with one
another. Have the same mindset as Christ
Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality
with God something to be used to his own advantage.
Rather, he he made himself nothing by taking the very
nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being
found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself by becoming
obedient to death, even death on a cross.
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the
name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow in heaven, and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the
glory of God the Father. Praise the Lord, you can have a
seat. This is God's word.
And, and Paul wrote this to the church at Philippi a long time
ago, but we believe that God inspired that.
And we believe that God not only wanted to speak to the church at
Philippi, but wants to speak to us today through these words.
And so this is a beautiful picture of of Jesus and his
humility. It's a beautiful picture of what
it looks like to be humble. I want to start here by telling
you that it is all about Jesus. All of it.
As followers of Christ, this is all about him.
Everything we have comes from him.
He is the model of who we should be and it's all for His glory.
It's all about Jesus. Now verse one through 4 kind of
really the whole thing talks about how we we are supposed to
treat others. Last week we talked about verse
one and two, which say therefore and and we the words if here I I
want you to understand that this is rhetorical.
This is Paul is not saying you know, if per perchance God loves
you what he's saying. I think the better translation
here would probably be since, and, and I mean, it translates
to if, but the, the meaning here that Paul would be, you know,
saying is since you have encouragement from being united
with Christ, if you have any comfort from his love, if
there's any common sharing in the spirit, if any tenderness
and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like minded,
having the same love and being one in spirit and of mine.
So, so we had the four ifs last week, the then and, and then
what we're called to, which is unity.
That's what we talked about last week.
Verse 1 and 2 are about what God's done for us through Jesus
and about unity. But now we're looking into verse
three and four and three and four get a little bit more
tricky. They're they're very
countercultural. And so our, our world tells us
that it's all about you, right? Every commercial you see,
everything you experience, our world tells us that it's all
about you, that you are the center of all of it.
And we understand that since the beginning of time when when God
created Adam and Eve, they chose a selfish, sinful way.
And from that moment on, every person that's ever been born
since has been born with a selfish, sinful nature.
You don't have to wait long to see it manifest itself in a
child. We are selfish from the get go
because we were born with this selfish sinful nature and so our
world, it echoes that. Just some I know I've I've said
these before, but just some, you know, popular sayings.
Live your best life. Yolo.
What's Yolo mean? You only live once.
The idea there is hey, you only live once so enjoy it.
You know, it's all about you. Treat yourself or yourself.
Treat yourself. Hey, you know you are what
matters, so treat yourself. Hey, you got to look out for #1
right? Who's number one?
You are. That's what the world's telling
you. You aren't.
You know what if you're on an airplane, put your mask on first
before you put anyone else's. No, that, that one's actually
important. You should do that.
That's a safety issue. I'm just joking with that one.
But our world, everything around us teaches us that it's about
us. And Paul is calling the church
and Paul is calling all of us as Christians to a different way.
Verse three, he says do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain
conceit. Do nothing out of selfish
ambition or vain conceit. Rather in humility, value others
above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of
you to the interests of others. Two parts of this that we're
going to look at. The 1st is this do nothing out
of selfish ambition or vain conceit.
Say nothing. Do nothing out of selfish
ambition or vain conceit. The second part is how we view
others. Value others above yourself.
Let's let's talk about the first part.
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.
The first thing is selfish ambition and, and, and the idea
of that selfishness is seeking after your own good.
There there's a song that comes on the radio.
I listen to country music sometime.
I'm a little bit out of that, you know that phase right now.
But but one of the songs, Toby Keith has a song and, and it
says I want to talk about me. I want to talk about I, I want
to talk about number 10. My, me, my, what I think, what I
like, what I know, what I want, what I see.
I like talking about you, you, you, you usually, but
occasionally I want to talk about me.
You guys hear that when I said it?
Do you want me to sing it? Brad, get that guitar and bring
it up here. I'm kidding.
Don't do it. I'm not doing it.
I mean, our culture is all about me and many people walk through
life and they're not thinking of others, they're thinking of
themselves. The idea here, it says do
nothing out of selfish ambition. The idea here is, is that you
would be doing things for your benefit, regardless of what it
means for other people. Selfish ambition.
All right, let's, let's have a little bit more fun.
I've, I've got a list of things that I see people do that I
think are incredibly selfish. If you want to add to them, you
can talk to your neighbor and, and add 1.
Or if you just want to raise your hand, you can raise your
hand and say Amen. Walking around, talking on
speakerphone in public. Come on, we don't all want to
hear your conversation. Pastor Dale, I'm sorry.
I didn't say that. I didn't say that.
He's not even in here to defend himself.
What a jerk I am. Come on.
Some of you do that, don't you? Hey, stop it.
Stop it. We don't want to hear your
conversations. All right, here's another one.
Getting up before the fasten seat belt sign goes off so you
can get your bags and get to the front of the line and make
everyone wait on you. Come on.
Any amens in here, people that stand up right?
They just got to get to the front of the line.
Are there any people in here that do that?
Stop it. All right, a couple of these are
airport related. You know what drives me insane
is when you're waiting for the bags to come off baggage claim
and what do we all do instead of standing back and watching for
our bags? We all have to get right up on
it. And we got to look because we
got to make sure that I'm the 1st to see my bag and I'm the
first to get my bag. And I just want to say guys, if
we all just scoop back, then we can all see and you can walk up
and get your bag. But no, it's about you.
Any of you do that? Stop it.
OK. All right, All right.
I see some. I see some halfway hands.
You don't want to admit it. All right, here.
Here's another one. Are any of you adding some of
these in your head? Like, all right, here.
Here's another that drives me nuts when I'm pulling through a
parking lot and I'm driving down the parking lot and somebody's
walking across the road or a space and instead of just
walking across and saying thank you, they just walk right down
the middle. They know I'm behind them.
They know I'm trying to get through.
I'm letting them go by, but they're just taking their sweet
old time. Does this drive anyone else
crazy? Some of you do it.
Stop it, stop it. All right, we, we were in
Nashville for homecoming. I'll talk about that a little
bit in a bit. But we're staying at a hotel and
we came to check out yesterday morning.
And when I walked out now, this hotel had a just terrible
parking lot full of cars. And there was one way to get in
and out of the hotel parking lot.
And it was the portico or, or the, the drive through right by
the hotel. And somebody as I'm walking out
getting ready to check out, I'm taking my bags out.
Somebody had parked their beautiful big red truck right in
the middle of the driveway, right in the middle.
OK, that's fine. I went and put my bags in the
car, went back up to the room, you know, got them ready, came
back down, and when we were ready to go, 20 minutes later,
that truck was still parked right in the middle of the
driveway. The only way in and out.
Hey, forget about everyone else. Just make sure that you have
what you need. We we, we live in a selfish
world, don't we? Don't do any of you do that.
By the way, I don't want to leave you out.
Stop it. We live in a selfish, selfish
world. We're called to a different way.
In fact, in Matthew 20, Jesus says, you know that the rulers
of the Gentiles lorded over them.
Their high officials exercise authority over them.
But not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become
great among you must first be a servant.
Whoever wants to be first must be a slave.
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, Jesus says the Son of
Man, Jesus Christ came not to be served but to serve others, not
to be selfish, but to be selfless.
And if we are going to follow Jesus, we can't be selfish, stop
it. Do nothing out of selfish
ambition. The second thing it says is or
vain conceit. Do nothing out of selfish
ambition or vain conceit. How many of you have seen the
movie The Truman Show? Jim Carrey was in it the movie
The Truman Show. OK, the the premise of the movie
is that Jim Carrey is living his life and and he doesn't realize
it at first. But all of this is 1 big
production about his life. He's the main character and
everyone walking around him are actors and actresses.
And he starts to realize that something's off.
Here's the deal guys. A lot of us live our lives.
I'm just going to go ahead and call it what it is.
Almost all of us at some point think that the world revolves
around us. Don't we?
Have you ever thought that the world revolved around you?
Don't lie. Am I?
Am I the only one, guys? And you guys make a pastor feel
bad about herself. We tend to think that the world
revolves around us. I mean, we were born thinking
that, right? And so, you know, the craziest
thing happened this week. I went to homecoming down at
Tribeca Nazarene University. That's where I graduated.
And Friday night there was this big show and all these people
were gathered and I walked in the room.
Alex Mahaffey, graduate, 2003 Tribeca Nazarene University.
And I walked into this room and the craziest thing happened.
The production didn't stop. Everybody didn't stop their
conversations and look at me and say he's here.
You ever have that experience, guys?
The world doesn't revolve around you.
It certainly doesn't revolve around me.
I was reminded of that this this weekend.
We we tend to think that everything, I mean, we live in a
way that says I'm the star of the show.
Everything's about me. And, and honestly, I know it's
true. Every single one of us at some
point thinks this way or feels this way, But the truth of the
matter is the world does not revolved around you.
Vain conceit is valuing yourself higher than you should.
It's thinking of yourself as higher than you should.
It's having an arrogant or conceit in nature thinking it's
all about me. All right, another fun thing.
I was walking out of the basketball game at Tribeca.
So we went to the basketball game.
At halftime we were leaving and there were these two guys out in
the hallway and they had basketball jumpsuits on and, and
they had an H and an F on it. And I thought, wait a minute,
there aren't a lot of schools that have the initials H&F.
You know what school does have HF?
Hume Fogg. I'm not even going to say the
whole name because it's so cool. Hume Fogg, Academic magnet
School, HF. And I walked up to him.
I was like, guys, where, what is HF?
Where are you guys from? Oh, we play basketball at Hume
Fogg. I went to you fog.
I played basketball. I graduated in 2000.
And they're looking at me like, wait, why are you talking to me?
I played there. I was a basketball player.
What? Were you any good?
No. Was the team any good?
No. OK, cool, man.
Yeah. We, we like to think.
I'll be honest, when I went to Hume Fog, I kind of thought I
was pretty good. You know, I I thought I thought
I was pretty good. 25 years later and nobody remembers me.
Nobody cares any good. Nah, I think all of us, if we're
being honest, when we dream about going back to reunion or
when we dream about getting together with friends or in a
group of people, we, we typically like think about
people valuing us, remembering us.
I mean it when you walk into a group, maybe if you're, if
you're not looking back at reunions, maybe you're going to
a basketball game and you just expect, hey, I'm going to walk
into this basketball game and it's all good.
Oh, there he is. There's Alex. 2000 graduate,
Hume Fogg Academic High School Magnet.
Yeah. Super cool.
Are you guys super impressed? Come on.
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.
I was reminded all weekend that it's not about me.
Here's the thing. The devil.
The devil loves to play tricks on us.
Guys. I want you to know that we are
called to be humble. We should do nothing out of
selfish ambition or vain conceit.
But can I tell you that the devil was working on me?
This happens all the time. To be honest that the devil says
you're nobody, you're nothing. Nobody stopped when you walked
in the room. Nobody even knew you went here.
Nobody cares if you played basketball, you didn't do
anything. Verse one says if you have any
encouragement from being united with Christ once again, that's
not if it's since you have encouragement from being united
with Christ, if since you have any comfort from his love, if
since any common sharing in the spirit, if since you have
tenderness and compassion. Guys, I'm constantly and and I
know this is you too. I don't share this.
I don't. I don't need you to come tell me
that I'm something I don't. Because listen, the reality is,
if you are trying to earn your value, if you think you're a big
deal, you will find you're not. The world doesn't revolve around
you. But I want to tell you the good
news. There's a God that loves you so
much that he gave us one and only Son, that if you would
believe in Him, you won't perish, but you'll have
everlasting life. Some of you were good ball
players in high school and college.
Some of you were really successful.
Some of you are. I want you to know that your
value in no way comes from those accomplishments or successes.
Your value is not in how many people will remember you when
you walk into a room or how much money is in your bank account.
Your value is in verse one of Philippians chapter 2.
We have encouragement in Christ. We have comfort in His love.
We have a common sharing in the Spirit.
We have tenderness and compassion from God Almighty.
That's where our value comes from.
Let me ask you again, is it enough?
Is it enough because the devil plays tricks?
The devil will tell you you are worthless.
The devil will tell you nobody cares if you show up or what
you've done or what's happened. The devil will use it against
you. The question is, do you know
just how much God loves you? And do you understand that it's
more than enough? Yes, praise the Lord.
When the devil comes and says, hey, nobody cares about you, I
say yes, God cares about me. When the devil says nobody
remembers you, yes, God remembers you, nobody cares
about you. Yes, Jesus Christ came and died
on a cross because he cares about me.
Nobody wants to be with you. Yes, I have the common sharing
of the Holy Spirit because God sent his Spirit to walk with me
and be with me. Yes, guys today do nothing out
of selfish ambition or vain conceit because it'll lead you
nowhere. It'll lead you empty.
But real humility is learning to find your value in God and trust
Him for your well-being. The world tells you, treat
yourself, take care of yourself, look out for #1 make sure that
you have everything you need. And the truth is over and over
again, if that's the way you live, you will end up empty.
Paul writes and says there's a God that loves you.
He's with you. Humility is understanding that
my value comes from him. Not from my basketball career,
not from what church I pastor, not from how popular I was or
wasn't, not from any of that. From him.
It doesn't matter who recognizes you, God loves you.
If you don't walk away with anything else today, please walk
away knowing that there's a God that loves you more than you
will ever know, and then it doesn't matter what you've done,
whether good or bad, your value comes from Him.
If there's any consolation, any comfort of love, any fellowship
of the Spirit, any tenderness or compassion there is be humble.
We can only be humble when we learn that it's about His love
for us, not about our achievements or who we are, so
that that changes the way we treat each other.
Verse 4, that's verse 3. All of that for verse 3, we're
25 minutes in. Now let's go to verse four.
That leads us to the second part.
It frees us. Rather Paul says, don't live
selfishly. Don't live out of vain conceit.
Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not
looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests
of others. Here's the deal guys.
When we learn that our value comes from God, it frees us up
that we don't have to earn our value.
We don't have to look out for #1 because we have a God that's
looking out for us. We don't have to worry about our
needs because God is going to take care of our needs.
We don't have to earn our way because God has already given us
the way to eternal life. And so verse 4 and humility,
value others above yourselves. Don't look to your own interest,
but each of you to the interest of others.
True humility leads us to generosity.
See, selfish ambition, vain conceit is everything is pointed
at me. This is coming to me.
This my value is here, my accomplishments are here.
Everything points to me. But when you realize that your
value doesn't come from all that, you can let it go.
And then you can live a life that points outward that you can
be. You can be a vessel of God's
love and comfort and grace and peace to others.
Value others above yourself. True humility is knowing your
value comes from God. And true humility is then loving
others, serving others with everything you have.
Can you imagine how different our world would be?
How different our country would be?
I love our country. Can you imagine how much better
it would be if we were all walking around knowing that our
value came from God and just loving and serving each other?
Can you imagine? All right, let me get myself in
some trouble. Can you imagine if our
politicians just wanted to serve others and didn't care about
their own pockets? I don't mean to call them out.
Can you imagine if your neighbors, if the people in the
parking lot in the airport? Can you imagine if we all just
wanted to love and serve each other because we knew we were
already loved and valued by God? Wouldn't it be an incredible
thing? John 13 Jesus gathers with his
disciples and says, When he had finished washing their feet, he
put on his clothes and returned to his place.
Do you understand what I've done for you?
He asked them. You call me Teacher and Lord,
and rightly so, for that is what I am.
But now that I, your teacher and Lord, your Lord and Teacher,
have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet.
I have set an example that you should do as I have done for
you. Be humble.
Humility is understanding God's goodness to you, understanding
God's value for you, being unified and living and serving
others. So let me ask you a question.
Is it enough? Worship team, come on up,
everyone staying with me, is it enough?
There are probably two kinds of people in the room today.
Some of you maybe are still struggling with the question, Is
it enough? Some of you maybe have been
trying to earn it, trying to find your value, trying to earn
your value. Listen, today there is a God
that loves you more than you will ever know, and He wants to
invite you to find your value in Him.
If that's you, I want to invite you to respond to God's word.
And to do that, you can come to an altar, you can kneel where
you are, you can gather and prayer with people say God, I
don't want to do it on my own. I want to accept your love and
your grace for me. Maybe there's some of you who
just have been living a little bit too much.
Like it's about you. We all do it.
It's it's a part of every single one of our nature, but praise
God, his spirit and his power can change us today.
If that's where you're living and you say, hey, I just need to
love people a little bit better. I just need to serve people a
little bit better. I want to invite you to respond,
say God, how can I love and serve others?
I know we're going to spend some time in prayer here as we sing.
So I would invite you to come as we sing and and I know Andy
Poland's going to come down because we're going to anoint
her for her surgery that's coming up.
The family ask if we could. And so if you want to come,
gather around her. If you want to come, respond to
God's word. If you need to come and just
pray, I want to invite you to respond to God's word.
Now, Father, I thank you for your love and your grace.
I thank you that every single person in here is a is your
child, whether they know it or not.
I pray today, if there's anyone that's been struggling to find
their value, I pray that you would show it to him right now.
If there's any of us that have just been a little bit selfish,
I pray Lord that you would call us and direct us to find our
value in you and to love and to serve others.
We love you Jesus. We thank you that you're here.
Help us as we respond now in Jesus name, Amen.
Respond as we sing.