I remember preaching about motives once. My point was that, as sinful humans, we Christians will rarely, if ever, have anything close to pure motives for any good deed we might perform. Maybe we will have a half-hidden pinch of pride in there; or perhaps, we want to impress someone; or we may have the thought of some karmic redound effect from our otherwise altruistic action.
There were times when I had the thought to do something good, and I was suddenly struck by the thought of some benefit I might receive from it; or else, my mind went to meditate on what others might think of me if I did the thing. At that point I would be somewhat paralyzed in my action, squarely facing my lower motives.
Upon reflection, however, I would usually pull out of it, and simply go ahead do what I thought was the right thing. I had realized that, yes, my motives might be far from pure – but the right thing to do was still the right thing to do, and I had best just go ahead and do it.
In Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi he says a remarkable thing – remarkable at least in light of what we sometimes think of respecting our motives. Here are his words in full:
It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. (Phil 1.15-18)
The gospel of Jesus is a great treasure; the pearl of great price; not to be cast before swine. It is a precious thing, needing to be handled with care, and passed on into trusted hands.
One would think it should only be proclaimed by pure lips, by people with beautiful feet, and so on. But Paul says, No. It didn’t matter to him that those who were preaching might not have the best – or even good – motives. The important thing, he said, was that the gospel was going forth and being spread.
Paul’s letter to the Philippians is famous for being the Epistle of Joy. Here he rejoices over the good gospel being preached with bad motives. Perhaps the point goes against the grain, but it is clear enough: to do the good, the right, thing does not require pure motives, just action. At the end of the day, we will not be judged on our motives – we’ll be in big trouble if that starts to happen. We’ll be judged on what we did and didn’t do.
J & S on Mission 