Dec 16 2019 Philippians 2: 1-4 (Translation: The Message)

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.


This is some great advice from Paul to the people of Philippi. Taking Jesus’ good news to a very incarnational, very human level, he’s telling them what that Spirit looks like in community. This is great advice for any group of people, including the group with which I’m travelling to Guatemala. Paul suggests we should agree with each other, love each other, and I love this – be deep-spirited friends. Yes! Yes! Yes!

While these traits are simple to understand, sometimes they’re harder to live in the midst of our lives. What this looks like in groups is we don’t push our way to the front, we don’t do things to get ahead personally, but rather help others get ahead. We lend a hand, regardless of cost. With this account of what good behavior looks like, there’s an implicit list of the accompanying bad behavior. We try to get ahead. We don’t help others when helping won’t benefit us. We put ourselves first. In summary, bad behavior looks like putting me ahead of the group in which I’m placed – my needs and desires and ego and interests.

The reflection from the pre-mission trip devotional focuses on what happens when we put ourselves in before others. In particular, related to romantic hook-ups. I’m sure that can be a problem, and I appreciate the warning. And, I’m going to stretch the cautionary tale for areas that feel more risky for me now.

I am coming into a new group. I have some skills in administration and churchy things. I have thoughts about scripture. I’ll be in a place that feels as if I have some knowledge and skills. And it’s like me going to someone else’s Thanksgiving Dinner. I have lots of opinions about how to cook a turkey, and what should be on the table. And it’s not my table. I’d never walk in and tell someone how to make sweet potatoes, even if they came down on the wrong side of the great marshmallow debate. My challenge will be to entirely refrain from offering advice about marshmallows, or theology, or the right way to pray. Being right, or being smarter is far less important than being a part. And, as it turns out, I’m not right; I just have opinions like everyone.    

This morning, I’m thinking about Paul’s encouragement to value the group’s needs more than mine. While this is important in my upcoming trip, it’s also important day to day, in my family. I need to remember that while I have opinions about how things can or should be done, I should offer those opinions for the sole purpose of bettering the group, or in my family, helping my sick loved one. It’s amazing how easy it is to cloak our own self-interest in all sorts of false, altruistic motives, when the motives are everything Paul suggests we don’t do – put ourselves first, only help when it helps us. Today, I want to think about being deep-spirited friends to the people in my groups.