WHO GOD IS: Looking to the Interests of Others

"In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness."Philippians 2:6-7 (NIV)

A “mindset” can be understood as a set of thoughts and attitudes that arise out of a person’s beliefs about the meaning and purpose of life. Sometimes it can be used to characterize a person’s essence—to describe what matters most to them and how they act on it in specific ways.

In Philippians 2:5-8, Paul reveals something shocking about the mindset that characterizes Christ Jesus. He explains it by pointing first to something Jesus didn’t do, and second to something he did.

1. He didn’t use his equality with God to his own advantage; and
2. He did make himself nothing by taking the nature of a servant (by being made in human likeness)

This is the mindset that characterizes Jesus, the one who makes the Father known to humanity (John 1:18). Rather than look only to his own interests and advantage, he willingly set them aside and humbled himself to the point of dying on a cross as a man.

This is who our God is.