The way to up is down Part 1

Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from His love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate?

Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.

Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.

Don't be selfish; don't try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.

Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.

Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

INTRODUCTION

Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.

INTRODUCTION

Good morning Southpointe! We are starting a mini series this morning, on the way to up is down.

So I want to read another translation:

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.

I know some people might be saying what planet are you from but that will not work in my world.

You don’t know what it is like where I work. You don’t know what it is like where I go to school.

You don’t know what it is like in the world I have to live in.

But that is the words that would come out of unbelievers’ mouth.

Our scripture text is words that should come out of a believer’s mouth.

Now I know this will go against conventional wisdom about how we are supposed to succeed in life.

But this is what the Bible says.

The conventional wisdom is always look out for number one.

That is how the world works. That maybe how the world works but that is not how the kingdom of God works.

I want you to think about this: One of the most self-centered groups of people that has ever lived is the baby boomers.

This is a narcissistic generation. I am in that baby boomer group, and the sad thing is our parents are known as the greatest generation.

The generation that came through World War II and make such great sacrifices to give us the best life possible.

And they raised a bunch of crazed spoiled brats. That baby boomer group think the world revolves around them.

But it doesn’t stop there that baby boomer generation has raised a generation of young people that are even more narcissistic that we are.

Now understand before you get offended that I am not saying that if you are a baby-boomer that who you are but I am saying that is the major of baby-boomer’s mentality.

There was a research done that reported that self-centeredness is on the rise. The research deal with: Why today’s young Americans are more confident, assertive, entitled, and more miserable than every before.

It reporting about Narcissists tends to lack empathy reacting aggressively to criticism and favoring self-promotion over helping others.

The researchers trace this back to what they call the self-esteem movement that started in 1980’s making a effort to build self-confidence and it when to far.

Now we have a generation of people that feel entitled. They feel the world owes them a living. They feel the world should revolve around them.

What is so amazing to me, that the experts are finally catching up to what the Bible has always said. It is not about You.

If you want to be happy than you can not be a self-absorbed person.

The first step to living a happy life:

Put the needs of others before yourself!

Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

Think for a moment of all of the great cultures and philosophies of the world. It has always been about self.

Greece said, Be wise. Know yourself. Rome said, Be strong. discipline yourself.

Education says, Be resourceful. Expand yourself. Psychology says, Be confident. Assert yourself.

Materialism says, Be possessive. Please yourself. Humanism says, Be capable. Believe in yourself. Pride says, Be superior. Promote yourself.

But Jesus Christ says, Be unselfish. Humble yourself.

That is so different! That seems like a recipe for disaster and failure in today’s culture. Many will say, you are never going to get ahead or find any success by humbling yourself.

That is so different! That seems like a recipe for disaster and failure in today’s culture. Many will say, you are never going to get ahead or find any success by humbling yourself.

But what does the Bible says:

So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time He will lift you up in honor.

When we talk about someone who is humble, many think of that as a form of weakness. But really that is right the opposite.

Humility is connected to meekness.

Jesus said this:

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Meekness definition is power under constraint.

Just to try to get a understanding here, if you see a person riding a horse, that horse is submitted his will to the rider.

That horse has enough power to resist the direction that the rider wants to go but because that horse has humbled himself. That horse has put his power under constraint.

He has surrendered his will to the person riding him.

And in the same way when the Bible speaks of humility and meekness it means I surrender my will to the will of God. Not my will but thy will be done.

So this is what being said: You want real success. You want true happiness. You want to experience a deep and abiding joy instead of fleeting happiness of this world.

It is following Jesus and loving others. Now listen to this in Paul tells us to live as Christ. Now here in chapter two Paul tells us to live for others, or put others before yourself.

So all this can be summed up in one word: JOY

Breaking that word Joy apart: Jesus, Others, Yourself.

Put Jesus first. Put others second. Put yourself third.

That is the joy we can experience. When you find yourself getting down and depressed. I have this ten step solution.

Write it down:

a. Do something for someone who has a greater need than you?

b. Repeat step one nine more times.

There’s people who are suffering far worse than we are. Get perspective and you do that when in quit being about you and start being about others.

Think about someone in need and start doing something for that person. and watch how joy will appear in your life.

2. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit.

Don’t be controlled by selfishness.

Don't be selfish; don't try to impress others.

It should not be a surprise that rejecting selfishness is listed before anything else. Because we know that selfishness is at the root of many sins.

What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don't they come from the evil desires at war within you?

You want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can't get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don't have what you want because you don't ask God for it.

And even when you ask, you don't get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.

If you read this correctly, it is dealing with that we want our own way. We are selfish.

Think about it, we are born with it. Watch some of the first words coming from a child’s mouth is Mine. And we carry that on through life.

We are selfish.

Look at all the problems that we have because of selfishness. People have sex before marriage. selfishness. Adultery: selfishness.

Marriages that fall apart: selfishness.

700 children displaced in Sebastian County, no home, no parents: selfishness.

churches struggling to paid their bills: selfishness.

children are hungry: selfishness

Don’t let selfishness control you.

3. Regard others as more important than yourself.

Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.

Now this is tricky. I mean I can treat others better than myself. but there is a difference between that and thinking of others better than myself.

I can be nice to someone but I am thinking I am really so much better than you.

Paul is actually saying thinking of others better than yourselves.

In other words, think honestly about yourself. I know you think you are all that and you think you are so wonderful.

But let’s just be honest, because nobody know s you better than you.

Because you know what your real thoughts are right now. Aren’t you glad people can’t read your thoughts.

Do you think that would be embarrassing?

Jesus is the one who know your thoughts. I would not want to be able to read people minds.

It would be bad, I like to hear people say Pastor Jerry that was such a great sermon today, but if I could read your minds, it might not be that way.

But you know, your heart.

"The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?

But I, the LORD, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve

D.L. Moody once said this: I have more trouble with D.L. Moody than any other man that I have ever met.

Jesus said this:

But the words you speak come from the heart—that's what defiles you.

For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander.

C.S. Lewis said this: The real test of being in the presence of God is you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small dirty object.

So it is our obsession with ourselves that is at the root of our problems.

Here what it comes down to, Knowing my own shortcoming how can I not think of others more highly.

See I should be able to look at you and say, “You have got to be better than me because I know how bad I am and why would I look down on them.

But by the grace of God, we can make it together.

But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out His special favor on me—and not without results. For I have worked harder than any of the other apostles; yet it was not I but God who was working through me by His grace.