Friday, October 15, 2010

Redeeming Greatness

I just finished listening to Mark Driscoll preach a sermon called "Redeeming Greatness" It's part of his series on Luke and you can find it on this page: http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/luke

I won't rehash all of his stuff, since you can listen to it yourself, but it has prompted me to think again about a lesson that I am having to learn over and over again. It's the same lesson from Matt 23.11 "but he who is greatest amoung you shall be your servant."

Understanding this valuable lesson initially seems simple enough. All you have to do to be great is to serve someone else. But as I start to work that into my life, I have to check my motives to make sure I'm doing it right. It's all about what's in the heart, right?

As I understand John 12.24-26 and the parallel verses in the other gospels, my serving must be totally selfless. After all, if a seed falls to the ground and germinates, you can pull up the resulting plant and try to find the original see, but it is no longer recognizable. Jesus said, "Take up your cross and follow me". The cross is not just a burden that one has to bear, the cross represent death.
John 12.24-26
Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it produces much grain.
He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me, and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.

OK, so now I think I'm doing ok. I'm not perfect yet, but I know how to examine my life, see where the areas are that I reserve for myself and where I'm serving ok. I can look around me and see that, "OK, I need to serve my wife better here", or "I did ok for my son here", or "I need to find a way to serve the church better". But after the examination, I realize that I'm still doing all this because I want people to respond to me, to say, "That guy is a really nice guy, I like him!" Which kinda gets back to the selfish part.

This is where I will typically overact in the way that Mark Driscoll points out, by rejecting greatness and trying to adopt a position of total humility (which is a false humility), and putting my own desires, talents and abilities to the side. I still haven't got it. So on to the next step: Redeeming greatness.

It's time to find a way to improve and sharpen my abilities, use my talents and desires to serve others with the things that God has given me to serve with. Again, it's all about motives. I need to move away from worshipping myself by promoting my talents and abitities, AND I need to move away from a false humility that ignores all the stuff that God has given to me to use for HIS glory, and move into an area where I can serve other selflessly, through the talents He has given me to see His will accomplished in others.

Hmmmm... As I reread this, I see there's still alot about "me" in here...