- Hey, I wanna welcome all of you to all of our campuses and those who are joining us online or on TV, today, we're in a series called Kingdom Equations, and I'm excited to bring this next message that God has really spoken to my heart just as we begin, I wanna share just a simple question with you. Do you ever have those moments where you realize there are a handful of movies that no matter how many times it comes on TV or how many times you've already seen it, you'll watch it one more time, right? And so for me, one of those movies is this movie called "The Natural." It's the story about an aged baseball player by the name of Roy Hobbs, I don't know if you've ever seen this movie, but it's filled with a number of different storylines, but there's one particular scene that grabbed my attention as I was preparing for this message. And Roy finds himself in a hospital bed. He is now faced with the doctor's orders who are telling him, hey, the end of your career is at hand. And what I think strikes at his heart is he knows that his career was already cut short from earlier life events. And now he's faced with, I'll never get a chance to kind of live out all that I wanted to live out. Well, there's an actress in the movie, not only is it Robert Redford who plays Roy Hobbs, but Glenn Close is at the foot of his bed. And then there's this short conversation where Redford says, "man, I wish I had more time because if I did, "I could have been the best. "I could have broken every record." And then Glenn Close look says, Glenn Close her character says, "and then like if you had broken "all the records in and then what?" And then Roy says, "and then when I walk down the street, "people would have looked at me and said, "there goes Roy Hobbs, "the greatest player who ever played the game." I listen to those words and somehow those things begin to resonate in my mind because today I wanna talk to you about greatness. There's a lot of talk in our world today about greatness. I remember just a generation ago, Muhammad Ali claimed, "I am the greatest," right? And every football season which we've just entered into, there are a number of conversations around NFL quarterbacks as to who is the GOAT, which is the greatest of all time. And whether you like him or not, I have to admit Tom Brady does have a lot of rings, right? But I didn't come today to talk about football players or any athlete for that matter. My one question for you today is this, do you want to be great? Which leads made us so many other questions, right? Does greatness mean the same thing to every person? Like, is it the same quality that we're measuring greatness by? Specifically, I wonder this, is there a difference in the way that the world looks at greatness versus the way that God views greatness? And then I have to begin to press this into my own life and I have to ask the question, what does greatness mean to me? What does it mean to you? I wanna pose the question again today, do you want to be great? Well, we're not the first generation to aspire to greatness, in Mark chapter 9 verses 33 to 34. It's almost a, it's a surprising conversation because these guys have been traveling with Jesus for some time now and this is what the scripture says, "they, that is Jesus "and the 12 came to Capernaum. "And when He was in the house, He asked them, "'what were you discussing on the way? But they kept silent. Well, why did they keep silent? 'Cause they're a little embarrassed about. On the way they had argued with one another, who's the greatest, who's the greatest? Now, I've thought in my mind, like, what did that conversation really sound like? I mean did one of the disciples step up and say, hey man, my answered prayer rating is so much higher than your answered prayer rating, right? Or my scripture rating is so much higher than your scripture reading rating. And I don't know what that was like, but they argued among themselves who was the greatest. Now although Jesus addresses that specific conversation in Mark chapter 9, and He begins to talk about things like servant leadership and what it means to have a childlike faith. Here's the reality. One conversation wasn't enough to address what it really means to be great. And so here we find ourselves today in the very next chapter and Jesus is now on his way with the disciples to Jerusalem. What is explained to us is that He's walking to his own death. Now He knows it. In fact, he explains to the disciples, I'm gonna walk into this town called Jerusalem. I will suffer, I will be killed. Don't be dismayed because three days later I'll be back from the dead. Now, if you were among the 12 that day, how would you handle that particular moment? I want to read to you, Mark, chapter 10, verses 35 to 45, because this is how the disciples responded. Mark 10:35 says this, "and James and John, "the sons of Zebedee came up to Him and said to Him, "'teacher, we want you to do for us "'whatever we ask of you.'" That's a bold request, isn't it? I mean, I listened to that and I think that's kind of the way that we still approach God today. What'd you do whatever I ask of you. And then to my surprise in verse 36, Jesus said to them, "what do you want me to do for you? "And they said to Him, "'grant us to sit one at your right hand "'and one at your left in your glory. "Well, Jesus said to them, "'you did not know what you're asking. "'Are you able to drink the cup that I drink? "'Or be baptized with the baptism in which I am baptized? "And they said to Him," this is also another bold statement. "We're able," a lot of confidence in the statement, right? "We're able to do what you just said. "And Jesus said to them, "'the cup that I drink, you will drink. "'And the baptism with which I am baptized, "'you will be baptized, "'but to sit at my right hand or at my left "'is not mine to grant, but it is for those "'whom it has been prepared. "And when the 10 heard it, "they began to be indignant at James and John, right?" Anytime we try to begin to elevate ourselves, it causes division among those who are around us, verse 42, "Jesus called them to Him and then He addresses greatness again. And this is what he says. "You know that those who are considered rulers "of the Gentiles lorded over them, "and their great ones exercise authority over them, "but it shall not be so among you, "but whoever would be great among you must be your servant "and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all "for even the son of man came not to be served, "but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." Hey, would you join me for just a quick word of prayer? Because I trust today, you didn't come just to hear from me, but you really ultimately came to hear what is God speaking into our heart. So let's pray, Father, please open our eyes, open our ears and especially our hearts to understand your thoughts and ways when it comes to greatness. And God I believe that you've called us to be great, but not in the measures of the world. And so open our eyes and our ears this day to hear what you wanna speak into our lives, in Jesus name, Amen. All right, so, I wanna talk a little bit about what it means to be great. The passage began with this simple request from James and John and while it doesn't say it, in Matthew's Gospel, we actually read this that their mom came to be part of this conversation. Now, you know it's a big deal when you bring your mama to the conversation to talk about Jesus, right? And so, she comes in, she makes the first request and then they reiterate the same words. And what was that request? Well, in verses 36 to 37, it says, "He said to them, "what do you want me to do for you? "And they said, 'we want you to grant us to sit "'one at your right hand "'and one at your left, in your glory.'" What were they asking for? A position of prominence, or as we're talking about this morning, a position of greatness. Now, I wanna be honest with you, this is probably the question that they pose, is probably in response to a passage found in Matthew 19:28, where Jesus says this, "that there will be 12 thrones beside me in my time of glory "in whoever sits on those thrones "will have the opportunity to rule the 12 tribes." And so, I think it's very possible that these guys are making the request to be the ones closest to Him among those 12 thrones. But what about us today? Dare we aspire to be great? Is that something that you desire? Well, if we do, and I think we should, then we have to be certain that we first understand this. And man, I would encourage you to write this down because this is so important in understanding greatness. Greatness in our day and greatness from God's perspective, they're worlds apart. They are worlds apart. The way that they're defined, what does greatness mean when God looks at it in the way that the world looks at it could not be more different. Well, how so, remember this is what Jesus said. In mark chapter 10, verses 42 to 43, Jesus called them to Him and he said to them, "you know that those who are considered rulers "of the Gentiles," that would be representative of the world or specifically in their world, it was the Roman authorities. This is how they approach leadership or greatness. They lorded over everybody that they are above and their great ones exercise authority over them. And then Jesus says something to help me understand that there is a difference between God's kingdom in the world that I live in. He says this, "it shall not be so among you." That is there is a difference in the way that I understand greatness if I'm following Jesus. Now, the disciples were looking at the wrong model. And a lot of times you and I do the exact same thing. The Roman saw leadership or greatness, in position, in title, in rank, why? Because it set us above those who are around us, right? But Jesus is calling us to understand greatness from a different lens. And so today I wanna talk to you about this one simple question. How does God view greatness? What is the kingdom equation when it comes to greatness? I wanna share three simple things with you today that I think come directly out of the passage that we read. And the first one is this, greatness stems first of all, from submission, from submission. In Mark 10:40, I noticed something that Jesus said when He was making a response to the question or the request of James and John. And He says this in verse 40, "to sit at my right hand "or at my left is not mine to grant, "but it is for those to whom it has been prepared." And I'm looking at this passage and I think, why did Jesus said it's not mine to give? And this is why, Jesus lived in submission to his Father, always. There were no exceptions to that call upon his life. He always submitted to the will of the Father, not my will be done, but yours be done. And you know, I look at that and I realize, do you know that's the call on our lives too. As we follow Jesus, He calls for us to live a life of submission. Now, I could simply stop here and say, hey man, you and I are called to live in submission to God. But don't you feel like a little bit of a rub here, right? And each one of these things that I talk about today, I wanna talk to you also about some of the things that I find that create resistance within me. Why would I not want to live in submission? Why is there such a difference between the way that the world looks at greatness and the way that God looks at greatness, and I think this is part of it. When I talk about submission, there's a problem with submission. We don't like this, but submission means that I'm to live under somebody else, well, nobody likes to live under somebody else. To do so means that my will has to be put to the side. There has to be death a of my will. And there has to be an acceptance of the will of somebody else. I draw all the way back to the time of creation when there was a conversation between the serpent and Eve. And I remember when the serpent looks, and remember now there is the created, that is Adam and Eve, and then there's the creator God. And so they live under, they live under his authority until the serpent looks and says, "look, you can eat of this fruit. "And when you do, you will become like God." What is he saying? You don't have to live under Him. You could be your own God. Well, there's something appealing about that to our flesh, why? Because our flesh doesn't like to live under anyone, There's such a rub there. Now, notice what it means as we come back to this story for Jesus to live under the authority of his Father. In verse 38, it says this, "that Jesus said to them, "you do not know what you're asking, "are you able to drink the cup that I drink? "or to be baptized with the baptism which I am baptized?" Well what is Jesus talking about there with this cup and this baptism? He's speaking specifically of his suffering and also of his death. Now Jesus came to do the bidding of the Father, make no mistake about it. There is a complete surrender of his will for the will of the Father. Was it easy to experience the suffering and the death? Absolutely not, but He lived in submission to the Father. I wanna say this to all of our young leaders. And I know that there are many of you that are listening in today. Hey, if you're a young leader before you and I ever enter into a position to exercise authority, we need to first learn what it really means to live under authority. You wanna exercise authority? learn what it means to live under authority. And honestly, this is the call of Jesus upon every one of us who are gathered here today in person and online or on TV. In Mark chapter 8, I want you to listen to what Jesus says. And I want you to pay attention to this call of submission. In Mark chapter 8:34-37, the scripture says this, "in calling the crowd to Him, with his disciples, "He said to them, 'if anyone would come after me, "'let him deny himself.'" That's a surrender of my will, right? That's what Jesus is calling for, a surrender of my will. And then this is what it says, "take up his cross." That is there's gotta be a death of my will for his will. "And follow me, follow me." Now, you can't follow somebody without submission. There's a leader and there's a follower. Jesus is calling specifically for us to follow, to surrender or to submit my steps, my will into his steps, into his will, right? So I'm looking here and this is much more than just a prayer of, hey, I'm sorry. I did a lot of things wrong. No, what he's calling for is a total submission of my life as I began to follow him as Lord. Whoever would save his life will lose it. Now, you may be looking cause I'm gonna pause here just for a second. You may be looking and going Craig, man, I feel the rub. Like I don't like to live under anybody. Jesus is calling me to live under his authority without any question, what's the win, right? Like what's the win here and living a life of submission? This is it. The scripture says this. "Whoever loses his life for my sake "and the gospel's, will save, will save it." I look at that and I think, man, the wind is his life. Life the way that it was meant to be lived, it's life not only in the physical sense, but it's life at the soul level. And that's what God offers us when we live in submission to following Jesus. Now, he goes on, he says, "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world "and forfeit his soul?" Like what's the real cost there, right? You can choose to say, man, I'm not living under anybody and that includes Jesus. Well, what's the price of your soul? And what can a man give in return for his soul? There'll be no opportunity to make the regrets right. This is what I wanna say before I leave this thought, in God's eyes the way up is down. The way up is down. Submission to Jesus leads to greatness, it's the first step. Jesus lived a life submitted, and Jesus is calling us to live a life of greatness to submit to Him as Lord of our lives. Well, the second thing that I want to talk about today is this call of service, of service. Because in mark 10 verses 43 and 44, the scripture says this, and this is Jesus speaking. "Whoever would be," what does it say? Great, like if you want to see greatness from the perspective of God, here it is, "whoever would be great among you must be your servant "and whoever would be first or great among you "must be slave of all." Now, do you really wanna be great today? Like, is that your hunger? Is there a drive within you to be, well, what does Jesus call us to? He gives two words, He says, be a servant to others and be a slave to all. Now, does anybody else find this to be a tough pill to swallow? I want to be honest with you, like when I was a kid, I can remember at Thanksgiving, all the men, when we came together as a family, all the men for whatever reason oysters became part of something we were doing at Thanksgiving. And there was always your stew. There was oyster casserole, but somehow in this, they also wanted to eat a few raw oysters. Well, all the men were doing it. So I thought, I gotta try a couple of those raw oysters myself. And I can remember they pulled one of those oysters out and said, "Craig, you want to try it? I said, "absolutely, you know, it's my rite of passage, "is what I'm thinking." And so they pulled one out of this little white slop jar. I still get sick thinking about this, right? And so I'm looking at this thing and I'm thinking, all right, all I got to do is just plop it in my mouth and swallow. And I put that thing in my mouth. I'm getting a little queasy even talking about it today. But honestly, I tried to swallow that thing 3, 4, 5 times, no exaggeration. And I remember it would get like to here and I thought it was gonna go down, but it just came right on back up and I would swallow again, and it would come right on back up. And I share that with you because this, you hear the word servant and you hear the word slave to others, and it's like trying to swallow a raw oyster. Like, it's a tough pill for us to swallow, why? Why is it that that is so hard for us? Well, this is why I think serving others is a difficulty. I'm gonna borrow some lyrics from a country artist, Toby Keith. And he says this, I wanna talk about me. Wanna talk about I, wanna talk about number one, oh me oh my, I wanna talk about me. Well, me is a big problem when it comes to serving others or becoming a part of lifting other people up around us. Serving has a focus that's not on me, but I have a problem with that because sooner or later I begin to ask this question, well, who's gonna fill my cup? And who's gonna recognize me? And who's gonna make sure that I have the best seat at the table. Who's gonna make sure that I get to sit where I wanna get to sit, right? The problem was serving other people is it's me. It's the desire to see me lifted up. So what are we gonna do with that? Well, I'm glad you asked, because I think that Jesus teaches us what to do with the problem of me. Philippians 2:5 through 9, the scripture says this, "have this mind among yourselves, "which is yours in Christ." So Christ is the key here to being able to live a life that's free of me. And he goes on, he says this about Jesus, "who though He was in the form of God "did not count equality with God, "a thing to be grassed." That's humility, that's what pastor Allen talked about last week. But then it says this, and this is what grabbed my attention. "Jesus emptied himself, Jesus emptied himself." And I look at that in my own life, and I think, I got a lot of me in me. I got a lot of me in me. Like my wife and daughter sometimes watch this series called "Hoarders." And I go into the, like, they show you the picture of those houses. And it's so full of junk that you cannot walk through it. And sometimes I feel like if you could get a spiritual picture of what I've hoarded in my life, it's a lot of me. Man, and sometimes I realize I gotta come to God and say, "would you help empty me of me?" Would you do that? Because I will never want to serve others. I'll never wanna give me to other people when I'm filled with me, when I'm filled with me. And so today, I'm looking at this passage and I think God help me here. This can only be done in Jesus. And when He did that, He took the form of a servant. And that's what we're talking about here. Being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, that's submission. We talked about submission, right? That's it right there. Even death on a cross. Now what's the win here, Craig, if I live a life of greatness from God's perspective and I begin to serve others, I become a slave of all. If that's happening in my life, then tell me, how does this, what's the win here, here it is. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. I promise you, you will never, you and I will never give ourselves a way and God not see that and honor it and when we humble ourselves as servants, he not lift us up and say, well done. That is exactly what I see as great. Well, let's close by looking at a third element of greatness this morning. Its the last thing I wanna with you, it's this concept of sacrifice. In Mark 10:45 Jesus concluded this conversation by saying, "even the son of man "came not to be served, but to serve." And this is what he said, his last words, "to give his life as a ransom for many." What's the first problem that you hear when you hear the word sacrifice? For me, it's cost. 'Cause when I hear sacrifice, I'm thinking, how much is that gonna cost me, right? Is there gonna cost me time? Is it gonna cost me money? Is it gonna cost me resource? What is the cost of the sacrifice? When I look here, it says that Jesus was willing to pay a price. There was a cost, it's called the ransom. Ransom is a word that describes the price that was necessary to free a slave. And Jesus paid the ransom price for you and me. And you're thinking, I was never a slave, yes, we were. According to the scripture, you and I are slaves to sin. And the only way we could be freed from that is when Jesus died on a cross and He paid the ransom so that we could experience freedom from our sin. Well, what was that cost? It was his life. Romans 6:23 says, "the wages of sin is death." Jesus was willing to pay that, to pay with his own life, a death and Jesus comes in and says, "I'll pay the price for your sin," but Jesus don't you understand that that's gonna cost you your life? I do understand that, but I'm living in submission to my Father. I will lay down my life so that your sins may be forgiven. So what about us today? Are we willing to embrace a life of sacrifice? Is there a cost? Absolutely there is. There is always a cost associated with sacrifice, but life will never be richer for either of us. Then when we give away all that has been freely given to us. I want us to look at Jesus just once more. 2 Corinthians 8:9 says this, "for you know "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, "that though He was rich yet for your sake He became poor," made a sacrifice. Why did He do that? So that you by his poverty might become rich. Now this is not a prosperity gospel. No, this is helping me to understand apart from Christ, I'm an enemy of God, but because of Jesus, I'm a child of the king. We can never be richer. In life, you and I will never pay a price that our Father will not more than replace. I simply cannot out-give God, I cannot do it. I have tried, I've never been able to. He is always more than replenished. any costs that I have made in the smallest of sacrifices. Today before we leave, we're gonna extend a simple challenge to each of you. It's a small sacrifice of a little bit of your time. We wanna encourage you. Here's a real practical way that we can make a difference. We wanna encourage you to write a small note of encouragement to all of our healthcare workers in our region. These are folks who have made day in and day out a huge sacrifice to serve our community because I have healthcare workers in my own family, I know the toll that they have taken throughout this entire season. It is the toll of seeing people suffer. It is the toll of seeing families filled with worry. It is the toll of the grief of death that they face day in and day out. So today when you walked in, I trust that you found that you also received a card, a simple postcard. It's a way in which you can write a note of thank you to say to all of our healthcare workers, thank you for the sacrifice that you make every single time you go to work. And so I hope that you'll take the time today, sacrifice a few moments and be an encouragement, a servant, a slave to those really who you could make a big difference. in just a few short words. Well, before we close out today, I wanna say this. Man, I wanna encourage all of us today. Man, you be great, right? I've read this story over and over again and I really think that Jesus is calling us to live a life of greatness. Not greatness from the perspective of the world, but greatness through the eyes of his Father. Man be great, be great, and live a life of greatness. Is any of what I've talked about today easy? I think it's simple. Like there were none of those words that I just looked at and I thought I don't get that. No, but it's not easy, it's not easy, but Jesus has led the way for us. And Jesus has equipped us to follow his example. So here's the short kingdom equation today. What does it mean to be great? To be great it requires us to submit, the way up is down. It requires me to serve others and trust that God is going to fill your cup. And it also means that there is a sacrifice that is called for in my life. And I wanna encourage all of us, hey, I don't know what Jesus is calling for you to sacrifice today, but man, be willing to pay the cost no matter what it is and know that through the sacrifice, through the sacrifice, we've already been made rich. We are children of the one true king, right? So I wanna share with you, I realized that some of you may be listening in today and you've never given your life to Christ, like submission to Him has never taken place. And I wanna encourage you before we close our time to think about this. This is the call of Jesus. Come follow me, come follow me. Well, what would you be holding on to that keeps you from beginning this journey with Him? I promise you life with Him is so much better than what life has been apart from Him. If that's where you are today, can I pray with you? And I wanna encourage you right now, you pray with me as well. Let's just bow our heads and enter into a time of prayer. Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for opening our eyes to see from your vantage point what does it mean to be great. And Father, I pray especially for those that perhaps you are awakening from death to life. You're drawing them to become followers of Jesus, that in this day, this day, there could be a complete surrender of their lives as they come to follow Jesus. Lord, I pray that the work of your spirit would draw them to a time where they just, they let go of what was and they see you and they begin to pursue you. Now Father, for those of us who are here today and we are followers of Jesus, I pray Lord that you will remind us, what does it really mean to submit? What does it mean to serve and what does it mean to sacrifice? Did we see issues with all of those things? Well, from our flesh we do, but God you have equipped us for so much more. Draw us to live, not for ourselves, but greatness in your kingdom in Jesus name we pray, Amen.