Studies in Leadership Conclusion
Tom Shrader concludes an 8-week series on leadership by examining how Jesus modeled servant leadership. Drawing from Mark 9 and 10, he shows eight ways Jesus demonstrated service: exercising power without dissociation, associating with undesirables, offering assistance beyond obligations, meeting needs on multiple levels, suffering ridicule while showing concern, helping people who never say thanks, making time for helpless people, and securing salvation through personal sacrifice. Shrader emphasizes that true service isn't defined by specific tasks but by using God-given gifts to meet needs and proclaim truth.
“Service isn't a specific task - service is you using the gift God's given you to meet the needs of the body and to proclaim the truth.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Studies in Leadership
Recorded: March 20, 2003
Duration: 44 min
Themes: service, leadership, humility, sacrifice, authority, shepherding, obedience, example, new to leadership, manager, parent, mentor, struggling with authority, young adult, business leader, elder
Scripture: Mark 9:33-35, Mark 10:42-45, Luke 5:17, Luke 5:29, 2 Corinthians 6:14, Luke 7, Luke 8, Luke 17, Matthew 27:39, Philippians 2:5, Romans 5:6, John 1:10-11
Theological Themes: servant leadership, christology, discipleship, biblical leadership, incarnation, redemption, sanctification, pastoral ministry
Full Transcript
Today we finish up. This is week 8, the last of our 8-week series. The topic is leadership, and I think we're taking a little bit of a different approach than what you might expect. If you went over to the bookstore, went over to Borders this morning, and went to that ever-expanding section on leadership or management, you would get a whole series of ideas. While you'd see some of what we're going to talk about—in fact, probably quite a bit of what we're going to talk about today—you'd have a different role model in mind and get a bit of a different perspective.
We started the first week with a discussion on humility, and there aren't many leadership books that start there. Then we talked about loyalty, vision, confidence, accountability, responsibility, boldness, and today we talk about service. So we bookend this study with discussions on humility and on service, and that's a great way to talk about leadership.
There is a sense, even though we've been talking about this now for a long time, that the business community has caught up, especially in the last couple of decades, with the idea of a servant leader, the idea of excellence, the idea of service. Tom Peters didn't discover this by the way, but the thought of excellence and all that goes with it—that's what we're talking about.
You Are Already a Leader
Let me just say, this is obviously the last time you have to endure this, but it's the eighth time you've heard it: You're probably all leaders in some degree, in some way. We would define a leader in a pretty general way. We'd say you're a leader if anybody's following you. You're a leader if anybody's watching you, and there are people who I'm confident are watching you.
It may be a toddler. It may be a group of people. It may be a whole group of people. You may be running a business. You may be in the middle of an organizational chart. It may be that you have long since given up work for money, and now you're in some sort of volunteer organization. You're still a leader, or in the home, whatever the case may be. These principles are at play in virtually every one of those areas.
It was Albert Einstein who said—and he and I were having a chat one day. This is how this came about. He made a point. I said it's all relative, and he said I'll develop that. I'll work on that theory. That's how that came about, really. Einstein said this: "It's high time that the ideal of success should be replaced by the ideal of service." Again, if you want to take a business setting, I think that's fine, because I think in the service, you'll typically find the success. When I more and more focus on service and people who perform functions in a way that helps clients or customers, I'm going to tend to be successful. But we're talking about service.
Jesus as Our Model of Service
What we've done in each one of these eight studies is to say we need a role model, and for us today, the role model is Jesus Christ. There's no better picture of service than Jesus. Here you go in your outline: How did Jesus model service in leadership?
Let me read to you from two different passages from the Gospel of Mark, the ninth chapter, where we see this constant—and it was absolutely a constant theme in Jesus' life. It's Mark chapter 9, verse 33, and if you can allow yourself to let your imagination wander just a bit and create the situation, you're going to see something here that, to me, has a little bit of humor in it, and an awful lot of irony.
Mark 9:33: "They came to Capernaum, and when Jesus was in the house, He began to question them." So here's what's happened. They've been walking along. They're traversing. They're moving from one setting into another. They arrive at Capernaum, and they're sitting around, and Jesus asks them a question. Here's the question: "What were you guys discussing on the way?" They're walking along. He sees them involved in some heated conversation. He said, "What are you talking about?"
Verse 34 gives us the answer: "They kept silent, for on the way they were discussing with one another which of them was the greatest." They're walking along. Jesus understands they're talking. He knows what they're talking about. He said, "What are you talking about?" And they don't say a word, but He understands.
The Greatest Must Be the Servant
And sitting down, He called the twelve—and oftentimes what we see is that in the official position of teaching, sitting down, Jesus is about to teach—and He says this: "If anyone wants to be first"—that's the response, and that's most of you. You want to be first. You want to be the top. You want to be at the head of the class. You want to be numero uno, or at least somewhere near that. "If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all." There's the principle.
Jesus continues it just a little bit further, still in Mark's Gospel, chapter 10, verse 42: "Jesus called them to Himself, and He said, 'You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.'" That's how natural man functions. Natural man functions with authority, repressive authority, dominating authority over one another. But He says this: "But it is not so among you. But whoever wishes to become great among you should be servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you should be slave of all."
There's a whole set of paradoxes that we look at in Jesus' teaching. You really want life? You really want to keep your life? You really want your life to make something, make a difference? He says, then lose it. And if you want to lose your life, fight to keep it. Things like that we see all through Him.
But here's the secret, and here's why Jesus is so obviously the model that you'd pick for servanthood, Mark chapter 10, verse 45: "For even the Son of Man"—and by the way, just a side note, that's Jesus' favorite autobiographical reference. When Jesus talks about Himself, refers to Himself—
Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and how did He do that? To give His life a ransom for many. Jesus says, "Listen, if you want to be first, you need to be last, and look at Me. I didn't come to be served. I'm the King of kings, the Lord of lords. I'm the ruler. I'm the creator. I spoke the world into existence. I've been there. I'm good, but I didn't come to be served."
Now make sure you understand this. The next time He comes, He will come to be worshipped. He's not going to come as a little baby Jesus meek and mild next time. He's going to come and there's going to be judgment, and then there's going to be reigning, and there's eternity forever.
Eight Ways to Look at Service Leadership
There's the principle: eight ways that we look at this idea of service leadership. I'll just tell you today, these points are so tied together that you're just going to detect some overlap in them.
Point One: Jesus Modeled Leadership by Exercising Power Without Dissociation
Is Jesus with the people? Luke chapter five. Jesus now is very popular. His poll ratings are absolutely as high as they could be. Word is spreading all over. So many things are going on. So many things are happening around Him.
Here's an incident. Some people are trying to carry a paralytic on a mat. It's Luke 5:17, and they tried to bring him to Him in a house to lay him before Jesus, and they couldn't find a way to do this because of the crowd. You get the scene? Jesus has come to town. He's in this house. He's teaching. There are people everywhere crowding through this house.
These guys got their buddy. He's paralyzed. He's on this mat, this stretcher, and they want to get him to Jesus. The obvious thought is they want to get him there so he can be healed, but there's no way to do it. So they go up on the roof, and they lowered the man on the mat through the tiles in the middle of the roof right in front of Jesus.
Now understand, it's not that there was a hole in the roof. If you can get a little humor here and get the setting, here's this room crowded. Here's the homeowner standing, and all of a sudden, tiles are flying, thatches flying, stuff's moving all over. He's on his cell phone calling the insurance guy, and he's describing this, and he's saying, "Hey, I need help here." The insurance guy said, "Well, we've got to find some way to categorize this. Is this an act of God?" And he said, "Not yet, but it's going to be in a minute." That's the way this is unfolding in front of him.
They lowered the man through, and Jesus saw their faith, and He said, "Your sins are forgiven."
The Problem of Isolation in Leadership
As you read a little bit of presidential history, one of the problems that the president has—and I don't think it's that unusual for somebody who's in a position like that, the CEO of a large company—they all have the same thing. All of a sudden, they're distanced from what's going on. They lose contact with the people. Jesus never does that. Jesus is still accessible.
I'm going to give you a little point here, and I think this is a huge point. Jesus is still accessible, but as you look at Jesus' life, you also understand that He was sensitive to His own personal needs as well. Jesus dealt with a group, and then He'd take a small set of that. He dealt with the twelve, and then He'd take a subset of that, and He'd deal with the three.
Let me give you a little something to do. Just start reading through the Gospels. Put your pen away. Get your yellow marker away. Get your notepad away. Put everything away, and just sit and read through the Gospel.
Many of you—at least I am, and some of you are—we're so in tune that we're always writing with a pencil, and we're underlined. Forget it for a second. Just read through the Gospels. Just read through, and let that story just start to permeate all of the thoughts that you have, and certain things just jump out at you.
The Need for Rest and Solitude
What I saw the other day—maybe it's more a reflection of where I am—is that Jesus is continually moving away by Himself. As busy as He is, as crowded as He is, all of a sudden He moves away, because He understands that He needs time. He needs time in prayer. He needs time with the Father. He needs time to rest. And so do you.
This is just a little sidebar. That's why I say I've been thinking a lot about time. I'm in the process—I met yesterday, and they're ordering me a new computer. This is going to be my fourth computer in four years. What we do is they just bring mine in, and then when I get in, we spin it into something. I like this.
We're going through this, and I said, "Well, how's this going to be different? Maybe I don't need a new one. I just got this a year ago or something. Maybe I don't need a new one." They said, "No, we need it somewhere else. You need a new one." I said, "Well, tell me about it." "Well, this will do this, and this blim-blam over here, and it's faster, and it's a giga-mega, all this stuff." I don't know what any of that means. They said, "It is so fast. It's so much faster than the one you had." Well, the one I had is faster than I can think. How much faster does it need to get?
I'm driving home, and I'm thinking, and here's what I'm thinking. I'm not a computer, and you aren't either. Stuff's getting faster, and faster, and faster, and faster. You can't go this fast. You can't maintain this. You've got to have that time. There's tension all through this message today. You can't disassociate, but at the same time, there has to be a time for rest, and relaxation, and prayer, and private meditation.
Point Two: Jesus Associated with Undesirables
Here's the second point: Jesus associated with undesirables. In Luke chapter 5, verse 29, we meet a guy. His name is Levi. You would know him by another name. What's the other name? Matthew. Matthew's background is suspect in the sense that Matthew was part
The Tax Collector's Calling
Let me tell you about Matthew. He was part of a group called the tax gatherers. He was a tax collector. I don't know how much you know about them. In any culture, you say tax collector, and we tend to think lowly of them, which is unfair. We've got a couple of IRS guys that have been in our studies, and they're great guys, but these guys, whatever you think of the IRS, and some of you have very low view of it, you multiply by about 100, and that's the tax gatherers.
They were Jews. Let me make sure we understand this real quickly. The Romans, or whoever was a conquering nation, in this case, the Romans would come in. They would take an area. They'd carve it up into sections. They would then sell, let's say, the equivalent of a franchise to a tax collector, and what the tax collector did is guarantee X amount of revenue to the Romans, and He kept anything He collected above that. So you see why the Jews hated these. They hated these guys. They couldn't stand these guys. They were Jews that were traitors who were now suppressing them, oftentimes very harsh taxes.
Well, all of a sudden, Jesus meets this Matthew, this tax collector, and He says, come on, let's go, and he follows Him. And now Matthew doesn't know what to do. Interesting. You see here in Luke 5, verse 29, you see what ought to be a normal response of a heart that's enthusiastic about Jesus. He doesn't know much. He doesn't know what to do.
Matthew's Outreach Dinner
What He stages is the equivalent of what we would call today an outreach dinner. He has a banquet for Jesus, and at his house, and who's he invite? Well, tax collectors and others. Who's he going to invite? The guys he plays golf with, the guys he hangs out with, the guys that he knows. And these are the guys, the Jews hate him, and the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belong to the set, they couldn't handle this.
And they said to His disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and the sinners?" And Jesus said to them, "It's not the healthy you need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but to call sinners to repentance." Isn't that a great illustration?
The Great Tension
There's a great tension here. I'm going to take just a second, and this is a gigantic deviation. But we talked about it in church Sunday, and the point is so real, and so often God seems like He takes what we do on Sunday, what happens through the week, and it's certainly not planned that way. They just coincide.
What do you do here with these sinners that are in your life? In 2 Corinthians 6, verse 14, Paul says this, "Do not be bound together with unbelievers." In some of the translations we'll say, "Do not be mismated." Others will say, and this will sound more familiar, "Do not be unequally yoked."
Well, when we hear that term unequally yoked, we immediately think of, appropriately, because it is much of the teaching of the scripture of marriage. Now Paul goes on and gives this great, just listen to this, we're not going to expound on it, just listen, it's great thinking. "What partnership does righteousness have with wickedness?" Well, they're incompatible. "What does light have with darkness?" You can't have them both. They can't coexist. "What harmony is there between Christ and Satan?" There is none. He says, "What's the harmony or what is in common between a believer and an unbeliever? What are the agreements between the temple of God, true worship, and the idols?" They have nothing in common.
So He says this, verse 17, "Therefore come out from their midst and be separate." Ray Stedman calls it the most abused verse in the New Testament. What happens is, some people want to avoid it because it's very complicated, other people use it to withdraw from all sorts of normal relationships.
Understanding Biblical Separation
What I know that Paul's not saying is this: don't drop your association with the world because He's just been teaching these people, they have a ministry of reconciliation, the word of reconciliation, and they're an ambassador for Christ. Well, you can't have a ministry of reconciliation if you're not in contact with some unbelievers that need the message. Do you see, there's some great tension here? He's saying there has to be a purity in your life.
Here's my thought on this. This is a no-brainer. If you're here and you're single, and you're trying to figure out whether it's okay to marry Bob or not, and Bob's not a Christian and you're a Christian, it's not okay to marry Bob. I don't need to meet Bob, we don't need to counsel, we don't need to talk, we don't need to think this through, you don't even need to pray about it. It's like saying, should I pray about whether to commit adultery or not? No, you don't pray about that. If you're a single person, and you're a believer, you're a Christian, you don't marry an unbeliever. I don't think you even date one. That's my view.
And that's so obvious, we're not even going to spend any time on it. What's not as obvious is what about a business partnership? What about those other relationships? Because that's what He's saying here. He's not saying drop contact with the lost world. That makes no sense. Jesus models this, that you have contact.
The Key Question
What He's saying is, are you involved in any ongoing relationships that would cause you to act inconsistent with your faith? See if you're yoked with an unbeliever, and you haven't had any problems with that in that relationship, that's because you haven't hit the problem area yet. Because they're there. Especially as business gets tight. They're going to want to cut a corner, they're going to want to do whatever.
The point is, if you want to hear more about that, by the way, that message is on our church website that we did last week, evbc.org, East Valley Bible Church, evbc.org. Here's the third point, but you get that, there has to be that contact. You can't be an ambassador if you're not hanging around. Jesus gives you the principle. He said, "I didn't come here to call the righteous, it's the sinners who need repentance." And by the way, that is the majority of the people you're going
to meet in your life. That's an awesome call. God has decided, chosen, to work primarily through human beings.
As we look around the world, 7 billion people on this planet, the vast majority of them don't know Christ and are on their way to hell. They will spend eternity there. I just saw in an article, somebody showed me an article in the paper today about the large churches in Phoenix and all that stuff that goes with it. No question that the majority of people in Phoenix are on their way to hell. That's a given.
What are you doing about that? What's your thought process? Do this today when you go to work. Oh no, you're not God. You can't look in a person's heart. I got all that figured out. But do this today when you go to work. Take a cup of coffee, and stroll through the office, through the cubes and the offices, and just the best that you can, try to determine what the eternal destiny of the people in those cubes and offices are. So you're walking through hell, hell, heaven, hell, hell, hell, deepest part of hell, heaven, hell. As you're doing this, and you're out there saying, "God, give me a ministry. Should I be a missionary?" Yeah, you jerk. Where do you think God put you? Here's your mission field right here.
Do you see this? You don't need a passport and go to some country that's not allowing Americans to enter to be a missionary. You're on your way to the mission field.
Going Beyond Obligations
Number three. Jesus models this by offering assistance beyond His obligations. I'm going to take three and four and put them together. So let's do this. Number three, by offering assistance beyond His obligations, and four, by meeting needs on a multiple level.
There is a mantra that we love: not my job, man. And Jesus says, no, that isn't going to work at all. There's a centurion. He's a Roman officer. We're in Luke chapter 7. They're there to uphold the Roman martial law, oversee Israel. There's a centurion's servant, whom his master has valued highly. He's sick. He's about to die.
So Jesus went with them. He wasn't far away, and in the house of the centurion, he sent friends to Jesus. He said, "Lord, don't trouble Yourself. I don't deserve You to come all the way to my house and be under my roof. That's why I don't even consider myself worthy for You to come. But You say the word, and my servant will be healed." And Jesus says, "Listen, I tell you," as He turns to His disciples, "I tell you, I have not found such a great faith even in Israel." That was in Jesus' target market. The scripture says this, John 1:10-11. He came first to the Jew. These are Romans. But Jesus had no problem going beyond that specific need and out into the marketplace.
Meeting People at Every Level
It's very close to what we talk about in the fourth point, and that is that when you meet people, you meet them at every level. The first job I had out of college was selling paper products, paper and chemicals. And I had a neat boss. I really liked him. He was an unusual guy, and I'll tell you what, you could have done a sitcom out of this thing so easily. We had the guys that worked in the back, the warehouse guys. We had the salesmen who were just a mixed mass. But we had a gal, this receptionist, she was just awful.
In fact, the first day, this guy called me at the end of the first day, and he said, "How was it?" I said, "You know what, I think it'll be all right, but can I be honest? That gal is awful. She is terrible." He said, "I know, it's my daughter." He said, "That's my daughter. She's unemployable. She couldn't get a job anywhere else." He said, "She's awful." I said, "Oh, she is terrible."
Well, this guy, after I'm there a while, this guy's got a habit. There was an old restaurant called the Gay 90s, and he would go to this place, and he'd go to the Gay 90s every day, get there at 11:45, and they had the same table for him, and when he went in, he had a Manhattan, and he drank his Manhattan, he ordered his lunch, and then he had another Manhattan, and then he came back to work. I always found him somewhat philosophical in the afternoon.
The Difference Between Secular and Christian Leadership
And this guy was really a good guy for me in a lot of ways. He helped me, and I mean, I wasn't very coachable, but I listened to some of his stuff. But he gave me a piece of advice that at the time I thought was brilliant that is absolutely stupid. Here's what he said: "Tom, I don't care what you do at home. I don't care what the home life is like. It doesn't matter to me. Whatever you do at home, you do at home. But don't bring home to work. I'm here to help you with work. I'm here to help with these. But work is work, and home is home."
If you're a Christian, I don't think you have that luxury with your people. You're a marriage counselor, and a financial advisor, and a child psychologist, and a recovery group leader all rolled into one. That's what manager is.
Some of, I've got guys that are in business, and, you know, I want to share Christ, but when they didn't help you out, they didn't hire you to stand by the water cooler and pass out tracts. Let me help you out here, because sometimes we lose this. Business exists for this reason: to make money. Do you understand that? That's the point of business. It's not to give you a job. It's to make money. And to the extent that they aren't going to make money on you, you aren't going to be there. And that's okay. In fact, that's good. That's free market enterprise. That's part of what made America great, by the way.
But there are all sorts of opportunities to minister at work. If you're a middle management or an owner, you've got great opportunities to minister to your people, and to do it at every level. Listen to this story. It's our fourth point in our outline. Luke chapter 7, as Jesus is approaching a town gate, a dead person is being carried out. The dead person is the only son of
His mother, so he's an only child, and she's a widow. Here's what that means in that culture. That means she's done. She's lost all means of support. She just went from probably some level of subsistence down to the bottom. It's gone now. A large crowd from the town is with her.
When the Lord saw her, listen to this from the NIV: "When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her." And He said, "Don't cry." He went up and touched the coffin that those were carrying, and He said to the young man, "Get up." And the young man got up.
Well, you know what? You don't have that ability. Somebody dies in your area, they're dead. We don't even have that. This whole healing sham that's moving on—there's nobody healing. You get this. There's nobody healing anybody here. There's some guy with a bad back. You want to see healing, and you know it's not true, or you'd see it all over the place. I want to turn on one night and see a dead guy get up. Now we're healing. I want to see a guy with half a leg. I want to see a leg. Now we're healing. This other stuff isn't healing—it's smoke and mirrors. That's not biblical healing. When Jesus healed, He didn't heal somebody out there with a pain in their back. He healed a guy that's dead and brought him to life. That's healing. Now we're seeing healing.
When Your Heart Goes Out to Others
But do you see the phrase in there? Jesus' heart goes out to her. Does your heart break for the people around you? Even in this war thing, it can become—we can become so callous to it that it's antiseptic. It's almost like a PlayStation for us. There's some commentator the other night saying the POW rate has climbed to seven. I must be nuts, but I honestly thought, and I could be dead wrong, I just thought there were going to be 10, 15, 20,000 guys killed. I assume that's what's going to happen. That was my assumption.
I'm stunned that this thing is going the way it's going. I assume it's going to get very difficult, more difficult now. But the fact that there's one guy dead, does that touch you? You see that, don't you? That's real fancy because that's over there on TV. I'm talking about in your office. I'm talking about the girl down the hall whose husband has just left her and she's got no chance of making this thing. Does your heart break for that? I think it's a responsibility to meet those needs at every level.
Point Five: Suffering Ridicule While Showing Concern
Five, six, seven, and eight—we've got four points here in about 12 minutes. Number five: by suffering ridicule while He's showing concern. We use an example from Luke 8. Jesus comes into the city and begins to work in a certain setting, and it says that people laughed at Him. You want to see ridicule.
I don't think that's the best example. The best example of ridicule and embarrassment that Jesus took—abuse is a better word—Matthew 27: the Roman soldiers took Him, they beat Him, they wrapped a robe around Him, they said, "Hail King of the Jews," they blindfolded Him, they hit Him and said, "Now which one of us was it?" There's some ridicule. Then they hung Him on a cross.
Listen to this, coming up on Resurrection Sunday: they hang Him on a cross, Matthew chapter 27 verse 39, "and those passing by were hurling abuse at Him and wagging their heads and saying, 'You're the one who's going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself. If you're the Son of God, come down from the cross.' In the same way the chief priests also were among the scribes and the Pharisees are mocking Him saying, 'He saved others but He can't save Himself. He's the King of Israel, let Him come down from the cross and then we'll believe Him.' And the robbers who were being crucified, these are robbers, are now casting insults at Him." There's the ridicule.
Expect Opposition When You Take a Stand
I want you to see that as you begin to live this way and as you begin to take a stand for Christ, you need to understand people are not going to run up and say, "Man, you're a great person." I watched, years ago, I watched a Phil Donahue. God has been so good to just eradicate Phil Donahue from our public consumption. They brought him back—I don't know if you noticed—they brought him back and he could not make the interview thing work and they tried to put him in another setting and the wars helped get rid of him for now.
But he's got a show on and I mean it's like a carnival up there. He's got all this sexual perversion, weird stuff you can have. He's got guys that are girls and girls that are guys and it's not as good as Geraldo's. My favorite Geraldo was "transvestites who were their own prom dates." But I made that up.
But Donahue's got a guy on and so they got a guy that's a gal that's a guy in the morning and a gal—you're interviewing and you know what the people are saying? "Well, that's not my preference. But I'm not going to say anything. Not for me but I don't want to condemn it." He's got a guy on there, a normal looking 35-year-old man who's a virgin, and they are ripping this guy like there's no tomorrow.
I'm sitting there and I'm saying this is unbelievable. You got every deviation under the sun and we're going to allow it, and you got God's plan for a single guy and the audience is just ripping this guy apart. "What's wrong with you? Why would you do that? That's not normal." Not normal. The stage is filled with not normal. This is God's plan. That's the sixth point or the fifth point. You're going to suffer ridicule.
Point Six: Helping People Who Never Say Thanks
Here's the sixth point. God models in Christ this service by helping people who never say thanks. They never say thank you. Luke 17: as Jesus is going to the village, ten men with leprosy meet Him. Remember, leprosy is the first century version of AIDS. It's a deadly disease. Bodies are falling apart. Extremities are falling off. As they walk through town, they would have to chant, "Unclean, unclean, unclean."
Jesus meets these guys. They shout out at a distance, "Jesus Master, have pity on us." And when He saw them,
He said, go show yourself to the priest. And as they went, they were cleansed. Here's these lepers and He says, go show yourself to the priest, and they're cleansed. This is something you don't get over, leprosy. And now they're cleansed, which means they're restored, and the body parts are there. And it's white as snow, that skin fresh.
One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. And he threw himself at Jesus' feet and he thanked Him. And Luke tells us he was a Samaritan. That's significant. He was half Assyrian, half Jewish. The Jews hated this guy. They hated a lot of people. They hated this guy. Half breed.
And Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Didn't I clean them all? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?"
The Danger of Misapplied Application
Now here's what you can do real quick, and you see that the application. Here's the tendency, is for you to think about all the things you've done for all the people in your life, and all the help that you've given them, and they haven't come back and said thank you to you. I don't want you to do that.
I want you to take this example and look at your own life, and think of the absence of thanks there's been on your part, in your heart. Especially for this. I believe, and the more I'm around it and in it, the more I'm convinced it's true, that this Bible is the Word of God. And if it is the Word of God, then it's absolutely true.
The Reality of Our Condition and God's Grace
If the Bible is the Word of God and it's true, what it says is that all of us were sinners and deserve hell. I'm doing some interesting reading. I found a guy, and I'm just going to spend the next year reading this guy. And the other night I'm reading along, and he had just a throwaway line in there, and he said, "Hell is coming to knowledge too late." It's a great thought. While I'm sitting around now, maybe confused, it's going to be very clear then.
You deserve hell. You deserve eternal separation from God. You don't deserve one more breath. You don't deserve the next breath. You didn't deserve the ability to get in here on your own. You don't deserve any of this. And God, and I think the scripture does not stutter at this point, God saved you.
Understanding What It Means to Be Saved
What we mean by that, and oftentimes everybody uses that phrase, but they never define it, so it stays very confused. Well, let us define it a little bit. God, the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit saved you.
God the Father chose those that He would save before the foundations of the earth. Jesus Christ the Son died on the cross for those people, and at the appointed time, the Holy Spirit invaded their heart and caused them to be born again. You did not choose God. God chose you.
Now, you may say, there was a point in time where I had a decision for Christ, or I had faith, but the scripture is clear. You're saved by grace through faith, and that grace and that faith is not of you. It's a gift of God that no one should boast. Your salvation is entirely, solely, completely a work of God. You didn't do anything.
The Natural Response Should Be Gratitude
Wouldn't you think, on a regular basis, perhaps daily, maybe hourly, you'd be thankful for that? I mean, if hell is indeed what we think it is, and you deserve it, and you escape it, not because of who you are, or what you did, but because of God, wouldn't there be thanksgiving in a heart?
Paul tells us to pray without ceasing, right? Pray without ceasing. That's a constant attitude in our life. Well, what I see, as I read through the scripture, is that prayer and praise are almost always linked together, and praise and thanksgiving are almost always linked together. The most thankful people in the world ought to be born-again, evangelical, fundamental Christians. And we aren't, typically.
Making Time for the Helpless
Number seven, God modeled this by making time for helpless people. A blind man was sitting by the road, and when he heard the crowd was going by, he said, "What's going on?" And they said, "It's Jesus." And he called out, "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me." And they led Him by, and they rebuked him, and told him to be quiet, and he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me."
And Jesus stopped, and ordered the man be brought to Him, and when he came to Him, He said, "What do you want from Me?" And he said, "I want to see," and He said, "Receive your sight."
The True Test of Character
There are a lot of helpless people around you. How are you doing with them? I'll hear this phrase every once in a while, speaking of somebody. "He's respected by his peers. She's loved by her peers. He's loved by his peers." That didn't mean a lick to me. What do the people under him think?
So all the guys love one another at a certain level. All sorts of guys can get together and sit around, and just placate one another, and patronize one another, and then they treat the girl that brings the food to the table like a piece of dirt.
Get the org chart in the office, and sometimes it's not formal, but we all know it's there. You got all this structure, and then you got receptionist at the bottom. What do they think of you? I am not impressed that the peers respect you. I'm really impressed when custodial help can say, "Let me tell you something. He's a terrific guy. She's really something."
And they don't arrive at that unless they've seen something distinctive and different in your life as you reach out and touch them. That's what Jesus did. He didn't just hang around at the club with all the fancy guys. I'm not saying disassociate from that. All I'm saying is, the measure of how you're meeting needs is not just that group of people. It's deep.
The Ultimate Example of Service
By securing salvation by personal sacrifice. And that's Philippians 2:5. We're going to spend no time there because you know it, many of you. Have the mind in you or the attitude in you that's in Christ Jesus, who is indeed God, who empties Himself not of His deity, but of His glory, becomes a human, and dies on the cross.
It is how Paul says it in Romans chapter 5 verse 6. "For while we were still helpless at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one would hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man some would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
That thing is so rich. The whole world—I don't know anybody that doesn't think Jesus wasn't crucified. I mean, the biggest pagan in the world believes that. It's historic fact. The question is this: why was He crucified? Why did He die? And only the scripture tells us that: for your sin.
Service Is Not About Specific Tasks
Here's the point I want to make, and then we're going to let this kind of close itself somehow. When it comes to service, don't assign service to a specific task. Here's what I'll hear. I'll hear somebody say, "Oh they're really a servant," and then I'll hear some task that follows. They clean the johns, they do this.
I believe with all my heart that the person who's in front teaching, and the guy who's cleaning the johns, both roles are vital and important. Here's what I see, and maybe I'm sensitive to it, because I'm an up front guy. I hear service always equated to some task out there. Do you understand that service isn't a specific task? Service is you using the gift God's given you, to meet the needs of the body, and to proclaim the truth.
Most of you know Scottsdale Bible Church. Do you understand the guy that's mopping the floor is not doing any more serving than Daryl is when he's at the front teaching? That's a big point. Service isn't the task. Service is you doing what God's called you to do, in the unique way that He's wired you, and gifted you, and the talents He's given you. That's a very, very important point. So that you allow the service to take place around you, and in your own life, to understand what real service is.
Bringing Leadership and Service Together
We talked about leadership. We started with humility, we ended with service. It couldn't have been any better than that, to put a bow around this. You're a leader, and every one of these things applies to your life, somewhere. Business, broad application in business. Family, friends, for sure in the church.
Are you in a church, by the way? A good church? A Bible believing, Bible teaching church? This isn't church. Somebody the other day, again, I heard it. "Boy, I love to come, and I love to be part of, you know, Thursday morning is my church service." This isn't church. We're in a bar. We're doing a study. We don't have worship, we don't have music, we don't have elders, we don't have communion, we don't do discipline. This isn't a church.
You need to be in a church. If you've got a church, choose between a church in here, choose the church. And not just some church. A good, solid, Bible teaching, Bible believing church. You've got to have it, or you're not going to grow.
Next week, something. I just don't know what.
Father, help us see this truth. God, what an honor to be able to come before You as Your children, to come before You and to call You Father. God, thank You for the gift of salvation that we find in Your Son, Jesus Christ, and we find it nowhere else but in Him and Him alone. God, let us model what it means to be one of Your kids, not just to our peers, but to every person that we come in contact with. Father, we pray these things to You in Christ's name. Amen.