Seth Carter

It’s that time of year again! Well, yes, time to watch Connor McDavid heat up the ice, and time to begin debates about whether Taylor Swift … I mean the Kansas City Chiefs, will make it to the Super Bowl. 

But perhaps more urgently, it’s time to begin preparing for Thanksgiving conversations with friends and family! There may be some trepidation about spending time with that one relative or friend, and their conspiracy theories or awkward conversations. (Be careful, if you can’t think of who that person is in your family, it could be you …)

Have you noticed, it’s often the people closest to us who can hurt or irritate us the most? How can we approach them with grace and gentleness? How can we keep from being that person?

Have you also noticed, that the Bible gives much useful and practical help regarding relationships? 

Before we go further, let me be clear: The Bible is primarily God’s communication with us, revealing himself to us so that we can know him and learn how to be reconciled to him. Reading through the Bible, we see God moving closer and closer to mankind, pursuing us even with the climax being when he becomes a man, dies as the ultimate sacrifice for each of us, and thus opens the door for full and unrestricted relationship with the creator God. Pretty great, huh? As it turns out, cultivating a relationship with God will reap large benefits in my other relationships as well.

Our passage for today, Philippians chapter two, gives some insight into this connection. Verse five says, “Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus …” beginning a poetic discourse describing what happened when Jesus came to earth. We learn that he exists as God, and yet emptied himself to assume the form of a servant, “taking on the likeness of humanity.” As if that wasn’t humbling enough, he died a criminal’s execution on a Roman cross. Imagine it! The creator of everything, being tortured and executed by the people he created! The perfect one, shamed and disgraced by the imperfect creation.

As a result of his obedience, he is highly exalted and given a name and place above every name so that he will be worshipped, and God the Father will be glorified. Will you worship him gratefully and willingly today and every day? Will you acknowledge that the horrible death he died was a sacrifice, a death that you and I deserved, and he took that punishment for us? We owe him our life. The death he died for us was a rescue mission. 1 Thessalonians 1:10 says that Jesus “rescues us from the coming wrath.” There is literally and rightfully hell to pay if we don’t receive the gift of Jesus’ death in our place.

What does this have to do with our conversations at Thanksgiving (or anytime)? Let’s back up and look at verses three and four. Before the exhortation to “adopt the same attitude as Jesus,” Paul writes, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others,” in Philippians 2:3-4 (CSB).

My friend Harold frequently says that people do what makes sense to them. This verse indicates that what often makes sense to us, our default approach to life and relationships, is selfishness and/or conceit. Or in other words, “I want it,” and “I deserve it.” 

The apostle Paul instructs us, DON’T live that way. Instead, put on an attitude of humility that seeks to put others first. 

You are welcome to go ahead and try to live this way, to just dig real deep and give kindness and humility your best shot. And it will probably benefit you and your relationships. But you will find that it’s impossible to keep up on your own strength. If you want to play the long game here, you will need something else. Let’s back up further. In verses one and two, Paul uses some intentional phrases. He says, “If there is any encouragement in Christ … any fellowship with the Spirit … make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit and intent on one purpose.”

You see, the advice of Scripture here is valuable, but it will come more naturally to us if we are transformed on the inside, in our spirit! It will bear fruit if we can adopt the attitude that Jesus Christ modeled, but we can only do that if we belong to him. In 2 Corinthians chapter five, verse 17, it says that if we are in Christ, we are a new creation, and the old has passed away from our life and new has come! In this newness, we can begin to apply the relational principles Paul passes on. 

Would you like to experience some refreshing in your relationships? Do you want to have patience and take an interest in the people who you are around? Invite Jesus to be the boss of your life and your relationships. As you surrender your life and decisions and thinking more and more to him and his way of living, you will experience a profound change in the way you see the people around you.

(Seth Carter is director of Campus Ventures in Powell.)