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- [00:01]
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Great things. If you're ready for the Word, say yes. All right. I'm going to be teaching today from Matthew 20, verses 20 through 28, but for the sake of time, I'm just going to start reading at verse 25. So I'm going to be teaching from 20 to 28, but I'm just going to read verses 20 through 25 to begin our time together. It says jesus called them together and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must first be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be your slave.
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Just as the Son of Man did.
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Not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. I want to talk from this subject in our time together, very simple, our subject is one statement. I want to talk about the greatness gap. The greatness gap. Clap your hands, 10 o'clock if you're ready for God's word. The greatness gap. Family. Let me just leap right into this lesson by staying by saying very pointedly and boldly that you were not made to be mediocre, you were not created to be common, and you don't need an anointing to stay average. You've been grounded, you've been gifted, you've been graced for greatness. And I am aware that that statement creates a degree of consternation within certain Christian circles. Certain Christian circles and streams of thought would say that that statement is sacrilegious. They would argue that greatness is incompatible with the Christian virtue of humility. They would say great godliness are on two opposite ends of the ethical spectrum, to which I would push back and simply suggest that greatness is not only not inconsistent with godliness, greatness, when properly understood from a biblical perspective, is an expression of godliness. God is great. Yep. This is what the psalmist said in Psalms 48, verse 1. He says, Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise. And so if God is great, then those of us who are made in his image and likeness, those of us.
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Who are image bearers of God.
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Watch. This should also demonstrate a degree of greatness. And greatness from God's perspective is not.
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About going viral, it's about being valuable.
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Because everything viral is not valuable.
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Come on. Yeah.
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Greatness from God's perspective is our commitment to give God a return on his investment.
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God is a wise investor and he.
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Does not sow where he doesn't expect to Reap.
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When he plants, he plants with purpose. And when he makes a deposit, he deposits with destiny in mind. He's not just looking for motion. I know we got motion, but he's not just looking for motion. He's looking for multiplication. He's not just looking for performance, he's looking for production. He's not just looking for activity, he's looking for impact. Because in the kingdom, greatness isn't just.
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About staying, it's about stewarding.
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It's about properly managing and maximizing your God given potential. And the late former chaplain at Harvard.
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University, Dr. Elton Trueblood, put it this way.
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He said intentional mediocrity is. Is sin. Yep. He says intentional mediocrity is sin. He says it is mismanaging and poorly.
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Stewarding the gifts, the talents and the.
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Ability that God has graciously given you. It is.
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Watch this.
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Robbing the world of the riches that God put in you for them. It is starving the saints of what God has given you to nourish them. It is saying to God, you could.
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Have taken what you've given me and given it to somebody else who would.
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Have did more with it.
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It is saying to God, in the parable of the talents, I'm going to be the one that took the one and buried it. So my commitment to greatness is a commitment to give God a return on the investment he placed in me. And if we are going to do this like God, we have to learn greatness from God. We must not just learn greatness from culture. We've got to learn greatness from the kingdom.
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And if we're going to learn greatness in the kingdom, who better to learn.
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It from than the King of Kings.
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And the Lord of Lords?
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If we're going to learn greatness, shouldn't we learn greatness from the goat? Who greater than the goat?
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Who greater than the goat who did more than he did at 33 years old? Who else has time divided based off.
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Of their birth and their death?
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Who else has a book written about.
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Them that has sold more copies, been.
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Written in more languages than any other book in human history? Who else started a movement 20, 25 years ago? And we still are gathering right here at 3080 Premier Parkway, Duluth, GA 30097 at 10am Giving him praise, receiving his word. Jesus is the goat. So if I want to learn greatness, I need to learn greatness from him.
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And the text here that I just read in your hearing shows us and paints a powerful picture of what this looks like. This text allows us to eavesdrop on a conversation that Jesus is having with his followers. And he is reframing and rehearsing and reteaching them about greatness.
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The scene of this text opens with.
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Actually an ambitious request. There is a woman who is a mother of two of Jesus disciples.
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They were James and John. The Bible says James and John were.
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The sons of Zebedee. Zebedee was a fisherman.
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James and John were in the fishing business.
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Come on.
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Am I making sense? I said, am I making sense?
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That's when Peter's boat got filled with fish.
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James and John are the disciples that they called over to help them haul in the fish, which means there was.
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Already some sort of connection and relationships. And this is a life lesson for many of us from a kingdom perspective, because if they aren't with you when.
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Your boat is empty, you shouldn't call them when your boat is full. They were fishermen. And Jesus says, follow me and I'm going to make you fishers of men. He says to fishermen, I'm going to make you fishers of men. And the fact that he tells these fishermen that he's going to make them fishers of men is an indication and a revelation of how God will repurpose, redeem, and reuse your past. The fact that he says, I'm gonna take fishermen and make them fishers of men suggests that God will take the skills you develop in one season and repurpose and reuse them in another season. This means that when you follow Jesus, there's no such thing as a wasted season. Hallelujah. I wanna talk to some people who feel like you're in a season of life right now. And you're like, I don't know why I'm here. I don't know why I'm living here. I don't know why I'm working here. I don't know what's happening here. I want you to know that God puts you in some places because he's using those places as a pit stop. And the pit stop is where you pick up something that you need for your future. I don't know who I'm talking to, but the question isn't what you get out of this season. The question is what God's going to use in this season to put something in you. You may not have gotten anything out of that last season, but God used that last season to put something in you. He put wisdom in you. He put strength in you. He put power in you. He put focus in you. And God will take what the Enemy meant for evil redeem and repurpose it for my good. Nothing. Nothing is wasted.
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Nothing is wasted. You don't have to be aware of.
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How God used a season to give you an asset for that season to have been an asset. You being helped by seasons, and you don't even know how that season help you. Soren Kierkegaard said, life is lived forward but understood backwards. So sometimes you got to live into an understanding of what you went through. You trying to understand it right now, and God's like, you can't understand it right now. But when you get to where I'm taking you, when you start stewarding what I'm giving you, you're gonna look back at what you were crying about and mad about, and you're gonna be praising me for it. You're gonna say, thank you for not giving me what I wanted. I don't know. I know it's a little early in the sermon, but somebody knows that the enemy wants you to be confused and be complaining about the season you're in. Somebody make the devil mad. Make God glad. And even if you're confused, praise God anyway. I'm confused, but I trust you. Doesn't make sense, but I trust you. This is hard, but I trust you.
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He takes fishermen, and he makes them fishers of men. Am I making sense? So there's this mom of James and John. James and John were two out of three people that were in what some historians call Jesus inner circle. He had 12 foundational apostles disciples, but three of them he managed differently. Because treating watch this everybody rightly doesn't mean treating everyone similarly. So there was an inner circle that had access to private moments in Jesus's public ministry. So he took three people, places that he didn't take all the nine. When he healed Jairus daughter in Mark 5, he let them go to the house, but when he went in the house, he made them stay outside. And he took Peter, James, and John on the inside. When he went to the mountain of transfiguration and disclosed his divinity, he left the other nine down, and he took Peter, James, and John with him. And when he went to the garden of Gethsemane, where he disclosed his humanity, where anxiousness had so arrested his soul that he goes through metaphorically or literally, sweating great drops of blood, he took Peter, James, and John with him. Because sometimes. Are y'all following me here? Because sometimes we incur relational wounds. Not because we have the wrong people in our life, but we took the right people to the wrong place.
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You took Douton Thomas to the Garden of Gethsemane. And all Garden of Gethsemane did was reaffirm and confirm Thomas's doubt. Am I making sense here? So, so, so, so they have this.
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Unique access, and it's possible that this access kind of created some unconscious entitlement. So the mom is like, my boy's in the inner circle. So they walk in one day and the mom says, jesus, I know when you set up your kingdom.
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You'Re going.
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To need some people to help you rule. So I'm asking that my boys can sit one on your right. I know you sitting on the throne, so you sitting in the middle.
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But.
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I know you're going to have two chairs, one to the right, one to the left.
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Can.
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Can my sons sit on the right and sit on the left? Am I making sense? Here's what I want you to see. She is walking with Jesus, but did not fully understand the assignment of Jesus. And Jesus models spiritual clarity and emotional intelligence because he refuses to conform to their misunderstanding of who he is and what he's supposed to be doing. Jesus is like, I'm not saying, setting up a literal physical kingdom. My kingdom is not of this world. So I'm going to allow you to be responsible for your misinterpretation of who I am. If you come on here and watch what he says here.
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This is, this, this is interesting.
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She says, can they sit on the right and the left hand? I got a question. Her question. Create some questions for me. My first question is, if these are.
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Grown men, then why is the mom asking a question that grown men should be? Come on now. I don't know why she's asked this question.
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The text doesn't tell us why she asks these questions, but here are a few things for us to consider. Maybe she feels entitled to the seat because of what she's observing from the outside. Maybe she feels they're entitled to the seat because of her assessment of her son's ability.
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In this sense, the mom can represent.
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The kind of people who gas others.
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Up based on their perception and not their potential. She represents the kind of people that can hype you up into self sabotage. Yeah, these are the kind of people.
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That are always telling others they should have more, they should be more, they should be doing more, they should be.
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Saying they should be. And it may be that they're saying the right things, but maybe they're saying it in the wrong season because maybe they're telling you you should be sitting in a throne when you're still being trained. These are the people that overestimate our.
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Ability and underestimate our issues, and they will push us into elevation before we're.
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Ready for the weight. Sometimes we are just not ready.
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Everybody's not hating on us.
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Everybody's not trying to hold us back. Everybody's not insecure. Some people are very secure. And sometimes you're projecting your overestimation of your ability onto someone else. And when they're. When they don't see you the way you see you, you think they're intimidated by you, when actually they're not even that impressed by you. They're like, even if I'm insecure, you're not making me insecure. Let me go to this side. Even if you're not making me insecure.
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She's well intended, but she might be ill informed of what it actually takes to sit in that seat because everybody, or a lot of people feel like they can sit in seats they hadn't sat in. I don't know. Maybe that's not the reason. Maybe she acts because she's projecting her ambition on their assignment. Maybe she's getting a sense of significance from those who are close to her doing something significant. Maybe she will feel more important because she's connected to who's important.
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I don't know.
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Maybe that's not the reason. Maybe. Maybe she acts because James and John actually had ambition for the seat. And maybe she just said in public what they've been saying in private.
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Whoo.
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Maybe she actually vocalized what they actually wanted and they didn't have the courage to ask.
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I don't know what the reason is.
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But whatever the reason, Jesus gives this response. He says, you don't know what you're asking. Am I In the text?
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She would probably say, no, I know exactly what I'm asking. And Jesus is like, you don't know what you're asking. He says, you're asking for a seat. But when you ask for the seat, you also ask for the cup. Can you drink from the cup? About to drink from? And in the Old Testament, the cup was a metaphor for suffering. Jesus is saying, you can't get the seat without getting the suffering. And I've walked with your boys long enough to know I have an objective view in your eyes. These are your babies, and your babies can do everything. But I'm not emotionally attached to your babies like you are. I have an objective assessment of their ability. They not built for what you asking for. And is there anybody in the room honest enough to admit that there are People who want your seat, but they can't handle your cup. Every calling has a cup. And if you want the seat, you gotta handle the cup. If you want the position, you gotta handle the pain. If you want the success, you got to handle the spotlight. And it's hot underneath these lights. They're asking for a role, but they got to be able to handle responsibility. You want this seat, you got to handle this cup.
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You don't get the seat without the cup. And maybe God is slowing things down. Not because you're not ready for the seat.
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Maybe God is slowing things down because.
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He said, you're not ready for the cup.
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You skilled enough for the seat, you just not strong enough for the cup. And God may be slowing things down so that your strength matches up with.
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Your skill, because you can't get the seat.
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Without getting the cup.
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So watch what Jesus does. Jesus, incredible, Coach. I want you to see here. He says he knows the answer. He know the answer. He said, can you drink from the.
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Cup I'm about to drink from?
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Like, he know the answer. So whenever God asks a question in scripture, he's not asking because he doesn't know something. He's asking a question because you don't know something.
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He's trying to get you to see something.
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So he's asking a question for reflection.
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Remember in the Garden of Eden, he said, adam, where are you?
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He know where he is.
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He says, adam, but I don't think.
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You know where you are. So he says, can you drink from the cup? They said, we can. Which speaks to our inability to assess our own readiness. Because you don't know if you're ready for a seat you never sat in. I don't care how close you are to the seat. I don't care if you painted the seat. You don't know what it's like to sit in that seat until they sit in that seat.
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Am I making sense?
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They said, we can.
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And Jesus said, you right.
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You will indeed drink from my cup. He says, but here it is. And this is something. This is something. I think it's an incredible principle. He says, you drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or my left is not for me to grant. Jesus does not succumb to the pressure to make that people are putting on him to make him give them something only God can give. He says, those places belong to those whom they've been prepared, who've been prepared by my Father. I love this. Now let's reframe this, because I don't want us to see. I don't want to see this as evil. You see, the problem isn't James and John wanting. And we do know James and John want it, because there's another gospel writer who tells this story, and he says, james and John ask.
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So we know James and John want it.
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Okay, here's the issue. It's powerful insight. The problem isn't them wanting to see. The problem would have been if the relationship was contingent on it. What's amazing about the text is they.
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Kept following when they got a note.
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Come on.
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So the problem isn't people wanting a certain place in your life. The problem isn't people wanting certain access. That's not a problem at all. I don't see that as evil. The problem becomes when the relationship is contingent upon it. Because Jesus.
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Can y'all handle this at 10:00? Can you handle this?
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Jesus never chased people whose commitment was conditional. Sometimes walking like Jesus means letting people walk away. I'll try it again next Service.
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In John 6:65, he went on to say, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them. And from this time, many of his disciples turned back and followed him no longer. And Jesus looks at those who left, who stayed and said, do you want to leave too? Simon Peter answered him, lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We've come to believe that you're the Holy One of God. Walking like Jesus at times means letting those who have conditional commitments walk away. If they can, they need to. Tario. Maybe we need to just play softly in First John 2:19, they went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But their going show that none of them belong to us. So the disciples become indignant about this. The 10 become upset with the two asking this and Jesus is you. Jesus used this as an opportunity to bring them together and to engage in some education. And he uses this experience to do some education in the arena of greatness. And he talks to them in verse 25 about how to steward power. The King's way, he says, now first way Gentiles, he says, when they've got power, he says, when they got lordship, he says, they Lord, they got authority. They lord it over people, he says, but not so with you. He is teaching them how to steward power before they get power. He says, whoever wants to become great must be your servant, Jesus. Am I making sense? So I want you to see how he reframes greatness. He says greatness flows from service. He said, we talking about third way. If you want to be great like Jesus, that legacy leaving greatness. Come on. That destiny altering greatness, that eternally impactful greatness, not great and hot or popular for a season, but legacy leaving greatness. He says the pathway to that is service. Listen to what he says. He says, you. He says, the greatest among you must be a servant. That word is diaconos, from which we get diaconate, from which we get deacon.
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So he says, this person must be a servant. What responsibility has God given deacons in Scripture?
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He hasn't given them specific responsibility. Churches determined that responsibility. Denominations have determined that responsibility in scripture.
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In Acts 6, what they did was distribute food to widows in the daily distribution of meals, because that's what the house needed. So the servant says to the master, what do you need? Jesus says, if you want to be great, your attitude toward your heavenly Father has to be, what do you need? But then he doesn't stop there. He says, the greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must first be your slave. Now, the word slave there is dolos. It means indentured servitude. This is not willfully taken into slavery. This is a decision that I will give you a slave type of service for a set period of time in exchange for agreed upon compensation. It is what Jacob did with Laban when he says, I'll work for you seven years if you give me your daughter. So he says, you got to be.
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You got to be like a Diaconos.
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Master, whatever you need, but you got to have the commitment of an indentured servant.
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Am I making sense?
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It means your. Your commitment can't be convenient. If I said, I'm giving you seven years, I'm giving you seven years. If I said, take my life, take my life. As I said, use my gifts. Use my gifts. So greatness for Jesus is submitted service.
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What does this mean, Pastor? Greatness from Jesus perspective is submitted service. It is allowing our natural ability, acquire skill and spiritual gifts to be used how God desires, for whom he desires and in the way he desires. God says, you got three gifts I've given you natural ability. That's talent. You were born with that. You determine whose glory you use that for. Did you hear what I just said? Some people just. They can sing. You determine whose glory you use that for.
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It's natural. It's not spiritual.
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It's natural. Y'all got me. Then you got acquired skill. These are Things you learn intentionally or unintentionally. Some of these you picked up in these pit stop seasons. You were mad God put you in. I had to do all of that by myself.
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And he's like, yep, I, you, I.
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Mm, yes, you did have to do.
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All of that, but yep, mm.
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I taught you multitasking. I taught you efficiency. I taught you productivity.
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I got you out of your codependency. I taught you that people won't always show up the way they say they show up. I taught you you can't always count on everybody. You can count. I talk because you needed all of that in this season now. So I use that season of burden.
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To put stuff in you that you could use now in your season of blessing. It's acquired skill. Then it gives you spiritual gifts, special graces distributed by the Holy Spirit that enable you to be uniquely effective at a certain thing. You got to know the difference. Because some people confuse the two. This is why in the old church they always put teachers to teach Sunday school. Cuz they, they, they confuse talent with the spiritual gift of teaching. Just cuz you can teach me math.
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Doesn'T mean you can make a Bible.
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Make sense to me.
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I don't hear anybody talking that's, you know, math. That's like I'm say, you trying to tell me Daniel in the lines, then I'm confused. You.
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The ability to take the complex and.
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Make it simple and applicable and practical. It's gift, right?
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It's the difference between having responsibility to lead and a leadership gifting. Alan Hirsch calls it apostolic genius.
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Wherever there is a spiritual gifting, there's a unique iq.
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You have an unteachable. Know how tario. Let's play Am I making sense? I remember one time I told y'all this before. We were on this airplane and we, we were going somewhere and there's this young lady that got on a plane and I was sitting on the aisle, my wife was sitting in the middle and the young lady had the window seat. So she's going to the window seat and my wife leans over to me and says, I think something wrong with her. Now, if you know me, I'm a mind your business kind of person.
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Anybody know Darius is like, darius don't bother anybody.
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He just mind his business.
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And I'm like, leave that woman alone.
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And she's like, no, I think something wrong. So I'm just sitting in my seat, looking straight ahead, and I see PS Lean over, put her hand on the young lady back and lean down and say something. And then I see the young lady break down, and I see her consoling her and talking to her. And then. Did I get nosy?
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I got nosy. I said, what happened? What happened?
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She said, is her mom or dad, one of her parents just died. She's on the way home to take care of everything, and she's trying to figure out how to do all of this by herself. She sensed something was off and then knew what to do.
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I would have been like, you want a hug?
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Hirsch calls it apostolic genius, because wherever you're gifted, there's an unteachable know how. It's just like how you know how to do that. She don't know. You can't get it from a book. You can't get it from a magazine. It's a spiritual gift. It's a mercy gift. That's the gift great missionaries carry. It's the gift Mother Teresa carried. Jesus said, the path of greatness is saying God, my natural ability, my acquired skill, and my spiritual gifts aren't mine. I submit them to you for you to use them how you see fit. And I want to ask you something. I want you to think about your natural ability, your talent. I want you to think about your acquired skill. I want to think about. I want you to think about your spiritual gifts. This is not no condemnation at this church. It's just healthy challenge. Can you say in good faith God is getting a return on his investment? I know you benefiting from them. Your home is benefiting from it, but it's heaven. Is heaven benefiting from the gifts Heaven's given you? And Jesus said, if not, it doesn't matter how popular you are. It's not greatness. See this? Am I making sense? It's like, these are yours, Father. These are yours. And part of what we're trying to do as a church here at Change is to create space, Chris, where the gifts God has given people can be used. See, those that are going to help us run that camp, y'all about to. We're about to deliver the gospel to. Y'all don't understand what's about to happen.
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I've been a part of camps like this before. Like this isn't.
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I didn't just come up with this idea. I was a part of a program called Push the Rock. Like we did it. We sponsored programs like this. And I've seen young men and young women receive the gospel on a gym floor in between shooting drills. So when someone knows how to teach somebody how to dribble, they may be Thinking God can't do anything with that. Yes, he can. Are you willing to say, God, these are yours? Because this is the pathway to greatness. And it's not just right, y'all, it's wise. And I don't want to turn this sermon into this, but if I was teaching this in the marketplace, I would teach you. I would take this same principle and I'll teach it in the marketplace. And I say, this is the key to innovation and this is the key to arresting irrelevance in business. If you just adopt a servant's attitude, if you actually care about the customer.
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And if you're anticipating their needs.
- [35:29]
A
I could show you in Scripture where Jesus had compassion on the 5,000 men, not counting women and children. And that's where the creativity came to take two fish and five loaves of bread and feed the multitude. Because when you have compassion, when you get your care, your creativity comes from your care. We started doing sermon supplements because I care, and the creativity comes from the clip from the care. Am I making sense? And if we will adopt this approach, if we will really become people who say, I want to be great through my service, it not only benefits others. Here's how God blesses you. Five things I see in Scripture.
- [36:18]
B
1.
- [36:19]
A
Favor. A generous person will prosper. Serving in God, serving others. Serving God by serving others is an act of generosity. When you serve others, God serves you with favor. When you become a vessel God can use to refresh his people, he makes sure your cup never runs dry. 2. Flourishing. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. The psalmist isn't promising material prosperity, but soul prosperity. Serving God by serving God's people restores, replenishes your soul. It doesn't just bless what's around you, it heals what's in you. 3. Formation. I'm just telling you, very little sanctifies you. Like marriage and serving. I mean every word I just said. Sermons feed you. Marriage and serving form you. It chisels pride, grows patience, reveals blind spots, and trains you to think and love like Jesus. Number four. It gives you fulfillment. Something will always feel missing if a piece of your purpose is. Some people feel like I got everything, something's missing. And then some people come and say, nothing's missing. Yes, something might be, because something might feel missing because part of your purpose is. Jesus said, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. And then finally, fruitfulness. This is to my Father's glory. That you bear much fruit. Showing yourself to be my disciples. Serving shifts you from being busy to fruitful, from activity to impact. Here it is. You have all of these gifts, and the more gifted you are, the more complicated this is. This is the cup that comes with gifts. So some people say, I wish I was as gifted as them. That means you're whisking you. You're wishing you were as confused as them. Because the more gifted you are, the more complex clarity is because you could be doing a million things.
- [38:40]
B
Are you hearing what I'm saying?
- [38:41]
A
It's like, oh, my God, what can't people like?
- [38:44]
B
Well, what are you good at? You like this, this, this, this, this.
- [38:50]
A
So you can. You and I can ask God to bless what we're doing, or we can do what he's already blessed. I want to be fruitful, not famous. Fruitful. Not just power, not just popular, powerful. You want to know the compliment? There's one compliment I received from a person, and it, you know, some compliments, they help you, but then others minister to you. This compliment ministered to me. This brother said to me one time, he looked at me, he stuck his finger in the air and he said, you are necessary, and then walked away. I don't want to be known. I want to be necessary. That's greatness, and that's what Jesus is calling you to. And I want to. Oh, we got to go. I want to speak specifically to those of you in this room who may be wrestling with, struggling through what's next. I want to pray over you Prayer clarity that God buys grace would help you see the way you are to use your talent, your skill and your gifts. In this season, Father, would you make your will known to us? We want to be great from your perspective. Show us what you want us to do, show us who you want us to do it for, and show us the way you want it, want us to do it. And before you ask the question, our answer is yes. We say, here am I. Send me. I'll go in Jesus name, Amen.