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.