This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to day four of our look through Matthew chapter 20. Yesterday we read
this passage where the mother of James and John comes and asks about the two
boys, two men, being able to sit on the right and the left of Jesus and his
kingdom. Today we pick up on that story in verses 24 to 27.

Listen to what the other disciples thought about this. When the ten heard about
this, they were indignant with the two brothers. 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 be great, whoever wants to be great among you must be
your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave. 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. " People have a lot of different opinions about the path to greatness.

In fact, bookstore shelves are absolutely filled with ideas about how you can
live a great life. Jesus here is talking about the one ingredient without which
greatness can never be achieved in any arena of life. Whoever wants to be great
has to be a servant.

Whoever wants to be first has to be a slave, just like Jesus who came to serve,
not to be served. Jesus here turns our thinking upside down. He tells us that if
you want to be great at anything, you have to be a great servant.

You want to be great at your work, you've got to be a great servant at work. You
want to be great at your school, at your education, you've got to be a great
servant at your school, in your education. You want to be a great parent, you've
got to be a great servant to your children.

Greatness is replacing the selfish choice with the servant choice. That's where
true greatness is. It's not in all the awards of this world.

It's not what other people say about you. True greatness is replacing the
selfish choice with the servant choice. Taking the attitude of a servant changes
our perspective in profoundly energizing ways.

It changes who you are and what you live for. Now Jesus says, "I'm the model.
Just like I didn't come to be served but to serve," and if anyone deserved to be
served on this world, it's God in human flesh, Jesus.

But he says, "Just like me, that's how you like to be. That's how you have to
be. " Now how do I serve like Jesus?

Let me just tell you three simple things that you can see reflected even in
these few words of Jesus. We could talk about 30 ways to serve like Jesus, but
let's focus on three of them today. What does it mean to serve like Jesus?

Serving like Jesus first means being available. You can't serve like Jesus
unless you're there. Jesus says, "I didn't come to be served.

He came to this earth. He left heaven to be born in human flesh in order to
serve us. " You can't serve unless you show up.

You have to make yourself available in order to serve. You can't serve sitting
back in a chair thinking about serving some day or hearing a sermon wondering
what a wonderful idea this might be about serving. No, you have to show up, you
have to be available.

Now availability starts in a prayer, "God, I'm available. I'm available. " But
then when he prompts you to go somewhere, you have to move in that direction.

Now there are barriers to being available. Three of the biggest ones are
self-centeredness and perfectionism and materialism. We're not available because
we're focused on ourselves.

I don't want to serve you. I've got things that are important to me to get done,
and they might be good things to get done, not evil things, but they're my
things. I don't want to lose time for my things, so I'm not available.

Or sometimes it's perfectionism. I'm not available because I'm not a very good
servant. I couldn't serve nearly as well as that person.

Let me just tell you, you can read this dozens of times in the Bible. God works
with those who are available, not those who are perfect. Perfectionism will keep
you from serving every time because no one is perfect enough to serve.

Many times what you think of as being perfect and another servant, that's just
the Holy Spirit working. God's going to work through your life too as you make
yourself available. And then sometimes it's materialism.

Sometimes we've just got to make more money. We think when I finish making more
money, then I'll start to serve. No you won't.

No you won't. Most likely not. There are very, very few people who've gone down
that path who start to serve at the end.

If you're not willing to start serving now, you're never going to be willing to
start serving because you're never going to make enough money to make it okay.
So serving means being available now. Being available ten years from now, that
means nothing.

Be available now. That's what it means to serve like Jesus. Second thing it
means is it means being faithful.

Available but also faithful. You not only show up, but you also stay. You not
only start, but you also finish.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but he also died on a cross. He was faithful all
the way until the end. In John 17, 4, Jesus prays, "I have brought you glory on
earth by completing the work that you gave me to do.

" He completed what God gave him. He finished the assignment. And 1 Corinthians
4, 2 says, "The one thing required of servants is that they are faithful.

" There's no such thing as an unfaithful servant, a servant who doesn't finish
what the master asks them to do. And when God says, "This is what I want you to
do," you don't start and then stop because of your fear. Many times the reason
we're not faithful is because we're afraid.

We're afraid we're not going to be able to finish. We're afraid it's not going
to turn out like we wanted. You instead say, "God, I'm going to serve you
through to the end.

" Now, when I say be faithful to God many, many times in my life as I'm serving
him, and you can see this in the ministry of the Apostle Paul. He brings U-turns
in the road and he takes you from here to there. I'm not saying that you get
stuck on a certain way of serving him that's not effective, is not working, and
say, "No, I've got to be faithful to the end.

" That's actually not faithfulness. That's stubbornness. Faithfulness is doing
what God calls you to do.

And as you take a step, then he'll show you the next step, and then the next
step, and then the next step. So what's the next step that God means for you to
take? Don't stop where you are.

Don't go backwards. Don't bail out. What's the next step?

Being faithful. The only way to be faithful is to take the next step. You can't
be faithful 10 steps out.

You can only take the one next step. What's the next thing God wants you to do?
In your marriage, to be a faithful servant.

What's the next step that God wants you to take in your ministry to be a
faithful servant? What's the next step that God wants you to take in your
education or in a relationship to be a faithful servant? To be a servant like
Jesus is to be available, is to be faithful.

Serving like Jesus also means being sacrificial. He talks about it at the end of
this talk with his disciples. He says, "I came to serve and to give my life as a
ransom for many.

" Jesus gave his life as a ransom for your sins. That means he paid the price
that you couldn't pay. He was born so that he could give his life.

His life being given as a ransom means he gave his life, a perfect life, so that
you who have lived like I have, a very imperfect life, could have our sins paid
for. What was Jesus going to get? What was he purchasing with this ransom?

In one sense, he was purchasing you and me. What was the price? The price was
sacrifice.

The price was Jesus' body. His body was given for us. You and I, when we look at
how we serve, we also have to have sacrifice in our service.

Now, we're not going to give our lives on a cross for the sins of others like
Jesus. Some Christians have been martyred. We talked about this a couple days
ago.

But we don't give our lives as a ransom. No, we give our lives as, Romans 12
says it's as a living sacrifice. A living sacrifice means day after day I am
sacrificing.

For me, the number one thing I sacrifice is my own selfishness in order to
choose service. There is no service without sacrifice. Because anytime you're
serving another, it means you're giving up on something you could have done for
yourself.

Now, it may come naturally to you sometimes, but there are many, many, many
times when you feel the sacrifice, when you feel the fact that I'm having to let
go of my selfishness in order to love my husband, my wife in this situation. I'm
having to let go of my selfishness even to love my kids in this situation. There
are a lot of parents who think that that comes automatically.

The minute you have a child, every moment that they want from you, you're just
going to automatically want to do whatever they want done. It doesn't take you
but five minutes to realize there is sacrifice in getting up at 2 a. m.

In order to feed that baby, there is sacrifice anytime you choose to serve. But
Jesus' model is the model of sacrifice, of giving ourselves for others. And
Jesus will empower that in your life and in my life.

This unselfish choice, the only way we can make that choice is by His power.
That's the only way to make it day after day, year after year. And He will give
you that power.

Let's ask for His strength right now to serve. Jesus, you've told us here that
you're the model for our serving in your faithfulness and your availability and
in your sacrifice. But we know that you're more than that.

You're also the power for our serving. So God, would you give us your power
today? Jesus, would you give us your power?

Give us your power to be available, to serve those who need to be served, help
us to see. Give us your power to be faithful, to keep serving, even when we're
tired, even when we're bored, even when we might want to do something else, but
we know you want us doing this. And Lord, give us your power to be sacrificial,
to sacrifice what we want for the way that you want to work in somebody else's
life.

Help us to make the sacrifice of love today, we pray. We ask for this power,
this strength in Jesus' name. Amen.

Join us tomorrow, we're going to talk about how Jesus heals our hurts.