I think it's on now. I moved it over. Is it working now? All right. All right, it is good to see you this almost afternoon. I do try to create a laundry list of things that I'm going to have to apologize for when I get up to places, and the longer I've been here, the longer my list has got. So I'm going to start at the top. I'm sorry for being late. We got on the road late, and then evidently people in Arkansas can't drive because we had People driving Miss Daisy in construction and then there was a couple people that don't know how to make a right turn correctly. You ain't got to stop completely to turn right in case you didn't know. You can actually turn and still be moving in the car just in case you're wondering about it. It is legal. You ain't going to break the law by having your vehicle in motion just in case you want to know. That was the first thing. Second thing is you ain't gotta worry about it. I don't have COVID. I'm not sick. I've only got one vocal cord. I sound like this all the time. It ain't getting no better. I'm not a chain smoker, so you ain't gotta worry about that either. I mean, I'm okay. We're good to go. Number three, if my little girl acts up and acts terrible, she is acting just like her mother and not her father. When the brother was up here, this is funny. I got you back, I'm about to tell on you again too, watch. When the brother was up here preaching and he was talking about a wife talking to her husband about spiritual questions, I looked over at Leah and smiled. She looked back and didn't miss a beat and said, I don't got to do that, I know more than you. What you gonna do with that? I appreciate the opportunity to get to be here this morning. I appreciate the invitation. From what I understand, Brother Monty was supposed to preach today, is that right? And he had surgery, did I understand that? Oh, okay, I must have misunderstood what was going on there. There was in the group text that we were all in, you people that don't have iPhones, it ruins my life because I've got an iPhone and so none of your messages make any sense to me because they don't come together. So I have no clue what that group text was even about. But nonetheless, I am the second string preacher today. So you can blame somebody else for that. That'll work. Just throw this out there, too, while I'm up here. I'm nervous. I'm trying to get my nerves out. That's what all this rambling is. If I get a speeding ticket, because I broke a law or two to get here, I'm going to send it to Tom Bird. So y'all might need to take up an offering to help him pay for the speeding ticket that I probably got. Nonetheless, this morning I'd invite you to Matthew chapter 20. When I was given the title as you've heard the subject this morning of recovering manhood in the church, there were several different directions my heart and mind went. One of them was the biblical qualifications of a pastor, some of those types of verses, even some that our brother dealt with this morning. And then I even considered doing maybe some character sketches of different Men in the Word of God, somebody like Enoch, where the Word of God testified about Enoch that he walked with God. Genesis said that he pleased God. Hebrews said that he walked with God. And then I considered a man like Stephen in the book of Acts, that his testimony was that he was full of the Holy Ghost. He was a man of good report. He was a deacon in the church. He was a man that served the church. As I was trying to seek the Lord about what to deal with this morning, I felt like these verses were the Lord laid them on my heart for the message this morning, and as we read them, it may not initially seem like they tie into the subject, and maybe they don't, but I'm going to try to tie it in there a little bit, and I hope if I can get it across the way I think the Lord's given it to me. I believe the Lord's given it to me that it would be a help to us. I'd invite you if you would. I don't know what you're... I can't remember what you're accustomed to. If you'd like to stand, you're more than welcome to as far as the reading of God's Word goes. That's what we do where we're at. So if you want to do that, you're welcome. But if not, then you don't have to do that. The Lord Jesus is speaking here and He's having a conversation with the mother of Zebedee's children. And it opens up this way in verse number 20 of Matthew chapter 20. Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children with her sons, worshipping him and desiring a certain thing of him. And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these two my sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, You know not what ye seek. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They said unto him, We are able. And he said unto them, You shall drink indeed of my cup and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with, but to sit on my right hand and on my left, it is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it was prepared of my father. And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. But Jesus called them unto Him and said, You know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them." Really, I want to focus this morning on verse 26, 27, and 28, where the Lord Jesus says this, But it shall not be so among you. But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your servant. even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many. Let's pray and then we'll try to unpack this this morning. Father, thank You, Lord, for Your Word. Thank You, Lord, for Your faithfulness, Your goodness and grace towards us, Lord. Thank You for the Word of God we've already heard this morning. And I ask You, Father, as we come now to the preaching of Your Word, I pray, Lord, that You would fill me with Your Spirit, Lord, to grant liberty, unction, and power to preach. Lord, I cannot preach without You. And Lord, I need You. And I ask You, Lord, that You would help me, use me as Your vessel, as Your mouthpiece, as You see fit. Father, I pray that I'd say everything I need to say and nothing that I don't. Lord, I pray that You'd forgive me where I fail You. Lord, I pray that You'd give every one of us hearts to receive and ears to hear the Word of God. Speak to us, work in our hearts, and help us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You can be seated. Before we can understand the thought of recovering manhood in the church and the direction that we're going to try to take the message in this morning, I think there are two foundational questions that we need to ask, that I'm going to ask and try to answer this morning, and they are these. What is a man? And then, what is the church? If we're dealing with the subject of recovering manhood in the church, we've got to understand what a man is, and we've got to understand what the church is, or what a church is. Now obviously some of this is going to be repetitive as to what our brother's already said, so you can give him credit for it, I guess, since he said it before I did. But nonetheless, what is a man? Let's start there. A man is a person created by God who genetically possesses the X and Y chromosome. It's a man. genetically a man, right? You can look around. There are only two genders this morning. There are only male and female. It doesn't matter what somebody identifies as, whether or not they identify as a he, a she, an it, a they, a them, a cat, a dog, a bird, or a bee. And I know that sounds ridiculous, but there are actually people that identify as cats that want to have litter boxes put in public schools so they can be treated like cats. That's ridiculous. Where I come from, what we do with cats is kick them and get away from them. So, I don't think they want that to happen to them. A man is created by God. God is the Creator. There would be nothing without God that created it. We understand that. That God is the one that spoke creation into existence. That He spoke that there was day and night, there was light, there was dark, there was the sun, there was the moon, there was the stars, there was the trees, the birds, the bees, the fish, and all of the stuff. And then when it came to man, it says that God formed man. Have you ever thought about that? That God spoke everything else into existence by the Word of His power. He spoke and it was so. That's what it says about all of creation, except for man. It says that God formed man. out of the dust of the ground, that God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul, is what the Word of God says. And we know that God used the first anesthesia ever recorded in human history, put Adam to sleep, took his rib out, and made Eve. That's where woman come from. God is the creator of man. We're not so much focusing upon the genetics of a man or how man got here. The emphasis that I want to place upon us this morning is a need for godly men. A need for godly men. If we're going to recover manhood in the church, it is not going to be by packing the church full of men. It's not. It's going to be by having a church full of godly men. There is a difference this morning. What is a man? Number two, what is a church? The word church throughout the New Testament, and I know that y'all know this, it's reviewed, but the word church in the Greek is the Greek word ekklesia. It literally means a called out visible assembly. That's what it means. There are some people, and a lot of us were taught that the church was started on Pentecost and all of that. Really, if you're honest about it, the church was empowered on Pentecost. Jesus makes the statement in Matthew chapter 16. Four chapters prior to this one, He makes the statement as He's conversing with Peter. He asks the question to His disciples, whom do men say that I the Son of Man am? And Peter, you know Peter's always real good about speaking up and shoving his foot so far down his throat that he can I'd chew on shoe leather for a month. He speaks up and he starts talking. He does that quite a bit, doesn't he? And he says this, he says, well, some say thou art Jeremiah or Isaiah or Elijah or one of the prophets. And Jesus is always really good about getting in people's business and getting real personal with them. And he says, well, whom do ye, you, say that I, the Son of Man am. He gets real personal with Peter. And Peter says, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And here's Jesus' response. Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood have not revealed the Son to thee, but my Father which is in heaven. The next thing Jesus says is, And upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I don't care what the Catholics tell you, that rock is not the Pope and it is not the Catholic Church. The rock is Jesus. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is built upon Jesus. So the church, Jesus said He was going to build His church. That's what He said. Upon this rock I will build my church. That was really hard. I went to three, almost four years of Bible college to figure out that statement. He is the Lord that builds the church. What has Jesus been doing from the time He made that statement in Matthew 16 to where we come to in Matthew chapter number 20? What He has been doing is He has been calling men to Himself, He has been saving them, and He has been building His church. I know this isn't a pastor's conference or a preacher's conference, but let me remind us this morning that preachers, or elders, or teachers in our churches, it is not our church. The church that I'm a member of, the church that I'm the assistant, or associate, or whatever title you want to give me, that is not my church. Maranatha is not Brother Bruce's church. Providence is not Brother Jeff's church. Whatever church you're a member of, whatever church you pastor, or you're a leader in, it's not your church. It's Jesus' church. And He gets to do with it what He wants to, not you. That was free, no extra charge. Now, what do these verses have to do with our subject this morning? In verse number 28, the latter end of what we read this morning, Jesus gives us a pattern for a model man. Read it again. But it shall not be so among you, but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister. And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant. Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. As we read these verses, the Lord Jesus, as I said a moment ago, is having a conversation with the sons of Zebedee's mother. She's come to Him and she's asked Him something, and what she's asked Him is that her two sons would sit, one at the right hand of the Lord and one at the left hand, in His kingdom. And Jesus basically tells her, and I'm paraphrasing it, we read it, that I'm not the one that can do that, is what Jesus said. It's got to be given to them by My Father. And he changes the subject a little bit, doesn't he? He says, well, are you willing to drink the cup that I'm willing to drink? Are you willing to be baptized of the baptism that I am going to be baptized with? And then he goes on to talk about this idea of humility. The sons of Zebedee's mother was really concerned about her sons having a place of honor. That's what she was concerned about, was that they be seated at the right hand and the left hand of Jesus in His kingdom. That ain't what Jesus was concerned about. Jesus was concerned about humility. And here's where I'm going to try to tie this together this morning. If we're going to build and if we're going to restore manhood in the church, we're going to have to have men that are humble. We're going to have to have men that are servants this morning. There are a lot of men, whether they're in pastoral positions, or whether they're the song leader, or whoever it may be, they view the church that they're a part of as nothing more than a stepping stone to get from where they are to the next plateau. There's a lot of men that say they're called to preach and all their concerns with the paycheck. And the next time a bigger church with a bigger paycheck comes along, they're gonna go there. And then so forth and so on. That is not the kind of man that we ought to be looking for if you're looking for a pastor, by the way. And if that's the kind of man you got, then you ought to get rid of him and find somebody that honors God's word, that preaches God's word, and fulfills the qualifications of what God says a bishop ought to be. There's a lot of people that view the local New Testament church as nothing more than a means to an end. It's the vehicle that they use to get what they want, to accomplish their purpose and their goal. That's not what Jesus assigned it for. Jesus instituted, Jesus is building His church and we see it in New Testament local bodies of believers for this express purpose, to honor and glorify God and to further His gospel. That's the purpose of the New Testament local church. And if you're a part of a church that doesn't do that, find one that does. That's the purpose of the local church is to honor God, to further His gospel, and make disciples. The question that Jesus asks in verse 22 and 23, are you willing to be baptized with my baptism? Are you willing to drink the cup which I drink? Essentially what Jesus is asking, and it's something that before we can unpack this this morning, we have to ask ourselves, are you willing to follow Jesus and if necessary, ultimately suffer for the glory of God? Again, I'm not so much interested in a man. We don't just need men. We need godly men. This is going to be really deep. You ready? To be a godly man, you've got to be godly. Wow! That was hard, wasn't it? To be a godly man, it requires that you rely upon the Spirit of God and not yourself. Now I know we're sovereign grace people. I know that you flip on TBN and all the rest of the charismatic channels on TV. If you feel like you can have a TV in your house, you turn your TV on and you listen to all the people on TV. Then they make a mockery of the Spirit of God. But here's the reality. The Spirit of God's real. It doesn't matter what Benny Hinn does. It doesn't matter what the rest of that crowd out there does. God's Spirit is real, and He's not Caspar the friendly ghost. He is the third person of the Trinity. He is as much God as the Son, and He is as much God as the Father. And we are commanded, you ain't got an option, but to be filled with the Spirit of God. Didn't Paul say it to the church of Ephesus? And be not drunk with wine, weary in his excess, but be filled with the Spirit. We sit in our sovereign grace churches, and we sit, and we look around, and if somebody smiles, we're about to have a heart attack, because everything's not done decently and in order. That went over like a lead balloon. Did it be alright? I'll go a little further with it. Y'all might not ever have me come back again. It's okay to smile in church. It's okay to say amen a couple of times. It's okay, believe it or not, it is okay to lift your hands in worship. There's a lot of people scared to death to worship God. It'd do a lot of us, I don't know how else to put this, I come from the mountains of North Carolina, so if this don't make any sense to you, then I'll explain it to you after the service. It would do a lot of us good if we would just have a case of I can't help it and get plumb beside ourselves in the glory of God. It would do a lot of us good if we would just junk our pride, quit caring what everybody thinks about us, and worship God for who He is and what He's done for us. A godly man is one that relies upon the Spirit of God and not himself. To be a godly man is going to require sacrifice and service to God. To be a godly man, and really this is the emphasis this morning, it is going to require humility. It's going to require humility. How is that going to be accomplished? Well, I believe verse number 26 and 27 lay out exactly how it is going to be accomplished. The Lord Jesus, again, is emphasizing this idea of humility. And He does it by saying, if there is going to be one of you among you that is the greatest, let him be a servant. Let him be your minister, is the word. King James uses the word minister in verse number 26. And the word minister, this is literally the definition for the word. One who renders service to another. It means unattendant. And I don't mean this disrespectfully. The word literally means to run errands or to wait tables. That's what the word means. This word, servant or minister, that the Word of God uses in verse number 26 is translated in the pastoral epistles as deacon. I can't pronounce the Greek word, but it's the same Greek word that is translated in those places as deacon. Again, does this not speak of humility? A table waiter. One that cares for the service of another. One that runs errands. You remember in Acts when they established deacons? Why did they establish deacons? Because there was an uproar in the church of Jerusalem that the Greek women, that the Greek elder women weren't being taken care of. That was the problem. And so the apostles said, well, it's not given unto us that we should leave the Word of God to serve tables. And so they chose out among them seven men of good report and full of the Holy Ghost. To do what? To serve people. We need men that are willing to serve other people. Paul would say it this way in Philippians chapter number 2. Let each esteem other better than themselves. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but let each esteem other better than themselves. And then he goes on to say, look not upon your own things, but on the things of others. And then he goes on to say, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. I don't know how else to be with you other than to be very plain and very clear, your life is not about you. I don't mean to hurt your feelings, I don't mean to bust your bubble, but your life is not about you. Doesn't matter what Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Snapchat tells you, you're not as important as you think you are. And neither am I. My life is not about me. Your life is not about you. We ought to be a people, not just men, but women included, a people that are characterized as servants. If we're going to restore godly manhood to the church, it's going to have to be a church full of servants. Not only is it going to have to be a church full of servants, but number two, it's going to have to be a church full of slaves. full of slaves. In verse number 27, the Lord Jesus makes this statement, and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant. He uses the word minister. In verse number 26, translated deacon, servant, the King James uses the word servant. In verse number 27, the word servant in the Greek, I can pronounce this one, is doulos. It's the Greek word for slave. You could literally read this verse, and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your slave. That is the complete opposite of the attitude a lot of people have in a lot of churches. Jesus describes the greatest among men, the disciples, as ministers, as servants, and He describes them as slaves. That's who He's talking to. Remember the context of this. The sons of Zebedee's mother have come, and He's wanted them to be exalted, and He's talked to her about humility and all of that. And the other ten. You've got ten plus two makes what? Twelve. Man, I can do good math. That was hard. The other ten. They're mad. They're full of indignation. And Jesus comes to him and talks to him about humility. Who's He talking to? The other ten disciples. What's a disciple? The word disciple in the New Testament is the Greek word methetos or methetous. It literally means a pupil or a learner, a follower. The word slave here takes this a step further, the word servant that literally means slave. It means a servant that is both voluntarily and involuntarily supposed to do the will of the one that has authority over him. It means one who gives up, gives himself up to the will of another. One definition for the word was this, devoted to another, to the disregard of one's own interest. There's a lot of people in a lot of churches that don't live like slaves. I don't mean to bust your bubble this morning, I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but if you're saved by God's grace, that's what you are. What you are is a slave. Again, I know where I'm at. I know we believe the doctrines of grace. And we argue, we preach against, and we debate with people about the free will of man. But on the other hand, well, a lot of people live, especially in sovereign grace circles, with a misconception of this idea of Christian liberty. What I'm trying to get you to understand is you don't get to do what you want to do no more. You don't get to go where you want to go no more. You don't get to be who you want to be no more. You're not your own, is what Paul said. You've been bought with a price and you don't get to decide how your life goes. It doesn't really matter how something feels to you. It doesn't really matter. We're not here to make much of ourselves. We're here to make much of Jesus. There's a lot of people say, they make statements like this. Well, we're not under the law, we're under grace. And that's true. And God's sovereign and He knows I'm going to sin because He knows everything, so it don't really matter what I do. That is wrong. It does matter what you do. It does matter how you live. It does matter what you say. It does matter where you go. It does matter what kind of reputation you've got among people. If you name the name of Christ, live like it. How does one serve others by being a slave to Christ? We need saved, born again men occupying the pews of our local churches. There's a lot of places that's got a lot of men sitting in it that don't know God from a hole in the wall. They've never been regenerated. They've never been born again. They've never been made alive. It doesn't matter if somebody can tell you every question of the catechism or not and give you the right answers. If they've never been made alive on the inside, if the Spirit of God does not take residence in them, if their sin has never been forgiven, mark it down. When they die, they are going to end up under the judgment and wrath of God in hell and the lake of fire, and rightfully so. Doesn't matter if they're a member of a local church or not. Doesn't matter if they got all their doctrine right. Doesn't matter if they can intellectually understand the doctrines of grace or not. If they don't know God, they're lost. If they don't know God, they're in their sin. If they don't know God, they need to be born again. We need men. Godly men. Again, to be a godly man, you've got to be godly. And to be godly, you've got to know God. Not just know about Him. but know Him. Isn't that what Paul said in Philippians chapter 3, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection? I know Paul was already saved when he wrote Philippians, but the idea of the word know, it is the idea of an intimate personal knowledge in a way that a husband would know his wife. I ask you this morning, I know that this is a fellowship and that most of us in here would profess to know Christ, but let me ask you a question. Have you ever been born again? Have you ever been saved by God's grace? There are some people who don't like the word saved. You can get over it. I was saved from my sin. I was saved from the penalty of my sin, the wrath of God. I was rescued. Whatever synonym you want to use, it doesn't matter. Have you ever been made a new creature in Christ Jesus? The Bible still does say, therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new. And you'll never guess, you'll never guess this, if God takes up residence in you, it's going to show up somewhere. A slave is one that has been bought by the master. You've been bought. If you're saved by God's grace, if you're a slave to Jesus this morning, you have been bought by Christ. How'd He do it? He paid the price for you by shedding His blood on the cross of Calvary. A slave is one that is bound to his master. Often in the New Testament, King James will use the word servant or bond-servant or bond-slave in some places. Historically, that word carried the idea of one that was in a service to another. And when it would come time for them to decide, I know we don't like using the word decide in churches like ours, but it'll be okay. I figured that would make you all smile a little bit. When it would come time for them to decide if they were going to continue to serve their master or not, and they would say, well my master's been good to me, my master's been faithful to me, my master's been far better to me than I deserve, I'm going to continue to serve him. They would place a mark upon that individual that would tell everybody that he is in servitude to his master. I don't know about you. I know I don't know some of y'all, but I won't speak for you this morning. But I can testify for me this morning that God has been far better to me than I deserve. If I was to outweigh the good and the bad, I have by far had many more better days than bad days. When I look back over it, all of the trials, all of the sorrows, all of it, that we didn't understand what was happening, why it was going on, all of the tears that were shed, all of the uncertainty that you had to wait through, all of it has been worth it. Why? Because God has been good. Oh, not just because He has given us stuff. There's a whole lot of people that that's how they view God. He's the magic genie in Aladdin's bottle that you rub the lamp, get the three wishes, and you're good to go. Oh, God's good because that's who His character is. That's who He's revealed Himself to be. And His goodness shows up in your life. And His goodness shows up in my life. You say, I don't know about that preacher. There ain't a whole lot good going on in my life. Well, everybody sitting in here that's blinking their eyeballs and breathing air, you ain't doing that by yourself. God's keeping you alive. God's keeping your heart beating. There ain't nobody up in here that's, I went hungry. We're getting ready to eat if I'd ever showed up and quit preaching. God's been good. The greatest If y'all don't get nothing out of it, I know this probably ain't got nothing to do with the subject and you can rebuke me later I guess, but the greatest thing, the greatest joy in life is living for Jesus. Being a slave for Jesus. I had a lot of plans for my life. I did. I was going to give a couple of them to you. I was going to go to college. I was planning on going to UNC Charlotte to get a business degree, and I was going to start my own business and be rich. Well, I took a couple business classes, figured out I wasn't smart enough for that. So that plan got thrown out the window. And then I thought, well, I kind of like history a little bit. I might go be a history teacher. So I started taking more history classes, and I failed a history class, and I was like, yeah, that ain't going to happen. I can't do that either. Had all these plans, all these hopes, all these dreams. What I found out is that God's ways are higher than my ways. His thoughts are higher than my thoughts. When I look back over it, I'm glad this morning that God sometimes doesn't answer our prayers. You ever thought about that? The same God that we praise for answering our prayers is the same God we ought to praise for not answering our prayers. Because all of this, all of my life, and all of your life, here's what it really is this morning. It's God interworking and weaving things together for His honor and His glory. And God's put you as a man, a part of the church that you're a part of for the specific purpose of bringing Him honor, bringing Him glory, being a servant, and being a slave to Jesus. Christ has marked those that are His slaves in their heart internally. He changes our hearts. I always liked what Ezekiel said, what the Lord said to Ezekiel. He took out that heart of stone and He put in a heart of flesh. That's exactly what God does when He regenerates somebody. You may not have realized it, but you needed open heart surgery. And God ain't never lost one on the table neither. So you ain't got to worry about it. He changes people internally that shows up externally. Here's the reality this morning. Paul would say it this way in Romans 6, verse number 16, that whom you serve is who you obey. You're either serving God... Again, our churches need godly men. Ones that are servants to others. Ones that are slaves. to Christ. But let me give you this and close with this this morning. Not only in these few verses here do we see that we are to be servants to other slaves to Christ, but lastly in verse 28 we see the standard that we're to live by. Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many. I talked about before I started preaching doing some character sketches, somebody like Enoch, somebody like Stephen, people like that, that are characteristic of servants, people that walked with God, people that pleased God, people that served others. What greater example is there in the Word of God than Jesus Himself this morning? In everything we do, Christ is our standard. In this verse it says that Christ came. He says, even as the Son of Man came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister. The word came, it literally carries the idea that He manifested Himself. We understand that Jesus Christ was a 100% God and 100% man. We have the 50 cent term for that called the hypostatic union. We believe that. You better believe that because that's what the Word of God teaches. That Jesus was God and He was man. He was the perfect man. He could not sin and He did not sin. He was a man. When He walked upon this earth, He hungered as we hungered, He thirsted as we thirsted, He shed tears at the grave of Lazarus because people were weeping over the death of His friend. He was a man's man. I don't know about you, but I don't really want to tangle up with a big old man. And Jesus was a carpenter, and His truth says He probably built yoke for oxen. That would make pretty good sense with Matthew 11, 28, wouldn't it? Take my yoke upon you, learn of me. Make pretty good sense. I ain't going to preach that as fact, but it sounded good. He was a man's man. But yet, He makes to me, personally, one of the greatest statements that I've read in the New Testament, that He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and give His life a ransom for me. The word minister, verse 28, and the word ministered, and also the word minister in verse 26, all the same word. Same Greek word. One who renders service to another unattended. One who runs errands. One who waits tables. Jesus deserved the honor and the glory and the praise of men. He deserved the ivory palaces. He deserved to be worshipped because He was God, a very God. He deserved it because He's holy, righteous, undefiled, and separate from sinners. But yet Jesus said He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. Not to be served, but to serve. The text says that He came to give His life a ransom for many. Did He not, when He was upon this earth, did He not heal the blind? Did He not heal the sick? Did He not make the lame walk and the dumb talk and the blind see and the deaf hear? Was He not characterized as a friend of publicans and sinners? And thank God for that, that Jesus didn't come for the righteous, but the unrighteous. He didn't come for those who got it all together. He come for those that are messed up, broken, and all kind of a gone. Thank God for that. You see Him being a submissive servant in this, that He testified in John chapter 4, when the disciples have gone away to get meat, and He converses with the woman at the well, and they come back, and they're concerned about Him eating some food, and they're saying, well, who brought Him meat? He makes the statement, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me. It's quoted in Hebrews and referenced in the songs that in the volume of the book is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Jesus said, I always do that which pleases the Father. What was it that pleased the Father that Jesus did? It pleased the Father that Jesus would come, be born of a virgin, live a sinless and perfect life, that He would become our sin, that He would die on the cross in our place, that He would be buried, and that He would resurrect the third day with life and liberty for His people. It said in Isaiah's prophecy that it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. Don't get it twisted. Don't misunderstand. When they come and took Jesus that night, they didn't take His life. He laid it down freely. That's what Jesus said. He said in John 10 and 11 that He had power to lay His life down and He had power to take it up again. He laid His life down for us. Jesus shed His blood as the payment for our sin to pay the debt to God that we owe because of our rebellion, because of our iniquity, because of our sin. He didn't have no sin. He died for our sin. Isaiah would prophesy that Christ would give His back to the smiter and that they would pluck the beard from His face. In Isaiah chapter 15. The Scriptures tell us that Jesus was mocked, He was ridiculed, He was spit upon. The Word of God tells us they took that cat of nine tails, that whip that was interwoven with glass and bones and rocks and all sorts of different things. and they literally ripped his body apart. The idea of the word is philegrum. That's where we get the English word phile from. Just like you would a fish. They ripped his body apart. Psalms would describe it in such a manner that his innards were staring at him. Jesus suffered all of that because He submitted to the will of the Father. And the will of the Father was that He die for you and that He die for me. Christ submitted Himself to the whipping. Christ submitted Himself to the beating. He submitted Himself to the mocking. Christ Jesus submitted Himself to being crucified on a cross. He was God of every God. He could have called the legions of angels down and stopped the whole thing. He didn't have to die for us. He didn't. In one sense, yes, I know he's a lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Hold on, don't get mad at me. But you didn't deserve it. I didn't either. If I got what I deserve, and if you got what you deserve, you would split the ground wide open, and you would end up in hell. And God would go on being just and right and holy and perfect in all that He does because that's what you deserve. But thank God that God loved you. Hallelujah. And God loved me enough to send His Son to die on the cross for my sin that I can read it that God made Him who knew no sin to be made sin for me. It really ain't never done me, I ain't really got all that excited that Jesus died for the world. I ain't really got all that excited that Jesus died for you. But I'll switch you about it. Oh, but every time I think about it, that Jesus died for me, there's somebody down inside of me that says, glory to God, hallelujah, it's been over, it's been years and years and years, it's been years since that truth became real, that Jesus really was the Son of God, that really did live a perfect and sinless life, that he really did die for me, and I'm glad I hadn't got over it. that it's still just as real, it's still just as fresh, it's still just as grand, it's still just as glorious, that all of my sin are gone, they're forgiven, that in the court of heaven, it don't matter what nobody says, don't matter what you say, don't matter what I think, that before God, I'm declared righteous, and so are you, if you're in Christ Jesus. I don't know about you, but that ought to light a fire in some people to be some servants. That ought to light some fire into people to be a slave for Jesus. If we're going to restore manhood in the church, we don't just need men. We need godly men. We need men that are going to be like Jesus. Father, thank You, Lord, for Your Word. Thank You, Lord, for Your faithfulness, Your goodness, Your grace toward us. Lord, I ask You that You would speak to every one of our hearts from Your Word, Lord. And we'll thank You for what You do for us in Jesus' name. Amen.