Your Life is about Others Phil 2:3-4 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO
First and foremost your life must be about pleasing God. However, if we are not careful, our thoughts and concerns can become so much about us and our personal relationship to the Lord that we lose sight of others. Your life is about others. You must live for others. Like the old acrostic indicates, to have J.O.Y. you must put Jesus first, Others second and You last.
When Your Life Is About Others, You Will:
Minister To Them
Minister to them – Phil 2:3-4. Other people are not here to minister to you; you are here to minister to them. You are to have compassion on them, to communicate with them, to help them and to preach the gospel to them. Jesus left us an example when he washed the disciples’ feet.
Pray For Them
Pray for them – Col 4:12-13. We spend incredibly little time praying for others and yet this is one of the very best ways to minister to them and to help them. Our officials need our prayers, our families need our prayers, our lost friends, relatives and neighbors need our prayers, our acquaintances who are ill need our prayers, our missionaries need our prayers, etc.
Give To Them
Give to them – Acts 4:32; 2:44-45. In the early church the Christians didn’t consider that the possessions they owned were their own. They considered them “common” like community property. Today many Christians are reluctant to even tithe. The trouble is that now they are concerned about themselves rather than others.
Go To Them
Go to them – Mk 16:15; Rom 10:14-15. We get comfortable in our jobs, in our homes, in our neighborhoods, and so forth and the thought of uprooting to go somewhere to preach the gospel to others is scary. If your heart ever truly becomes more concerned about others than about yourself, you would go anywhere the Lord sent you in order to help them with the gospel.
Spend For Them
Spend for them – 2 Cor 12:15. To spend for someone is to be used up and consumed for them. To have little to no regard for your own life, like Epaphroditus [Phil 2:25-30]. And when your life is about others, you will be spent for them even though they don’t love you back. If you must wait till they love you back, then you are doing it for you; not for them.
Die For Them
Die for them – Matt 27:42. Jesus went to the cross, first, for his Father and then for us. He didn’t go for himself. The martyrs were willing to die for Christ and for those to whom Christ sent them to preach. Like Paul, they did not count their lives dear unto themselves [Acts 20:24].
Conclusion: Who are you living for? Is your life for you or is it for others? If it is not for others then it will never amount to much in the end.