Faithful In Service

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. We're in our second week of this series called Selfless, and today we're looking at faithful in service. And our text today that we're going to focus on is Matthew chapter 20, where Jesus said this, but Jesus called them to him and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant and whoever would be first among you must be your slave. Even as the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. I got a question for you this morning. So if someone would describe you with the words, he always, or she always is, how would they finish that? You know, he's always about, she's always. He's always working out. She's always working. He's always encouraging. She's always griping. He's always trying to, to pray for people. She's always on Instagram. What would it be that you're always about? Okay. In this series of selfless, I think you'd probably agree. We live right now in a very self-centered, self-absorbed and self-promoting culture. In fact, I looked up that word self-promotion on the net and I found like a jillion different websites on just Google. The first page, self-promotion is a leadership skill now, how to master the delicate art of self because you can't promote yourself too much or you promote yourself, but you do it in a way so it doesn't look like you're doing it unless you're a politician, then you can just do it whatever way you want. But what was fascinating is Forbes Magazine and Fast Company, as well as a lot of other personal blog spots, all are about self-promotion and if you aren't promoting yourself and pushing yourself and your agenda, well, you expect not to get anywhere in life. There was even one article that said 40 ways to self-promote without looking like a jerk. Okay, now we do live in kind of a hyper-inflated everything is about me culture these days and what do we expect? So when teens have been surveyed, for instance, marketwatch.com surveyed teens and what they found after they surveyed, what do they want to grow up to be? The largest segment, 20% wanted to be an athlete, an artist, or an entertainer. Now just think about this, there are 41 million teens or pre-teens, 41 million in this society, so 20% of that would be 8 million athletes, entertainers, and artists. How is that even possible? How would that even be possible that everybody, 8 million people become famous? Because they're into that, you know, now, um, even if you aren't in sports or entertainment or, um, being an artist, everybody seems, have you heard this term? I want to be a goat, goat, which is greatest of all time. I want to be greatest of all time at whatever. How are you going to do that? Seriously, be greatest of all time in this field. Well, it seems like Apple has kind of bought into this and understands how to market their new iPhone 10 and their portrait mode, and this video kind of shows that, being the greatest. There you go. In our society, you push yourself, you promote yourself. You want to be goat? Do you want to be the greatest? Lady Gaga says it this way, if only fame had an IV, I live for the applause. And it seems like our culture is doing that pretty well, mirroring back. What are you giving me? What are you giving me? All the time. Self-promotion. Jesus says, you want to be great? You want to be the greatest? Whoever would want to be the greatest? Can you say it with me? Among you must be your servants. You want to be first? You're going to be the slave. So we are counter-cultural. If you haven't figured that out, Christianity is running against the culture, and this is a tough time to be that way, but if you really want to understand what it means, we're talking about faithful in service, you are going to not be self-promoting, but serving others. That's the way to greatness, according to Jesus. If you're a follower of Christ, it's not about self-centered living, but he calls us, invites us to deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow him, which means that we are going to be a servant like he was. He didn't come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. And servant isn't what we just do once in a while. Service is our identity. We are servants. In other words, you're always serving. If you want something to be said about you, oh, she's always, or he's always, I'm praying someday, somebody might say, oh, he's always serving in whatever he's doing. So I want you to say this with me, because this is your identity. This is who you are because of Jesus Christ already. I am a servant. Can you say that? I am a servant of the most high God. Yes. Let's say it all together one more time. I am a servant of the most high God. Well, there is ...