Well, hey, church family. It is a great day for us to be together.
So wherever you are or whatever your week has been like,
you are right where you need to be. Welcome to Hope.
Living like
Well, hey, church family. My name is Matt.
I'm one of the pastors here at Hope Community Church,
and it is a great day for us to be together. Uh, look,
we are continuing on in our King and a Kingdom series.
And if you remember last weekend, we talked about connecting intentionally.
And I gotta celebrate this with you. Uh,
myself and a bunch of my friends out in Fuquay last weekend had the opportunity
to celebrate together,
to come and worship Sunday morning and connect intentionally.
We worshiped together. Uh, we prayed together. We had communion together. Uh,
and it was just a phenomenal time.
There was a face painter there who was Michelangelo level,
quality face painting. If that's competitive, then she's the best. Uh,
but it was just a, a phenomenal time. Uh,
and I just want to say thank you to those of you who have contributed over the
course of the last year to the Hope Where You Are Campaign and remind you that
we are in the middle of a hope where you are Campaign,
where we are trying to fund the Fuquay campus through 2024 by
raising a million dollars. So I just wanna put that right back in front of you,
and thank you for the gifts that you have giving and your generosity. Um,
the next thing I want to tell you,
everything we've done in Fuquay has been let's be missional and be a church
without a gathering and without a place, uh, at hope.
We believe that all of us have a place in what missions looks like.
So we've got a story and a video we wanna share with you from our Global Hope
team. Check it out.
My name is Josh Pease. I'm the local director of Sunica.
We live in Leon, Nicaragua, along with my family, my wife, Betty.
We've got three kids, uh, Andrea, Paola, and Mathias.
And we have been living and working there for the past, uh,
almost 15 years now.
I ended up in Nicaragua because I was running away from seminary.
I was, or Bible college I should say. Yeah, I was frustrated with,
um, everything around, uh,
learning about and being tested on God and all of these things and everyone
talking about God. But it didn't seem like anyone was doing anything, uh,
or loving anybody. I just wanted to get away.
And a good friend of mine was going to Nicaragua for a fall
semester. I decided I was going four days later.
I was in Nicaragua, and that was my first time.
I'd never been really outside of the country.
Definitely never lived in a house with a dirt floor and, uh,
had the full rural, uh, central American experience.
And so everything was different, but everything was awesome. You know,
I loved it.
And I think we started Sunica because we wanted to be
intimately involved on the ground on a daily basis
with people involved in what they were, saw their own needs as,
as opposed to just trying to like step in and out,
in and out and meet needs that we thought we saw. And so for us,
that started with water and discipleship.
And so like, big brother, big sister,
just coming alongside people and discipling them. All we do is ask questions.
We don't, we try not to lead. We try not to, you know, push in any direction.
We just ask lots of questions and that gives us, yeah,
an idea of how the community sees itself and how they would
fix their own issues if they had all the resources at their disposal.
Super important for them to understand their own perspective and not
just to have someone come in and fix their problems. Uh, for example,
we come into a community, we know they have a need for water,
but we just fix their water problem.
Then it's now our project and our solution versus
their solution that they put their blood, sweat, and tears into,
and they're gonna fight to take care of people think,
oh man, you're making so much sacrifice and you're, you're doing this thing.
And for me, I I wanna say like, oh, I love what I do.
It feels like less of a sacrifice.
It feels like more just doing exactly the best I can.
What God's calling me to do, where I'm at and where I'm at became Nicaragua.
But it doesn't need to be that for everyone.
And I think what it comes down to is just being open
and listening to whatever God's putting on your heart to do.
And that can be serving the person next to you.
It can be getting to know your neighbor,
going to places and searching out those people who aren't like you and
actually engaging in their lives.
It's just being open and aware of what the spirit is
inviting us into.
Come on church.
Hallelujah.
Can we give the Lord some praise in this house today?
Amen And amen. Jesus, your name is power. Your name is healing.
Your name is life, uh, with that church. Will you pray with me? Father,
you are our God and we are your people. God,
we trust you for healing.
We trust you for reconciliation. We trust you God,
that we would know that we are made by the God of the universe who has a
purpose and a plan for each and every one of us, for our families.
So God, I pray over the families that can hear my voice.
I pray over the children, I pray over Mom and dad, grandparents.
God, I pray for pregnant mothers, for all of us. Lord,
we pray in the name of Jesus that we would be your people,
that you would be our king God,
and we would love one another. Well,
so that the world would know that we are yours.
Pray all these things in Jesus' name and we say, amen. Thanks, church.
How are we doing y'all? Good, good. Hey,
keep that energy,
because I wanna start things off a little bit differently here. Uh,
I want to start off by playing a game with y'all. Is that okay? Yeah, that fine.
Okay. A lot more eager than I, than I anticipated. That's great.
Usually people wanna know the rules first. Don't worry. It's simple.
You don't have to leave your seats.
All I need you to do is be loud enough for me, okay?
That's the only thing I need. No matter if you're here in the room,
if you're watching at one of our campuses, this is,
I just need you to dial in for a second, okay?
The name of the game is Who's the Greatest? All right?
What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna throw a few photos up on the screen, and I just,
all you have to do is yell out the person's name and what they're famous for.
Okay? Sound simple enough? Sound simple enough. All right, here we go.
Here's the first one right here.
Simone Biles. That's right. Why is she famous? Why is she the greatest?
She's a golden, uh, uh, medal winning, uh, Olympic gymnast. All right,
there we go. Okay, one for one. Give yourselves a round of applause.
Round of applause. There we go. All right, here we go. Number two.
Boo
Boo is not the correct answer. If you did, boo,
it's probably because this man has broken your heart more times than you can
count. I'm a Falcons fan, trust me, I get it. All right. Uh, this is Tom Brady,
arguably the greatest n f l quarterback of all time. All right,
so you're two for two. That's really good. Uh, here we go. Here's the next one.
Billy Graham.
Billy Graham. Is that what you said? Not Billy Graham. Okay.
Let me help you out. Okay? I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you the name.
You just tell me what he's known for. Okay? This is Philo Farnsworth.
He's the inventor of the television,
inventor of the television Philo Farnsworth. Okay? That's all right.
You're still two for three. That's not bad. Let's go onto the next one.
Muhammad Ali, right? Literally called himself the greatest. It's,
it's considered that his wife coined the term goat, right? Greatest of all time.
So there we go. We're back in the game. All right, let's do this next one.
Nobody. Can you have a hint?
I will literally give you his name if you can tell me what he did. Okay.
Willis Carrier
Air Conditioner.
The air conditioner. There you go. There's a few of y'all in here. Now, I just,
just really quick, there's a couple hundred people in this room.
Four of you knew the answer, okay? That's, that's still really impressive.
All right, we've got two more for you. Okay.
Michael Keaton. That's right. Listen,
we can debate all day long whether or not Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback
of all time. There is no debate that this man is the greatest Batman ever, okay?
No debate whatsoever. All right, here's the last one. Okay?
Confidence level shot down real quick. Now, look, I understand not getting the,
the past couple, like the black and white ones, because you're like, yeah,
those people lived a really, really long time ago. This is,
this is a fairly recent picture. This woman's name is Susan Alice Bennett.
Anybody know what she's famous for? This is the Voice of Siri.
Yeah, that's right. Half of you told her to shut up twice this week.
You have no idea who she is. Here's what's,
what's interesting about this,
this group of people who we just took some time to,
to think about their accomplishments and what they've done. You know,
it's funny, all the ones that we like know off the top of our head,
the household names, those people have done nothing for us.
Like,
maybe you've won a couple of bucks off of Tom Brady winning a football game,
but other than that, like they've done nothing to deeply impact your life.
But let me ask you a question.
How many of you spent time in front of a TV this week? Yeah. So, Philo
Farnsworth, I butchered his name. That's how little we know him.
He's impacted our lives directly, the air conditioner.
How many of y'all have lost AC in your house or in your car this summer, right?
Yeah. Thank God for Willis Carrier.
These are all people who deeply impact our lives. However, we don't like,
I'm willing to bet none of your kids have a, a poster of the Siri woman on her,
on their wall at home, right? Why is that? I think it's because in our culture,
we often value what's impressive over what's impactful.
It's very easy for us to admire people for their accomplishments and what
they've done and how much screen time they get and all this sort of stuff,
right? But, but what about the people who deeply impact our lives?
If we're honest, like, I don't, until I told you what those people did, I,
I don't know if any of us would've been like, oh, yeah,
that's my first idea of greatness. Instead,
we quantify greatness over accomplishments.
Usually whenever we think about someone who is truly great,
we imagine someone who can do something that we can't do, right? Like,
I don't care how hard I try,
I will never be as talented at football as a Tom Brady.
I know for a fact I would break my neck if I tried to do what Simone Biles does,
right? It's something about these people that,
that puts them in a category of their own that you can't easily replicate.
And so we say that person is great. And the problem with this is,
is that inside of the world that we live in,
we've believed the lie that unless you do something impressive,
you can't actually be great.
But the beauty of Jesus and the beauty of his kingdom is that
he actually invites all of us into a life of, of being impactful.
Jesus actually teaches that all of us can be great,
but the way he does that is completely counter-cultural to the world that we
live in. And so that's what we're gonna be taking a look at today.
If you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn it over to Matthew chapter 20.
We're gonna start in verse 20. And while you're getting there,
I'll just set this up a little bit for you. Uh, by this point,
Jesus's ministry has taken off. He's going around,
he's talking about the kingdom a lot.
Like it is Jesus's obsession. There are over a hundred different, uh, uh,
references by Jesus to the kingdom throughout Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
Luke and John, the four gospels, right?
So he talks about the kingdom all the time.
And I just want you to imagine that you're, you're walking around,
you're following Jesus, you're listening to him talk about the kingdom,
and you just think, man, it's gonna be great when that thing gets here.
But the message that Jesus was trying to proclaim is like, no,
the kingdom is actually, it's here now,
but there were a lot of people who missed the point you see out of the crowds of
people who had followed Jesus. We pick up in Matthew 20 with a story.
And in that story, we meet three people. It's a family. There's,
uh, James, John, and there's their mother.
And in this a conversation about greatness strikes up. And so, uh,
this is where we're gonna pick up. This is verse 20 says,
then the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, they came to Jesus,
I'm sorry. She came to Jesus with her sons.
She knelt respectfully to ask a favor, what is your request? He asked,
she replied, in your kingdom,
please let my two sons sit in places of honor next to you,
one on your right and the other on your left. Now,
I wanted to take just a moment here and, uh, and talk about the thing that,
that fascinates me so much in this, it's the language that she uses.
Do you notice that, that, that James and Johns' mom,
she talks about Jesus's, uh, kingdom in a future tense. She says,
Hey, Jesus, on the day, when you get to where you're like this kingdom,
you keep talking about the day when that finally shows up,
can my boys have a place of honor next to you?
And it just shows us how much they missed the point. Here's, here's why.
This is such a strange request. I mentioned earlier that Jesus had, uh,
multitudes of people that would follow him around from place to place.
But out of those couple hundred disciples that followed him, he had his 12,
the ones that we talk about all the time. And then even inside of that 12,
he had three that he was really, really close with Peter.
And then guess who the other two were? James and John.
These two guys were already arguably at the left and the right of Jesus,
but in their mind, they thought, well, what we're doing now,
this can't be the kingdom because it's not impressive enough.
Like we're going around and yeah,
we've seen Jesus perform some miracles and stuff,
but he keeps talking about this kingdom. When that thing comes,
it's gotta look like all the other kingdoms that we know.
There's gotta be a throne. There's gotta be a castle.
There's gotta be gold as far as the eyes can see, and Jesus wants them to know,
man, no, listen, the kingdom is, it's here now,
and you're actually already in the place of honor. But man, woe to you,
James and John, because in your book, this isn't impressive enough for you.
So Jesus, he kind of calls them out a little bit here. He, uh,
he begins to shift their paradigm. We pick up in verse 22,
Jesus says this, he says, you don't know what you're asking.
Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering that I'm about to drink?
And it seems like a weird answer. Uh,
in order to really understand what Jesus is talking about here,
we have to have a, a proper reading of, of Matthew chapter 20, okay?
Right before this story,
right before the part where Jesus is talking to James and John and their mother,
uh, look at what he says in verses 18 and 19. Okay?
So remember earlier we read verse 20. This is 18 and 19.
This is right before it. Jesus said, listen,
we're going up to Jerusalem where the son of man will be betrayed to the leading
priest and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die.
They will hand him over to the Romans to be mocked,
flogged with a whip and crucified like Jesus lays out plainly for them what lies
ahead. And when Jesus says,
are you willing to drink from the bitter cup that I'm about to drink from Jesus
is basically asking them, are you willing to partake in that with me?
The suffering that I'm about to endure for the sake of all of mankind?
Are you willing to endure that with me? Here's the truth, okay?
Jesus's invitation to follow him is an invitation to join him
in his suffering for the sake of other people.
Stitch that on a pillow.
Try to invite people to be a part of the kingdom with that,
with that sales pitch, right? That's not at all what it is.
Jesus isn't trying to sell us anything, but what he is trying to show us is yes,
even though this will be hard, it's still the best life that you can live.
Jesus calls us all to pour out our lives for the sake of others,
even if it comes at our own suffering and our own inconvenience.
We think about this all the time, and and we probably even pray for this thing,
right? We always pray, Lord, I I wanna be the hands and feet of Jesus.
Like I think if I were to ask anyone sitting at any of our campuses or anyone
watching at home, is that what you want for your life?
A lot of us would probably say yes,
but do you remember what happened to the hands and feet of Jesus?
They got nailed to a cross so that others might live.
This is the type of life that he invites us into to borrow, uh,
some of Jason's language from week one. If we're gonna be kingdom people,
we have to recognize that we're in a fight,
and we have to recognize that being kingdom people means that it's going to cost
us something, whether that's our convenience, whether that's our time,
our resources, our energy, whatever it is, it's going to cost us something.
And Jesus is very clear about this upfront. He says,
if you want to be great, here's what you have to do. Now,
the rest of the disciples, they overhear this conversation between James, John,
and Jesus, right? And so, uh, the Bible tells us that, that, uh, when,
when the other disciples heard this,
when the other disciples heard what James and John had asked,
they were indignant. That word indignant is grease Greek,
for they threw a hissy fit. All right? They're throwing temper tantrums.
They're getting mad at each other. Like, no, I'm the greatest. No,
I'm the greatest, all that. And so, Jesus, I love this.
He pulls them apart from the crowd, uh, in Matthew 20:25,
and look at what he tells 'em. He tells 'em this. He says, you know,
the rulers in this world, they lowered that over their people.
Like they brag about how good they are. They brag about how great they are.
That's what everyone else does. He says, the officials,
they flaunt their authority over those under them. And, and,
and Jesus is pointing out to them, listen,
this is the way that this works everywhere else.
There is no earthly dynamic where this isn't the reality where people in
power try to, uh, uh, uh, oppress their power on those who are underneath them.
But look at how he paints a picture of the kingdom to them. Matthew 20:26,
he says, but among you, it will be different.
Y'all. That could have been the name of this series.
If we're going to be kingdom people,
we have to recognize that the way we operate is different from the way that the
rest of the world operates. There's a paradigm shift here.
So when Jesus talks about being the greatest,
let's look at how he paints that picture. Matthew 20:26-27,
whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your
servant.
And whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave.
Imagine hearing this for the very first time. Some of you are,
some of you have heard this before, but, but now you're,
you're actually thinking about it and internalizing it for the first time,
and realizing just how much Jesus turns the view of greatness upside down.
Jesus is inviting us to kingdom standards,
and they're so unlike anything else that we know in our own world. It's okay,
how many people do our supervisor, how much, uh, how much money do I make? Or,
um, how many accolades and degrees and, and diplomas do I have?
How clean is my house? Right? Let's get all the way down to the small level.
Like the thing that defines me, and if I have it all together,
if I'm good or not, if I'm great or not,
is how well on paper my life is put together.
But the kingdom ask a different question.
And it's one I wanna challenge you to ask yourself right now. It's very simple.
Am I a servant?
Isn't it crazy just how different that question sounds when you think about it?
Because I think our hearts would often scream and often ask, am I great?
But if we're gonna be great by kingdom standards, we have to change that.
Am I a servant? Now, as we learned in,
in that opening exercise, we did the little game that we played, uh,
we all have a broken scale of greatness, okay? That's not a slight on you.
It's a slight on us. We've, we've seen the way that our ideas of greatness, uh,
can break us down.
And so if Jesus is the one who tells us that being a servant is what it means to
be great, how about we let Jesus himself define servanthood?
So that's what we're gonna do. If you flip one over to Matthew chapter six,
verses one through four, Jesus teaches us, uh, not only to serve,
but how to serve. He says this. He says, watch out.
Don't do your good deeds publicly to be admired by others,
for you'll lose the reward from your father in heaven. Uh,
when you give to someone in need, don't do as the hypocrites do.
This is another moment where he's painting a picture of how the kingdom of the
world operates and how his kingdom is different. He says,
don't do like the hypocrites do,
blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts
of charity. I tell you the truth.
They have received all the reward they will ever get.
But when you give to someone in need,
don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.
Give your gifts in private,
and your father who sees everything will reward you.
So how do we serve? Well, according to Matthew six, one through four,
Jesus puts it this way. He says, we serve selflessly,
selflessly. We don't, we don't think about ourselves.
We don't put ourselves first when it comes to serving other people.
Here's the thing that's interesting about this.
Jesus automatically has this expectation that people are gonna do good deeds.
Like I think Jesus even recognizes,
like whether you're a part of his kingdom or not.
Like most people when put in certain situations,
are willing to serve what separates Jesus's call a service from
the, from, from the way the world views It is this,
is that Jesus tells us how to do it.
And it's by not trying to seek fame or notoriety or greatness for yourself,
but instead putting other people first.
He has this expectation of service, but,
but he's trying to get to something a little bit deeper.
He's trying to get to the heart.
I wanna share something with y'all that's gonna make us uncomfortably close.
This is personal. We're getting into medical stuff here, okay?
I'm gonna talk about some of my medical, his recent medical history, but,
but I just need you to ride with me for a second. All right? A few weeks ago,
uh, I went to the dentist
and I go in there and they're doing all this stuff. First of all,
lemme preface this, I haven't been to the dentist in a really long time.
I hate it. Every bit of my being. I hate it. Okay?
Last time I went was around 10 years ago when I had a toothache the last time I
went to the dentist. Uh,
so I go in and they're doing x-rays and all this sort of stuff, and
you ever go to like the dentist or the doctor or like to get an oil change,
and the person doing the service just sounds like the most judgmental person
you've ever met. It's like, dude, just change my oil. Okay?
I know I only have three tires. I don't wanna get into it all right?
Just do what I came here for so I could hear that tone in the dentist's voice.
She's like, Hey, um, have you gotten your mouth checked out in a while?
And I cut her off because listen, I'm like, listen, I,
I already know what you're gonna say. Um, about 10 years ago, I had a toothache.
I went in, they did x-rays and that, that dentist was judgmental too.
They literally asked me, they go, Hey, uh,
do you ever take like a metal pick and just stab your gums with it? I'm like,
no. Who in their right mind would ever do that? And and they go, well,
the reason why is because there's a spot in your gum where you,
you don't have any bone.
Like there's tooth is supposed to be like inside of the bone.
You don't have that. And I'm like, oh, that's weird. Uh,
can you make it stop hurting? That's all I care about.
And so that's what they did. They gave me, uh, painkillers, they gave me, uh,
antibiotics. And after like two weeks, the pain went away.
And so I just never dealt with it again. They even told me, they're like, Hey,
you might wanna go to a periodontist and get this checked out, because if not,
it could cause problems over time. Well, when the pain stopped,
I stopped caring about the tooth.
So when I go to this second dentist a few weeks ago, she says, Hey, listen,
I don't care if the pain stopped. Do you realize what could happen? She's like,
since there's no bone there, one, the tooth can die,
infection can get down in there, food can get down in there. She's like,
you need to go and get this taken care of. I know it's gonna be expensive,
but I don't, I don't really care about that.
You've gotta go get this checked out. I had a follow-up visit a few weeks later,
and, uh, they had some feelings that they were doing,
and she started the cleaning process. And so, I'm numb. I can't feel anything.
You know how Dennis always try to start a conversation with you while you're
like, how? Oh, and how do they know what you're saying?
That's the most mind blowing part to me. Um, but, but so she's,
she's going in there and she takes that little metal pick of death,
and she digs down and she pulls out this yellow stuff, and she's like,
you see that? That's infection. Then she reaches in there again,
and she pulls out something black. She's like,
you see that that was probably food at one point,
and it's all just in there and it's lodged itself.
And what she told me changed the way I looked at it, she said,
just because the tooth is functional doesn't mean it's healthy.
And this is what Jesus is getting at. He says, listen,
you can be a functional servant. You can just do the things,
but it doesn't mean that your heart is healthy.
Just because you're serving it doesn't mean you're a servant.
Just because you're scratching things off a list or checking a box doesn't mean
that the condition of your heart is well. And so he says,
this is how you know the condition of your heart and whether or not it's good
when you serve other people. Are you just looking for praise for yourself?
Are you,
are you waiting to hear the trumpets go off and tell you how great of a job you
did and, and pat you on the back? And,
and maybe it's not external trumpets. Maybe there are some internal trumpets.
The part of you that just wants to make yourself feel good and better about
yourself. If I do these things, then, then maybe I'll be a good person.
Jesus warns about that pride.
And what he wants us to understand is, is listen.
If your acts of service are more concerned about you being viewed as
a good person, well then you put a cap on how much you're able to serve God,
because eventually you'll reach an opportunity that's too good for you.
And so you, you're like, oh, I'm sorry, God, I won't tread into that,
that territory because that's not, well, listen, when it's not about you,
you don't think about yourself. You think about others.
Jesus tells us,
don't even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. He's like,
don't even, don't even serve just to impress the person in the mirror.
There's one person in your audience, and that's your father who sees everything.
Here's what blows my mind about this warning that Jesus gives.
He talks about prideful and selfish people in this,
the people who are looking for those trumpets to go off,
and he actually gives good news to prideful people. He says,
if that's the reward you want, you're gonna get it. Oh,
but here's the bad news, the praise that you should be seeking the most,
the acknowledgement from your father in heaven, you won't receive that.
So that comes a point where we have to ask ourselves,
what's more important is the praise of self or the praise from our Father.
If we bounce around in Matthew a little bit more, we get to Matthew chapter 25.
And, and Jesus is, is, is talking about kingdom people.
He talks about those who will be a part of his kingdom and those who won't be.
And, and he does this in a really interesting way. He,
he paints a picture of the day when he judges all of the nations.
All of the people of the world will be in front of him. And, and, and he's,
he's going to separate them. He puts the righteous to his right. And he puts,
I almost said, I don't even know how I would've said that.
I thought like righteous and leftist. I don't know how that would've gone,
but he puts the righteous to his right and he puts the unrighteous to his left.
That's a word. And uh, look at how he, how he defines the two.
It says that the king will say to those on his right, come,
you who are blessed by my father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world.
For I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink.
I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home.
I was naked and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me.
I was in prison, and you visited me. Then the righteous ones will reply, Lord,
when did we ever see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something
to drink or a stranger and show you hospitality or naked and give you clothing?
When did you, oh, I'm sorry.
When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the king will say,
I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these,
my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me.
Jesus teaches that when you serve his people,
it's direct act of service to him. So, uh,
if the first thing that he teaches us is how to serve, to serve selflessly,
he then gets at our motivation.
And he teaches us that service to others is an act of worship to God.
We can sit in this room and we can sing songs all day long and, and we can, uh,
uh, uh, get together in our small groups, in our homes and have really,
really good conversations. But if you truly want to worship God,
you care for the orphans and the widows.
You get out of your comfort zone to serve people. And Jesus actually says,
those are the people who will inherit the kingdom. As he keeps going on,
he talks to those who don't serve. And when they ask the same questions, Hey,
when did we see you hungry? When did we see you starving?
When did we see you in prison? Uh, all these sort of things. Jesus says, listen,
whenever you didn't serve those people, it's as if you weren't serving me.
So there's a direct correlation between the way we serve others and the way that
we serve God.
And so this brings us to our final thing here. If you, if you're a note taker,
I want you to write this down because maybe something's going through your head,
maybe the Holy Spirit's tapping on your heart and saying, okay, well, yeah,
I know I need to serve. But where it's simple,
serve everyone, everywhere, really,
everybody and everywhere. Yeah. Because again,
this isn't about just serving, it's about becoming servants.
Here's the difference. When you are concerned about serving,
it's a job you check in and out of it's a shirt, you put on a shirt,
you take off. It's a name badge you wear, and the name badge comes off.
But when you become a servant,
there is a fundamental transformation that happens in your heart
where man, you walk in the rooms different. You show up, and,
and you don't think, man, what can I get from this space? Instead,
you're no longer a consumer. You're a contributor, and you say, God,
how would you have me serve with what you've placed in front of me?
And this isn't something that we just do in and of our own strengths. You see,
Jesus himself was the ultimate servant.
He didn't just come to serve. He became a servant. Philippians two,
five through eight puts it this way, when Paul is talking to us, he says,
you have, you must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had,
though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God as something to clinging to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges.
He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.
Jesus literally transformed into a servant.
When he appeared in human form.
He humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death
on a cross.
Paul lays out to us here how Jesus models servanthood. It's three-step process.
He gave up his privileges, he humbled himself, and he became a servant.
And I just want you to use this passage from Philippians two as your framework
for life. Like I, I, I genuinely want you to do this, okay?
We don't pass out homework here often, but I'm gonna do it right now.
I want you to think about your week, pull out your calendar.
Just think about the things that are going on.
I want you to think about your week,
and I want you to think about all the places where you're gonna be.
And just ask yourself, what would it look like to be great in that space?
What would it look like to be great here at Hope? What would it look like to,
to give up some of my privileges for the sake of our community?
Maybe that means you sign up to be a roadie and believe you're gonna wake up on
time in faith.
Maybe that means that when you show up at the Raleigh or the Apex campus and you
have the decision of,
am I gonna park at the building or am I gonna take the shuttle?
It's a privilege that you put to the side just to think, man,
this is an opportunity for me to make room for others who are going to be here.
Maybe it means, uh, uh,
that you consider giving to Hope Where You Are and what God
is doing in Fuquay.
I want you to think about what greatness might look like when you're at work to
show up in a way that's humble. Instead of thinking, man,
what can I get outta this place? Or I'm just here for a paycheck.
Look around at the people around you and say, how can I serve? Like, yeah,
I have a job description, but how can I go above and beyond that?
How can I humble myself to do something that no one asked me to do,
but it's just an act of obedience to my king?
What would it look like to become a servant at home?
What does greatness look like there? Can I be honest?
Some of us just need to serve our spouses better. Parents or,
or students.
Some of you just need to obey your parents better as an act of service.
Maybe you're in here and you're a college student and you have a roommate.
Think about that.
What if they weren't just that awkward roommate who sits in the other side of
the room and we don't talk? What if I served them? What would that look like?
That would change our barometer for greatness to take on the way the kingdom
views it? You know, one of my biggest fears is that, um,
as a church, not just hope, but like the Big C Church, all of us,
I, I think that in some ways we have allowed our hearts to be more, uh,
um,
I think we define greatness by the impressive and not the the impactful.
I think it happens sometimes, right? We're drawn to personality types,
we're drawn to big fancy buildings and all this sort of thing. But lemme get,
lemme just tell you a story really quick. Uh, over, over the summer,
we were doing summer series live,
and I went over to the Garner campus and I go there, you know, and I,
I give the message and, and, And when I leave, I'm like, you know what?
They're a mobile campus.
I'm gonna head over into our student ministry space and I'm gonna help the
student ministry space, uh, get torn down because those are my people, man, I,
I, I can't stay away. So I'm on my way there,
and it takes me like seven minutes to get there because people keep stopping me
in the lobby and like, Hey, man, that message is really great.
Thank you for that. That was really good. All this sort of stuff, right? It was,
it was fine. I I, I appreciate that feedback, but in my mind, I'm like, oh, no,
I have to go over to the room. Well,
I get into the room and there's a guy in there named Michael,
and Michael's in there by himself. Everyone else has left.
And I go over and I'm like, Hey, man, can I help you tear down the room?
And he goes, uh, yeah, sure. I I would love some help.
And quickly realized I was of no use to him in that room.
If you've never done the mobile campus thing before, let me tell you,
if you put one thing in the wrong spot,
you messed up like five trailers worth of equipment.
So much so that eventually Michael goes, Hey, can you just let me get that?
Is that all right? Is that all right? And it's just funny, man,
because I had stood on a stage and done something that in a lot of people's mind
was impressive. But without Michael,
the Garner campus wouldn't be able to exist. He was making a great impact,
and there were no trumpets around to tell him how good of a job he was doing.
He was a perfect model of serving selflessly.
And man, if we're, if we're not careful,
church will become a place where we show up to watch like 10 to 20 people do
their jobs really well. Meanwhile,
there are gifts deteriorating in the seats.
The church was never designed to be a place to watch,
merely watch other people use their gifts as a place where we all contribute our
gifts.
And I just wanted to highlight a couple of examples of people who do this really
well.
And I know they're gonna hate me for putting their pictures up here because they
are selfless people. But, but there's just a few. The, the first, uh,
it's two ladies. Their names are Debbie and Val.
Some of you know them, but, but I'm willing to bet across our campuses,
not a ton of you do. Lemme tell you what these two ladies do.
They show up to our campuses early and they place their hand on every
seat, every wall in this building,
and they pray for whoever's gonna show up in the building that day.
You may never get to see them or thank them, but let me tell you something,
some of the stuff that's happened in your heart,
the transformation that God does,
it's because of the faithfulness of these two ladies.
And they're not looking for trumpets. They're not looking for applause. There's,
there's guys like Mike Miller,
who's a volunteer with our special needs ministry.
He's there with a young man named Cezanne,
who he has walked for five years alongside.
He shows up every weekend to make sure that he's welcomed into every space that
he goes into to make sure that he gets the attention that he needs here.
You see them at a hockey game together.
They hang out together all the time.
Mike has even contributed to the family whenever they go through some hard
financial times. And guess what? You would never know it.
It's just prolonged faithfulness over time. There's people like Hope, Georgie,
hope I, I wish I could.
So I had staff send me examples of people who serve selflessly.
And if I read the emails that came in about this young lady,
I would be up here for another 10 minutes.
This is what serving selflessly looks like. Look,
we don't have time to share all these stories, but,
but I just wanna drop a few names for you. Uh,
there's people like Tom and Cindy Mitchell, Brian Regling, Jen Rust,
the Maddox family, Ron, Rob, Dana and Carrington. There's, uh, uh,
Rachel French, Brady Sullivan, uh, the Ray Family.
Dan Ray is behind that dark glass window right now. You can't see him.
Guess what? He's been the one throwing the pictures up the whole time.
Probably never even thought about 'em before. But man,
this place is better because of people who pour themselves out in that way.
What if all of us contributed our gifts in that way
and recognize that as true greatness?
What if the next time you came into one of our campuses with, with your kids,
you stopped at the person who's greeting at the door and instead of just saying,
Hey, bye, hi. What if you stopped and said, Hey,
you see that that lady right there who's been here faithfully every weekend,
she's great. That's what great people do.
They show up and they serve. Lemme pray for us. Father,
thank you so much for your goodness. Thank you for your grace,
and thank you for the way that you invite us to partner with your spirit.
Father,
thank you for the gifts and the talent and the ability that you've given to each
and every person listening to this at every campus that we have. Father,
I pray that we would get off of the sidelines and that we would use those gifts,
not so that we receive praise, but God,
that we can continue to expand your kingdom so that you can receive the glory
that you deserve. Father Lord,
identify those things to us. Identify the needs.
Show us the places we need to step into and show us how we can humble ourselves
the same way that Jesus did to pour our lives out for the
sake of others. Father, we love you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Well, what a great message from my friend Ayren. And look,
if you remember back to what Josh talked about in the video about his
organization, Sunica, uh, about serving right where you are,
and you've probably heard this language here around Hope,
where we talk about meeting the needs of our community before they come to us.
Um, if you are willing to take that step,
that step of servanthood of others in an intentional way, you can text the,
the word serve to the number right there on the screen and somebody will follow
up with you. Uh, look right here in this community, this gethope.tv. community.
We have some phenomenal folks who serve on a weekend and week out basis who are
there to pray for individuals and be supportive and make sure this thing works.
So, uh,
if you want to take a step and be supportive of one of these ministries that's
going on in and around our church,
text the word serve to the number on the screen. Other than that,
we're gonna continue on in our series, King and a Kingdom next weekend.
We love you guys. We'll see you then.