Redefining Greatness: Being Great in God's Kingdom

So I want you to go in and take your Bible on out, lift it on up.

If you need a Bible, the ushers are happy to get you one in the aisles.

But let's say this confession at the same time.

Ready?

Go.

This is my Bible.

It is my primary source of spiritual nourishment.

I will read it every day and become all God wants me to be.

My mind will be renewed.

My life will be transformed.

I will become fully surrendered to Christ.

Therefore, I will hide his word in my heart so I can be all God's destined me to be.

Can you say amen?

Amen.

Let's go to Mark chapter 9, verse 33.

Mark 9:33

Amen.

I love this passage of scripture.

Mark chapter 9, verse 33.

Mark 9:33

It says, After they arrived at Capernaum and settled in a house, Jesus asked his disciples, What were you discussing on the road?

But they didn't answer because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest.

He sat down, called the twelve disciples over to him, and said, Whoever wants to be first must take last place, and be the servant of everyone else.

Then he put a little child among them.

Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf, welcomes me.

And anyone who welcomes me not o welcomes not only me, but also my Father who sent me.

Can you say amen?

Father, I thank you for every single person that's here this morning.

I pray in the mighty name of Jesus that you would continue to raise up an army of servants, God.

I pray in the mighty name of Jesus that we would be known as people who are great in the kingdom of God.

In Jesus' mighty name.

And everybody said, Amen.

You can go and have a seat.

Thank you so much for standing with me.

There's a lot of talk in our society about greatness.

How many of you guys are familiar with the goat debate?

Anybody?

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Last service I said that, and I felt like I was like, I felt like I was like, man, like I'm like way out of touch with the people here.

But for those of you guys who are maybe a little bit older, not familiar with that, listen, there's a lot of wisdom with age.

I'm not insulting anybody.

Uh, but you're not familiar with the goat.

The goat is the greatest of all time.

And there's a lot of talk about greatness.

People talk about Michael Jordan versus LeBron James.

And if you are from an older generation that saw Michael Jordan play, you are most likely gonna say that Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time.

Yes, yes, is that fair to be able to say?

If you are from a younger generation, like my generation, you would say LeBron James is the best basketball player of all time.

So and so there's this debate talking about greatness, and I'll tell you this I I just got into soccer too, a little bit, especially during the World Cup.

And I've decided that Ben and I have decided that we are gonna be Man City fans.

We just decided that.

So that's who we're going with.

Pastor Mark is very displeased with that statement.

Liverpool, right?

Liverpool, okay.

Liverpool.

I thought about Liverpool, but I went with Man City.

But through just kind of studying a little bit about soccer, I've realized that we as Americans think that the Michael Jordan LeBron debate is heated.

Oh, it's it's it's not as heated as the Ronaldo Messi debate that's going on around the world.

Everybody gets fired up about it.

But there's a reason that people get fired up about it.

There's a reason why people talk about greatness so much, and that's because people have an attraction towards greatness.

People see greatness and they want it.

People have a desire for their life to matter.

Deep down, everybody wants their life to be able to matter.

They want to make an impact.

They want their life to not just be an average life that doesn't accomplish anything.

Whether that's in sports for some people, for some people that's your career.

For other people, it's being a parent, being a husband, being a wife, whatever it might be, people simply want to be great.

They want to have their life have some sort of value.

But what if I told you this?

What if I told you that greatness is actually different than what the world says that it is?

What if I told you that Jesus defines greatness differently than the world defines greatness?

And that's exactly what I want to talk to you about this morning for the next few moments.

The title of my message is Redefining Greatness.

Being great in God's Kingdom.

And the first thing I want to show you from that text that I read to you is that greatness isn't wrong.

Greatness isn't wrong, but our diff definition can be.

Greatness isn't wrong, but our definition can be.

We get to Mark chapter 9, verse 33.

Mark 9:33

And it says, After they arrived at Capernaum and settled in a house, Jesus asked his disciples, What were you discussing out on the road?

Jesus asks a simple question.

But I want to tell you a little bit about this question.

Do I have any moms in here?

Okay, I have some moms.

I give it up for the moms in here.

We have some great moms.

Moms, you'll understand this.

And dads in here, maybe you can remember on a time where a mom or a grandma or a parental figure in your life did this.

This wasn't Jesus really asking a question to gather information.

He wasn't going like, oh, how you guys doing?

Hey, what'd you guys talk about on your way here?

No.

This was this.

This was like the phone rings, it's the principal, and the principal says, I'll use me as an example to my to my mom, Pastor Lisa.

Hello, Lisa.

Yes, I'm calling uh because of Joseph.

Today in school, he thought that it was a good idea to throw pencils at some kids and they got hurt and had to go to the nurse's office.

And so then I come home and my mom goes, So, how was school today?

She's not asking me how school was today.

She knows what happened at school today, and so she's asking for that reason.

Jesus is not asking because he doesn't know what they were discussing.

Jesus is asking because he does know what they were discussing, and he's looking to bring correction to it.

Jesus already knows the answer.

But then the text goes on to say in Mark chapter 9, verse 34, it says, but they didn't answer.

Mark 9:34

We're gonna get to that later.

Because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest.

He sat down, called the 12 disciples over to him, and said, Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everybody else.

I want to point something out.

Notice that Jesus does not rebuke the desire to be great.

Jesus doesn't say, It's wrong for you to be great.

We we shouldn't be great in the kingdom of God.

No.

He redefines it.

Aspiring to be great is not a bad thing.

There is nothing wrong with aspiring to be great, but the problem is how we measure our greatness.

The world measures greatness completely differently than the kingdom measures greatness.

This is how the world measures greatness.

The world measures greatness by how much money do you make?

The world measures greatness by how many people know your name.

The world measures greatness by how many people are under you and work for you.

The world measures greatness by how many followers do you have on social media, how much influence do you have?

These are the standards and metrics that people would look at somebody and they would say, This person is great because of those things.

Are you with me?

And I want to be very clear about something.

There is nothing inherently wrong with those things.

There's nothing wrong with having money, there's nothing wrong with having a good job, there's nothing wrong with having people work for you, there's nothing wrong with having a lot of followers on social media.

None of those things are wrong.

In fact, the Bible's clear that it shows us that God wants to bless his children.

There's nothing wrong with having a good career.

In fact, I would encourage you to have a good career, to be the best.

You know what the Bible says?

That Daniel had a spirit of excellence.

And he rose to the top because of it.

I believe that Christians should have a spirit of excellence.

This church has a spirit of excellence.

Pastor Frank does not, amen.

Pastor Frank does not want to do anything if it's not done in a spirit of excellence.

And so there's nothing wrong with having an excellent career and being great at what you do.

But here's where the problem becomes.

The problem becomes with what Jesus says.

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his very soul?

You can have all this stuff.

You can be considered great by worldly standards, but if you're not great by kingdom standards, you've missed it all.

We do not measure greatness by the world's definition of greatness.

We measure greatness by Jesus' definition of greatness.

Let me tell you this.

We don't want to go by the world's definition of things.

As Christians, we should not define things by the world's way of defining things.

If that's the case, then we don't even have a definition for what a woman is.

If we go by the world's metric of things, we have no idea what a woman is today.

Because, well, you know, a woman is a person who identifies as a woman.

That's a circular definition.

That doesn't even give us an explanation of what it is.

I saw a video the other day.

There is a former NBA player that is trying to declare for the WNBA draft.

And he is not doing it because he believes he's a woman.

He's doing it to prove a point.

And I'm not saying his actions are right or wrong.

I'm not here to get into that today.

But what I am getting into is he's doing it because the world has been so fluid about what a woman is, what this is, what that is, that there's no real truth at the end of the day.

They talk about searching for truth, but they provide none.

And see, that's the thing.

Jesus is the truth.

If we want truth in life, we need to go to the way, we need to go to the truth, and we need to go to the life.

I'm not living by the world's definition of things.

I'm living by the Bible's definition of things.

I'm living by Christ.

This is truth.

Why go to the world when you can go to the creator of the world?

I want to go to the source.

Can you say amen?

But here's the great thing about Jesus.

Jesus, although he tells them, he says to them, hey, we don't measure success.

We don't measure greatness by the world's standards.

We measure it by service.

He's not just an all-talk type of guy, though.

See, Jesus is the type of leader that everybody wants to follow because he doesn't just say it, he does it.

Jesus modeled service better than any person that ever lived.

Jesus knelt and washed the disciples' feet.

But even before he came to earth, you know what he did?

He humbled himself and became a servant, and he left the glory of heaven to come down to this earth.

Why?

To be able to serve us by dying for us.

He is the greatest example of what a servant is.

The Bible says in Mark chapter 10, verse 45, I love this scripture.

Mark 10:45

It says, the Son of Man, that's Jesus, he came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Think about that for a second.

The King, the creator of all things.

The Bible says, in the beginning was the word.

The word was with God.

And the word was God.

That's Jesus.

That He was there in the beginning.

He created everything.

And he could have very easily came down from this earth and said, Everybody bow down to me.

Everybody serve me right now.

I need to get, I need a chair, I need a fan, and I need some grapes.

But that's not what he did.

He modeled a different way to us.

Now don't be mistaken.

The Bible's very clear that every day every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess the name of Jesus.

But when he came to this earth for the first time, when he came for his first visitation to the earth, he modeled a life of service.

He modeled a life of service.

In eternity, we will not be measured by our earthly accolades.

There will be many people that will stand before God.

And perhaps they'll say, I have a doctorate from Yale.

I had a very successful business.

I lived in a very nice house.

And we think that that's going to impress Jesus.

As we've already established, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with those things.

What I'm saying is this is that God is not moved by our worldly greatness.

God is moved by our kingdom service because that is true greatness.

Greatness isn't wrong, but our definition can be.

The second thing I want to point out to you this morning from this text is that greatness doesn't compare.

Greatness doesn't compare.

Mark chapter 9, verse 33.

Mark 9:33

It says, after they arrived at Capernaum and settled in a house, Jesus asked his disciples the question I said before.

He said, So, I'm adding the so.

What were you discussing on the road?

And it says, but they didn't answer.

Why did they not answer?

I'll tell you why they didn't answer.

The reason why they went silent is that their silence revealed they knew it was wrong.

They knew what they were discussing was not something that was right, not something that was honoring to God.

This this shows us something interesting.

We don't always need correction because we don't know better.

The disciples' silence reveals that they did know better.

Sometimes we need correction because we know it's wrong, but our heart's still wrong.

We know it's wrong, but our heart's not in the right place.

We need correction because our heart's not right.

See, Pastor Frank will get up here on Sundays and he'll preach out of the word of God.

And sometimes you may hear something and you may think to yourself, I already know this.

I already know this thing.

And let me just say that that's a very dangerous place to be able to be with anything.

I already know this, so therefore I can't learn anything else about it.

Sometimes there needs to be reinforcement in our life where we see something from a new angle, a new perspective.

But he'll talk about something.

I already know this.

That's nice that you know it, but are you living it?

Because until we are living it, I would argue that we don't truly know it.

The Bible says faith without works is dead.

I show by my actions that I truly believe something.

The disciples knew.

They knew it was wrong.

They knew it was wrong, but they still needed correction to be brought to them because their heart was not right.

Now I would love to tell you the disciples had this conversation one time.

It was like a one and done thing.

It's like they threw pencils at the kid and they learned their lesson the first time.

No, they don't have this conversation once.

They don't even have this conversation twice.

They have this conversation three different times.

They were obsessed with this idea of status.

They were obsessed with this idea of being considered the greatest.

They even had a whole argument about who was gonna sit at Jesus' right hand when they were in heaven.

They just kept talking about it.

And Jesus, he's actually about to go to the cross.

It's about one or two weeks away from the cross, and on their way to Jerusalem, here they are again arguing about the greatness.

Imagine how annoying that would be.

Jesus knew his mission.

It wasn't that Jesus was like unaware that he was gonna die on the cross and he was just, oh, that sprung up on me.

He knew it was coming.

He knew his time was coming, and he knew it was about a week or two away, and he has to deal with you know twiddle D and Twiddledumb arguing about who's gonna be the greatest.

Very frustrating.

But this is what was happening.

But see, you would think they learn, but their conversation about who is the greatest reveals something that is a temptation in all of us.

A temptation to compare.

A temptation to compare.

Comparison is a trap of the enemy to stop kingdom advancement.

I'll say it again.

Comparison is a trap of the enemy to stop kingdom comparison.

The longer that we compare ourselves to each other, the less time we focus on fulfilling our assignment from God.

I want you to look at it like this.

The Bible says this.

It says in Hebrews, to run your race, run it with perseverance, keeping your eyes on Jesus.

Proverbs says, to keep your eyes fixed straight ahead.

Watch this.

If I'm running my race and I stop and I start looking at what everybody else is doing, then I'm slowing down and I'm not running the race that God has for me.

I'm not focusing on Christ, I'm focusing on what everybody else is doing.

I just preached a sermon to our youth.

It was our empact graduation, and the last word that I gave to the to the seniors that we had is I preached a message called Run Your Race.

And it was a really entertaining message.

And I say that because I wore a ref shirt during it.

I took it on and I had a whistle in my hand, and I was going around with the whistle.

And I commented, I said, We we have uh the bot the Bible says to be a runner, not a referee.

We have a lot of referees in the body of Christ and not enough runners.

We're stopping and looking at everybody else's life.

Where we're sitting there and blowing the whistle, and somebody starts doing something they shouldn't be doing, and not in a loving way, not in a way that we're doing our we're we're being our brother's keeper, like the Bible teaches, but in a judgmental, look at you type of way, we blow the whistle right at somebody else.

And see, what we are doing in that moment is we are worrying about somebody else's race, and we're not focusing on the task that is ahead of us.

But see, people are not even just referees, some people are just fans.

They're sitting there on the sideline, they're watching the race.

Wow.

Wow.

I could never, I could never do what Jeremy's doing.

That's Jeremy.

I can never do what Jeremy's doing.

Look at Jeremy.

I he's doing such great things.

What am I doing with my life?

God hasn't called us to be referees.

God hasn't called us to be fans, He's called us to be runners, to run the race that is set out before us, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus.

I'm a minister, and I would love to tell you.

I would love to tell you.

You know, in the ministry, though, it's just really not like that.

Pastors don't compare themselves to each other.

Oh, yes, they do.

They might, honestly, they might be some of the worst when it comes to that.

And it's something that I have to keep a guard on in my own life that I'm not worrying about what somebody else is doing.

Um, and I'm not worried about what somebody else is doing, but I'm excited about when the kingdom of God is advancing.

That's the goal.

I don't, I don't want to compare because greatness doesn't compare.

What somebody else is doing is accomplishing their task that God has for them.

You know, the Bible says that we must quickly carry out the task assigned to us.

For night's coming, and then no man can work.

And so, guess what?

There's a time coming where it'll be too late for me to be able to accomplish my task.

I'll either go home to be with the Lord or the Lord will return.

And it will be too late for me to be able to go and do more of what God wants me to do, fulfill my task of being a pastor.

It'll be too late.

And I don't want to get caught up looking at other people when I could be making more ground in the task that God has for me.

Greatness doesn't compare.

Greatness doesn't compare.

But I want you to know this Jesus wasn't threatened by comparison.

No.

In fact, the opposite is true.

Let's go to Mark chapter 9, verse 38.

Mark 9:38

This is a couple verses later.

I find it interesting that this is the story that happens right after they talk about uh about um being great in the kingdom is being a servant.

In Mark chapter 9, verse 38, John said to Jesus, Who's John?

Mark 9:38

One of Jesus' disciples, Teacher, we saw someone using your name to cast out demons, but we told him to stop because he wasn't in our group.

The comparison started with the 12 internally, and now they're looking at other people.

You know why?

Because comparison knows no end.

You'll start with comparing with one person, then it'll be two people, and then it will be everybody else, and it will consume your thinking, it will consume your life.

And so they're sitting there and they're saying, Jesus, we're the only demon casters in here.

Jesus, we're the only ones that are gonna advance the kingdom.

And you know what I think that John thinks?

I think John thinks in this moment, just honestly, I think that John is expecting a pat on the back.

Good job, John.

You did good, man.

Good job telling him to cut it out.

But that's not what he says.

He says in verse 39, don't stop him.

No one who performs a miracle in my name will soon be able to speak evil of me.

Anyone who is not against us is for us.

What is Jesus saying here in this text?

He's saying that the point is not who's doing it, the point is that the kingdom of God is advancing.

We have to keep.

Our eyes on the mission.

Christians should be excited when the kingdom of God advanced.

You know that you don't even have to like somebody to be excited that the kingdom of God is advancing.

You know, I was reading this text, I can't remember where it is in the scriptures, but it's Paul talking.

And he's talking about some different people that have some questionable motivations in preaching the gospel.

And you can tell that Paul doesn't really care for these people with these questionable motivations.

And you know what he says?

He says, but nonetheless, Christ is being preached.

At the end of the day, you may not like somebody.

Some of you might not be fond of me.

People, I have people tell uh I have people tell me, you know, like, dude, you're such a nice guy.

How could someone not like me?

I I know.

No, I'm just kidding.

But some people don't like me.

It's the truth.

You may not like something about my personality, you may not like something about the way that I speak.

And that's your right to be able to not care for me as an individual.

Uh, you you can't be best friends with everybody.

It's just the reality of life.

Some people didn't like Jesus either.

It happens.

But nonetheless, regardless of if you like me, regardless of if you like somebody else, the question is not just do you like them.

The question is, is the kingdom of God advancing through them?

And if it is, we ought to rejoice in that and be excited that more and more people are coming into the kingdom, that the kingdom is being pushed forward because of it.

Amen.

Let me encourage you with this.

Many people think that the only way to kingdom advancement is through this pulpit.

Right here.

Me preaching.

Oh, Pastor Joey's advancing the kingdom because he he preaches and people get saved.

And that is one avenue to be able to advance the kingdom of God.

Ultimately, it comes back to is the thing you're doing, help advance the kingdom of God.

Well, I'll tell you what, there's, you know, that there are people that are in other careers that are also helping the kingdom of God advance.

They're out there, they're at there, you know, at a doctor, at a doctor's office, and what are they doing at the doctor's office?

They're showing the love of Jesus Christ, they're praying for people, they're inviting people to church, they're witnessing to people, and you know what they're even doing?

They're funding the kingdom of God with the with what they uh resources that they have.

There are many avenues and streams to be able to advance the kingdom of God.

You don't just need this pulpit.

Whatever you do, you can connect it to the kingdom of God and help the kingdom of God advance.

Can you say amen?

Amen.

I'm gonna share a story with you about the importance of advancing the kingdom of God.

You see, the reason why we can celebrate when other people are advancing the kingdom is because that's the goal.

That's what we're looking at.

I played basketball when I was in high school, and I loved playing basketball.

I was more of a baseball player, I was pretty much just a sharpshooter in basketball.

And I was 15 years old or maybe 14, I was a freshman in high school, and we were playing this team that was significantly more talented than us.

They had their starting, just for understanding, the starting five at Faith Prep when I was there, we were all 5'11 to 6'2, I would say, for the most part.

Yeah, we were all 5'11 to 6'2.

We get ready to match up against this team.

They're from East Hartford.

We got 6'2 at guard, 6'3 at shooting guard, 6'5 at small forward, 6'7 at power forward, 6'8 at center, and we're getting ready to match up against this team, and we're like, oh my goodness.

Now, Ben played with me in high school.

He'll remember this game as I talk about it more if he doesn't already remember it.

Ben actually wasn't, Ben was one of our better players, and he wasn't even playing that game because he had injured his ankle.

And so Ben's out.

Uh, we are playing the game, another one of our players gets hurt, another one of our players gets in foul trouble, and so we go into the half, we're down 15 points, we're on the verge of getting blown out by this, but by this team.

And our coach pulls us into the locker room and he talks to us.

And my coach was a phenomenal coach.

He was he was great.

He still actually coaches the Milford High School basketball team today.

He's a he's a great guy, great coach.

And he looks at us at the locker room and he starts talking to us.

And he says, guys, hard work.

This is hard work.

And he told us, he said, we're gonna go back out there.

This is our home court.

We're not gonna let them push us around.

We're gonna work hard and we're gonna work to win this game.

What was he doing?

He was uniting us under one vision.

And so we get to the end of the game, and we're down now by two points.

We had we had had we had played amazing, and we had gotten back within two points with about 30 seconds left in the game.

He remembers now.

We call a timeout, coach draws up a play.

I was not the best player on our high school team.

I would love to tell you I was.

I could, I could if I want to.

You guys weren't there.

I could tell you I was.

But one of my really good friends, Caleb, he was our point guard, and he coach draws up a play, and he goes, All right, here's what's gonna happen.

We're gonna run this play.

We used to call it 14, and he was like, we're gonna run 14 for Caleb.

It's an isolation, meaning that it's just all on him to figure out a way to be able to score.

He said, Don't go until we get close to the buzzer.

Said, All right, cool.

We all understood the mission.

We we understood what we were doing.

Coach calls for him to go.

There's about 10 seconds left.

He starts driving, but if you remember, everybody on their starting lineup looks like Goliath in comparison to us.

And so he drives to the basket.

There's three guys hovering all around him.

Now, Caleb had a decision in that moment, my friend.

He could have said, I want to be the great guy.

I want to be the one to be able to have the spotlight.

And so I'm taking this shot, and we're we're either gonna make it and I'm gonna be the hero or I'm gonna miss it.

But nobody else is getting this shot.

That's what he could have said.

But that wasn't the right play to be able to make.

And so he's get he's can't even get a shot off, and he finds me out in the corner, wide open.

No one arounds me, and I'm able to take an easy shot.

We make the shot with like two seconds left on the clock, and our entire team erupts, our entire sideline, we go crazy.

And you know why I tell that story?

Because here's why.

In that moment, it wasn't about who made the shot, it was about the fact that we won.

It wasn't about one shot.

People could look at that and they could say, Man, well, you made the shot.

I made the shot, but what about all the people that played defense and made good passes and made shots throughout the game?

That's what the kingdom of God is.

It's not just the person that is seen, it's everybody else that contributes to it.

You look at me and you see me preaching.

You look at Pastor Frank and you see us preaching.

Well, let me tell you, we're not getting up here without the other people that are serving in the body of Christ.

We're not doing it.

It's not possible.

Somebody brought this pulpit up here.

Uh, Jimmy's been following me around today, making sure that I'm safe to be able to get where I can go.

There are people in the back, Lisa and the Hodges and Matt Parkers is in the back, and all the great people on the camera.

They're doing things to be able to help the kingdom of God advance.

Not to mention our ushers, our security, our greeting.

The kingdom of God is not just one person.

The kingdom of God is a body of believers that are advancing the kingdom.

That's it.

We're all after the same mission, we're all after the same thing.

And guess what?

I am grateful that I get to play the part that I get to play.

I'm just playing my part.

We cannot all, we cannot win everybody to Jesus with one person.

It takes many.

Can you say amen?

Don't lose sight of the goal.

Greatness doesn't compare.

The third thing I want to share with you and worship team, you can make your way back up is that greatness serves.

Greatness serves.

Mark chapter 9, verse 35.

Mark 9:35

It says he sat down, called the 12 disciples over to him, and said, Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.

Jesus says, take last place.

I want to break down a couple of things he said, two things specifically.

First, take place.

Take last place.

This is not talking about false humility or having a low self-esteem.

I am unworthy.

That's not what we're talking about.

This is not acting like something that is true about you is false.

If somebody were to ask me if I was a good baseball player, I would say yes.

Some people would call that arrogant.

I would just say that that was me saying a true statement.

Now, if I went further and I said, I am the greatest baseball player that ever lived, that ain't true.

I can tell you that right now.

Now, if I had stats to be able to prove it, like if you ask Michael Jordan or LeBron, and they say, I think I'm the greatest to ever play, they may have stats to be able to back that, and so that may be a supported statement for them to be able to make.

We don't, humility is not lying.

Humility is not acting like, you know, like Pastor Joey, it was so wonderful to be able to see all those all those people saved.

Good job.

Oh no, I didn't.

It was it was actually really bad.

What do you mean it was really bad?

All those people got saved.

You see what I'm saying?

Jesus is not preaching false humility or low self-esteem.

When he says take last place, he's saying refuse to make it about you.

What you're doing for the kingdom of God is not about you, it's about something so much bigger than that.

It's about doing stuff without needing credit.

It's about doing stuff without needing recognition.

It's about doing stuff without needing to be first.

If those things do happen, if you get recognition, if you are first, if you do get the credit, there's nothing wrong with that.

But glory ultimately belongs to God who gave us the ability to be able to do it.

Refuse to be first, take last place.

Take last place.

The second thing I want to point out that Jesus says is he says, to be a servant of everybody else.

Be a servant of everybody else.

What is being a servant?

Being a servant is serving when nobody's looking.

Nobody can even notice that you're gonna do it.

You see a piece of trash down on the ground, and you like look around.

I wonder if anyone's maybe I'll wait until somebody looks at me to be able to pick this up so somebody can notice that I'm doing it.

That's not the heart of a servant in the kingdom.

We do it regardless of if anybody is looking, regardless of if anybody is watching.

Being a servant, being a servant, being a servant in the kingdom of God is serving even if you don't get thanked.

Now, let me just say this.

We believe in thanking people here at this church.

I believe that as Christians, we should thank people when they have done a kindness towards us or something.

I'm not saying that we should be thankless people.

In fact, the Bible talks about being thankful in all things.

The Bible talks about giving honor to where honor is due.

We believe that.

But see, the heart of the person that is doing it should not be to be seeking a man's thanks.

It should be to be seeking service in the kingdom of God.

It's serving even if there's no thanks that is ever given.

It's serving even if it's not convenient to you.

Let me tell you a story.

Pastor Frank one time, he's driving to the church and he's in a rush to be able to get there.

I forget what was happening.

Maybe he had to preach, maybe he had a meeting coming up.

And as he's driving, he sees a young girl with her car broken down.

She's clearly frustrated, she doesn't know what she's doing, and she's broken down on the side of the road.

And Pastor Frank, he's got somewhere to be.

It wasn't convenient for him to stop.

But guess what?

In that moment, he decided to be what the Bible says to be.

He decided to be great in God's kingdom.

And what did that greatness look like?

It didn't look like Fox News coming and everybody going and shooting.

You know, local pastor, you know, uh helps out lady.

That's not what it was.

It wasn't here's a million dollars and now you're rich.

It was, I'm gonna pull over and serve this young girl.

And he helped her.

He helped her.

I don't remember uh specifically how what happened.

I think he prayed with her as well.

Guess what?

That young girl knows that he's the pastor of this church.

And whenever she hears a faith church, she's gonna think that pastor helped me.

That pastor helped me.

And prayerfully, one day, if she hasn't already, she'll give her life to Jesus Christ because of it.

This is what it looks like to be a servant.

What about being a servant when somebody else gets credit?

Does it really matter?

At the end of the day, does it really matter?

Somebody else gets the credit.

Oh well.

Oh well.

Because we're not doing it for the purpose of humans per human acknowledgement.

We're doing it to honor our God.

And let me tell you this: even if nobody sees it, there's one person who does see it, and that's God.

He sees everything you do.

There's a scripture that says in Romans that everything is naked before God, meaning that he sees everything exactly as it is.

He sees the hours you put in in the office that your boss doesn't see.

He sees that girl or that guy that was in sh that was in need and you treated them with kindness, and nobody else saw you be able to do that.

He sees all.

And I have good news for you.

The Bible says that you can actually store up your treasure in heaven, and that's what you're doing.

Every time that you choose to be a servant, you're storing up your treasure in heaven.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there'll be blessings that'll come to you in this life.

But guess what?

Every blessing we receive in this life, it's gonna go away.

It's gonna be gone.

You can't take all of that with heaven to heaven, but you can store up for yourself treasure for when you get there.

People talk about retirement investments.

I have heavenly investments, and I'm adding to them as much as I can by being a servant.

I challenge you to do the same exact thing.

Jesus said to be a servant of everyone else.

What about yes?

What about the person I don't really care for?

Yes.

Everyone, regardless of what their economic status is.

Can I talk real to you?

Regardless of what their racial background is, which by the way, there's no room for that in the body of Christ.

Either one of those things.

There's no room for that.

We are united under Christ.

The Bible says there's no longer slave nor free, Jew nor Greek.

Christ is all that matters.

Everyone else.

Everyone is everyone.

I want to serve everyone however I can.

I want to be like Jesus, become a servant of everybody else.

See, greatness in the kingdom is not measured by who serves you.

Greatness in the kingdom is measured by who you serve.

It's not about how many people work for you.

It's not about how big your role is.

And I'm not just talking about serving in church today.

I'm talking about something so much more.

But you have people in churches, and not this church, I'm saying, but in churches, they're like, I'm the head greeter.

I sing on the worship team every third Sunday.

They introduce, hi, I'm Joey, I'm the head greeter here.

They think there's something about the fact that they are superior or above or better than.

But the reality is, is it's not about our status or our title, it's about our service to the kingdom of God.

I want to be a servant of everybody else.

It's not who serves you.

That's what the world says.

It's who you serve.

And Jesus ends, and I'm bringing this to a close here.

Jesus ends with a beautiful object lesson in Mark chapter 9, verse 36.

Mark 9:36

It says, Then he put the a little child among them.

Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me.

And anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me, but also my father who sent me.

He takes a little kid in his hands.

If my niece was here, maybe I'd bring her on the stage right now.

Probably not.

She'd probably cry.

Takes a little child in his hands.

And he lifts this child up and he says, You want to be great?

Serve this kid.

Why a kid?

Why does he use this?

This is true today, but it was even more true in ancient times.

Is that a child represents someone with no status, no power.

A child represents someone that can't do anything for you.

A child represents someone that can't elevate you, but rather they need your help.

There's nothing that you could get out of that.

Jesus comes to the point and he says, You think you're great?

The real test is how you treat this child.

See, anybody can anybody can be a servant of their boss?

You know, boss, can I get some coffee for you?

You know, pay raise time is coming where they consider, can I get you a coffee?

That's not the type of service Jesus is talking about.

It's easy to serve when it benefits you, but what if it doesn't?

That's the real test.

Should we serve our bosses and should we serve people who are above us?

Absolutely.

The Bible says to serve everyone.

But the point I'm making is that if our service only rises to the level of important people, then it's not kingdom service.

I want my service to be beyond just those who can help me.

Jesus ends and he talks about, he says, anybody that welcomes this child welcomes me.

Anyone who welcomes this child welcomes me.

What Jesus is essentially saying is how you treat me.

Is how you how you treat other people, all people is how you treat me.

That's what he's saying.

That person that you didn't really want to help out.

That person that needed you in that moment that we ignored, the way you treat that person is the way you treat Christ.

In the same way, though, that mom you see at the store, that she's got three kids running around, they're all going crazy, they knock down a couple things of cereal or whatever in the aisle, she drops her pocketbook, she's trying to chase her kids.

And here's the reality: many people, even Christians, have the audacity to look at that mom and be like, I can't believe her.

She needs to just control her kids.

This is so annoying.

And I get it, it could be like, whoa, what's going on?

Overstimulating.

But what if that moment, instead of looking at her like that, we look at her and we say, Man, I want to serve her.

How can I help her?

I'm gonna go pick up those boxes of cereal that that those kids just uh dropped on the ground, and I'm gonna grab her pocketbook and I'm gonna hand it to her to be able to help her out.

Why?

Because I want to serve, I want to serve, I want to treat her the same way that I would treat Christ.

See, people think, people think that the way that they serve God is based on how they treat God, and to a degree, yes, but what if I told you it's also about the way that we treat others?

The way we treat other people is a direct reflection of our love for God.

You want to be great in God's kingdom?

I do.

If you want to be great, it's not to just become a worldly greatness and success, although, again, nothing wrong with that.

But we should become a servant.

How do we become a servant?

Well, of course, there's inside the church.

That's the part that we talk about a lot.

And I believe in that.

I believe in serving in the body of Christ.

I'd encourage you, if you don't serve anywhere in the church, this is a great Sunday to make a decision to say, I want to serve.

In fact, I happen to know this that that uh, and I didn't plan to say this or anything, I'm just saying that in a moment.

I happen to know we need a lot of help in our parking lot uh ministry right now.

Some of you are like, I don't want to park cars.

You're not parking cars.

You are an outdoor greeter.

You know that people say that the way that that people have decided what they think about your church before they even enter it.

The first five minutes on the property, they decide what you thought about it.

And if there's no one there to be able to greet them, you know what that might do?

That might just turn their heart off heart off from God and make it more difficult for them to come into the kingdom of God.

Your service in church matters, the way that we greet people at the door.

What about, yes, unsaved people?

But what about your brother or sister in the body of Christ that had a terrible week and they come into church and you smile at them and say hello, and they think to themselves, man, nobody has smiled at that like that to me the entire week.

Our service in the church matters, but what if I said that our service is too weak if it's only inside the church?

We need to serve inside the church, yes, but we should be serving outside of the four walls of the church.

We should be serving.

I love what our church does.

We do outreaches to the community where we where we give people things and we just give people gifts.

Why?

Because we care about them and we love them and we want to help them.

I just heard, or I just was yesterday, you guys saw John up here before.

John yesterday decided, he decided like two weeks ago, you know what?

I'm going off to Bible school, I'm going to study to be a preacher.

I want to serve our community one last time.

I'm going to put on an event right in the Brookfield Park, and we're going to give away a bunch of stuff to families, and we're going to preach the gospel to them.

He met their spiritual need, yes, but he also met their physical needs in that moment.

He's a blessing to them.

It's important to do both.

When I was um at North Point, the Bible college I went to, there was uh, we used to go on the streets and we would evangelize to the homeless people in that city.

And it got really cold in this in this city in the winter.

And we were Bible college students.

It's not like we had all these resources and money and stuff like that.

But you know what we were able to do?

We were able to gather up some winter coats.

And so we went out there and we didn't look at some some guy that's on the street that's freezing half to death and say, Can I tell you about Jesus?

We handed him a coat first, and we said, Here, we just want to give this to you because we love you.

And you know why we love you?

We love you because Jesus loves you.

And we were able to share the gospel with people.

People were getting saved on the streets, able to pray with people, able to help them get into homeless shelters and do things of that nature.

Why?

Because that's serving people.

The way you treat the least of these is the way that we treat Him.

This is what it looks like to be a servant.

God may be challenging some of you right now to be a servant.

And again, I'm not just talking about serving in church.

If you don't serve in church, yes, I encourage you to be able to do that.

But I'm not looking to use this message as just a platform to be like everybody should just give all their time and hours to the church.

I'm saying that we as Christians need to be servants in life beyond the four walls of the church, and in the four walls of the church.