Looking to the Interest of Others as well
Sermon Series: Philippians
Message By Eddie DSouza on June 14, 2026
Passage: Philippians 2:1-11
Our passage begins with a threefold exhortation—be like-minded, be humble, and look to the interests of others. Today, my sermon is on the third exhortation. The third exhortation is found in Phil 2:4. The ESV reads, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
My aim in this sermon is to explain the verse so that we may know how to appropriately apply that verse in our lives. I have three parts to the sermon—not only, but also, the interests. In case you did not catch those three parts, they are: (1) not only; (2) but also; (3) the interests.
Let us pray.
Father in heaven, help us now to hear your word. Would you give us the sense of your word and work in our hearts and minds, giving us the grace to hear and obey. Amen.
Not Only
A cultural shift in England in the nineteenth century spread worldwide. The spread was not due to England’s powerful influence, but the change was adopted by many unsuspecting cultures for various local factors.
The change was not seismic but has had catastrophic effects on humanity. The change was minor. A simple negative prefix was added to a word. The prefix “un-.” When the prefix “un-” is added to the beginning of words, it expresses negation, reversal, or the absence of a quality. So when it is added to happy, happy becomes unhappy, a negation. When added to the word tie (a knot), it becomes untie, a reversal. When it is added before certainty, it makes the word uncertainty, describing the absence of the quality. Which word did the English modify? The word selfish. They coined the new word unselfish.
Unselfishness became the leading desirable moral virtue in persons. Another term that emerged from this cult of unselfishness was altruism. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines altruism as “unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others.”[1] In 2008, Oxford University Press published The Invention of Altruism: Making Moral Meanings in Victorian Britain, which captures these cultural shifts. The author, Thomas Dixon, traces these developments to Britain’s political liberalism, atheism and its cousin agnosticism, and philosophical idealism.
Why would Indians readily accept these new ideas? Indian philosophies have always described attachment (āsakti) as something to overcome. The problematic ahamkara desires attachment. Thus, instead of seeking the desirable virtue of temperance (I think anāsakti may be a form of temperance), Indians accepted unselfishness as the ideal.
Christians are not immune to culture. Inasmuch as the name of our church is Cross Cultured Church, we must not assume that we are not at all influenced by culture. Far from it. After our church gatherings, we share a meal. Our menu is South Indian. I do not remember whether we ever had dal makhani, paneer do pyaaza, lasooni murgh, Champaran matka gosht, or Amritsari macchi in our meals. Even further removed, we do not cook suki yaki, bibimbap, sushi, tapioca fufu, risotto, shepherd’s pie, or burritos at these meals. Now, some of you may say that it is a matter of convenience. But you must ask, why is one way of cooking more convenient than the other to a group of people? Is it not because our kitchens, the ingredients available to us, and our everyday skills are all informed by the cultures we grew up in? Is it not because we like a certain cuisine because it is what we grew up on? Isn’t our home’s way of cooking more comforting to us? We are products of the culture.
The culture told Christians that any love of self is selfish. I mentioned earlier that the cultural shift had catastrophic effects. The world describes Christianity as a selfish religion. Christians desire to go to heaven. They want happy outcomes; therefore, they are selfish. Desiring the rewards for obedience to God’s word is called selfish. Desiring to gather for prayer and worship when there are other needs in the world is called selfish. Evangelism is called selfish. If you have any motive other than the good of the other, you are being selfish, motivated by desires that make you happy. The Christian is told that only the other should be happy. Far worse, the Christian is told to be unselfish.
In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis explains how the demonic powers taught Christians to determine whether they are unselfish: the focus shifts from what makes the other and you happy to what makes you unselfish.[2]
While the Bible teaches against selfishness, it does not teach unselfishness. In fact, unselfishness is not merely not in the Bible; it is opposed to the teaching of the Bible. Let me show you. This is how the ESV reads Phil 2:4: Let each of you look not only to his own interests. It does not say, “Let each of you not look to his own interests.” The NASB says, “do not merely look out for your own personal interests.” Jesus taught that you must love your neighbor as yourself. He did not say love your neighbor, not yourself. Husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. Husbands are not called to love their wives while hating themselves or not loving themselves. Let us be clear about this. The love of self is not taught in these texts; it is assumed. The love of self is not prohibited in these texts; it is expanded. Does not Jesus assume the love of self when he teaches about hell and the weeping and gnashing of teeth? Is a desire to avoid the conscious eternal torment of hell a selfish desire? Is the desire to see people repent and believe in Jesus so that they will not suffer in hell selfish? Is the desire to see people of other religions turn to Jesus and glorify the one true God a selfish desire? No, it isn’t. Do not let the culture manipulate you into believing such lies.
But Also
There is much more to say about how unselfishness has hurt Christian belief and practice, but we must move ahead in this sermon. We must now turn to look at the “but also.” The second part of the verse tells us to also look out for the interests of others. “Not only… but also…”
This part will be very short. It is almost like, after the world has moved in the direction of unselfishness, we do not have to say much about the interests of others. However, it would be wrong on my part to assume that, just because the culture has venerated unselfishness as a virtue, there would be no people who struggle with selfishness.
God commands us in this text and several others to extend the love for self, the interests of self, and such selfward loves to others as well. We love our bodies; we must extend that love to our spouses. We love ourselves; we must extend that love to our neighbors. We look to our interests; we must extend that to others as well. In so doing, we imitate God. God created the world to share the goodness and happiness that he enjoys in himself with us.
Interests
At this point, I have to shift our focus to the third part, “interests.” What sort of interests must we have? Are there any boundaries, any checks and balances to the interests of others or ourselves in this discussion?
A very simple example in our Indian context is available to us—the hosting of guests. Using this example, we can quickly see how misapplied theology, or the concepts of unselfishness, becomes ridiculous and self-harming.
Hosting guests can be very challenging for most women in India. The Christian woman is doubly or triply challenged when guests visit. I am talking of times when someone comes to stay overnight. Let us begin where most caring hosts begin. The woman checks to ensure whether the guests have any allergies, sensitivities, or preferences. Most commonly, the response is, “We eat anything. We are not fussy.” And because you presume that they mean what they say, you determine to plan for their comfortable stay and organize your pantry and refrigerator to stock up for all the meals for the days you will have guests. You are well prepared. When it is time to serve the first meal if all things go well and your guest does not tell you that it is too early or too late for them to eat, but actually settle in for the meal then you will suddenly receive this information that actually they do not eat what you have painstakingly prepared. Child X has Y issue. The husband is on a diet. The wife has a medical condition and so on and so forth. As you hear this litany of minor details, you secretly panic because it makes you realize your entire plan is now useless and actually harmful to the interests of your guests. So you run to make something new for them to eat. You offer options only to learn more detail about why this is not the right item, or the right time, or the right something else.
Let us move from the meal to the events. You had asked them whether they had any plans and they responded that they have none. They plan to take a nap and relax. So as the conversation dies, they head to the bedroom to relax, you rush to the kitchen to clean up and start preparing for the next meal. When it is time to do the finishing touches on the meal, the guest announces that they decided to go visit places X, Y, and Z because of reasons that have just become known to them. They tell you not to worry about the meal, they will help themselves. You look at the large pot of food you have made, pained to know that you cannot serve it at the next meal but must find a place in your already overstocked refrigerator to consume it for days after your guests have left.
I am sure that for some of you, I have just opened up a painful memory or reminded you of a particularly difficult relative. Our problem is that in our culture, we have been taught that “the guest is god.” As Christians, we know that such is a blasphemy. But we still behave as if it is true. I do not bring this up to mock our culture, but to show us how self-centered we are. The wife works hard to be unselfish in serving the guest. The husband works hard to be unselfish and to ensure the guest feels no discomfort. Both the husband and the wife, as hosts, are hurting themselves and each other with this entirely impractical and ridiculous way of hosting guests. Even worse, if we are to tell ourselves that we must do unto others as we want them to do unto us, then all we are doing is telling ourselves that we have the right to be unreasonable as guests.
While I can offer solutions for being a good guest, dealing with difficult guests, and being a good host, that is not the point of this sermon. The point is that not all interests are good interests. So we must ask Paul what he meant when he said, “Look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Surely, he did not mean that you must suffer under Cranky Auntie and Lazy Uncle’s demands. However, we cannot take ridiculous examples from our culture and then interpret the Bible to make it mean what it plainly does not say. When the text says the interests of others, that is what it means. We cannot impose boundaries on others’ interests or, for that matter, on our own interests unless we have a warrant from the text.
Praise be to God! We do have a warrant in the text. If you looked down a few verses to vv. 20–21, it reads, “For I have no one like him (speaking of Timothy), who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.” They all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. That language is so close to the exhortation in 2:4. However, in 2:21, we see that Timothy’s interests are not his own but those of Jesus. Observe well: it is not his own but those of the Philippians; rather, it is not his own but that of Jesus.
This tells us that we ought to calibrate our interests individually and as a community to the interests of Jesus, the gospel, and the kingdom of God. The interests of others that we are to be mindful of are not their interests concerning food, stay, hobbies, etc. We are to care for their welfare in Christ. With respect to an unbeliever, it would be to share the gospel. It is to have a genuine interest in their eternal welfare. With respect to someone suffering, it would be to alleviate their suffering. It is to have a genuine interest in their temporal welfare. With respect to a believer, it would have to be concerning their sanctification and discipling. It is to have a genuine interest in their spiritual welfare.
This verse, then, teaches us that along with being like-minded for the gospel, valuing other people in relation to the gospel, we are to be concerned for the spiritual and eternal interests of others as well as ourselves.
Do your conversations with one another only revolve around temporal interests? Have you had a spiritual conversation with an unbeliever? How about with a fellow believer?
Are your interests when you visit others merely the latest news, technology, the feast set before you, or does it go beyond these to the interests of Jesus in the lives of others? Is your fascination with yourself limited to your failures, your regrets, your aspirations, and your passions, or does it go beyond to the interests of Jesus in your life?
[1] Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “altruism,” accessed June 10, 2026, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/altruism.
[2] The Screwtape Letters (1942; HarperOne, 2001), 141 (Letter 26).