We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. What does this passage tell us about God's love and our love?
God first loved us. Then we love. But to whom is this loves hown? It goes on to say its a love that is reciprocated - that means since God loves you, you love Him in return. Its also a love that's others-directed -God's love is big, and the love you have from Him will be big enough to accommodate other people.
Therefore, since God loves us => we love God=> we love others.
1 Jn 3:16-18
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
What about this passage? What does it say about the what love encompasses?
Christ showed what love is - in His death for us- it was a great sacrificial act. The implication is that we, who have received this love,ought to demonstrate this love in our lives - not just with SMS or MSN or Facebook app - that means you have to do something - maybe not die but something that will cost you, that requires you to give up certain things like your pocket money, weekends,popularity. That love, in the original text – which was in Greek, is known as agape. Agape is a form of sacrificial love, its others-directed.
Love others => Serve others (serving others means something practical)
**Important**
From these 2 passages, we have :
Love God => Love others => Serve others
John tells us not just the appropriate response to God's love but also the extend of the love ~ agape!
[Illustration]
Say you have received a MOE scholarship - for teaching. What's in it for you? First, a scholarship means that you will receive some form of money - in this case your tertiary education school fees are paid for and you may even have extra cash for textbooks and materials and maybe better chance at getting hostel stay near to school. Also, you will be expected to do well,maintain an a grade B and above average grade throughout your studies.
Second, at the end of the scholarship, something is expected of you. Since its a teaching scholarship, that would mean you would have to do some teaching work. That's the bond part. You are bonded with MOE to teach in secondary schools or junior college after you graduate. In order to do so, you will have to first do some courses relevant to what you might be teaching in the future.So you can do science, math, languages, geog, history,lit, econs, psych but not philo, engine, political science, etc. And it will mean you will have to deal with students like all of us here and our classmates... do all the marking,maintain class discipline, ensure the students understand and score well, ....
God's love is something like a scholarship given to you and the maintaining an above average score, teaching others is the appropriate response and the extend of it is the number of years that you will be teaching and the kind of work that is involved in teaching - dealing with young inquisitive minds as well as very restless bunch of students ...
Perhaps the easier part of loving God is loving Him in return,but what does it mean to love Him in return? Let's turn to Phil2:1-4.
Phil 2:1-4
If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with 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 purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Sound simple right? It says to love God in return, make sure you maintain that team spirit and not be selfish and look out for other people. Let's explore further.
[Humour]
A priest was asked by an old friend,"Father, how many members do you have in your parish?"
"We have over 1000parishioners(members)", the priest replied.
"Really!" the friend exclaimed."How many of them are active?"
"All of them are active", was the reply. "About200 active for the Lord and the balance active for the devil."
Can anyone tell me the heading in the bible for Phil 2:1-11? NIV, ESV, NASV
Common theme is about imitating Christ's humility. Well, there's more than meets the eye ... before Paul talks about the subject of humility, he begins the letter with thanking the church of Philippi in their involvement, participation in the work of the gospel (1:3-5) and how dear they were to Paul
(1:7-8). Then in a climatic moment Paul says that he desires to die and be with Christ - perhaps he was undergoing a turbulent time in his ministry where he was constantly having close brushes with death because of the persecution. In fact, when he was in Philippi he was jailed after he exorcised a slave girl who was doing fortune telling -the masters lost their source of income and accused Paul of rioting and practicing something illegal. It was a frustrating time for Paul as well as the advance of the gospel; ironically, Paul argues that such a view misunderstands his imprisonment and the power of the gospel and God's unstoppable plan. His imprisonment did not prevent the gospel from spreading, in fact, it encouraged some brothers to do so more boldly; of course there were some who harbour bad intentions and spread the gospel hoping that would stir up more trouble for Paul. As you can see, most of them were active, some active of the Lord and the balance for the devil... Then in 1:27, Paul tells his readers ~
"Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of
Christ. ... I will know that you stand firm in ONE spirit,contending as ONE
man for the faith of the gospel..."
That statement has 2 main points which I hope to draw your attention to :
1. the phrase "conduct yourselves in a manner" is translated from the greek word politeuesthe - which is more liken to living as citizens. Philippi, is the leading city of Macedonia, and a Roman colony - that means that its like Singapore - a leading city in South East Asia and people are proud to have Singaporean citizenship due to the privileges. The Philippians can be proud to have Roman citizenship but Paul is reminding the Philippians to adopt a pattern of life that reflects that their ultimate citizenship is in heaven. So "conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel" is actually to live as citizens of heaven, you who have received the good news of Jesus Christ. We will find out more what it means to live as citizens of heaven later on in Phil 2:1-4.
2. notice that ONE is repeated. What is Paul trying to say here?Let read the verse again :
"Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy... Then ... I will know you stand firm in ONE spirit, contending as ONE man for the faith of the gospel ..."
What it says here is that if the Philippians start living as citizens of heaven, what results is unity! ONE spirit, ONE man,this unitedness is to testify that this gospel is real and this unity is for the faith of the gospel. One aspect of this faith is not just the conviction that the gospel is real because of the reality of God's work in the spread of the gospel but also in the practice of this faith which we will approach in Phil 2:1-4.
So is Phil 2 still about humility? We see from Phil 1, Paul reminds the Philippians of their partnership in the gospel, shares his life to encourage them towards gospel living and tells them that gospel living leads to unity.
To help us remember, I'm using the 3M approach to the study of Phil 2:1-4. They are Motivations, Marks and lastly the Means to unity.
((Motivations))
"If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ,
if any comfort from His love,
if any fellowship with the Spirit,
if any tenderness and compassion, then ..."
The 4 "if"s used here should not be seen as conditional clauses - that Paul is doubtful of the Philippians' state with God.Rather its more like, "if Christ means any encouragement at all... [of course he does]". The relationship of the Philippians with God is real and genuine, and they definitely experience encouragement and comfort from God. In another words, its saying, "since you have being so well taken care of by God, shouldn't you do something in return?"
((Marks))
What follows after the "then" is
"being like-minded,
having the same love,
being in one spirit and purpose."
How do you know if there's unity in a community?The answer is given by Paul, an united community is characterised by like-mindedness, love and team spirit.
Like-mindedness is having the same perspective,seeing things the same way. It does not mean uniformity - that we all become robots. For the Philippians, it means that they hold fast to the faith seeing that God's salvation is found as they remain steady in the face of opposition.And these people who goes against the Philippians only see that Philippians asa bunch of stubborn people that are bound for destruction.
[Illustration]
Do you all know the YF vision and mission? It was shared at the beginning of the year. I believe that the people serving you -your DGLs,sub-comm coordinators are convicted of that vision and mission and have committed themselves to develop youths who are obedient to God's word. But they probably don't have the same method of doing things, thank God! Otherwise,I think we would be bored to death. Some reach out to youths through sports,some through music, others by continuing to teach God's word faithfully. They takelong hours deliberating on the method that would be most effective and engaging.While they may not agree on the same approach all the time, they do have all of your welfare, interest and God's purpose in mind. That's like-mindedness.
Paul also mentioned having the same love.Remember what I share dearlier about the love shown by God - the agape love?Its the same Greek word agape being used here in the original text. It could mean that you and I display this agape love to people around us, it could also mean that you and I have experienced this agape love from God. I would like to suggest that its both. We can only love others - with agape love - only if we have experienced /received this love from God. God is the source of love. 1 Jn4:19 reads that we love because God first loved us. And this again ties back to the servanthood theme that we are considering this afternoon. Unity, that we have been exploring is aby-product of servanthood. Being like-minded, having the same love is not done for the sake of unity. Let's return to our earlier line of thought :
God loved => We love God => Love others=> Serve others=> Unity => Glorifies Christ
John 13:35 says that by this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another.
Our unity is really telling the world that we are Christians,that we follow Christ who showed us the extent of His love for us -by giving His life!
[Illustration]
Do you all have community work avenues/programmes in your schools? Its really heartwarming to see so many youths involved in volunteering in old folks home, children's home, overseas building projects,medical aids. Is this agape love? Its sometimes a sobering reminder personally when I consider the cross that Jesus had to bear. He did not do so out of convenience, or that He had any CCA points to earn, or to have a more colourful resume for His future career. He did not volunteer because there was aprogramme, or that He had 30years of time to kill. Agape love is notvolunteering, its a willfulness toserve, to love despite inconveniences,despite discomfort, despite obstacles orwhat people may say, even if its nothelpful or may mean even personal harm.
((Means))
We read further that to achieve unity,like-mindedness, thereare a few things to take note :
1. do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit(negatively stated/view of ourselves)
2. having humility, consider others better &look to other's interest (positively stated/view of others)
A person characterised by selfish ambition is full of himself,seeking his interest above others and sometimes at the expenseof others. In therecent economic crisis, my friend shared that his companydirector had mandateda compulsory leave on every friday, so as to justify a 20% pay cut. There wereunhappiness to the pay cut, but people still went onwith the change. Then itwas sometime later that the director feared for hisown position, while he maylook good to the board/or his superiors that therewere cost cutting measures inplace and no one got retrenched, he realised thathis superiors were not awareof the drop in productivity due to the forcedleave every friday. Now the policywas amended that while it was a forced leaveon every friday, the employeesstill have to come back to work and in return get a day-off.
Vain conceit stems from pride. When a person isproud, hebecomes conceited - means he has an excessive high regard of himself.Thisattitude often puts people down. You find that in these 2 negativeattributes to avoid, its directly contrasted with looking out for others(other-centredness)and humility. When we have a proper view of ourselves,looking out for traces ofpride and selfishness, unity becomes possible.
Do you sometimes receive praise from other peopleon how goodyou are at sports or academic studies or maybe at games? Then youwouldsometimes reply, "no lah, I'm not that good." I would think itsrathercommon in our culture but its not humility. Humility, at in Paul's time,israther counter-culture. Its not a virtue valued by the Romans, as itsassociatedwith slaves, in some translations its termed as lowliness. Paul ismaking a boldstatement, in a status-conscious empire, that to have unity inChristian terms,requires one to view others as more worthy of consideration orof higher status.One looks out for or attends to the concern of others thanone's own. Thepicture of humility is most clearly seen in Christ in v5-11. Hemade Himselfnothing, taking on the very nature of a servant (doulos) - weshould not beconfused with the current view of servant who are termed asdomestic helpers andare paid. Doulos are more accurately translated asbond-servants or slaves.Christ did not get anything in return, He was despisedby His own people yet Hegave His all.
Captain's ball is YF's favourite recreation.Okay, maybe notfavourite, but default recreational activity. But I believethat most of youhere enjoy the game. Esp. all the adrenaline rush in zippingpast people,getting the ball and scoring. It gets quite competitive at times.But in themidst of it, I sometimes noticed that we look out more for theopportunities toscore and the people who can pass the ball or score well morethan the otherteam members. Maybe I can't really blame ourselves for thatafter all the goalof a game is usually to win. I think in YF, we can andshould be different. Thevery rule of our game allowing only sisters to scoreis evident in ourconsideration to encourage participation and team work. Butwe cannot possiblycome up with more rules so that everyone will get to play,then it wouldn't besome much of a game but a set of instructions to follow toget a ball from pointA to point B. How do you in this case look out forother's interest? Okay,captain's ball is a rather trivial matter, thePhilippians were facingpersecution, something more serious, the point I'mmaking is that we try to beothers-centred in every aspect, be it during gamesor in persecution.
[Illustration]
Let me end the talk today with a story. Manyyears ago, beforethe birth of our Lord, there was a monastery of monks thathad fallen on hardtimes. Once a great order, the monastery had dwindled innumbers to only fivemonks: the abbot and four others, all over seventy yearsof age.
Asthe abbot of the monasteryagonized over the imminent death of his order, itoccurred to him that he oughtto pay a visit to the very wise old Rabbi whooften retreated to a little hut inthe woods and ask him if by chance he couldoffer any advice that might save themonastery.
Oneday he ventured to the hutand explained the purpose of his visit to the oldRabbi. The Rabbi agonized withthe Abbot, because he had also witnessed asimilar occurrence in his town. Theabbot, in frustration, pleaded with theRabbi to give him some bit of advicethat might save his dying order. "Iam sorry," exclaimed the Rabbi,"I have no advice to give. The onlything I can tell you is that theMessiah is one of you."
Uponreturning to the monasteryhis fellow monks asked if the old Teacher had givenhim any advice that couldsave the dying order. "Unfortunately," theabbot informed them,"he couldn't help. The only thing he did say was thatthe Messiah is one ofus. I don't know what he meant."
Inthe days, weeks, and months tofollow the monks pondered and wondered what wasthe significance, if any, of theRabbi's words. The Messiah is one of us? Couldhe possibly have meant one of usmonks here at the monastery? If that's thecase, which one of us is the Messiah?
Asthey contemplated in thismanner, the old monks began to treat each other withextraordinary respect, onthe off chance that one among them might be theMessiah. Additionally, each monktreated himself with extraordinary respect onthe off chance that in fact hemight be the Messiah, without his knowing it.Little by little thisextraordinary respect grew and radiated far beyond thewalls of their monastery.More frequently people began to visit the monastery.
Thus,the world began to changefor the monastery. Some of the younger men whovisited the monastery started totalk more and more with the old monks. Aftersome time one man asked if he couldjoin their order: Then another; and thenanother. So, within a few years themonastery again became a thriving order ofspirituality, and godly-love, thanksto the Rabbi's gift.
How are we to understand this story? Why didmonks show suchlove and mutual respect for each other when they thought theMessiah is in theirmidst? Was it a love for God, that they showed such careand serve each other?
We love because he first loved us. If anyonesays, "I loveGod," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyonewho does not love hisbrother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he hasnot seen. And he hasgiven us this command: Whoever loves God must also lovehis brother. What doesthis passage tell us about God's love and our love?
God first loved us. Then we love. But to whom isthis loveshown? It goes on to say its a love that is reciprocated - that meanssince Godloves you, you love Him in return. Its also a love that'sothers-directed -God's love is big, and the love you have from Him will be bigenough toaccommodate other people.
Therefore, since God loves us => we love God=> we loveothers.
1 Jn 3:16-18
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christlaid down hislife for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.If anyone hasmaterial possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pityon him, howcan the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love withwords ortongue but with actions and in truth.
What about this passage? What does it say aboutthe what loveencompasses?
Christ showed what love is - in His death for us- it was agreat sacrificial act. The implication is that we, who have receivedthis love,ought to demonstrate this love in our lives - not just with SMS orMSN or Facebookapp - that means youhave to do something - maybe not die but somethingthat will cost you, thatrequires you to give up certain things like your pocketmoney, weekends,popularity. That love, in the original text – which was inGreek, is known asagape. Agape is a form of sacrificial love, itsothers-directed.
Love others => Serve others (serving othersmeans somethingpractical)
**Important**
From these 2 passages, we have :
Love God => Love others => Serve others
John tells us not just the appropriate responseto God's lovebut also the extend of the love ~ agape!
[Illustration]
Say you have received a MOE scholarship - forteaching. What'sin it for you? First, a scholarship means that you willreceive some form ofmoney - in this case your tertiary education school feesare paid for and youmay even have extra cash for textbooks and materials andmaybe better chance atgetting hostel stay near to school. Also, you will beexpected to do well,maintain an a grade B and above average grade throughoutyour studies.
Second, at the end of the scholarship, somethingis expected ofyou. Since its a teaching scholarship, that would mean you wouldhave to do someteaching work. That's the bond part. You are bonded with MOE toteach in secondaryschools or junior college after you graduate. In order to doso, you will haveto first do some courses relevant to what you might beteaching in the future.So you can do science, math, languages, geog, history,lit, econs, psych but notphilo, engine, political science, etc. And it willmean you will have to dealwith students like all of us here and our classmates... do all the marking,maintain class discipline, ensure the studentsunderstand and score well, ....
God's love is something like a scholarship givento you and themaintaining an above average score, teaching others is theappropriate responseand the extend of it is the number of years that you willbe teaching and thekind of work that is involved in teaching - dealing withyoung inquisitive mindsas well as very restless bunch of students ...
Perhaps the easier part of loving God is lovingHim in return,but what does it mean to love Him in return? Let's turn to Phil2:1-4.
Phil 2:1-4
If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, ifany comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit,if any tendernessand compassion, then make my joy complete by beinglike-minded, having the samelove, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothingout of selfish ambition orvain conceit, but in humility consider others betterthan yourselves. Each ofyou should look not only to your own interests, butalso to the interests ofothers.
Sound simple right? It says to love God inreturn, make sure youmaintain that team spirit and not be selfish and look outfor other people.Let's explore further.
[Humour]
A priest was asked by an old friend,"Father, how manymembers do you have in your parish?"
"We have over 1000parishioners(members)", the priestreplied.
"Really!" the friend exclaimed."How many of themare active?"
"All of them are active", was thereply. "About200 active for the Lord and the balance active for thedevil."
Can anyone tell me the heading in the bible forPhil 2:1-11?NIV, ESV, NASV
Common theme is about imitating Christ'shumility. Well, there'smore than meets the eye ... before Paul talks about thesubject of humility, hebegins the letter with thanking the church of Philippiin their involvement, participation in thework of the gospel (1:3-5) and howdear they were to Paul
(1:7-8). Then in a climatic moment Paul says thathe desires todie and be with Christ - perhaps he was undergoing a turbulenttime in hisministry where he was constantly having close brushes with deathbecause of thepersecution. In fact, when he was in Philippihe was jailed afterhe exorcised a slave girl who was doing fortune telling -the masters losttheir source of income and accused Paul of rioting andpracticing somethingillegal. It was a frustrating time for Paul as well as theadvance of thegospel; ironically, Paul argues that such a view misunderstandshisimprisonment and the power of the gospel and God's unstoppable plan.Hisimprisonment did not prevent the gospel from spreading, in fact, itencouragedsome brothers to do so more boldly; of course there were some whoharbour badintentions and spread the gospel hoping that would stir up moretrouble forPaul. As you can see, most of them were active, some active of theLord and thebalance for the devil... Then in 1:27, Paul tells his readers ~
"Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in amanner worthy ofthe gospel of
Christ. ... I will know that you stand firm inONE spirit,contending as ONE
man for the faith of the gospel..."
That statement has 2 main points which I hope todraw yourattention to :
1. the phrase "conduct yourselves in amanner" istranslated from the greek word politeuesthe - which is moreliken to living ascitizens. Philippi, is the leading city of Macedonia, and aRoman colony - that means that itslike Singapore - a leading city in South EastAsia and people are proud to have Singaporeancitizenship due to theprivileges. The Philippians can be proud to have Romancitizenship but Paul isreminding the Philippians to adopt a pattern of lifethat reflects that theirultimate citizenship is in heaven. So "conductyourselves in a mannerworthy of the gospel" is actually to live ascitizens of heaven, you whohave received the good news of Jesus Christ. We willfind out more what itmeans to live as citizens of heaven later on in Phil 2:1-4.
2. notice that ONE is repeated. What is Paultrying to say here?Let read the verse again :
"Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in amanner worthy... Then ... I will know you stand firm in ONE spirit, contendingas ONE man forthe faith of the gospel ..."
What it says here is that if the Philippiansstart living ascitizens of heaven, what results is unity! ONE spirit, ONE man,this unitednessis to testify that this gospel is real and this unity is forthe faith of thegospel. One aspect of this faith is not just the convictionthat the gospel isreal because of the reality of God's work in the spread ofthe gospel but alsoin the practice of this faith which we will approach inPhil 2:1-4.
So is Phil 2 still about humility? We see fromPhil 1, Paulreminds the Philippians of their partnership in the gospel, shareshis life toencourage them towards gospel living and tells them that gospelliving leads tounity.
To help us remember, I'm using the 3M approach tothe study ofPhil 2:1-4. They are Motivations, Marks and lastly the Means tounity.
((Motivations))
"If you have any encouragement from beingunited withChrist,
if any comfort from His love,
if any fellowship with the Spirit,
if any tenderness and compassion, then ..."
The 4 "if"s used here should not beseen asconditional clauses - that Paul is doubtful of the Philippians' statewith God.Rather its more like, "if Christ means any encouragement at all... [ofcourse he does]". The relationship of the Philippians with God isreal andgenuine, and they definitely experience encouragement and comfort fromGod. Inanother words, its saying, "since you have being so well takencare of byGod, shouldn't you do something in return?"
((Marks))
What follows after the "then" is
"being like-minded,
having the same love,
being in one spirit and purpose."
How do you know if there's unity in a community?The answer isgiven by Paul, an united community is characterised bylike-mindedness, love andteam spirit.
Like-mindedness is having the same perspective,seeing thingsthe same way. It does not mean uniformity - that we all becomerobots. For thePhilippians, it means that they hold fast to the faith seeingthat God'ssalvation is found as they remain steady in the face of opposition.And thesepeople who goes against the Philippians only see that Philippians asa bunch ofstubborn people that are bound for destruction.
[Illustration]
Do you all know the YF vision and mission? It wasshared at thebeginning of the year. I believe that the people serving you -your DGLs,sub-comm coordinators are convicted of that vision and mission andhavecommitted themselves to develop youths who are obedient to God's word. Buttheyprobably don't have the same method of doing things, thank God! Otherwise,Ithink we would be bored to death. Some reach out to youths through sports,somethrough music, others by continuing to teach God's word faithfully. Theytakelong hours deliberating on the method that would be most effective andengaging.While they may not agree on the same approach all the time, they dohave all ofyour welfare, interest and God's purpose in mind. That's like-mindedness.
Paul also mentioned having the same love.Remember what I sharedearlier about the love shown by God - the agape love?Its the same Greek wordagape being used here in the original text. It couldmean that you and I display this agape love to people around us, it could alsomean that you and I haveexperienced this agape love from God. I would like tosuggest that its both. Wecan only love others - with agape love - only if wehave experienced /receivedthis love from God. God is the source of love. 1 Jn4:19 reads that we lovebecause God first loved us. And this again ties back tothe servanthood themethat we are considering this afternoon. Unity, that we have been exploring is a by-product of servanthood. Being like-minded, havingthe same love is not donefor the sake of unity. Let's return to our earlierline of thought :
God loved => We love God => Love others=> Serve others=> Unity => Glorifies Christ
John 13:35 says that by this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another.
Our unity is really telling the world that we are Christians,that we follow Christ who showed us the extent of His love for us -by giving His life!
[Illustration]
Do you all have community work avenues/programmesin yourschools? Its really heartwarming to see so many youths involved involunteeringin old folks home, children's home, overseas building projects,medical aids. Isthis agape love? Its sometimes a sobering reminder personally when I considerthe cross that Jesus had to bear. He did not do so out ofconvenience, or that He had any CCA points to earn, or to have a more colourfulresume for His futurecareer. He did not volunteer because there was aprogramme, or that He had 30years of time to kill. Agape love is notvolunteering, its a willfulness to serve, to love despite inconveniences,despite discomfort, despite obstacles orwhat people may say, even if its not helpful or may mean even personal harm.
((Means))
We read further that to achieve unity,like-mindedness, thereare a few things to take note :
1. do nothing out of selfish ambition or vainconceit (negatively stated/view of ourselves)
2. having humility, consider others better &look to other'sinterest (positively stated/view of others)
A person characterised by selfish ambition isfull of himself,seeking his interest above others and sometimes at the expenseof others. In therecent economic crisis, my friend shared that his companydirector had mandateda compulsory leave on every friday, so as to justify a20% pay cut. There wereunhappiness to the pay cut, but people still went on with the change. Then it was sometime later that the director feared for hisown position, while he maylook good to the board/or his superiors that there were cost cutting measures in place and no one got retrenched, he realised thathis superiors were not awareof the drop in productivity due to the forcedleave every friday. Now the policy was amended that while it was a forced leaveon every friday, the employees still have to come back to work and in return get a day-off.
Vain conceit stems from pride. When a person is proud, he becomes conceited - means he has an excessive high regard of himself.This attitude often puts people down. You find that in these 2 negativeattributes to avoid, its directly contrasted with looking out for others(other-centredness)and humility. When we have a proper view of ourselves,looking out for traces ofpride and selfishness, unity becomes possible.
Do you sometimes receive praise from other people on how good you are at sports or academic studies or maybe at games? Then you would sometimes reply, "no lah, I'm not that good." I would think its rathercommon in our culture but its not humility. Humility, at in Paul's time,israther counter-culture. Its not a virtue valued by the Romans, as its associated with slaves, in some translations its termed as lowliness. Paul is making a bold statement, in a status-conscious empire, that to have unity in Christian terms,requires one to view others as more worthy of consideration or of higher status.One looks out for or attends to the concern of others than one's own. The picture of humility is most clearly seen in Christ in v5-11. Hemade Himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant (doulos) - we should not beconfused with the current view of servant who are termed as domestic helpers andare paid. Doulos are more accurately translated as bond-servants or slaves.Christ did not get anything in return, He was despisedby His own people yet Hegave His all.
Captain's ball is YF's favourite recreation.Okay, maybe not favourite, but default recreational activity. But I believe that most of youhere enjoy the game. Esp. all the adrenaline rush in zipping past people,getting the ball and scoring. It gets quite competitive at times.But in the midst of it, I sometimes noticed that we look out more for the opportunities to score and the people who can pass the ball or score well more than the otherteam members. Maybe I can't really blame ourselves for that after all the goal of a game is usually to win. I think in YF, we can and should be different. The very rule of our game allowing only sisters to score is evident in ourconsideration to encourage participation and team work. But we cannot possibly come up with more rules so that everyone will get to play,then it wouldn't be some much of a game but a set of instructions to follow to get a ball from point A to point B. How do you in this case look out for other's interest? Okay,captain's ball is a rather trivial matter, the Philippians were facing persecution, something more serious, the point I'm making is that we try to beothers-centred in every aspect, be it during games or in persecution.
[Illustration]
Let me end the talk today with a story. Many years ago, beforethe birth of our Lord, there was a monastery of monks that had fallen on hardtimes. Once a great order, the monastery had dwindled in numbers to only fivemonks: the abbot and four others, all over seventy yearsof age.
As the abbot of the monastery agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to him that he ought to pay a visit to the very wise old Rabbi who often retreated to a little hut inthe woods and ask him if by chance he could offer any advice that might save themonastery.
One day he ventured to the hut and explained the purpose of his visit to the old Rabbi. The Rabbi agonized with the Abbot, because he had also witnessed a similar occurrence in his town. The abbot, in frustration, pleaded with the Rabbi to give him some bit of advice that might save his dying order. "I am sorry," exclaimed the Rabbi,"I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you."
Upon returning to the monastery his fellow monks asked if the old Teacher had given him any advice that could save the dying order. "Unfortunately," the abbot informed them,"he couldn't help. The only thing he did say was that the Messiah is one of us. I don't know what he meant."
In the days, weeks, and months to follow the monks pondered and wondered what was the significance, if any, of the Rabbi's words. The Messiah is one of us? Could he possibly have meant one of us monks here at the monastery? If that's the case, which one of us is the Messiah?
As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect, on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah. Additionally, each monk treated himself with extraordinary respect on the off chance that in fact he might be the Messiah, without his knowing it.Little by little this extraordinary respect grew and radiated far beyond the walls of their monastery.More frequently people began to visit the monastery.
Thus,the world began to change for the monastery. Some of the younger men who visited the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After some time one man asked if he could join their order: Then another; and then another. So, within a few years the monastery again became a thriving order of spirituality, and godly-love, thanks to the Rabbi's gift.
How are we to understand this story? Why did monks show such love and mutual respect for each other when they thought the Messiah is in their midst? Was it a love for God, that they showed such care and serve each other?
