Consumed With Selfies and Self Promotion

In case you’re not up to speed with the digital age and current trends in American/Western culture, a selfie isn’t about sex.  A selfie is a picture you take of yourself with your phone or mobile device to post to Facebook, Twitter or other social media platforms.  The occasional selfie isn’t bad – after all, social media is a way that we connect with friends and others in our lives and share what’s going on in our lives.  It’s fun to see pics of my friends enjoying life and having a good time.  And I enjoy taking pictures of my kids and our family, and sharing with friends the things that are happening in our lives. 

But for a follower of Jesus Christ, we really need to ask ourselves what we’re promoting in our lives.  On social media.  In our relationships – at home, at work and in our communities.  In a culture consumed with selfies and self-promotion, have we become consumed with those things or are we consumed with bringing glory and honor to the name of Jesus Christ above all else.

The Apostle Paul was acutely aware of this struggle in his own life, and in today’s reading from Philippians 3, God uses him to speak to us about this very thing. 

Backtracking for a minute to yesterday’s reading from Philippians 2:3-5, Paul writes these words: “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.  You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.”

If anybody in history was every worthy of being consumed with selfies and self-promotion it was Jesus.  The perfect and sinless Lamb of God.  And yet as Paul describes what the attitude of Christ is, that we should reflect in our lives, he uses words and phrases like this:

           

 He gave up his divine privileges (v.7)

            He took the humble position of a slave (v.7)

            He humbled himself in obedience (v.8)

            Died a criminal’s death on a cross (v.8)

Giving up on the idea of promoting ourselves and our own self-interests is no easy or small thing, but it’s a necessary thing if we’re going to live for Jesus and die to ourselves.  Especially when we think we’ve got a message, product or service that we believe in and think would benefit others. 

Paul was a man with a highly impressive spiritual pedigree and had every reason to promote himself.  In Philippians 3:5&6, he lays out his impressive qualifications with regard to the strictest adherence of the Jewish law. 

But in v.v. 7&8, he tells us what we need to hear: “I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.  Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ . . .”

Here’s something that makes a lot of nice, well behaved Christians squirm.  The words that we read as “worthless” and "garbage" in the original Greek text is “animal excrement.”  Cow patty.  Doggy doo.  Pig slop.  Go ahead and let that sink in for a second. 

All the things that we think make us self-important are crap.  When we are consumed with selfies and self-promotion, we are rolling in crap.  When we are consumed with work titles and recognition; making more money; climbing the corporate ladder; having the biggest and nicest toys in the neighborhood and whatever else we can do to build up our egos, we are rolling in crap. 

The one thing – the Only Thing – worth promoting in our lives is Jesus Christ.  In v.9, Paul promotes the fact that it is Jesus that has made him righteous, and not all of the hard work he did to keep the law.  In v.v.9&10, Paul promotes the fact that his desire in life is to really become one with Christ; to know Christ and to live by the power that raised him from the dead.  Paul promotes the value of suffering with Jesus and sharing in his death by dying to our desire for self-promotion so that we will experience fully the resurrection. 

That’s a pretty radical way to live, and an incredibly difficult life to promote. 

Humble as always, Paul admits in v.v. 12-14 that this is a daily, life-long battle for him.  He’s not there yet.  You and I aren’t either.  So how do we get there?

We focus on what really matters: eternal things and not temporal things. 

It doesn’t mean we have to be poor – God’s Word never tells us that poverty is a requirement for righteousness or holiness.  Enjoy what God has given you in the material realm – financial wealth; a nice house and the ability to live a life of financial stability.  But realize that there’s not going to be a U Haul behind the hearse at your funeral.  Enjoy what God has given you, and share it with others so that they can be blessed. 

It doesn’t mean that we live as desert monks and never enjoy life – the life of Jesus was full of rich, life-giving relationships; shared meals and shared experiences with friends.  Take pictures and share the fullness and richness of the life that God has blessed you with on social media, but be sure to equally share what Jesus means to you and how you are being transformed by his power.

Focusing on eternal things means that we realize the high price that Jesus paid for our salvation and that we live to reflect that reality in our own lives.  Focusing on eternal things means that we promote and live out the reality of a resurrected life, bearing witness to the reality that Jesus changes and transforms lives today, just as He did 2,000 years ago.  Focusing on eternal things means that we don’t find our fulfillment in crap, but that we find everything we’ve ever wanted and needed through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Focusing on eternal things means that Jesus is everything to us!