With 18 days to go until we CELEBRATE the most significant event in ALL of human history: Jesus walking out of the grave…
WHAT WAS JESUS DOING?
In last week’s devotional, that was the question we considered. And maybe to no one’s surprise, Jesus was laser-focused on doing what He had been doing for the better part of three years…
TEACHING
HEALING
SEEKING
For today, let’s consider this…
What was Jesus teaching? With roughly 18 days to go, what was Jesus wanting people to hear, know, and learn before the events of the cross and empty tomb?
Two words to answer that question…
SACRIFICAL SERVANT.
James and John were two brothers who had been following Jesus for three years. Well, a few weeks before Jesus would celebrate the ‘Last Supper’ with James and John and the rest of the disciples, their mother had a request for Jesus. And this was no small request…
“In your Kingdom, please let my two sons sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left.”
Matthew 20:21 (NLT)
Yes, you read that correctly! James and John’s mom asked Jesus if her boys could sit on the left and right of Jesus on His throne! I don’t have space to comment on this request, but let’s just say that the love of a mother is POWERFUL:).
Jesus uses this mother’s request to TEACH James, John, the disciples and every would-be follower about two eternally transforming words…SACRIFICAL SERVANT.
After helping the disciples see the way of the world, namely, that people will be obsessed with power, position, and place, Jesus wanted His followers to know that it would be DIFFERENT for them.
“But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Matthew 20:26-28 (NLT)
Whether you're reading that verse for the 1st time or the 1000th time, take a moment to read what Jesus was TEACHING just a few short weeks before He went to the cross.
Amazing right? When the King of Kings arrived, Jesus made no demands to be served… none! When God walked amongst His creation, Jesus did not call people to cater to Him… quite the opposite!
Ya see, before the disciples would SEE the greatest demonstration of a SACRIFICIAL SERVANT, Jesus taught them that BEING a SACRIFICAL SERVANT would be the way His followers would live every moment of every day.
Jesus was more than just a teacher passing along important information that we needed to know in order to pass some sort of cosmic test. Jesus was certainly a teacher, the BEST one ever, but what we cannot miss about Jesus’s teaching is this…
JESUS EMBODIED THE VERY THINGS HE TAUGHT.
Jesus DID NOT just say something, He showed us what He said. So, for you and I that simply means that His Word in us will lead towards living life DIFFERENTLY. Namely, that we’d live like Jesus…
as SACRIFICIAL SERVANTS.
To hear what Jesus teaches and not allow His teaching to reshape everything about who we are, and how we think, and how we live is to NOT have heard rightly what Jesus said. And right before Jesus would accomplish all that we will celebrate 18 days from now, Jesus wanted the disciples both then and now to know that to follow Him will require that we live like Him… as SACRIFICIAL SERVANTS.
As you walk towards Easter Weekend, walk in ways where serving is not something you do when you have time to do it, rather, it’s just who you and I are… SERVANTS who, like Jesus, joyfully sacrifice in order that those around us might catch a glimpse of Jesus, THE SACRIFICAL SERVANT.
