To Be Truly Great

Well, if you're just joining us, we are in a series that we started way back in February called Following Jesus.

We've been going through the book of Matthew all year long, starting way back in February.

No big deal, by the way, if you haven't been here in a while or if it's your first time, we want every week to stand on its own.

But we've spent our whole year trying to follow Jesus, just being in the footsteps of his disciples, walking along with Jesus, doing our best to learn more about him, to learn more from him, so that we can know him and understand him better.

There is no greater goal in life, there is no aspiration you can have that is more worthwhile than to know Jesus more, than to know him better.

There will never be a day, I mean this, even in heaven, you've been in heaven for a few thousand years, you won't even get to the point in heaven where you're like, I know all I need to know.

Jesus is worthy of eternal pursuit when it comes to knowing him and knowing him more deeply.

I think that's part of why heaven lasts forever.

It will take that long to fully understand and appreciate Jesus.

He's incredible.

And all year long we've been following after him, trying to listen to him, to learn more about him, to know him better.

And it's taken us through a lot of miles.

We've we've kind of tracked the journey with maps and stuff like that.

In fact, last week Jesus made a pretty large journey.

We'll pull up the map from last week.

Jesus left Capernaum, which is where he spent most of his time in his ministry, especially the early stages.

He goes all the way down to Judea, the southern part of Israel, crosses over the Jordan River, and does some teaching and does some things over there.

And today we're gonna see Jesus make, or at least begin to make, the most significant journey of his life, of his life on this earth.

Not the furthest journey in terms of miles, but the most significant journey in terms of impact and importance.

We'll get to that in just a second.

Right now, we are in a little miniseries within this following Jesus study called VIPs.

VIPs.

We're actually looking at some teachings of Jesus that happened toward the end of his ministry, his three-year period of ministry on the earth, where he sort of highlights the people who have the inside track when it comes to the God stuff.

He takes some people, he commends them, he says, hey, this person, they've got it figured out, you should be like them.

Or if you want to be someone who really understands the God stuff, be like this.

Jesus highlights for us what kind of people the kingdom is really for, and what kind of people really understand and get God's kingdom, meaning God's way of life, his values, the world that he's building here on this earth that all of us can be part of.

We begin in Matthew chapter 20 with the very beginning of verse 17.

Matthew 20 · chapter mention

It says, as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem.

I want to pause there and you guys can bring that scripture off the screen for a second, because as I said a few minutes ago, this is the beginning of the most significant journey of Jesus' life.

It says, as they were making their way up to Jerusalem.

So we'll bring our map back up because we're trying to follow along in the footsteps of Jesus.

Now Jesus is going to start moving toward the capital city of Jerusalem, capital city of Israel.

So we'll see on the map here, he leaves this Jordan River area where he is, and he begins to make his way to Jerusalem.

And he gets about halfway whenever we pause for what we're going to talk about today.

It's not a very long journey in terms of mileage, but it's an incredibly important journey because Jesus knows what Jerusalem means.

It means the cross, it means sacrifice, it means death.

And so Jesus is at that point in his life.

He's been building up to this.

He spent 30 years just working, growing up, doing life like all of us do life.

And then when he was 30 years old, he began to go public with his ministry.

He's traveled all over Galilee, the northern part of Israel.

He's traveled all over the region.

He's taught, he's performed miracles, he's recruited disciples, he's poured into them, he's experienced incredible things.

He's had a lot of amazing experiences with people following him by the thousands.

He's also had experiences where people leave by the thousands.

And now it's time to begin that last journey to Jerusalem, to the cross.

And every step that Jesus is going to take from here on out is a weighty step.

Because every step is bringing him one step closer to his ultimate purpose, which is to die as a sacrifice for us.

But that is a purpose that he understands.

But no matter how much he talks about it, his followers just don't quite get it.

And we see that today.

So we'll go back to Matthew 20, verse 17.

Matthew 20:17

As they were going up to Jerusalem, Jesus took the twelve disciples aside privately and he told them what was going to happen to him.

Listen, he said, we're going to go up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law.

They will sentence him to die.

Then they will hand him over to the Romans to be mocked, flogged with a whip, and crucified.

But on the third day he will be raised from the dead.

Then the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus with her sons.

She knelt respectfully to ask a favor.

What is your request?

He asked.

She replied, In your kingdom, please let my two sons sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left.

But Jesus answered by saying to them, You don't know what you're asking.

Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering that I am about to drink?

Oh, yes, they replied, We're able.

Jesus told them, You will indeed drink from my bitter cup.

But I have no right to say who will sit on my right or my left.

My father has prepared those places for the ones he has chosen.

When the ten other disciples heard what James and John had asked, they were indignant.

But Jesus called them together and said, You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them.

But among you it will be different.

Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant.

Whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave.

For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.

They're on their way to Jerusalem, and the disciples naturally think, okay, it's about to happen.

It's finally about to happen.

They have this idea of the Messiah as a political figure who's going to come and set up an earthly kingdom.

And they're thinking they're at the ground level.

They're some of the first people to follow Jesus.

He picked them.

And so if Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, he's about to set up shop, it's about to happen.

Their dreams are about to come true.

Jesus is going to throw off all of the Roman orders, he's going to throw off all of the religious corruption that's been going on.

He's going to set up his kingdom on this earth like they've been anticipating, and it's happening, and now is their chance to get a really good cabinet spot in his government.

That's what they're thinking.

And this is deeply ingrained within them.

They've seen the Messiah as this earthly, political, military figure.

He's going to overthrow Rome, he's going to do away with them.

He's going to set up God's kingdom on this earth.

And Jesus, he's after far greater things than some earthly kingdom.

Earthly kingdoms rise and fall.

But the kingdom of God is forever.

They don't understand this.

No matter how much Jesus has tried to explain it to them, no matter how plainly he speaks, they just nod, like, yep, crucified and died.

So, can I be at the throne on your left?

That'd be amazing.

Or the right.

I really, right or left, as long as it's close to you, you know, yeah, crucifixion, death, that's cool.

But they just don't get it because they are so deeply ingrained to understand the Messiah this specific way.

So Jesus, on his way to Jerusalem, he's like, look, I know what you guys are thinking.

You think we're about to go and we're going to enter Jerusalem and it's coronation time.

But it's not going to go down like that.

And it's not going down like that because we failed.

I'm not going to be crucified and killed because our mission has been stopped, has been unsuccessful.

This is the mission.

This is the point.

It is to suffer, it is to die so that I can overthrow a far greater enemy than Rome.

Jesus came to overthrow death, to overthrow sin.

But the disciples didn't want to get it.

And so Jesus has to stop and he has to explain things and he has to say, look, if you want to be great, obviously you guys, you want greatness, you're asking for the seats of honor, you want to be at the top.

If you really want greatness, fine.

Be a servant.

Be a servant.

That is what it means to be truly great in the kingdom of God.

I don't know if you guys have ever had an experience in life where you were at the bottom of the totem pole, so to speak.

Maybe at a job, you're the new person, you have no seniority, you're at the very bottom.

Anyone ever been in that position?

Just show of hands, you've been at the bottom, you know what that feels like.

It's not fun.

You always end up doing things that no one else wants to do.

That's the way it sort of goes.

When I turned 16, I got a job at what I thought was a company that would really be here until Jesus returned, because it seemed like such a staple of American culture.

I couldn't see a world without this.

And it was a staple of life.

If if you're 45 and older, this was like a major part of your life for a period of time.

I got a job at Blockbuster Video when I was 16 years old.

All right.

Anyone remember these cards, the Blockbuster membership card?

Like, I'll pull this up.

Look at this for nostalgia.

You remember these?

Like, for some of you, this was as as useful as this was as important as your credit card.

This was used constantly.

I used to make those.

Think about that kind of power for a second.

I created those, which just meant printing it off and then laminating it.

But whatever.

I worked at Blockbuster for a couple years.

It was my high school job.

Paid me five something an hour.

But I got five free rentals a week, which was pretty awesome.

I'm just gonna say that.

I remember my first day there really clearly.

I remember at the end we had closing duties.

It's part of a job that when it closes, you gotta do things.

There was cleaning, and I remember asking my boss, I will never forget this, I asked my boss, uh, he was a guy who was probably in his mid-twenties.

I said, uh, should I clean the bathroom?

And he literally said this out loud, just went, We don't pay you enough to do that.

And I was like, okay.

And I asked him, So do you clean the bathroom?

And this is what he said, without hesitation, they don't pay me enough to do that.

That's what he said.

I don't know who cleaned the bathroom to this day.

I don't think it ever got clean.

I know that I walked to Kroger, which was adjacent to our location, to use the restroom there.

Uh but I'll also never forget when it was time to do the closing duties, one of the biggest things we had to do was straighten the store.

Because if you remember Blockbuster, you've got all these shelves and you've got the box art for movies on the shelves, and then behind those movies were copies that you could take and make your selection and go check out.

And so at the end of every night, this was me.

This is not an actual picture of me, but this is what I did.

And that was my uniform, by the way.

Khaki pants, some dockers, some cargo shorts, with a blue shirt tucked in with yellow collar and armbands.

Very just awful.

I mean, just not flattering.

Like they designed a uniform that flatters no one.

No complexion looks good in that, but that's what we wore.

And it was time to straighten the store.

And you have to go through and you have to put everything behind the right box and make sure it's evenly spaced on the shelf.

And there was this guy who had been there for a little bit longer than me, and he said, Hey, I'll tell you, tell you what, since you're new, I'll make you a deal.

He's like, I know you're the new guy.

I'll do the entire store.

I'll straighten every department.

New releases, drama, comedy, all of it.

You just take the kids' area and the video games.

And I looked out, and the kids' area was like three, it was three rows.

And the video game area was like three rows, and the rest of the store was huge.

And I was like, Deal, thank you for being so kind to me.

What I did not realize was that adults and children behave very differently inside of retail, like retail environments.

Adults will walk through and peruse and go, hmm, that looks interesting.

Maybe, nah.

And they'll put it back where they found it.

Children don't have that capacity.

It's not in them.

I have four of them now.

They don't have, they don't have it.

Like a child that could just put something back where they found it would essentially be like the go-you're the chosen one.

You're you would just know this person should be the if a five-year-old just puts things back where they found them, they should be the president.

We should just at that moment in time go, you're on a different track from the rest of them, you're special.

But no, kids go through and they touch everything, and they're like, ah, and they just touch, touch, touch, and then they put things in random places and switch things around.

And it took me twice as long to just do those two areas as it took this other guy to do the whole rest of the store.

And I remember seeing the smirk on his face when he wrapped up.

It was like, initiation for the new guy.

Then three months later, we got a new guy.

And it was his first day.

And at the end of the night, I said, Hey, I'll tell you what.

Since you're new, I'll make you a deal.

And he did the same thing I did.

That's the way it works in this world, right?

When you're the new person, when you're the lowest ranked person in the room or at the office or in the company or whatever it is, you do the stuff that no one else wants to do.

You do the lowest level, the stuff that everyone is like.

I'm glad I don't have to do that anymore.

And as you rise up in the ranks, you do higher level things.

Those previous things, they're beneath you now.

They're for the newbies.

I'm sure all of us have had experiences in life, or maybe you're not at a place where you've had this yet, but it's coming where you're like, man, if I get that promotion or if I get a raise or some things change, here's the first thing I'm gonna never do again.

I'm never doing this again.

Now I can afford to not do this ever again.

Like, we all have that kind of stuff.

Or maybe it's not something connected to money, it's just life and growth.

I remember the last time I changed a diaper.

Oh my goodness.

Four kids.

I did the math one time.

You know how many diapers you change if you have four children?

I mean, it's in the tens of thousands.

I did the math.

Diapers per day, number of days in the year, number of children, tens of thousands of diapers.

And it's like, don't have to do that anymore.

Grateful for that.

There's all these things that we just go, man, I don't enjoy this, and I hope I never have to do this again, or one day I'll never have to do this again, or maybe I'll hit a place in life where it's gone.

That's the way that our world works, but it's not the way the kingdom of God works.

We're called to be servants.

We're called to be, well, the word it's used that we see as slave, it literally translates bondservant.

Slavery was not something in the world of Jesus that was tied to your ethnicity or your race or anything like that.

People would enter into slavery.

They would basically sell their rights, they would often use it to pay off debt or become a citizen, and they would say, hey, for the next 10 years, I belong to you, and when that time was over, their debts would be covered, they would be a citizen, whatever it might be.

But you're submitting yourself completely and wholly to someone else and saying, I just do what you what you say.

Jesus says, the greatest in God's kingdom are the servants and the slaves.

It doesn't work the way the world works.

He says that to his disciples.

You know how it works in this world.

People with authority, they lord it over everybody else, they're looking out for themselves.

It's all about your position, it's all about people admiring you and celebrating you.

No, no, no, no.

My kingdom, you guys want to be the greatest, you want to be truly great?

Be a servant.

And Jesus models this for us.

He models this for us in tremendous ways.

In John chapter 13, really close to the cross at this point in time, it says, before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and to return to his father.

John 13 · chapter mention

He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end, and it was time for supper.

The devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus, and Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything, that he had come from God and would return to God.

So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin.

And then he began to wash the disciples' feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.

This is such an interesting moment in the life of Jesus because it says that he realized and understood how much authority he had.

God the Father gave Jesus the Son all authority in heaven and on earth.

So think about what a person would do when they realize how much authority they have.

I have all the authority in heaven on earth.

Here's what I'm about to do.

And Jesus takes off his robe and begins to wash his disciples' feet.

Now, in their culture, this was something that the lowest ranking servant in a household would do.

It was viewed as the lowest, the most humiliating, potentially demeaning act that a person could do.

In their day and age, you walked around, everything was open-toed sandals, dirt roads, just filthy and gross, and feet, which are just weird, feet are weird.

And uh they look like hands that just didn't quite come out right.

You know, it's just the way feet look.

They're just, they stink, they're terrible.

Um, some of us have those feet with like men, any men have the feet with the why is hair growing out of that part of that toe?

Like, feet have been feet for all of human history, and if you were the one that had to wash the dirty, filthy feet off of the people who were coming in before they had meal, you you were the lowest ranking servant.

Like this was the thing that you would do to initiate the new guy.

And Jesus does that.

And his disciples don't know what to do with it.

That's why Peter protests in John 13, 8.

Peter says no.

Imagine telling Jesus no.

Well, I have, so I'm sure it's not that hard to imagine.

Most of us probably have, if we're honest with ourselves.

But just saying it to his face, imagine that.

Jesus starts to do something, and you go, no.

Nope.

Not doing it.

You are not going to wash my feet.

And he says, You will never, ever wash my feet.

Why would Peter say that?

Because Peter understands.

This is beneath you, Jesus.

This is so far beneath you, it doesn't even make sense.

This is beneath me.

That's what Peter's probably thinking.

I wouldn't even wash someone's feet.

This is for the lowest-ranking member.

And he's probably figuring out which disciple that applied to.

But Jesus does it for each of his disciples, including, by the way, Judas, who had already betrayed him.

And Jesus knew that.

He models for us this service, this humility, and this willingness to do anything for those around you.

That nothing is beneath you.

Because nothing is beneath Jesus.

It's incredibly powerful.

And it's incredibly rare.

It's amazing how rare it is to see a heart of true service.

It's not natural.

Can we say this?

It's not natural in human beings to be servant-hearted.

I know this because, again, I have four children, and I get to watch them grow up and try to raise them.

And they're my kids are awesome, by the way.

They're amazing.

Love them, they're doing great, proud of each of them.

A lot of work left to do.

A lot of work left to do.

Those of you who have raised children that have left the home or you're close to that, maybe you can talk to me and comfort me and say there's still time, but every once in a while you look at them and you're like, is this gonna work?

I don't know if they're ready.

I've done a terrible job, but we're working on it.

One of the funny dynamics in our life is driving with all the kids, you know, in the car, and and they'll fight over seats.

Certain seats are better, I guess, than the other seats.

I don't know, I've never really sat back there.

But just this morning, we were leaving, and my daughter had a friend spend the night, and so that means that the back seat is gonna be even more packed than normal, because we brought that girl here to reunite with her family, they go to church here, and man, just hearing my kids figure out, like, well, what's this gonna mean?

Because I mean, I usually sit in that seat, and now so what I did was was I said, well, the the way our van works is we got you know a seat that really should fit two people on the very back, but three can technically fit.

And then in the middle we've got these sort of captain's chairs, so there's there's two.

And we said, well, we'll let the girls, Lily and her friend, have those, and then you three boys, you just sit in the back and figure it out.

And oh my goodness.

Like you would have thought that I just gave them the most difficult task in the history of humanity.

And just to watch their faces, to realize that someone's gotta sit in that middle seat.

And it should be Eli, because he's well, he's tiny compared to the rest of them.

But Eli, even as a six-year-old, was like, nah, it's not gonna be me.

There's just nothing in them naturally that says, I'll sit in the middle seat.

I'll take the worst seat in the car because I love you and I want to serve you so that I can be like Jesus.

That did not happen.

And they're pastors' kids.

They've been in church every they've been in church every Sunday of their life, and they haven't figured that out yet.

So look, just know this is hard.

Okay, it's hard.

There's nothing inside of them says, let me serve you.

No, it's fighting, it's it's jocking, it's racing.

To the seat that you want so that you don't have to have the seat that nobody wants.

But Jesus, he'd have taken the middle seat.

He probably would have sat in the very back.

He would have just jumped on the top of the car and said, Go, I'll just hold on tight.

I don't know what Jesus would have done.

But he would have done whatever would have been the lowest and most humble thing you can do.

That's how Jesus is.

And we're called to be like that.

What does that actually look like?

What would it look like if we lived our lives truly as servants?

There's a scripture in Galatians chapter 5.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

It says, you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters, and this is a beautiful thing.

Freedom.

We have been set free.

And if you're new to church or new to the whole Jesus thing, you're like set free from what?

And set free from a lot of things, free from the consequences of our sin, at least in the eternal sense.

But what Paul is specifically talking to here in Galatians is set free from the law.

The Jewish people lived under this strict law, this code that you had to, man, you had to do things a very specific way.

There was a law for everything, and it was restrictive, and it was all-encompassing, and that's not the way of Jesus.

There are things that we should do because they're loving and they're good.

There's a way to live life that is not good, not healthy, it's destructive for you, destructive for the people around you.

It's immoral, it's wrong.

But we don't live under the law anymore.

In other words, we're free.

Paul actually wrote it this way: he said, everything is permissible.

The forgiveness and the grace of God covers everything.

I could technically go and do something really terrible.

And it's forgiven.

But then Paul says, not everything is beneficial.

And if you truly love the Lord and you've received grace, it should stir you to want to do better, not to go, sweet, what can I get away with now?

But we are, we are under freedom, not the law.

This is a battle sometimes that we have, even as Christians now, even in a church like his hands, where we're not a legalistic church that's all about, you know, do this a certain way, dress a certain way.

Like I had a little moment this week of freaking out about it.

I've shared, I'm gonna share this with you.

I'm pretty open.

Um so I'm at this stage of life, I'm 41, and the other day I was swimming, and my son, my oldest, pointed to my head and laughed because he said, My hair is getting really thin.

And he's right.

He's right.

Every single time I do this with my hand, there's some hair.

And it's like, just guys, remember me with hair.

That's what I'm trying to say.

Because the days are numbered, they're very numbered.

Uh, my wife tried to convince me that I was crazy, and I proved it to her this week.

I took a shot, I went online and I found a shot of me from four years ago looking down and reading scripture like this, and then I took a shot from last week doing the same thing.

Hairline's totally different.

I'm dying.

That's what it means.

So this week I decided to become a hat guy.

I bought seven hats online.

I haven't arrived yet.

I haven't worn a hat once.

15 years.

Maybe once, like, but I no, I don't even think I have, maybe.

I walked in with a hat the other day, and my kids were like, What are you doing?

I said, I'm a hat guy now.

I'm a hat guy.

Any other hat guys?

All right.

So then I had this thing.

I was like, well, you know what?

Fast forward two or three years from now, I'll just wear a hat on Sunday.

It'll be great.

I'll wear a hat.

I don't have to worry about my hair anymore.

But then I was like, some people have strong opinions about hats on pastors, right?

Because there's some scripture about head coverings and it's in the Corinthian church and it gets all convoluted.

I'm sitting there and I'm having this inner battle of like, well, should I wear a hat on Sunday?

If I wore a hat on Sunday, would it ruin the church if I wore a hat on Sunday?

Because I don't want to do that.

Like, his hands are going great, and God, I'm really grateful for everything, and I just don't want to be bald.

And then if I'm bald, I'm bald.

I guess that's vanity.

Am I vain?

God, I didn't think I was vain, but maybe I'm vain.

But what if I wore a hat and then people are like, you shouldn't wear a hat here on stage?

You're the pastor.

Matt wears a hat every Sunday.

Herb's worn a hat every time he's never worshiped.

No one's ever bothered Herb and you know if I'm having this massive battle in my mind.

I watched two hours of deep dive sermons of pastors talking about whether or not you should wear a hat.

It's how I spent my week.

So I guess I might I don't know if I'll wear a hat or not.

I'm not sure.

I haven't landed on that yet.

But my point is the whole reason this is even a conversation and a crisis is because deep within us is this fear of stepping out of the lines, right?

Stepping outside of the boundaries.

What if that's not good?

What if that's not permissible?

What if that's not okay?

And what Paul is saying, and what we see in Galatians is look, guys, we've set we've been set free.

Like we've been set free.

We don't live under some restrictive law anymore.

Now, there are times where we should do things a certain way because it's loving to those around us, and there's no, we're not supposed to go out and be like, I'm free, so deal with me.

That's never we're not supposed to be cavalier.

And that's things that Paul actually writes to many of the churches that he deals with in these very unique cultures of saying, hey guys, stop it.

Yes, you have freedom, but it's not about self-expression and just let me be me.

Be loving, be a servant.

But we still have this fear of what if I step outside the bounds?

What if I do it the wrong way?

What if we've been set free of that?

Freedom is a beautiful thing, but what is what is it that we're supposed to use our freedom for?

Usually when you have freedom, you're like, yes, now I can wear hats.

Um but that's not what Paul says.

He says, You have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters, but don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature.

Don't use your freedom to satisfy your most basic wants and it's for something greater than that.

Don't use your freedom just to do what you want to do, what makes you feel good.

He says, instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.

Use your freedom to serve.

I'll commend somebody, uh Fred, who many of you know, Fred speaks on Sundays pretty often, and I'm close with Fred, so I use him as an example from time to time, mainly because I know he's humble and can handle it.

And you know, Fred retired a few years ago.

He was a pastor for 30 something years?

Such a long time, because Fred is older than me, a lot, um, and has and has more hair.

So, the great equalizer.

When Fred retired from being a pastor, he immediately started doing more ministry than most pastors ever do.

And for the last three or four years, I've watched this guy who's free.

He's retired, and he's led multiple Bible studies and grief classes, and he's with people who are going through some of the most difficult seasons of life they've ever been through, and he's walking them through that, and he's served on the board of ministries that have required him to go to India, uh, to Africa, to all kinds of places.

And he's he's got freedom, he can do whatever he wants to do.

But he uses that freedom to serve and to minister.

And it's it's an amazing thing that we're called to use our freedom to serve.

If that freedom is time, if that freedom is some bandwidth that you have in life, like God looks at you and says, Hey, I've given you freedom.

Now think about how more how much more freed up you are to serve others.

Do we tend to think that way naturally?

No.

I have freedom.

What do I want?

But we've been set free.

We're no longer free from, we're no longer under the law.

We don't we don't have to live under this constrictive like, don't do this, do this, don't do this, do this.

Now we have freedom.

What am I going to use my freedom for?

Service.

Think about how many more people I can serve now that I'm I'm free from all that obligation.

It's a beautiful idea.

We're told to use our gifts to serve.

1 Peter 4 10 says, God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts.

Use them well to serve one another.

Man, when when you have a gift, when you have some special ability, it's so easy to use it for yourself.

You have something that people go, wow, that's amazing.

You can use that to glorify yourself, and that is the way of this world.

When you're gifted, use that gift and build your brand.

Right?

Use your gift and raise your notoriety in the eyes of others.

But Jesus says, hey, I've given you that gift, and by the way, it's not for you.

That gift you have, that thing you do, it's it's for service, it's for others.

What are you gifted at?

What are you good at?

And how can you use that to bless other people?

I'll give you an awesome example of that.

Last Sunday we had a really special baptism.

Every baptism is special.

But maybe this one was special for me because in the tank we had a high school student get baptized, and he was baptized with two people in the tank: Madison, who's our youth pastor who baptizes lots of kids, and Amy Moss.

And Amy was in the tank because she was his teacher when he was in elementary school in our kids' area.

What we call the grove now.

It used to be called his kids back in the day.

Amy was one of the first volunteers I ever had in there.

I was the junior high and high school pastor here, and about a year into my stint, I was also given the elementary school.

And I at first pushed it back.

No thank you.

Elementary school kids, you know, were beneath me.

And honestly, I probably felt like that.

I probably felt like, hey, I'm a youth pastor.

Like, elementary is like a step backwards.

You should never take a step backwards.

But I was told in very certain terms, you are now the children's pastor, too.

I was like, all right.

And I started working with the kids, and it was one of the best things for me because a lot of my pride had to die.

You know, when you're a youth pastor, you can kind of be cool with the kids.

You can't be cool with elementary school kids.

They don't respond to cool.

You have to be undignified.

And I had to get a bunch of my high school kids to help me because I needed volunteers and they had to watch me on stage act like an absolute imbecile, like I was a children's TV show host, and I'm jumping around, and all my cool points were way gone.

And I had hair back then, a lot of it.

I know I still have hair.

I'm gonna stop, right?

Just pray for me.

Okay?

It's not that bad.

It's just that we're moving on.

All right.

Um, I had to serve these little kids like that.

Amy Moss was one of the first volunteers I got.

And she's been serving consistently for 15 years in the elementary school.

And yeah, you can come out for Amy, that's great.

She can handle it too.

But you know what's amazing about that?

You know what Amy does for a living?

Anybody?

She's a teacher.

You think about that.

You're a teacher all day, every day.

You teach kids?

What am I gonna do on Sunday?

I know.

I'll work with kids.

Because, you know, tomorrow I'm gonna do it again, and I just miss it so much.

I would imagine if I was a teacher, I'm like, look, I'll serve anywhere you need me, except with the kids.

I need a break, right?

And that's understandable, and by the way, that's that's not that's not wrong.

But Amy has a different perspective.

She says, I'm good with kids.

It's my gift, it's my thing.

I'm good at it.

And so that's what I should do at his hands.

I should use my gift to serve and to serve children.

And it's a beautiful thing to use your gifts for service.

Not your gift to go, what do I want to do?

What fills me up, but how am I useful?

How can I be a blessing to those around me?

And Amy's an incredible example of this verse.

What are you gifted at?

What are you gifted at?

Use your gifts to serve others.

Don't just use your gifts to advance in the world and increase your prominence, your success level, your wealth, whatever it might be.

Use your gifts to serve.

It's a beautiful thing.

Worship team, you guys can make your way your way up as we wrap up.

Service in God's kingdom is it's the path to greatness.

If you want to be truly great, be a servant.

Jesus, he's not admonishing his disciples for desiring to be great.

By the way, it's not wrong to desire to be great.

If you're like, I want to be great.

If you're gonna live a life, live a great life.

No one should want to live a mediocre life.

Anyone here go, I just mediocrity is what I'm hoping for.

I would love no.

You want to live a great life, but great in whose eyes?

Great in the eyes of who.

There's a way to live a life that is great in the eyes of the world, and in the eyes of God, he would love you, but he would say, Oh man, you could have done so much more.

But you want to be great in God's eyes?

Serve.

Be his servant and recognize this that the way that things work, God raises up servants.

He raises them up.

In fact, Philippians chapter 2 talks about Jesus.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

And it says that when he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and he died a criminal's death on the cross.

Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus has been raised to the place of highest authority.

He says this in Matthew 28, the Great Commission.

I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

But that authority was given to him, in part connected to his service.

Because he humbled himself even to the point of death on the cross, he's given the name above all names.

This is the way of God, by the way.

You look at the entire story of the Bible, it's lowly people being raised up.

Moses was a shepherd.

God made him a prophet.

David was a shepherd.

He was the youngest in his family, and a prophet came to his father and said, I believe one of your sons is meant to be king.

So Jesse the father got his sons in the room, but he didn't even invite David there because it didn't cross his mind that it might be David.

He got all of his older sons, and Samuel the prophet looks at them and goes, I don't see a king here.

Do you have another son?

And Jesse's like, I mean David.

But he's watching the sheep.

I had to have someone watch the sheep while the true candidates for king could be observed.

But Samuel goes, Well, go get that one.

And it's him.

Jesus took fishermen.

And he made them the most influential people in human history.

Like the disciples.

No people have ever changed the course of humanity like those guys did.

They were fishermen.

They were tax collectors.

They weren't important people.

This is the way that God does things.

He raises people up.

I've seen him do it over and over again.

My last little acknowledgement of someone to make them feel awkward in the room, but I'll talk about Matt, who's sitting over there.

See, hey, hey, Matt.

Hey.

Matt played drums last week.

He did a great job.

Matt's a good drummer.

He's not as good as Warren.

Warren, I'm not saying, like, you're definitely, I mean.

Funny thing, Matt and Warren have been friends since they were in elementary school, and now they get to serve and worship together on Sundays.

It's really cool.

I've known Matt since he was in high school, 16 or 17.

He's 33 now.

Yeah.

And if you didn't know, he and Courtney are expecting their first child this December.

So Matt's about to be a dad.

Yeah.

Matt has been our worship pastor now for something like six or seven years.

Does an amazing job.

Leads this team really well.

He's an incredibly gifted musician himself, but is really good at helping other people kind of reach their potential.

He's awesome.

Worship team's awesome, and Matt does a great job leading it.

But it's amazing, Matt's path to this spot where he gets a microphone and a guitar and all of that, it was not, he didn't start there.

I was thinking about that this week because of how God just raises people up.

Matt started helping me out when I was a youth pastor.

He helped me with some of the high school kids, and we had an opportunity to hire someone just to sort of do the most basic stuff around the church.

This was 10, 12 years ago.

Matt was in college, and we hired Matt, and his job was to set chairs up and to tear things down and move things around whenever we had events and things like that.

You know, the stuff that no one else wants to do.

And the very first day that Matt worked here, very first day, I remember this very clearly, uh, we had a kind of a disaster in one of the restrooms.

I won't go into details.

There's no reason to.

We all know what bathroom disasters are like.

But stuff wasn't working the way it should have been working, and it had led to a pretty funky uh situation.

And I was like, oh man, I don't want Matt to have to do that on his first day.

I'll be like Jesus.

I'll do it for him, be his servant.

No, I just don't happen.

I uh that's what should have happened.

That's what I should have done, Matt.

I'm sorry.

No, I handed Matt a plunger.

And I said, I'm really sorry.

And he said, It's okay.

I think it's important to recognize that before God ever entrusted Matt with a microphone, he gave him a plunger.

Because that's the nature of God.

But when you're faithful with the little things, when you serve willingly, with the right heart, and you view nothing as beneath you.

Nothing is beneath you.

God raises you up.

That's what he does.

I've seen it happen so many times.

Matt's a good example of that.

And it's humorous, but it's it's life.

You know, David was a good shepherd.

And it was the way he tended his flock, the way he took care of the sheep, that maybe showed God, I can trust him with my people.

When you serve passionately and willingly, God sees it.

And it just wins something in his heart.

I don't know how to describe it other than that.

It just he loves it because that's what greatness is in the kingdom of God.

And so I want to leave you with this.

Who are you meant to serve this week?

Who are you called to serve?

How can you use your freedom to serve this week?

Maybe it's that freedom that we were talking about with religious freedom.

You're not you're not obligated.

You don't even have to be here today.

You could have, you could be serving someone right now.

Look at you guys.

No, I'm teasing.

Thanks for being here.

But honestly, like, you're not obligated to do anything in order to win God's love.

You have it, it's yours.

Who can you serve with it?

Maybe, maybe at work you're at a place where you have a little bit more freedom than you used to have, and you have some time, and you have some flexibility that you didn't used to have.

How can you use that to serve?

How can you use that to serve those around you?

How can you, this week, how can you serve your boss?

Who's excited about serving your boss this week?

Anyone?

Like, I can't wait to go to work tomorrow and serve my boss.

Some of you are like, you don't know my boss.

Get ready for your least favorite verse in the Bible, Ephesians 6 7.

Work with enthusiasm as though you are working for the Lord rather than for people.

So tomorrow or whatever day you go to work, just pretend like your boss is Jesus.

And again, you're like, you don't know my boss.

Pretend.

Work for that person as if you're serving Jesus Himself.

Serve them.

What are the gifts that God has given you?

How can you use those gifts this week to serve somebody?

Use it to serve.

And begin to ask God this question: Lord, who do you want me to serve?

We talk sometimes about dangerous prayers, prayers that if you pray them, things will happen.

I promise you.

Who do you want me to serve today?

God will answer that prayer.

If you want to be truly great in God's kingdom, be a servant.

Pray, Lord, who do you want me to serve?

How can I use my freedom, my gifts, whatever I've got?

And then serve with your whole heart, with passion.

At that, we're going to take Lord's Supper.

And if you're new, we have these cups that are at the tables.

You passed them on your way in.

If you forgot to grab one, go for it.

This is a prime example of service.

We read it just a minute ago.

Jesus humbled himself.

And he was obedient even unto death.

This is an act of service that Jesus gave for each of us.

There's no greater act of service that we could even point to as an example.

This is even bigger than Matt's plunger.

This is bigger than that.

In every way.

This is Jesus Christ giving his life as a holy, precious sacrifice for all of us.

This bread represents his body.

Let's pray.

Jesus, we thank you for this bread.

This is your body given up for us.

This is precious.

But Lord, you lived out the words that you spoke.

You came not to be served, but to serve others and to give your life as a sacrifice, as a ransom.

And you have now paid the price for our sin, for our failure, for our flesh.

You've given us your spirit.

Thank you for this act of service, Jesus.

Help us follow your example.

Let's take the bread.

This juice is representative of the blood of Jesus, poured out as a sacrifice for us, as an act of service.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we thank you deeply in our heart.

We thank you for this juice.

This is your blood.

You poured it out.

You shed blood willingly to cover us, to wash away our sins.

You served us.

You still do.

In fact, in your word, it says that you are now seated next to the Father and you are praying on our behalf.

Lord, we love you.

We're grateful.

We're so grateful to you.

And I pray, Lord, that we would take this cup with a humble heart.

And that we would follow your example.

That as we leave here today, Lord, we would be desperate to serve, anxious to serve, eager to serve.

That we would have a heart that would be seeking out every opportunity to serve people around us.

And I pray this in your name, Jesus.

Let's take the juice.