The "Last" Will Be Greatest...
But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." --Matthew 20: 25-28
No self-respecting human wants to be in last place, let alone be someone else's servant. Do we enjoy serving others, sure we can get joy from doing something nice for other people, but "they better not think they're better than me." Without the Holy Spirit, that passage in Matthew would be the most neglected in the Christian life despite it being the most essential. As much faith as it takes to get ourselves to the belief that God is who he says he is, the same amount is required for us to live in this manner where others are above us.
Again, this is more than being nice to people, this is us believing we should lose to others--that others should win. And to add salt to our wounded pride, we shouldn't necessarily standby and let them pass us, but we should help them win (help them "beat us"). Some already see this as obvious and live it out, while others, like me, are trying to find a loophole or a different meaning to what this means, because we think it's foolish to help others beat us so we lose, it's silly. "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;"--1 Corinthians 1:27
One of my favorite movies is a Pixar movie, Cars, and I can remember the first time I watched it was at my wife's house (then fiancee) and the scene at the end got to me (I won't get into how much). If you remember the scene then you know, but if you don't [SPOILER]:
Lightning McQueen has been in Radiator Springs going through a maturing & humbling moment; after spending some time with a lowly, neglected group of people (and, of course, Doc) he had a change in spirit where he went from someone who wanted to be the greatest in racing, focused only on his success, his accolades, and his ability to beat anyone to now he sees others as having value and meaning.
So at the end of the movie when he finally makes it to this big race where he has the opportunity to win the major championship against two of the best in racing he sees things differently. As he approaches the finish line to take 1st place, he looks back and sees one of the opponents (King), who was older and was going to make this his last race; King had crashed, unable to finish the last run he'll ever do. So Lightning stops right at the finish line not crossing it, letting the 3rd racer (Chic), who was the antagonist, win so he could drive back to King; Lightning, a character who at the beginning of the movie wanted to beat everyone so he could show the world everyone was a loser compared to him, goes to the crashed racer, gets behind him and pushes him to the finish line so the old timer could finish his last race.
This last scene is a perfect example of how we should view winning; Chic "won" the biggest race in the industry, but what Lightning did was honorable. No one appreciates when we don't put our best effort in and passively let others pass by us, that's not how we let others win, instead people love it when we give our best and work hard to help others win.
We as Christians aren't told to not try so others seem better, we are told to do our best for the glory of God, but what's different is in the Kingdom being the best means being the greatest helper. We still need to use that competitive spirit so we can do better than we did the day before and, also, to outdo each other in love.
Way of the Dragon, Way of the Lamb
We are to do our best at everything we do, that is a directive from God; we are, also, to be humble, but it's easy to confuse that with being modest.
"Modest refers to a person's opinion of themselves. Humble refers to a person's behavior with respect to others. A person is modest when they do not boast or brag and when they tend to downplay their own abilities. A person is humble when they show deference and a willingness to submit to others." English.stackexhange.com
This confusion is why we sometimes justify the arrogant, because they'll say modest things once in a while or do nice things here and there; but, we won't see humility out of them, they still have a spirit of the "powerful" dragon. They want to serve themselves. They want to be served by others. However, humility in Christ is what reverses that and helps us to be the ones that want to serve others. It's what helps us follow the way of lowly Lamb. This is a key to the Kingdom's culture, by living this way, others will help us win.
My prayer in this is that the American church sees the good in trying not to be like Mike, but like Christ.
Read More: Church Socialism 2/5
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