Unity and humility

A Christ-like attitude is the key to this unity. Any disunity in the church would have detracted from Paul’s ‘joy’ (2:2). Disunity so often comes from ‘selfish ambition and vain conceit’ (v.3a). The key is to consider others better than yourself (v.3b), to look not only to your own interests, ‘but also to the interests of others’ (v.4). ‘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’ (vv.3–4, MSG). In other words, you are to have the same attitude as Jesus, who let go of his natural, legal and social status, and made himself ‘nothing’. He took ‘the very nature of a servant… he humbled himself’ and ‘became obedient to death – even death on a cross!’ (vv.7–8). He took the path of downward mobility, humble service and unselfish love. If you are ever anxious about your relative status, remember that Jesus made himself lower than we could ever imagine.