Let Jesus Make Us Servants Like Him

Title: Let Jesus Make Us Servants Like Him By Pastor Lohn Johnson

Text:  Mark 9:34-35  33 And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you discussing on the way?"  34 But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.  35 And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, "If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all."

INTRODUCTION: My dear friends in Christ, I was sitting in my office on the day after the Republican debate and then I read this text.  I was struck by the similarities.  It seemed as if each and every one of the candidates was saying “I’m the greatest” like those disciples.  Some of the interchanges were childish in all the wrong ways.  But it seemed the moderators wanted it that way. Nevertheless, each seemed to have an inflated view of themselves.  Now to give equal time I’m sure the Democrat debate coming up in October will sound the same way.  Our Presidency was designed to be a position of service – they serve the people.  But now it seems they only give lip service to service.  And we have to ask who do they really serve?  Do they serve themselves or special interests?  Does anyone serve the people anymore?  And do we or they understand service anymore?

I. Yes, those disciples were having a similar debate on the road that day long ago.

A. They were discussing the same topic: “Who’s the greatest?”

1. And there were 12 of them rather than 11.  They voted on the greatest follower of Jesus, and each one voted for himself. Just as those candidates would.  Only on the road to Capernaum it was really about who would be the highest prince in the Kingdom Jesus was to establish.

a. The disciples wanted the position of authority – the position that came with servants – even the Romans would be serving them in this kingdom. b. I guess they “might” leave a little room for Jesus at the top of the heap in this kingdom.

2. Their egos were even getting in the way of their salvation here.

a. How can you acknowledge sin if you think so highly of yourself?  How can you recognize your need to be saved if you are so busy chasing greatness; so busy looking to be served?  b. Really they were so full of themselves that there was little room even for Jesus.

B. And we are naturally the same way.  We want a power Jesus, a Jesus who will make us great and successful.

1. We are geared from birth to think in those terms. Great is good and higher is better.

a. Sinful man thinks greatness is achieved when you have so much power that you are being served by others. The more people you have under you, the greater you are. The less accountable to others you are, the greater greatness you have. When man thinks of greatness, he thinks of being served and glorified by others. That's why our world idolizes movie stars, rock singers and professional athletes; the sinful nature looks at wealth and an entourage and says, "Now that's really great."  b. And that leads us to think “Who wants to wake up on Sunday morning to come to church to confess you’re a poor, miserable a sinner in need of forgiveness? Who wants to line up and declare with St. Paul that he is the ‘chief of sinners’?” No wonder the most popular versions of religions and even of Christianity are based on being a winner not a servant.

2. We note that this explains an awful lot about how people find the Gospel so difficult to believe. You see God comes to us as a servant, desiring to provide for us.

a. However, sinful man attempts to make God in his own image; if man lusts for power and demands respect, then God must act the same way. b. This is why every man-made religion demands that we serve and appease God before He will save us. Do good works, destroy the enemy, throw the virgin into the volcano, whatever--but if God is like us, we have to do something remarkable so that we're great enough to be saved.

II. As a pastor tried to fix his garage door, he couldn’t get a screw out.  It seemed to get tighter the harder he tried.  A neighbor who was watching suggested, “That’s probably a left-handed screw.  You need to turn it in reverse.”  The pastor replied in frustration, “It took me fifty years to find out how screws work, and now they change the rules!”  In a sense God is kind of a reverse screw.  Our culture teaches us the “right” way to turn, and then God tells us to turn in the reverse direction.   No matter what we think God is quite the opposite of how the world sees Him.

A. By nature, the almighty God of heaven and earth is…a servant.

1. He created Adam and Eve so that He might care for them. He created them in His own image to be servants to one another, to creation and to their children.

a. When they sinned, He did not respond with raw power and blot them out. Instead, He promised a Savior; in other words, He promised that He would serve them by doing all the work to deliver them from sin and hell to grace and everlasting life. b. Therefore, it was in service to all that that Jesus was born to Mary: God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son. c. He also continues to serve by making sure that His Word is still proclaimed and His Sacraments are still administered, because that is where He gives the forgiveness that His Son Jesus has won. That's why in worship we don’t come and serve the Divine, but that the Divine comes and serves us.

2. Just look at how Jesus dealt with His disciples rather than saying, “All of you are wrong. I’m the greatest. I’m better than all of you put together!”...Rather than speak such words, which He could have said, He was saying, “I will be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill Me.” Jesus, the greatest of all, did not speak of His greatness. Instead, He emptied Himself of His greatness and took the form of a servant.

a. Even as Jesus’ disciples were selfishly stepping on each other, reaching for glory and greatness, Jesus was giving up His glory and greatness, intent on letting others step all over Him as He was reaching, with bloody hands, for a hard, splintery cross. b. What makes Jesus great is not that He is all-powerful, but the fact that He did not use His power to prevent His crucifixion for you.  This is the Gospel.  c. Thankfully the Lord remains the Servant. He went to the cross and died for the sins of the world in service to all, and He still comes here to serve us by His means of grace. This is a very good thing, because we sinners still remain as confused about greatness and service as ever.

III. So God comes along and says, "Look, I'm a servant by nature and I've offered My Son on the cross for your salvation.” He has done all the work to save you. By His sacrificial service, you have eternal life. Man responds, "That can't be! We know that God is just like us, so there's no way He's going to humble Himself and go to the cross and totally win our salvation. We must have to work for it by serving Him." God responds, "Don't try to be saved by serving Me. Instead, trust that I've saved you by My service to you." Man responds, "That doesn't make sense at all. It's too good to be true."

A. God is always fighting to bring us to realize we are saved solely because Jesus has served us by His death on the cross, and by providing forgiveness and life in His means of grace. He does this because He is by nature a servant. He wouldn't save you any other way.

1. But still We like to speak about ourselves; about all that we do for God.

a. We talk to others about our works of service. b. We always tend to become the center of our own universes, so service is centered on us too. It tends to be about how we serve.  It becomes all about us.

2. The problem is that our service to God and our perceptions about service often gets in the way of His service to us.

a. Sometimes we become so caught up in our service to God that we have trouble taking the time to receive His gifts of service to us.  What’s more, like the disciples, we become proud of what we do…so proud that it becomes difficult to humbly bend the knee before Christ.  We start getting the idea that Jesus serves us with His gifts, not purely out of grace and mercy, but because we work so hard to serve His church. b. Greatness is not centered around what we do for God.  First and foremost it has to do with what God does for us. Your presence here in God’s House today is greater, by far, than all the work you will do—because today Jesus serves you

B. Remember to be baptized is to be a child of God. Yes we are priests and kings and all that, but first and foremost, you are a “child of God.”

1. It’s like that little child in the midst of the disciples – He’s utterly helpless, utterly dependent on God’s mercy.

a. Like that to be a child of God, baptized and believing, is to become nothing so that Christ can be everything. b. Faith doesn’t ask who is the greatest. Faith looks to Jesus on the cross and says, “There. That’s greatness. That’s what it means to be great.”

2. The Lord is a servant who sets you free from sin to be a servant;  He sets us free to be servants like this: One pastor tells of a very wealthy woman who had given great sums of money to benevolence and missions in her church.  One day she decided to take a trip to visit some of the mission projects she so generously supported.  She visited a hospital where wonderful help was afforded to needy natives.  She stopped at an orphanage where little children of the street were cared for.  She went to a leper colony where a loving nurse was treating those who were suffering from the putrefying disease.  She commented, more to herself than to the host, “My, I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars.”  The nurse who was treating a patient answered, “Neither would I.”  Jesus has served us selflessly and now like that nurse, he makes us selfless servants too. That is where we find the secret of greatness.

CONCLUSION: True greatness comes not in grasping for all we can get but comes in allowing Jesus to make us servants like Him.  Amen.