What if the secret to greatness isn't what you think it is and it's something completely different? And how can we achieve this unique brand of greatness? In our latest discussion, we peel back the layers of iconic statements and dig deep into the essence of true greatness. Taking our cue from Jesus’ teachings on greatness, underpinning his call for us to serve others and welcome children in his name. We detail a riveting account of Jesus and his disciples in Capernaum and the pivotal discussion they had about greatness.
But it's not just about understanding greatness, it's about putting it into action too. In that spirit, we shine a spotlight on the unyielding dedication of Chris and Fernando, who have committed themselves to serving the church in their new roles as Deacons. As they take on these responsibilities, we implore God's strength and blessings upon them and discuss the crucial role of deacons in the church. We discuss how serving the weak and vulnerable not only within the church but also in the community is a manifestation of the greatness that Jesus espouses. As you join us in this enlightening conversation, prepare to be challenged, inspired, and fired up to take the next step on your spiritual journey.
What if the secret to greatness isn't what you think it is and it's something completely different? And how can we achieve this unique brand of greatness? In our latest discussion, we peel back the layers of iconic statements and dig deep into the essence of true greatness. Taking our cue from Jesus’ teachings on greatness, underpinning his call for us to serve others and welcome children in his name. We detail a riveting account of Jesus and his disciples in Capernaum and the pivotal discussion they had about greatness.
But it's not just about understanding greatness, it's about putting it into action too. In that spirit, we shine a spotlight on the unyielding dedication of Chris and Fernando, who have committed themselves to serving the church in their new roles as Deacons. As they take on these responsibilities, we implore God's strength and blessings upon them and discuss the crucial role of deacons in the church. We discuss how serving the weak and vulnerable not only within the church but also in the community is a manifestation of the greatness that Jesus espouses. As you join us in this enlightening conversation, prepare to be challenged, inspired, and fired up to take the next step on your spiritual journey.
Hi, it's Pastor Jonathan and thanks for downloading the FBC Elderado Sermon Podcast. We hope today's message will challenge and help you take the next step as you follow Jesus. So, back in 1964, muhammad Ali is scheduled to fight Sunny Liston. And in the buildup to that heavyweight championship fight, ali stands before a press corps and has a microphone shoved into his face and he utters this iconic statement. He says I am the greatest. Fast forward to fight night. And Ali, this brash, 22-year-old title challenger, peppers Sunny Liston with punches for six rounds. At the end of the six rounds, sunny Liston returns to his corner, he sits on the stool, he spits out his mouth guard and he says that's it. He tells his corner man no more. So when the bell for the seventh round rings, sunny Liston stays on his stool. The fight was over, a new champion was crowned and Muhammad Ali, on that night, proved that he was indeed the greatest.
Speaker 1:Do you ever wonder why certain statements stick with us, why certain words that people speak become quotes, why certain statements, especially this statement I am the greatest, resonate with people generation after generation? I just think about that statement. I am the, I am the I. The first person pronoun am a, b verb, the, the definite article. Those are three of the most common, often used words in the English language. I am the. That's not the reason we remember that statement. We remember that statement solely because of the fourth word greatest, because I am the greatest. That fourth word. It taps into this fundamental human drive, the drive to be great Is dry for greatness. That's the reason why we all love competitions. We love sporting competitions and cooking competitions and singing competitions. It's why in school you decide you're going to strive to be the top of your class or the top 3% and you take all of those AP classes. It's why you go to your office and you spend the extra hours trying to achieve more and more and outperform your goals. Or maybe in life you just seek to be the greatest parent or the greatest grandparent. You just make sure your kids and grandkids have all that they want and all that they need. All of us, in our heart of hearts, we enjoy marveling at greatness, the greatness we see in others, the greatness we hope to achieve in our own lives. But if you call yourself a disciple of Jesus, he calls you and he calls me, he calls us to not only be great at some thing, but he actually calls each of us to be great at the same thing. Yeah, all of us have this gift that allows you to be you, the thing maybe that distinguishes yourself in the world, that's what you're great at. But all of us, if we follow Jesus, listen, we all have this expectation on our lives that all of us will be great at the same thing. Dr Martin Luther King, jeanor, puts it this way. He says everybody can be great, everybody can serve. Everyone can be great, everybody can serve. And Dr King's quote is memorable, not because it's the words of man, but he is echoing the words of Jesus, the teaching of the King of Kings, jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:Mark, chapter nine if you have your Bibles, we read this story. Mark nine, beginning of verse 33, says this. It says they came to Capernaum and when he was in the house he began to question them what were you discussing on the way? But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another which of them was the greatest and sitting down, he called the 12 and said to them if anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all. And he took a child and placed him among them and taking him in his arms. He said to them whoever receives one child like this in my name receives me, and whoever receives me does not receive me, but him who sent me.
Speaker 1:After Jesus and the disciples had traveled throughout the Galilean countryside, they arrive in the city of Capernaum. Jesus and the disciples are familiar with this city. It's located on the Northwest shore of the sea of Galilee. It's the home of three of Jesus's disciples Matthew, andrew and Peter, and this city, in fact, had become the base of operations for Jesus's entire Galilean ministry. For that reason, jesus and his disciples, when they enter into the city of Capernaum, they know exactly where they are going, exactly where they are headed. They go to a home, we're told. Most people believe it's the home of Peter.
Speaker 1:As I read the story and thought about it this week, how I see the story unfolding and how I think it's laid out is that they arrive at the home, the disciples go in and Jesus stands outside and collects his thoughts, it says when Jesus entered the room, as if the disciples had already gone into the house. Jesus collects his thoughts because he knows there's something he needs to talk to them about, because on the journey he had heard them talking, and sometimes that conversation had gotten so heated he knows he's got to address it or things are going to get out of hand. So, jesus, he walks inside and he asks those disciples so yeah, what were you guys talking about? And you've had those moments before, maybe with your kids or grandkids, or you're a teacher at school and you've been outside in the hallway and you'd heard something going on. You're like, hey, so what were you guys talking about? And when you ask that question, what happens? Everybody looks down, no one makes eye contact, everybody's twiddling their thumbs and they're giving off these like really strong teenager vibes of I don't really want to talk about it. You've felt those vibes before. But Jesus, he was going to make them talk about it.
Speaker 1:What the disciples, though, didn't know was that Jesus already knew the topic of their conversation. He knew that those disciples his closest friends and followers. They had been arguing on the road about who is the greatest. Can you imagine that argument, an argument about who's the greatest? I can imagine that Peter's the first one who chimes in. He's like God, god, God, I know I'm the greatest. Whenever Jesus asks the question, I'm the first one to answer, and I'm basically always right.
Speaker 1:And the disciple named John. He's fuming. He's like what you talking about, peter? You don't know what you're talking about. I'm the beloved disciple. Jesus spends all his time with me, more than any of you guys combined. I'm the greatest. And then the disciple named Bartholomew just rolls his eyes and in his condescending tone he says no, no, no, guys, I'm the greatest. There's this tradition outside the Bible that Bartholomew was among the disciples, the only one who came from a royal bloodlines, that he was a nobleman by birth. Or maybe James and Andrew contend that they are great by the size of their fishing boats. They would have fit in in South Arkansas.
Speaker 1:And Simon the zealot? He contends for his greatness because he says I'm more passionate than any of you guys about the purity of my country. Simon the zealot, he's a true patriot. You see, to one another, these disciples make their case of why I'm the greatest and you're not the greatest. They make their case, they argue with one another because they want to set up a hierarchy. They want to know who's at the top, because if you're at the top, what do you get to do? You get to be the boss. You get to tell the other 11, yehuz, what they're supposed to do and those disciples? They believe that only one person can sit at the top of the pyramid. Only one person can raise the championship belt.
Speaker 1:In the eyes of the disciples, and according to the eyes and the ways of this world, listen, greatness is a winner. Take all endeavor. But that's not true in the eyes of Jesus, it's not true according to the ways of his kingdom. And the eyes of Jesus, and in the ways of his kingdom, everybody can be great. Notice in verse 35,. Jesus begins speaking to them with that comment if anyone, if anyone. Jesus doesn't limit greatness to the smartest, to the most well connected, to the one with the most wealth, to the one who annoys him the least. Jesus says if anyone, it's not just someone, one person at a time, who can be great. Anybody can be great and we can all be great at the same time, so long as we are a servant of all. Jesus says Dallas Willard defines service this way.
Speaker 1:He says this we engage our goods and strength in the active promotion of the good of others and the causes of God in our world. Let's think about that definition for just a moment. Think about the two, the word and the phrase engage and active promotion. Service is an intentional choice. It doesn't happen by accident. If your life had a transmission, service would be one of the gears. And in order to downshift your life into the gear of service, you have to press the clutch in. You have to make the intentional choice to engage, to actively promote. We engage, willard says, our goods, that's our material possessions and our assets.
Speaker 1:Service sort of begins with this realization of seeing all that I have and realizing that all that I have is more than enough. I can use what I've been given for the good of others. That word strength, that's our physical capabilities, our wisdom, our intellect Service just says I'm immensely gifted. God has taught me so much in life and I can use it not just to make my life better but to make the life of someone else better, and that's the phrase the good of others. You see, service says this we have to be able to see the needs of our neighbor to be as real as and as important as our very own needs. And it also works for the causes of God.
Speaker 1:Service says that we use our goods, our assets, our resources, our possessions, our strength, our intellect, wisdom, ability to advance the kingdom of God and to meet other people's greatest needs. The greatest need, of course, is someone to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, but it's also a great need what? For someone to have food in their stomach and to learn to be able to read and for people to have a place to live. As Christians, we can be people who care about all of those things, and we should be. That's what service demands of us. This is what service looks in your life and my life. Listen, everybody can be great. Everybody can serve. This is what service looks like, because this is what service looked like in the life of Jesus Christ himself.
Speaker 1:Think about the life of Jesus. Think about some stories in his life, some events in his life. The one day when Jesus served the crowd of 5,000 with loaves and fishes those were goods, those were assets, and he fed the hungry. He used those goods and assets to do what To for the sake of the good of other people. Jesus used his intellect and his strength and his wisdom to teach anyone who would listen about the kingdom of God. He furthered the causes of God in the world by performing miracles, declaring the presence of God's kingdom in the here and now. For those reasons and so many more.
Speaker 1:Jesus understands himself this way, he says. For even the Son of man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus' greatest act of service was his willingness to die on the cross, his willingness to go to a cross and meet the greatest need that we have. The greatest need for all people, in all places, is the need of a Savior who forgives us of our sin and offers us the gift of salvation. And salvation for Jesus is not just for some people. He wants to offer it to all people, to the entire world. He was a servant of all, and when we take seriously that Jesus served all people, we realize we must serve all people, not just our friends and family members, not just the people who we get along with, not just the people with whom we have something in common. We serve all people, jesus.
Speaker 1:He welcomes this child into his arms and puts the child in his lap because that child, in that culture, represented the weakest and most vulnerable people within a community. And Jesus, like this, is the kind of person you have to serve. It's the child in our community who wants to learn how to read but doesn't have enough time to do it at school, is struggling and doesn't have a parent who's willing to help them. It's a woman who's alone and she's facing an unexpected pregnancy. It's a classmate who's being mocked and bullied. It's an elderly neighbor who just needs some help carrying in their groceries from the car. It's your friend who's battling cancer and needs you to take their kids to the park so they can just have a break. The child represents anyone in our world who has been forgotten, anyone who doesn't know to whom they can turn in a moment of need. It's anyone in this world who feels alone. It's anyone who just needs help to make it through the day.
Speaker 1:You see, jesus calls every disciple to greatness because every day, in the course of our everyday life, we will each meet, we will each encounter, we will each see someone who could benefit from an act of service. Everybody can be great. Everybody can serve. Do you know the name? Roger Bannister. Roger Bannister was the first person to ever run a sub four-minute mile. He achieved athletic greatness. You may be surprised to learn, though, that Bannister accomplished that goal while he was a full-time medical student. He was training to be a doctor. That meant he had very limited time to train. He would only train and run during his 30-minute lunch break every single day. Yet Roger Bannister still achieved greatness.
Speaker 1:And maybe Roger Bannister reminds us of this that everyday people who have everyday responsibilities can achieve greatness so long as we exhibit the discipline and dedication that is required, so long as we are willing to see and to serve the people that God puts into our path. This means that every day of your life you can tap into this desire and this drive to be great. Everybody can be great, everybody can serve. So today's big idea, it's true of every disciple of Jesus Christ, but it's especially true of those in our church who bear the honor and the responsibility of being a deacon. You see, jesus, he took the desire and the drive for greatness, this call to service, and his earliest followers took it so seriously that they made it an official title or an official role within the early church. You see, the first Christians. They took the Greek word that we translate serve or servant, and they said well, we're gonna call them a deacon. That's a specific role in the church, the specific, identified servant within the church. This means that deacons are neither board members nor decision makers. They are foremost servants in God's church.
Speaker 1:Our deacons serve our church by checking on our shut-ins and those who live in the nursing home and those who are facing surgery or the ill. They serve by delivering wisdom meals to some of those who are shut-in. One of our deacons, each and every week, prays throughout the entirety of our service that God would move, that the gospel would be heard. Our deacons are men who find it natural to step up and serve when they see a need arise. So, chris and Fernando, this is the sort of men that we believe you are.
Speaker 1:This is the sort of men we've seen you already be within our church and even in our community. We believe you possess the drive to be great and we are so excited that today you are accepting the responsibility and honoring God's call that he's put on your life to be a deacon in this church, and I am so grateful that God has prepared each of you for this role at this hour. Father, we bow before you now. We are grateful that your Holy Spirit has fallen in this place and moved in this room, and I am grateful for Fernando and Chris and the calling you have placed on their life to become a deacon to serve this church in this most important way. I pray that you would strengthen their homes, lord. I pray that your blessing would fall on them, equip them and all of our deacons for the work of ministry within this church, of serving the weak and the vulnerable in our midst and even in our community. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.