THE GREATNESS OF SERVANTHOOD!
Rev. Mark F. Bartels
Old Testament Lesson; Jeremiah
11:18-20
Gospel Lesson; Mark
9:30-37
Sermon Text; James
3:16-4:6
There were some little girls at a birthday party. As the pieces of birthday cake were being passed and each one of the girls was taking a piece, one of the little girls took the biggest piece of cake, with the biggest amount of frosting, and set it down in front of her! The little girl sitting beside her said, "Hey! Are you ever selfish! I wanted that piece of cake for myself!"
Now, who really was the selfish one there? And, what did selfishness cause? Selfishness caused the one girl to take the best for herself, and it caused the other girl to quarrel. Our scripture reading for today takes us through the train of thought that shows us what selfishness can bring and what kind of disunity and disharmony it can bring into our lives and the lives of those around us.
First of all, let’s define selfishness. Our scripture reading talks about, "where you have envy, and selfish ambition". Selfishness is what happened to Eve, in the Garden of Eden. It was the first sin. Selfishness is the attitude of the heart that says, "It is all about me." That is what happened to Eve, in the Garden of Eden. Rather than saying, "It is all about God", she said, "It is all about me, and what I want." Ever since Eve fell into sin, that attitude of selfishness has been passed down from generation, to generation, to generation. It is an attitude that you and I are born with. We are born from day one thinking, "It is all about me. It is all about me".
Because our sinful nature has the attitude that thinks, "It is all about me", our scripture reading goes on and says, "For where you have envy and selfish ambition (that is the attitude that it is all about me, then what happens), there you find disorder and every evil practice." That attitude of, "It is all about me", selfishness leads, literally, to every evil practice.
I want to walk through some of the Ten Commandments and show how selfishness leads to every evil practice. Let’s take the Third Commandment first. The Third Commandment is about worshipping, loving God’s Word and hearing God’s Word. You know, we may be here, sitting in church and, hearing God’s Word in a way, but our minds are traveling off, thinking about something else, instead of God’s Word. Why is that? Because our mind says, "It is all about me. It is all about what I want to think about, rather than listening to God’s Word."
And when we leave church, instead of doing what God’s Word tells us to do, we go off and do something different. Why? Because our attitude is, "It is all about me. It is all about me, rather than God’s Word."
Or, maybe we think, "I want to sleep in on Sundays. I have other fun things to do, rather than hear the Word of God." Why? Because our selfish attitude says, "It is all about me. It is all about me." And, that leads to evil practices.
What about the Fourth Commandment? Honor your father and mother. Mom says, "It is time to set the table." Our sinful attitude says, "It is all about me. I don’t want to set the table. Why can’t somebody else set the table? Why can’t you set the table, Mom? (Because, it is all about me.) I would be rather be doing something else." And, it leads to disrespect, dishonor and disobedience.
Even in the work place, where there are authorities over us, the Fourth Commandment applies to them, as well. When my boss tells me that I should do something and I think that it is below my dignity, I am thinking to myself, "It is all about me. Why should I have to do that?" I resent and grumble against my employer. And, it leads to every evil practice.
What about the Fifth Commandment? The Fifth Commandment says, "You shall not kill." Jesus explained that even in our hearts, we murder. He said that whoever hates, has already committed murder. Our selfish, sinful nature looks out and sees somebody who is more talented than we are, it looks out and sees somebody who has more than we have, and our sinful heart thinks, "It is all about me. It is about me. I don’t like it that he is more talented. I don’t like it that she has more than I do." That causes hatred in my heart. It may even cause me to be envious, or jealous, and go out and hurt, or harm somebody else, because it is all about me. It leads to every evil practice.
What about the Sixth Commandment? You shall not commit adultery. There, God reserves certain privileges only for husband and wife, in marriage. Oh, how our sinful attitude likes to say, "It is all about me. I don’t care how I may hurt or harm my spouse. I don’t care how I may use someone else, to my own advantage. It is all about me." It leads to every evil practice.
The Eighth Commandment says that you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. How often does our sinful nature say, "I need to tell a little white lie, to make myself look better, because it is all about me"? I need to gossip, or slander this other person, to make them look lower than me, because it is all about me." It leads to every evil practice.
The Ninth and Tenth Commandments are about coveting, and that is where our heart really says, "It is all about me. I want what you have. I want what you have, even if I don’t have a right to it, because it is all about me." How true our scripture here is today, when it says, "Selfish ambition leads to every evil practice."
Then it goes on and says, "What causes fights and quarrels among you?" And it answers for us, "You want something but don’t get it…you cannot have what you want." That is selfishness. That is a heart that says, "It is all about me. It is all about me! I wanted things to go my way. I wanted to do what I wanted to do. I wanted to be the most important. I wanted to be the most honored. I wanted to have that toy. I wanted to make the decision." And, that leads to fights and quarrels among us in our homes, at work, at school, at church.
And because I act selfishly, I may make poor decisions. For example, I may go home from work, turn on the T.V., sit and watch the T.V. all night, while my wife had to slave away cleaning the house and packing the lunches. That can cause quarrels and fights, because she may have to confront me about my attitude, "It’s all about me." My selfish sinful nature does not want to hear that. It doesn’t want to hear that I think it’s all about me.
Oh, how it can lead to even to quarrels in the church. Look at what happened in today’s Gospel reading. The disciples were quarreling with each other. How come? They were quarreling, because they each wanted to be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. It is all about me.
Pastor Steve Peterson, (who used to be pastor here, and now he is a mission councilor who starts help start mission churches) was telling me the other day, "Mark, when we start a mission church, we are very blunt with the people who are starting the mission church. We tell them that the decisions they are about to make are not about you. They are not about you. You are already going to Heaven. This is about the lost souls out there, the people out there who don’t know Jesus yet."
It is not about us.
It is not about us.
But, our sinful attitude sure wants to think it is. Scripture goes so far today, as to compare that to spiritual adultery. "You adulterous people." Adultery is when a spouse is unfaithful to their spouse. And, God compares this attitude to spiritual adultery. If Christ is our husband, and we are the wife, and we think, "It is all about me", then we have lost our love for Christ. If my attitude is, "It is all about me", then I have lost my true love and my love is directed unfaithfully some place else. Then my heart goes out to the things of this world. "I want possessions. I want honor. I want this. I want that." Because it is all about me, I have then been unfaithful to my Savior.
Certainly, we all need to recognize that we do have a selfish attitude that we were born with in our heart. We deserve to be condemned by God, because of that. That ought to cause each of us to fall on our knees in humility, in humility before God. Humility is a heart that does not think higher of itself than it should. We ought to fall on our knees and say, "God I have sinned against you. I have sinned against my neighbor. I don’t deserve to be called your child. I don’t deserve to be in your home in Heaven. I don’t deserve to have you love me."
To those humble hearts, what does our scripture reading say? The scripture says,
"God opposes the proud,
but gives grace to the humble."
What has God done for us? When you look at Jesus Christ, you see He was the opposite of selfish.
Jesus was the very opposite of selfish.
Jesus, in His heart, while in His throne in Heaven, did not look down at you and me, and the sin that we have fallen into and the condemnation that we deserve, and say, "It is all about me." In fact He did the opposite. He looked down at us in the trouble that we have brought upon ourselves, and the condemnation that we have brought upon ourselves, and said in His heart, "It is all about them. It is all about them."
He was willing to shed His glory, His great glory in Heaven and take off that glory, because He said, "It is all about them."
He was willing to come to this earth and humble Himself. He was willing to take off one robe of glory after the next, until He finally hung naked, in shame on the cross. He gave up His life and was buried in shame, penniless in a borrowed grave, because in His heart He looked at you and said, "It is all about them."
He was willing to take the most terrible sin, guilt and shame, and claim it as His very own, no matter what great shame that cost Him before the Father, because He said, "It is all about them. I will take their shame and their guilt."
He was willing to give us His great honor and His holy and perfect life, as a free gift, even though we don’t deserve it in any way whatsoever. Because, in His heart He said, "It is all about them."
Because of what Jesus did, God the Father looks at us and even though He has every right to say to us, "You don’t deserve to be called My child", in His mercy, He says, "It is all about them." He says, "I declare the holy perfect life of my dear Son, I declare His death on the cross, as payment for all of your sins. I declare all of it to be yours. I declare you not guilty. I declare you innocent. I declare you to be My child. I declare Heaven to be your home." You see how God, in His heart, looked at each one of us and said, "It is not about me. It is about them."
He brought us salvation and redemption, as a free gift. That ought to change our hearts so that you and I go forward from this day and say to ourselves, "It is not about me. It is not about me. It is about Jesus. It is about Jesus."
In today’s Gospel Lesson Jesus says, "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me." As we look out at "our neighbors", whether they are in our home, in our church, in our school, or in our workplace, we are to see Jesus. We are to say, "It is not about me. It is about Jesus and what Jesus did for me. Oh, how I want to serve Jesus. Oh, how I want to live for Jesus."
That is why our scripture reading says that the wisdom that comes from Heaven is peace-loving. If I see Jesus in my neighbor, would I want to get in a quarrel with Jesus? Would I want to get into a fight with Jesus? God forbid! I want to be kind and peaceful with Jesus. If I am to see Jesus in my neighbor, then the attention is not on me, it is on my neighbor.
The wisdom that comes from Heaven is "considerate." If Jesus lived in my home, think how considerate I would be to Him. I would see to it that His needs were taken care of. I would wait on Him. I would help Him. I would serve Him in whatever way I could, because I am not thinking about me. I am thinking about my Savior. It is all about Him.
I am to see Jesus in my wife, in my children, in my mother and my father, in my friends at church, the people at work and the people at school. I want to be considerate and serve, rather than think that it is all about me.
The passage goes on and says we are to be submissive. Submissive doesn’t mean that someone dominates over the top of us. The scriptural word for submissive means that we willingly place ourselves under somebody else and see them as if they are more important than we are. Certainly we do that for our Savior, don’t we? Certainly we see Jesus as more important than us. We willingly place ourselves under Him.
We are to see Jesus in our neighbor, at home, in the work place, with our neighbors and wherever we are. There we are to see them as more important than we are and to willingly place ourselves under them and look out for their needs, and their hopes, and so fulfill the Love of Christ and the Law of Christ. God grant that by repentance, we drown that old sinful nature that says, "It is all about me." By faith, may we go forward and believe that all of those sins are forgiven, and God will never hold them against us for Jesus’ sake. God give us a humble heart, to serve.
Amen.
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