Mark 9:33-37; 10:32-45
“If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”
Good morning everyone. As Mike said, my name is Brennan Coughlin. Just give me one second. And in 2014, my family and I were sent out from fellowship community to plant a daughter church called fellowship capital city in Trenton, New Jersey. Um, and it was such a joy and a privilege to be able to plant a daughter church.
And so we moved up to Trenton in 2014, and we began to just serve our neighbors to try to love the city the best we knew how and begin to gather a core group of believers and saw some people come to know Jesus. And it was really exciting. We started house church in our living room and as our core group started to grow, we realized it was time to launch out.
And in September of 2016, we launched public services at the Trenton war Memorial theater. And just continue to, to follow Jesus and ask him to bless our work. And after a couple years of just grinding and growing and then shrinking and working hard and growing and shrinking again, we just really felt like we had hit a ceiling in our ministry.
We had around 80 or 90 people. We had seen some people come to faith, but just really felt like we couldn’t move any further. And we needed God to bring about a significant breakthrough. So we were praying and just asking God to do something and then COVID hit. And we weren’t sure what we were going to do.
And once governor Murphy allowed churches to gather again in may, we were excited to get together again, but we realized we have no place to gather. We rented a state owned building the Trenton war Memorial, and the state was indefinitely shut down, but we really wanted to get together. So we started gathering for worship in our backyard, in the west ward of Trenton.
Just hoping that God would bring a breakthrough in our. And then one day I just, I cleared my calendar and I said, today, I just need to go. I just need to go and walk, be in the wilderness and just seek the Lord and ask for his wisdom and his guidance. And as I was driving up there, I got a phone call. So I pull over, I answer the phone and this guy said that he was the treasurer from shady rest Bible church was, I’d never heard of in my life.
And he said, you know, we’re an older congregation. We’re looking to have to close our doors. And we wanted to see if you were interested in us giving you our church property and building who is this. And then I realized that he was serious. And we began a conversation between the elders of fellowship, Capitol city and the deacons of shady rest Bible church.
And after four months of praying and asking the Lord’s direction, both churches voted unanimously for a rebirth merger and to the glory of God. This mostly senior dying congregation voted to hand over the keys and the deed to their property. And they said, we want to come underneath you and let’s see what God will do.
And was an amazing act of humility to the glory of God. So out of that rebirth merger came fellowship Crosspoint church. We moved outside of Trenton to, uh, Chesterfield, New Jersey. It’s the Northern tip of Burlington county. And we have just seen God do some incredibly amazing things. Now, part of this whole rebirth conversation, the elder elders, and I were saying, okay, if God would be pleased to be generous with us and gift us this church property, we want to make sure that we are generous in return.
And over several years we’ve been saving money towards acquiring our own building. And God just kept closing those. And we said, if the Lord is pleased to bring about this rebirth, we really want to be generous. One of the reasons that we wanted to plant a church in Trenton is because it has a thriving planned parenthood and no crisis pregnancy center.
So I got on the phone with my friend, Chuck Swanson, who is the director of options for women in cherry hill, New Jersey. And we started to dream together and I said, Chuck, man, it is such a joy. We’re sending you a check for a hundred thousand dollars. So we can start the first and only pregnancy care center in the city of Trenton and to the glory of God, it is up and running.
So these pictures here are from our old office space, our old church office space in the west ward of Trenton and because of this rebirth merger and because of the ongoing support, financial and prayer support of fellowship community, Little Calisha and little Julian have life because their mothers were ministered to, in the name of Jesus Christ.
They were given the resources that they need, and they had people walk alongside them and encourage them that they could do this. So those children were born to the glory of God, through the generosity of this church. That is amazing.
And God just continues to show off in the life of our ministry. We, he has done exceedingly more than we could ask for, or imagine he has a fusions, three 20 does more than we could ever fathom. And right now we have more people gathering for worship than we ever had. When we were in Trenton, we were seeing people coming out of the woodwork.
We’re seeing people come to know Jesus and fellowship cross point right now has the joy of pastor mark preaching to them this morning. And we are. Amazed and encouraged by what God has done. I want to personally thank pastor mark. I want to thank all the staff here and I want to thank the deacons for your ongoing and faithful financial support.
And I also want to thank many of the families and individuals who have been joyfully generous in supporting our ministry. We thank you from the bottoms of our hearts as a family, we are so grateful for your ongoing support and we are so grateful to God for his incredible, amazing grace. So it’s a joy to be able to update you this morning.
But my primary purpose is to communicate the truth of God’s word to you. I want to talk to you this morning about how Jesus. Redefines greatness in mark chapter nine and chapter 10. So that’s where we’re headed this morning, but I have absolutely no shot of getting us there on our own. So I’m going to pray and I’m going to ask God through the power of his holy spirit, that he would open the truth of his word for us, and that we would be transformed as a result.
Would you pray with me, father in heaven? Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight father. We thank you for the gift of your son. Jesus, we thank you for the amazing grace that we receive through him, through his life, through his death, through his resurrection and father.
I pray now that you would send the power of your holy spirit and that you would open the eyes of our hearts, that you would open our minds to the truth of your word. And would you show us. What true greatness is all about only your grace can produce this kind of greatness in our lives. Would you give us this grace for your glory?
For our good and for the advancement of the gospel through fellowship community church, we ask this in Jesus’s name. Amen.
One of the great, great fights in boxing history took place on February 25th, 1964, when Cassius Marcellus clay took on the heavyweight champion of the world, Sonny Liston. And if you have any old school boxing folk in here, then you know that Sonny Liston was a bad man. He was a scary dude. One of the greatest, most powerful punchers in boxing history.
Sonny Liston had fist the biggest fist in boxing history. They measured 15 inches in circumference. Are you kidding me? Sonny Liston once knocked a dude’s teeth out with a jab. And two years before he fought clay, he dismantled then heavyweight champion, Floyd Patterson. Sonny Liston was a scary dude. He had these sullen eyes and when he would look at you as like he was looking through your soul, everyone was scared of sunny lists.
So when Cassius clay at 22 years old was taking him on, nobody gave him a chance. He was an eight to one underdog, but when that fight began in Miami beach, all of a sudden it was clear why Cassius clay was so confident. He was taller. He was faster. He was sharper than Liston. And for the first three mountain first three rounds, he was just tearing him apart.
And Liston knew that he was in trouble. So between the third and the fourth round listing had his corner, man put some, a stringent on his gloves. And then he comes out for the fourth round. He gets clay in a clinch and he rubs the gloves up into Clay’s eyes. And dude can see Cassius clay could not see for the fourth and fifth rounds.
And Sonny Liston just started pummeling him body shot. After body shot, people couldn’t believe that clay was still standing. But then once this corner guys got the sponge into his eyes and cleared them out, once clay could see good night, he just started to pick apart the champion. And then before the eighth round started Sonny Liston, quit and Cassius Marcellus, clay who, you know, as Mohammad Ali announced to the entire world, I’m only 22 years old.
I upset Sonny Liston. I must be the greatest. And if you follow Muhammad Ali’s career, he took on and beat some of the greatest heavyweights of all time. Joe Frazier, George Foreman. And if you ask most boxing historians who the greatest heavyweight was in history compared to the other grades who he beat, they will tell you that Muhammad Ali is the greatest of all time.
Boxing evaluates greatness by comparing that fighter to others. And can I tell you our culture evaluates greatness, the same exact way and our culture. If you have the highest GPA, if you are the best looking, if you go to the best school, if you drive the nicest car, live in the biggest house, have the biggest church in comparison to others, then that makes you great.
And because we live in this culture, we have taken on this understanding of greatness. So we evaluate our greatness by comparing ourselves to others. I want to show you in these texts from mark nine and mark 10, that Jesus radically redefines the metrics for greatness. Jesus is going to tell us through his word.
He’s going to show us that greatness is not measured by comparing ourselves to others, but true greatness is measured by selfless service to others. That’s what God wants us to see from his word this morning. So let’s go ahead and open God’s word and we’ll take a look at it together. We’re going to be in mark chapter nine.
I’d like us to pick up in verse 30. If you’re using one of the Bibles in the pews in front of you, it’s page 794, but however you access the Bible on your phone, you brought your own Bible or use one of the Bibles in the seats in front of you. I would encourage you to hold God’s word in your hand. Let’s read God’s word together.
Now chapters eight, nine and 10 in the gospel of mark are known as the great discipleship discourse because Jesus is showing the disciples what it looks like to follow him. And we’re going to see a pattern three times once in chapter eight, once in nine, once in 10, Jesus tells his disciples that he’s going to die.
And then three days later he will raise again. And the disciples each time they don’t get it, they don’t understand what Jesus is saying. So let’s take a look at the text together, mark chapter nine, we’ll pick up, excuse me. In verse 30, they went on from there and passed through Galilee and he did not want anyone to know for he, Jesus was teaching his disciples saying to them, the son of man is going to be delivered into the hands of.
And they will kill him. And when he is killed after three days, he will rise, but they did not understand the saying. And we’re afraid to ask him for the second time. Now Jesus has predicted his death and the disciples. They just don’t understand what Jesus is talking about. Take a look at verse 33, excuse me.
And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house, he asked them, what were you discussing on the way they kept silent for? Because on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. And I want you to process this for a minute. Jesus tells the disciples that he’s going to the cross that he’s going to die.
And their response is that they argue with one another. Over who is the greatest. They begin to compare between themselves, who is the greatest, you know what? It turns out that the first century has a lot in common with the 21st century. Interestingly, in the 1950s, some archeologists discovered a goldmine of antiquity.
They discovered an ancient, the remains of an ancient first century Jewish community at Qumran in the west bank of Israel. And not only did they find the dead sea scrolls with some of the oldest copies of the old Testament, they also found meticulous records of this first century community ranking, every single member of the community, according to their moral qualifications.
Imagine if pastor mark and the deacon sat down and said, okay, we’re going to evaluate everyone here at FCC. And we’re going to rank them. According to their moral qualifications, they were comparing their greatness based on how good they were compared to everyone else in the community.
Whether it’s the first century, whether it’s the 21st century, whether it’s Jesus’s disciples or whether it’s us, we can’t break free from this compulsion to compare ourselves to others. Take a look at verse 35 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. And he took a child and put them in the midst of them and taking him into his arms. He said to them, whoever receives or that could be interpreted. Whoever serves one, such child in my name receives or serves me and whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me. I think it’s important to notice that Jesus does not rebuke the disciples for their desire to be great, but rather he shows them that their metrics, their measurement of greatness is off says, okay, you guys want to be great.
That’s great. But you don’t understand what true greatness is. Your metric is, is off. So Jesus takes a child and he puts him in the midst of the disciples. And then. Embraces the child in his arms as an object lesson. Now in the first century, children were expendable insignificant of little value to society.
So in many ways, children were the least, and Jesus takes this child in his arms. And he says, if you want to be great, if you want to be first, then you must be last. You must be the servant of all. Jesus calls his disciples to redefine what greatness is all about.
Can you hear the words of Jesus in your heart this morning? He’s telling you that the way up is down, the way to get is to give, if you want to be first. Make yourself last. He is radically redefining. What greatness is all about. He tells his disciples to stop comparing themselves to other people and start selflessly, serving other people.
But the disciples, man, they just, they don’t get it. They don’t understand. The text tells us that, um, a little while before a man came with a son and asked the disciples to drive out a demon and they couldn’t do it, they failed. And then Jesus had to do it for them. And now they encounter a man who successfully is driving out demons.
And the text says that the disciples told him to stop because they weren’t following them.
Did you catch that? They see a guy casting out demons in Jesus’s name and they tell the guy to stop doing that. Not because he’s not following Jesus, but because he is not following them, the disciples, oh man, that’s really embarrassing. They can’t break free from the curse of comparison. Now these dubiously dense disciples.
They just ain’t picking up what Jesus is putting down. I mean, time and time again, they just don’t get it. Let’s jump down to mark chapter 10. We’re going to move ahead just a little bit. We’re going to pick up with verse 32. Now keep in mind that Jesus tells them that to serve children, to serve the least.
And the last is the path to true greatness. So he, he just told them that. And then a bunch of kids come up to Jesus and mark 10, and one of the disciples. They drive the kids away. They still don’t get it. Look at verse 32 and they were on the road going up to Jerusalem and Jesus was walking ahead of them and taking the 12.
Again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him saying, see, we are going up to Jerusalem and the son of man that’s Jesus, his nickname for himself, the son of man will be delivered over the chief priests and the scribes. They will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles and they will mock him and spit on him and flog him and kill him.
And after three days he will rise. This is the third time. Now that Jesus is predicting his pending death, he’s telling the disciples what is going to happen? Verse 35. And James and John, the sons of Zebedee came up to him and said to him teacher, we want you to do for us, whatever we ask of you, man, talk about a humble request, right?
I mean, that is like humility, personified. They come up to Jesus and they say, Jesus, here’s the deal. We’re going to ask something of you and you better do it for us. And Jesus is so patient and so accommodating. It’s like, all right, what do y’all need? Look at verse 37, grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in your glory.
So don’t miss this. Jesus just predicted his unspeakable shame and suffering and death on the cross. And the disciples respond by saying that’s great, but. When you become king, can you make sure that we’re great.
That’s what we’re asking of you. We want to make sure that we’re great. We want the best positions in your kingdom. Jesus, and you better accommodate us. This is absolutely mind blowing. This is incredible aloofness that they are displaying here. What’s crazy is in Matthew 19, Jesus promises the 12 disciples that there will be 12 Thrones for them in glory.
That’s not good enough for James and John. They want the best Thrones. They come up to Jesus and essentially say, we must be the greatest. Now, make it happen. Jesus. We’ve been walking through the gospel of mark at fellowship Crosspoint for, for over a year. Now I’ve been immersed in Mark’s gospel and time and time again, I keep asking myself, oh my goodness, how did these guys keep missing it?
I mean, this is unbelievable. Time and time again, the disciples keep missing it. And yet Jesus is challenging me to ask myself, what am I missing
when you read the gospels? And you see the blindness, the stupidity, the ignorance, the selfishness of the disciples. You’re not supposed to ask. How can they keep missing it? God wants you to ask, what are you missing?
A few years ago, I attended a church planting conference, like the premier church planning conference in the. So I flew down there and it was gonna be there a couple of days now in the Atlanta area and, um, got to the hotel. And usually when I travel, um, I always, my habits kind of in the morning, I get up early, spend time with Jesus and I really enjoy running.
So when I travel in the hotel, you’ll always get up early, get down in the gym and have the gym all to myself. But at this hotel, I get down to the gym and I’m like jockeying for position to get on a treadmill. I couldn’t believe the number of guys who were in the gym in the morning. I just couldn’t understand what was going on.
Then all of a sudden it clicked. This is the church planning conference. This hotel is filled with type a task-driven first born men who burst out of their bed in the morning and are ready to just get after it. So finally, after I’m able to get a treadmill, kind of doing my thing and I start running and I noticed this young guy, he’s like 10 years younger than me.
He’s on the treadmill next to me. Like, why is this guy keep looking at my screen, look at your own screen, bro. Like what’s what’s going on. And I noticed that every time I increase the speed he looks over and then he kicks up the speed on his like series is unbelievable. So then I’m like, all right, I’m going to go a little faster.
So he starts going a little faster now I’m like, all right, son, let’s do this. All right, we’re going to do this, let’s do this. So before I realized that we’re like shamelessly racing each other, um, I’m increasing, he’s increasing. And I’m like, there’s no way I’m losing this thing no way. So full-blown ego kicks in and, and he gives in first he stopped.
So I’m like, that’s right, father a six what’s up now, son. You know what I mean? So I’m like feeling really great about myself. I get back to the room. I take a shower and then we’re loading up the buses, the head over to the conference center and I’m boarding the bus. And this older gentleman is like, Hey, I think I saw you in the gym this morning.
So you were on the tremor. I was like, yeah. And he’s like, so you liked her. Yeah. Yeah. I enjoy running. You ever running marathons, you have run a couple of marathon. He’s like, Hey, let me introduce you to the guy that I’m planting a church with. He loves to run too. In fact, he runs ultra marathons, you know, like 40, 50, 60 miles.
And he’s like, Hey Scott, come here. I want you to meet Brandon. And Scott comes over. Scott’s like 10 years younger than me. Several inches taller than me, much, much, much handsomer than me. His teeth are just like glowing white. I mean, you wouldn’t believe the teeth on this guy, full head of hair. He’s like, Hey, nice to meet you.
And I’m just, I know in my heart, he’s like 10 times better preacher than I am. Right. So I go from feeling like really awesome and all of a sudden feeling really, really humbled because I can’t break free from the curse of comparison. Have you ever been there before
you define your sense of self, your sense of value based on how you measure up to other people? Sometimes that’s great. And other times it’s absolutely debilitating. Our first takeaway from this morning’s text is this Jesus is calling us to kill our compulsion, to compare. He was pleading with the disciples and he’s pleading with us this morning.
To kill our compulsion to compare. We live in the age of social media, right? Everyone’s on Facebook. That’s what we do. And social media I’m told is all about staying connected to the people we care about. Here’s a quick question. When you’re on Facebook, how much connecting are you doing versus how much comparing are you doing
when your old friend from high school, when her vacation photos pop up and you see that their vacation house much nicer than yours and her kids seem to be wearing much nicer clothes than yours. And they look much happier as a family than your family,
or maybe it’s at work. You’re in line for a promotion and yet they’d give it to some other guy. You went to a better school. You have the better resume. You have the better work ethic, but he must know somebody because he got the promotion.
And you know what, just for a moment, let me talk to my brothers and sisters who are in full-time ministry. Sometimes we’re the worst of the lot. We see something happening in another church or another ministry it’s growing. It’s thriving. It’s really healthy. And we tell ourselves that’s, cause they’re not really preaching the gospel.
They’re just doing the, you know, the feel good seeker friendly stuff, but they’re really not preaching God’s word. Well, maybe that’s the case, maybe not, but Jesus is calling us to kill our compulsion to compare. And just listen to me for a moment. If you are finding your identity and how successful you are and how much money you make, what kind of house you live in.
If you are finding your identity in that, rather than finding your identity in who you are in Jesus Christ, you’re in a really dangerous place. And Jesus is pleading with you this morning to kill your compulsion, to compare and to look to him and find your identity in him and find your significance and who you are as a son or daughter of king Jesus.
And that identity is something that nobody can ever take away from you. James and John came to Jesus demanding that he makes sure that they had the greatest seats in the kingdom. And this is. Jesus’ response. Take a look at verse 41 and when the 10 heard it. So the other 10 disciples heard about James and John.
They began to be indignant at James and John noticed they’re just as bad. And Jesus called them to him and said to them, you know, that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them and their great ones, exercise authority over them, but 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 slave of all the world defines greatness by comparison.
If you’re smarter, better looking, make more money, drive the better car. If you have power and privilege and people serve you, then that makes you great. And Jesus is saying that’s trash. That’s not true. Greatness. In 2016, Adam, the Roach, a really successful major league baseball player. He abruptly retired from the Chicago white Sox.
He walked away from it all leaving $13 million on the table. Now ESPN reported the story that Adam the road shoe had a really tight relationship with. His son would always bring his son to the ballpark. He was hanging out in the clubhouse. He was there just hanging out, helping out, spending time with his dad and Chicago, white Sox, general manager got really tired of this.
Like it was a distraction. So he challenged the road saying, listen, your son can’t come anymore. He’s a distraction. And ESPN said that the Roach said, that’s it. I’m out of here. I retire. That’s not, that’s not the whole story. ESPN left out the most significant part of the story in the off season, out on the road, she was a follower of Jesus Christ.
When a mission trip to Southeast. With a ministry called the Exodus road. Their whole ministry is about leading young women who are in the sex trafficking industry to freedom. So out on the road flies to Southeast Asia goes on a sting operation with some other dudes posing, like they’re trying to get young girls.
And then these pants bring the girls and all of a sudden cops come in bust the whole thing up. Awesome. Adam, the Roach comes back from that mission trip, profoundly transformed. And he said, I came to realize that as a professional athlete, everywhere I go, everyone is serving me yet. I follow a savior who spent his life serving others.
So Adam, a Roach walked away from professional baseball, leaving $13 million behind. So he could work full time with the Exodus road ministry ad on the road. Is now pursuing true greatness for the glory of God. In John chapter 13, John is the only one who tells this story night before Jesus has killed.
He’s celebrating the Passover with his disciples. And John tells us this and John 13, Jesus, knowing that the father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper, laid aside his outer garments and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.
Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. I’m here to tell you this morning that Jesus is the greatest. He is the king of the universe. And the text tells us that Jesus knew that all authority, all power, all glory had been given by the father to him, the son.
And what does he do with it? He takes off his outer garments, lays them aside, ties a towel around his waist and then gets down on his knees and assumes the task of the lowliest servant and begins to wash the feet of his disciples. The feet of the very men who have been arguing about who is the greatest that’s breathtaking,
that’s breathtaking that the king of the universe would get down on his knees and wash feet.
As I mentioned, we spent about five years worshiping at the Trenton war Memorial theater. And if any of you have ever been there, they have an absolutely beautiful 1500 seat auditorium where they have all kinds of concerts and stuff. Yeah. That’s not the room that we met. We met in the basement, a dank dark, and at times disgusting basement, the asparagus paint was chipping off the floors.
I mean, it was really nice and every single Sunday we would unload all of our stuff. We’d set everything up, get done just enough time to have our worship service. And then we’d have to break everything back down, pack it up and then collapse afterwards. Cause we’re so exhausted. We did that for five years, preaching my guts out to 80 people and just asking God, we need breakthrough, bring breakthrough.
We can’t do this. You have. And I remember one Sunday, we were celebrating baptisms really exciting. And, uh, so we got our, our baptistry, which doubles as a portable inflatable hot tub. And we go into the bathroom and I hook up the hose and I run it all the way out to the hot tub and where we’re filling it up with water.
I’m thinking, man, what could go wrong? And after about 45 minutes of filling up the hot tub for baptisms, I go back in to turn the water off and believe it or not, the faucet that was built in 1932, it didn’t have a tight seal. So I realized that water had been spraying out for 40 minutes and there’s water all over the floor in the bathroom.
So my first instinct was I start grabbing paper towels out of the dispenser. I’m like, cause the people who work there, they didn’t love having a church. So we didn’t like to ruffle any feathers. So I’m like, man, the paper towels aren’t doing, I need help. So I walk out and I’m looking around for help and I grabbed Ahmed and mark, there are first two lay elders that crossed my guys, come here, get in here.
And he just like top secret mission. Men want anyone to know about this flood in the bathroom? So we all start getting the paper towels, the three of us, and we’re trying to dry up the floor and I’m like frantic trying to figure this out. And all of a sudden, just pause for a minute. And I’m looking at this guy who is a corporate executive for bank of America, and he’s on his knees mopping up, who knows what is on that floor.
And then I look at mark, who’s a union tradesman and wakes up at 4:00 AM every morning and drives an hour to work and works his butt off. And he’s on his hands and knees wiping up all this water in the bathroom. And I thought to myself, that’s true greatness. That’s what it looks like to pursue. True greatness.
And I want you to know that the man who usually stands behind this pulpit for the past three decades has pursued true greatness. I remember before we were sent out to plant, we were coming to the Saturday night service. I was coming to run the slides and everything. That’s one of the ways I was serving.
So I show up early and, and it was snowing was a day, a lot like this. And I show up early and who’s shoveling the sidewalks, pastor mark. And I’m thinking, bro, don’t you got like an intern or something who can, who can be shoveling the sidewalks. I remember thinking in my head, he’s got to preach tonight.
And then at that time he would have been preaching three more times the following morning. And he shoveling the sidewalks because he understands what true greatness is all about. Takeaway number two from this morning’s text embrace true greatness, become a servant embrace true greatness by becoming a servant.
I have to tell you this kind of true greatness that Jesus talks about. It only comes about by the grace of God. He has to do this in your heart in order for you to pursue true greatness. And I’m also here to tell you that true greatness becoming a servant. It begins in the home. It starts in your house.
Where am I? Beautiful mothers of young children. Your job is hard. And husbands don’t be the moron husband who doesn’t think that your wife’s job is hard. Don’t be that guy. And when you’re waking up in the middle of the night to feed your baby, or when your three-year-old’s waking you up in the middle of the night, because they’re scared when you’re wiping butts, changing diapers and thinking, how does this have significance?
It is significant. It is significant. You are a daughter of the king and you are washing feet and pursuing true greatness. Husbands, true greatness starts by serving your wife and serving your children, considering them to be more significant than yourself. And it’s exciting to see what God’s doing here.
In Mount Laurel, what he’s doing at this church. And I’m sure there’s a next generation of leaders who are excited and you want to be upfront. I’m here to tell you, you need to start in the back. You need to start in the back. The greatest thing you could do right now, if you want to be on the worship team or you want to be preaching, or you want to be leading, the best thing you could do right now is going to the nursery and start by changing diapers.
I praise God for that season in my life, serving in the nursery back there, clicking slides, doing things to begin to understand what true greatness is all about. Jesus told the disciples. If they want it to be great, they must become a servant. If they wanted to be first, they must become last. And then he says this great summation verse 45 for even the son of man came.
I encourage you to underline or highlight that word came. Even the son of man came. Do you know what that tells us? That means he already existed. Jesus has existed for all eternity, but he entered into human history for even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many ask yourself, why did Jesus have to give his life as a ransom?
Because if we compare ourselves to the perfect holiness and righteousness of God, we fall woefully short. Every single person in this room has fallen short of the glory of God. We have done our thing instead of God’s thing. We have trampled his laws and we have offended the God of the universe and he would be 100% justified in just wiping us out.
But he didn’t do that in love. He sent his only son to take on flesh to live the life that we could never, ever live. Jesus Christ took the whole of the law upon himself and he perfectly upheld the law so that he could be the perfect sacrifice. And when Jesus Christ went to the cross, when he bore your sin and my sin, it was the greatest act of service the universe has ever seen.
And for all those who recognize that they need the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse them from sin. If you have trusted in Jesus and Jesus alone, the scripture say that you are watching. Your sin is no longer held against you, but I’ll take it a step further by faith. Not only does Jesus take your sin from you and put it on himself, but by faith, he gives you his perfect righteousness.
And if you’ve trusted in Christ, then you are wrapped in the perfect righteousness of Jesus. And you can stand before the father and he’ll say, why should I accept you? And you can say, you shouldn’t accept me, but I’ve trusted in the finished work of Jesus Christ. I have the fireproof judgment proof righteousness of Christ wrapped around me.
We are not accepted by anything that we have done, but holy by what Christ has done, praise God for the gospel. If you’re not yet a believer in Jesus Christ, it will be very easy for you to walk out of here this morning thinking, okay. So it sounds like I’m supposed to serve. I’m not supposed to be first.
I’m supposed to make myself last. And if I serve really hard and if I’m really humble, then God will accept me. Now. It doesn’t work that way. You can’t serve enough to make God accept you. It’s impossible. But what you can do is be served by Jesus. Jesus served you by dying in your place. And if you trust in him, you are reconciled to your creator and there is nothing that can ever separate you from the love of God in Jesus Christ.
And when that happens, when you let Jesus serve you, it changes everything. Now you want to serve because Jesus has served. You let’s pray father in heaven. We thank you for your word. We thank you for truth. We thank you, Jesus, for the cross, for the greatest act of service the world has ever seen. And I asked that by your grace, you would transform us to understand what true greatness is all about, make us servants and in.
So doing, would you unleash the power of the gospel through this local church, this body of believers for our good and for the advancement of the gospel and ultimately for your glory, we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you. You are dismissed.