In this episode of “Coffee with Phil,” join Phil as he delves into the challenging theme of putting aside selfishness. Phil starts by acknowledging the difficulties of the world we live in and how our natural instincts, rooted in our reptilian brain, often drive us towards self-preservation. Through a personal story and introspection, Phil confronts his own selfishness and invites listeners to do the same.
Phil recounts a recent encounter with an organization aimed at helping church employees find affordable housing. While initially considering his own needs, he realized the importance of addressing selfishness and redirecting focus towards helping those truly in need.
In a thought-provoking discussion, Phil explores reasons we may struggle to trust God, from unmet expectations to holding onto past failures and fears. He emphasizes the need to prioritize loving others, drawing from biblical references that illustrate the significance of sacrificial love. Phil encourages listeners to face their weaknesses, trust God, and choose to love and serve others selflessly, ultimately guiding them towards a life marked by diminished selfishness and greater compassion.
Join Phil on this reflective journey towards putting aside selfishness and embracing a life of genuine love and service.
BONUS CONTENT
- Bible Reference: John 15:13 Ephesians 5:1-2 Ephesians 5:22-25
- Previous Episode: Episode 46
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Introduction
Good day, and welcome to the podcast. Welcome to coffee with Phil, and it’s a pleasure to be with you today, enjoying a very, very nice coffee this morning. The second one of the morning, to be honest. The beans are fresh, and the coffee is good, so life is able to function, according to my world.
Hey, I want to thank you. For joining me today, I want to thank you for being part of the podcast community, and I want to thank you for helping by spreading the good news and sharing these episodes. If you could do me a favour and jump on your social media and share one of the podcasts, that would be fantastic. The easiest thing to do is just to click the episode and click the share button on Spotify, Apple, or Google. And share it to your social media, that would be great. And tell people why you like it. You know, that would be interesting.
Anyway, today I want to talk about something that is fresh, raw, and real for me, and the heading of today’s podcast is ‘put aside selfishness.’ Put aside selfishness. and I’m going to explain what I mean by that by telling you a story about something that happened to me just this week. There’s an introduction, though.
I would say that we live in a tough world. We live in a world that beats us up. It batters us. It buffers us. The storms come. We have to climb hills. We have to walk through valleys. We have to fight things opposing us. Sometimes that looks like people. But look, our natural instinct is to protect ourselves. We have got this thing built into our brains. The creator of heaven and earth, who created all of the intricacies of the human body, mind, and emotion, put this part in our brain; that’s called the reptilian brain. And the reptilian brain is right in the centre of the brain. In the amygdala. And it’s something that bypasses logic and causes us to react, and you might have heard it mentioned before as a natural tendency to fight or flight.
So, when the body is flooded with adrenaline due to circumstances, our body reacts in a way that causes our brain to react. Whether fight or flight, and so for those of you that are part of my church family, you have heard me speak about this previously with emotions. But you know, this is really handy. When we were cavemen and women and the Sabre tooth tiger turned up and wanted to eat our children, our brain was flooded with that adrenaline that caused our body to respond to our brain with a fight or flight. Now that we live in a world that is modern and easy, most of you listening to this will be living in the top 5% of affluence in the world because you can afford three meals a day. Our bodies get flooded with adrenaline when our comfort is threatened. And the reptilian brain drives us to either fight or flight.
And what I would propose to you right now in this podcast is that often comes out in selfishness. A defence mechanism that kicks in is driven by selfishness. Now that’s whether we fight or whether we fly. I’m proposing to you. I’m confessing to you that this comes out in selfishness, and so I want to tell you a story that’s happened this week as a way to explain that, and then I want to talk about, you know, do we want to face our selfishness? Is there a chance we’re not trusting God? And then some keys on how we might put aside our selfishness.
A story as evidence
So let me tell you a story. So just this week I had a meeting with an organisation called Christian Savings, a New Zealand-based organisation that lends money to charities, mostly those that look like charitable groups in the community or churches that are looking to extend their mission. So, just think they’re like a bank. They also take deposits, which is how they operate. And so, we as a church, we’ve got a relationship with Christian Savings in a multiple difference of ways. And we had a meeting this week where we were discussing local projects.
And so, I was in a meeting with the CEO of Christian Savings and the CFO of another charitable organisation. We’re working with them myself, and we were just talking about how we want to work together to fund the mission and esteem what we’re doing like in the course of that conversation.
One of the projects that was brought up by Christian Savings, and I’ll mention this because it’s a work in progress. It’s not something that you could access necessarily without contacting them, but it’s a project where they’re looking to extend borrowing for church employees or church servants [which could be paid or unpaid], which includes ministers like youth pastors or administrative staff. And they are looking to offer friendly borrowing terms to help church people get into property and have a home. Now, I must say, this is where my selfishness just kicked in. I was like, “Hey, that’s me. That’s me. I could be someone that could be helped by this.” You know, Kathy and I have borrowings, and the interest rates are crippling. It would be really nice to have some relief so that we weren’t so stretched in these economic times. The cost of living has increased. I just put some gas in my car, and I had to chop off one of my arms to pay for it. You know, it’s a joke, but the point is, I’m looking at this and going, “This is all about me.”
And so, part of the follow-up email conversation that I had with Dan, the CEO of Christian Savings, I put in the end of the email, “Hey, look, I was really interested and excited to hear about your new product that you’re looking to test in the market. And by the way, I think I’m one of those guys that could be eligible, and is there any way that we could look into that?” And he sent me an email this morning, and he said, “Hey, thanks for your inquiry. Yes, we’re looking into it. We’re still testing it, but we’re really looking to start by helping people who don’t currently own a home.” And in that moment, I confess to you, friends, that I was stopped in my tracks. That’s a game-changer kind of moment for me because I suddenly was faced with my own selfishness.
Now, Dan didn’t imply that; he didn’t say that he was very accurate in what he was saying, but I suddenly realised in the face of that email conversation that I had put my needs above others. And in fact, you know, we already own a home. In fact, we own two homes that we’re doing; we’re doing OK, and life’s not easy. Life’s not comfortable, but certainly we’re not struggling with the goal of owning our first home.
And I suddenly realised that the whole point of this product was to actually be friendly towards those who have not had the opportunity to buy a house. And in that, I saw my own ugly selfishness, self-promotion, and trying to make my life easy. And I’m confessing to this because I think I do this all the time, and I wonder if you do it all the time, and so that’s the whole point of this conversation. It is for me to confess some stuff and go look. I’m trying to put aside my selfishness. I wonder if you’re going to try it also.
And at that moment, I must have been sitting there with my morning coffee. It was delish because, as I said, the beans are. Fresh, the coffee’s good, and I’m like, “Do I really want to face this?” This is a piece of the ugly that I want to bring out onto the table, and then I had to ask myself, “Is this a piece of my ugly that I’m prepared to share on the podcast?” And I just felt the Holy Spirit remind me that that’s the whole point that we talk about—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and that today I’m bringing the ugly to the table.
Be willing to face selfishness
So, I have to ask myself, am I willing to face my selfishness? And in that, I’m digging a little deeper today, and I’m saying, what’s driving my need to preserve myself? You know, the reptilian brain kicks in the fight or flight defence mechanisms. Selfishness comes when we try to preserve ourselves. And in that I’ve got a whole lot of contemplation to do. So, as I sat there with my morning coffee this morning, I was thinking, what is revealed when I face the weakness or the exposed need that I have? You know, because the reptilian brain is really responding to an exposed need, fear, or threat, and threat comes through weakness. You’re facing a Sabre-tooth tiger, an animal that’s much stronger and quicker and has sharper teeth than you, and you’re just this puny little white boy. I’m talking about myself here.
And so, when I face that, my weakness is revealed. And so, what’s underneath it? And so, when I see selfishness exposed in my own motives and my own behaviour, I try to reach out to someone so that they might help me. I suddenly realised, as I was sitting at my breakfast bar this morning, drinking my coffee, that all I’m trying to do is take my problem and make it someone else’s problem. And I’m going to talk about that in a context of faith shortly. But, you know, there’s a saying that we have in our office, in a joking kind of way, as we’re saying, “Is this a me problem or is this a we problem? Are you trying to make your problem my problem, or would you like to fix your problem?” And the reason that we talk like that is really because we’re about helping each other, but we’re not about stepping on top of each other or taking away the opportunity. Someone has to walk through, work through, and grow through the challenges that they’re facing.
So, each one of us in this moment has got to choose what we’re going to do when we’re faced with our weakness. And in my case, what I’m saying is what I’m going to do when I’m faced with my selfishness. I was trying to superimpose my circumstances where it wasn’t needed, or, as you know, in the case of this product design that they’re doing, it wasn’t being designed to help someone like me.
And so, my selfishness is about self-promotion and self-preservation. And I really discovered that this morning I can’t make that someone else’s problem. What I’m going to choose to do about that, well, ultimately, guys, you know, we’ve talked recently about faith. We’ve talked about going through dark seasons and dark nights of the soul as it were. And in that, I’ve been promoting and presenting to you that this is all an opportunity for us to turn ourselves or turn our attention and our focus away from ourselves. You know that we will turn our attention back to God, who is the father of all of his creation. And in that moment, we would get ourselves connected with him in a way where he would prove that he cares about us.
By the way he interacts with us. You know, in a completely different context. So, I was just having a chat with another person this week who’s going through some hell in his world in his language. And we started talking just on Monday this week. So, five days ago, we started talking about how God might reveal himself through the absolute horrific challenges that this guy’s facing, and you know what? Today he’s saying things have turned around; I’ve just been offered some work out of the blue that’s rescuing me. My guy’s next week, he said. I feel a lot more peaceful. I’ve put my burdens in a box, and that means I’m not carrying them. I’m feeling a lot more at peace, and I’m seeing a turnaround. Here’s my point. When we become selfish and we think about ourselves as the highest priority, we actually diminish the space. What’s a better way to say that we close the door in the face of God, who wants to be our helper.
Now I’m not a fan of promoting God as the one who rescues us out of our stupidity every time we need it, but I’m certainly not going to deny the reality that I see in scripture from the first page to the last page, when God turns up because he cares about his people.
And so, I want to just move a little bit further along in my thinking. And I sat there this morning in the face of this confrontation that I had, where I realised I was being selfish, and I had to ask myself, “Am I willing to face my selfishness? What’s driving my need to preserve myself?” And then I said, “Is there any chance I’m not trusting God?” and that took me a while to walk through.
So, I’m wrestling with this, and I’m asking what the reasons are that I don’t trust God. What might be the evidence in the face of this accusation? You know, we often laugh and say, “Is there any evidence in the court of heaven that you would be proven to be a Christian or a believer in Jesus?” Well, I would flip that in my circumstance this morning, I’m saying to myself, what’s the evidence that would demonstrate that you’re not trusting God?
Is there any chance we’re not trusting God?
One of the reasons… And hey, I’ve just written five things down. Just five, would you believe that? Because I’m thinking about, you know, so many different areas of my life. I’m thinking about the people that I’m journeying with. I’m thinking about the past. I’m thinking about the future. And so, you know, is there any chance I’m not trusting God? Well, you know, there’s lots of reasons why we don’t. And I’m just going to go through them, and then we might decide if that’s a possibility.
The first reason that we don’t trust God in my experiences is that God does not meet our expectations. With regards to outcomes or time, you know, if you have someone you work with and they let you down a couple of times in that they don’t meet your expectations, then your trust in that person is naturally going to be diminished until they demonstrate to you that they can earn back that trust by meeting expectations, clarifying expectations, and talking about them.
So, I’m not talking about performance-based, conditional love. I’m talking about when we have an expectation, whether it’s right or wrong; when that expectation is not met, trust is diminished, and so, you know, there’s plenty of stories in my life where I’ve been in prayer before the Lord, saying, “Hey, this didn’t go the way I thought it would. God, where were you?” And God says, “Well, I was right there, but I never, ever promised you that it was going to happen the way you wanted it to. And in fact, I can see things you can’t see, and my timing is better than your timing. And if you trust me, then you’ll let me work this out for your good in the way that I know will be better for you.”
And that’s where I come back to a place of saying, “Well, God, I have to decide if I want to trust you when you don’t do it the way I want you to do it.” Because you know to be selfish would be to say God do it my way, then I won’t have to. Go through the pain that I’m experiencing, so I’ll just let that sit with you and see what you think.
#2 for me is the difficulty of letting go of control. And so, we often pray. “Lord, would you help me?” And then we get on and do the very thing we asked God to do. You know it’s like in the house here. And I say to Kathy… She’s currently struggling with her health. And I’m saying, “Well, don’t make the bed; I’ll do it. It’s just a simple task, but it takes you an hour and a half,” and her breathing is challenged. And yet, sometimes she comes out, you know, sounding like a steam train. And I ask, “Did you make the bed again?” And she goes, “Oh, well, you know, I need to see it done.” I’m like, well, if you wait until I’m back in the bedroom,” and I’m showering and dressing, “I’ll see the bed, and I’ll make the bed. It won’t be a problem.” But you know, their ability to let go of control often gives evidence that proves that we do not trust something or someone, and, in this case, I’m saying, “God, go put the bed making aside.” You know, when God doesn’t do things, we take control, and then that is really our problem, but we’ve shut the door on God, and look, for a long time, I would say I was in control always. And so, there it was; it was very obvious that I wasn’t trusting God.
#3: The reason that we don’t trust God is that we’ve experienced public failure. We’ve experienced significant loss, or we’ve experienced shame. And our reptilian brain says I will not put myself in that position again, and that’s, you know, that’s really coming back to that idea of self-preservation. I want to preserve myself, which is the manifestation of selfishness, which is then the issue that shuts the door to allow God to move in our world.
#4 I was reading Scripture as I do for study and preparation, and I saw patterns that, time and time again, the people of God will replace God with idols. Now we don’t put up a shrine or put up a sheer pole; we don’t put up a wooden statue and bow down to worship it. But we could replace God with the idol of luxury, the idol of Netflix, the idol of sin, or the idol of relationship. And this is often done for self-gratification; it’s often done for pleasure. It’s often done because we want to feel good about ourselves, and if God feels absent, we replace him by making ourselves feel good, and that is selfish. Remember, we’re trying to avoid selfishness, and that we’re trying to put aside selfishness, so when we replace God with idols, we are truly seeking our needs above anything else, and that’s selfish.
And lastly, in this list #5, for is there any reason we don’t trust God? While we have been delivered from Egypt, there’s still Egypt inside of us. You know, there’s that analogy where God took Israel out of Egypt, but it took 40 years in the desert to get Egypt out of Israel. And the mindset is that Israel was programmed over 400 years in Egypt to be slaves. They worked long, long days, seven days a week. They were given food. But that was it, and they had nothing to claim as their own making bricks for the Pharaoh to establish his kingdom.
And yet, when God set them free miraculously with the, you know, the 10 magnificent miraculous signs that got them out of Egypt, he delivered them through the waters of Baptism, the Red Sea, and they were still slaves. They still were slaves, and I think sometimes we don’t embrace the royalty of our salvation, and we cling to the slavery of our past because it’s what we know. And sometimes we don’t need to make ourselves vulnerable. And I think that’s a form of selfishness when you won’t make yourself vulnerable for God or others; you’re being selfish by holding back who you are and exposing yourself to someone else, and that works in relationships with other people and your loved ones.
But it also works in your relationship with God, because if you don’t expose yourself and your vulnerability before God and trust him, then you’re being selfish in what you’re experiencing. So, all of these things I’m sharing, I just wonder, is there any chance that you’re not trusting God? like this is what I’m working through. This is what I’m trying to face when understanding why I try to preserve myself in selfishness, and so I wonder if that’s the same for you.
How do I put aside selfishness?
So, as I close this, I really wanted to share with you what I came to this morning in my musing and pondering as I spent time having a coffee with the Lord, as I love to do, and I found the single key is this. Love other people as Christ is loving you. And that puts aside… It forces you to put aside selfishness, and so for me, what I’m saying is, how do I get down low in order to lift others up to serve others? and as I do that, I take my focus and my attention off myself. Because isn’t that what Christ did?
You’re the Philippians too. It says Christ put aside all his divinity and everything else seeking to serve us, even to the point of death on a cross. Jesus is the best example of this.
You know, I’ve got some scriptures here. I just want to give you these scriptures because I want you to understand that scripture underpins the way that we should live in order to experience a lack of selfishness or a diminishing selfishness.
John Chapter 15, verse 13, in the Garden, Jesus is talking to his friends. And he said, I’m loving you in the same way the father loved me. And then he says this: “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” In the context of marriage. We have an example in Ephesians Chapter 5. When you know Paul is writing and he’s saying wives, you got to submit to your husbands, and they were like, woohoo, all the boys say, and then he says, and husbands, you should love your wife as Christ loved the church, and doing so, he laid down his life to the point of death for the church.
And so, husbands, that means that we should lay down our lives for others, and so there’s this idea here that we just need to understand more about what God is saying to us with this principle of being unselfish.
And finally, at the beginning of that passage, I was reading it just as I was preparing some things. And Paul again, in Ephesians, said right at the beginning of the chapter, Imitate God therefore and everything you do because you’re his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ, he loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us as a pleasing aroma to God.
And so, I’m reminding myself here that the way to put aside selfishness is to literally put to death the flesh and the need of the flesh, and I’m finding the way that I do that is to find ways to serve others and love. To give myself unto another in a way that meets their need, not my need, puts their need before my need. And that way, we can put to death the selfishness that is plaguing us.
I would just want to finish by saying this is not easy. This is challenging. What I’m trying to confess here, I suppose, is just the regular need we have to sit and spend time with the Lord and ask him to reveal these things. Am I willing to face those things that God reveals? And in that, am I willing to trust God to allow him to work with the weakness of my flesh that plagues me in order to become more like Jesus?
And lastly, I would just say this in the midst of these situations: I always find it really helpful to ask Jesus to reveal himself, you know, so I’m facing selfishness today, and I’m saying, “Jesus, would you also come and reveal yourself in the midst of this situation?” And I find myself just remembering how close Jesus is to me, that whilst I might look ugly in the face of ugly in the face of selfishness. Jesus loves me in that, and he washes me in there, and, you know, so just right now, I don’t want you to feel any condemnation.
I’m just rebuking any self-condemnation that is coming upon people right now. Condemnation is not the work of God. It’s the work of the enemy. He’s trying to lock you into shame. He’s trying to lock you into a dark corner. In this rebuke, self-condemnation would come upon any person listening right now, and I would say to you, if you’re feeling shameful, turn, turn right now, turn your face towards Jesus, and Jesus will smile upon you. He will love you, and he will wash you. He will wash you of the dirty shame that the devil’s trying to clothe you with, and he will release you to receive his forgiveness. He will love you, and he will lead you into a life of purity.
So, God bless you as you do that. I’m receiving that for myself right now. I’m walking in the righteousness of Christ into my day. I think I’m going to go and make some lunch now because I’m feeling quite hungry. Well, God bless you. Thanks for joining coffee with Phil today. I look forward to catching up with you next time on the episode. Don’t forget to share, subscribe, and enjoy. Coffee with Phil Take care.