Philippians 2:4: “Each of you should be concerned not only about your own interests, but about the interests of others as well.”

That Paul needed to say this means it is not who we are naturally. Naturally, everybody is concerned about their own interests and not the interests of others. That is just the truth.

Paul wrote about Timothy and said that everybody else is concerned about their own things and not the things of the Lord Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:19–21). So what are the things of the Lord Jesus Christ? They are His people—the other believers—showing concern and love for other believers.

1 Corinthians 13 tells us that if I have all these gifts and I do not have love, then it is empty. It is not going to hit the right target. I am not going to be effective if I do not have love. If the overarching drive is not love—my concern for other people, my spending my time because of concern for other people and how other people can be helped—then I miss the point.

Peter also wrote that as each of you has received a gift, “use it to serve one another as good stewards of the varied grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10, NET). So because of this native state of people just being concerned about their own interests, some want to use a lot of manipulation tactics, fear‑mongering, pressure tactics to get people to do stuff. Which, in my opinion, becomes counterproductive, because that is not the way of Christ.

The way of Christ is not to “lord it over those entrusted to you,” as Peter wrote, but to be “examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:3). When you are putting pressure and trying to manipulate, you are lording it over the Lord’s heritage.

Look at what Paul is not doing here. Paul is not threatening hellfire. He is not saying, “If you do not show concern about other people, you…” what? No. He is saying, “Look at Christ” as the example, as you see in this passage. He was not concerned about Himself. Paul wants to motivate you in a Christ‑centered way. He does not want to motivate you by threatening you with hellfire. He does not want to motivate you by saying, “I am not going to like you if you do not do exactly what I want.”

Rather, he is saying, “Look at Jesus.” The very next verse, Philippians 2:5, says, “You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had.” So he is saying, “You should be mirroring Christ.”

And that is a powerful motivation. Which is stronger: “Something bad is going to happen to you if you do not do this,” or “Mirror Christ—you have been remade to mirror Christ”? That is why I am focused on motivation. You want people to do something, but how are you going about persuading them? That is important. That is as important as the thing you want to persuade them to do.

Paul clearly here is trying to persuade people to do something. He wants them to be different from how they already are. And his persuasion is: “Each of you should be concerned not only about your own interests, but about the interests of others as well.” Let us dial it up a little bit. Let us be transformed in that area of showing concern for other people and not just about ourselves.

And you see in this passage that the exemplar is Christ. We are not just saved because of Christ; we are also transformed because of Him. That is why He lived His life as we have it written in the Scriptures. He lived this life and became an example for us. He said, “I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27).

God bless you.