Appropriate Smallness

It’s good to see everybody. If you’re a guest with us this morning, I want to say welcome and thank you for being here. Really excited about what the Lord is up to here in the low country and our little neck of the woods at Sauldam Baptist Church. If you have your Bibles, you can open them up to Matthew chapter 20. I’ll meet you there here in a few minutes. Scripture will be on the screens, but man, it is so much better in your laps and in your hands.

First off, before we get to Matthew, I want to show you a picture. Crazy enough, this picture was enough to land somebody in house arrest for about 20 years where he would eventually pass away. If you are an astronomy buff or if you read Latin, this makes sense to you. But for the rest of us, this was Galileo’s representation of the solar system that revolved around the sun. In the mid-1500s and over in Europe, this drawing, this picture was about as controversial as it came. This idea started a revolution in science, in history, even in religion.

Now, Galileo, he was the student of someone else, the student of a guy named Copernicus. Copernicus recognized that the orbit of the stars and the other planets was not around Earth, but around the star that we call the sun. Copernicus contradicted geocentrism, which is that the universe revolves around the Earth. He even contradicted anthropocentrism, which would be that the universe revolves around us as people. This would ultimately lead to Galileo, his student, sitting under the inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church, an ultimate house arrest for his life sentence.

A lot of folks in the church and in academia saw this, and they thought that what Copernicus and Galileo were doing was contradicting the Bible and saying, we’ve got to toss the whole thing out. And these guys were just saying, no, science corroborates the Bible. It makes more sense of things. It agrees with the Bible. But still, there was an issue with people being removed from the center. And that’s where we’re going to be at this morning.

John Ortberg, in his book, The Life You’ve Always Wanted, says this, we all need a Copernican revolution of the soul, where we see the universe of our lives as revolving around the sun and not ourselves.

Now, this problem, this thing that we all need to experience doesn’t start here in 2024. It actually starts on the second page of your Bible, Genesis 3:15, where God has made Adam and Eve, He’s made people, and He said, I have made you to bear my image and to take my name and my glory throughout the entire world. Spread my fame, glorify me and enjoy me because of that. And so they do. For however long, we don’t know. The Bible doesn’t tell us how long it was until those first people suffered the first sin. And Satan tempted Adam and Eve to say, we want to be God. We want to make the universe revolve around us. And so Adam and Eve, and in Adam and Eve, all of us today, we fell. We have suffered under sin, which means we have this natural tendency to put ourselves at the center.

John Ortberg, in that book, when he says we need a Copernican revolution of the soul, he is saying we need to see our lives as being centered on someone else besides us. If there is a throne in the heart of the souls of people, we need to take ourselves off that throne and put Christ on it. That’s what we’re talking about this morning.

If you will meet me in Matthew chapter 20, where we will be, and we will see that this is not just something in Genesis. It’s not something in medieval Europe. It’s not just something in my own head, but it’s also in Christ’s words. Jesus says this in Matthew chapter 20, starting in verse 17. While going up to Jerusalem, Jesus took the 12 disciples aside privately and said to them on the way, see, we’re going up to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes. They will condemn Him to death. They will hand Him over to the Gentiles to be mocked, flogged, crucified. But on the third day, Jesus will be raised.

Now I’ve jumped full throttle into this. We went zero to 60 out of the prayer time because I have got to get us to a place where we see Jesus says, we need a Copernican revolution of our soul. We need to see we are not at the center. Jesus, He’s on this road to Jerusalem where He’s going to celebrate Passover for the third and final time with His disciples. In between the final promise of His death and His final moments on the cross, He has this odd interaction with His disciples. In this moment, starting in verse 20, Jesus teaches us another practice that we need to have.

We’ve been in this series called The Life You’ve Always Wanted, looking at practices that will shape us on the inside so that we can actually become the types of people we want to be. We all want to be people that are selfless. We all want to be people that are giving, that are patient, that are kind, that are gentle and self-controlled. None of us says, “I need less patience.” None of us says, “I need to be more angry.” None of us says, “I need to be more self-seeking.” None of us say that. And if you do, you’re kind of crazy.

Jesus recognizes that and He wants to offer us something better. And He offers us this morning another practice. Another practice to take us out of the center of that solar system. Another practice to get us off that throne. Another practice to shape our hearts. That’s the practice of serving others.

There’s going to be four truths about serving that come out of Matthew chapter 20, verses 20 through 28. This is the first one: Serving is against our nature. Read with me Matthew 20, 20 through 24. This is right after Jesus has promised He’s going to die and be raised again. This is right after Jesus promises for the final time that He’s going to die for us.

Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons approached Jesus with her sons. She knelt down to ask Him for something. “What do you want?” He asked her. I have to imagine when Jesus says, “What do you want?” He’s got it with all the kindness and the gentility He’s got. “What do you want?” “Promise,” she said to Him, “that these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right, the other on Your left in Your kingdom.” Jesus answered, “You don’t know what you’re asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I’m about to drink?” “We are able,” the sons replied to Him. Jesus tells them, “You will indeed drink My cup, but to sit at My right and at My left is actually not Mine to give. Instead, it’s for those for whom it’s been prepared by My Father.” And when the 10 disciples heard this, they became indignant with the two brothers.

I said a second ago, serving is against our nature. If you don’t see yourself in these four verses, I don’t know what to do for you. You know, it starts off, you got this mother of James and John. That’s Zebedee’s sons, James and John. And their mom makes this request for her sons in the coming kingdom.

If you’re curious at all about what the kingdom of God is, just go back to our website, the sermon library. We spent three months looking at that back at the beginning part of this year. The kingdom of God is the power of the king over the people of the king in the place of the king. The kingdom of God is the movement that Christ started to reclaim this world for Himself and His glory. Which means the kingdom is all about Jesus. Jesus is at the center of this kingdom. This is Christ-centered. Not anybody else.

But we see in this passage, a couple folks want to put themselves at the center. They want to make the kingdom about them and their preferences. I think that the mother of James and John has a measure of healthy pride in her sons. What mom is not proud of her son’s accomplishments? When God called us from our previous church to come down here, you could not tell my mom nothing. She’s telling everybody she worked with or knew, “My son’s the minister of a church down in Charleston now, you know.” And she’s just so stinking proud of me. And I love that. We see what happens when kids don’t know that their parents are proud of them and it ruins them for the rest of their life. Healthy pride in your kids is great. Wanting big things for your kids, that’s great.

But this mom here is trying to extract something for them. She’s trying to force a promise from Jesus on their behalf. She is trying to place her sons at the center of the kingdom. You look at those sons themselves, verse 22 and 23. They start talking about being able to suffer the same suffering that Jesus has. He says, there’s a cup that I’m about to drink. And it’s not just a cup of sweet tea. It’s not a cup of lemonade. It’s not a cup of anything else. It is a cup of God’s wrath.

This is how Psalm 75 describes the cup that Jesus is about to drink. The psalmist says this. I say to the boastful, do not boast. And to the wicked, do not lift up your horn. Do not lift up your horn against heaven or speak arrogantly. Exaltation does not come from the east or the west or the desert. For God is the judge. He brings down one and exalts another. Here it is. For there is a cup in the Lord’s hand, full of wine blended with spices, and He pours from it. And all the wicked of the earth will drink, draining it to its dregs.

Christ is saying, I’m about to drink a cup from God of His wrath. A cup that God has prepared for anybody that is arrogant toward Him, anybody that is putting themselves at the center of the universe, anybody that wants to make life about them, I’m pouring a cup out on them. And Jesus is saying, I’m right there and I’m going to take that cup. I’m going to drink that cup. That is what will happen when I am mocked, when I am flogged, when I am crucified. But I’m not going to stay down because one day I’m going to rise again. On the third day I’m going to rise again. That is the suffering that Christ takes for us.

And when James and John, these two sons, these two brothers say, yeah, we can handle that. I got you. Don’t worry. Yeah, we got it. We got it, Jesus. That’s not, it’s no big deal. What’s the deal? They weren’t really taking it seriously. They brushed off the seriousness of what Jesus was going to endure. I think because they’re just concerned with themselves. They’re just thinking, what can I get out of this? Yeah, a little hardship, no big deal. But Jesus, He’s the king. We’re coming into a kingdom. He’s going to overthrow the Romans. There’s going to be a little fighting. There’s going to be a little suffering. Why not? But man, we’re going to be right there when He’s coming into His kingdom. That’s James and John.

And then you see these disciples, verse 24. When the disciples heard this, they become indignant with the two brothers. I don’t think that they’re upset because they’re so humble and because all their motives are pure as well. I think they’re upset because they didn’t get to Jesus quick enough. I think they saw their opportunity slipping through their fingers to have the best spots in the kingdom. And they get frustrated by it. And they said, no, that’s my seat. That’s for me. They wanted to put themselves at the center as well.

And if we’re being honest this morning, just like the disciples, just like this mother, we want to be the center of our universe. Or is it just me that gets frustrated when my expectations aren’t met? Is it just me that gets upset when my comfort is encroached upon? Is it just me that likes things to go my way? I don’t think so. I think we all want that. I think that we all suffer from this desire to be at the center, to have others revolve and rotate around us, to have others honestly just kind of do whatever we want.

Jesus is speaking against that. It appears that none of His followers are concerned with keeping Him at the center. None of them are concerned with serving Him to the end. That’s a big statement. I get that. But the disciples won’t get this until the day of Pentecost. They won’t get this until the Holy Spirit comes in and they say, this is what He came for.

Serving is against our nature. That’s the first truth. The second truth then is that because serving is against our nature, serving is counter cultural. Look at verse 25 with me. Because our hearts are tempted to sin, we will always struggle to serve. It is counter cultural. It is against our nature, which means that rulers become tyrants. Rulers become tyrants. And unfortunately, no arena of life is off limits to this dynamic. We’ve all worked for somebody that was super top down or authoritarian. We’ve all had the boss that was way too in the weeds of what we were doing. We have all also unfortunately seen pastors abuse the power they have. Just because the circles I run In, I unfortunately see the fall of pastors. It’s like every week somebody has majorly abused their power and expected an entire church to revolve around them. Or they’ve done incredibly heinous things. We’ve all seen political figures that get corrupted by prestige and influence. We’ve all seen where rulers become tyrants because they’re not concerned with serving because they want their universe to revolve around them.

I’m curious, if we sat one-on-one having a cup of coffee, where do you see this? Where have you seen in life where leaders struggle to serve and they want to be served? Or if we were really honest with each other, a different question if we were having coffee. How do you want to be served? Where do you feel you are owed something?

Again, I see this all the time in my life. I do not stand in front of anybody here in this room as someone that has arrived, that is fully formed into the image of Christ. I am far from it. I struggle to do the things I want to do and I don’t do the things I do want to do. I want to serve in a more pure, honestly, servant-hearted way. I even want to make serving about myself when I say, how good of a servant am I? Look at me. Oh, sorry. Look at Jesus as I serve you. We can twist anything to make it about us.

And Jesus sees that. He says, don’t be like that. Verse 26, look at it with me. It must not be like that among you. It must not. If you’re going to follow me, if you’re going to be in my kingdom, it can’t be like that.

Serving is against our nature. Serving is countercultural. Yet, truth number three, serving is God’s design. Serving is God’s design for us. The soul of our culture demands a universe that revolves around itself. And our own souls demand that as well. Yet, God’s ways are different. His wisdom is different than that. And God says, serving is my design for you.

It must not be like that among you, Jesus says. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. I think this is where Jesus is validating the desire for greatness. The desire to be something, to make something of your life. But Jesus does not say, whoever wants to become great must trample on others to that spot. Whoever wants to be first must ensure everyone else is last. That’s not what Jesus says. What Jesus says is, whoever wants to become great must be your servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave.

When he says servant there in verse 26, that’s the Greek word diakonos. We just looked at an entire series on elders, deacons, members, and the mission of the church. And we looked at the qualifications for the office of deacons out of 1 Timothy chapter 3. The Greek word diakonos. Jesus is saying, if anybody wants to be great among you, you’ve got to be a deacon to others. He’s not creating this church office of deacons here. He is describing the type of person that must be recognized as truly great in His kingdom.

Oftentimes, deacons or servants were given the lowliest work in the house. They would be asked to wash the feet of guests. Put yourself in agrarian Jerusalem where sheep and other cattle and other animals are walking the same streets you are. And instead of your nice closed-toed shoes, you’re wearing some sandals. Imagine every now and then what you might step in. Who’s going to get that off your feet? That’s the servant’s job.

You come in from a long day of buying and selling in the market or of harvesting grain out in your fields or of tending to your animals. You’re hungry. Who’s going to feed you? That’s the servant’s job. When Jesus says that anybody who wants to become great in my kingdom must become that, the foot washer, the table servant.

And not just a servant, but whoever wants to be first among you must be a slave. That’s a whole other level entirely. A slave is someone who is legally owned by someone else whose entire livelihood and purpose was determined by another. A slave would recognize my life’s not about me. My life is about the person that I revolve around.

Now, don’t mistake slavery in the Bible with slavery that we experienced under colonialism. Those are two different things. We can talk about that at another time. What’s talking about here is a type of person that would sell themselves into slavery so they could make a living and secure a free, not freedom, but a future for themselves. Paul called himself a slave of Jesus, Titus 1:1. James called himself a slave of Christ, James 1:1. Peter did the same in 2 Peter 2:1, and Jude did the same in verse 1. They all call themselves slaves of Christ because they recognized they were bought by Him. They are not their own. They do not own themselves. Their life is not about themselves.

These men who were the fathers of our church who directed this thing saw themselves not as lords of the church. They saw themselves as slaves of Jesus. They were not their own, which forces me to consider, do I see myself as a slave of Jesus? Do I see the purpose of my life revolving around His will and His desires, His enterprises or not? Am I willing to step into the low position so that Christ can be high?

Christ said His kingdom would be led and served by folks that saw themselves this way. And this is truly radical. It was radical back then. It is radical today. And it will always be radical for the rest of time until Christ comes back and restores what He originally started. Because our souls balk at this. Who wants to be a slave? Who wants to totally transfer the autonomy and the direction and the authority of your life to someone else? Who wants to give the wallet, the car keys, the insurance, the mortgage, everything to somebody else and say, “You have it all. I’ll just occupy whatever spot you got for me.” This goes against every grain and fiber of our being. Jesus knew it would.

But God’s design for His kingdom is that we would be in competition with one another to serve, to out-serve one another, to honor one another as slaves of Jesus. And very few things help me look like Jesus quite like serving somebody else when I recognize my life’s not about me. When I want my life to be about me, that’s when I get anger, envy, all the associated things. When my life is about Jesus and serving His purposes and Him and others, that’s when all the good stuff comes.

And Jesus is looking at us this morning saying, which way do you want to go? What do you want the fruit of your life to be? You got to make a choice. Who’s on the throne? Who occupies the center of your solar system?

That all brings us to the final truth about serving that I’m going to cover this morning. This is the main thing I want you to take away as you’re discussing the sermon over lunch or tomorrow night. This is what I want you to think about. I want you to think about this. Serving is the way of the Son because I don’t want you to look to yourself for the power of this. You can’t look to yourself to fuel this type of lifestyle.

You see, in verse 28, Jesus does something interesting. All the time when He was teaching, He would use allusions, He would use teaching devices, and He would make references to the Old Testament. When He says, “Son of Man,” in verse 28, which I’m about to read, He is referencing a lot of background. This is what He says, verse 28: “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

Son of Man. This is a term that is used in the Old Testament hundreds of times. Jesus uses it in the New Testament 81 times, always as the divine Savior anointed by God to rule the kingdom of God. But it has three nuances. It’s got three types of ways. And I know this is a lot, but just stick with me. The Son of Man is presently at work, which means He has the authority to forgive sin. He’s got the authority over the Sabbath. The Son of Man is suffering, dying, and rising again. And the Son of Man will be coming again in glory.

The Jews and the disciples loved number three. They loved Jesus coming back in glory. They loved Him as judge. Jesus angered people about number one, when He said, “I’m the authority over the Sabbath. I’m the authority over the temple.” But Jesus also loved number two, “I have come to suffer, to die, and to rise again.” That’s because serving is the way of the Son. And He’d serve us even unto death as a ransom for many.

I quote from a guy named Leon Morris, Bible commentator and speaker. He says, the word ransom there took its origin from the practices of warfare, where it was the price paid to bring a prisoner of war out of his captivity. It was used of sacral manumission of slaves as well, a process wherein the slave went through a solemn rigmarole of being sold to a God, quote, freedom. In effect, this meant that while the slave technically belonged to the God, as far as people were concerned, he or she was free. This forms a vivid illustration of one aspect of Christ’s saving work.

Sinners have become slaves of sin. Something Jesus said in John chapter 8, and they cannot break free. But Christ has paid their ransom price, and now they are free indeed. Christ came as the son of man to suffer, to die, and to rise. Paying a ransom price for your life so that you could be delivered from needing to rule your own life. You would be delivered from sin. You would be delivered from the bondage to your own desires so that He could free you for something better, so that He could free you from the gates of hell and place you in the kingdom of Himself, the place of light and life and joy.

And who can this ransom be good for? Who’s this efficient for? Anyone. It’s the many who embrace Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. In Matthew chapter 7, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is wrapping that thing up, and He says, anyone who calls me Lord, Lord, but doesn’t live like it, I never knew you. There’s going to be so many people that will get to the end of their life, and they will say, look at all the things I did for you. Look at all the offerings I gave at church for you. Look at all the times I shared your name with people. Look at all the Bible studies I did. Look at all the beer I didn’t drink. Look at all the smoking I didn’t do because of you. Jesus, for some of them, will say, but the Bible also says in Romans 10, 9 and 10, all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. If you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, if you profess with your mouth that Christ is the Son, you will be saved.

The ransom price for your life will be paid, not with your slow working, your wages, but with the infinite credit of Jesus Christ on your behalf. Any of us trying to pay off a mortgage or a car payment, and every month that payment goes out, and you feel like, man, this is never going to get there. Month after month, I’ve got to keep paying this cash to be able to rightfully own the thing that people think I own, but really the bank just lets me use. Christ, it’s like He’s saying, you can never pay that off. The wages of sin is death. You can never earn your way out of, you can never make enough payments against the capital of your sin. You can never get yourself out of hell. Never. But here is my credit on your behalf. Paid in full. You are ransomed. You are freed. You are delivered if you place your faith in me and you follow what I say.

No one in this room, in your family, in our community, the entire low country or the world is off limits from God’s grace to save and transform them. But how will they know unless we teach and preach? And how will somebody preach unless they are sent? And how will somebody be sent unless they are won to the gospel by the grace of God? So that is why we keep doing this. That’s why we do VBS. That’s why we do Infuge. That’s why we do the things we do because we want as many worshipers of God in this world to join us in heaven one day where we get to all around the throne of Jesus say, look how good you are. You have ransomed us with your life.

That’s what your life is for. Your life is for expanding this kingdom into the souls and in the lives of people around us so that we could give away what we’ve been given, which is freedom in Jesus. You see, Jesus, the son of man, is the ultimate servant who paid the ultimate price to deal with our ultimate need. There are maladies and issues and events in this world and in your life that compare to the weight of eternity just don’t actually matter. There are things that I get very deeply upset about that next week won’t matter. And surely next year, I won’t even remember. And when I get to the end of my life, won’t even be a blip on the radar of the history of what I went through. The question is, what will I do about the things that do matter? And the greatest thing that matters is whether or not somebody is in a relationship of peace with God, the Father. And Jesus said, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. No one gets to Him. No one gets there except through me. But we can’t help people get to the Father if we’re sitting in the center of our solar system. We must have a Copernican revolution of our souls to get us out of the middle and put Jesus in it so that what we do revolves around Him and His desires and not ours.

So what’s this mean for us? It means that the way of the kingdom values smallness, service, and submission rather than greatness, lordship, and ruling. It means that dwelling on the ransom is how you truly serve. Some of us in the room need to enter a relationship of peace with God, our Father. And that’s not done by looking at yourself. You don’t get saved, if I’m going to use that language, by looking at yourself and all the good things and all the bad things you’ve done. You just don’t. Looking at yourself only turns you away from the greatness and the beauty and the goodness of God, our Father, our Savior who longs to call you son and daughter, who longs to embrace you, just like the dad in the parable of the prodigal son.

This son who squandered everything, denounced his dad, and ran off and lived in a foreign place, gets to the end of himself in a pigsty and comes home. And this father is waiting for him. And this father runs to embrace and hug and kiss him and say, welcome home, son. God longs to embrace you. God longs to embrace the one that has made a mess of their life to say, I am here. I’ve been here this whole time. But God also longs to embrace the older brother of the parable, the one who judged the son that ran off, the one who was upset with the Father because the Father never rewarded him for all of his good works. The Father longs to embrace the one that thinks he can earn God’s love for him by all the good things he does. And the Father is saying, come to me, buddy. Come to me, boy. Let me love you. Both sons were looking at themselves until the younger one recognized the Father loves me. And so he was ransomed out of his pit.

So we serve God. We begin truly serving God when we look to Him and we accept the ransom price paid for us. And then we keep serving God with our lives once again, as we look at that ransom price paid for us. God is not like this taskmaster in heaven, just ready to tell us to do more, more, more. That’s not who He is. He is in heaven and ushering and inviting and wooing us saying, I’ve done it. It’s finished. Stop, stop striving, stop working, stop trying to earn anything from me. I’ve got it for you. As we look to God, as we behold Him, as we see Him in His beauty, that’s what transforms us. That’s what motivates us to truly serve, to make ourselves low, that Christ can be high, to take ourselves out of the driver’s seat of our lives and let God be in it.

I beg, I beg for you this morning. If you, if you have never seen God in this way, that you, you would tune me out for a moment and you would just pray and be real honest with the Lord and say, God, I haven’t heard about You as a Father longing to love and embrace me. Would You teach me to view You that way? For God, can You help me get out of the center of my life and You occupy that spot instead? For God, can You please help me to serve others whether I get credit for it or not? Serving others transforms us because it forces us to believe that God’s going to get credit for it. Truly, if you’ve not met God this way, I want to invite you this morning to take Him at His word that you would just call on His name. You say, Lord, I believe You’re good. I better, I believe you are better than anything in this world. Anything this world has to offer. You help me to see You and enjoy You and experience You that way. Jesus did something with the disciples at, toward the end of His life to give us a sign of that love for Him. He gave us the Lord’s Supper. I want to invite the deacons to come forward.

In this moment in the upper room, Jesus is sitting with these disciples. He says, “Hey guys, my road’s about done. At least the way you know me. Something else is about to begin and take over. I want to give you a way for you to remember what I’ve done for you.”