While I was off having read that book I was thinking a lot about servitude. I liked that. I'm very passionate about thinking about servitude. Actual servitude, not so much. Thinking about servitude, that's easy. Thinking about it is fun, it's inspiring, cost you nothing. Actually serving other people, that's a different matter. Actually serving other people, that's costly. That can be tiring, big, exhausting. It's not always that rewarding. Sometimes the people you're trying to serve, they don't appreciate it very much. You know the old no good deed goes unpunished, that's very true sometimes. You did something for somebody else with the best of intentions and man gets thrown back in your face. So why do it? Why serve others? Because that's what Jesus called us to do. Jesus calls us to be served. The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as ransom for many. He calls us to follow in his footsteps. He came to die, he came to give his life for us to empower us and to equip us to serve others, to give our lives away, to serve others in his name. That's what he came for, that's what he calls us to do as well. It's interesting that in this final verse here, the choice of words he used, that he gave his life as a ransom for many. The Greek word he used here is Lutron, and it simply means to buy back a slave out of captivity. If you had a slave that ran away from you, it was captured by somebody else, and you wanted me back, you had to pay a ransom to get him back. And that word to buy some of my back out of bondage is ransom, Lutron. Jesus came to redeem us to buy us back out of bondage. So the question, naturally, the innerizes bondage to what? What are we in bondage too? I'm glad you asked. Jesus came to set us free from the bondage to our radical self-centeredness. He came to set us free from our radical self-centeredness. Now the context of the passage here, I just read it, I didn't set it up for you. The context here is, Jesus and the twelve are on their way into Jerusalem for the final time. This is the final approach in Jerusalem. He has told them three times at least. He's told them at least three times what awaits him in Jerusalem is suffering and death. They either weren't paying attention, or they just didn't quite get it, or didn't penetrate the thick skulls the disciples could be so thick sometimes, or they thought he was telling them another parable, but they don't get that he needs literally, he is going to suffer to be beaten, to be flogged, to be crucified, and to die and they don't get it. Listen, you sometimes have a hard time understanding the Bible, the written word of God? These men lived with Jesus for three plus years and they still didn't get it, and they lived with the living word of God. So don't feel bad, you're a good company, stay at it, it'll come to you if you stay at it awhile. So now while they're on their way into Jerusalem, having been told by Jesus what awaits him, you would think that their primary concern would be compassion and care for Jesus for their master. You would think that their talk would be, what can we do for him? How can we minister him in this time of need? Instead they're jockeying for a position when he comes and does kingdom. They're jostling and elbowing one another for a position when he comes and does kingdom. They didn't hear the talk about suffering and death, they didn't pin it in very well, but they heard the stuff about Jesus coming into his kingdom. They heard that loud and clear, loudly and clearly, a few English majors. They heard that all right, and here James and John was some very definite ideas about what Jesus's cabinet looked like. The teacher, we want us to do for you, whatever we do for us, whatever we ask of you. What do you want? I want to sit you right here in your left hand. Now the text doesn't tell this, but I've got brothers, I can assure you that after they got that asking Jesus for this, James and John, we're wrestling to see who got the right hand. He's on his way to his coronation on a cross, and they're consumed with who's going to sit where around his throne. Talk about people who just don't get it. It would be easy for me to sit here this morning and be critical to the disciples. It's very easy for me to criticize them or lose James and John. They're being very shallow, very self-centered here. They're following Jesus in terms of, what's in this for me? What's in this for me? The mistake that they make here is thinking of following Jesus in terms of elevating or exalting themselves. Not Jesus. They're not concerned with exalting him, they're concerned with exalting themselves. It would be easy for me to criticize them this morning, but I'm not going to do that. Why? Because I'm just like them. I'm just like them. That's right. I'm a pastor. I'm a preacher. I've been doing this for years and I can be so concerned with what I get out of this, what's in this for me? I can be so concerned with exalting and elevating myself to the exclusion of elevating and the exaltation of the Christ. Quite a few years ago, many in Robert Bella wrote a book called Habits of the Heart where he looked at the American landscape. He said this. He said, the dominant ethos in America is radical individualism. Radical individualism. The individual is supreme. And he found that Americans had two overriding concerns, two overriding goals, vivid personal feelings and personal success. The two top priorities among Americans. He said what they wanted out of their primary institutions, out of business, from business they wanted personal advancement, from marriage, they wanted personal development, from the church, they wanted personal fulfillment, personal advancement, personal development, personal fulfillment. What's the theme here in the common thread? The personal is supreme. The personal is the dominant concern. Now you might think that we in the church, we would see through what this is. There's nothing more, nothing less than just rank idolatry. It's just idolatry. Instead of worshiping the one true God, we worship ourselves. Good friend of mine said in the one time, if we had that episode of the golden calf today in America, we'd melt down our gold, we'd build an image of ourselves, we worship at the altar of our own ego. You'd think that we in the church would see through this that we would see that we're not supposed to do the opposite of our own worship, but we're seduced into it just as well. Look at how we try to attract people, a lot of our churches, sermon series on how to be successful in business, how to be successful in marriage, how to be successful in life, three keys to a stress-free life, God's blueprint for your happiness. Listen, I'm for success. I'm for stress reduction. I'm all for happiness. There's nothing wrong with any of those things, but when we try to attract people with dangling that kind of bait, what are we exalting? It's not God. It's not that we owe him our utmost for his highest. I was, what can you do for me, God? Can you make me happy? Can you make me succeed? Can you lower my stress? I'm all for it. Nothing wrong with those things, but that's not what the gospel is about. The real God has been bumped down off his throne as many of our churches and many of our own personalized. I wonder what would happen if we put on the marquee signout front. I wonder if we put on there five steps to broken this before the Lord. How about how to be holy even if you are suffering for dying? How about free power principles for getting over yourself? You put those out there. You think you'd attract anybody in? I don't either. I don't either. I don't know the one who got it. There doesn't be more good than that, but I don't think that would help. I don't know if anybody would come, but I'll tell you this, it would be more faithful to the gospel. If we told the truth that the gospel is about denying ourselves taking up our cross and following Jesus, and that is the road to fulfillment success. It's not pursue what's in for me, but pursue Jesus and let him then supply for my needs. Jesus came to set us free from our radical self-centeredness. Even those of us who've known him for years and years, maybe even especially those of us who've known him for years and years, he came to set us free from our self-centeredness. He came to set us free from our power struggles. He came to liberate us from the bondage to our petty power struggles. James and John asked for seats of honor in the kingdom. And Jesus says, it's not mine to give. Now what happens next is predictable enough. The other 10 may find out about it, they're furious with James and John. They're incensed with him. So Jesus calls them together and he says, listen, boys, I understand. I know you're ticked off with James and John who are literal biological brothers. I know you're ticked off with the two brothers. I understand that. Instead of acting like my disciples, they acted like a couple of pagans. They acted like a couple of godless Gentiles. They acted just like the world. I understand what you're mad at them. They stooped to the level of the Romans who've held us under their heel for all these many years. We know how they behave. They lured it over us. They abused their power. And everyone of the disciples said, that's right. It's exactly how those filthy Gentiles asked. When Jesus, how those filthy Gentiles act. And Jesus, when you take power, when you're on the throne, we're going to see how they like being under our feet. This was going through their minds. It would have been mine too. The good Jesus says them, 43, not so with you. Instead who wants to be great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. James and John, you want the inside track. You want positions of prestige and power not so with you. That's not how it works in my kingdom. Peter, Andrew, Matthew, all the rest of you, including you, Judas, maybe especially you Judas. You're dreaming of the day. You can knock that Roman eagle off of its pillar and grind it into dust. That's not how it is my kingdom. Jesus says not so with you, my kingdom, my kingdom. We define greatness. Not by power, not by prestige, not by position, not by who gets the corner office on the top floor and preferred parking spaces. We define greatness, not by who gets his way, but in my kingdom, we define greatness by servitude, submission, humility. That's hard for them to understand. In the Roman Empire and in the whole Greek thinking world, humility was not considered a virtue. Humility was considered a mark of failure. Your humble because you're a failure. Humility was considered a mark of shame. It was not considered a compliment to tell somebody you're a really humble person. Then Jesus comes along and says, you know, the world, you've got it all backwards. You've got it all upside down in the world. Humility and servitude are good and excessive pride what the Greeks would call hubris. That's a sin. Jesus said, you've got it backwards, upside down. It was a massive paradigm shift for them. It's still a pretty radical paradigm shift for us. You know, in the Islamic world, 1.2 billion under this way of Islam, they did not consider humility a virtue at all. In fact, one of the reasons why they refused to believe that Jesus was true to the Son of God because they identified himself as a servant. They said, not your son of Allah would ever be a servant. They don't get it. Servanthood is the road to greatness in Jesus' kingdom. It's difficult for us. We compliment people by saying that they're humble and they're in selfish. The boy we want, but we want when we want it. It's hard to let the other guy have his way or let the other group have their way. And when we do sometimes, sometimes when we do, we say, okay, we'll let you have your way. We'll let y'all have y'all's way. We do that when we sit in the corner and we do it with an attitude of, well, fine. That's how you're going to be able to just have your way. And I'll go to my little corner and I'll sit and I'll talk badly about you in Christian love. You don't do that, of course, but other people do. Jesus came and set us free from the burden of our personal grievances. He came to liberate us from the tyranny of always having to get our own way. Always having to get our own way. It happens in churches too. I get it about it. It happens in churches too. We pay a little power plays in our personal struggles, turf wars. We're guilty of it in the church. Why? Because it's full of sinners. Because the church is full of sinners, I'm looking at a bunch of them. You're looking at one too. We're not immune from any of the sins, any of the institutes of what goes on outside the church. It goes on in the church too because we're sinners just as much as they are outside the walls of this place. I know I've mentioned this to you before. The single most ridiculous thing I ever heard of church split over. It was the color of the choir robes. One faction wanted gold, one faction wanted purple. I just split the church. That's not urban legend. I knew somebody in that church. They told me about that church. I wasn't in Miami. Thank God. We have our own versions of those things. I'm sure it wasn't that one issue. I'm sure that was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Can you imagine? That said, purple robes go this way. Gold robes go that way. See, when we do those kinds of things, we make the church a laughing stock to the world. We undermine what credibility we have. We cannot pursue our mission to love God, to love others, to go into the world and proclaim the gospel and make disciples. We can't do those things. We're engaged in these intramural debates. We undermine our own credibility. We sap our energies and our strength and we do that. More importantly, these things, they grieve the heart of God Almighty. They bring shame on the bride of Christ, the bride of Christ, the church for whom the bridegroom Jesus gave up his life. He gave his life of the church and we bring shame on the body of Christ and the bride of Christ. It is such an approach to the honor of Christ. He came to set us free from our radical self-centeredness, from our petty power struggles. He came to set us free from those things and to serve others. He came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. He calls us to follow in his footsteps. Listen carefully when I'm about to say to you. Please listen carefully to what I'm saying here. People do not care if we're the world's greatest of theologians. If you're new to us, we're really glad you're here. Let me explain something to you about Presbyterians or maybe you already got an image of us. Well, we bring to the body of Christ, I'm generalizing here, but what we bring to the body of Christ, more than anything else is, we're good theologians. We do doctrine very well. If you think of the body of Christ as real body, we're the left cerebral hemisphere of the body of Christ. We're not the only ones who were some of the foremost, and we're good at it, and that's good. That's our offering the body of Christ. But here, now, people outside the walls of this place don't really care about how good we are at theology. They don't really care about how good we are at doctrine. They care about whether we reach out to them, whether we try to serve them, whether we move into their lives with the good news of God's love for lost men and women. Can we? That's one of the reasons. One of the big reasons why our PCA churches are not only not growing, but they're shrinking here in this town. That's one of the reasons. We're good at theology. We have not been good at engaging our culture. We have not been good at reaching out to serving as some of you are. God bless you, and so I'm not talking to you. But for us as a whole, for us at large, people are not going to flock in here to hear me wax eloquent about matters of doctrine and theology. Again, don't misunderstand me. They are important. I have spent the majority of my life, the vast majority of my life studying the Bible, and I spent the vast majority of my adult life seeking further theological training, so I couldn't know this stuff. And I will tell you that people go to other churches, but whatever the reasons are, it is not all unusual. For me to get a phone call from somebody I know that goes to another church and say, yeah, but look, I've got this theological problem, I've got this philosophical dilemma, and nobody in my church can help me. Can you talk to me? I just want to say, yeah, for a fee. I don't, but that's my sin. You know, I need to tend to my flock, and you want me to take care of these, but that's what we bring to the body of Christ. So don't misunderstand me. Those things are important. They're just not the only thing that's important. They're not what Jesus said would be the mark of His disciples. It wasn't theological sophistication. It was, do you love one another as I have loved you, do you extend that love to lost and hurting? It's a cold world people. It's a cold world, and cold people are drawn to a fire, not a discussion of the properties of fire, but you have to have heat and fuel and an oxidizing agent and some sort of a triggering of an attribute mechanism. They don't care. Cold people need to be warmed by a fire. Hungry people. They need food. They don't need a cookbook. They don't need a YouTube video on how to prepare a five-course French meal. They need to be fed. Thirsty man needs a drink of water. He doesn't need a dissertation on the physical property. We take two molecules of hydrogen. You combine it with one molecule of oxygen, and then you have, no, they need a drink of water, and that's what we need to give to them in Christ's name. I'm calling our church. I'm calling our church. I'm a President of the Church to make this year 2014 a year of service. I'm calling on us to be the kinds of people that Jesus is talking about here who reach out to meet the real needs of not just to study it, not just to discuss it. I told you this before, but the word study, the verb study, appears twice in New Testament, twice. One of them is a negative. Jesus says to the third sectelist. Jesus says to the Pharisees. Thank you. It's a big word I've never said before. You said to the Pharisees, you study the Scriptures. You study the Scriptures. You study the Scriptures, and you miss me. Paul says to the Timothy, studying to show yourself a proof of them to God is a workman, does not need to be ashamed. That's the only positive, the only positive use of the word study in New Testament. The verb serve occurs in one form or another 44 times in the New Testament. Do you think God's trying to tell us something? That's study. Absolutely. Read your Bibles, please. Every Christian ought to. God's word is people. It can be more important. We must get beyond studying brothers and sisters. I'm calling us to make this a year of service. Servant is love with the sleeves rolled up with his work boots and his gloves on. That's what servanthood is. Love put into action. Love put into actual real movement. What would that look like? Let me just tell you. Let me feel back to the current a little bit because if you're new here, you haven't been very involved. You know what it takes to make this happen on Sunday mornings? You see me. You see the worship leaders. Maybe you see Bob and Jim when you come in and they put a bolt in your hands. You don't see everybody else that's had to make this place work on Sunday morning. People who open up and lock up. The people who take care of the grounds. We pay a crew to come in here a couple of times a month and do something heavy lifting. We've got other people. I'm not going to name their names because they don't like it when I do. Make sure this place looks good. It's cleaned up. It's swept that their branches are picked up outside and the walkway looks good. The people who make sure the air conditioning is running. Thank God. Thank God we live in Miami. We're in the air condition this morning. Amen. Thank you God that I live here now. People make sure the lights are on and the sound system is working. You only notice it when it doesn't work right. With 99% of the time the sound system is working just right and you can hear us. There are people behind the scenes who've made that happen. Sunday morning yes and before Sunday morning. The slide you see up on the screens here. Somebody had they didn't generate themselves and fall into order and the power for a slide. They put themselves on a thumb drive and get over here. The slides were generated and they've gone over and they've been proofread and they've been formatted. And then somebody's got to push the button to advance them. The bulletin you read. A lot of work went into that and it's been edited and proofread and then run off and folded. And the guys hand them out to you in the bulletin. We need people to help greet others so that when somebody gets out of a car here they haven't gone three steps where somebody says I'm glad to see it. You need help. Let me walk you to where you need to go. You can use more people and children's ministry. You see Gail and the other volunteers who get up and go out with our kids. We could use more. You need more kids too if you got them. Some of you might need to make a few more. You know who I'm talking to. We can use how we can use how in Christian education. Show them for a class. Sunday morning. Come to Sunday night worship service. A lot of work goes into that as well six p.m. on Sundays. Come join me on Wednesday nights seven. I'm not starting this week. I'll be starting a new one soon. Pray Sunday mornings 10 30 every Sunday morning. People gather in the inspiration room to go in there and pray Thursday evenings at seven. There's a group of faithful prayers who gather over the administration conference room to pray. Channel Christian school and early start. They could use volunteers. They can always volunteer help. The younger people want you to adopt a grandparent in here. If you're mobile, you need help around the house. I've deputized all of our younger people. That we have rain, which is pretty common here on Sunday mornings. We buy about four or five big golf umbrellas. I've deputized everybody's ambulatory. Sunday mornings for the train. We'll put those umbrellas out. Don't ask. Pick one up and go out to the car and help other people get in. After the service means you got to be here on time by the way. You know who I'm talking to. You got to be here on time early to help other people. Stick around after the service and walk people to their cars. You don't have to ask. Just pitch in and do it. Adopt a single parent. We have a number of them in this church. Man, they need help. I know how hard it is to be a parent with two parents raising kids. You can't imagine doing it on my own. Adopt a single parent. Adopt a grand father. Adopt a single parent. Write a note of encouragement. You don't have to go to seminary Bible college to know how to write a note of encouragement. The email is okay. Texting is okay. Twitter and Instagram. Those things are all right. The man the power of the handwritten note. The appearance of your mailbox or something. I just want you to know how much I appreciate. I write a lot of those. But I'm going to try to write more this year. I really appreciate you. You can ask me occasionally how I'm dealing with that. You can hold me accountable. Pick up the phone and call somebody. Just to say, hey, man, I just wanted to tell you I'm praying for you. I know some of you do that. God bless you. What an encouragement it is to other people beyond the bounds of our church. I know very Smith trying to get our connections group to adopt Lee Wood School to move into there in a good news manner and say we're here to serve you to adopt this school. They serve the football team of Booker T. Washington. I know that's why they won the state championship and then the national championship because we serve in food. A little known fact. Help Brian, the guy's youth for Christ. Ask Brian if you can use some help or something. If you're scared to death of those terrifying creatures called teenagers, high schoolers, just say, hey, man, can you use 20 bucks to take him to get some pizza? I guarantee you can. Get on his monthly support team. Just tell him you're praying for him. Help Bob. I was asked to go to Habitat. Getting ready to go to the thousands house, right? Bob here in Miami. Yeah, getting ready to do the thousands house. If you can swing a hammer or saw a board and two, great. Go do that. If you can't do that, just ask for you to come and carry water to the people who are up on the roof who are serving or putting in the drywall. There are a thing you can do beyond the bounds of this church. If you're able to do it, if you're not physically able and some of you are not, I understand that. You know, I understand. Then just commit yourself to pray for those who will get on our missions team. Mark and I know as the team. They can use some more people. There's a lot of work for very few people. They can use some help. Pigeon, listen. If you have a pulse, you have a purpose. You are not here to be window dressing in the body of Christ. You are here to serve a purpose. We have no excess members of this church. There are no surplus crew on the ship of the church. There are no surplus passengers. Everybody's crew. Everybody's called to serve. The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom from me. He calls us to do the same. We're just saying it. A rise. Let the church arise. Let love reach to the other side. You can't do that sitting in here or even sitting in the study group. We've got to put it in action. Servant is loved with his sleeves rolled up with his work boots and his gloves on moving into the lives of people who are desperate to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. Make this a year of service, a year of giving your life away to others in Jesus' name so that their lives are richer because you are in their world and in their lives. I promise you this with all I've just said about service. I promise you this. I will continue to work as hard as I ever have to study God's word to study theology and to try to make sure you are well fed on Sunday mornings. And I know that Neil will do that Sunday nights, that Barry and Jerry and Gail and the others will do that in Sunday morning classes in the home study groups. We will pledge ourselves to continue to make sure you are well fed if you will pledge yourself to step up and do the work of the body of Christ. Church is not a place where the minister of ministers and the congregation congregates. A year of the body of Christ, year the hands and the feet, the eyes and the ears and the heart of the body of Christ. If you will agree to do the work of the ministry, we will do our best to make sure you are well fed and prepared and equipped. The Son of Man did not come to serve, to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. That's what we celebrate when we take you meeting, the time he laid down his life as a ransom for us to free us from our bondages and to free us to serve in his name. As we take his illness this morning, I want you to contemplate what he came to do, what he came to die for, what he has come to call us to do. That's what we are to be about. That's what he was about, so we are to be about as well. Will you pray with me this morning? Now Father, we confess. We have sinned against you and thought word indeed, but what we have done and what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole hearts. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We acknowledge these things before you, but we also acknowledge that Jesus came to pay the price for our sins, to set us free from our bondage, and to set us free to equip us and to enable us to serve others. And he was pierced by our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him by his wounds we are healed. Let me make our prayer in his name. Amen.