Jan 27, 2022
Have you ever thought something was one way and you were 180 degrees wrong?
Welcome back to the Follower of One Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Henry Sr. Thanks for joining us today. Today is day four of the Marketplace Mission Trip. And we often talk about the importance of serving others. Today's passage is Mark chapter 10 verses 43 and 44.
"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." That's Mark chapter 10 verses 43 and 44 in the
English Standard Version.
Jesus is responding to the then-current view of authority.
You know the secular version of the Golden Rule, "the person with
the gold makes all the rules." Much of our world operates on that
basis even today. Jesus was responding to the disciples who were
angry because James and John had asked to have positions number one
and two in Jesus's new kingdom. Everyone else was upset.
They wanted those positions too. Jesus responded with these verses.
Do you want to be great? Would you like to get ahead; succeed? The
great person is a servant, Jesus tells us.
I spent much of my career trying to be great, but without looking
like I was trying to be great.
What about you? Did you ever do anything like that? The great
person is a servant, Jesus tells us the path to greatness goes down
through servanthood, not up through success and conquest. But then
Jesus adds more. He says, if you want position, number one, you
must serve everyone else. Actually, he uses a different word here
than serve.
He used a word that meant being a lowly slave, not just a servant,
not an appreciated hired hand. No. This is a drone, robot, someone
you didn't notice. You may be even didn't know their name. Can we
go there?
Can we hear the world talk about servant leadership? Whether or not
someone presented the idea before Jesus, God built servant
leadership into each one of us. We lead best when we serve others.
The world took Jesus out of the equation, but he's actually the
proof. Without Jesus, the idea of servant leadership is only a
theory. But with Jesus in the picture, we know the world was
created to operate on servant leadership. Our world is
servant-leader operated to the core and Jesus is the example.
God made us, all of us, to appreciate being served. Therefore
people could make him known to just about anyone simply by serving
them, because that's what Jesus did. When we serve others because
Jesus said, too, we make his kingdom visible. We bring his kingdom
to light. We bring his realm and his world into our world.
Others see Jesus when we live like we obey him. So today on the
Marketplace Mission Trip, we want to remind you to serve others.
When we start praying for people earlier this week, Jesus always
responds. To the Holy Spirit, starts giving us ideas of other
people that we can serve so that he would become visible.
Today, can we take the role of slave, even if it's only for a day?
Try it. We're doing that on the Marketplace Mission Trip too, by
serving others. If you've never been on a Marketplace Mission Trip,
that's not a problem. Head over to https://community.followerofone.org
and join our online community. And you'll get invited to the next
Marketplace Mission Trip too. Thank you for being a minister in the
marketplace.
And thanks for making a difference in the lives of the people that
you interact with today. Everything you do because you trust Jesus
matters forever. Thanks very much.