Audio Transcript
Most of us enter relationships with a notebook of sorts, an invisible ledger. What we do for others, we track. What we are owed, we track. We keep a record of relational give and take. When debts are unpaid, we grow distant. But there’s a phrase in the Bible that John Piper claims has the sheer power to heal broken friendships, even to save countless hurting marriages. The catch? It requires doing something that goes against every natural, self-protective instinct we have. Today on Ask Pastor John: how to save a marriage.
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Alright, back to today on Ask Pastor John: how to save a marriage. I’m referring to a tweet from Pastor John back in 2018. This grabbed my attention, and I have thought about it a lot over the years. Here’s what he wrote: “How many marriages could be saved, broken friendships reconciled, families held together, if we all looked not only to our own interests but also to the interests of others?”
Of course, the verses he has in mind are Philippians 2:3–4:
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
“The interests of others” — that’s the key phrase. Those four words can save a marriage, heal a broken friendship, hold together a family. Verse 4 is perhaps the most recurring prayer Pastor John prays for himself. That admission came a decade before the 2018 tweet, in a 2008 sermon called “The Mind of Christ.” It’s an extraordinary sermon on Philippians 2:4–5. Today I want to share a couple clips from that sermon, if for no other reason than to preach this to my own soul because I don’t do Philippians 2:4 well. I want this to become a main prayer I pray for myself, and something I actually do better in my life. Here’s Pastor John.
Look to Others
My main prayer for myself — I think my most recurrent prayer for myself — has been verse 4, that God would do such a deep work in me that I would not only look “to [my] own interests, but also to the interests of others (Philippians 2:4). I just want to be less selfish. I want to be more other-oriented. I want that to be a more default posture for me. I don’t want to have to work at it as hard. I would like it to grow up in me, because I think if we as a church could become verse 4, I just think we’d be so wise. God loves to bestow wisdom about how to live when verse 4 is happening in a church.
Let’s read it: “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4). Now, the word interests there is a filler. It’s not there in the original. It’s just a filler. It’s just “your own” and “the others.” So, it could be this, to paraphrase: “Let each of you look not only to his own financial affairs, your own property, your own family, your own health, your own reputation, your own education, your own success, your own happiness. Don’t just think about that, don’t just have feelings and desires about that, don’t just strategize about improving that. Also, take thought, look to, spy out, go after, be interested in the financial affairs, the property, the family, the health, the reputation, the education, the success, and the happiness of other people — like your wife, husband, or kids, or neighbor, or person you walk by on the street.”
He’s asking for the impossible — for selfish, depraved human beings, who expect to be served and be treated well and are not by nature outgoing, to serve others and to take interest in others. We’re not like that. It takes a miracle for that to happen to a human being. That’s what Christianity does to a person, and that’s why Christ died for us, as we’ll see.
Do the Impossible
If you’re watching television, and your child says, “Would you play with me?” don’t just think about how tired you are. That’s thinking of your own interest. Yes, you’re tired. Think about that. And then think about the other’s interest. And by an act of gospel-fashioned, Christ-exalting will (if you have to), put the child’s interest before the pleasures of your relaxation.
The key, it seems, to this kind of behavior is verse 3 — at least, part of the key: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3). The old King James Version translates the second half of that verse, “Let each esteem other better than themselves.”
“Humility doesn’t just happen. It’s a battle. We have to preach it to ourselves.”
Now, I remember, in the ninth grade, thinking, That’s impossible. Because my sister, Beverly, is older than I am and could read (it felt like) ten times faster than I could. Probably she could. She took one Bobbsey Twins novel and read the whole thing in an evening — 150 pages. So, clearly, she could not count me a better reader like the Bible says she should: “Count others better than yourselves.”
However, I got good grades in algebra, and Beverly really struggled. So, there was no way I could count her better than me in algebra. So much for my ninth-grade exegesis. I missed the point. What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with the way I was thinking about verse 3, the second half of the verse?
The point was not what others are. The point was what you count them to be. And the focus is not on how they read or do math or any other trait. The focus is this: Will you count them worthy of your service? Worthy of dying for? Worthy of going down and lifting them up? Worthy of taking interest in their affairs? Will you count them that way, whether they are that or not? That was the point. Count others a certain way. So, would I encourage her, and take time to help her, and stop shooting buckets in the driveway?
It says in verse 3, “In humility count others more significant than yourselves” — worthy of your attention, your service (Philippians 2:3). That word humility there, lowliness, is the great opposite of a sense of entitlement. Do you want my definition of humility? Just use that one. It’s the opposite of a sense of entitlement. So, do you walk through life mainly feeling, “You owe me”? “You owe me a certain look when I walk by you on the street”? “You owe me a certain behavior in the neighborhood”? “You owe me that newspaper before 6:30am”? “You owe me, and I get mad when you don’t pay” — is that your basic orientation? If it is, you’re not humble. And I’m not humble. That’s why you need to pray for your pastors. Who in the world can be like that? Well, Christians.
Love Like Christ
It’s a miracle. Paul is “asking for the impossible — for selfish, depraved human beings, who expect to be served and be treated well and are not by nature outgoing, to serve others and to take interest in others. We’re not like that.” No. But we must become this.
How? Here’s how Pastor John stated this in his book Providence: “Love cannot flourish where fear or greed consumes the heart with self-protecting or self-enhancing passions. The heart must be set free from self-focus for the sake of focusing on others (Philippians 2:4). Something must break this double power — fearing loss and craving gain. What breaks this power is the unshakable certainty of hope, warranted by the unstoppable, blood-bought omnipotence of merciful providence” (705).
The kind of love Paul calls for is impossible apart from the cross. That is where we must go, and it’s exactly where Paul goes in Philippians 2. He immediately roots in Philippians 2:5–8, gloriously explaining how Christ did this exact thing for us.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5–8)
So, who in the world can live out Philippians 2:4 and look out for the interests of others? Only Christians following the pattern of their Redeemer in Philippians 2:5–8. This is why Piper mentioned reading and math earlier. Being superior is why you look out for others’ interests who are inferior. That’s what Christ proves to us. He is superior to us, yet he took up our interests. The cross shatters entitlement. Here again is Piper in the 2008 sermon.
Battle for Humility
When he owed you nothing but hell, he went to hell for you. Until you’re stunned by that, you will have a sense of entitlement. You will walk through life, and your basic orientation will be “You owe me.” But as soon as it lands on you with stunning force that you were owed hell, and you got heaven at the cost of the life of the Son of God, so much for your sense of entitlement. It’s over.
Humility doesn’t just happen. It’s a battle. We have to preach it to ourselves. We have to preach the gospel to ourselves every day. That’s where it comes from. That’s where verse 4 comes from. In humility, view people a certain way — namely, not as those who owe you, but ones that you owe service to. To draw out verse 4, “So, don’t just take interest in your own life; take interest in others because that’s the way you are in Christ. Let this mind be in you which you have in Christ.”
That’s the culture. Wouldn’t that be a beautiful culture? Couldn’t that be beautiful? In a marriage, wouldn’t that be beautiful? In parenting, wouldn’t that be beautiful? In a church with lots of diversity — ethnic, age, marital status, socioeconomic — wouldn’t that be beautiful? It would. It’s a beautiful thing. Church, broken and bruised, let us move toward this beauty.
Saving a Marriage
That’s Christ-centered and beautiful. Amen. So, Piper can say, “My main prayer for myself — I think my most recurrent prayer for myself — has been verse 4.” This text is “one of the most convicting, one of the most beautiful, one of the most transforming texts in the Bible,” and so useful to all areas of life (APJ 1078).
Just on this podcast, Philippians 2:4 explains why adult children care for their elderly parents. It is what protects those suffering with chronic pain from living a life centered on their own chronic pain. It’s why we can serve people who are superior or inferior to us. And it’s how the gospel, rightly understood, protects leaders from mistreating and abusing those under their charge. And it’s why men put their phones away at the dinner table with their wives. To say it again, “How many marriages could be saved, broken friendships reconciled, families held together, if we all looked not only to our own interests but also to the interests of others?”
All of this is possible in Christ, in the one who didn’t begin his descent from a position of weakness. The one who had every legitimate entitlement in the universe, who had the right to hold on to his dignity and ignore our need, and who chose not to. He emptied himself. He came all the way down, taking the form of a servant, to die the most disgusting death imaginable for us. He could not have gone any lower to look out for my interest or your interest. Such grace can save a broken marriage.
