Lowly Service for Exalted Joy

If we're going to be a church who make disciples, right?

If we're going to be a church sent on mission to make disciples, plant churches, we've got to know what is a disciple.

And I think that this text, John 13, 1 through 20, builds for us the foundation, the bedrock of what it means and looks like to be a disciple of Jesus.

The way that we define disciple, because we we love functional terms and definitions here at Sacred Mission.

If we're going to put before you what does it mean to be a disciple, here's what we would say.

We would say to be a disciple of Jesus is to be a person who is learning and teaching others to be with Jesus, be like Jesus, and do what Jesus did.

So let's break those three things down real quick.

What does it mean to be with Jesus?

To commune with him, to hear his voice, to have discipline in your life, that you are fellowshipping in his presence, that you are filled with his joy, that you can sit and be satisfied in Christ.

That's to be with him.

To be like him is by the transformative power of the Spirit, the washing of the water of the word, the renewing of our mind.

We are becoming Christ-like.

Right?

All of us, if we understand Jesus' saving work, it culminates in the new heavens and new earth where we are like him.

When we see him, Paul says, we will be like him.

That's what this is working toward.

That we are a new city established by our king, and we mimic him.

We reflect him in every way.

And so we want to be like Jesus.

That's the sanctifying work of the Spirit in our life now.

That I'm less like Justin and I'm more like Jesus.

Because Justin's a punk.

Justin is still sins a lot, right?

Jesus doesn't.

I want to be more like Jesus.

And then to do what Jesus did.

How did Jesus live his life?

And how do we live our life, model our life in response to the gospel and his saving work in us, right?

We want to be those type of people.

Here's what Jesus said.

I want to do that.

Jesus loved these type of people.

I want to love those type of people.

He served these people.

I want to serve those people.

So this is what we mean when we say being a disciple.

And here in the upper room of the Last Supper in John 13, Jesus, I want to submit to us this morning, Jesus teaches and demonstrates a fundamental principle of what it means to be his disciple.

Before we dive into that, I want us to try and imagine ourselves in this room, right?

If we can go back in time and place ourselves in this setting, they're preparing to have the Passover meal together.

Jesus is with his disciples and other followers of his.

And here's the scene: the hour of his betrayal and death has come.

Jesus has been under the shadow of the cross from the moment he was born, but here he's engulfed in that darkness.

And he's at this meal with the person that he knows is going to turn his back on him and betray him.

Up to this point, he's avoided the plotting religious leaders who desire to kill him and his dear friend Lazarus in this futile attempt to put an end to his growing fame.

He was paraded into town by a crowd who sang his praises from this momentary fleeting passion and who will soon turn and demand his brutal death.

His betrayer, as we said, is reclining with him in this intimate meal.

And it's a meal that for those who are participating in the resume, it points back to God's work of redemption in the Exodus, where he provided the blood of the Lamb that was to be plastered upon their doorposts, that the destroyer might not take their firstborn son.

Here, Jesus is not looking back to what God has done, but he's looking forward to what God will do when he is the Lamb, whose blood removes us from the destroying presence of God's wrath, and he saves us by the laying down of his own life.

The firstborn son this time does die, so that many sons might have life from him.

Jesus' emotions in this moment are building up inside of him to such a degree that they will soon be released through sweat like drops of blood falling to the ground.

This is where Jesus is in this moment.

Now the question is: how would you posture yourself in a situation like this?

What would be your tone?

What would be your posture here in this place?

Would you be desiring that those who declare that they love you, that show that they care for you, would you desire for them to bend low and to serve you in the moment of your agony, in the face of dread and the suffering that awaits you?

Would there not be some expectation that they serve you in this moment?

You see, in the midst of all of this, when Jesus, above anyone else, could have rightly called for those with him to serve him, he humbled himself even lower and bent down to serve them.

This is the scene, this is the moment that Jesus invites us into to observe and embrace the foundation of what it means to be one of his disciples.

That in sacrificial loving joy, we bend low to serve others for their highest good.

Let me say that again.

That in sacrificial loving joy, we bend low to serve others for their highest good.

You see, Jesus said that this was the distinguishing mark of his disciples.

He said that the world will know that you're my disciple.

They'll be able to understand, observe, and identify that you're not the disciple of some cult, the disciple of some false religion, the disciple of culture.

How will the world see tangibly that you're my disciples?

He says in John 13, 35, by this.

This is the distinguishing mark.

All people will know you're my disciples, no one else's.

If you have love for one another, if you have love for one another.

So let's dive into the passage to see how that plays itself out for us today.

If we look at verses one through five, I think that we see this.

Um, lowly service in the lowest hour.

Lowly service in the lowest hour.

So I love what chapter 13 does.

It kind of does two things simultaneously.

It invites us into the mind of Jesus.

What is he thinking about?

What is kind of uh taking capture uh of his thoughts, but it also invites us into the heart of Jesus.

How is he loving?

What's what passions are he is he experiencing, right?

And so his mind, the mind of Jesus was fixed.

But it wasn't just fixed on the cross.

John 13 actually allows us to see that it was fixed on the things above.

Sure, Jesus was looking at the cross.

Sure, Jesus was thinking about those moments, but more than that, he was thinking about the blessed presence of his father, of which he was gonna return to.

Right?

You can imagine almost Jesus finding like longing and delight and joy in that.

I'm gonna go back to my father here.

But his heart was fixed on those in the room, those whom he had called out of the world, and he loved them.

In fact, this is probably one of my favorite lines in the scripture, honestly.

He loved them to the end.

Man, if we if we can know that about Jesus, he loves his people to the end.

That's encouraging for me to hear.

Whether John's referring to the type of love that Jesus has for his own, that it's relentless, that that there's nothing that can thwart it, that he will overcome any obstacle to be able to love them, or if he's referring to the time of love that Jesus has remaining before the reality of his cross.

Either way, Jesus' love is relentless toward those who he places it upon.

And man, that is good news for us.

It's comforting for us.

Now, John does something else.

In this passage, John weaves Judas in and out of this whole next 20-some verses.

And we almost have to ask ourselves, why would John so intentionally do this?

Why would John show us one of the most beautiful and vivid portraits of Jesus' love for his people and weave in Judas, the betrayer, throughout the whole thing?

I think I want to submit this morning there's a there's a reason in that.

What we need to see is that Judas is being put forth as an intimate betrayer, one who is near to Christ, who should have relationship, fellowship with him, but he's a betrayer.

And in the setting of Jesus' greatest expression of humble, loving service, apart from the cross, we get to grasp the essence of what discipleship looks like.

Loving and serving others the way that Jesus does.

Loving and serving others the way Jesus has called us to.

Because here's what we can kind of think of, right?

Of course I'm gonna love others who reciprocate that love back.

The economy of relationship that we have in culture today, that's a no-brainer.

And unfortunately, most people within cultures love it is not deeper than that.

Of course, I will love those who will reciprocate those love.

Maybe some of us are willing to risk to love others who are unable to reciprocate that love back, right?

That they just are unable to, whether it is their poverty, whether it whether it's their uh mental capacity, whatever it might be.

We say, Oh, I can lower myself enough to love others who don't reciprocate that back.

But what about loving others when what is reciprocated is your harm?

What about loving others when what is reciprocated is those who return that love with betrayal, manipulation, slander, violence?

What about that?

If we are ever to wonder what the expectation of being a disciple of Jesus is, let us look to Jesus bending low to wash the feet of his betrayer.

You want to know what being a disciple looks like?

It's the call to come and die.

To die even at the feet of the one who harms you, to show them the love of Christ.

That's what is the call that's placed upon us.

And it's nothing less.

It is nothing less.

Jesus demonstrates lowly service in the midst of his lowest hour.

He gets up from reclining at the table.

It says he takes off his outer garment.

Man, what's he doing in that moment?

He's disrobing his dignity.

He sets them aside.

Man, the parallel, right?

Of the incarnation.

Christ setting aside his outer garment so that he can be in a posture and position to serve.

He ties a towel around his waist, fills this basin full of water, and he begins to wash their feet.

This was a posture of unimaginable humility.

We've got to try the best we can in our day and time to grasp the magnitude of this moment.

Only slaves would ever be considered absent of such intrinsic dignity that they would be permitted to such a filthy task.

So get where this is coming from, right?

Who's able to do such a thing?

Who's able to humiliate themselves in such a way as to wash the feet of those who come into your home?

It is only a person who the rest of the world views as not having enough intrinsic dignity to not do that thing.

It's a dehumanizing reality.

Their travels, the disciples who had followed Jesus from Bethany into the capital city of Jerusalem, some 20 miles, right?

Their feet would have been filthy, covered in dirt and dung.

To wash someone's feet was like washing the filthiest part of the body.

And at his lowest hour, when he was full of agony, when dread was before him, when suffering was imminent, Jesus did not demand or call others to come and serve him.

Jesus bends low to cleanse the filthy feet of those he loved.

If we look at verses 6 through 13, I see this bent low to wash clean.

Bent low to wash clean.

So Jesus is girded up to wash his disciples' feet.

And uh he comes to Peter, and Peter in true flat fashion, right, he objects.

He has the audacity or ignorance or some combination of both to call out Jesus, his master, on what he's doing here.

And he says to Jesus, you shall never, oh no, he says, sorry, first he says, Lord, do you wash my feet?

See, while the others remain silent, Peter cannot help but to see how contradictory the honor and status and esteem of his Lord was with the action he was performing in service to them.

It was so such a chasm between these two things that Peter could not imagine Jesus doing something like this.

And so he tries to stop Jesus before he undignifies himself in front of all of those who had held him in such high honor.

And Jesus corrects Peter, but he also comforts Peter in this moment that though he does not understand what is happening here and now, soon, Peter, you're gonna get this.

You're gonna object to this now, you don't get it, but but soon it's gonna happen to where your eyes are gonna be open, your mind's gonna be able to understand what I'm doing here right now.

And Peter again, because it takes Peter like two or three times to get it right, right?

I like I I just understand his personality so well.

He says, You shall never wash my feet.

And Jesus replies with the consequence of Peter's ignorant demand.

He says, Peter, if I do not wash you, you have no share with me.

If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.

You see, the foot washing that Jesus was doing for his disciples in that moment was pointing to something transcendent than the moment in front of them.

It wasn't just about washing the disciples' feet in this like ritual custom.

It was pointing to the atoning work of Christ's death and resurrection, where Jesus washes them clean of their sin.

If we refuse to allow Jesus to cleanse us, then we have no place in his kingdom.

We have no claim to his inheritance, we have no share with him.

You see, Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

He is the one who washes us clean, he makes us clean by the washing of his blood.

That's what this moment was pointing to.

Peter, what you gotta get here is that if I don't wash you, you have no place, no share with me.

We cannot cleanse ourselves from the filth of our souls.

There's no work that we can do that will satisfy the cleanliness of what God demands, the purity of what his holiness dictates for us.

It's only Jesus and it's only his blood.

That's what makes us clean.

That's what this moment was pointing to: the foot washing and the atoning death of Jesus.

These are the supreme displays of Jesus' love for his own.

Because what we see is the exalted Messiah, right, of Isaiah 6, what we talked about last week, the exalted Messiah of Isaiah 6 humiliates himself as the suffering servant of Isaiah 53.

He becomes the despised servant for the good of others.

For Peter to refuse to have Jesus bend low and serve him by washing him was to refuse the ultimate gift that Jesus gives those he loves.

The washing of our filth, the removal of our sin.

And so, what does Peter do?

He responds in this like excitement and fervor.

Lord, okay, then not just my feet, but my hands and my head also.

Wash my whole body clean.

And Jesus looks at Peter and informs him in me, you're clean already.

Peter, in me, you are made clean.

It's not about this foot washing, it's not about this moment here fully.

It's about what's to come.

Where I'll wash you in the fullness of my finished work.

But Jesus lets us know, Peter lets us, or John lets us know in his narrative, though not all were truly clean.

You see, the foot washing, it was a symbol of the finished work of the cross.

In and of itself, it had no power to truly clean those whom it was applied to.

Because we see that even though Jesus would wash Judas's feet, his heart remained unclean.

As he finished, Jesus asked his disciples a question.

You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.

So here's what Jesus is doing.

Obviously, he's asking this question because the disciples still don't get it.

They don't understand what's happening in this moment.

But more than that, the way that it is completely dependent, what's happening in that moment is irremovable from who Jesus is.

You see, they struggled to understand that what Jesus was doing was directly connected to who they claimed him to be.

They were inseparable from one another.

Jesus is saying, look, your idea of this Messiah, of this Lord who is coming, is this powerful king, right?

And your understanding, your view of that position is that all people serve him.

And they lay their life down to serve every need and want that he has.

And he's saying, you don't get it.

It is because I am the Messiah, not the one that you think I am, but the one that you truly need, sent from the Father.

This is why I'm bending so low to serve you.

This is why I'm laying my own life down for your highest good.

We cannot separate the exalted Christ and the humiliated, despised servant.

We can't separate these things.

It is because Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, that he comes and bends low to serve those whom he loves.

And Jesus is saying, Do you understand this?

You've got to get this because for us, this is how we're going to live our life in response to that reality.

Who Jesus is, the highly exalted one who would rightfully claim and demand all to serve him, but yet instead he disrobes himself and he comes present with us and he serves us in lowly, joy filled love.

He says, When you get that, you'll get what's happening right now, and you'll get how I've called you to live.

Because we'll work and live from that beautiful truth.

He washes them clean because he is the Messiah that they have been waiting for.

You see, in that room, Jesus bent low to wash his disciples' feet, but soon he would bend lower still as he would wash clean all of those for whom he would die.

Now we get into verses 14 through 20.

And I think this is where we actually see kind of the main idea of the text this morning.

Disciples of Jesus lowly serve others joyfully.

Disciples of Jesus lowly serve others joyfully.

This is what Jesus desires for his disciples.

That they look at him in all of his dignity and status and honor, and they see him set all of that aside and joyfully lay down his life for others.

That's what he wants them to see right now.

That's what he wants them to get and understand.

He wants them to see that image and allow it to be a model for the life of discipleship that he is calling them to live.

Jesus ultimately came as a servant to establish a kingdom of sent servants to the world around us.

Jesus came as a servant to establish a kingdom of sent servants to the world around us.

Verse 15, for I have given you an example that you should also do just as I have done to you.

So look at the connection there.

Jesus is saying to his disciples, do you get who I am?

Do you get what I have the right to lay claim to and demand?

Do you get that?

Do you see what I'm doing?

Do you see I'm counting all of that as nothing?

So that I can bend low and serve you toward your highest, ultimate good?

Do you see that?

Now do that.

That's the foundation of discipleship.

It's not about your theology.

It's not how good you can win arguments because of your presuppositional apologetics.

It's not the way that you engage with culture and drink craft beer and grow a beard and all these other things.

It's not it.

It's not how, it's not any of these things that we pride ourselves on, especially in our camp.

That's not the mark of discipleship.

Because too many of us are puffed up and arrogant in all of that knowledge and all of that head space, and we're starting arguments on social media, and we don't have any unbelieving people that even want to hang out with us because we're just jerks.

And what if we just shifted something and we actually did what Jesus called us to?

To bend low and serve those who'd wish us harm.

And say, I just want to love you because I want you to see what I've seen.

That the King of Glory disrobed himself to serve me.

That's the call to discipleship.

To lay down our life even when the other person wishes it violence.

Come and die.

Within this passage, we see two truly, truly statements.

Anytime with like, you know, Bible learning 101, if it truly, truly or two words together, listen up.

There's an importance here, right?

So what are these two truly, truly statements?

I think they help us build a framework and understand this a little bit better.

The first one we see is in verse 16.

Truly, truly, I say to you, what?

A servant is not greater than his master, nor is the messenger greater than the one who sent him.

So there's two identity pieces.

Jesus is helping us understand.

We're servants and we're messengers.

If we are in him, we are servants and messengers.

That's what we are called to.

We're servants of Jesus who served us, right?

Jesus who served us by laying his life down for us.

We're servants of him.

We're not greater than our master.

And if he was able and willing to cast off his dignity in his lowest hour to bend low and to serve others, so should we.

Can I just help us for a moment?

Like the self-love culture is killing people within the church because we're objectifying those around us as just a means to our own happiness if they just serve us to that end.

The self-love culture that we find ourselves in, where you're just supposed to cut off anyone who doesn't serve you toward the happiness you so desire, it's killing you.

Where did Jesus find happiness?

Where did Jesus find joy?

I'll tell you in one critical place serving others.

Even in his lowest moment, he counted himself as nothing that he might serve others toward their everything.

That's the model.

Second, we are messengers of Jesus.

We are messengers sent to proclaim the good news of his serving and saving work.

The greatest way that we can serve others is to tell them of the lowly service of Jesus that washes them clean from their sin.

This is how we can love others.

Stop trying to cleanse yourself.

You're doing everything you can to scrub and scrape the filth of your heart and soul that you can make yourself clean.

And I'm here to tell you it's vanity.

Jesus makes us clean.

He's the only one that can.

And we get to rest in that.

We get to sit in that beautiful good news that Christ has made us clean.

And we are messengers of that glorious gospel.

Second truly, truly statement is verse 20.

Truly, truly I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me.

Whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.

I think there's three key things that we see in this truly, truly statement of verse 20.

Number one is that we are sent by Jesus as his representatives.

Whoever receives the one I send.

God is a sending God.

We've talked about this at Sacred Mission before, but this is the very nature of God.

We have to understand, Jesus isn't plan B, right?

God didn't make the garden and creation and put Adam and Eve there, and then they just messed everything up, right?

And God didn't, I didn't, I didn't see that coming.

Alternate game plan here.

Plan B, Jesus, you're going in to die, right?

That's that's that's not what happened.

We don't see that.

He's the Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world.

He this was plan A all along because God is ascending God.

He was going to send his son, the Messiah of all creation, who would redeem a people for his own possession and the glory of his name.

The Son would ascend to the right hand, exalted position of the Father, and he would send his spirit, who would testify to his saving and finished work, and he would fill his people who would be sent out on mission to declare the good news of the gospel as representatives of his name and kingdom.

We are sent ones, representatives of Christ in his kingdom.

Whoever receives the one I send, those who receive us receive him.

That's a beautiful mystery, isn't it?

Ultimately, it's not a rejection of you, it's a rejection of Christ.

Ultimately, it's not an embracing of you, it's an embracing of Christ.

But those two things are related so tightly to one another.

Jesus said, Whoever receives the one I send receives me.

We are such representatives of Christ that the embrace and reception of our own word becomes the embrace and reception of Christ Himself.

Last one is those who receive Him receive the Father who sent him.

And whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.

So what we get in these two statements is the principle of sending, serving, and receiving.

Sending, serving, and receiving.

Like Jesus, we are sent into the world to serve others.

And in our service, we do something.

We place on that person a duty.

A duty of receiving the love that we have extended to them in the cleansing message of the gospel.

If they don't receive us, we shake the dust from our feet and we walk on to the next person.

We are servants, we are messengers.

As Christians, this is the status that we adorn ourselves with as disciples of Jesus.

If you want to adorn yourself with a status, servant and messenger, wear those badges with pride.

Live in those identities in Christ, because it is because of him we are able to be called these things.

But what about the joyful peace, right?

If the call of Christians, disciples of Jesus, is lowly serve others joyfully, what are we doing about that joyful peace?

Let's go to verse 17 together.

Jesus says, if you know these things, if you get this, who I am, what I'm doing, how in response to those realities you're to live your life, he says, Blessed are you if you do them.

Now, this word bless, it literally means happy.

This might be a shocker for some of us reformed curmudgeons in this room.

Jesus wants you to be happy.

Like, really happy.

What Jesus doesn't want is for you to try to find your happiness in your own perceived understanding and sinful heart of what that means.

But he wants you to find real happiness.

And our happiness is tied into him.

And our happiness is tied into what he's done for us, and our happiness is tied into the way he's called us to live our lives.

To live for Jesus is to be happy, to have joy.

So what Jesus is saying here is that if you realize what I'm saying, if you understand who I am, what I've done, and in response to that truth, you've been low to serve others alongside of me, you're gonna be happy.

You're gonna be joyful to be like Jesus, serving those around us, no matter if our service is reciprocated, or even if it's reciprocated in our harm, to bend low that they would receive their highest good, to serve others, is a joyful, happy, satisfying life.

It's the very God-exalting, happily satisfying life that Jesus lived for us.

He says in Matthew 20, you want to know why I came?

He says this even as the Son of Man came, not to be served, but to serve, to give his life as a ransom for many.

If you think back to last week's sermon, who's the Son of Man?

He's the one Daniel saw in chapter 7, who stood before the ancient of days and whose dominion and authority and kingdom was placed in him.

That's who the Son of Man is.

So what does he have every right to do?

He has every right to call all people and all things to serve him for his own good.

And what does he do?

Even though the Son of Man came, he did not come to be served, but to serve and to lay his life down as a ransom for many.

Do you see the glory who humiliated himself, who stripped himself of the dignity of his divinity and he served us?

Jesus came to serve, and that filled him with joy.

He calls us, his disciples, to live our lives in response to that beautiful truth.

Disciples of Jesus who lowly serve others joyfully.

But here's our problem.

I would bet that almost each one of us in the room have something in our life that we could identify with enough contemplation and thought that we are hoping will serve us to bring us our happiness.

Because here's what we want.

We look at what Jesus is offering, we say, it sounds kind of good on the surface, but here's what I was thinking, Jesus.

You see, we desire for people to bend low and serve us.

That's what we want.

We desire for people to bend low and serve us.

We live in a culture that is constantly shaping the expectation that everything and everyone around us exists to serve us.

That is the anthem of society today.

Everything exists for your greatest good, to serve you towards your desired and perceived happiness.

And it's a lie.

We see this in our relationships, right?

In our friendships, right?

What's everybody saying?

What's your dream?

What's your greatest aim and good?

All right, if your friends don't help you, support you, sacrifice certain things of their life to get you to that point, what should you do?

Cut them off.

They're toxic.

They're not going to help you become that boss girl you wanted to be, is that right?

Is that the language you use?

Boss lady?

They're not going to help you do that.

They're not going to get you to that good.

What do you want to be?

You want to be this?

Alright, make sure that all your relationships serve you to that end.

What about marriage?

If your partner doesn't make you happy, if they don't sexually satisfy you, if they don't emotionally fulfill you, if they don't serve you in a way that you receive the happiness your mind has perceived that you so desperately need, get rid of them.

Divorce them, leave them.

They should be there to serve you.

What about our careers?

Man, we are moving from one career to the next faster than we have ever done before.

Gone are the days where you work 40 years for a watch and a pension.

Right?

Those must have been really nice watches.

But here's what we do.

You want to know the mindset of Gen Z?

Here's the mindset of Gen Z.

I'm gonna get this job now as leverage for an under three years, I can get the next job that's waiting for me.

Why?

Because every job that I get as I just uh leap pad from one to the next should serve me greater.

It should have better benefits, it should have more pay, it should have all this great freedom and excitement and joy, and it should come at the expense of what?

The least amount of work I can put into it.

I don't come into a service or a business or career to serve it for its highest good.

I demand that it serves me for my highest desired happiness, and I should put absolutely almost nothing into it.

That's that's Gen Z in a nutshell.

What about the businesses around us that are just closing down places left and right because we've believed the mantra, the customer is always right?

Even if it means that customer walking in, filling their grocery cart with whatever they want and walking right out with it.

Do we see the depths that this has taken us to?

That everything around us is supposed to serve us?

What about the church?

Can I say something with I hope some precision here?

There's too many Christians within the church that mistake, that gravely mistake the personal benefit the church gives to them and their family for a healthy church.

What can this do for my teenagers?

What can this do for my kids?

What can it do for me and the status I find myself in?

Oh, I go to the church where that dude wears the cool um skinny jeans and Jordan's.

He's got hair.

He's amazing.

Look at that guy.

Oh, I go to the church that has the amazing youth group and my kids, and you're not discipling your kids at home, you're not pastoring a shepherding, you're just handing them off and abdicating your responsibilities, right?

What is the benefit that this church gives me?

Does it give me a social status?

Do I get to say, oh, I get to go to that church?

Does it serve my family in all these ways?

Does it serve me in all this way?

Man, too many of us have mistaken personal benefits that the church offers you to healthy churches.

Because I would submit that the mark of a healthy church is the sacrificial servanthood of its members who work for the good of those that call this place home.

It ain't dependent on me.

It ain't dependent on the best thing that I can receive this morning for my own freedom is the truth and reality that I am a nobody.

And good news for you, you're a nobody too.

That's really good news for you.

You're a nobody.

And so from that truth and freedom, we can serve others for their good, not demand that they serve us.

You see, we fail to see that through Jesus' lowly service, we've already been exalted.

What do we want?

We want that supreme happiness.

We want that exaltation.

We want that status and symbol.

We want those things.

And what we fail to see is that through Jesus' lowly service, he has already exalted us to our highest good.

And it is in that freedom that we get to joyfully serve others.

You see, Jesus became the lowest that we would be exalted to the highest.

Jesus became the lowest that we would be exalted to the highest.

The posture of Jesus is a servant who exalts those he serves.

Man, think about that.

What's the posture of the king of the cosmos?

It's that he serves others that they may be exalted.

You see, Jesus became the lowest, Philippians 2, 5 through 3, 5 through 8.

I guess you could read backwards if you're Hebrew, but have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

So there's the mind we're supposed to have, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God.

What?

A thing to be grasped, a thing to be white-knuckled, but instead of that emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself.

He humiliated himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Jesus became the lowest in ways we could never imagine or understand.

Why did he do that?

So that we would have glory in the highest.

Ephesians 2, 5 through 7.

Even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ.

It is by grace you have been saved.

And what did he do?

He raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

It is ultimately through the lowly service of Jesus that we receive the exalted joy we desire to have.

So what's my hope for us, church?

It's this that we would bend low to serve others in joyful mission.

I get the fight that's in front of us.

You are being bombarded daily, hourly, minute by minute, with the message of everyone and everything around you is supposed to serve you for your ultimate joy.

That's the fight.

And the gospel's the only effective weapon in that war.

You have your ultimate joy in him.

You've been served in ways you could never even begin to truly fathom and understand, so that you'll be exalted to the place of highest status and honor in him.

And from that beautiful truth, we can be nobodies who lay our life down to serve others for their highest good.

Listen, I love you guys.

I love Sacred Mission.

I love the people who have come here.

We're not, if I have anything to do, if our elders, I believe, have anything to do with the health of this church, we will not be marked by our arrogance.

We will not be marked by knowledge that puffs us up in pridefulness.

We will not be marked by our combativeness.

We will not be marked by these things.

We will be marked by people who bend low, who count ourselves and our status as nothing, but joyfully set it aside that in joy we might serve others, that they might know their highest good and joy in Him.

If we were to brandish a mark upon ourselves, would that not be the mark that we would so desire to bear?

That we laid it all down, that we came and died to serve those beneath us, that we might lift them up to the place of their highest good.

Let's pray.