Desert, Group, Project | Learning To Serve Like Christ - Part 2 | Senior Pastor Keith Stewart

LEARNING TO SERVE LIKE CHRIST
Desert, Community, Project | Part 2
Senior Pastor Keith Stewart
June 7, 2026

Most of us want our lives to matter. We want to make a difference. We want to leave a mark on the world. But what if the path to significance isn't found in becoming more important? What if it's found in becoming less? In Part 2 of our series, Desert, Community, Project, we'll explore one of the most counter-cultural truths Jesus ever taught: greatness is found in service. Through the lives of John the Baptist, Jesus, and others who learned to put God's purposes ahead of their own, we'll discover why true service transforms not only the world around us—it transforms us as well.
 
Join us this Sunday as we learn what it means to pray: 
"More of You. Less of me."

Icebreaker
 
What is one daily habit or rhythm in your life that has had a significant impact on who you are today?
 
Digging Into the Message
 
Pastor Keith defined spiritual transformation as: "God lovingly changing our thoughts, feelings, and actions to resemble
Jesus, in community, for the good of the world." Which part of that definition stands out most to you and why?
The message emphasized that spiritual transformation affects the whole person—mind, heart, and will. Which of those areas do you think God is most actively working on in your life right now?
 
Have you ever known someone who was strong in biblical knowledge, spiritual experiences, or religious activity, but lacked balance in the other areas? What can we learn from that?
 
Romans 8 describes Jesus as the pattern for our lives. When you think about becoming more like Jesus, what characteristic of His life do you most want to see developed in yourself?
 
Desert (Love God)
 
Jesus regularly withdrew to spend time alone with the Father. What currently helps you connect with God? What tends to distract you?
 
The message challenged us to practice "digital discipline." What role does technology play in helping or hindering your relationship with God?
 
Which spiritual discipline (prayer, solitude, fasting, worship, Scripture reading, etc.) would most strengthen your walk with God if practiced more consistently?
 
Community (Love One Another)
 
Why do you think God designed spiritual growth to happen in community rather than isolation?
 
The message contrasted the Communion Table with the coffee bar. In what ways can we sometimes approach church more like consumers than participants?
 
How has someone in the church helped shape your spiritual growth?
 
What would it look like for our group to become a more diverse, welcoming, and gospel-centered community?
 
Project (Love Your Neighbor)
 
Pastor Keith said, "Love is not love until it is given away." Where do you currently have opportunities to demonstrate Christ's love through service?
 
Who is someone in your life right now who may need to experience God's love through your words, encouragement, or practical help?
 
Tony Campolo's story reminds us that small acts of love matter. What is one simple act of kindness or service you could offer this week?
 

Application
 
Of the three rhythms—Desert, Community, or Project—which is strongest in your life right now? Which needs the most attention?
 
What is one specific step you will take this week to better align your life with the rhythm of Jesus?
 
Closing Prayer
 
Pray that God would make each member of the group more like Christ through time with God, authentic community, and loving service to others. Ask God to help you become "His suit of clothes" in the world this week.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Amen. How many of you would love to have more of God in your life? Yeah, a lot of us, right? So today's message is all about that, how we get more of God. But I before we get into that, I do need to give you an update about the roof. Okay, so many of you know we were here last week and what I posted on Facebook this week that really at Spring Creek here we have two buildings that are conjoined. We have this part from that wall back there to the front, which is a newer addition to Spring Creek. Everything's great here. It's the old building, which was the original food line. That roof has gone bad. And we're getting a lot of leaks, and it became apparent as these spring storms have begun to uh hit us that we've got just way too many leaks back there. We've been knowing for some time that we have to replace the roof. Our design, our intention was when we close on this property deal that uh we've been trying to sell, which is supposed to happen in January 2027. When that happens, we'll free up about $900,000. We won't have any debt here, and we'll free up about $900,000 where we can address these problems. But we cannot afford, we can't go into debt to buy a new roof. Uh we cannot uh replace it at this point. And when the roofers have come out this past week, they gave us some other wonderful news that we we've got about 17 HVAC units back there on that roof that need to be replaced. And they said, you do not want to put a new roof down and then get roofers to come in and put 17 new units up there. Because one, all that heavy equipment and all that work could puncture the new roof, but two, they're going to put new flanges down and everything else, and they're not roofers. So you need to replace the HVAC units and then put down your new roof. So 17 big commercial units, that's not cheap either. So we're looking probably at least at a half a million dollars between the roof and that. So the plan is, and what we've been talking to roofers about, is a stopgap measure. How do we keep that roof from leaking like a sieve until it comes to next year where we can do the replacement work, both of the HVAC units and the roof itself. And so that's what contractors are doing for us now. They're coming out and they're looking at it, saying what would be involved and how they would address it, and they all have different approaches, and we're trying to measure which is the best one. I am so grateful for each and every one of you who've reached out and said, Pastor, how can I give to this? Uh we've we've received, I had two people from our online audience. One said, I'm sending a check for $10,000, another said I'm sending a check for $5,000, who attend Spring Creek online only, and they just were touched by it. I have a friend in World Vision in Seattle who said, you know, can the storehouse, which is their domestics program, can they help you out with your roof? And I talked to those people. There's not much that they can do, but again, people have been very moved by this, and a lot of you have even reached out and said, How do I designate money toward the roof repairs? And the simple answer is this if you designate toward either the building or if you put in the memo of a check or if you text to give like I do, if you put in the memo roof, we'll be sure that that money goes to that and that alone. So at the very least, even if you feel like you're not in a position to help us out financially to address at least the stopgap measure till we can get through till next year, please pray with us. You know, I believe with all my heart God owns the thousand cattle on thousand hills, right? And he owns the hills on top of that. I'm just asking to sell a couple of herds. That's all I'm asking. Sell a couple herds, send the resources our way. We could really use it. So help me to pray to that end that God will provide us what we need when we need it, as we need it. He has been a faithful God who's brought us for 36 years to this point in our history, and he's not about to let us down now. So God bless who, you know, God bless you and thank God for who he is. Well, today I'm continuing this series, Desert Community Project. We're talking about the way of Christ and living in the way of Christ. Today we're going to focus more on that project end, on the service end of things, and how we learn to serve like Jesus so that we get more of God in our life. As we get started, let's pray. Lord, you are a good, good father. And I know, God, you're going to provide for us in this need the way it needs to happen. I thank you, God, for everybody who has reached out and offered roofers, offered help, offered their own expertise to help us in any way and all the ways possible to address the problems with the old roof. I know, God, that you're going to work all those things out, and we're just going to be faithful and attentive to the things that you're doing. Now we just ask that as we gather around your word, that you're going to have complete freedom in our time together to speak to our hearts, to challenge us, to encourage us, to point us in the direction you want us to go. In Jesus' name, amen. We were made for God's purposes. God had a plan when He made your life. And the thing is, the moment I say that, it becomes a problem for some people because, frankly, we're not taught to think that way. The truth is, a lot of us think that life is about us. That really our life and our plans should work out with our own purposes. Maybe one of the best parallels is to think about the differences between cats and dogs. So I'll tell you right up front, I'm a dog kind of guy. It's not that I've never owned a cat. When I was growing up, we owned a cat. And Brenda and I have a cat that was the residual of a daughter bringing it home and saying, We're just pet sitting. And that friend never showed up to pick up the cat. So we have a cat. His name's Kit Kat. But when I was a kid and I'd be away at school and I'd come home, my dog Rex would always be there to greet me. He'd be wagging his tail, he'd be ready to play. If Rex could talk, he would have said, Where have you been all day? We got some serious catching up to do. He was a great dog, probably the best dog I've ever had because he was my first dog. Hawkeye is a very close second, though. Hawkeye is such a sweet dog. I love him. But you know, there's nothing like your first pet. But Rex was not our only pet. We also owned a cat named Speedy. I'll tell you right now, I don't have a picture of Speedy. I don't want a picture of Speedy. When I came home from school, Speedy would be laying on the couch and he'd look up as to say, finally the help has arrived. And he'd look at me like, don't just stand there, fix me something to eat. And that leads me to this conclusion about the difference between cats and dogs. Dogs have owners, cats have staff. So here's my point. Dogs seem to understand that they were created for their master's pleasure and purpose. Because that's where they get all their joy. This to me is one of the major differences between cats and dogs. And I wonder, sincerely wonder, when God looks at us as people, does he sometimes just see a big, huge herd of cats? Or does he see someone who was created for his master's pleasure? So to get started, what I want to do is I want to introduce you to a guy in the Bible who seemed to understand this better than most people. He knew why he was here. He was here to serve God's purposes and he was here to do what pleased him. In fact, he's the only person in all the Bible about whom Jesus said, Among men born of women, there's no one greater than John the Baptist. Now let me tell you something. When Jesus says that about you, that's not flattery, that's a fact. And according to Jesus, John is the benchmark of human greatness. Now, I'll admit on the surface, John appears to be a rude, crude dude. I mean, this is a guy who's sort of weird. Uh, he did all sorts of weird things, ate weird food, he ate bugs, he ate locust and wild honey. In other words, he's the original bear grills. But John is also a powerful preacher, and he never minced words. Look at this description of him in Mark 1:5. And all the country of Judea was going out to him and all the people of Jerusalem, and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. So the Bible describes John as this voice crying in the wilderness. But for a voice that's out there in the margins, out there on the very edges of civilization, he was attracting a lot of attention, so much so that the people in the city, like Jerusalem, they're emptying out to go out to the margins and listen to this guy preach. So one of the things that makes John really great is his humility. Just the fact that he's referred to as a voice crying in the wilderness tells you that John's appeal is not in his personality, it's not his charisma, it's in the fact that he's faithful to preach the message that God once preached. John's humility becomes even more obvious when Jesus arrives on the scene and Jesus' ministry begins to eclipse that of John. And that leads us to this first point, the test of our service. Now, I don't know if you've ever read the devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. A lot of people have that and they read it through every year. It's a classic in Christian literature. It was written by a guy named Oswald Chambers. He said it best when he said, the test of the spiritual life is the power to descend. So get this. John the Baptist was enjoying the highest levels of success in ministry ever. Listen to how the Bible describes it or characterizes it. Now John was baptizing, and people were constantly coming to be baptized. In today's terms, we would say John was successful. People are responding to John's message in droves. He's leading the newest, fastest-growing megachurch. But those who ministered alongside John, his disciples, begin to feel like there's some sort of competition between John and Jesus. In particular, they're feeling intimidated by Jesus' success and the growth in Jesus ministry. So they confront John and they tell him this well, he, they're describing Jesus, Jesus is baptizing and everyone is going to him. Now this is envy, pure and simple. They're feeling intimidated by Christ's success, even to the point that they exaggerate what's happening. Notice they said, everyone's going to Jesus. But just two verses earlier, it said people were constantly coming to John to be baptized. So it's not that everyone's going over there, but a lot of people were. So you can read between the lines. What they're saying is, hey John, buddy, we think you're losing your edge. You've lost your appeal. And if you don't pay attention to this, we may lose the flock. Now you know what the problem is? They're using numbers as a gauge of success. And that's a mistake that a lot of preachers and leaders still make today. We think numbers are a sign of God's blessing, and a lack of numbers means that God is not blessing. Well, John is going to set his disciples straight and in the process demonstrate why Jesus says John is the quintessential definition of greatness. So John tells his followers three things. The first one is everything we have is a gift from God. Here's how he said it. Jesus answered, or John answered, a person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. Now hear what he's saying. He's saying, listen, guys, I have what I have, and Jesus has what he has because the Father has chosen to give us that. The Bible constantly challenges the arrogance of human beings that believe that somehow, because of who we are and what we do, that's the reason we're blessed. Instead, what the Bible teaches is that God causes his good reign to fall on the just and the unjust. In other words, you're not blessed because you're better, smarter, or more effective than other people. You're blessed because it's God's nature to be a blesser. The only gauge of success in God's work is one simple question: Have we done what God asked us to do? So when Jesus looks at John, he says, Among men born of women, never has been a greater man than John the Baptist. He wasn't saying, look at the following John built. God's appraisal of John's life has nothing to do with numbers. It had everything to do with his humble heart and his obedience. So John tells his disciples, the reason people are leaving me and they're going to Jesus is because God is giving them to Jesus. Paul said something similar in the book of Corinthians. For who regards you as superior? And what do you have that you did not receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you'd not received it? We have what we have because God has allowed us to have it. Amen? Everything you have is a gift of grace. You didn't earn it, deserve it, or work harder than others in order to get it. You know why I know that? Because there's plenty of people who deserve it more than you do. And there are plenty of people who've worked harder than you do, and they don't have it. So it's not about how hard you work or how much you deserve things. So we look here, and as servants, we are constantly reminded that everything belongs to God, not to us. There's no room for attitudes of entitlement when it comes to God's work. Now, for me personally, I know that one day I will walk away from this church for the last time. Maybe it'll be because God calls me to something else. Maybe it'll be because God calls me home. But this ministry represents 40 years of life investment for me in Garland. But even with that said, this church is not my church. It doesn't belong to me. It belongs to Jesus. It serves his purposes. So when it comes to God's work, two dangerous words in the vocabulary of a servant are my and mine. Now, there's no question, for me, this ministry represents really what's been the most amazing thing God has ever let me be a part of. And believe me, it would be easy for me to assume that I get to keep on leading this as long as I want to. But this is God's church. And I serve at his discretion. There may come a time when God feels that this church will be served by a better leader, another leader. So I have to remind myself over and over again, it's not my church, the church belongs to Jesus. In the early days of Spring Creek, when we were in the high school and when we were over in the strip mall, when I would drive up to the building, every time I drove up, I would offer my resignation to God. Not because I wanted to quit, but because I wanted to remind myself that I serve at his discretion. That it's his choice, it's his will that matters. And I've gotten into that habit again. As I drive up to this place, God, if you're ready for me to be gone, I'm ready. I tender my resignation today. All you have to do is say is, Keith, I accept it today. But I do that to keep my attitude right. This is not mine. This belongs to Jesus. All of it belongs to Jesus. It doesn't belong to you either. It belongs to God. And it's God's intent and his purposes that has to win out. Here's the second answer to his disciples. Our happiness is found in fulfilling our purpose. Listen to what John said to his followers. The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friends who attend the bridegroom wait. The friends of the tent attend the bridegroom waits and listens for him and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine and it's now complete. John is just happy to be in Jesus' shadow. So what he does is he explains to his followers his role by using this analogy. He says, I'm like the best man at the wedding. Jesus is the groom, the people are his bride. At the wedding, all the attention's on the groom, not the best man, right? The cameras are all flashing in the groom's direction. The rice is all being thrown in the groom's direction. Nobody looks back at the wedding party sitting on the church steps. The voice of the bridegroom is supposed to eclipse the voice crying in the wilderness. In fact, shortly after this story is told, John's voice is going to be silenced forever by Herod, who's going to kill him. But he says, in this moment, this is my joy, and my joy is now complete. John is saying, this is the way it should be. I'm the friend of the bridegroom. And the whole point and purpose of my life was to see the groom united to his bride. Now that John has served that purpose, he says, My joy is complete. I'm happy in that, because that's what I was supposed to do. The final thing John reminds his disciples of is this: the world needs more of God. John believed this with all of his heart. This is how he says it. I mean, how many of us are really at a place where we can sincerely pray a prayer like that and mean it to God? Jesus, you increase while I decrease. You become more important, me less important. More of you, less of me. Now to help you gauge whether or not you're ready to pray a prayer like that, I have some questions I want you to think about. Ask yourself these questions. Number one, do I ever feel disappointed when nobody notices my efforts? Or this, do I ever get upset when somebody else takes credit for my idea? Do I ever find myself doing something so someone will think I'm smart? Do I ever sulk when my past achievements are forgotten or ignored? Do I ever get upset when no one says thank you? If you identify with any of those questions, realize there's still something in you that's overly invested in your service. So what I want you to imagine for a minute is Jesus entering into your sadness and your disappointment or your anger and your resentment and simply asking you, will you let me increase? Would you be willing to decrease? How would you respond to Jesus in that? You know, it takes genuine humility to do what we do for God and God alone. John had the right attitude. In fact, on another occasion, John said this: After me will come one more powerful than I, referring to Christ, the thongs of whose sandals I'm not worthy to stoop down and untie. Now, I want you to understand something about the first century. In the first century, rabbis were not paid, teachers were not paid. They were cared for by their disciples, by their followers. So you do all manner of service for your rabbi because that's how you compensated your rabbi. You'd give them food, you prepare food for them, you'd take care of anything. Nothing was beneath a disciple to do for their rabbi except one thing. And we have this book that's called the Talmud, and the Talmud records a lot of first century traditions among Jewish people. And there's this Talmudic statement that says this every service which a slave performs for his master shall a disciple do for his teacher except the loosing of his sandal-thong. What they taught in the first century is yes, bend over backwards, do everything you can for your teacher, but there's one thing that crosses the line. There's one thing you should never do. There's one thing that perverts service into something meaningless and humiliating, and that is to tie or untie your master's shoes. But you remember what John said? John said, even tying my master's shoe is unworthy. I'm unworthy to do that. That's how little of John is invested in this. This is a man of great humility. I I wouldn't even think I'm worthy to untie or to tie my master's shoe. I become less. And when I become less, I make room for more of God, not just in me and not just around me, but in the lives of other people. Bottom line, this world does not need more of you and me. It needs more of God. So let's shift gears and let's talk about the power of our service. Sometimes the best way to teach a principle is through a story. And Jesus was a master at this, wasn't he? He's a master storyteller. I mean, the gospels are full of the stories Jesus told, and we spend years just reading them and diving deep into them. So I'm going to tell you a couple stories about service. And the first one is to illustrate how the world is transformed through our service. War movies have always been a favorite genre of mine since I was a kid. And when I was growing up, on Saturdays, usually they had a Saturday matinee on television, and many times it was an old war movie. And one movie I remember watching many times was made back in 1957. It was called The Bridge on the River Kwai. I don't know if you ever remember seeing this movie, but it's really based on a true story. Ernest Gordon was a Christian. He was an author, he was a former dean at Princeton Seminary. He died some years back, but Ernest Gordon was the inspiration behind the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai. He survived three years in one of the most wicked prisoner of war camps in all of Southeast Asia. So this is during World War II. He was serving as a captain in the British Army when he was captured by the Japanese and marched with a long, with a huge number of other prisoners into the jungles of Southeast Asia. There, they were forced to build a railroad bridge over the river Kwai. The conditions of the POW camp were so brutal that some 80,000 men died just of the conditions in the camp. That's unthinkable. So the prisoners were made to work long hours in scorching temperatures every day. Those who would pass out from exhaustion were often beaten to death by the guards. Because they were being treated like animals, many of the men reverted to acting like animals just to survive. Theft and betrayal were as rampant as hunger and disease. The inhumanity happening all around them had reduced every man into thinking only of themselves. But Captain Gordon described a time when all of that changed. Among the Scottish soldiers, they were in a workforce one day, a shovel turned up missing. The Japanese officer in charge was enraged. He demanded that the shovel be produced or else. When nobody in the squadron stepped forward to claim that they had taken the shovel and confessed, the officer pulled out his gun and said he was going to kill all of them on the spot. One man stepped forward and said, I took the shovel. The officer put away his gun, picked up the shovel, and beat the man to death with it. When it was over, the survivors picked up his bloody corpse, carried them to the second tool checkpoint, and it At this point, all the shovels were re-counted. That's when it was discovered there was not a shovel missing. They had only miscounted on the first checkpoint. So, word of what happened spread like wildfire through the camp. An innocent man offered his life on behalf of his comrades. The effect on the camp was profound. As a result of this ultimate act of service, the men began to treat each other once again like brothers. Listen to Gordon explain it. He said death was still with us, but we were slowly being freed from its destructive grip. Selfishness, hatred, envy, jealousy, greed, self-indulgence, laziness, and pride were all anti-life. Love, heroism, self-sacrifice, sympathy, mercy, integrity, and creative faith, on the other hand, were the essence of life, turning mere existence into living in its truest sense. These were the gifts of God to men. True, there was hatred, but there was also love. There was death, but there was also life. God had not left us, he was with us, calling us to live the divine life and fellowship. Things changed so profoundly in that camp along the River Quai that shortly thereafter a train was passing through the camp. The British soldiers of war saw a boxcar packed full of wounded Japanese soldiers. Now these soldiers had been totally neglected. Nobody had bandaged up their wounds. They had not been given any food or water. They were being treated just like the throwaways of humanity, all packed into these cars, being taken back to wherever. Without so much as a word, the British soldiers simply unbuckled their packs, they took out part of their rations and a few rags, and with their canteens went over to minister to the wounded Japanese soldiers on the train. The guards tried to stop them, but it was no use. The POWs knelt beside the injured Japanese soldiers with food and water and began to clean their wounds. Gordon said this: We had experienced a moment of grace. There in the bloodstained railway cars. God had broken through the barriers of our prejudice and given us the will to obey his command, thou shalt love. Amazing things happen when we're willing to decrease so that God can increase. Amazing things happen when one person laid down their life as an act of service on behalf of the others. And amazing things can happen in this place too, when we're willing to reach out to vulnerable among us and serve from the heart. John the Baptist learned what it meant to decrease. So did this unnamed Scottish soldier who laid down his life in service to his fellow POWs. But there's here's the thing about true service. True service, done the way God wants it done, not only changes the world around us, but it also changes us. We are transformed. So I'm gonna tell you about Henry Nowen. Henry Nowen died about 30 years ago. He was a priest and he was trained as both a psychologist and a theologian. His publication, his academic honors earned him a distinguished faculty position, first at Notre Dame, then at Yale. He was highly respected among Catholics and Protestants alike. In fact, many of his books are required reading at seminaries and at Catholic institutions. He's one of my favorite spiritual writers. I love Henry Nowen. Then at the peak of his prestigious academic career, Henry Nowen resigned his tenured faculty position at Yale and went to South America for six months to explore the possibility of being a missionary to the underprivileged. Upon his return to America, even greater accolades and fame greeted him. Nowin was treated as the new Albert Schweitzer. Christian conferences and colleges and churches all begged for Nowen to come and speak to their people. Then Harvard offered him an even more distinguished faculty position. But it was at this point in his life that a friend came to him. That friend's name was John Van Yer. John Van Yer came to Henry and said, You're wasting your life in the Ivy League. Go live among the poor and they will heal you. And so Henry Nowen went to Larch. Do you know Larch communities? They began in Canada, they're all over the U.S. too. Larch communities are communities that help house people with severe disabilities, whether they be mental or physical. So this is as different as an environment from Harvard as you could imagine. Nowin had no power there. No one cared that he was a scholar or a renowned teacher. One of Nowen's chief duties was to care for a young resident at this community they called Daybreak, and his name was Adam. I want you to listen to Nowen as he describes his daily duties. Adam is a 25-year-old man who cannot speak, cannot dress or undress himself, cannot walk alone, and cannot eat without help. He does not cry or laugh. Only occasionally does he make eye contact. His back is distorted, his arm and leg movements are twisted. He suffers from severe epilepsy and, despite heavy medication, sees few days without grandma's seizures. Sometimes, as he grows suddenly rigid, he utters a howling groan. On a few occasions, I've seen one big tear roll down his cheek. So what Henry would do every day is he would wake Adam, he would first give him his medication, he would shave him, brush his teeth, dress him, give him breakfast, and then put him in a wheelchair and help him through the rest of the day with his therapeutic exercises. So I just want you to let this sink in for a minute. This outstanding scholar, this renowned lecturer, has become a nursing aid. Once when Nowen was being interviewed by a Christian publication, the person questioned whether this was the best use of Nowen's talents. In other words, couldn't someone else take over these more menial caregiving tasks so that Nowin could devote himself to scholarship for the benefit of the larger Christian community? Was it right for Nowin to give up his gifts as a writer and a speaker for the benefit of one mentally disabled man? Was it right for Nowen to decrease in this way? And Nowin looked at the reporter and said, This, I'm not giving up anything. It is not, it is I, not Adam, who gets the main benefit from our friendship. Now, Nowen admitted that at first it had been very difficult to take care of Adam. Physical touch and affection and the duties of cleaning an incontinent person are very uncomfortable. But in spite of the awkwardness, embarrassment, and sometimes frustration, Nowen learned to love Adam, to love wholeheartedly this unresponsive and disabled person. But in the process of learning to care and to love Adam, Nowyn confessed that he learned something about himself in his own obsession with achievement. But he also learned something about God, namely what it was like for God to love each and every one of us. Nowin taught that all of us are spiritually unresponsive. We're disabled in our receptive faculties. We're baffled by God's efforts to care for us, and we voice inarticulate groans when God tries to touch our life. Nowin learned while loving Adam what it must be got what it must be like for God to love us, the children of the first Adam. So according to Nalwin, his time at daybreak was no more wasted on caring for Adam than God's time is wasted on caring for us. And Nowin's estimation, what he learned made this position far more valuable than a tenured position at Harvard. He wrote a book about his experiences with Adam. It's called Adam, God's Beloved. If you've never read it, you need to read it. I mean, it's not just a great book, it's a holy book. I mean, it's a sacred book. It's that good. Often when we talk about people getting involved in ministry, we talk to them about finding their place and making a difference, and those are good things. But there's another side to service. And that's when we understand that sometimes the wounded and the weak are often the teachers of the clever and the robust. Sometimes while we're serving the vulnerable, God is teaching us. And God is showing up in them, and He's giving us what we need. It's what I learned 20 years ago in a slum in Nairobi by a little sponsored kid named Oliver. I learned what I was missing in my life, and that kid and his impact on me changed the trajectory of my life forever. You see, here's why I want you to understand it's an important spiritual truth. True service is spiritual formation. You and I are transformed by the experience of serving others as those people that we mean to serve. And if your life is not being transformed by your service, you're doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong. You're not understanding what God is trying to do in your life through this service. So as we wrap up today's message, I'm going to return to the best story of service at all. And that's the example of Jesus Christ Himself. Because Jesus is truly the pattern for our service. Before I tell you his story, let me say something. Nowhere in the Bible do we read about the volunteers God used to achieve his purposes. Even Jesus, during his three and a half years of ministry, didn't go around recruiting volunteers. Do you notice that? He said he called people to be servants. So let's be really clear about what the church is and what it's not. The church is not a club of volunteers who give their spare time to a good cause. It's a group of servants who were bought with a price, whose entire lives are devoted to the one who died, rose again, and is seated at the right hand of his father forever. Jesus never asked his followers to give up a few hours on their day off. He called us to give up everything we cherish for the sake of his kingdom. The church doesn't need volunteers who can just give away a little bit of their spare time. We need servants whose lives belong to Jesus. That's what we need. And that's what we're supposed to be producing. We're supposed to be producing servants, people who are sold out to the Jesus way, people who understand. This is not about what I do, this is about identity. It's about how I see myself. Am I a servant? Am I a servant of my master? So God is not asking you to give up a few hours on your day off. What he's asking you is to give up everything for his kingdom. So I want to show you greatness and service as modeled by Jesus Christ. The setting is the Last Supper. The disciples are having an argument. They've had before who among us is the greatest. And Jesus is going to speak in this reality. This is not a new issue for them. Like I say, it's come up before. Here's the problem: when you argue over who is the greatest, the real problem is who is least. I mean, that's it, isn't it? That's the crux of the matter. Most of us in this room, we know we're never going to be the greatest. We just don't want to end up being the least. When they gather at the Passover feast, the disciples are keenly aware that someone needs to wash the others' feet. The problem is this: only people who are least wash feet. So they all just sat around with dirty feet. No one's going to bring it up because no one wants to be the least. Then Jesus takes a towel and a basin and redefined greatness by washing their feet. Then he said this now that I look that I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you should also wash one another's feet. I've set you an example that you should do as I've done for you. In some ways, we would rather hear Jesus say, deny your mother and father, forsake your houses, forsake your lands, anything than wash each other's feet. Because you see those big acts, we can be proud of those. Hey, you know, I gave up my house in the big golf community so I could serve Jesus better. We can brag about that stuff. But you see, to wash each other's feet requires a thousand little deaths, doesn't it? To humiliate myself, to put myself in the position of the servant. You know, they always say, you know how you can tell if you're a servant? How you react when people treat you like one. You see, if I really understand that I am a servant, then how people treat me doesn't matter. What matters is who I serve and how he sees me, right? So Jesus speaks this into his life. And the next point I call serving like Jesus is the key to transforming service, transformative service. To me, the only way we get our attitude right is looking at Jesus. So let me show you the pattern for Christ's service. The first thing we see modeled by him, I'll serve without recognition. So right from the get-go, what you have to do if you're going to be a servant, you've got to put your PR department in the eyes of God, put them in his hands. God decides when or not, whether or not your service should ever be known. He decides whether or not people should praise you. He's in charge of my PR department, not me. So listen to what Jesus said in the Sermon on Mount. But when you give alms, so when you're given to the poor, when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. But when you pray, go into your inner room and pray to your father who's in secret. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that you may not be seen fasting by men, but by your father who's in secret. What Jesus is talking about is the discipline of secrecy. How many of us practice that? And how many of us, when we're out and we're serving the homeless, selfie, you know, serving the homeless here today? And we call attention to the service, and God said, that's not needed. What matters is that you serve. Dallas Willard is a great writer on the spiritual disciplines. This is what he said about this discipline of secrecy. He said, Jesus tells in the Sermon on the Mount that one of the greatest fallacies of our faith is the thought that our spiritual acts and virtues need to be advertised to be known. Secrecy, rightly practiced, enables us to place our public relations department entirely in the hands of God. Will we allow him to decide when our deeds will be known and when our light will be noticed? You see, the discipline of secrecy cuts to the heart of why we do what we do. Do we serve so that other people will admire us? Do we give our time and our money so that others will think we're generous? Do we pray in public so that people will think we're mature believers? The discipline of secrecy causes us to look at the things in our life and ask ourselves, why do we do what we do? Are we doing it so we'll be recognized, appreciated, admired? Bottom line, there just needs to be some ways you serve that nobody knows about except maybe the people you're serving. We need the discipline of hiddenness. The discipline of hiddenness crucifies our need for self-importance. Here's another important factor in serving like Jesus. I'll serve without reluctance. You know, I don't think it's by accident that right before Jesus washes the disciples' feet, the Bible says this Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power. Now, what this verse is telling us in a nutshell is that Jesus has absolute power over all things. Everything falls under Christ's authority, yet he's willing to do what's considered the most menial of tasks to wash his disciples' feet. And he did it without hesitation or without reluctance. Something else, Jesus didn't cop an attitude while he did it, did he? I mean, put yourself in Jesus' place. Imagine disciples find among them who's the greatest and who's the gift to God's kingdom, and yet they're not willing to do even the smallest act of service for one another. Each of them thinks they're God's gift to the organization. If that was your team, how would you react? If you ended up doing what they were refusing to do, how would you do it? Would you do it in such a way that nobody would ever want to see you do that again? Because you make such a scene about it, and you're always saying to them, you know, I'm not the one that should be doing this right now. It's you. You should be doing it. Is that what you do with your team? That's not Jesus. And had Jesus done that, had Jesus done it with reluctance, had Jesus called out the fact that I'm your master and Lord, I'm your rabbi, this is beneath me, would it have had the same effect? No, the lesson would have been lost. The power of what Jesus did is because he does it without reluctance. Here's a second, or third attitude. If I serve the way Jesus said, I'll serve without reservation. When Jesus washed his disciples' feet, it means he washed all of them. And the Bible calls attention to one in particular, John 13 2. The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. So even though Jesus knows Jesus is about to betray him, he doesn't hesitate to serve him or serve the others. What he does, he does without reservation. Would you serve anyone and everyone God asked you to serve? Or are there certain people that are on your exception list? Well, everybody but that one, and not over my dead body for this one. He served Peter, who he knew would deny him within hours. In fact, all the disciples would desert Jesus in his most desperate hour. Would you serve someone you knew that within hours was going to abandon you at your point of greatest need? And here's the final character characteristic of Jesus' service: I'll serve without restriction. So Jesus says, Do you understand what I've done for you? He asked them. You call me teacher and lord, and rightly so, for that's what I am. Now that I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. Now I think Jesus really threw him a curveball with this one because it's not what you expect him to say. You expect him to say, Now that I've washed your feet, you should wash my feet. But you see, it'd be an honor to wash the feet of Jesus. And all these disciples who've just been the recipient of a foot washing by Jesus, they would be eager to repay the favor. But that's not what Jesus says. Jesus says, Don't do for me as I've done for you. Do for others as I've done for you. Go out and seek other people who are as undeserving as you are, and serve them. Serve people who can't pay you back. What I'm talking about is basin theology. You know what that means, basin theology? On this day, understand there are two basins that we read about in Scripture. One, when Jesus stands before Pilate, and Pilate knows he's an innocent man, and he doesn't want to condemn an innocent man, but he's going to give in to what the crowd is demanding. So he asks that a basin of water be brought. Why? To wash his hands of the whole situation. I'm going to wash my hands of this. I got nothing to do with this. This is on you. But that night, Jesus calls for a basin of water, and he washes the disciples' feet. Really, all of life comes down to the question: which basin will you choose? Because life is a choice between two basins. If you're like Pilate, you wash your hands of certain situations and certain people, and you excuse your non-involvement with them. You tell yourself, that's not on me. It's got nothing to do with me. It's not my job. So you wash your hands of people and situations. Or you're like Jesus and you get out your basin of water and you wash the feet of people who don't deserve it. You don't make excuses. You don't find yourself an out. You just do what needs to be done because you have a servant's heart. It's like what N.T. Wright once said the truly Christ-like leader is known by the ease and spontaneity with which he or she does the little annoying, messy things. So let me wrap up with a story that is powerful and illustrates this beautifully. Operation Mobilization was an effort by Christian churches to get the gospel to the most unreached parts of the world. And so Doug Nichols goes to India to a tribe of people within India, but no sooner does he arrive in country than he contracts tuberculosis and is forced into a sanitarium to recover for several months. Being so new to India, he has not yet learned the local dialect. He does not know how to speak to people who live in that community. So while he's at the hospital, he tried to give what Christian literature he had written in the local language to patients, to doctors, to nurses. Everyone politely refuses. Nichols wrote this. He said, I sense many weren't happy about a rich American, to them, all Americans are rich, being in a free government-run sanitarium. They didn't know I was just as broke as they were. So he doesn't have the money. He's got to be in this government institution. He's got to recover from TB, and that's where he is. Then, according to Nichols, every night around 2 a.m. he would wake up in a coughing fit. You know, if you have TB, coughing is really common. Often you're coughing up blood. And so at 2 a.m. he'd wake up coughing. And during one of these coughing spells, he noticed an older sicker patient across the aisle trying to get out of bed. The man sat up, he sat on the edge of the bed, he tried to stand up, but in weakness fell back onto the bed. Nichols didn't understand what the man was trying to do, but he could tell that the man was crying. By the next morning, it was obvious what the man was trying to do. He'd been trying to get up to go to the bathroom. Nichols said the stench in the ward was overpowering. All the other patients were yelling insults at this man. Angry nurses came in and moved him roughly from side to side as they cleaned up his mess. One nurse slapped him in the face. The old man curled up into a ball and he wept. Next night, same thing happens. Nichols wakes up, he's in a coughing fit himself, he sees the old man lying there crying because he's tried to get out of bed. So Nichols writes this I don't like bad smells, and I didn't want to get involved. But I got out of bed and went over to him. When I touched his shoulder, his eyes opened wide with fear. I smiled, put my arms under him, and picked him up. He was very light due to old age and advanced TB. I carried him to the washroom, which was just a filthy small room with a hole in the floor. I stood behind him with my arms under his armpits as he took care of himself. After he finished, I picked him up and carried him back to his bed. As I laid him down, he kissed me on the cheek, smiled, and said something I couldn't understand. Well, Nickel said the next morning, a fellow patient wakes him up with a hot cup of tea and motioned that he wanted some of Of the literature that Nichols had. As the sun rose up, the other patients began to wake up, and they too indicated that they wanted to see the literature that Nichols had. Throughout the day, this was repeated: nurses, doctors, interns, all asking Nichols for the Christian literature that he had. Some weeks after that, an evangelist who spoke the local language visited Nichols in the hospital. And as he talked to the other patients and staff, he discovered that several of them had trusted Christ as their Savior as a result of reading this literature. Now let me ask you, what did it take to reach these people with the gospel? It wasn't the ability to speak their language. It wasn't a powerful sermon. It took a trip to the bathroom. It was a humble act of service. It was the willingness to do little, annoying, messy things. It was the willingness to decrease so that Christ could increase. I think sometimes we forget that the gospel is first and foremost a demonstration before it's a proclamation. And it's the demonstration of the gospel that gives power to its proclamation. All it took to reach these people with the love of Jesus was the willingness to get his hands dirty and express love in a practical way. When we do life the Jesus way, our service is modeled after his service. When the smallest things are not beneath us, the messy things, they don't bother us. It's God's kingdom that flourishes in times like this. So I want to wrap up this message with this thought from God. This is God Himself speaking, and it's worth our hearing. For this is what the high and exalted one says. He who lives forever, whose name is holy. I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit. Now I want you to let sink in what God has just said here. There's two places where God can make his fullness known, two places where he chooses to dwell. Only two places have the capacity to hold God in that sense. One place is a high and holy place. A high and holy place can contain the fullness of God. But the other place where God can manifest in his fullness is an emptied heart, a heart that's not full of itself, a heart that is humble. Why only those two places? Because those are the only places on earth that's room enough. There's room enough for God to be all that he really is. We crave more of God. We sing songs saying, more of you, Lord. That's what I want. The key to having more of God is for there to be less of me. The desire to decrease is what turns service into a God encounter that not only transforms our world, but transforms us in the process. So I don't have a big ask for you at the end of this message. I have a simple request. I want you today, as you leave this place, to make this your prayer. I want you to think about it before you eat lunch today. As you're eating lunch and you're wrapping up, I want you to think about it again. Before you take your nap, before you get ready for the work week, before your head hits the pillow at night, I'd like you to consider praying this prayer. God, you must increase. I must decrease. More of you. Less of me. I think God will be pleased to use your life in ways you never imagined. Because you let it be emptied. Emptied of ego, emptied of the need to be recognized, to be noticed, and said, I'm just going to be a servant. And I'm going to be happy being a servant. Because when there's less of me, there's more of God that shines through. When there's less of me, God says, in my fullness, I can live in your life. Let's pray together. Father, I just want to thank you for how you've been speaking to me all week long about this message and about my own life and the need to do business with you. So I pray that today we would make this our simple prayer. God, may you increase, may I decrease. More of you, less of me. In Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you.