When We Serve
Pat Steeves · Tidal Church Moncton · February 8, 2026 · How Do We Change the World? series
Pat Steeves explores Philippians 2:3-11, showing that real change begins with humility and a servant's heart. Selfishness grows from pride, but Jesus gave up His own way in obedience to God, and we can follow His example in our relationships and daily lives.
More from Pat Steeves · The How Do We Change the World? series
Topics: Relationships, Mission & Outreach, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] Everybody fired up this morning? Welcome to Second Service. We are starting a brand new series entitled How Do We Change the World? Now, I don't know about you, but that's kind of an intimidating topic where I'm given 30 minutes and we're gonna change the world, all right? But I believe in you guys. Do you guys believe in yourself? Yeah. All right, we're gonna do this. Not only are we in this series this week, but for several weeks we're gonna be talking about different things. Now, I don't know if this is your story, if this is your experience as a kid, maybe it's just me. I'm sure it's just me. But I always had these big, grandiose ideas of how we could change the world. Now, for you, maybe it looked like as a doctor finding a cure for some incurable disease.
[0:50] Or maybe it was fighting for your country, or maybe it was running into a burning building, but you pictured yourself making a difference. Maybe for some you have dreams, ideas, passions of God, you know, of revival breaking through our country, and you're like, I wanna be a part of the change. Well, listen, I hope that throughout this series, I believe as Christians, God calls us, we have a responsibility to make a difference to the people around us. Do you guys believe that? And so we're gonna look at Scripture and see how God, the tools and Scripture and principles on how we can make a difference. Because I truly believe we are here for a purpose. But in studying, getting ready for this message, I thought of this story of just a few days ago.
[1:40] I take my kids to school. How many of you guys get to get that opportunity to drop your kids off to school? Some of you, I count it as a great privilege, but you know, not every morning, but here's how it plays out. I'll have to get a text. Hey, Dad, can you drive us to school? And so this one particular morning I was like, yes, I can, but I have to do a call on the way. And they're like, no problem, as long as we don't have to take the bus, we're with you. And so I'm driving my kids to school and I take a call and I'm doing an onboarding conversation for somebody who is interested in joining our pre-service team. So our pre-service is out in the atrium and they host the service before. And so having a conversation to make sure that they understand the level of responsibility, what's required, and I explain to them this is an important role.
[2:29] It comes with a level of influence and responsibility where people are gonna see you, you know, on camera. They're gonna see you on TV, you could be out at the mall, you could be shopping, you could be out walking your dog. And there are people that are going to know you that you are not going to know them. And so our actions, our attitudes, all those things need to line up. And so my kids are hearing this, they hear, heard this all the time or whatever, right? But, and so it comes time to drop them off to school. And I don't know if parents, if you do this, but I feel like I'm a coach. I'm in coach mode where it's now I've gotta give you a pep talk before you go to school. Does anybody else do this? I don't see any hands up. Okay?
[3:17] So my line is, all right kids, remember you are leaders. You're not followers. Now go and be leaders for good. And so my son looks at me as he's closing the door. He's like, I get it, Dad. We represent pre-service. We know the drill, but it's, we represent things. So, listen, we're gonna go into a topic today on serving. And when we think about changing the world, the world has programmed us that we need to be self-promoters. That we need to get ahead of the person beside us. Like that's the mentality, like that is to increase, is to put others down and to grow and to push yourself, network, all these things.
[4:06] And what is so difficult when it comes to speaking and preparing messages is the way of the gospel. The way of Jesus is completely opposite to the culture around us. And so we're gonna jump into Scripture, but here's what I want us to do, okay? Because I believe Scripture is, it is God-ordained, it's God's Word. I'm gonna ask us, you guys have been sitting for a few minutes, I'm gonna ask that you would stand with me if those of you who can, we're gonna read down through this entire passage that we're gonna be going through today, found in Philippians 2. For many of you, this is familiar, but it is so profound and I believe that it's gonna speak to us in a very personal and powerful way.
[4:58] And so I'm gonna read this down. You guys can follow it on the screen. Here we go. This is the Apostle Paul of Philippians 2:3. He says, don't be selfish. Don't try to impress others. Rather, in humility, value others above yourself, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of others. Wow, this is like so not what we're used to in your relationships. Listen to this with one another. Have the same mindset as Christ who being in the very nature of God did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage.
[5:48] Rather, He made Himself nothing to take the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man. He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on the cross. And here's like the result of His obedience, which we're gonna get into, therefore, because of all that we just covered. Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name above every name. That at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue will acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
[6:39] Can you guys say amen to that? You guys can go ahead and have a seat. So I want us to paint the picture a little bit. This is the Apostle Paul. Many of you have heard of the Apostle Paul. He is writing a letter to his church. Do you guys wanna know why he wrote a letter to his church? Because Paul is in prison for the things that he was saying. He was saying things that were counter-cultural, and so they locked him up. So, you know, let's, heaven forbid, but let's picture, you know, Pastor Jim, okay? He's in prison for preaching the gospel. And so he writes a letter to us just reminding us, warning us of some things about our culture that we need to know.
[7:31] And what's fascinating is his life is in danger. He is in prison, but it has not stopped his boldness. It has not deterred him to speak the truth. And so he begins in verse 3. by saying, "Don't be selfish. Don't put yourself first. Don't impress others." But here's why this matters, because the culture at that time was under Roman rule and under that culture it was all about every man for himself. You had to get above the person behind you, beside you. It was all about rank, it was all about impression. People were obsessed in that time with influence, with power.
[8:23] Does that not sound similar to our society and our culture today? They were obsessed with this and Paul is warning them and he is saying, "Don't be selfish. Don't live your life trying to impress others." But he goes on to say in humility, value others above yourself. This was like mind-blowing to the culture of that day. Like, I don't know if you guys can picture that, but it was all about rank, getting yourself above the next person. And Paul is just saying, "Don't fall for that lie. Don't fall for that trick." Value others, not looking to your own interests, but to the interests of others.
[9:17] And you know what, when I read this, Paul is saying, what culture is trying to sell you, it's not actually going to get you what you think it's going to do. And I believe that God is at moving, even though it doesn't sound like it. He's moving in this world. And I believe there are people become followers of Jesus and that are looking for truth more than ever before. And I feel as though this next generation is looking for something of truth. "Don't tell me lies. Don't lead me on, just shoot straight with me." And I believe that God is raising up some voices and some men and women that are passionate and that will lay it all on the line.
[10:08] They don't care about being canceled. They don't care of the consequences. I believe there's a generation of young people that are gonna rise up and speak truth and the world is going to be amazed because it's going to be so different than what culture is saying. Do you believe that? I do. I do. I believe they want that. They want truth. And so as we move down through this, I want us to look at verse 4 where it talks about humility. In verse 4 he says, "Rather, in humility," can everybody say humility? "Humility, in humility, value others more than yourself."
[10:58] We could park right there and we could talk about that for a long time. Value others more than yourself. Like there's just even, yeah, driving all kinds of things. Analogies, we could go there. "Not looking to your own interests, but to the interests of others." What is humility? If Paul's talking about humility, this is a word that I don't hear a whole lot talked about. So if we're gonna talk about it, let's make sure we understand what humility is. It's having an accurate view of yourself that leads you to think of others more than yourself.
[11:45] Like that's big. That's hard. See, you see, humility is not thinking less of yourself, putting yourself down. Humility is just thinking of yourself less. And oftentimes people will try to play the humility card and it's like, "Oh, woe is me." That's not humility. Humility is simply you just think of yourself less. And it's caused me to realize even in situations over the last couple weeks, whether it's conflict or whether what, whatever it may be, something that I need or want. And it's caused me to realize what's my motive behind it?
[12:30] Is this for my own interest or is this for the interest of others? Because this is what Paul is reminding us. It's completely backward. We think we want to change the world, we want to have power. We think it's all about us. And Paul is saying, actually, you need to make it more about others. And so it's like, really? Does this actually work? This does not seem like this is gonna get us to where we want to go. And that's because we have a problem in our culture and our society. We are unhealthy when it comes to humility. We really are, we are unhealthy when it comes. And I want us to kind of talk about this, but it's kind of funny because when I think about selfishness, I automatically think of like the word selfie and we have become a selfie generation.
[13:25] Is it just me or have you ever like been in public and you see somebody taking a selfie of themself or a group of people and you're just like, you just gotta stop. And you're like, do you realize like what they are doing? Like it's just kind of weird, isn't it? Or it's like all about themselves. And so most recently I was at a hockey game, a high school hockey game and, you know, all teens there and there's a full-on hockey game going and that's why you go to the arena to watch the game. But the people that are all around me, they're on their phones taking pictures of themself and I'm like, there's a great game going on here. And they have no idea.
[14:11] And they're consumed with themself and they're taking pictures. And I'm like, I'm actually in that picture. Like I can see myself in that picture. Like, why are you, you know, and then they're just like changing it and cropping it and making these things all about themselves. And I'm just like, that describes to me exactly where we're at with our culture, where we are all about ourselves. And it's so funny when we get pictures, right, again, just simple things, but it's like someone sends us a picture, group photo. It's like we don't often realize even who's in the photo. We're just looking at our, oh my gosh, my hair is, you know, we're looking at ourself and Paul is reminding us, if we're thinking of ourselves first, we're doing something wrong.
[14:57] Humility is simply thinking of ourself less. We don't struggle. And here's what's important. This isn't to make us feel guilty or we're bad people, okay? But to understand that we struggle because we live in a system that trains us to promote ourselves, right? Everything we watch, everything that we see, the lines like, I love this where it's like they're trying to sell us something and they're like, "You deserve this," right? They make us feel like this is something that we deserve of ourselves. This is the culture. It's a toxic environment. But here's the unhealthy truth. Selfishness doesn't show up as evil. It really does.
[15:45] It kind of shows up as reasonable, as normal. This is what everyone is doing. And often I'll mention to my kids and say, "We don't have to try to be normal," you know, and sometimes when it comes to different apps on our phones and conversations where they're like, "Yeah, I wanna upload." I wanna have this app on my phone. Okay, well, why do you want to have this on your phone? And their response is, "Well, everybody else has it." And here's what's important to know, parents: Not everyone has it. Our kids may think that everyone has it, but I believe that good parenting is being able to set boundaries and guidelines and restrictions on things.
[16:30] And the line is, "Not everyone has it." 'Cause guess what? You don't have it, so everyone doesn't have it. But we just don't want to settle for being normal. But here's some of the results that I think that we can all relate to in our society when it comes to being selfish. And it's sad, but in our western Canadian realities, selfishness has a big price tag. We are seeing rising anxiety and depression all throughout. It doesn't matter what town, village, school, we hear these statistics: the loneliness epidemic, burnout culture, divorce, and relational breakdown.
[17:17] What are we talking about? Because of selfishness, because of our own interests. This is the result that we're getting in our culture. And I believe that Paul is warning us and saying, "You know what? There's a better way. There's another way that you can live your life with purpose, and you could actually make a difference." And it's not what culture is saying. So how many of you guys have ever been to maybe the doctor, or you've been to physiotherapists because you have maybe an injury, a pain, or something? Okay, so most recently I had something going on in my knee, okay?
[18:03] It was painful to, like, run. There was like inflammation. And so I booked an appointment with the physiotherapist. And so I sit down, I tell him all the symptoms, okay? I'm like, "Pull up the knee. You can see it's swollen, it hurts on the inside. It started hurting two weeks ago. There is something wrong with my knee, and I need you to just please fix it." And so like a doctor, physiotherapist, this is what they do every time. They're like, "Alright, would you stand up?" And then they're like, "I want you to walk in a straight line, okay?" And how many of you ever tried to walk in a straight line when someone's watching you? It's like, you just feel like you're, like, uncomfortable. I'm like, "I don't even know if this is how I walk."
[18:49] And so he is like, "All right, turn around, walk again." I'm like, "Well, it's my knee, it's my knee that hurts. I don't know why you're getting me to walk." And so he is like, "All right, have a seat." And so I'm like, "All right, so what are we gonna do about the knee?" And he's like, "Nothing." I'm like, "What do you mean?" And he said, "The knee's not the problem. You have a lower back problem." I'm like, "Well, my lower back doesn't hurt." And he is like, "No, it's out of alignment here, which is causing your hip to not function the way it should. And your knee is the weakest point. And so that's why your knee is hurting." Okay? And so when it comes to selfishness, selfishness is the symptom that we see in our culture.
[19:37] The depression, the relational problems, the surface issue, the symptom, okay, is selfishness. But if we're to talk about the root problem, something that's deeper, do you know what the root of selfishness is? I know that you didn't come here for, like, a pop quiz, but I'm putting you on the spot. Can anybody tell me what the root of selfishness could be? Pride, pride, pride. Were you guys here in the first service? They're like, "Yes." The root of selfishness is pride. And so selfishness seems so innocent, it's just like, this is what everyone's doing, but the root of it is pride. And do you know why pride is so toxic and so dangerous?
[20:23] Because pride is one of the only things that will keep us from God. Pride separates us from God because pride says, "I don't need You. God, I can do this on my own." And I don't know about you, but when I look at our society and as our culture, we have moved so far away from God under the disguise of selfishness, where it's like, you can do whatever you want, you can do. If it feels good, you need to do it. That's what selfishness sells you. The root of it is pride over here, which is separation from God. And the farther we remove ourselves from God, look at the results of what we have.
[21:12] I hope this is making sense to you, but this is what Paul is trying to bring to light to the Philippian church. And I think that it is so contextual to where we are as a culture. But here's what I love, okay? Just like the physiotherapist, he didn't leave me there. He's like, "Here's what I want you to do." He gave me a cure, he gave me an answer to be able to help. And it was exercises with my back that surprisingly fixed my knee. Still can't believe it. But I want us to continue on as Paul gives us a cure for the culture that they were in, that I believe that we can learn a lot from it.
[21:58] So here we go. He, we're gonna pick this back up in, we're gonna continue on. Pride is putting ourself before God. I want us to touch on three types of pride. Then we'll go into Scripture. Okay? 1 John 2 says this, "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh," and some of you guys have heard this, but the lust of the flesh is simply, "I want to feel good." Listen to this. Just because it feels good doesn't mean it is good. The older that I get, the more I realize the things that don't feel good are actually better for me.
[22:49] Exercise, I don't wanna do that, but it's actually good for me. Eating healthy food, it doesn't feel good, but I find it's so much better for me. The same as when it comes to spiritual things. We need to be reminded, just because it doesn't feel good, just because it feels good doesn't mean it is good. We're driven by comfort. Listen to this. This is the lust of the flesh. This hits, like, this is driven by comfort, by pleasure. We avoid sacrifice, resisting inconvenience. This is the lust of the flesh. It goes on to say the lust of the eyes. I want what I see, and this is what social media plays on 24/7.
[23:40] And it's so wild how there's things that I've never thought about wanting to have, but then I see someone else have it, or I see a picture of it and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I want that." Right? That's the lust of the eyes, where it's like, I see something, now I want it. And it's a trap that we can never fulfill. It leaves us empty. It only leaves us wanting more. Lust of the eyes leads to envy, discontent. And I mentioned this earlier, but, you know, Pastor Jim was mentioned that he was away on a missions trip And He spent time with people who just had a, a very small home, like just very little.
[24:29] And you know, they're raising kids and a family and, and in this, and He told Pastor Jim and the team, they said, don't feel bad for us because we have joy, we have peace, we have God. And it's so wild how on the outside looking in, it would feel like they have nothing. But they're like, we have what we need. There's a contentment. And I look around our culture today. We have everything that we need, but yet we're broken and we want more and we're not happy and we're discontent. That, my friends, is the lust of the eyes. And the last one is the pride of life.
[25:16] I wanna be seen. I want status. I want recognition. I want power. I hope that you can see these patterns and these trends that we see all around us. But here's where I wanted us to go: there is a cure. And Paul talks about this in Philippians 2:5. So he wants to help us out with this. Here's our prescription. He says in verse 5, "In your relationships with one another," I don't know about you, but I need some help in relationships. He says this, "Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus."
[26:05] And He goes on to explain who, being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage. And what he's saying there, Jesus was up in heaven with God, all authority, all power. It was comfortable, life is good. And He decided to give up His authority in heaven, to come down here, not to be a God, not to take advantage. And I think that from that in our relationships, what if we took that same approach where it's like, I'm not gonna try and control, I'm not gonna try and manipulate. I'm not gonna try and have the upper hand. I'm not gonna try and have the power. What if we were able to take that when it comes to our relationships and learn from how Jesus came in?
[26:56] Rather, it goes on to say in verse 7, He made Himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man. He humbled Himself and became obedient to death. He humbled Himself to His own desires. And I think as men and as women, we need to, we need to have responsibility to say, you know what? I'm gonna say no to my desires. I'm gonna say no to what I want. I'm gonna put somebody else first. I'm gonna put something else first instead of myself all the time.
[27:41] Jesus died to Himself. And it goes on to say, even death on the cross. He said, have the mindset of Christ. You see, culture says this, satisfy yourself. Do what you want, elevate yourself. Promote yourself. Jesus' mindset is this. Deny yourself, humble yourself and trust God with obedience. Trust God with obedience. That's what Jesus did. And I just wanna challenge you and allow the scripture. Allow the word of God to just challenge you.
[28:29] That obedience isn't mostly always fun, but it's submitting our will to God's will. You see, He chose to be a servant. Jesus knew that less was actually more. So watch what happens in the last part of this, of this verse here. When Jesus submitted Himself, not what He wanted, but what God wanted, look at this. It says, "Therefore, because He did that," this is what happened. Are you guys ready? Yes. Because He submitted Himself, took on the act of a servant, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
[29:29] And every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. He was exalted to the highest place because He took the position of a servant. And so my question to me and to all of us is, what does it look like to give up what we want? What does it look like to take second place or third place and put somebody else? Do you know what happens when we do that? For some reason, we get elevated, and it's not the way the world does things. It's not like that. But I'm telling you, we can't, you know, I can't explain it, but God exalts us to a level that we could never dream of, that we could never hope for when we follow His principles.
[30:31] So what do we do with this? How do we, how do we apply this to our week? And I just, it's real simple. I just wanna give us just some real practical things before we go. And it's something that I've included in some of my practices in the morning. And it sounds something like this. It's just simply saying these words, saying, God, I surrender my will to You today. It may be on the drive to work, it may be getting ready for the morning, but I would encourage you just to say, God, I acknowledge my plans, my ideas, everything that I have. God, I surrender them to You today.
[31:19] Secondly, I think we need to, as just followers of Jesus, just be open to repent and say, God, I'm sorry for making it all about me. I'm sorry, God, for trying to be God. And just simply moving over and saying, I surrender to You. It's repenting and saying, God, You're in control in our relationships. I want to challenge us with this. And I know many of you are taking the marriage course, whether it's in marriage, whether it's in siblings, family, but I wanna encourage us to be the first to ask forgiveness instead of waiting for somebody else, instead of waiting for someone to say, you know what?
[32:15] I should have asked for forgiveness. What does it look like if we are the first to say, you know what, I was wrong. You know what, I'm sorry I didn't understand. Will you forgive me? What does it look like in our workplace to just start promoting others to do things that no one else maybe sees and allow other people? This is when you know it's starting to work on the inside of you. When you're able to give encouragement and promote others inside of yourself and inside you're screaming inside, that's when you know that this is at work in your life. And you're like, you know what? It's okay for me to hurt a little bit and allow somebody else to be promoted.
[33:02] But I believe this is how we can change our world when we take on this mindset of being a servant. And so I wanna challenge this. We can't do this on our own, but we must put time in and follow Jesus. And He will show us as we watch, as we read from Him, He will show us what it looks like to take on the role of a servant. Would you guys pray with me this morning? Heavenly Father, we just come before You this morning and I thank You for the Word of God. Scripture just talks about how the Word of God, it cuts into our thoughts and intents of our heart.
[33:51] And I just pray that I, you know, for me, it seems so insignificant. Just a few minutes to share on this topic that is so big and it's something that we all struggle with, but I pray that we would go from here and Holy Spirit, that You would do what You do best. And that would be remind us tomorrow when we're in a disagreement, when we don't get our way, when someone cuts us off, when we don't get the promotion, that we just say, you know what, God, I still trust You. God, I believe You're in control. I'm not in control. And I pray that that peace would just flood our heart and our mind and our soul, that we would realize that culture doesn't have it right.
[34:38] That Jesus, You are showing us how to live another way that actually brings the peace and joy and fulfillment. God, we thank You for who You are and You're at work in our life. Go with us today. May we be servants of You, servants in our relationships and to our families. And may we see You, God, change the world around us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.