Video Transcript: House To House - Chapter 8 Leading Through Servanthood
One day, Jesus had a visit from the mother of two of his disciples, James and John. And I call these guys kind of mama's boys, because they sent their mom to ask Jesus for a favor. And she said something like this. She said, Jesus, could my boy sit next to you when you come into your kingdom? And of course, in those days, they were pretty convinced Jesus would set up an earthly kingdom and He'd take over the Roman government and all that. And so we don't know she's referring to that kingdom or the heavenly kingdom, but either way, she wanted her boys front and center with Jesus. Well, Jesus responds to you read this with me in Matthew 20, and his response is, well, I don't think you know what you're asking. You know? He said, Man, can they drink the cup? You know, they were there, you know, with our sons. And can you guys drink the cup? And they said, Oh, yeah, we can. And they're a bit arrogant of course. And Jesus said in verse 23 well, you and drink from my cup. They lost their lives. Obviously, they were martyred, but to sit right or next or left to me in my kingdom, that's not for me to grant. And then he said this, these places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my father. Now the other 10 disciples heard what happened. They were angry, and my translation, NIV says they were indignant, and they're angry at these two guys. Why they send their mom? What happened? They asked this who they think they are, and Jesus sits them down. Jesus called them together. He sits His disciples down. We assume it was the 12. It could have been the 70. We assume it was the 12. Here's what he said. He said, in Matthew 20:25-28 Jesus called them together and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. In other words, the leadership you've seen in the world system. They say we're in authority. You do what we say. They're controlling dictatorial leaders, he said, and the high officials exercise authority over them. So he said, what happens? You got these levels of authority, this hierarchy, everybody's in charge of everybody else. He said, That's what leadership has looked like. It's been top down, autocratic Victor leadership. But then he said that so with you, he tell his disciples what kind of leaders there to be, because he was going to be leaving in the next few years, and they're going to be in charge of what God's doing in His kingdom on earth and training leaders, etc. And we know that from the book of Acts. Obviously we're now on the other side of the story. And Jesus said verse 26 not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. And this is a whole upside down kingdom. Teaching is amazing. It's it's so much God and so much needed today, even the church. Because honestly, in much of the Body of Christ, I've seen Gentile leadership. I've seen pastors and leaders lead like spiritual CEOs, rather than like fathers and mothers and true fathers and true mothers. Yes, there's a sense of security they have because they're called the leadership in the family or in the church. Yes, they have that sense of security. But the way they lead is their hearts are full of compassion for those they lead. The way they lead, they do all they can to lift other people up. The
way they lead is they decrease so others can increase, the same way John the Baptist did for Jesus. And then Jesus said this, who is it? Whoever? Verse 27 he said, Whoever are we? 26 again, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. Verse 27 whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. Crazy upside down, good crazy in and then he says, just as a Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many so Jesus said, I have come to model leadership. Yes, he had all authority. He cast out demons, He healed the sick, authority of the devil, and yet, with the people that he loved, those who were created in His image, his heart was always to do all he could to serve them, those his heart returned after him to serve them, to see them become all they could ever, ever be. We after with Doubting Thomas, didn't believe him. After the cross and disciples, you know, they were discouraged. Didn't know what's going on. You know, Peter betrayed him. What did Jesus do? He had a fish. He had the fish already, and he had the breakfast ready for Peter and let Peter know how much that he loved him and how much he had forgiven him, and said, I trust you. Feed my sheep. Feed my lambs, Tend my tender my sheep. I trust you. And that's what servant leadership is all about. Now, leadership in this day, and I'm going to say especially in house churches, because many times in house churches, you have leaders who haven't really been maybe trained real well. And sometimes these leaders, rather than leading by servant leadership, they lead by dictatorial, Gentile type leadership, because that's all they've seen. Whether it's at their job, whether it's in their home, whether it's in their nation, whether it's in their family, there's a new kind of leadership. It's called servant Leadership. And again, leaders are called to lead. We're called to lead people, but we lead by example. We lead with the heart of servants. We lead by by honoring those whom God's placed in our lives, those who are over us, the Lord, those who are under us the Lord. I mean, the Bible is clear, and in the book of Hebrews that we should honor those who who serve us are over us in the Lord and may they do with joy. Yes, there's a place of leadership as a place of authority, but those in leadership need to have the same heart. Jesus had the heart of a servant. You remember the story of the upper room in John 13, when Jesus, you know, Jesus comes in after the disciples couldn't find any servants to wash feet, and Jesus comes in and takes those stinky, dirty feet of the disciples and washes them as an example. Why did he do that? And they said, You see what I do do as I do. Also, why he do that? He did it because he was modeling servanthood the heart of our leaders, and especially to see house churches birth, there will be multiplying house churches, and see many house churches, needs to be the heart of servant. I was with a house church leader just this week. This house should we had breakfast together. My heart is to serve him and help him. And he was telling me how he's trained a house church leader. They sent a group out, and they started another house church, in a healthy house church. And I could hear his heart was he
assist compassion for those whom he was serving. Where's it I know what I'm doing. I'm going to tell him what to do. He has much more experience, but in the midst of his experience as a servant, he's just helping others and leading others in the same way. That's what leadership's all about. Is called servant leadership. Now there's many ways that we we that we model servant leadership. One way is through hospitality. Many parts the world seems like hospitality is almost gone. The Bible says it like this. I Peter 4:9-10, offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift that he has to serve others and faithfully ministering God's grace in its various forms. Now, what does that mean? How do we offer hospitality? What is the gift of hospitality? Yes, some people may have a gift, but we're all called to hospitality. We're all called to exercise hospitality. And basically it's cheerful and cheerfully sharing our food, our homes, shelter, spiritual refreshment to those God brings into our lives. It's opening up our homes. That's why, when you look at the eldership requirements in the local church, so what are the requirements? What are the qualifications? One is giving up hospitality. Why? Because it says it's a servant role. We're loving people. We're honoring people. It doesn't mean you have to have expensive food. Doesn't mean you have to put on this. Maybe your gift isn't your this, this, this big cooking gift, or whatever. You might just have cans of soup, but it's just the love of God in the home. I've had so many people have come to to my wife over the years. She's a great gift of hospitality. They said, You know, we assist the love of Jesus, the love of God in this home. Why? He says, is because of this gift of hospitality and something God got us calls to invite people. By the way, you cannot invite back. Make sure it's not just people that would invite us back. There's a lot of you know. And again, as you read the text, you read the text from the book with lots of examples and ways you can show hospitality, and things you can do to prepare the way for hospitality. But really important that that is one way that we can serve. Let me give you some other ways. By the way, leadership and servanthood are synonymous with Jesus. They're really the same. And in fact, the Scripture says, Paul says it like this. Paul says, In Philippians 2:5-7, your attitude should be the same as that of Christ, Jesus, Who, being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. But he made himself nothing, and taking the very nature of a servant, so Jesus, who created the universe, comes down. He created this table, this wooden table before me, and he comes down this earth, and He works in a carpenter shop and serves his father, earthly father, making tables or making furniture or whatever. Amazing he's a ruler of the universe. Help create the world, modeling servanthood. So leadership and servanthood, in many ways, are synonymous. I remember as a young pastor, I'm a people watcher, and I would watch pastors and watch leaders and trying to learn from them. I remember I was at a conference in Ohio, and there's this man who was his bishop, a Mennonite bishop, and he was bigger than life. He was filled with
the Holy Spirit. I heard all these stories about him, and I just watched him, and I saw the guy was just a servant. He was just reaching out to the bellboy and just helping people and caring about people, and I could not find an ounce of pride in
his life. Why? Because he understood that leadership and servanthood were synonymous. Leaders are called to be servants. There's a saying your life is speaking so loudly I cannot hear the words you're saying. Yes, that's why, if we're not servants, and we're trying to lead a House Fellowship, probably will find it's only a matter of time that people no longer be connected to the House Fellowship that we're leading. Why? Because we simply have not been a servant. So Jesus, as I mentioned, taught his disciple servanthood. Jesus disciples then had to teach their disciple servanthood. And let me tell you what happens when leadership does not have servanthood. It's a story in the Old Testament, but the son of Solomon Rehoboam, if you remember, when Rehoboam became King, after Solomon died, he had to decide, how is he going to lead? He went to two groups of counselors. And you can read this all for yourself in II Chronicles 10, he went to two groups, the counselors. He went to an older group of counselors who had served before, served his father, Solomon. Here's what they said. They said, Rehoboam, if you're kind to these people, if you're kind and you please them and give them a favorable answer, because people are coming to him. And they were saying, they were simply saying, and they were simply saying, how you gonna lead? You know, we're the show. We should stay with you. He said, if you're kind to them, he said, here's what happened, they'll be your servants forever. But they had another group. He went to another advisor. They were the young men. The young men said this, if he he said, I tell these people who are trying to cause problems in your kingdom, I tell them this. If you thought you had a heavy yoke to bear out of my father. You just wait. I'm going to be a lot tougher. And Rehoboam went with the advice of the younger men and split the kingdom 10 tribes, two tribes. That all happened through that time. Now you could say it was the sovereignty of God, and I'm not here to argue that point, but I'm simply saying there's a principle here. He simply did not follow the advice of the older men who were teaching you need to follow the role of servanthood. And because of that, they had so many issues. I've told leaders all the world. I said, Here's where it works. Whatever you sow, you also reap. If you sow servanthood, guess what? You sow Servanthood, and you'll get servanthood. You serve those if you're in a local church right now, you think you're called a planet church, serve them, serve that pastor, serve the elders, serve the leaders, serve your small group leaders, you know whatever. Serve your house fellowship leaders with all your heart, because as you sow, you also reap. And so it happens also with servanthood. And I know so, but I married my wife, Laverne, is a major servant. It's just her gift. I've learned so much from her about serving. Remember, I was a young married guy, you know, I, you know my, I was not really that much of a giver. I
remember one time I thought, Okay, I gotta help my wife today, and she has all these dishes in the sink. I'm gonna clean the dishes up quick that she gets home and and so she'd come home and I had everything all cleaned out. Now, is serving. And she came home she didn't even notice I did it. I always had to take that dishcloth in my mouth to keep from saying, Don't you see what I did. I wasn't serving. I was certainly the wrong reason I was serving. So somebody compliments me, but learned a lot about servant over the years. You know, God has ways of working that into our lives as as we trust him. So leadership without servanthood will cause huge issues, but we reap, we sow servanthood, and we will also reap servanthood. And you know, Paul said it well in I Corinthians 11:1, he said, Imitate me as I imitate Christ. Follow me as I follow Christ. And one way we do that is we do with his servanthood, as helping me to understand Jesus gave up his rights as the Son of God, came and became flesh, became man like us. And you know, a lot of ways in leadership, we think why everyone should just follow us. You know, it's the grace of God if they follow us. You know, the revelation of the grace of God changed from my life. When I was a young man in my 20s, I thought God owed me something, because, after all, I mean, I gave my life to him. I was leading young people to Christ. I was working a full time job. I was doing all the right things. I thought God owed me something. And then we began to struggle. Laverne and I, in our early years of our marriage, we went through some struggles in our marriage, and how to go to a marriage counselor. And I thought, well, she was a problem, because I was being God's man. I had all this, but I was saying some of the right things. I was involved in Christian ministry, but there's something wrong with my heart. My heart wasn't in tune with being a servant. I had to learn to be a servant to my wife, be a servant to my family. I learned to be a servant to people I serve. I'm privileged to go all over the body of Christ today, but I know I go by the grace of God, and you know what happens if people don't appreciate you? If you're a servant, you're okay. If you're not, that's how you can tell if you're serving life people don't appreciate you. Or may they say things that are hurtful. It's if it were not for the grace of God, they say things even worse. You have to understand that the grace of God, the favor of God, is on your life. It's a power. Desire to do His will. He wants to give us more grace and more grace who we can serve in the way he called us to serve. So we give up our rights in the same way Jesus went to a cross in the same way, in same way the analogy used the Scripture the lamb went to the shears. In the same way, we give up our rights, and yet we have the authority of God in our lives. We. Lead. We lead with compassion. We lead with conviction, but we do it with a servant spirit. You know, either we are hirelings or shepherds, is one of the other, and Jesus calls us to be shepherds. A Hireling is starting a house church because somehow you feel like that's the way you can get some extra income. If you know, they give some ties to your if we do it for the wrong motivation, the only motivation must be because God has called us and
because we want to see the kingdom of God, of man. So we want to be the servant leaders that our God has called us to be I Timothy 1:5 says it like this. The goal of this command is love, and it's love which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith. And I John 3:18 says this, dear children, do not love with words or tongue, but with actions and with truth. So we're talking about having the right motivation. You know, if we don't love the people we're serving, we can't be a servant leader. You gotta love if you don't love your city, then you shouldn't be you shouldn't have a church in your city if you don't love your country, if you don't love your family, we need to love the people that are around us, love your city, love your country, love your church, love your Jesus, love your family, and love is not a feeling. Love is a gift. Is a gift of commitment. God so loved the world. He gave His only son. I don't know that Jesus necessarily felt like going to the cross, but he went because he loved us, and because of that, in that love shows that his heart was a heart of a servant. And we also served through building relationships. We serve through giving people encouragement, the people, if they leave your house, search, if we're true servant leaders will go after them. Remember Jesus had the 99 the one left, he went to find that one. And often we say, well, good riddance. They were a problem anyway. No, not at all. We go and find them and say, there's some we do to serve them. They may still move on, but we do all we can to serve them and to keep the relationship. So Jesus was a servant, and God's called us to be the same and to serve. I wanted to say at the end of the session, earlier on one of the sessions, I gave an example of a church in Ethiopia, a church that that was, I said 10,000 people is really, I want to clarify. It was 5000 people, and how that the people had to learn to serve behind the scenes, where they weren't just going to the big worship services. They had all these small groups and multiplying starters. They serve me on the scenes. And that church did grow from 5000 to 50,000 I want to clarify that I realized earlier on I said 10,000 so I be a man of my word. 5000 to 10,000 you'll find that also in the text, when you read through the text. So God bless you as a servant leader to see a house churches established for the glory of God with godly leadership