From an early age we get taught that life is a competition. Parents compete to get their children into the best kindergartens. At school, students compete to see who can get the best marks, win at sporting events, and become the most popular with other kids. After school and university, people compete to get jobs, and then within the workplace people compete for promotions and then compete for control of the organisation. Life is about competition.
So it seems odd when Paul presents an entirely different perspective in the second chapter of his letter to the Philippians: “Do nothing through selfish rivalry or pride, but humbly consider others to be more important than yourselves, and do not just look after your own interests, but look after the interests of others.” Suddenly for followers of Jesus life is about service, not competition; it is about helping others, not about winning things for yourself. The greatest desire of a follower of Jesus is to become more like him:
You should think the way that Christ Jesus thought. Although he was in the form of God, he did not consider that he should use equality with God to his own advantage. He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and was born in the form of a human. While he was in human form he humbled himself and obeyed God to the point of death, dying on the cross.