Servant Leadership: How Jesus Defines Greatness

The world measures greatness by power, position, and recognition. Jesus measured greatness by humility, service, and sacrifice. In this message from Matthew 20, Pastor Chris Teien explains how Christ calls every believer to lead by serving others and faithfully following His example.

Biblical leadership is not about gaining status or authority. It is about reflecting the heart of Jesus by putting others first, serving with humility, and using our influence to help people grow in their faith and fulfill God's purposes.

In This Message: 

1. Recognize the Pull of Self-Focused Leadership

James and John's request for positions of honor reveals how easily our hearts can pursue recognition instead of service. Jesus challenges us to examine our motives and seek God's glory rather than our own. (Matthew 20:20-23; James 3:16)

2. Realize the Cost of True Greatness

Jesus reminded His disciples that following Him would involve sacrifice and suffering. True greatness is found in faithful obedience, even when the path is difficult. (Matthew 20:17-23; Luke 9:23)

3. Reject the World's Way of Leading

The world's leaders often seek power and control, but Jesus calls His followers to lead through influence, humility, and genuine care for others. (Matthew 20:24-28; 1 Peter 5:2-3)

4. Respond to the Call to Serve Others

Every believer has opportunities to serve. Christ-like leadership uses our gifts, abilities, and influence to strengthen others and help them flourish. (Matthew 20:26-27; Galatians 5:13)

5. Reflect the Example of Christ

Jesus gave His life as a ransom for many, becoming the perfect example of servant leadership. As we follow His example, we point others to the Savior who served us first. (Matthew 20:28; Philippians 2:5-8)

Takeaway

Lead like Jesus. Choose humility over pride, service over status, and faithfulness over recognition as you influence others for the glory of God.

Illustrations

• James and John's request for places of honor demonstrates how easily even sincere believers can misunderstand biblical greatness.

• Joshua's call to courageous leadership reminds us that God often equips ordinary people to lead in extraordinary circumstances.

• The restaurant manager illustration shows that servant leadership is not about doing every task yourself but about helping others succeed and flourish.

Key Quotes

"Everybody is leading someone."

"Greatness is measured by service."

"Lead by influence, not by position."

Search Topics

Servant leadership, Matthew 20, Christian leadership, biblical leadership, humility, serving others, leadership principles, discipleship, following Jesus, Pastor Chris Teien

Full Episode & Transcript:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/18893050

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Helping you apply God's Word and follow Jesus in everyday life. Learn more at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.church  Find episode transcripts at Well.faith 

Transcript

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Chris T 0:16

Today, we want to talk about servant leadership and action. Servant leadership, how Jesus defines greatness. Now, if you think about it, everybody is a leader. If you look around, you are probably leading someone. So you might not be the leader of an organization, you might not be the designated leader, but there's probably somebody looking at you and following in your footsteps. Maybe it's your kids or your grandkids or your neighbors. People are watching you to see what you will do in the way that you do it. And they often follow your leadership. So leadership is a great topic. It's really interesting that sometimes low-level leaders have to proclaim they're the leader and say, I'm the leader, you have to follow me. And people don't really want to. That would mean that they're not a very good leader. So actually, leaders who don't have to tell people they're the leader, but they lead by influence, they lead by example. People know they care, they're trusted. Those are the type of leaders that are quality leaders. I learned or read that sometimes the best leaders are those people who aren't looking to be the leaders. So they're willing to continue to follow and serve and care and everything, but because they've got the skills, because they've got the solution to the problem, because they have an idea, a plan, an answer, that they really are chosen to be the leader. Sometimes God chooses the leader. Sometimes the church chooses a pastor to be a leader, but to be a leader in action. So I'm going to read from the passage and then I will get into it. But we're going to be in Matthew chapter 20. Before I hit Matthew chapter 20, though, I'm just going to read a little section here that gives a little context. In Matthew chapter 19, Jesus, you know, he knows that his time is coming to an end. He's been trying to get these disciples ready to continue on without him. He's repeatedly predicting his death and everything. But I think that this section in verse in chapter 19 helps with the section and 20 that I'm going to read and then talk about. Matthew 19, 28. Jesus said to them, Truly, I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one who's left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or fields for my sake, will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. So, this is what Jesus had said recently in the context. So this helps make sense of what we're about to read now. And that is about Salome's request for her sons to sit on both sides of Jesus when he's in control. She had this expectation, which was obviously expected, that Jesus was the Messiah, that he was going to reign, that he was going to rule, that it was going to be like a military leader, like he was going to be the president. One of her sons could be the vice president, and the other one could be like the prime minister, or whatever. So she to for her to ask this is not unreasonable. So just keep that in mind. And so let me read the passage in Matthew chapter 20, verse 20. Then the mother, here, actually. I don't have it on the screen. I will get to it in the screen in a minute. So just follow along as I read, or maybe you've got your Bible. Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons and kneeling down asked a favor of him. What is it you want? Jesus asked. She said, Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom. And Jesus says, You don't know what you're asking. Can you drink the cup I'm going to drink? We can, they answered. Jesus said to them, You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father. 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 lorded over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them, not so with you, and said, Whoever wants to become 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 a ransom for many. Alright. So to think about Jesus' idea of leadership, to think about how we can lead like Jesus. Every one of us would like an opportunity, I think, to be a leader that makes a difference. Sometimes we're terrified to lead because we're afraid that we'll be rejected or we're afraid that it's not going to work out or whatever. Sometimes God equips us, God gives us experience, God gives us wisdom, God gives us the ability to lead. And that is a good thing. It's a good thing when all of us in the church do what we can to lead in our areas, to lead people to Christ, to lead as we do ministry to make a difference. It should never be one person as the leader, and all the other people just sit there and follow. So some churches make the mistake of hiring, not this church. Some churches make the mistake. They hire a pastor and then think the pastor's gonna do all the work. So they don't have to do anything because they hired somebody to do it. That's not how it works at all. Pastors are supposed to equip people for God for works of service. So that is a good thing. But in this day, and many people in our culture think about leaders as a position to aspire to, as a way to make more money, have a nicer office, to have people respect them, to have esteem. They're the president of the company, they're the leader. And so Jesus is pushing back and saying that's not really the most effective kind of leaders. So Jesus led with humility, not pride. Jesus led with service, not self-promotion. Jesus led with sacrifice, not personal gain. Jesus led with obedience to the Father, not independence. And Jesus led by giving his life, not taking from others. So to lead like Jesus, and I have five points like that to lead like Jesus, but number one, to recognize the pull of self-focused leadership, to recognize the pull of self-focused leadership. So again, that passage that I read, it says in the NIV, the New International Version, then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons and kneeling down asked a favor of them. And then she says, Grant one of these two sons of mine, they may sit at your right and you're left in your kingdom. So in the New Living Translation, it says, the mother of James and John. So that's making a lot more sense now, because you're like, okay, the mother of the sons of Zebedee. But if you look at James and John, just real quick when you think about it, Jesus had some really close friends. So he had the twelve, but he had Peter, James, and John, his inner three. So he had some three, he had three tight friends. And so two of them are right here. So James, he was actually one of the first ones to be persecuted for his faith. And then John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the one who wrote the Gospel of John, the one who was exiled to the island of Patmos and wrote the book of Revelation, they're significant. I mean, in the transfiguration, if you remember that, when Jesus went to the mountain and then saw Moses and Elijah and all that stuff, that these James and John were with him. And so it would not be unreasonable for mom, for this mother, for Salome, to ask this. Because it seems like, hey, Jesus, from what I see and from what I've heard, my boys are very important to your ministry. You're really tight with them. And so when you're talking about the future, I could see how you would really value them. Could you, when you're filling your cabinet positions, when you're doing all that, could my boys be on both sides of you? Because as you know, they're some of your most valued, some of your best workers, some of the ones you value the most. It's almost like a parent that comes along and says, Coach, my kid does really good on the team. He scores lots of goals. Actually, both of my boys do. Is there a chance I think you should you should make them captains of the hockey team? What do you think? I think that would be good. So it's not unreasonable that this would happen. It's not unreasonable that a mother would ask this. And so her request and what she is asking isn't, it's not totally out of selfishness because Salome, she stuck in there. So when Jesus is like, you know what, servant leadership is best, she was there. She went, she ran to the tomb, she was there at the cross. She was there, she continued to serve and follow Jesus through all of that. And so she was just in a confusing moment, and her boys were too, because it says in the text that it says, Can you take this cup or carry this cup? And they're like, Yes, we can. So I'm pretty sure that both boys were with their mom when their mom's asking, and they're like shaking their heads and like, yeah. And as as I read, the other disciples weren't very happy about that. The reason they weren't very happy about that is because they were like in a competition with each other to see who would be first, who would be best, and that isn't good leadership. But nonetheless, in the text it says, Mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons. She knelt respectfully to ask a favor. What's your request? Jesus asked. She replied, In your kingdom, let my two sons sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and one on the left. So it makes it clear in the translation who was asking the question and what she was asking. She's asking that my boys could sit in a place of honor. What would she get from that? She would be one proud mama. She probably put a bumper sticker on the back of her camel that says, My boys, my boys are Jesus number one and two. And so every parent wants that. Don't you want that? Don't you want the best for your kids and your grandkids and want them to succeed? And it's not too boastful to tell people about some of the things that your grandkids or kids are having success in. That's all right. That's good. That's can be fun. But nonetheless, Jesus. Jesus knows that leadership is important, and Jesus cares about his disciples, and Jesus is trying to guide and direct this group of people, these group of men that he's trained up, so that they can be ready when he is gone. So these people, Jesus' disciples, in their head, they're expecting a visible kingdom, they're expecting authority that is going to be coming from Jesus and whoever he delegates, and they're expecting positions of leadership. Great things ahead. So in Matthew 18, they asked, Who's the greatest in the kingdom? Am I? Matthew 19. Peter asks, What will there be there for us? And in this moment, Matthew 20 builds on that. Do you aspire towards leadership? Do you aspire towards leading? Do you? I think personally that it is not a bad thing to want to be a great leader, to study leadership, to pursue leadership, to learn all you can about leadership to become a better leader. It's a good use of your time. It's a good use of what you do. And so I love leadership books. I love leadership training. So when I got my master's degree in ministry, I got a minor in leadership, and I could just read leadership books all day. I like them. It excites me. And sometimes you find people that are willing, they have time, they are available, and they are ready to be poured into. And you get to be a leader that trains them up and sets them free to do great things, and it is so much fun. I love it. And if you're a man that would like to aspire to become a Christian leader or even an elder, I could get you into a training program to work towards that. But the Bible says that for elders in the church, that men must want it. They must aspire to it. So we can't put it on a board and then say, oh, you were elected to be a church leader. And said, first thing has to be something that you want and something that you would like to do. And then you come talk to me about it. And we go from there. That is a good thing. But again, where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder of every evil practice. So these the guys, the disciples, are jockeying for position. They're trying to figure out who's who in the pecking order, who's going to be doing what. And so even the moms are getting involved. And if we continue to pursue leadership because we want to be the leader, that's not going to do anybody any good. If we have selfish ambition and we want credit for all that we've done, when we're upset, when we feel overlooked because we're not recognized, when we compare ourselves to others and wrestle feeling that we're entitled to more, that can be bad. The greatest reason to lead is because you care about the people and that you have something to offer. You want to do it better. You want to help them with whatever the problem is. And so many times when there's a problem and you're the one that has the solution, then the people are like, okay, get us through that. And sometimes in organizations and stuff, there's multiple leaders that will take different projects or take different things, and then they're willing to step aside when someone else comes along and they have a better plan. And that can be the best thing. Sometimes you, if you surround yourself with leaders better than you, you will end up in a much better place than if you try to keep everybody out that makes you feel threatened. But to realize the cost of true greatness, to realize the cost of true greatness. So again, Jesus says, click. No click. Jesus says, You don't know what you're asking. Jesus said to them, Can you drink the cup I am going to drink? And if you look through the Bible, anytime it's referred to as the cup, it's usually a cup of difficulty, a cup of suffering in that culture. And Jesus is talking about the cross. It's coming up, the persecution, the difficulty. So you don't know what you're asking, Jesus said to them, Can you drink the cup that I'm going to drink? We can, they answered. And Jesus said to them, You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or my left is not for me to grant. Those places, these places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father. So Jesus is like to have the opportunity to lead, to have the opportunity to be recognized, you're going to have to endure a lot of difficult things. I'm going to have to endure a lot of difficult things. Jesus kept going back to them and talking about the cross. So in Matthew chapter 20, verse 17, he says, Jesus was going up to Jerusalem on the way. He took the twelve aside and he said to them, We're going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and on the third day he will be raised to life. To be fair, it seemed like Jesus kept saying this over and over again, but he didn't let the disciples get the full brunt of what he was truly saying until after he really went to the cross. And you remember all the disciples basically fled when Jesus started to be crucified. Peter denied him three times. It was a mess. And so Jesus knew this was coming, and Jesus is like, hey, there's difficulty ahead. The cost of true greatness can cause difficulty. It can cause hard nights of staying awake and trying to figure out how to fix the problem or caring for people. Truly following Jesus leads to suffering, leads to rejection, leads to all sorts of difficult things. And Jesus is like, are you ready to suffer like I'm about to suffer? Are you ready to follow me to the cross? And they're like, We can. But I don't think they truly knew what was coming up. But they did as you study the Bible during this Easter season, as you think about all that Jesus went through and endured, that all but one was faithful to follow Jesus through. So not Judas Isariot. But sometimes leadership isn't because you want the position. Sometimes leadership comes because God is going to use you to do something great, to lead a people. It always amazes me that Joshua was with Moses all that time. So Moses was a great leader. Moses went to the mountain to be with God. Moses did all this stuff, and Joshua was his assistant. And when it came time for Moses to be done, God literally told him that, okay, you're done, go to the mountain. And there he died. Joshua was to take over. And the thing that repeatedly God had to say to Joshua was, be strong and courageous, don't be terrified. So it obviously appears in the text that Joshua did not feel competent or able to take over for Moses, couldn't fill his shoes, and that's probably a good, respectful place to be. But God had to repeatedly tell Joshua, be courageous. And also Joshua was a mighty warrior with lots of battles and all sorts of stuff. Sometimes when God is calling us to be leaders, to live for him, to do things for him, it seems so scary. And it seems so difficult. And doesn't always take away the difficulty or the pain or the fear, but the Holy Spirit gets us through, gives us empowerment, gives us courage to get through. And sometimes when we look back, it's like I have no idea how we got through that. I have no idea. But God came through, God helped us, God enabled us, and it was a good thing. When crisis leadership, in crisis leadership, when the crisis comes, the best thing for a leader or leaders to do is to somehow get together, regroup, pray it through, and then come up with an action plan and then get out there and do it, as opposed to having a bunch of different people out there coming up with their own plans. And no, everybody's just responding out of fear. Everybody's just responding out of the unknown. But to pray about it, to come up with a plan, to strategize that and to work that through, that can be a good thing. So Jesus knows what's coming. He has his plan. He's trying to instruct the disciples, he's trying to prepare them and help them. And he knows that when he is resurrected and he comes back, he's going to go right back to them again and help them to process all that they went through. So that was a good thing. Luke 9 23 says he said to them, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. So true greatness requires surrender. It means dying to self. It means obedience when it's hard. It means following Jesus when it costs you something. Not just when it's convenient, not just when it's visible, but when it's costly. Do you want to lead or do you want recognition? Do you want to be, do you want to serve or do you want to be seen? Do you want people to see you and say, oh, you are so wonderful. You are so good. So do you want to follow Jesus or do you just want to be blessed and get what comes with following Jesus? So many people want to follow Jesus when it's convenient. It's like, oh, I'll pray to receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior, as long as He promises to bless me and keep me from all difficulty and answer my every prayer and make my life comfortable. And then when that doesn't happen, then people are like, well, I don't want to follow Jesus if it's going to be like that. Number three, reject the world's way of leading. Reject the world's way of leading. The world's way of leading, like I already mentioned, is people want to be in authority. People want to be in power. I've heard there's a problem hiring younger people these days coming out of these colleges to do these jobs because they don't necessarily want to do the work to be a good leader, but they want to be the leader and they want the paycheck of the leader and they want the title of the leader, but they're not actually willing to do everything that it would take to be a good leader. We need to do what we can to teach good leadership to our kids and to our grandkids and to the people in the church. But okay, so again, verse 24. When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers, and Jesus called them together and said, Let the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. So they were surrounded by the Romans. So they saw this every day. You had the guard, you had the captain of the guard, you had all these people and these levels of authority, and you were forced to respect those leaders based on their rank, based on their authority. And so that was the world's leadership. And Jesus is saying, don't lead like that. Don't lead by fear, lead by influence. To be a good leader, you're going to be a servant. I thought that was really interesting too, because in John Maxwell's book, Developing the Leader Within You, I thought this was really interesting. It says, he writes, A test of a leader is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency. Under excellent leadership, a problem seldom reaches gigantic proportions because it is recognized and fixed in its early stages. Great leaders are seldom blindsided. And I thought that Jesus sees the trouble coming. He knows their hearts, he knows what they're thinking, and he needs to correct them in such a way. But he does it gently, he does it lovingly. He doesn't call out Salome and say, You are such a selfish woman. But he understands what they're thinking, and he understands that they're temporarily confused as to what's going on. So the ten heard about this and they were indignant. And so Jesus told them that. And in 1 Peter 5 2, for ministry people, for church people, it says, Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly. Not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God, don't lord it over the people assigned to your care, but lead them by your own good example. We all need to do everything we can to be a good example, to live our life for Christ, and to not follow the world's ideals and strategy for leadership, but to follow Jesus, which was number four. Number four, to respond to the call to serve others, to respond to the call to serve others. So Jesus again says, Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave. And I think it's shortly after this that Jesus actually ends up washing their feet. And so it's really interesting to think about what does it mean to be a servant leader? What does it mean to show care for people like that? And when I get to the end of this, I have an example or an illustration of that. But do you appreciate leaders that tell you have to follow them less? Do you appreciate them less than leaders who truly care about you? That you know these this person has my best interests in mind. This person cares about me. This person wants to see the best happen for me. Those can be a good thing. Galatians 5.13, you've been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. So don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. So this isn't about job description. This doesn't mean that if you are a servant leader, that you have to do all of the tasks that are meaningless while other people are above you. I'm going to make sense of that in a minute. But because the time goes by so fast and I want to talk about so many things, just think about how Jesus was a servant leader, how Jesus cared for them, how Jesus would share in parables and then he'd get the disciples aside and then explain, ask them questions and explain to them what was going on. He was trying to train them up, he was really patient with them, especially when they were bickering and all these different things. But Jesus was caring, Jesus was kind, Jesus did everything he could to show that he truly cared, and that was good. Number five, reflect the example of Christ. To reflect the example of Christ. So Jesus gave up everything, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. He went to the cross, he gave his life so that we could be forgiven of sin. He was the ultimate leader, and he still is the ultimate leader. He always knew what was coming next, even before he left. He promised that the comforter, that the Holy Spirit was going to come and help them to understand the word and to help them to know what to say and give them comfort and empowerment. You remember in Philippians chapter 2, in Philippians chapter 2, Jesus says, or Paul writes, in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. So whatever Jesus had in heaven before he came down to be with us, he gave it all up, he put it all aside because we were the priority, because he wanted to lead us to a better place. He taught us how to live. He taught us how to live, and then he took care of our sin problem. He paid the price so that we could be saved, so that we could be made right with God, so we could be adopted into God's family as God's children, so that we could have the Holy Spirit to help us to live the Christian life. He promises the Holy Spirit is going to be with us as a deposit on our salvation. He promises that he's going to continue to work on us to carry on this Christian life training in us until he returns, and then there's even greater things ahead. But to think about that, that Jesus gave his life as a ransom for many is a good thing. Aubrey Melfers in a leadership book said that Jesus pauses at crucial times in the disciples' ministry and training to teach them about biblical leadership, using himself as an example. It's interesting that out of various leadership images available, Jesus chose to use the servant image to illustrate the concept. When we study both texts, we find that the Savior instructs us as well as his core leadership team that servant leadership is the humble service of others based on our love for them. Servant leaders display at least four characteristics humility, service, focus on others, and love. But I had a conversation with some people when we were discussing leadership. So some people think that if you're going to be the servant leader, that you're just going to do all the menial tasks, you're going to do everything that other people won't necessarily want to do, and that they're going to think it's great that you are so humble that you're a good leader. But the problem with that is that if you are the leader, you shouldn't be doing those things. There might be a time when you come alongside and you help somebody in need. So I wrote this down. I was thinking about this. So I mentioned before that my grandparents owned a couple of Hardy's restaurants, and when I was like 14, I got trained up in the Hardee's way. My grandpa literally had me read the franchise manual from cover to cover. And so to think about how restaurants are run and everything. But okay, so think about a restaurant manager. A restaurant manager may feel like they need to be the one doing the dishes or taking the lowest tasks in order to prove that they are a servant leader. And sometimes that comes from a good place. So their desire is to be humble, to show that they're not above any job, and to desire their desire is to earn the respect of the team, and those are good. But sometimes it can come from a misunderstanding of what servant leadership really is, or even a subtle need to be seen as humble. And here's the reality: a manager often serves people far more effectively by doing only what they can do, by scheduling wisely so employees are not overwhelmed, by training staff so they succeed, by creating systems that reduce stress, by improving profitability so wages can increase, by encouraging, leading, and recognizing people well, that is real care. That is real leadership. So washing dishes may help in a moment, but strong leadership helps every moment, and that's the difference. Servant leadership is not about doing the lowest task as often as possible, it's about using your responsibility and your influence to genuinely serve others, to help them grow and create an environment where they can thrive. That's what it means to lead like Jesus. If you have an opportunity to be a leader in any of those situations, some of the things you can do is do everything you can to help the people around you to grow in their skills, to give them tools to be successful, to let them know what they could do to do better, to help them to move forward, to do whatever you can to increase their quality of living, to increase their wages, to increase their family time, to just really be thinking about them and caring about them. And hopefully you will build yourself a great team. Hopefully, as you pursue that, you will do a great thing. In the church, we should do everything we can to encourage the people that are constantly serving. There's some people that seem to be in children's church every week down there, and we need to encourage them and maybe even help with children's church. There's many different roles in the church where people do things and you don't even know. And we need to see that and tell them what a great job they do and how much we appreciate them. We should do what we can to help them to get new skills, to be trained up to be more effective. Because when you're more effective, people are more satisfied with what they're doing, and it can be a good thing. It can be a good thing. So as we think about this, um the next time the worship team can come up here. The next time we get together, we're going to talk about Jesus' priorities and action, how we move toward what matters most on Palm Sunday, and that will be important. But right now media is a video library resource we have to go to rockwell.church forward slash right now. There are so many different leadership things on there that can train you to be a godly leader, to be a Christian leader, to be a soul-winning leader, to be a leader that makes a difference with the time that we have in this life. It is a good thing. Jesus, I thank you for this time. I thank you for the people that are here. Lord, if there is anybody here that doesn't know you as their Lord and Savior, that they would come talk to us about it, that they would grab one of those How to Find God New Testaments and look in the front and see that it says that we are all sinners, separated from God, and that sin disease will keep us from spending eternity with Jesus. It will actually have us condemned to hell, is what the Bible says. But by placing a repenting of our sin and replacing or by placing our faith in Jesus, that we can be saved, that we can become a child of God, that we can be assured heaven, that we can receive the Holy Spirit to help us to live the Christian life. And all of these good things can start when we give our life to Jesus, when we pray and ask Jesus to come, forgive us of our sin and come into our life. And for the rest of us who are already saved, Lord, help us to recommit our lives to you every day, to be better Christ followers, to be better servant leaders, to be willing to be used by you, and that you would do great things and you would get the glory. So we just thank you for it all in Jesus' name. Amen.