Ok, I suck for this. I started a series of posts about a month ago on redefining humility. I said I would continue it regularly. I have not. Forgive me? Thanks.

You can catch up here and here.

Now, the answer to the question… 5 weeks after I asked it:
1. What went wrong with Pastor Jones?
2. What’s the problem with Philippians 2:3, which tells you to regard one another as more important than yourselves?

I’ll answer the second question, then move toward the first:

Philippians 2:3 doesn’t say “regard one another as more important than the will of God for your life.”
The point is: others are more important than your selfish desires. (Check the first half of Philippians 2:3).

Now it makes sense. Considering others as more important than myself might look like this (for me):

1. Instead of buying another iPod, I send a special gift to Tushabe, our Compassion International kid this Christmas.
2. When Holly asks me: “You or me?” early in the AM when Elijah starts babbling, I get up, change his diaper, get his bottle, and bring him upstairs, with a good attitude, before his babbling turns to whining, which turns to screaming.
3. I order my life around discerning and affirming the gifts and talents of others, and spend myself and leverage my leadership trying to help them surface.

What this should not look like for me (or Pastor Jones, or any other pastor, or any other person):

1. I spend the whole evening on my cell phone solving other people’s problems while my son and wife wait for anything resembling my attention.
(Remember, my wife and my son are others too, and they are the highest ranking others in my life.)
This is not humility or selflessness. This is poor prioritization.
It’s why Pastor Jones freaked out, and it’s enough to tear apart any family.

2. I let other people’s self inflicted emergencies dictate the course of my day, doing the most urgent thing rather than the most important thing.
Pastors particularly struggle with this when it comes to preparing sermons. Sermon preparation will wait, the logic goes, sick people need me now. So preachers end up with a half baked sermon and catastrophic stress on Saturday night.
This is not humility or selflessness either. It is poor planning.
I decided when we started the church that the main thing I could do to put others first as a preacher of the gospel was to tell a few others no so I could speak a fresh Word from the Lord to hundreds of others every single Sunday.

3. I play humble pie and “Aw shucks” my life away. Humility is not denying the gifts that are in you: “Well, I’m not much of a preacher/leader/whatever”.

Humility is having a correct view of God and a correct view of you.
It is recognizing your gifts, realizing constantly that they come from Jesus, and giving them back to Him wholeheartedly and confidently every single moment of every single day.

When we live like this, God is honored and people were blessed.

This series may be continued, but no promises this time!