Power Broker Introduction
Tom Shrader begins a new series called 'Power Broker' by examining Matthew 20:20-28, where Jesus contrasts worldly power with Kingdom power. He defines power as the ability to act or produce, with God as the source who distributes it through four channels: government, family, workplace, and church. Unlike worldly power that seeks to control and climb ladders, Jesus demonstrates that true greatness comes through serving others, as He came not to be served but to serve.
“Jesus says if you want to be number one here's the way you get to the top you go to the bottom.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Power Broker
Recorded: April 06, 2006
Duration: 42 min
Themes: power, authority, service, leadership, humility, greatness, ambition, kingdom, struggling with ambition, seeking position, new to leadership, pastor, elder, workplace leader, parent, mentor
Scripture: Matthew 20:20-28, Philippians 2:1-21, Philippians 2:3, Philippians 2:5, Philippians 2:19
Theological Themes: biblical leadership, servant leadership, kingdom theology, stewardship, godly authority, discipleship, christology, biblical worldview
Full Transcript
New series today and the title of the series is Power Broker. You should be wondering what does that mean and we're going to take some time to talk to you about this. It's really interesting to me to talk about something like money. That's what we did last time. We talked about money for eight weeks and I heard over and over again that's the most unusual discussion on borrowing and lending and saving that I've ever heard. It's a very different approach because we tried to talk to you not about principles that you get from Forbes or in business school but what does God say about that? Power is a very similar situation.
If you are with us for the very first time and you're used to someone saying you'll want to come because he's very engaging and witty and funny, you're going to be a little disappointed today because there's not a lot of that in there today. Today is a pretty important lesson. Most of the time when we do a study I would say that each study is a standalone meaning you'll be okay if you pop in, get this, and go on. This study is critical to the introduction of the whole series that we're going to do, so that's really important and we'll try to put some parameters around it.
When we come into something like power and we say we're going to talk about things a little bit differently than you're accustomed, then we got to take some time on definition. We're going to talk about today really the importance of understanding and lay the groundwork of what we're trying to do. You'll see how we've subtitled this: power - how to get it, how to use it, and how to give it away.
A Mother's Request for Position
So as we start, why don't you open your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew and the 20th chapter. Matthew chapter 20 and we're going to look at an incident from the life of Christ. Let me give you the backdrop, maybe whet your appetite.
Matthew chapter 20 verse 20: there's an event that takes place. The mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons - that's James and John and their mama - bowing down and making a request of Him. Pretty self-explanatory, you get the scene here. They come, she has a request. He said to her, "What do you wish?" And she said to Him, "Command that in your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit one on your right, one on your left" - in other words, a position of honor.
Well He deals with this. He said, "You don't know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I'm about to drink?" They said to Him, "We are able." And He said, "My cup you shall drink, but to sit on the right or to sit on the left is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it's been prepared by the Father." Hearing this, the ten became indignant with the two brothers.
Now I want to stop there. We'll come back to it in a minute. I always find a little humor there because there's been a discussion previously. Remember when the disciples are walking along and they're having this conversation and Jesus comes up to them and says, "Boys, I saw you were talking. What were you talking about?" And they get kind of quiet and they shuffle their feet and they say, "You know, it's not really much. We're talking about the weather and the sun and some stuff." And then they say no, they were very silent because they were talking about what? Who's the greatest among us. Who's number one. Who will set the position of honor. Who's the top dog. Who's the ruler. Who's the CEO of this organization. Who's gonna drive this ship. Who's gonna be the master. Who's gonna be the second-in-command.
Clearly we're gonna leave Jesus where He is - let's not throw Him out yet - but above us, who's the best? And that's so human. And now when we talk about power, it's against that backdrop.
Defining Our Terms
So I'm going to work you through some points that you might have in front of you here. Let's define some terms. Power, at least according to Webster, is the ability to do, act, or produce. Power is the ability to do, to act, or to produce. A broker is the person who brings need and supply together. So I come into town and I need a house. I try to find somebody who has a house, and the broker is the one who puts the two together. There's a need, there's a supply, and the broker brokers the deal, puts it together.
I have a friend who's a food broker and he finds food. They find that this is here and they've got a truckload of this, and he finds somebody that needs a truckload of corn, and he puts the corn in touch with a guy that needs that. Well, a power broker is the person who brings people who need the ability to do, to act, or produce - in other words, they're people who need power - and brings them together with the source of that ability.
So I'm bringing not just somebody here - somebody said, "I really need this power but I don't know where to get it." You live at a time where it's popular to say, "Well, there's a power that lies within you and there's this ability that you have that's kind of inherent. And if you just really go after it, you can do it. Just get out of the way and let the real you come out." And we're saying, "Well no, that's not really true." We're gonna take a bit of a different approach as we talk about power.
Common Misconceptions About Power
There are probably some really significant misconceptions out there. When I say power in the world, it's probably this: "Here I am and I need to get some knowledge and some assets and some position, and then I need to get some people around me and drain them as much as I can so that I maintain my power base." Phrases like that - "We need to maintain our power base." "I need to hold my position." "I need to learn this."
We talk about this all the time. If you go down to ASU and interview a hundred kids that are getting ready to graduate, you say...
Why did you come to school? Almost without exception, they'll all say the same thing: so that I can get a great job. Even the knowledge they were trying to learn wasn't just to learn. Susan and I came across the idea that we don't have much in common. We don't do things together. We don't have a lot of hobbies. So we found this course on great books that have changed the world. Our plan is every night—we can't necessarily do it every night, but three to five nights a week—we watch a lesson from a professor on a book that changed the world. It's really kind of cool to do something together, and we're doing it to do something together and to learn.
Well, that's the idea. Even when I gain knowledge, I'm trying to gain—here I go to ASU to learn a bunch of stuff not so I can learn stuff, but so I can get a good job. That's what I'm about. That's the world's view of knowledge and of power: get it and hold it.
God's Distribution of Power
Remember our subtitle: get it, use it, give it away. In reality, here's how you distribute power: God's the source of power. He communicates it to a person or transfers it to a person who ultimately delivers it to another person. Now that may sound really ethereal at this moment. That's okay—we're going to fill in the gaps.
If I were to use an illustration—and I don't even know if this is right because I don't know terms—but God's like Palo Verde, the nuclear plant. Cut me a little slack here on the illustration. God's like Palo Verde. He generates the power. He distributes it to a transformer, and then ultimately that power is sent out to individual homes along the way.
Well, God does the same thing. God's a source of power, and He distributes that power through at least four channels that we find in Scripture: government, family, workplace, and church.
The Four Channels of Power
Now we may not always be able to identify all of those things. We may not be able to get everybody to rally around and embrace one singular idea. Years ago—gosh, it would be almost 30 years ago—Jimmy Carter called for a conference on the family, and they disbanded after a week because they could not agree on the definition of family. So if that was a problem 30 years ago, it might be more of a problem today.
But I, for example, don't struggle with what marriage is. I don't struggle with that because I go to the Scripture, and the One who created us and created the institution of marriage tells me what it is. It's a man and a woman permanently joined together in a monogamous situation. Now that's marriage. So when I talk about family, it's really easy for me to see that God has a plan.
Here's why I'm going to try to sell you here at this point—we're 10-15 minutes into this. Let me sell you why you need this. If you take those four institutions: government—virtually everybody in this room is involved with the government, and you're going to get real involved with them in the next 10 days or so because you're going to give them a whole bunch of money. Church—many of you are involved in church, not necessarily all of you, but many of you. Family—almost all of you are involved in a family. Work—many of you are involved in work.
So the vast majority of us in this room are engaged in at least two of those systems, probably most of you in three of them, and maybe even a good chunk of us with all four of them. How does God broker this power? He brokers it through the government, through the home, through the workplace, and through the church.
The Coming Lessons
Here's what I'm going to give you. I'm going to tell you what we're going to talk about in a little backwards order. Lesson 10 will be on the church. Lesson 9 will be on work. Lesson 8 will be on the home. Lesson 7 will be on the government.
Here's what we're going to do: we're going to talk to you about how God communicates power to you and God transfers and empowers you in these institutions. And He does it for the purpose of making that institution work. Again, I understand it's still theoretical. We're going to hone this down. We're going to put a little skin on this right now.
The Five Steps to Empowerment
If you look at your outline point D: what are the steps to empowerment? Let me give you five of them. As I do, I'm giving you lessons 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Give people proficiency. I'm going to give you these five things, then we'll come back and I'll spend a little time on them, and that'll hopefully launch us for the rest of the discussion. Proficiency—spell it the best you can. Give people ownership. Give people work. Give people encouragement. And give people release. Release is the same thing.
When we talk about proficiency, here's what we mean: we mean the right person doing the right thing in the right way. A round peg, round hole.
Give you an example. We have in our church a position that's a business administrator position. In this business administrator position, you spend the majority of your day working with a lot of numbers, a lot of charts, a lot of flow stuff. We're trying to build a building, so he's the liaison with all the construction stuff, and we're in the process of raising funds for that as well.
I would be out of my mind if I had to do that job. I mean everybody around me would be unhappy. I could not do it. Even if I could learn the skills necessary, I wouldn't want to do it. I'd be out of my mind doing that. So then I would say, "Well, what is it you think you do well?" I would say what I think I do best is teach and try to give a little bit of vision to stuff.
Then I'll sit with the guy who does the numbers, and he'll say, "Well, I could never do that." And I would say, "Well, I could never do that." My point is, that's proficiency. If you've got a guy who's wired to do numbers and you got him up front and he's doing his presentation, he's going, "This isn't very good, and I'm not very good, and I'm uncomfortable here. I don't want to do it." He's miserable. You're miserable.
everybody's miserable, so why would somebody live that way? Well, you know the answer: economic slavery. You've got yourself in a position where you have to generate this amount of cash to support the lifestyle you have, so you're miserable doing something that maybe you never really even thought about. You just were in college and somebody said, "You know, this would be a good profession," and off you go. And there you are.
Conversely, when you see somebody who's in the right place and they're so energized, it's incredible. Haley was like this when you put her in the hospital. When you take Haley and you put her in the hospital and you put her to work in the hospital, she's the right person in the right place. You've got her with people who are hurting.
The Right Person in the Right Place
They were at the airport the other day and there was a lady carrying a bunch of bags. Tyler and Haley are behind her and she's got bags all over and a little girl. She gets on the escalator—you know the escalators at Sky Harbor, those ones that are just the downhill? It's like a black diamond run to get down that escalator. Well, she gets on the escalator and loses track of her daughter. Her daughter starts to get on and then gets a little scared and backs off, so the lady's going. She's got bags, there's no turning back.
Well, there's Tyler and Haley, and they're looking, and all of a sudden they realize that there's something a little bit unusual about this girl. Well, she's autistic, so you've got a lot of issues going on. I mean, they're a machine. So Haley—Tyler said, "I'll go work with the mom, you stay with the girl."
Tyler came back and said, "You would not believe this." Here's how it should: Haley's working with this girl saying, "Hey, did you get on an airplane today?" "Yeah." "Well, what kind was it?" "Well, one that flies." And she had this girl and just calmed the girl, calmed the mom. That's Haley.
So you take her and you put her in a hospital situation with lots of people, with a lot of pressure. Haley walks in the room. She called me and she said, "Listen, Dad, there's a guy up here and you need to come and visit him." Now I'm going to give you a tip: if you go to the hospital and I come to visit you, you don't want that, because that means you're about to die. Because I don't go—I mean, if you're at our church and you go to the hospital, you have no expectation you're going to see me. That's just—I can't do all that. So if you're in the hospital and I come and visit you, I'm the Grim Reaper, my friend. They haven't told you yet, but you're on the way out. That's why I'm there.
Well, Haley called and said, "Dad, this guy says he knows you and you need to come and see him because nobody's coming to see him." So I go up. We walk in the room and I watch Haley just take charge: "Well, we got to get some ice. There's no ice here. Let me get you up here. Let me get this—you know what? That doesn't look like that's been changed." The right person in the right place. That's proficiency.
Ownership and Empowerment
The second thing is ownership. You have to give people a sense that they're part of what they're doing, that they're significant to this. You're transferring them responsibility here, and you need to give them the ability to make some decisions and to get things done.
There's nothing I hate more—I hate to go in a restaurant and say, "I know this comes only with potatoes, but could I have tomatoes?" "Well, I'll have to get the manager," because that's comparable to renegotiating a missile treaty. Just give me the tomatoes! The tomatoes are less—I don't understand it. And I'm sure there's reasons and all those things, but you have these poor people. And you can tell a lot about a restaurant, especially if it's not a chain but a small one. You can tell a lot about the owner by the freedom that the server has and whether they're part of the deal. And if you're working someplace and going, "You know what? Talking about a muffin? That's a pretty big deal. I'll have to get my boss," you haven't empowered that person very well or given them a sense of ownership.
Teaching Work Ethic to a New Generation
You have a generation which is pretty interesting that really needs to learn to work. I think there's never been a generation where kids have worked less, so you have to teach them a work ethic. But generally, I don't think most people on a job are lazy. Now, I mean, you may argue—you may say you've never been to my place—but I don't think most people are lazy. I just think they're kind of engaged in stuff that doesn't have much meaning to them, and they've never been told that what they're doing is important.
I sat down with our staff on Tuesday. We had two special events last week, and our staff came in and absolutely knocked it out of the park. They worked long hours, extra hours—it was not part of their job description. And I went down and I said, "I want you to know we really value that. That's really important to us. We'll try to make it up to you and try to get a little air along the way, but what you did is really significant." And not one of them asked for any more money. They just felt, "You know what? It's really nice to know that somebody recognizes what we're doing and that our work is really important."
But when I sit with our maintenance staff, I say, "Look, it's really important what you do, guys. It really matters that this place is clean. It's not just 'lie, solid, and get out.' This is our home. This is where guests come. This is representative of how we view our relationship with God and the stuff He's given us." And you can do a lot of work.
I read a book years ago—it wasn't "How to Win Friends and Influence People"—it was "How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People." That was the title. And in it, this guy's talking about work, and he's talking to this guy, and it's driving this guy nuts. He's saying, "We're making"—I can't remember what they produced, but widgets—"We make a hundred widgets a day." And he said, "It's driving me nuts because I know we can make more of them." So he gave the
A guy got an idea and tried it. Here's what he did: he went in on Friday with his 15 employees and said, "We're all even. We make a hundred widgets a day. We're all even. As soon as we make a hundred widgets, when we get a hundred widgets made, we're out of here." Everybody got it. They made a hundred widgets in three hours instead of the usual eight.
He came back in Monday and said, "Okay, here's what we've proven. We can make a hundred widgets in three hours. Here's what I think—there's 15 of you, I think we can do it with 13. So what we're going to do is fire two of you. We're going to take the money from those two and not put it in my pocket as the owner. I'm going to distribute it to the other 13 to motivate you, because we're not going to make 800 widgets a day." At the end of this study, everybody was happier. They were making more money, they were working harder, there was production. Everything has meaning in that.
The Power of Encouragement
Here's the fourth thing: people need encouragement. A lot of people are writing at this point. It makes sense to give people encouragement. I'm not the best at this—I'm getting better—but I know the power of it.
Let me reverse it, because when we get there we'll talk about discouragement, but I know how to rip people apart. I'm not smart, but I have a quick mind and a very unredeemed tongue. I'll give you a great example. I'm standing at the door a couple of months ago and a guy walks in, never seen him before. He said, "Hey, good to see you. If I give you some money, will you cut your hair?" I said to him, "If I give you some money, will you join a gym?"
Now that's probably not... You're all sad because you couldn't think that fast. But that's the first thing I thought of: "You fat pig, you're telling me to cut my hair." I understand how disrespectful that is. You may have seen just a dark side of my heart.
Here's what I know: the minute I said it, I thought, "Oh my gosh, that's the wrong thing to say." But it felt good, and I didn't want to offend him anymore, so I let it go. I said something in a meeting yesterday, and the minute I said it, I thought, "That is the wrong thing to say." The minute the meeting was over, I went to the person and said, "Listen, did it hurt you when I said that? Because that was inappropriate." He said no, because he knew I was kidding. I said, "That's not right." So I told everybody in the meeting what I had said, and one of the guys said he didn't even catch it. Well, that's because it wasn't you on the receiving end.
If that hurts, then I know how well encouragement feels. I'm not talking about lying to people. I'm talking about just telling them the truth, and they have to have with that some level of success.
Learning from Coach Wooden
I had a great opportunity about a month ago on a Monday to just get on a plane and fly over to Burbank. They picked me up and I went up and spent the afternoon with Coach John Wooden at his house. It was just this unbelievable experience, and we talked about a thousand things.
As we're talking, I said, "You know, Coach, I really don't want to talk about all the stuff I can read about. I want to talk about a whole bunch of other things. Like, I want to talk about what was it like when you didn't win a title for 15 years?" He had a great line, by the way. He said, "Those were the best years at UCLA." He said, "I have a lot of friends who I wish could win an NCAA title. I got a lot of guys I don't like—I wish they'd win three or four." Really gives you an insight there.
We were talking about character, and we were in his little den. It's just a little room, and it's like this living trophy case, but there's not one picture of a player in there—only pictures of teams. As we're talking, he said, "Look, if you have a whole lot of talent and I don't have any talent, I can't probably beat you. But if you have a lot of talent and I have some talent, we can begin with character and practice. We can begin to develop to where I can compete with you and maybe even beat you."
Encouragement in Action
I can't just throw encouragement at somebody and say, "Oh, you're a great player" when you aren't. But when you're there and you're looking for a way to help somebody along, even to recognize a small little milestone...
I had this great experience. I coached girls' basketball, fourth and fifth grade. I committed to do it for two years. I took Sarah through fourth and fifth grade, so I did two years. The whole time, we lost one game, and it was because I really made some coaching errors. I didn't react quickly enough to some things that were done to us, and I should have been able to correct it. So when we lost, I said, "Hey girls, we lost. My fault."
That's what I told them at the beginning. I said, "Okay, here's the deal. First meeting—we're all here to have fun, and that means me too. So what's going to be fun for me is when I ask you to do something, you do it. If I ask you to do something and you don't do it, I'll ask you one more time. If you don't do it, I'm going to write you a check for $27, because that's what your parents pay to have you here. Then I'm going to give it to you, and when you go home, you're never coming back. That's it." Then I wrote a letter to the parents and explained the strategy. In two years, I never had a problem.
I said to them, "I don't care if we win or lose. We're all going to play 50% of the time." Well, I didn't really care if we won or lost until the jump ball of the first game. Then I started caring a little bit. I cared a lot. I mean, I really did care.
I'll never forget—we're getting ready for our very first game. It's Friday night, we're playing Saturday, and I'm wired. It's like the NCAA finals. I said, "All right, anybody have any questions?"
"I have a question, Mr. Schrader."
"Yes?"
"What color ribbons are we going to wear in our hair tomorrow?"
I was coaching basketball, and we had one little girl I could never quite reach. I worked with her, loved on her, and tried to encourage her. I'm not really a touchy-feely person, but I'd hug her and try to build her up. She was quiet, and I'd had her for two years, playing her half of every game, trying to be strategic about when to put her in.
We're playing the next to last game, and here was our strategy: if you get the ball and you can get a shot, just shoot. At this stage, most of the time they never even get a shot off, so just shoot because that's like a pass anyway—just throw it up there. This girl gets the ball, and it's like a movie somehow. She's at about the free-throw line when the ball comes to her. I don't know that she's ever touched the ball in a game. She looks at the ball, she looks at me, and I'm going "shoot, shoot!" All of a sudden she just goes for it and throws it up—absolutely nothing but net.
Now everybody's running, nine kids are going the other way, but this little girl is looking around. I'm thinking, what is she looking for? She's looking for her daddy or mommy in the stands. She runs over and high-fives her dad. The next day at practice, this girl I could never get to opens up and says, "I need somebody to help me demonstrate." She volunteers: "Let me help."
It's encouragement combined with a little bit of success. If you watch for that success and put it together, you have something. Is she ever going to be a basketball player? No. But you know what? That might help her be a better server or waitress or mom or surgeon.
The Ultimate Goal: Releasing People
Here's the last thing: release people. The whole point of government and family and church and the workplace is not to put people in bondage but to release them.
Let's talk about parenting. The biggest mistake I'm seeing in parenting among people who you would say are good parents is fear-based parenting. They're parenting out of fear right now. They're scared to death that Lucy is going to get some of the dirty stuff of the world on her. They're scared to death that Biff is going to go south. So the parenting is out of fear, and they're holding on.
The whole point here is not to hold on to your kid. First of all, it's not your kid—it's God's kid that He entrusted to you. Not to make him dependent upon you. It's not a show pony for you. It's not to trot him out: "Oh my, she's a beautiful girl, you must have great genes. He's a heck of a boy, you must be really something. Your DNA must be special—get you to the sperm bank today, you're something really incredible."
No, it's so that you can take that kid and release the kid. It's the same thing in work. It's not to control these people. I have seven guys on staff right now, the oldest of which is 29. I don't for one second think that those seven guys are going to spend the rest of their career working with me. It isn't going to happen—maybe one, maybe two. But I'm throwing the same effort into all seven of them because it just isn't about this place, this organization. It's about God's kingdom, and ultimately it's about what's best for that person. If you're a boss, that's ultimately what you're looking for.
The Consequences of Control
If you don't do this, a couple of things happen. Number one, people are going to manifest insecurity. They're going to be all over the map, very insecure, scared about everything. They're going to be very immature. They're going to be insecure and immature because they've never learned how to think. They've never learned how to substitute the muffin for the potato—they've never learned how to think. They've never received any ownership.
Ultimately, they're going to be indifferent because you can't live there very long. When you have a highly micromanaged situation, you're setting yourself up for people who are indifferent.
I'll give you a great example. I was at the worst McDonald's in the world. I walked into this McDonald's—and we understand McDonald's, they've sold 100 billion burgers. I don't normally eat junk food, just like I try not to buy junk bonds. Something that starts with "junk" isn't good for you. But I'm coming along, I'm starving, I'm trying to get home, it's late, so there's McDonald's.
I go into this McDonald's and say, "I'll have a double cheeseburger." "We're out of cheeseburgers." I said, "Out of cheeseburgers? That's kind of a staple here, isn't it? It's a key part of what you do. It's fundamental—McDonald's burgers. It's like a board association." "Well, we didn't get the order in."
There was an assistant manager scurrying around, and I said to him, "Is this a franchise or a company-owned store?" He said, "Well, it's a company-owned store." What a shock that is—that's why I asked the question. There's not a franchisee on the planet that would allow that to happen. But when you're distant and removed, it becomes "We didn't really get the order in. Maybe it won't be a big cheeseburger day." And it never happens, and nobody at this level says, "Hey boss, we didn't have cheeseburgers." "Not my job—I've never really been empowered."
You'll have insecurity, immaturity, indifference. If it stays there long enough, what you're going to have is insurrection.
You'll have a bunch of little punks like you have in France running around saying you really want us to work four hours a day, we're gonna burn this building down, because you've never been taught anything. If you've never been raised with that, you've never been empowered to do these things, you'll get a situation where you're gonna get "I'm mad as hell and I won't take it anymore."
Now is this contrary to world thinking? Absolutely. It's contrary to the way the world thinks.
The World's Way vs. Jesus' Way
Look back at your passage in Matthew chapter 20. Here's how the world thinks. Jesus calls these guys to Himself and He said, "You know the rulers of the Gentiles, they lord it over them. Their great men exercise authorities over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you should be a servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you should be a slave, for just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, to give His life a ransom for many."
When you're talking about power, it's not the natural leader or the world leader. Naturally my reflex is to be like James and John - maybe not that bold, but to say I want this position, I want this power, I want people coming to me.
I'm talking to a guy not long ago who's in the dairy business and he said to me, "You know the problem with our industry?" And I said, "Obviously not." He said, "Everybody in it is selfish." About a week later I'm talking to a CEO guy and he says, "Every company that I know - major company, publicly owned company - when the dollar hits the table will compromise their ethics." Now I'm really cynical and I said, "Really?" He said, "I'm telling you, in every situation I've ever been in, the minute the dollar hits the table these people will screw you."
That's the world. So if we're building a building, what do we do? Well we got to hire an architect, then we got to hire a contractor, then we got to hire a liaison to make sure the architect and the contractor aren't screwing us, then we got a guy to watch the liaison. We got layers and layers and layers of covering ourselves - checks and balances. Why do we have checks and balances? Because if we don't, you'll screw each other. That's just the way we are.
A Completely Different Way of Thinking
All of a sudden when we're saying here's a whole new way of thinking, Jesus says, "I know that's the way the world does business. I know the world says if you can rip somebody off, rip them off. But here's what I'm saying to you - you don't try to go to the top in Jesus."
This is very, very, very different. In the world it says if you want to be number one, you better climb to the top of the ladder. In Jesus' world He says if you want to be number one, here's the way you get to the top: you go to the bottom. Jesus didn't come to be served, to be worshiped, to be honored. He came to serve.
Zig Ziglar used to say it this way: "You can get anything you want if you help people get what they want." President Reagan used to have that little plaque on his desk that said, "You can accomplish great things if you don't care who gets the credit." It's all the same idea - that you're here to serve.
In fact, you live in a time where everybody has a purpose statement and a business statement and all that. Jesus' business statement or purpose statement is right there in Matthew chapter 20 verse 27 and 28: "The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."
The Mind of Christ
I'm away from us, but let me give you a reference and let you do a little bit of work there. Philippians chapter 2 - read through the first 21 verses. Philippians chapter 2 in verse 3, Paul said this: "Don't do anything from selfishness, empty ambition, selfishness, conceit, but be concerned about others." That's the principle.
Verse 5 he gives you the role model: "Have the mind in you that was also in Christ Jesus." Here's what Jesus did. Here's what this looks like. Because even when we say what's it mean to serve? What's it mean to yield? And you see what He said: "Have the mind in you."
I think most of you've been around - even if you don't believe it, you could at least parrot the answer - that one of the big desires for us as Christians is to be like Christ. Well this begins by thinking like Christ. You see why that beginning of that Philippians passage: what's your motive? Don't be selfish, don't be involved in selfish ambition. Think like Jesus.
Now when you think like Jesus, it may not have the happy ending you would have liked. He went to the cross and died.
Paul's Example of Selfless Leadership
Is it rare to think this way? In Philippians chapter 2 verse 19, Paul says to this church at Philippi, "I'm gonna send to you a guy. He's my best guy. I don't have anybody else that's as kindred a spirit of mine as this guy. I'm gonna send you a guy that's just like me. He's as close as you have to me. I can't get there, I'm sending my best representative. In fact," he says, "I don't have one other person like this guy."
Now if we hit the pause button there and we say, "Wow, we're getting this new pastor." We're at Scottsdale Bible Church, we're looking for a new guy, we're gonna get a guy. What are we gonna get? We got Paul's best guy. Oh man, I bet he can really preach. I bet he can really preach. I bet what he does - I bet he's a real administrator, because it's kind of complex now. We got all these different campuses. That's a tough one. We've got this, we've got that - an administrator, organizer, operator.
Paul said, "I'm sending the best I got." You know what His credential is? He said, "He's the only one - no one else like him - he thinks about you rather than himself." There's the quality they gotta have. The other things... I got that. What an amazing point.
The Essential Nature of Humility
How critical is humility and selflessness to the Christian life? It's essential. First of all, it never begins without it. "Blessed are the poor in spirit" - spiritually bankrupt. It's not thinking like the rest of the world. It's not thinking naturally. It's thinking supernaturally. So whether you are a power broker, a person in government, or a person in...
The whole idea here is for you to love God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself, and to begin to transfer power so that when somebody spends a half hour with you, when they walk away they're better off for the half hour.
That's what I try to say to our guys at church. Here we are—we're asking parents to give us your junior high and high school kid. Actually, we would say even start earlier, but give us your junior high and high school kid and we're going to have this kid for four or five or six years, whatever. What should a parent expect from us? What should that kid experience from us?
Our Responsibility to Transfer Power
I talked to a parent the other day and said, "I want my kid to have a life-changing experience at summer camp." Well, two people are going to control that: one's the Holy Spirit, the other's your kid. We can't change your kid, but we have a responsibility to try to teach these principles and love that kid and encourage that kid and empower that kid and present that you can live a transformed life.
The Power of the Resurrection
I've been trying to—this is the worst time of year because you got to think of something to say on Easter. I mean, I have no idea. "He's risen" always comes to mind, but I'm kind of going, that's somewhat self-evident—that's why we're here.
So I'm trying to think, and I keep coming back to the phrase "resurrection power." Resurrection power. What does that mean? Well, that means not only the fact that I don't go to hell but I can go to heaven, but it must mean something about here and now too. That's what we're going to talk about.
We're going to begin next week by talking about the power of proficiency: right person, right place, right gift set, right job.
Father, help us see this truth. God, we acknowledge You as the sole source of power in life. We love You because You first loved us. We pray that our life would have meaning and purpose because we know You—the good and the true, the one creator—and we know Your son Jesus. Father, we pray to You in His name. Amen.
Have a great week. We'll see you next week.