In the previous lesson, we saw how God’s gift of mercy helps us build dignified interdependent relationships. These are relationships where we freely give and receive with a godly purpose. However, our status as recipients of God’s mercy is not the only that matters.

In scripture, we also see that we are all God’s image bearers.

This status comes from each person being a recipient of God’s gift of dignity. Everyone we interact with is an image bearer of God, which means all people have dignity and deserve respect. This means our dignity comes only from God — not our actions.

But often we behave in ways contrary to this truth. In life we all wrestle with two critical issues:

1. basing our self-worth and value on our roles and accomplishments in life and

2. devaluing others based on their failures, real or imagined.

These perceptions create genuine problems when we try to serve others. First, we can pursue serving others as another accomplishment in an attempt to improve our worth. This makes our service all about us and ensures our failure. Secondly, we can shun serving those we feel do not deserve our help or those who present particularly difficult challenges to us.

We all make both of these mistakes at times, serving others to build ourselves up and not serving those we have mentally torn down. These errors are very harmful to our relationships. Thankfully, Jesus Christ did not make these tragic mistakes. As Jesus is the source and sustainer of our dignity, we can serve and be served by others well.

Read the Christ Hymn before watching this lesson’s video with Natalie C Jones.

As Natalie shared, we can learn a lot on how to serve others with dignity from the book of Philippians. This New Testament letter was written by Paul to the Church of Philippi which we learn about in Acts 16. This church was also one of Macedonian churches Paul mentions in 2 Corinthians 8 that gave out of their extreme poverty. It was arguably the poorest church in the bible and arguably the healthiest church.

This letter is about the joy of partnering in the gospel which is one of the passages we see reflect dignified interdependence. They gave and received to one another by partnering and they did so to advance the gospel of Jesus.

Even though the word dignity isn’t used in this passage, the scripture is actually describing this concept. Dignity essentially means value or worth. And we clearly have some value statements in the text.

The diagram below depicts implications of the Christ Hymn (Philippians 2:5-11) on human dignity.

As humans, we have high points and low points in our lives. But, Jesus serves two roles to protect human dignity through it all.

The first role is described in Philippians 2:7 using a word about value or lack thereof. We see that Jesus, the sustainer of all things, made himself nothing. We cannot make ourselves nothing. But Jesus did.

In verse 9, we see that because Jesus did this, God gave him the highest value and in verse 11, Paul gives us the word that sums up his value. Jesus is also Lord and has the highest value of all. We cannot become Lord either.

So what does this mean for us? We see here that no one can empty themselves so completely of value (dignity) that they become nothing. Only Jesus has done that. In the same way, no one can rise so highly in value (dignity) that they eclipse Jesus as Lord. Only Jesus deserves that.

By Jesus being both servant and Lord, he protects humanity’s dignity from falling below his capacity to heal or rising above his excellency. This has tremendous impact on the way we view others. We all look down on others at times; which means we have looked down on Jesus. We all have looked up to others inappropriately (worshipped) and thereby eclipsed Jesus’ lordship. Both of these attitudes towards others, condescension and worship, are sinful and create obstacles for serving with dignity.

Reflection Questions:

1. What stood out to you or challenged you from this lesson?
2. Was it difficult to think of Jesus as nothing or of Jesus as Lord? If so, why?
3. We all struggle with thinking too highly of some people or too lowly of others. How do you know when you struggle with this? What behaviors or thoughts may let you know this is happening for you?
4. What is one practical way you can honor the gift of dignity in serving others? What would this look like in action?

Next Step | Practice Seeing the Image of God in others

This week, spend 5-10 minutes completing the activity sheet below. Use this activity to practice seeing the image of God in others and reflect on this experience for you.

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Final Lesson: The Gift of Assets