Well this morning we're gonna take a look at the necessity of the cross. We're also gonna see something about our narcissism. And we're gonna see a completely new way of thinking about greatness. A completely new way of thinking about greatness and about the happy life, okay? So the necessity of the cross, our narcissism, and a new way of thinking about what it means to be great. All right, so first of all, notice this passage this morning is sandwiched at the front end and the back end, speaking about the necessity of the cross in verses 15 through 17, and then closes out in verse 28. Now this group of disciples and followers, and even some of their moms, believed that Jesus was the Messiah. That is the promised king who is going to come and bring victory and salvation. They believed he was the Messiah. The problem is they had a wrong idea about the kind of Messiah that he was. And that's really important. It's essential, actually, to not just know he's the Messiah, but the kind of Messiah he is and the way in which he's going to bring about this great victory and salvation. I mean, we just saw a couple chapters ago. when Peter, amazingly, publicly, professed that Jesus, you are the Christ, you are the Messiah, the long-promised King, the Son of David, right? And Jesus was so impressed. Peter, yes, you got it. And then Jesus went on to describe the kind of Messiah he is. He went on to describe the fact that he's going to the cross. And Peter said, no way. There's no way that you're going to the cross. You're gonna win, you're not gonna lose, right? And still, the disciples just didn't have categories for Jesus' predictions about his road to the cross. They must have taken this metaphorical, you know, kind of like if Michigan's going into Ohio State and we say something like, man, we're gonna crucify them, right? I mean, it's metaphorical language for it. We're gonna whoop him. And I think Jesus' disciples just, they couldn't imagine that Jesus was really talking about being crucified and suffering. dying and that's why when Peter said Jesus there's no way we're gonna let you go to the cross Jesus responded and said, Peter, that's satanic. That's from the pit of hell that you would try to keep me from the cross. You see, this was Jesus' mission. This is why he came. That's why he often uses language saying, I must go. I must go to my suffering. I must go to the cross. This was the shadow that he lived under from his earliest days. The weight of knowing that he came be crucified. And Jesus' disciples knew the horror that crucifixion was. I think, again, this is why they just couldn't imagine that Jesus was going to be crucified upon a cross. There was no more horrible image or word in all of Rome other than that of crucifixion. This form of execution invented by barbarians living on the furthest remote places of the world, adopted by the Romans because it was the way of death and of putting someone's life to an end that escalated the excruciating pain. It was the most painful, it was the most shameful, it publicly erased someone's name from being a good name. Everything about it was the most horrible way of execution. So much so that the famous Roman philosopher and statesman, Cicero, living just years before Jesus, he said this about Rome's propensity to crucify criminals. He said, crucifixion is a most cruel and disgusting punishment. To bind a Roman citizen is a crime. To flog him is an abomination. To kill him is almost an act of murder. To crucify him is what? There's no fitting word that can possibly describe so horrible a deed. The very word cross should be far removed from the thoughts, eyes, and ears of a Roman citizen. That was Cicero. And so Jesus' disciples couldn't imagine that he actually would go to the cross, but he would. It's important to know that when Jesus goes to the cross and his whole road to suffering there was not as a helpless victim. it was not as a helpless victim, this was the plan of God. From before Jesus ever took on human flesh and came into this world, this was the plan of God that he would come for this purpose. That's why Jesus brings it to the forefront again. If you wanna know Jesus, if you wanna know anything about his promises, you have to know that the way his promises will be fulfilled is this. Verses 17 through 19 again, Jesus is, he's just clarifying all over again what he's about so his disciples don't miss it, Jesus took the 12. He took them aside, he said, see we're going up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will be delivered over the chief priests and scribes, they'll condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. And he'll be raised on the third day. Now I could get into the weeds on this and piecemeal this, but I want you to take a step back at these words Jesus just spoke and what struck me this week that was so beautiful. These words, notice Jesus, he's pulling together the 12, that's of significance, the 12 representing ultimately the 12 tribes of Israel. What Jesus is doing here, he's pulling every strand, every thread of the Old Testament together right here. And he's pulling it together in himself. You see, Jesus is the great, great grandson of Eve, who is to be born, who would crush the evil one. Jesus is the great royal son of David who's going to bring, notice, going up to Jerusalem, to the city of David, Jerusalem, to bring about a great victory that the Psalms speak of. Jesus is the son of man that Daniel speaks of, this great powerful royal figure coming from the clouds who will come to rule. And yet masterfully, masterfully, he's also the suffering servant that the prophet Isaiah spoke of who would be crucified in the place of the sinful people. I've listed for you from Isaiah 53 a word from the prophet on the inside cover of your bulletin if you want to see. But Jesus, Jesus is bringing all these threads together from the Old Testament. Everything that the Old Testament was about, Jesus here is saying the Son of Man has come to fulfill all those things. But the way the Son of Man will do it, the way I will do it, is I have to go to the cross. I have to go to the cross. And for the first time, verse 28, Jesus clarifies the meaning of why he's going to the cross. This is the first time in which Jesus expounds more clearly the purpose of the cross. You see, the teaching from the Bible makes it clear that every human being who's ever lived, no one is exempt, has sinned against God. This is a kind of theft. We have stolen from God. We've robbed God of his glory. We've robbed God of his truth. And we owe God. By our own sin, we have been plunged into slavery, the Bible says, the darkness of slavery spiritually. And there is no way out unless a payment is made. There is no way out eternally unless a payment is made. You are enslaved spiritually. You owe God. I want you to know that at the very heart of most religions is this idea of trying to reach into your pockets to find some coins to pay God off so that you can be free. And I want you to know that is not what's happening here, folks. This is very different than that kind of religion. Every religion in some form or fashion is saying, reach into your pockets, find some coins, and pay God. And then maybe he'll love you, maybe he'll set you free, maybe you can give him the nut. The problem is, we're not talking about millions or billions or trillions, we're talking about we're talking about an infinitely great payment that is due. And you don't have enough, you will never have enough, you can't reach into your pockets religiously to pay God off, to get yourself out of slavery. That's why it's so beautiful what Jesus says in verse 28 when he says, the son of man, he came, what? Not to be served, but to serve and to give. To give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus here is saying, I've come to live and I've come to give my life at the cross as a ransom payment. Jesus came to make the payment. When he says for many, that word for is very important in the Greek, it's the word in place of. I've come to give my life as a ransom in the place of many. That's a word speaking of a substitutionary payment. Folks, this is the gospel, this is the good news. A substitute payment has been made in your place so that when Jesus goes to the cross, He's making a payment, a payment that only He can make, in your place. To get you out of slavery, out of death. to remove the shame, to remove God's wrath. He took it in your place as a substitutionary atonement, as a sacrifice. He says, this is why I must go to the cross, because God wants people, and he wants to save people, he wants to redeem the people for himself, and he's gonna gather them, but the only way that he can gather them and have a relationship with them is if their sins are forgiven, and I must do that at the cross. This is the good news, this is the gospel, and Jesus explains it here. As horrifying as crucifixion was, and we just heard Cicero talk about how horrifying it is, Cicero had no idea of what it meant that Jesus was crucified because it was far worse than simply the physical pain. It was spiritually Jesus in your place taking the worst of what you deserve in your place so that he drank down every last drop of the justice of God against your sin. That's what he did at the cross. And I wanna say, that having a right and biblical view of what took place at the cross is the most important thing that you can have a full picture of. If you only have a partial view of what took place at the cross, if you only have half truths of the cross, it can be disastrous. For example, if when you think of the cross, If you imagine that the point of the cross is Jesus went there to die for you because of your sin and that's what it's all about, that you sent him there, then your life is gonna be filled not with joy and freedom and grace and worship, your life will be filled with a deadly burdensome guilt because you will constantly, constantly be reminded only of your own sin, thinking I did that, I sent Jesus there. I came to mind this week because I heard the story of a former religious correspondent with BBC News, okay? This is the religious correspondent of BBC News. And he told his story that at about the age of 10, he thought a lot about the cross. He heard about the cross in church, but he couldn't get over the fact that the point of the cross is because of his sin, his darkness, his dirty little secrets. And he did that to Jesus, and he felt terrible for it. He felt terrible. And he couldn't get rid of his guilt, and time passed by, he turned 15 years old, and he says that he was peering into the abyss of the darkness of depression because of the cross. Because the cross, it just continued to remind him of his own badness, his own guilt that sent Jesus to the cross. 30 years went on and things continued to get worse, he says, until he has his version of a conversion moment on the couch of a psychiatrist. This was his version of the Damascus Road where finally, finally he learned how he could get rid of his guilt. But it didn't take a cross, it just took some mind games and some tricks to not think so much about his sin. And he says, now, this is the religious correspondent to BBC News, now, he doesn't think much about his sin and he has little need for the cross. You see, if you only have half-truths about the cross, it's disastrous. Folks, I want you to know that at the heart of Christianity, it's not about sin, it's about the forgiveness of sin. That's the full picture of the cross. Yes, we need to come to our senses and recognize that we have sinned, but we don't stay there and we don't stare and gaze longingly at our sin. We gaze longingly and long at the Savior who went to the cross to forgive you of your sin. You see, the point of the Christian faith is not that the prodigal son left home and squandered his wealth and wild living in a far distant country and then came to his senses about his sin. That's not the heart of the Christian faith. The heart of the Christian faith is that the prodigal went to a distant land and squandered his wealth and came to his senses and he returned home to the father who lavished him with his love and forgiveness and through a party celebrating the return of his son. That's at the heart of the Christian faith. It's coming home. It's experiencing the love and the forgiveness of God. That's what the cross is about, folks. is why at the heart of the Christian faith is the gospel, that is the good news. And you have no good news, there is no good news I have to offer you apart from the good news of the cross. The Apostle Paul will use shorthand to describe the gospel by just saying the cross. That's why when we talk about the cross we're not talking about the wooden beams there, we're talking about all that took place there that God himself The Savior came and fulfilled all the promises for your salvation by going to the cross for you, for the forgiveness of your sins. There is no gospel without the cross. There's no good news without the cross. Notice the quote on the front page of your bulletin. John Stott, I think, does a wonderful job here of describing this reality. He says the biblical gospel of atonement is of God satisfying himself by substituting himself for us. The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be, and God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives which belong to God alone, God accepts penalties which belong to man alone. That's amazing. The gospel is so good and there is no gospel without a cross. And so we see the necessity of the cross here. And we quickly see also our tendency to be quite narcissistic. Now, I'm not saying that any of you are clinically diagnosed with narcissism, but what I am saying is that within us, there is a kind of narcissism. The biblical definition is simply an inordinate fascination with oneself. And dear friends, every one of us, from the moment we had breath in our lungs, have had an inordinate fascination with ourselves. And notice how we see that here, on the heels of Jesus opening his heart about the darkness of his coming suffering, his Aunt Salome. Oh, Aunt Salome. She taps Jesus on the shoulder and behind her skirt are his two cousins, James and John. The mother of the sons of Zebedee, their dad was Zebedee, their mother is Mary, Jesus' mother's sister, that is Jesus' aunt. This is Salome, and she taps Jesus on the shoulder, Now I don't know about you and your relationship with your aunts, but I have a lot of aunts. My mom had 10 brothers and sisters. And so I have aunts coming out the years. And my aunts are great. They've never asked anything of me or for me. They just give and they love and they lavish love on their nephews and nieces. And so if one of my aunts, like if Aunt Cindy, you know, ever came to me and asked me for something, I'd be surprised, but I would be inclined to say, whatever you need, of course I'll do it for you. And notice Jesus' question here is, Aunt Salome comes, Jesus says, what can I do for you? Right, what do you want? I'd like for your cousins, remember your cousins, Jesus, James, and John? Remember how great they are? Remember they've been like following you? I'd like for your cousins to have cabinet positions when you bring this kingdom you're talking about. I want one to be on your right, one on the left. Those were seats of position, seats of power, seats of prestige. I mean, the good news is, at least she believed Jesus that he was gonna bring a kingdom, right? The problem is that it was so quickly turned into something for personal advancement, in this case, for her boys. So on the heels of Jesus speaking of his suffering, they're quick to turn this into something that works for their personal advancement. She says, can they sit at your right and to your left? And I think that Jesus was so much thinking about the cross coming up, he had a different throne in mind. And so when Jesus says that's for my father to decide, this is a subtle way of Jesus saying the real throne that you should be concerned with is the cross, that is the throne where the king will be. And it won't be these glorified disciples to my right or to my left, but two criminals to my right or to my left. That's for the father to decide. But notice Jesus is as if he peeks around his aunt's dress and sees his cousins and says, I know you guys have put your mom up to this. And he asked the question, do you really think you can drink the cup that I'm going to drink? Now the cup in the Bible speaks of someone's destiny. All of you have a cup to drink, that's your destiny. Sometimes your cup overflows with joy and blessings, we see. Sometimes your cup overflows with calamity and suffering. And Jesus says, can you really drink the cup I'm going to drink? Again, Jesus is thinking of the cross. My cup, my destiny is a cup that's filled with calamity and suffering that will culminate at the cross. And trust me guys, trust me cousins, you can't drink that cup. They think they can. Jesus says, can you drink my cup? They say, yes, we can, cousin. We can drink that cup. And Jesus says, well, you will. And what Jesus is speaking of is actually you will suffer in the way that I'm going low, I'm serving, I'm suffering. You will as well. And we know that they indeed did suffer. For example, in Acts chapter 12, we read these words about that time Herod the king, he laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James. That's this James, Jesus' cousin. He killed James, the brother of John, with the sword. And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. So there's just one example of Jesus saying, you will suffer. But the truth is also, in their own strength, they will not be able to drink this cup. Because when Jesus goes to the cross, where do his disciples go? Well, they flee, including James and John. Yeah, Jesus, we can drink this cup. And at the first sight of suffering, they're out. But then after Jesus is raised and the Holy Spirit comes, we see they're all in. They're willing to lay down their lives for the gospel. And so this is really an interesting little conversation here. But not far away, within earshot, it's the other 10 guys. So they can hear this conversation going on, right? And they're steaming mad. They're indignant. Not because they're like righteous and goody two-shoe and they would never do such a thing, they're just mad that James and John got to Jesus first and is using their family connections. So they're mad because they kinda wanted to be in the seats of power too. And they're getting one-upped here by James and John. So here, the 12, they're fighting over these seats of power. They feel slighted because of all the, I mean, here's like the first church fight, and it's Jesus' inner circle. The first church politics over who gets the seats of power. I mean, it's amazing that we have this here on the heels of Jesus talking about his suffering. But at the bottom of all this, they simply made it about themselves. It's this, you know, this fascination, this inordinate fascination with ourselves. That's what we see here. That's why I said we see something here about their narcissism, but we share it as well, don't we? Where we can so quickly make things about ourselves. That's what they did. They made this about themselves. They made it about their popularity, their prestige, their comfort, their personal advancement, not about the achievement of the cross. Not about the wonder of what Jesus had just told them about the way He was going to bring the victory of His kingdom through the cross, through His own suffering. They immediately made it about themselves, about their advancement. And you know, we can do that not only individually, but the church can do that. I mean, obviously, look, I mean, here's like the inner circle, the people closest to Jesus, and they just so naturally make it all about themselves, and they lose sight of the cross. And so, yes, they had a high view of Jesus, but that was sabotaged by a too high a view of themselves. So you may say, well, I have a high view of Jesus, but you also may have too high a view of yourself and an inordinate fascination with your own comfort, personal advancement, prestige, and so on. And this can happen to the church. There's a thousand different ways this can happen to churches, but whenever it happens, however it happens, even in the most subtle of ways, the cross is always minimized. The cross is always minimized when the church becomes all about herself. all about ourselves, our popularity, our acceptability among the people who matter in town, right? Our comfort. You always have to minimize the cross. I'll never forget, I visited a church. I was surprised when the sermon concluded and there was no mention of the cross. I guess it was a nice little TED Talk, you know, with some nice tips and tricks and some nice warm fuzzies for people to sort of go into their week with, but there was no mention of the cross. I was surprised. I was even more shocked when communion was served and when the cup was lifted up, it was said, we offer this cup in celebration of whatever gods you worship. We're not mean here, and so if you're not a Christian, if you're a Hindu or a Buddhist, to whatever gods you bring in here, we celebrate this cup. Now there's just a straight-faced example of how even a church can grow to the point where they want to be so liked, so appreciated by the surrounding people, to not be offensive or known as being, you know, the mean people who talk about this nasty cross. that you can actually lift up the cup of our Lord Jesus Christ, of his shed blood, and say we celebrate all the gods with this cup. It's the same thing we see here. They wanted advancement, they wanted prestige, they wanted comfort, they wanted to be liked, they wanted to be appreciated, they wanted everyone to like them. We don't wanna offend your gods. And so you have to minimize the cross to do that. You have to minimize the cross. There's no gospel, you lose, you lose. the gospel. No church is above that. I'll just say that as a warning here. In our very early years together, Red Tree is not above that. Again, Jesus' inner circle was not above such a thing. It is tempting and quite easy to confuse the cross, to have half-truths about the cross, to have sort of a churchianity. We have, you know, to have churchy language and that kind of stuff, but to lose the necessity and the beauty of the cross, and the preaching of the cross, and the believing of the cross. No church is above it, red trees not above it. That's why the Apostle Paul, shortly after he planted some churches, they lost sight of it, even in the early church, and he had to bring them back. For example, I was struck reading in 1 Corinthians this week, notice Paul's words about the cross. here in 1 Corinthians. He says, I've received word from some of Chloe's people. I think we have a Chloe here, don't we? Chloe, who are your people? Is this your people? He says, I've received word from Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, young church, quarreling among you. They're fighting for who's first, and you can read more about that later on. Now, Paul's trying to pull them back, folks. Listen to the centrality of the cross here. He says, Christ sent me to preach the gospel, not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. He's reminding them of what this is all about. He says, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it's the power of God. He says, Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. He's pulling them back to what was at the heart of their church and what needs to be at the heart of their church moving forward. He says, when I came to you guys, when I came to you, I didn't come with lofty, eloquent speech. He says, in fact, I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and with much trembling. I appreciate Paul's vulnerability, with much trembling. In my speech and my message were not with eloquent words of wisdom, but in a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. That is in the cross. That must remain at the heart of the church. No church is above it. Last point, if this is gonna happen, the answer isn't, okay, stop being ambitious. Some of you say, well, I'm ambitious, should I not be ambitious? The answer isn't to stop wanting a certain greatness. That's not the answer, to just become a passionless, ambitionless person. The answer that Jesus gives here is, You need a completely new way of thinking about greatness. You need a completely new idea of the great life and the happy life. And that's what Jesus gives us here, and we can't miss this. Notice in verse 25, Jesus says, he calls them together, and he says, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles, they lord it over them. It's a strong verb he uses there, they lord it over them. and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be, 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 your slave. Notice Jesus there, he's redefining greatness in the kingdom of God, in the church. He's redefining what it means to have greatness in life. Now, he's pointing to the surrounding culture. He's pointing to the politics of Rome and to the businesses of Rome. He's not attacking the surrounding culture, okay? He's not attacking them and saying, I mean, look at what they're doing in the surrounding. He's just observing the reality. Like, he's just looking at what happens in Washington, D.C., and in Moscow, and in the Rome of his day, and the Jerusalem of his day, in business, and politics, and religion, all those things. And he's saying, it's just the way it is. Like, it's power plays. It's trying to, you know, move people out of your way by force to get your way, right? It's slimy, it's behind-the-scenes deals, it's squashing little people, it's just, like, that's what they do. He's just making this observation. But what he is saying, he's teaching here to say, my people, people of the cross, you are not to be a poor imitation of the politicians of Rome. or of Moscow or Washington, D.C. You are not a poor imitation of them. You are a counterculture. You are to be completely different. Not so among you is this way of leadership, this way of pursuing greatness, that's antithetical to the spirit of the cross, to the spirit of people of the cross. And so Jesus, he's not attacking the Shining Cold Tree, he's just observing the reality, that's just the way it is, but not so among my people. Again, he's not saying become ambitionless, he's saying you need a new way of thinking about what you're ambitious for, a new way of thinking about greatness. It's as if we have an old software, you know? I don't know. Is anyone in here still using Windows 95? I don't know. Does that still work? I think we have a professor here of computer science on. Would Windows 95 run all my current programs? I don't think so. Some of you college students don't even know what Windows 95 is. When you use old software, just things don't work. And here's the thing guys, we're living off old software too often. We live off the software of Babel. Do you remember Babel in the Old Testament? Do you remember they were building this great structure? Do you remember the point behind it? What was it? Do you remember the line? That we might make a name for ourselves. That's the software of Babel. That's the software we run off of so often that I might make a name for myself. Jesus says, get rid of that software. My people, the people of the cross, you have a completely new software that you are to run off of, a completely new way of thinking about greatness, in fact, about the happy life. your new software will cause you to be ambitious not to move up but to go down. You are passionate not to be first but last in the sense of laying yourself down for the sake of someone else. Not to make a great name for yourself. In fact, you're not fascinated inordinately with yourself. You're in awe of the Lord Jesus. And he loves these other people, so I'm gonna lay down my life for other people. I will be a servant, notice Jesus says, my people, whoever would be first among you must be your slave. Whoever would be great among you must be your servant. These are the two lowest positions in their society. It was shameful to be counted a servant or a slave, Jesus says, embrace that shame. willingly, you become a servant. That's the way of greatness in my kingdom. That's what I want you to be ambitious and passionate for. Not how you can one-up someone, but how you can lower yourself to lift someone else up. I mean, there's all kinds of examples we can give, right? I mean, all kinds of practical examples, you know, to the husband or the father, it's walking into your home Not walking in saying, how can my wife make my life better? How can she serve me? How can she plus all of my minuses? It's you walking in and saying, how can I lay down my life? How can I make myself uncomfortable? How can I weary myself to lift my wife up, to serve my wife and her children? You come home dog tired from work. but you say the best thing right now would be to have a conversation, an exhausting conversation. I'm not gonna let her be the first one to come and mention that we've been kind of distant lately, but it's you going to say, I think something's wrong, can we talk about it? It's pulling her together in prayer, even when that's the last thing you wanna do because you're so tired and you just wanna go to sleep. See, it's finding ways to serve, to the CEO. who sits in her office, it's not thinking, finally, I've gotten into the office where all these people are gonna work hard to make my name great. But it's you even being willing to clean the bathroom, to lower yourself, to say, I'm here to serve these people. It's a completely new way of thinking. It's an ambition to go low, right? To the PhD students. I don't know how many pursue PhDs with a passion and ambition, dreaming about what it will be like to have that title next to your name. Now people will respect me, right? Now when I say something or write something, they're going to have to listen because look, PhD. I'm not saying don't pursue a PhD. And if you're in it now, don't get out. But what I'm saying is it's a different way of thinking. It's being passionate to say, I want to use this to serve people. I wanna use this, I wanna sacrifice myself to contribute something unique to this world that will make people's lives better. See, it's not being ambitious that's bad. It's being ambitious for your own greatness. And Jesus is saying, not in my kingdom. You can be ambitious, but not for your own greatness. Be ambitious to serve. Be ambitious to make someone else's life better to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, to you younger, to you young kids, you siblings, right? It's not looking at your brother or sister and saying, how can I get back at them, right? How can they make my life better? It's you shocking your little brother or sister, shocking them by actually doing something that makes them feel so loved. I mean, how rare is that for little kids to say, I'm going to put on this mindset of service, even to my sibling. And I am going to be passionate to try to make them feel loved through my practical ways of serving. I mean, we could go on and on. I mean, the church, right? Members in the church, when you walk through the doors, the first question is not, how can this church make my life better? How can this church serve me? But it's walking through the doors saying, How can I serve? We have a meeting right after this service about our kids' Bible time. And, you know, that's an area of ministry where you, if you serve, you will not feel the prestige. People are not going to be recognizing you publicly, but behind the scenes, behind the scenes, simply with a heart to serve, you're going to be part of a significant ministry, lowering yourself. to serve these kids, to bring the truth of the cross into their lives. Leaders in the church, right? Over time, we're going to have more and more leaders here in this church. I've seen wonderful servant-hearted leaders in the church. I've also seen the cancer of leaders who come into the church and the one thing they have in the back of their mind is how can I rise to be a leader as fast as I can because ultimately they have an agenda, ultimately they want control, ultimately they want appreciated, they want to be appreciated, they want everyone to sort of look at them, right, with a sense of prestige. And it's horrible, it's horrible in the church when the shepherds of the church, the elders, the deacons, are in that seat so that other people will think more highly of them. I've seen it. I've seen shepherds in the church, I've seen elders who are constantly so slighted when they're not appreciated like they should be or when they're not recognized for the level of service or they're comparing and keeping score of how much more they're serving than other people and it becomes a disaster. Why? Because they're in that seat of power for themselves, to make a name for themselves, to be appreciated by the people rather than to lay their lives down to serve the people. This can be true of pastors. Pastors in church can view their ministry as a pastor. It can turn into something just like a careerism, you know? Like I just, you know, just here to make some money and, you know, put in a 95 and just make a career out of this and maybe, you know, rise the ranks one day. And, you know, it can so easily become careerism rather rather than a laying down of one's life for the sheep that Christ died for. That's ministry. In fact, the very word ministry, you know, in your earliest days of math, plus, minus. What is minus? It's making less of. That's at the root of that word for ministry. It's making yourself less than. That's what Jesus is talking about. If you want to be in ministry, then you make yourself less. You are passionate to lower yourself. to serve in the most menial ways, the flock. This can be true even for the culture of a church. You know, the cultures of churches can either be self-serving or self-sacrificing and giving. And so my dream is that people would walk through the doors of Red Tree and there would just be this sense of we're all asking, how can we serve you? How can we serve you? What a beautiful culture. that the church can have when that's the heart of how can we serve you. I hope that those of you from the Hispanic community feel that. You know, there are ways that we have been speaking in Spanish as a congregation, and that's simply us realizing the Lord has blessed us with a large number of Spanish-speaking people. We wanna continue to reach people in the Hispanic community and show them the love of Christ. And so this is one way that we can serve you. You know, some people may say, well, come on, we speak English, this should be in English. And we say, you know, this is just one expression of what Jesus is talking about here. We're making ourselves less for the sake of someone being able to sing the doxology on a given Sunday in their own language. College students, I hope you feel served by various ways that people sacrifice for you. You know, one day I hope that we'll have our own building and we've even started to put our feelers out for a place of permanence. It would be really easy for us to look like 20 minutes west or any direction from here and find some land and find something that would be really cheap. But you know what we'd give up? The ability to be connected to and administer to college students. And so when we look for our own place, we're going to look within blocks, walking distance to the university. It's more expensive, it's not as big of space, but we want college students to feel like this is a church here to serve them, right? I mean, it's just in little ways like that, the church is ambitious for a completely new way of thinking about greatness. It's about serving people. Why would we do this? Notice Jesus says, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, that is, even though I came, not to be served but to serve. This is a how much more argument. If Jesus came to lay himself down, not to be served but to serve, how much more should the followers of Jesus lay down their lives? Not to be served but to serve. That's why. How can you do this? If the natural fibers of our being is an inordinate fascination with ourselves, how could we ever do this? Folks, it's miraculous, but it's the miracle of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has been raised, and when Jesus was raised, for those who receive him as Lord and Savior, he gives his Spirit, the very Spirit of Christ who lives in you, and he is transforming you to be more like Jesus, and guess what? That means he's transforming you to be more of a servant, a person who will make less of yourself and more of another. A person who will sacrifice and do the hard menial task to roll up your sleeves and get your own hands dirty for the sake of others. He is transforming you. And so the Spirit gives gifts, the Spirit bears fruit. The gifts of the Spirit are not always those very public things like a beautiful singing voice, right? Or a great teacher or speaker. Those are some gifts and blessings the Spirit gives. But let's not forget that the Spirit also gives gifts and he brings about the fruit of a Christ-hearted servant. And he's doing that in every one of you. The Holy Spirit is transforming you to live a cross-shaped life, to be servants. And if we do that, dear friends, We will be the most powerful force to ever sweep through Ann Arbor and to ever sweep through the University of Michigan if we will be people of the cross, believing the message of the cross and holding to the message of the cross even at the cost of our lives and living a cross-shaped life, being servants, not seeking greatness for ourselves. but lifting up the name of Christ and lifting up our brothers and sisters and lifting up everyone that the Lord puts in our path, that will be the most powerful force to ever hit Ann Arbor. May we have the joy and the privilege of living a cross-shaped life, Red Tree, amen.