Article
It’s Wrong to Think First about Rights
It’s not that rights don’t matter. They do.
When one person violates the rights of another, that’s injustice and
oppression. But while we want to be known as defenders of the legitimate rights
of others, we aren’t supposed to be known by our ambition to protect our
personal rights. To follow Christ means to see allegiance to Him as more
significant than any right we hold in this life. To be faithful to Christ,
we’ll have to give up rights—perhaps even our right to our own lives.
“Not count[ing]
equality … a thing to be grasped” is a phrase that sings to the soul. It sounds
great during our morning devotions, and it preaches great at a Bible study. It
doesn’t become audacious until we’re called to actually apply it.
Another car zooms
into our parking space while we’re sitting patiently with the turn signal on.
You did most of the work, but someone else got all the credit. You’re
overlooked again for the ministry position you seem perfectly gifted to do.
It’s a long list. Are you like me, thinking first of your rights each time you
feel wronged?
With their faithfulness to the Savior, my persecuted brothers and sisters around the world remind me that we live by grace, not by rights.
It doesn’t take much for me to realize that
holding on to pride gets in the way of humility. But my rights? Now
you’re getting a little pushy, Paul. Everybody knows that equality is a good
thing, right? And doesn’t equality mean we have to protect our rights? After
all, it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. And I have rights, inalienable rights
if I read the Declaration of Independence correctly. And don’t forget that
little thing called the Bill of Rights. So, back off my rights!
But who had greater rights than Jesus? He had
equality with God—the right to be worshiped by every created thing and the
rights of full authority and power over them all. But He gave those up in order
to gain our salvation.
With their faithfulness to the Savior, my
persecuted brothers and sisters around the world remind me that we live by
grace, not by rights. To be a Christian is to recognize that the only thing we
have a perfect right to is the wrath of God—and that’s not a right we want to
insist on keeping.
Being ambitious
to move downward confronts how we view our own rights. With Christ and His
example ever before us, our view should be distinctly different from the rest
of human civilization.
Look at how this
worked out in Otto’s life.
With ten years of leading worship under his belt, Otto could spot a natural. And the new guy up last Sunday was born to lead worship. However, leading worship was Otto’s role in the church, one in which he’d served faithfully, tirelessly, and prayerfully.
Being ambitious to move downward confronts how we view our own rights.
Yet after praying
over it and consulting some friends, he approached his pastor and recommended
that the new guy replace him. Why would he orchestrate his own demotion?
Because his ambition for Christ was higher than his ambition for any particular
role.
It may sound like Alice in Wonderland, but stories like Otto’s don’t just happen in fairy tales. They happen anywhere ambitions for Christ exceed ambitions for self. God is at work in the heart of His children, replacing our preoccupation for equality comparisons with an aspiration to empty ourselves. In the Master’s realm it’s only right that it should be this way.
This article was adapted from Dave's book, Rescuing Ambition.