The Habit of Service

The Power of Spiritual Habits August 31, 2025 Matthew 20:20-28 Notes


You might easily be able to see why you need a habit of personal devotion to Jesus like we studied week 1 and you may see the need for fellowship as we studied last week. But service, why would service be a spiritual habit or discipline? How does a spiritual habit of service help me to connect with the Holy Spirit and grow in Christlikeness? That’s the right question and the right motivation!

As we will see today, service moves us towards Christlikeness in powerful ways. In the Gospel of Matthew chapter 20, Jesus taught His disciples that the greatest among them would become servants like Him. We can follow the call of Jesus by becoming servants through the spiritual habit of service.

Audio

Transcript

Wow. This is really exciting for me to be able to be here for three weeks in a row. Now, my name is Pastor Stephen Combs. I'm the pastor of worship here at Eastgate Church. And I get the privilege of not only kicking off, but continuing this series that we're in right now called the Power of Spiritual Habits.

And it is a pleasure to me just to hear my family singing just now, this morning. That's music that I've been hearing since I was in the womb. And it brings tears in my eyes when I hear. I think about my nanny, who, man, if y' all ever got a chance to see her, man, you felt like you saw heaven in her eyes when she was singing. And so today it's a privilege to continue this series.

We're talking today about the habit of service. Now, before we jump into that, I have a very important question to ask and I need a show of hands. Who here this week forgot on one night to charge your phone and you woke up the next day and it was low battery? Raise your hand if you forgot to charge your phone. Yeah, a handful of hands.

That's a very annoying thing to have happen because now you're going the whole rest of the day on very little power. And so it's a nuisance. These phones have such great potential, but they have one built in need and that is that they can't create their own power. And so I think just the same with Christianity, we learned that we have amazing potential, but we need to learn how to plug ourselves in to the power that comes from the Lord, the power that comes from the Holy Spirit. And what we've been seeing so far in this series, that when we put enforce spiritual habits into our lives, that those habits act like a conduit for which the power of the Spirit to flow through into us.

And then we also see how that same power can then flow through that habit and affect the world. It can change the world. It can build the kingdom of God. And so our series theme is Ephesians chapter 4, where it says, instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes, put on your new nature, created to be like God, truly righteous and holy. And so what we see here in this verse that starts with an openness and a letting the Spirit change you, to empower you, if you will.

And then now taking an action to put on this new nature. And the habits themselves represent this putting on of the new nature. And so today's word of service, though, I think might be the trickiest one for us to get our Heads around why that's such a need in our lives. I mean, I think we looked at the very first, first week, and we were talking about the habit of devotion, whereby our goal was to develop a relationship with God. And then last week we talked about the habit of fellowship, whereby we develop relationships with one another.

But now service just kind of feels like it comes out of the blue because the other ones, I could see the direct benefit to my own life. Relationships are such an important part of our lives as human beings. But what of service? Well, the way that we're created is that God built it into us to be great worshipers. And maybe you're sitting here this morning, you're like, yeah, right, man, I don't understand this whole worship thing.

No, no, here's what we're saying, is that you, instinctively, because of the way you were created, are wired to want to give great worth to something, to bring great value to something or someone. And we are wired, if we had not been in our fallen state, in our sinful state, that we would worship God above all else. That's why he built us this way. But because we are sinful, our worship tends to settle for things that are less great. And so we're really great at giving worth to something, wrapping our whole lives around a value.

But we don't always worship a great God. And so it's like we're talking about the phone thing. It's like my phone got hacked. It's like it was built with this great design by him, but now it's being used for things that. That don't build his kingdom, they don't worship Him.

They fall short of his intended design, his glory for us. And what happens when that. When we fought, when we settle for less than the greatest, when we settle for anything less, we find in us a dissatisfaction that comes from that. When I wrap my whole life around one thing, and it's not him, it's not his ways, I find that there's like a vacuum in my heart that wants more. And no matter how much I feed it, it can't get enough.

But if we will wrap our whole lives around him, fixing our eyes on Jesus and doing it all for his kingdom, his glory, giving worth to the greatest, the highest, the most worthy of all praise, then we'll find that for the first time, maybe for some of us, we'll experience satisfaction, true, deep satisfaction, like that vacuum got mended in our hearts. And so how do we do that, though? Like, that sounds fantastic. How do I change my aim? Because it's so easy for me to to get distracted by trying to build my own little kingdom here on earth.

I tend to find that I do the things that I do to bring myself glory to make my own stuff better. And so the whole concept of building his kingdom, giving him worth above all else is really foreign and difficult to wrap my head around. How do we go about do this? We have to correct our aim. We have to fix our eyes on Jesus.

We have to make our new goal to be like Jesus. And what we're going to see today is that a way to become more like Christ, to fix our worship on Him. And to the first time maybe for some of us ever to experience true satisfaction for doing the thing that you were created to do is through creating a posture in our lives of service that we would become a servant. Here's some things that service does for us. It confronts our pride perhaps more than any other.

Discipline and humility inside of this is a key attribute of Christlikeness. Jesus teaches selfless service to the disciples so that they may abandon pride and live humbly. It also connects faith from our heads and our hearts to our hands. James says in 1:22, don't just listen to God's word, do what it says. So service puts our faith into action.

And then finally, service reflects Christ visibly. Our actions begin to look like his actions. The person that we become begins more and more to look like more and more like the person he is. And in God's hands we'll see that he will not only use us to do great things, to do the thing that we were created to do, but he will also through this, make us great. But becoming like Christ through service, our greatness is not going to be self serving.

It's going to be to serve and to magnify his greatness above all. And that's going to be a shift that I think we're going to experience through this habit. So I pray that today that we will receive this call of Jesus through selfless service, making it a habit. And as we're going to see today, service will make us more like Christ in many ways. Let's pray together.

Father, I surrender now to your will. I ask God that your word would speak louder than my own. Let your word pierce hearts. Let your word break down walls and barriers. And God, I pray that you would challenge us all in what we see.

Jesus teaching us today to come before you humbly to assume this posture of service and to lift you high and worship you above all else. We ask this in Jesus Name. Amen. Now, in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 20 is which we're going to be looking at today. Jesus taught his disciples that the greatest among them would become servants like him.

And we're going to. We can follow Jesus by becoming servants through the habit of service. So let's now stand to our feet. We're going to be looking at the Book of Matthew, chapter 20, verse 20, Matthew 20:20. And I'm going to read a good chunk of this, and I'm going to let y' all join me for the last verse.

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons. And kneeling before him, she asked him for something. And he said to her, what do you want? She said to him, say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left in your kingdom. Jesus answered, you do not know what you are asking.

Are you able to drink the cup that I am able to drink? And they said to him, we are able. And he said to them, you will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father. And when they. When the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers.

But Jesus called them and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant. And who would be first among you must be your slave. Now, church, let's read this last one together. Even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

And may God bless the reading of his word. Amen.

So we see today three ways to become servants like Jesus through this spiritual habit of service. And the first way we see into the text is to choose Christ's definition of greatness. Choose Christ's definition of greatness. Now, it's important that we understand some of the context here. And starting right out the gate, it says, the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

And when you read the other Gospels, you see that they actually named those two sons. It's James and John. So we have here, starting out, a mom bringing her two sons who are already disciples of Jesus. And it's not like they're 7 and 8 years old. These are men.

But they brought their mom to Jesus. And she has this desire that she kind of has. She has this picture. And I think for many who were following Jesus, they had this impression that Jesus was going to become an earthly king, that he was going to have this amazing throne here on earth. And so she really, she wanted her boys to get a slice of that pie.

And so, hey, can you, when you have your throne, can you put James here and John here? And if that. I asked this first service too. Do we have any teachers in the house this morning? Raise your hand if you're a teacher.

How many times have you had a parent teacher conference where the parent just their kid hung the moon, man, they can do no wrong. And sometimes you're like, yeah, you got a different impression of your kid than I have.

But here we have this really kind of, it's kind of awkward. And here's one of the things that makes it more awkward is that Jesus right before this had just produced, predicted his own death. He had just told the disciples that he would be crucified. And what's their response? Hey, can you, when you get a throne, can you put my sons here?

Like, did you not hear what the man just said? He just predicted his death. And all you're thinking about is thrones and you getting recognition. And so because of that, you have the 12 disciples, the other 10 are over here. And it says, they're indignant, it says they're like, what in the world?

Why'd they bring the mom over here? And they're chattering.

And so then it sets up where in verse 25, Jesus said he called them. And so kind of what you see here is Jesus is seeing this happening and he's going, whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, hey, come here, come in here. Alright, let's come closer here. I got to tell you guys something. You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them.

And so when he's talking about the rulers of the Gentiles, it was immediately in view for his disciples. They knew he was talking about, he's talking about the Romans, he's talking about any ruler of the world that's of the world. And what did they do? They lorded it over them. And this is this idea of subjugating someone.

It's like exercising like a dominion over someone. And then he kind of paints it in a different light and he says, and their great ones, which are the people who would be considered great in the world, what do they do? They exercise authority. So this is this kind of picture of like wielding a privilege over someone to wield their power. And this is not in a Positive light.

This is a negative connotation that we see right here. He's like, you've seen how the Romans do. You know, how they use their rank to subjugate you and to exercise their authority over you. And everybody's like, yeah, I've seen that. And so they get the picture pretty quickly.

And he says, it shall not be so among you. He's getting ready to flip the script. The world says, this is what's great. Here's what I'm getting ready to say is great. The great among you.

Which, ironically, is the same word he just used for the great among the world. He's saying, they think this is great. And your version of greatness are going to be a servant. You must. They must be your servant.

Now, the word servant here is the Greek word diakonos, which we translate to the word deacon. I named my son deacon because I was trying to speak over his life, you know, that he would be a servant to others, a servant to the Lord. Still praying for that. Ways to go with that little guy. But maybe you knew that, maybe you didn't know that.

But when we elect deacons, we're saying, these are men that we believe are called to service. And so we think, though, when we hear the word service, we think it of something that we do. But here Jesus is saying, this isn't a verb, this is a noun. It's a descriptive of what you become. That you would not just do service, but if you're going to be great, you would be a servant.

It would become the essence of who you are. So here we see that Christ is redefining true greatness. And he's saying, put yourselves last. If you look at the book of Matthew, Mark, chapter nine, it says, and he sat down and called the 12. And he said to them, if anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.

So he's trying to get this shift to start happening in our brains that the way the world looks at greatness is not how we look at greatness. We look at the servants as the last of all. They're the first. The servants are the first. And then he redefines greatness as having humility.

Matthew, chapter 18. He says, @ that time, the disciples came to Jesus, saying, who is the greatest of the kingdom of heaven? They're obsessed with this idea of greatness and calling to him a child. He put the kid into the midst of them, and he said, truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, is the greatest of the kingdom of heaven.

So here he's saying, you need to look at yourself as just like, I really feel like I know a lot. I feel like I've done all my studies. I feel like I can bring so much intellect to this thing of Christianity. And for somebody here today, what's keeping you from following Christ is you think you know too much.

But he's saying, forget what you think you know, because you think greatness is. This here's greatness. Greatness is servanthood. Greatness is humility. And you think you know a lot.

You know. You know as much of a child does. And that's keeping you from coming into my heaven because you think you know too much. Somebody needs to surrender that to Jesus today.

And later in the book of Luke, we see a picture here where Jesus is sitting at what has come to be called the Last Supper. Do the disciples know it's their last supper with Jesus? No, they don't. Jesus knows, and he's sitting there at the table with them. And what are they talking about again?

Which one of us do you think is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven? Why does this keep coming up so much? Well, I think when I look at the Bible, I'm able to be very objective and kind of look at the disciples like, what a bunch of dummies, man. They had Jesus with them. Why'd they think they were so great?

Well, then I look at what I tend to do. I tend to want to seek your approval. I want to seek the approval of the world. I want you to think I'm great. I want to be able to leave my mark, that the name of Stephen would somehow be one that people will remember.

So in my natural state, I'm no better than these disciples. I'm always trying to figure out how to become great and what Jesus here corrects in me, as he says in Luke 22, who is more important, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? Well, the one who sits at the table, of course, but not here, for I am among you as one who serves. So here's what he's saying. The person who's receiving the service is considered to be great.

The person who's serving the person is considered to be lesser because they're serving that person who's sitting there. Here's Jesus. He just served to them the Lord's Supper. This is my body which is broken you. This is my blood which is shed for you.

And he's saying, I served you. And that made me great. That made me. I am among you as being great because I served. I'm mindful of a series that I've truly loved watching.

I've probably rewatched it five times over the years. I love studying the Greatest Generation. I love studying World War II. And there's a series called Band of Brothers that follows a. It's called Easy Company.

And they follow them through the European theater in World War II. And you learn about a lot of different characters. But you meet this man called Lieutenant Dyke. And those who have seen this series, you're already shaking your head to be like, I don't like that guy. Well, here's why we don't like him is because we know that he was given this rank because he had family that were kind of, you know, in.

They were. They were in the know, you know, like, they were important, you know, and so it kind of just, you know, and they know. Everybody there knows, like, he's on the fast track. Like, they're trying to work him up to be like a major or a general someday. And the only reason he's even here with us right now is to try to earn his stripes.

But what does Lt. Dyke do when the men are fighting the battle? Where's he at? He's nowhere to be seen. He's way back there somewhere. They begin to call him Foxhole Norman because he was always hiding when the battle came and the soldiers resented him for this.

And then, in complete contrast to him, you have who became Major Winters. And he himself came in really, you know, being a lower rank and earned this rank. How did he do it? You see him. I love this picture.

In the dirt with them. He often would lead the way in charges that he probably shouldn't have been doing at the rank he was at, putting himself in harm's way for his brothers and becoming like them, one of them, and they had the utmost respect for him.

Friends, if you're in a place of leadership this morning and the people don't detect that you're willing to get in the dirt with them and that you care for them, they will quickly resent you. They will look at you like the Romans and they'll say, he's only a leader. She's only a leader, because they were given that rank. But if you will serve like Jesus and change your definition of greatness to being, I'm going to serve, then there's something about the way that God has wired us to that we naturally respond to those who are willing to get in the dirt with us. So do you measure greatness by position alone?

Is your drive for promotion at work? Is it about serving others or is it about self advancement? I would challenge us to seek unseen service and to get in the dirt. Quit comparing.

Ask yourself, am I lording it over people or am I lifting them up and we're praying, Lord, would you just strip away my craving to be seen? God, strip away my craving to make my name great. And next we see how to become servants like Jesus through the spiritual habit of service. Embrace Christ's call to service. Embrace Christ's call to service.

I've already read 26, but I'm going to read it again because it helps set up this next part. It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant. And whoever would be first among you must be your slave. Now, what differentiates this word first here is that this is talking about rank. This is about the person who is the highest rank among you, the person of the highest influence.

The chief, is a slave. And the word slave here, a descriptor, is the word bondman. Now, I have to admit, I had to look that up this week. What is. I hear that word.

What does that word mean? And it says that it's a combination of the word bond, which points to a tenant farmer. And I'm going, that didn't help either. What's a tenant farmer? A tenant farmer is someone who is farming someone else's land.

They're not reaping the fruits and the benefits of the work that they're doing. They're doing it for this other person's benefit. And so he says to us, if you're going to be first, you're going to do it all for someone else. And it's not going to benefit you in any way. That's the kind of mindset that you're going to have is, I don't care if it benefits me, I'm going to do it anyway.

And that puts you at a higher rank when you're not doing it for yourself. Our service should be unto the Lord ultimately, for his glory. First Peter 4 says, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's very grace. Whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to him be the glory and dominion forever ever. Amen.

And so we see this beautiful Depiction here of what we're really trying to do, that if he lends me greatness, if he gives me the rank, that I'm only always using it for his glory, I'm always, if I become greater, he better be the greater on top of that. Because if I find myself in a place where I'm getting all the praise, I know I'm out of line.

So have the same mind as your Lord Jesus, who took the form of A servant, Philippians 2, says, have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not account equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man. This is one of the things that I've loved so much about this series so far, is that I've gotten to talk about Jesus every single week. And I've gotten to follow the habits that we see him do and say, I just want to do that. And so here today, we see in this verse here that here was Jesus in heaven, being glorified, had it all, and that he chose the form of a servant. He could have come as a king and been surrounded by many people of great importance bowing before him with all the riches of the world at his disposal.

But he chose something that nobody ever could understand, that he chose to become a little feeble baby and to grow up as a carpenter's son and to not take on a wife, to not have children of his own, to not build a house for himself. He chose a low place.

And I think that we see here that he's setting the example for you and I. If I say I want to be like Jesus, but I decide to omit being a servant, I'm missing one of the essences of what sent him for you and I. And as a result, Jesus is given the highest place because of this. Philippians 2. Therefore, God has exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

We actually see Jesus tells us here in Mark. He says, hey, if you will assume the form of a servant, if you will assume the form of a slave, you will be great. You will be first. He personally experienced this himself. He became a servant.

And then what did God do? He gave him the name above all names. And so he's setting the example like this is real. Stuff this is what really happened. Do this something that my family likes to do on Saturday mornings just to kind of ease into the day.

I don't know how we got in the habit of this. Maybe it's my parents, we used to watch a lot of these kinds of shows. Is we'll watch like Animal Planet or something like that, National Geographic. And it just kind of, you know, I don't know, something about easing into the day, not getting into like some sort of like a movie dialogue or something. Just watching animals.

And so one that I saw not so long ago is it was telling, it was teaching us about the wolf pack and how they operate. And so when they're traveling, they have an order to the way they travel. And so what you see here in this picture is that really big circle that's around those three wolves. Those are the old and the weak of the pack and they let them set the pace that the rest of the pack's gonna follow. And then behind them it's a group of really strong wolves who are particularly good at counter attacks, particularly good at seeing what's coming and knowing how to take it on.

And then the ones who aren't circled here, those are the mothers and the pups and they've got in front of them the strong. And then behind them another strong group of wolves that are particularly good at dealing with the dangers from behind. They're like the rear guard. And then way in the back, the arrow pointed at it. That's the alpha wolf.

And the alpha wolf, notice is in the far back and it's not in the forefront, it's leading from behind. Now the alpha wolf, it's the strongest wolf, right? It could just take the lead shoot. It could take all the strong wolves with it and be like the rest of y'. All.

You're weak, let's just go. And they could do that. But the alpha wolf, instead of leading from a place of self service, leads from a place of serving the pack a whole. And here I see my Jesus in this illustration here I see my Alpha, my Alpha and Omega here leading us from a place of service and showing us that if you're going to be like me, you'll serve the pack, you'll serve the church, you won't be self serving. You'll go ahead and go to the back of the line and let others go first.

So that way you would put them before yourselves.

So we should embrace Christ's call to be shifting from this like occasional half hearted willingness to help and turn it into a lifestyle. Where service is our default posture. And so maybe you're here today and you're like, man, I'm really getting stirred up right now, Stephen. Like, this is good stuff. I really.

I see it, man. I see that I've been worshiping a lower case G God. I've been worshiping other gods before him. And I'm seeing the results of that in my heart because it's not working. But how do I do this, man?

How do I take this step of service? Like, what's a practical way to go about it? Well, that's something that as a church, we try to put these practical ways in front of you. There's routine ways that you can incorporate service into your life. And so you heard Mike earlier talking to us during the greeting about, guys, here's some real needs that are taking place right now.

He mentioned kids ministry. He mentioned guest service. I for one, know that kids ministry that they have, they need more volunteers because our church is growing, and with the amount of volunteers they currently have, they've got empty classrooms next door that they can't put kids in yet because they don't have the staff to do it. And so here's a real example of man. If I would just die to myself a little bit right here and assume this posture of service, you could make the routine of serving with kids ministry, serving with guest services.

You can make that routine help develop this posture, and then next thing you know, it becomes a part of your lifestyle of who you are as a person. And maybe that was the first step you needed to take. In fact, we're gonna make it even easier on you out in the lobby when you leave today. Jeff Webb is our guest services leader. Michelle mentors our kids ministry leader.

They're gonna be wearing those green shirts. Remember those that we mentioned last week that Mike was wearing? They're going to be wearing them. Go find them and say, man, it's time for me to serve. Let's go.

Just go talk to them, and they're going to help you get plugged in. Why do we put that in front of you?

We are serving together to build the kingdom of God. And God's trusting us with a lot of people right now. And we want to be faithful to him to do this for his name's sake. Finally, the third way here to develop this spiritual habit of service is follow Christ's example of sacrifice. Follow Christ's example of sacrifice here in verse 28.

He says, Even as the son of man, Paul's son of man in the Old Testament, is used many times as a messianic title. And here's Jesus saying to them, the Son of Man. He's talking about himself. If you ever wondered, did Jesus ever refer to himself as the Messiah? Yes.

It's right there. He's calling himself the Son of Man. And what did the Son of Man do? He came not to be served, but to serve. As we said earlier, he didn't come to develop an earthly throne.

He came here to serve. And then to do what? To give his life. Now, I have to admit, when I was studying that word, give, that phrase, give his life, I kind of was, like, ready to brush it off. It's like, I know what that means, but when you look at it deeper, it inspires me.

It's this picture of bestowing upon someone a gift to supply something that someone needs and to pay, like wages or a reward. We know from Romans 6, it says, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Friend, if you're here this morning and you've been trying to do this in your own power, you've been saying, I'm just gonna. I just need to be a good person. Would you go to heaven?

Yeah, I think I'm a pretty good person. The wages of your sin is death. And you can't work your way out of that one. You can't counteract that with some really good things, because the bad things you've done before God have earned you a wage, and that's the penalty. The wage is death.

But here Jesus says, my wage, and the wage you did not earn is life. This is why I came to you. Because I saw you in your state where what you had earned was death, and you couldn't earn your way to me. So I assumed the form of a servant and I came to give you life. Even when you didn't believe in me, even when you were dead in your sin, even when you were shaking your fist at me, I came and I've assumed the role of a servant.

To give my life to do what? As a ransom for many. He's going to redeem in you the thing that you were created to be. He's going to give his life to help you become the thing that you were supposed to be. But sin had ruined it.

He's going to redeem that. Amen.

So he's not just telling us what to do, he's showing us what to do. So just do what Jesus does. Follow his example of sacrifice by how we present ourselves. Romans 12 says, I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. And so the way I even look at my own life, my own body is like, as I'm living this life, let everything I say and do be a sacrifice for him.

I don't care what I got to do. That, yes, has got to be on the table, because Jesus gave it all for me. If he's asking James and John, are you willing to drink this cup? Can you drink this cup? I'm going to drink that cup, too, even though it scares me to death to say that out loud, because I saw the cup that James drank.

He died. I saw the cup that John drank. He endured incredible suffering.

Am I willing to drink that cup? Am I willing to live a life where I might just lose it all here, but then gain it all there?

Is that place more important to me than this place? That's really what we're asking right now. Are you willing to die to yourself? Are you willing to die to the greatness of the world?

And in Luke 9, it says, and he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, an instrument of death, and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake. If you cling to this life for all you got. Yeah, but, Stephen, I really love this stuff down here. I really love the greatness of the world.

I love the way that it makes me feel temporarily, and then I always need more, and I kind of feel better in the moment. Man, I really love that stuff so much that I just can't let go. If you want to save your life here, you're going to lose it. If you spend all your time and energy building this kingdom and don't give your life to Jesus, then that's going to be as far as you go. Enjoy it, because this is as good as it's going to get for you.

The aim of our sacrifice should be for the sake of others. First, John 3 says, by this we know love, that he laid down his life for us. There's the example, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. In the same vein, I'm telling you, man, y' all need to start watching some Saturday morning animals, man. It'll inspire you.

God will start preaching to you through these animals.

There was one episode we saw that was talking about the emperor penguin, and this is super fascinating because the female penguin lays the egg and then has to very carefully, with these little waddly feet, somehow transfer the egg to the male. No hands. So, like doing it with their feet. And if the egg touches the snow, it freezes. So they got to be super, super careful to transfer.

And then she hands it off to the male, and then he just has to hold it kind of awkwardly and lose his ability to stretch his legs. And now she bolts. She's been starving because she's been not incubating. She's been in the process of laying this egg. And so now she goes off for months and eats and tries to get healthy again.

And so for the months that she's gone, the male is there like that in negative 80 degree weather with 100 mile per hour winds and just incubating the egg. And if it gets cold, what does he do? He doesn't stand there alone. He gets next to his brothers and they huddle up and it says that in that little core middle of it, it gets nice and cozy and warm. And so he doesn't do this alone.

There's a sermon in that too, what we talked about last week, fellowship. And he incubates that egg, and then when it hatches, there comes this little baby penguin. And then somehow, instinctively, the mom knows she didn't set an alarm on her phone. She somehow knows to come back. And there she is again.

Here's the baby. And new life has hatched from the male's sacrifice. Friend, your sacrifice can be used by Jesus to bring new life to you first, because you need Jesus. You can't do this in your own power. You cannot earn your way to heaven.

You need to be made new in Jesus. Would you accept his sacrifice? And would you then be a living sacrifice so that way he makes a new life in you? And then God, would you, through my hands and through bringing glory to yourself, do like you said in your word that when I lift you high, he says, if my name is lifted high, I will draw all men to myself. Let the world see the sacrifices that I made and not see Stephen.

Hey, good job, Stephen, man, you're such a good, sweet person. And they see Jesus reflected on my face, almost like Moses when he went before God and he spent so much time with him that his face was shining with glory. Let that be the glory that people see on my face. But not for me, that I just am constantly having to say, I'm a living sacrifice. I'm dying to myself.

This isn't about Stephen's name. This is about his name and that God would build his kingdom because of my sacrifice. Let that be true in us. God, would you bring new life in and through us. Here's some practical ways to sacrifice for his eternal kingdom.

1. Sacrifice your comfort boy. That's. Why did you say that, man? So I love being comfortable.

Choose to invest time in others even when you're tired, even when you're busy. Man. Jesus always made time for people, didn't he? Sacrifice your recognition. That hurts too.

Sacrifice in ways that may never be noticed. What if you don't get thanked for the work you did? Guess where that reward just got given from? I don't need the thanks of this world. I'm going to sacrifice for that.

For his name to be exalted above all names. Sacrifice your resources. Jesus gave it all. He gave his own blood for us. So why wouldn't we give generously?

Why wouldn't we open our homes and open up our schedules to serve and to show the world who Jesus is in and through us. Sacrifice your rights. Enough of the I deserve mentality. This is such an American thing this day to say that we have things that we deserve so much. And really what it comes down to is a heart of saying that I should be great, I should be valued above all else.

So sacrifice that. Say I don't before him. I'm going to just say I don't have anything. I don't have any rights because I want his name to be great. Maybe that step would.

It might free up a marriage today just to stop saying I deserve this. It might free up a friendship, a relationship to stop being so self centered and sacrifice with joy, not resentment. It says in Hebrews 12 Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before Him. Here's I think what's going to be the like, the umbrella of like beauty that's going to come from this posture of service is that it's not going to be the miserable life that the world tells you it's going to be. How many people have I talked to that said man?

I just can't get into the whole church thing. I just can't get into the whole following Jesus thing because you got too many rules. I don't want to have to give up the things that I like doing. Here's the truth I have found from a posture of service, from a posture of sacrifice that I love his law. I love the structure that he's given to my life.

I love the purpose. And so when I go to die to myself, it's with joy because it's a joy that comes from Him. Amen. So would you choose Christ's definition of greatness? Today we got to change our mindset on that.

Would you embrace Christ's call to service and would you follow Christ's example of sacrifice? Let's pray together.

Maybe you're here this morning and when I was speaking to the person who's been worshiping everything other than God and you've tried all the different ways to satisfy, but you know in your heart right now that your heart is a vacuum of never ending need for satisfaction but never feeling satisfied. Maybe you're here this morning and and not only are you dissatisfied, but you know that you have not surrendered your life to Jesus and you're seeing the ramifications of that. You're seeing maybe for the first time right now. Jesus did what for me? My wages are what, without Jesus?

Maybe you would give your life to him right now if you're willing to surrender to him. Would you pray this prayer right now with me?

Jesus, I choose to worship you above all else. I choose to fix my eyes on you today and to ask you, please forgive me for my sin. I know what those wages were going to earn me. Now would you forgive me? I want to become the kind of person you created me to be.

I want to be redeemed. I want to find my purpose that I was supposed to have had if I hadn't sinned.

I confess you as my Lord and my Savior and I believe it in my heart and I declare it today. I am Jesus. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, then all of heaven is rejoicing right now because you have gone from death to life. We believe if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. You are saved, my friend.

Maybe you're here today and you have given your life to Jesus, but you're seeing right now there's something that you've been either missing and not done it yet or you were serving and you burned out and you got into a very self centered mindset and you've seen the results of that. Would you pray with me, God? I shift my definition right now. Thank you for this reminder your word that Jesus was a servant and I should be a servant as well. God forgive me and help me now to begin to take some actions that are going to create a person of service, a person of servanthood in me that the world would see Jesus and not see me.

We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Audio

Transcript

All right. Good morning, church. So thankful you're here this morning. You have hopped in. If it's your first Sunday with us, you've hopped into part three of our series on spiritual habits.

You can check out where we've been online if you want to go back and check that out. But I have great news for you. Every one of these kind of sits alone as we're talking about spiritual disciplines, the power of spiritual habits in your life. And this morning we've got kind of a, I would argue, kind of a curious one in the mix. And that is the, the power of the habit of service.

And so we're going to be digging in this morning into the book of Matthew, chapter 20. And I pray that this really encourages you, but also challenges you because we need this kind of challenge from the Lord. We understand that the disciplines, the habits that we put together, the spiritual habits help us to connect with the power that we have in Christ Jesus, the power that we have in the Holy Spirit. And this starts with having a receptive heart that hears from God, allows the Spirit to change us and move us. And then we put that on, put on that new nature.

So our series theme for the whole seven part series is this Ephesians, chapter four. It says, instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes, put on your new nature, created to be like God, truly righteous and holy. So let, I want, allow the Spirit to renew your thoughts, your minds, your attitudes, and then put on the new nature. So today's word about the habit, the spiritual power of service is kind of a tricky one. In where we've been so far, week one, we talked about the idea of having a personal devotional life with the Lord Jesus, which you might kind of understand.

That one makes sense. And then last week we talked about the habit of fellowship, which is kind of like, okay, I get that, but now we're talking about service. That's interesting. How is that a spiritual habit? How does that help me connect with Christ in the body?

Well, this habit, it causes us to ask the question of what is the point of this one in the series? And that's the right question. Really, the right motivation is, all right, I want to look more like Jesus tomorrow than I do today. I want to grow in, in Christ likeness, you might call it. So how does service help me there?

Well, I'm just going to impress upon you today that it's one of the most important parts, one of the most important habits in the Christian life to understand who Jesus is, what Jesus was like, what he is still like and how we get to be a part of his wonderful plan. When you have this mindset that I want to look more like Christ today and hunger more for his will and the power of the Holy Spirit in my life, when that's where you're at, service just starts to be second nature. Now here's something that I have to admit. I'm coming here with the understanding that you want to be more like Christ Jesus. That's not the emphasis today is to help you have that desire.

You kind of have to bring that to the table this morning. If that's not where you're at. I pray that today's message will help encourage and challenge you in this. But if we are hungry as a church to look more like our Lord Jesus and to act more like Him. In fact, the Bible says this many times.

The apostle Paul says this too. He says, imitate me as I imitate Christ. Part of what it means to be a Christian is to be like Christ. Did you know this? I pray you did.

I pray it's what you desire today. I hope that as you came in today, you're saying, I want to walk out here feeling encouraged and renewed to walk in my faith. I pray that's what you desire and I believe today's message will challenge you in this. Because service is as essential to changing the heart as about any of these other habits. Service does something wonderful, selfless service confronts your pride.

It does, it confronts it perhaps like no other discipline. It. It brings to light this humility that should be a centerpiece of Christ likeness. Jesus teaches us that selfless service helps us abandon pride and live humbly. Service does another wonderful thing.

It connects our faith from our heads and hearts, this like theoretical faith to our hands. We actually do something with what we believe. And then of course, James says it this way. Don't just listen to God's word, but do what it says. Service helps us apply it and service certainly helps us reflect Christ visibly.

So my prayer for you today is that you would receive the call of Jesus and it is a call, a call from him today towards humble, selfless service and make it a spiritual habit in your life. And as we'll see today, service moves us powerfully towards Christ. Alright, so we're going to be in the book of Matthew, chapter 20, chapter 20, verses 20 through 28. This is probably a fairly well known passage to a lot of you we're going to see. Jesus here taught his disciples that the greatest among them must be the servants, must be the slaves.

Really difficult words in today's text. And we can follow the call of Jesus of becoming servants through the spiritual habit of service. So we're going to dig into the text today and see just how Christ intends for us to adopt the spiritual habit of service. So here we go. Matthew, chapter 20, 20, 28.

Here's what it says. Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him, him being Jesus, here with her sons and kneeling before him, she asked him for something. And he said to her, what do you want? She said to him, say that these two sons of mine are to sit one on your right hand and one at your left and in your kingdom. And Jesus answered this.

This is difficult. You do not know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink? They said to him, this is crazy. We are able.

They don't know what they mean by that. Verse 23, it says, he said to them, you will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those to whom it has been prepared by my Father. And when the 10 heard it, they were indignant. They were angry at the two brothers. Listen to this verse 25, because I think this is where Jesus is speaking across 2,000 years to you, my friends.

Jesus called them to him and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. You hear that church? It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant.

And whoever would be first among you must be your slave. Even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. This is God's word. Amen. I pray that this encourages you today, but also moves you where you need to be moved.

How do we become servants like Jesus, who said, I came to serve, not be served? How do we become like him in the spiritual habit of service? Here's the first and maybe one of the most important steps or ways you can do this. It starts here. Choose Christ's death definition of greatness.

This is a complete redefining of what you are dealing with in your day to day. Probably a redefining of what you grew up hearing, maybe even from your very parents. It's a redefinition. Jesus says, you want to know what it means to be great, Be a servant, be a slave. What?

What am I to do with that? That's what Jesus says here. But he begins this whole dialogue, because guess what? The mom, James and John has showed up. Who in the room loves it when your mom shows up to say, hey, can you give my kid the job?

Do you love that part? Like that is just the worst thing to have happen, you know, I don't know if you've been paying attention, but my kid, he's really gifted, you know, they come up and say, hey, you probably haven't heard my kid sing. You haven't heard my kid do this. He's literally the best ever.

She comes to the savior of the world and says, hey, can my two boys sit beside you on the throne of heaven? None of you have requested something like that. I got to give it to her. Her name, we find out in other gospels, is Salome, or some say Salome. She may even be.

It's likely that she's the sister of Jesus mother Mary. That makes her his aunt, which makes James and John his cousins. This is a very likely thing. And she doesn't realize, like so many of the other ones, that she. Indeed.

What's on my back screen right now. Don't look back there. Anybody. That's awesome. Where's Michael Caine?

Hey, check that out, man. I'm watching like a. He's teaching, too. Wow.

Sorry, church. I got distracted, and I'm not easy to distract, but that got me. But anyway, she's related to him, and he says to her and to James and John, he says to all three of them, you ready to drink the cup that I'm going to drink? They say. They say we are able.

Do you know who's there at the feet of Jesus at the cross? Salome, the sister of Mary and John. Oh, they're going to see what's wild about this section of scripture. You can go back and look at this on your own. But just before this section of scripture in chapter 20, Jesus has just told them very clearly, I'm going into Jerusalem.

They're going to take me. I'm going to be crucified. He has told them that plainly. And then they come up saying, can we be super duper in your kingdom? They're missing something.

Something's not connecting. And I don't knock them. I can't imagine what it would have been like to be in their shoes in that day. We have this advantage. You know what it is.

We have the book. We know how it ends. We know the story. They don't have a clue what Jesus is telling them yet. They're figuring it out.

As they go, and they're asking, hey, we want to be great. And Jesus says, you're going to be great, but it's going to come at a price you didn't expect. You are, in fact, going to drink the cup. Guess what happens. James is martyred for his faith.

John is beaten and boiled, and he lives into his old age. But he goes through the absolute wringer. Jesus says, you're going to drink the cup, but you're also going to receive great honor. Let's be honest, these disciples hold great honor, but they didn't realize what that meant when they were asking this. He goes on in verse 25 to give us really the direct commands of today and where I want to spend the bulk of my time.

I wanted to set up while we're talking about this with the whole story. But let's dig in. Heavy verse 25 through verse 28 here. He says that Jesus called them to himself. So the other disciples are apparently near enough to where they overhear this conversation.

And they're like, you know, you gotta be kidding me. They're asking for the prime seats. We're ticked off. This is a conversation that the disciples have a lot of times. Read through the Gospels again.

Sometimes they're so interested in who's going to be the best. We want to be the greatest in Christ's kingdom. They're arguing about this right before the Lord's supper. I mean, that's how much they're arguing about it. He washes their feet.

They do the Last Supper. And right in that same scenario, they're still trying to figure out who's the greatest. It's crazy. We're not that foreign from that. So he calls them all together, and now he calls us to the table.

Church, I pray you can hear this today. And I pray that this is obvious to you. Verse 25, he says the rulers of the Gentiles, those who are in charge here, he's probably specifically speaking to the Romans. Of the Romans, I should say the rulers of the Gentiles, guess what? They're like.

They lord it over. That means they exercise dominion. They control, they subjugate. They do what they want, when they want, for their own purposes. They do not care what you think, what you desire.

They do only what they want. This is what the rulers of their day do now. Newsflash, Church. This is what the rulers of today do. Have you become aware of this yet?

Some of you work jobs like this. Guess what? Some of you have bosses who their main interest is me, me, me. Some of you have great bosses. Some of you, I pray, are great bosses.

If you've come in today and you're one of those bosses that it's all about what I want, I pray this helps you and speaks to you today. Because Christ says, it shall not be so among you that there's a better form of leadership, certainly, but a better form of greatness. And it comes with service, it comes with sacrifice. So he says, the people, the rulers. Yeah, we get that.

We get that. I've accepted this fact, no matter who I vote for or elect. They have their own agenda, they have their own purposes. And it may sound. When they're running for their campaign, it may sound like we're lining up, but I don't know.

I know this confidently. They're going to do what they want, and it's not always going to align with my beliefs. He goes on to say, the great ones, this is the word megas, literally, the big ones, the mega ones, the ones who are great. The one, they exercise authority. That means to wield power.

And then verse 26 begins with, I think, one of the most powerful statements in today's text. He says, it shall not be so among you. You know, when the church gets this terribly wrong, when its leaders, when its people wield power, when Christians decide my way or the highway. Now, I'm not saying I get this perfect. I'm an imperfect man.

But what I'm really trying to do, what our leaders are trying to do, at least at this church, is to let the Bible wield its power over our lives, including mine. First over mine. In fact, I'm just trying to walk where Jesus leads. He. He says, it shall not be so among you.

Christ says, this is not what it means to really be great. And he redefines it. And it's not the only time he redefines true greatness as being last, as being a servant. He says this in the Book of Mark, chapter 9, verse 35. It says, he sat down and called the 12, and he said to them, if anyone would be first, he must be last.

Last of all and a servant of all. Well, that doesn't make any sense, Jesus. Except that's exactly what he's calling us. To be the last in line. Be the least of these, serve the others.

He redefines greatness as humility. Look at Matthew 18, where he was just previously to today's text. It says at that time, the disciples came to Jesus again, saying, who's the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? I mean, they're really Concerned about this, he says in calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

This one makes even more sense when you have little kids around you sometimes, because little kids, like, little, little kids, they just say what exactly they're thinking. Sometimes it's completely crazy, you know, they don't really care that much. Like, if they're in, if they feel safe and they feel loved, they're just gonna come and just say stuff. I've got some family in town this weekend. And this morning, my nephew Jacob came downtown down the stairs and just walks into the kitchen and says, hey, y', all, my name's Jacob.

No kidding. I mean, I've known you for a while. Hey, guys, my name's Jacob. And apparently he was downstairs talking to the cat. Like the cat can really understand and speak.

This is. Kids are awesome. Kids will just walk up, hey, my name's Jacob. How are you? You know, adults get a little bit like, I don't know if I want to talk to them today.

They look, kids are not that way. They're humble. They're like, almost not even self aware, you know, they're great to be around. Jesus says, unless you have the kind of humility and just shameless, you know what a kid's also like, they will just ask. They're never afraid to ask.

Some of Yalls kids come to my house and act like my pantry is their pantry. It's awesome. I don't mind it. I don't mind it. They show up, hey, can I have this?

They're looking around in my pantry. I'm like, I didn't even know that was in there. Go ahead and have that. This is what it's like to be a child. Jesus says, you want to know what it means to be great?

Be like a kid who has no real authority, no real power, but has the ability to just be selfless and humble and ask. You see this? This is what it means to be great. Even at the very last Supper, Jesus is having to explain the true greatness. Look at Luke, chapter 22. Who is more important?

Jesus says this. Who is more important? The one who sits at the table or the one who serves? The one who sits at the table, of course, but not here, for I am among you as one who serves. The one who's more important certainly is the one sitting there eating the Meal, not the waiter, not the waitress.

But he says, but not here. I'm flipping the script, I'm changing the order. I want to read for you a little bit more of something. This is in Luke chapter 14. This is a wonderful story called the Parable of the Wedding Feast.

And I just want to share this with you. Luke 14, verses 7 through 11. It says that Jesus told a parable to those who were invited when he noticed how they chose the places of honor and said to them, when you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him. And he who invited you both will come and say to you, hey, give up your place to this person. And.

And then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you're invited, go and sit at the lowest place so that when the host comes and says to you, hey, friend, move up higher. Then you'll be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. Listen to this verse. Church.

This is how it concludes. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

Seek the lowest place. This is what service does. Seek to serve. Seek to be last. Jesus is telling us something very important here.

Church. And it looks funny when Christians don't get this right. It looks odd when we make things all about us, when we are selfish, when we seek the highest place of honor. It looks odd. We used to do this thing when I was in the army.

I saw this from most of the leaders that I served with. There's these chow lines that you have pretty much every day, maybe even a couple of times a day, where people are coming to eat lunch, breakfast, whatever. And the army is a very structured system. You're probably aware of that. You've got lower enlisted all the way to pretty high up officers, often working near each other.

And so when it comes time for meals, especially when you're out in the field, you've got people of all different ages, all different ranks, eating at the same time. And a lot of leaders, a lot of good leaders, I would argue, will eat last. They'll eat last. They'll let the lower enlisted go through first to make sure they're well fed. I mean, there's almost always enough.

But just in case the let them go first. And a lot of the guys, I was a chaplain in the army, a lot of the chaplains would in fact take another step and go and get the gloves on. And serve with the cooks. So I'm not even just going to go last. I'm going to serve the people going through the line.

Now, I found this to be very meaningful for other people to see a captain over there serving people. But to me, I just want to look like Jesus. I just want to serve like Jesus. And I noticed something that when I would do stuff like that, these young enlisted or even all of the soldiers, I might would see them in my office later that week, or maybe they'd come to my service just simply because they saw me serving. It gave me an opportunity for the gospel.

Now, if you're down with that Christian, if you're down with that church that you want more opportunities to share the good news of Jesus, serve, serve people. And I promise you, you'll get more opportunities. You'll get more opportunities. Mealtimes are a time to go last. I got a few questions for you this morning.

Church. Is your drive for promotion, for leadership, for whatever's next. Is it a drive towards honoring and glorifying Jesus, or is it some sort of self glory, some sort of self aggrandization that will determine the way in which you serve?

If it's for Jesus, you will humbly serve if you make the decision. The work I do, yeah, it's not in the ministry per se. But here's the funny thing. All service, all work is God's work if you redefine it that way. In fact, this is what the Bible says.

It says, work as unto the Lord and not as unto men. So no matter what you do, you're fixing parts, you're fixing tractors, you're mowing yards, you're helping people, you're defending people, you're fixing people in the hospital. I mean, you just, you fill in your blank. It can all be workers unto the Lord. And if you make that determination, your service will change.

And if you have a spiritual habit of serving others, then you get the opportunity to use the parable of the wedding feast that the host will come and lift you up. Now, who's the host? The host in this scenario, this grand scenario, is Jesus. And I really want the host at the end of the day to come and say, hey, Jonathan, come sit over here. Instead of to come over here and say, hey, you did a whole lot of nothing.

Go sit over there. Now we're both there. Hey, church, good news, you love Jesus. You've given yourself to him, and you've said yes to the cross of Christ and been redeemed by the resurrection. We're both at the feast.

All right? But call me crazy. I want some personal contact. I want him to come over here and say, hey, come sit over here.

That's the right kind of ambition to please Jesus, not to please me. Because at the end of the day, that's very cyclic. And it's kind of useless the longer you do it, because you can never really get the bottom of it. There's always an opportunity for more, and then there's more, and then there's more. And you're like, I just can't be happy.

Instead, I lay down my life and say, all right, for you and for you alone, Jesus. Seek unseen service. Guard against comparison.

Choose the lower seat. When I serve at work, when I serve at church, when I serve in my community, when I serve at home, am I lording over them? Look what I know. Look what I can do. I'm the smartest guy in the room.

I'm the wisest. I've done this before. No, no, no. That would be lording instead. What can I do to lift these people up?

Pray this kind of prayer, Lord, strip away my craving to be seen and help me to serve. For your eyes only. This would change the world. You want some of the best advice I've ever given you for your marriage? Determine.

I am serving for Christ's glory, and I don't need what's best for me. I need what's best for his kingdom. Guess what? Your husband, your wife are going to be thrilled by that. All of a sudden, you become a selfless servant in the household.

You'll be the best employee. You'll be the best employer.

Here's the second way. The second way that we become more like Christ in the spiritual habit of service. And that is to embrace Christ's call to service. This is the next step. All right, I've redefined it.

Okay, I get it. Sure, being great in the kingdom of God is not the same as what the world says is great. And I get it, okay? You know, Christ has said, be a servant. I could hear this stuff up here.

But will I apply it? Will I embrace it for myself? Verses 26 and 27. He says, it will not be so among you. Instead, whoever will be great among you must be your servant.

Whoever will be first among you must be your slave. Boy, that's a nasty word there.

Great. Same word as used before. Megos. You want to be great? You want to be big.

You want to be a big deal in God's kingdom? Be a servant. I love that he says, be a servant. And not serve. This is an important distinction.

Church. He does not say the verb serve. I want you to serve. You want to be great? Serve.

No, he says, I want you to be a servant. I want you to become something. Do you hear the difference? I don't want you to do something. I want you to become something.

He chooses a noun on purpose here. This word servant has to do with executing the commands of another. That someone else is your master. Now I get this. Americans.

Most of you in the room are red blooded Americans, I'm sure, and you grew up here. Most of you. We have a certain nature in our nation of independence. Some of it's great. But when it comes to your Christian faith, it's often an interference.

Because in Christ we are called to have a master and it's the best thing for us. We should not be independent of our Lord Jesus. So the servant that we've called to be, we are called to serve the Lord and none other, not even ourselves.

We think of service as something we do, but Jesus frames it as something we are. Are you a servant down to your core? Look, there's the gift of service that we see applied in the Bible. But when it comes to being a Christ follower, we are called to be a servant. And it doesn't take a particular gifting.

No, you called to it. You don't get to shirk this and walk away and say, I just don't really. I don't really like helping people. That sounds dumb just to say it, doesn't it? Doesn't it sound off just saying it?

It's because you can't say that in Christ Jesus. He has called you to help others in the biggest way by sharing the life and testimony of the Lord Jesus, the gospel. You were called to help. He's left you here. When you came to faith, God didn't remove you.

Have you ever thought of why? Because heaven's a lot better. At least from what I've seen, what I've read, that sounds like a pretty awesome spot. But he didn't just immediately say, all right, you've come to Christ. Come on.

He left us for what end? So that we could just keep working and going to church. Why do I need to go to church if I'm in heaven? This doesn't even make any sense. No, he left me here for my neighbor.

He left me here for my co worker. He left me here for my lost brother, my lost uncle, my lost. He left me here for that. You get that you have a purpose. And it's different maybe than You've been thinking, you're called to serve.

You're called to embrace Christ's call towards service. He says, be a servant. And then if you want to be first, I mean, there's one thing, you can be great, but do you want to be first? Protos is here the word first in rank and honor. Be a slave.

It's the word doulos. Here it definitely means slave. A man of servile condition, a man under condition of slavery.

This isn't foreign to the apostles. I could take you to many texts where someone like Paul would say, paul a Doulos, a slave of the Lord Jesus.

Again, not a verb, another noun. I want you to be a servant. I want you to be a slave. The faith of Jesus that I have made, the determination. I know this is a hard word, but put it in perspective for a second.

In comparison to the Son of God who has set you free by his own sacrifice, you did not deserve this and nor did I. We weren't even close. Do you understand this church? We weren't even close. And yet he sacrificed himself for us.

And he also says on more than one occasion, things like this, take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is light, my burden is easy. What it means to be a slave in the kingdom is different than the slave you're picturing. It means finally laying down all of your hang ups and all of the things that you think are meant to make you happy. To put down all that baggage at the feet of the cross and say, I am not my own, I am yours. This is really indeed what the word is meaning.

In other places in scripture it says you've been bought with a price and the price was the blood of Jesus Christ. I hope this is making some sense to you. So now you live under the condition of, I have been ransomed, I have been bought by the Lord Jesus. I am not my own, so I shall live a slave unto Christ. And all of the wonder that that means.

Now I get the opportunity to be a part of what Christ is up to in and on earth. In my generation, our service should be unto the Lord and ultimately for his glory. First Peter, chapter four. It says it this way. Each has received a gift.

Use it. What do you use your gifts for? Church. Use it to serve one another. Notice it didn't say, hey, use your many gifts to make your name great.

This is the problem in a lot of church culture, at least the ones that get a lot of media. Oh, look how great this guy is. Look how great that worship Team is. And hey, a lot of times they make great music. A lot of times it's great preaching.

But it gets to a point where you start to wonder, why are we elevating this person? There's only one person we should be elevating, that's the Lord Jesus. So let's get really great at that. Now he says, use your gifts. What?

Not to lift yourself up, but to serve one another, to be good stewards of God's varied grace. Whoever speaks as one who speaks, oracles of God. Whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies. In order that in everything God may be glorified. Did you hear that?

In order that in everything God may be glorified, through Jesus Christ, to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Get your priorities in order. Church. You want to know what it means to have the habit of service?

Make the determination. Everything I do in my life is for the glory of God. Now, I know that's a simple phrase, but it will activate every single part of your life. I work not for money. Did you know that?

You don't work for money anymore. You work for the glory of God. That changes everything now, doesn't it? Now, I don't work overtime because I need. And you may need the money.

I'm not knocking that. You should feed your family. That's not the point of what I'm talking. That's not the exercise. I'm trying to help you redefine the way you work.

I work as unto the Lord and not unto men. I embrace Christ's call to serve others. The gifts that he's given me to speak, to sing, to serve, to be an administrator. These are for service of each other, not for my own glory.

Have the same mind as the Lord Jesus had. This is a fascinating text. Philippians, chapter two. It says this. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men.

You want to know what it's like to walk with Jesus? You want to know what it's like to be a doulos, a servant, a slave of Jesus. I want to tell you a little bit about who this Jesus is, the things he calls you to. Trust me when I say this. He modeled them first.

He never calls you to do things that he himself didn't first do and isn't still doing in your life. John puts it very Plainly, he says that we love him because he first loved us. We don't even have the power to know and love him unless he reaches us first. We fellowship with one another and with him because he first makes fellowship with us. He came here, we serve because he served us.

On the same night that, the disciples are there arguing over who's great. And Jesus tells them, tomorrow I'm about to go down. I'm about to be sacrificed for you. And they do the Last Supper together. And this is my body, which will be broken.

This is my blood which will be spilled for you. He tells them all this, and they're still arguing over who's great in the kingdom. Guess what he does to respond to that? To respond to the question. They keep arguing, who's the greatest?

Jesus takes off his coat, rolls up his tunic or whatever there, gets down on his knees and washes their feet. You want to argue about greatness? Here, let me show you something. Let me give you a picture. Who's the greatest man in this story?

Who's the greatest man of the Bible? Wouldn't we agree it's the Lord Jesus? We'd agree, right? What does he do when asked, who's the greatest? He gets down and washes.

Probably the nastiest thing. Y', all, I ain't gonna lie to you. I hate feet. I ain't down with that at all. That's disgusting.

And these poor guys, they're walking around in sandals on dirty roads all the time. They're walking everywhere. Them some mangled toenails. I just guarantee they don't have toenail clippers like we got today. I don't know what they're using, but I bet it don't look good.

Some of these fishermen, these disciples, they beat and bang these things up. They probably got mangled toes. And then things are.

I hate to break it to y'. All, I'm gonna have a hard time with that. But if the Lord Jesus says, you better wash some feet, I'm going to do it. I'm going to be.

You're going to have to give me strength, Lord. You want to know who's the greatest? Let me get down here and wash these feet. This. This is Jesus.

You want to know who the greatest is? I'll take your sin upon myself. Do you understand this? I mean, do you deeply understand this? You who crave power.

You who crave honor in this room. It shall not be so among you. This is not what it means to be a Christian.

And if you'll get this, you're going to see powerful moves of God in your life, not for your good, but for his. But you still get to be a part of it. And it's incredible. You start serving selflessly, people are going to get real curious. You're going to get some wonderful opportunities to see people experience life change in the gospel.

I promise you this, friend. If you've never seen it, once you see it the first time, you'll never want to see anything else. It is the most fun you'll ever have is to see other people come to saving faith and eternity eternal destination in Christ Jesus. It is too much fun and our service, it changes hearts. God can use it.

This is what it says right there in that passage, John, chapter 13, where Jesus is washing the feet. Jesus said to them, I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. I tell you the truth. Slaves are not greater than their master, nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message.

Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them. I want the blessing of God. I'm down for that. But I'm not sitting here trying to figure out how to glorify myself. I want to do the things of God because I expect God's hand of protection, his hand of blessing, simply because he's promised it.

But that's not why I do it. I do it out of obedience, out of submission to Him. There's another wonderful, nasty word for you today, Christians. We've been called to be servants. Servants to be slaves, to submit to the will of God.

And what we don't yet know is it's the best place to be. Some of you have experienced it. I pray you'll tell others. Hey, look, this isn't what you think. This is the most fun you can have on earth.

Here's the third way, and I'm already out of time.

Follow Christ's example of sacrifice. Follow Christ's example of sacrifice. It says in verse 28. He finishes this section by saying, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. Here Jesus is attaching to himself the title Son of Man.

It's not the first time he's done this. He does this quite a bit. This is a messianic title. You. This is him attaching himself to what many, especially Daniel, many of the prophets have called the Messiah.

And that is the Son of Man. This is an aside, just a sidebar for you. There are some in the world, in the educational System that would argue that are students of the Bible would argue John's Gospel is the only one where Jesus really claims divinity. I would say that is complete foolishness. Here he is claiming the title Son of Man, which is a title given of the one who would be both divine and human, that he would be the incarnation of God.

Jesus says, guess what? I came the Messiah, not to be served, but to serve.

And then plainly he says, and to give up my life. This is what you disciples aren't understanding. He's telling them here, hey, you want to drink the cup? You're going to get to drink the cup. But it doesn't quite look what you think I'm going to have to sacrifice for you.

I'm going to rise again, there will be a resurrection, and that's going to be amazing. But guess what? I have to give up my life for you. That you might be ransomed, that you might come to freedom. We can follow this example of sacrifice as well.

I mean, not identically. We have no power to do that, but we can imitate it. Jesus example of sacrifice is how he presents himself to the Lord. This is what it says in Romans chapter 12. This is where my mind immediately went when I was reading the end of this text.

Romans 12:1. It says, I appeal to you therefore, church, my brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

I pray you don't know this. Maybe, Church, I just want to inform you of something. What I pray for most lately is that I could be a part of helping a people, including myself, be presentable to a holy God, that I could, myself and my wife, which the Bible says that I might present her holy and blameless. It says this in Ephesians chapter 4. But then as a pastor, that I would get to be the kind of person that helps you be living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God.

I haven't always done this well. I won't always do it well. But it is my prayer that I could be a part of a church that gets very serious about being a living sacrifice for God. That we would be the kind of church that serves well because we so get this. I'm a servant of God.

Everything I do should be for him. Everything I do should be a sweet fragrance, a sweet sacrifice to Jesus. Certainly that should be church. We get to take that Monday through Saturday too.

And this is where Christ puts this idea so plainly. In Luke 9, Jesus says, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself Take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

Do you believe that this morning, church? I mean, have you really pondered that and chosen to believe that? I am a servant of the Lord Most High, I deny myself and take up my cross that I might follow Jesus, because I know if I'm constantly trying to save and grab life and have power and have wealth, oh, I might grab some of this, but I'm losing my life in it. These are endless vanities.

Instead, come after me and deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. The aim of our sacrifice is always the sake of others. It says this in 1 John 3. By this we know love that he, Jesus, laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers, for the church.

I learned this really fascinating thing this week. I did something kind of weird. I don't do this every week. I. I was trying to find ways to picture this example of sacrifice. I discovered something about a strange animal in Antarctica called the emperor penguin.

Y' all ever seen this thing? I think I've got an image of it. You can leave that up for a little while. And it's sideways. I don't know.

I mean, it's straight up, but it's just not full screen. Whatever. Just. It's good. It's good.

I'm good. We're good.

This is a very remarkable animal. It's kind of. It waddles around. It's not a very athletic animal. It's kind of strange, this animal.

But there's something that happens that is like an ideal picture of sacrifice, if you will. So when the female, for some reason, their habit is that the female lays the egg in, like, the middle of winter. And it apparently is quite taxing on her body because as soon as she does this, she passes the egg to the father and then he puts it under his feet there and has, like this some kind of flap. It's called, like, the brooding pouch. It sounds kind of weird, but he puts this egg on his goofy little feet and covers it with this little flap he's got down there that's apparently specifically for this purpose.

And then the female goes out hunting and reviving. Apparently, it takes a lot out of her. I mean, it's a pretty big egg. I mean, I don't know, but she goes out for, like, two months, and guess what? It's dead in the middle of winter.

In Antarctica at that time of year, it's quite cold. Like negative 80 is what I read. And sometimes have 100 mile an hour winds there. This is all very fascinating to me. So this poor dude has to kind of waddle around with this egg, you know, I don't know how that works for him.

He can barely move. He goes weeks without eating. In fact, when I read this, it said over those two months, he tends to lose half of his body weight to protect this egg and also to give the girl the opportunity to go restore herself through raging blizzards. He doesn't eat. He sacrifices his comfort, his strength, all so that there can be new life that emerges.

It's a cool story. The reason that I was fascinated by it is because there's nothing in it for him. There's nothing in it. The only thing in it for him is that I guess the missus will come home and say, thank you, I'm restored. Maybe.

I don't think penguins work that way, y'. All. I'm just saying I don't have those kind of deep conversations. I don't think that's how that goes. The main reason is I want to see this egg hatch.

I want to see new life. It's a very simple desire. And they sacrifice months of their life and much of their comfort. When we follow Christ's sacrifice, when we imitate Christ, we get to experience new life.

I don't know if you've done this yet, Church, and made the decision, I will follow him. I will. No matter what it costs me, no matter what the expense is on me. I will deny myself, take up my cross and follow Jesus. I'm just going to say yes to that blanket.

I don't know what it's going to mean. It's just my yes is on the table. And when I do that, guess what? I experience new life. Sometimes at cost, sometimes at great cost.

But it's always worth it, Church. Every time. It's always worth it.

Sometimes that new life is in me, that I'm changing, that I'm a little more humble, a little more compassionate. That's been the greatest work on my life. I think some of you might be where I've been just lacking empathy at times. But then the more I walk with Jesus, I can't help it. Seeing new life in others.

There's nothing more fun than that. That my sacrifice might get to be just a small piece. And them coming to saving faith, oh, I would offer it easily. I heard this story, too. This nurse was having to do a terrible, some kind of terrible procedure on a patient.

The other family member Was looking on and kind of looking away like, ugh. And going, man, you could. I wouldn't do what you're doing for a million dollars. And the nurse turned to them and said, I wouldn't do it for a million dollars either. But for Jesus, I'll do it for free, man.

That's powerful.

The call of Christ is not a selfish gain like the world. It's a selfless sacrifice for an eternal kingdom. I want to give you a couple of ideas of how to sacrifice. Sacrifice first, your comfort.

Choose to invest time in others. Even when you're tired, even when you're busy. Choose to invest.

Second, sacrifice your recognition. Sacrifice in ways. Serve in ways that you will definitely not be thanked. And don't be that person that when you do something and no one thanks you, you just lose your mind.

Somebody in here that speaking to you. Okay, don't walk away. Oh, that message was for him. No, it was for you. No one ever thanks me.

I just never feel any gratitude. I thought you were doing this for Jesus. I don't understand now, should we thank one another? Yeah, this is an aside. Okay.

As Christians, we ought to be showing gratitude to one another. We ought to be thankful. We ought to love each other. But that is not your expectation. I didn't know you were working for me.

I thought you were working for him together. And I'm not going to get this right all the time. Sacrifice in such a way that you might not be noticed. Do it on purpose. There's no way anybody will find out.

Jesus says, don't even let the right hand find out what the left hand is doing. I'm not even going to. I'm somehow going to play this game where I don't even know I'm doing it. That's not really what he means. But sacrifice your recognition.

Sacrifice third, your resources. I can guarantee you this. Jesus sacrificed his resources. He sacrificed his entire self. He gave much.

Give generously. Open up your home. Give what you can give. I'm not talking financially here only. I mean, that might be a piece of what God's doing in your life, but it might be just.

Hey, I'm going to just. I'm going to be willing to let people come over and come in my pantry and act like they own the place. I'm going to let them do it. Sacrifice fourth, sacrifice your rights. This one right here, boy.

This one will straight up save most of your relationships. Lay down the I deserve mentality. I've worked hard this week. I deserve. She ought to be nicer to Me when I came home, why wasn't dinner on the table?

You know what you deserve? This is a harsh one. I probably shouldn't even say it, but we deserve permanent and eternal separation from a holy God. It's what we deserve, but it's not what we've got. Because God is so good.

Because the cross of Christ is so good. Lay down that mentality instead. Come home asking, wonder how I can serve. But Jonathan, I work for like 10 hour shifts. I come home tired.

Good, then you're really gonna get it. You're really gonna get it. When you're on the drive home going, alright, Jesus, I am exhausted. But not my will, but yours be done. You're gonna have to fill me with your power so that I can be a good wife, a good husband, a good father.

On the way to church this morning, some of you, you're just wore slam out. I don't know what you did yesterday, you wore slam out, but you come in this place and say, God, I'm giving you my best because you deserve it. And I need your power to speak well to each other, to others. I saw you coming in, y' all didn't surprise me. Some of you came in, like, looking for the coffee, you know, stumbling and bumbling around like, literally, you just got zombified.

I mean, I'm glad you're here. I pray that you're finding strength in the Lord Jesus today. Sacrifice your rights. The I deserve mentality, it doesn't make any sense in Christianity. I just want you to know that it makes no sense.

That mindset, your mindset should always be, how can I lift up and make the Lord's name great? How can I serve a holy God? I may be tired, I may be broken. There are times where I just don't feel good at all. How can I serve?

What can I do with where I'm at? And then the fifth, and this one, this one's really important, especially where I've taken you this morning. Sacrifice with joy. I thought. I didn't know we was going to go there, Jonathan.

Because everything you've been saying, been real hard to do. No joy, not resentment. Why? Because our sacrifices at the end of the day, our selfless service, our sacrifice, it's not a loss, it's an investment in an eternal kingdom. Do you believe that?

Do you really believe that? That the extra energy you pour out tonight when you go home to be with your families and when you're tucking that kid to bed, some of you know this. Tonight you're going to go to tuck that kid to bed and he's suddenly going to have a thousand questions. It's going to hit him because guess what he's doing. He's stalling.

You know this. He's stalling.

How can I serve? I'm tired. I just want this kid to go to bed so that I can have a little bit of me time. But I'm going to take his stalling as an opportunity for the gospel.

I come home late from work. I just want to sit down and have a meal. Some of you are this way. I'm this way. Don't feel bad.

I would love for somebody to set the plate there and then just everybody leave. And I'll just be, I'm good. But instead of that, I hope everybody will sit around the table. Let's talk. I've got literally negative words left, but I'm going to find them.

How can I serve? With joy, not resentment. Church, I pray you heard this this morning. This is a powerful spiritual habit. In your life, you want to look more like Jesus.

This is at the heart of it. This is really at the core of it. And it looks like choosing his definition of greatness, embracing this call to serve, and then following his example of sacrifice. Let's pray now together, church as a family. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that everything you've called us to this morning, you modeled and did for us first.

You loved, you served, you gathered us to fellowship. It is because of you that we gather in this place today. And it is because of your great service to us on the cross and everything you did in your life that we can accept this call to serve as well. We can embrace it. I pray that you would move in our church in a powerful way, that our people would serve out of a desire to glorify you and not out of self interest, not out of some self seeking.

God, would you stir in our hearts in such a way that we would be motivated simply to worship, to praise you in the way we work? Would you do that? Lord, in us. I recognize that someone's come in here today and this all sounds like a pipe dream. I mean, it sounds way foreign.

And the reason being is because, friend, you've not yet given your life to Jesus. You've not said yes to the gospel. So the idea of selfless service for the kingdom of God makes no sense. I pray this morning you're feeling the tug, the Holy Spirit's move on your life that you feel God calling you. He and he alone can do this.

I pray you Feel a sense that God is saying, hey, come to the family of God. Accept this and live it. If that's you today, you feel the Lord Jesus calling you. I want to give you an opportunity to confess faith. It's not complex, we're not going to embarrass you.

But if you're feeling that today, you feel the Lord moving in your life and you want to say yes to Jesus and put your yes on the table. The book of Romans says this. If you confess Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. We believe that as a church, we put our faith in that. If that's you this morning, pray simply with me a confession of faith.

Pray this. Jesus, I believe. I believe you are Lord of all things. You are Lord of my life. Jesus, I believe that you died on the cross for my sin, my wrongdoings, my brokenness.

You paid for it. I believe that today and God, I believe that you raised Jesus Christ from the dead and it's because of these things. Lord Jesus, I believe I've been saved. And so God, thank you for what you've done here, bringing me salvation. And I'm asking now, help me to be a servant.

I've never known, I've never experienced what that means. Help me now by faith to serve. Serve you in the kingdom.

Friend, if you prayed that prayer, welcome to our family, the family of God, the big C church, so thankful for you. We're praying right along with you that same end of your prayer. God, help us to know what it means to be a selfless servant in your kingdom. Help us in our workplaces. There are people in this room, Lord Jesus, I know they have very difficult jobs.

Some of them have very difficult co workers, bosses. God, I pray that you would empower them to be servants in your kingdom and that because of this you would move people towards faith. That the way they behave, the way they work, the way they speak would be moving to people that they might see Jesus on display in their lives. Would you do this in us? Do this, do this in our homes?

I pray that marriages in this church would be on the rise. I pray that these kids would not only love coming to church but would love, speaking of faith, would gather around the dinner table with their families and be longing to have gospel conversations. Would you do this in our families here? I pray for nothing more than that, that we would model service in every single aspect of our lives. Church, work, family, all of it.

God, do this in your people. Encourage us, embolden us to do this. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.


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