Hold Fast Apologetics

“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 2:3-4

Simply stated, if you are a wife and/or a mom, your spouse and your children are the “others,” first and foremost.

As Nancy Pearcey shares in her book, The Toxic War on Masculinity, the predominant view of men and households prior to the Industrial Revolution was to be “disinterested” in personal gain, & therefore primarily interested in providing for the needs of others.

In order to be disinterested, and therefore able to regard others as more important than ourselves, we need a selfless, charitable love to take over. We need God’s love to take over. F

Friends, in and of ourselves, we are absolutely incapable of loving well. We will always be seeking to do what is our best interest, if left to lean on our own understanding. Therefore, the ability to love without any selfish ambition is a miraculous work, accomplished only by the Holy Spirit who was given to us through the finished work of Jesus in the cross.

With this biblical perspective in view, to be disinterested in “self” and interested in love is to be walking in complete dependency upon the one and only God who modeled this for us!

Jesus, the 2nd Person of the Godhead, humbled himself by putting on humanity with the purpose of going to the cross, dying in our place, and then rising three days later…making a way back to God which only He could make.

To be clear, Jesus never abandoned His Godness. He was fully God the whole time He walked on the earth in human skin. But Jesus was also fully human. We could not be saved unless He was both fully both.

From the human perspective, the cross is the perfect picture of being disinterested. As our interests are often opposed to the good of others. But the perfect character of God has holy interests which are always for our best.

Only God is God. Let God help you today! Put His interests ahead of your own and you will find that live will lead.

Philippians 2

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, ² complete my joy by being of ethe same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³ Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. ⁴ Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. ⁹ Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

¹² Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³ for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

¹⁴ Do all things without grumbling or disputing, ¹⁵ that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,¹⁶ holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. ¹⁷ Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. ¹⁸ Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

¹⁹ I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. ²⁰ For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.²¹ For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. ²² But you know Timothy’s proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.²³ I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me, ²⁴ and I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also.

²⁵ I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, ²⁶ for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. ²⁷ Indeed he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. ²⁸ I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. ²⁹ So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, ³⁰ for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.