The Kingdom Way Part 1: Radical Self-Effacement
“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” ~Philippians 2:3
The Challenge
In local church ministry, we place a fairly high value on the ability to motivate, and trying to convince people to integrate certain ideals into their daily life is a big part of my job. You might understand the difficulty then, when the most successful Implementor — the Head, one might say — ended up dying after practicing one of these core ideals. In my experience, it can be difficult to convince people to implement a way of life that, if successful, may bring them similar discomfort, pain, and yes, even eventual death.
“Follow in His footsteps,” we say. “It’ll be fun,” we say.
Indeed, the better that someone exercises this way of life, the more dangerous that life becomes. This deadly, dangerous way of life is that of radical self-effacement. When we sign on to become a Christian, we sign on to die. To put others first. To live as Christ did. Actively considering others as more important than oneself has harsh implications for the way in which we live our lives. In fact, this way of Jesus is so foreign to our 21st century sensibilities, that to do what it implies puts us sharply at odds with the narrative of the world.
Lowness of Heart
Allow me to paint the picture. Rather, follow along as the Scripture paints its own picture. In Matthew 11:29 Jesus calls His own nature gentle and lowly of heart. I love the way Jesus communicates His default nature and posture. He could have just said, “I am humble, therefore follow me,” but this would not have communicated the picture adequately enough. Neither would claims of meekness, quietness, or any other adjectival term. Rather, to be low in heart goes beyond personality or vague description and hits to the makeup of the man. This is our model.
Let’s continue.
Romans 12:2–3 says,
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”
There is a pattern to this world. Look around and you’ll see. Personal branding has become the new safe sin for Christians and pagans alike. Yet according to Paul, we need a radical mind transformation if we would ever hope to break the pattern - one of self-betterment, self-exaltation, and self-promotion. But this “lowness of heart” doesn’t end with what we don’t do when tempted to ascend. Or was it merely in passing that Jesus, in His sermon on Kingdom living in Luke 6:28, gives the startling reversal: “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” If it were, Paul wouldn’t have spent precious letter space to repeat it almost word-for-word in his letter to the church in Rome (12:14). Gentleness and lowness of heart apparently has as much to do with what you do when threatened as it does with what you don’t do when not. Peter goes on to say in 1 Peter 3:9, “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.” You want to succeed? Make life better for those who make your life worse.
“Personal branding has become the new safe sin for Christians and pagans alike.”
How many of us would claim that we answer that slanderous, ignorant social media post with genuine, non-ironic kindness? Try it, and you’ll see that it’s easy to affirm, it’s much harder to practice.
There is an abundance of additional Scriptural support. I won’t list them all, but do a quick Google search. It’s all there. Interestingly, what’s not there is anything about:
1) Sticking up for your rights,
2) Claiming all the liberties afforded by your government or
3) Affirming the values of the culture.
As Christians we simply do not have the biblical grounds to “stick up” for ourselves in the way we are accustomed to thinking about it. The defining difference between the defense that Jesus would regularly offer up and the kind we like to claim for ourselves is that Jesus would fiercely defend the principles, truths, and ways of the Kingdom of God. His passionate display at the temple was clearly not rooted in any personal stake, but in that of zeal for the dwelling place of the Lord. Maybe you, like me, have heard it said that because our bodies are the current dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, we should have similar zeal for our own personal self-defense. This obvious fallacy has done more violence to the cause of Christ than so much unbelieving slander of the church has ever done.
We shoot the Kingdom in the proverbial foot, all because we can’t take a punch.
This concept is worthy of deep examination in every believer. The posture we hold towards those who wrong us is the mark of one who deeply believes not only that 1) Jesus has truly forgiven our every wrong, no matter how heinous but also that 2) Jesus will do adequate justice for every wrong done to us. Mounting counter-offensives because of damages done blatantly ignores Romans 12:19 which says, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” [emphasis mine]. We see that if we take vengeance for ourselves, we lessen the room that God has to deal judgement on our behalf. Our disbelief has given way to a hyper-defensive, nationalistic brand of Christianity that will gladly scream about the rights we possess as citizens of the world, but has no room for the true gospel of Jesus to which we are to be enslaved.
“Our disbelief has given way to a hyper-defensive, nationalistic brand of Christianity that will gladly scream about the rights we possess as citizens of the world, but has no room for the true gospel of Jesus to which we are to be enslaved.”
Freedom and Slavery
What, then, do we make of our nationally-provided rights afforded to those of us in first-world contexts? Scripture is lined with the narrative of the enemies of the people of God promising a greater volume of “freedoms” than what the Lord offers. Going all the way back to the snake in the garden offering Eve early access to wisdom if she would but claim the opportunity afforded her. Babylon offered Daniel and his friends wide dietary flexibility, as did every nation that would ultimately enslave God’s people. How often, I wonder, do we circumvent the “restrictions” of God just before He would make the restriction obsolete?
We have no reason to think that God would have never taught Adam and Eve the differences between “tov” and “ra” (good and bad). Similarly, the dietary restrictions were eventually removed for God’s people. Our problem, then, is likely not that we don’t want God to act on our behalf, rather that we don’t want to wait for His timing. The narrative that we deserve greater freedom than what the Lord offers is not new, so it shouldn’t surprise us if our flesh still longs for additional freedoms today. Yet we have proven that we can’t be trusted with absolute freedom to act as we wish. This doesn’t mean that we never will, but should push us towards the hope of our eternal home with Jesus forever.
Measures of Faith
You might be like me, in that very few things offend my sensibilities more than being blamed for something I didn’t do. It’s a natural human response to react against harm done to us. Yet it is with this lens that we can fully appreciate John 16:33 when Jesus warns that we will have trouble. His encouragement in light of it? To take heart, for He has overcome the world. That means that every unfair word about you at work, every hypocritical act by a spouse, every attack to your character, every cheat, scandal, curse, or harm must end with a strict non-retaliation policy from that of the believer.
We will all be able to accomplish this to different degrees. Paul qualifies in Romans 12:3 that the measure to which this radical self-effacement can take place will happen “according to the measure of faith” given to each believer. So my encouragement to you, reader, is the same to myself: eagerly long for that kind of faith. Pray for it. Exercise it, and watch it grow like a well-toned muscle. Know that it’s not just about when you don’t return an insult for an insult, but it’s about how you serve your accuser. How every desire of every other person comes before every desire of your own. Forget the self-care model as described by every would-be Instagram blogger, and let’s learn the better way. The Kingdom Way.
