Pastor Jeff and Cheryl Orluck
Jeff: Well, good morning. It is so great to be here, isn't it? Great to have everybody with us in our online community. Thank you for joining us.
Cheryl: I brought my coffee today.
Jeff: I see that.
Cheryl: Is this working? Testing. Okay. I brought my coffee because when Jeff and I are working on the word at home, our conversation at the table is like, wow. And I thought, well, maybe coffee will help me bring out what we've talked about because we are having our conversation around coffee, so we'll see how this goes.
Jeff: Yeah, it's going to go great. I just would like to take a second and acknowledge another group of people whose role here is so vital to our success every Sunday morning. If you were in the prayer room this morning, would you just raise your hand? Who was in the prayer room this morning? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, I just want to thank you guys. Bernie just mentioned when she came out how glory came down when you were praying this morning, and I just said, you know what? That's good for the rest of us. I just want to thank you for your commitment to come and pray and touch the hymn of his garment and really bring down his glory for the rest of us who come to church to be touched by God. That's really, really important. I just want to thank you for that. It's not a closed group, so if you want to come to church a half hour early and join them in the prayer room, they meet over in one 20 here. And you are always welcome.
I remember when I was part of that group, it was sometimes that was the best part of the whole service because the presence of God could be so strong. And thank you Welton, and worship team. You guys just really, wow, you really helped us touch heaven. Thank you, Jesus. We are set up for something good, hopefully. Well, I don't have any doubt the Lord's going to administer to us, and he is prepared our hearts to receive it, so that's going to be good.
Just one quick announcement on our end. Good Friday, that'll be April 7th, I believe. , we are having a good Friday service here, and as we talked and prayed about it, we just really felt like it was it would be a good thing to have a healing service on Good Friday. And so our very own Walton and Tammy are going to lead worship that night, and they are going to bring us into the presence of the Lord. We are going to spend time worshiping and we are going to spend some time soaking in the presence of the Lord. And then we are going to, as we invite him to come, we are going to begin trusting him and praying for one another for the healings that are needed.
If you need a healing, or if you have friends who need healings or family, come and bring them. If you are in our online community, you live far away. Would you just send a note by email or somehow in the Facebook stream to Rachel even during the morning services or somehow let us know and we'll put you on our list. We'll pray for our online community and we'll pray for each other, and we are going to trust God to do miracles that night. It's going to be a night of miracles. I'm very excited about that. That'll be good. It'll be really good.
Of course, Cheryl and I have been teaching about the Jesus way different, different Jesus ways since last summer. This morning we are going to talk about the whole concept that he taught us that the greatest among you shall be your servant. As Cheryl and I have been stewing in, in this concept and conversing over the last month, it keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. This will be part one, and then we are going to do in April when we share, it's going to be part two. So we are going to make it a two-part message this morning, if the greatest among you--
Something that really came to me as we have been talking and praying over this is that when Jesus said, the greatest among you shall be your servant, that statement is as much about identity as it is about serving. And so this morning we are going to talk about the identity of greatness and what that really is and how we come to it and what it looks like and how we measure it. And then in a month from now, we'll talk more about the whole concept of service and what that looks like and how it relates to the greatness that we carry inside of us.
We are going to start with the kind of the flagship scripture that where this really gets said the first time. It's maybe not the first time. I guess we got earlier scriptures in this, but let's go to Matthew 23, verse 5. Cheryl, you want to read that for us?
Cheryl: Everything they do is for show. On their arms, they wear extra wide prayer boxes with scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra-long tassels. And they love to sit at the head table at banquets and in the seats of honor in the synagogues. They love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplace and to be called rabbi. Don't let anyone call you rabbi, for you only have one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters. And don't address anyone here on Earth as father. For only God in heaven is your father. And don't let anyone call you teacher, for you have only one teacher: the Messiah. The greatest among you must be a servant. But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
Jeff: Amen. So maybe we'll just start out by saying, I don't think Jesus had anything against rabbis or fathers or teachers. As we were talking when he said, don't anybody call you father, I don't think that's talking about your dad. I think it's applying a certain status to a senior person, a wise person, a person who has authority or status in the church particularly, or back then in the synagogues. Actually, I think there is a difference between these terms as they, as they describe roles, because there really are rabbis. There really are pastors. We have a really good one here. They really are fathers and they really are teachers. I really don't think there is a problem with even referring them, using those words to describe who they are and the roles they have and the role they play in our lives.
What the Lord is really addressing here is the need for these roles to somehow prop us up into a position of greatness. That's why he talks about everything they do is for show. You see, they don't really have the level of greatness inside of them that, that we all should actually carry as children of God. So instead, they have all of these outside things that they use to prop up their sense of value and greatness. What he is saying is, don't you be one of those. That's why he said, don't let them call you rabbi. It's not that you are not a rabbi, it's that if you let them put you in that place of grander, then something is off here. Because as a rabbi, that's not what it is. It's not a place of grander, it's a place of service.
As a teacher, you don't get to lord it over everybody. You are not the master of all the scriptures. You don't know everything. But if you flaunt yourself to be that way, something is off here. If you need to be called teacher because you think you are so good at it, then I think we are missing something, right? That's what he is really driving at here. He is driving at our need for greatness and the way that we prop ourselves up to get there compared to actually being who he called us to be. And you see, that's why this is really the whole issue of greatness is about identity and who we are in Christ and how we've come to be who we are. That's a little bit about that. We were talking, and Cheryl said, "You know, if you are just doing everything for show, then you are really not a rabbi. You are just playing Rabbi."
Cheryl: If you are not really a rabbi, you might put yourself in a hard spot when they come to you for help.
Jeff: And you don't have the goods. Yeah.
Cheryl: You'd be like uh, uh, I don't know.
Jeff: Yeah. Let's go to the next scripture: Luke 9:46, 48. One other thing I wanna say about this one before we get too far-- Oh no, that's in the next one. So we are good. Go ahead.
Cheryl: Then his disciples begin arguing about which of them was the greatest. But Jesus knew their thoughts, so he brought a little child to his side. Then he said to them, anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me. And anyone who welcomes me also welcomes my father, who sent me. Whoever is least among you is the greatest.
Jeff: We have such a propensity to try to get one upmanship over each other. Right? I think in The Chosen of really bringing this out with the disciples. The disciples were following the Messiah and they were busy arguing with each other about who is greater, but the disciples don't have anything on us. We play those little one-up-manship games all the time in church, at work, in the family, who's better, who's smarter, who knows more, who gets to call the shots, who should you listen to. That's part of our fallen human nature. Because we are broken, we need to continually fight with each other, and as I said before, prop ourselves up and get higher. If we can just get higher, if I can just get higher than you at least I'm that much higher. It doesn't work.
I love what Jesus said here. If you are really great, you are going to welcome a child. He uses children so often to help us understand what this is really all about. All the more reason to teach Sunday school. I mean, truly. I mean, do you notice children around you? Do you stop and get down on your knees to their level and talk to them? Do you love them? Do they delight your heart? These are things that are intrinsic to the identity of greatness is to have a love for, an appreciation for, and a recognition of the value of children. How appropriate that we are talking about this today and we had a dedication, a very special little young lady who has her whole life ahead of her, and we get to recognize her right here, right now as a gift from heaven. Pastor Brian is really right; we have so much to do with investing in that life.
I remember there was a story many of Dave Johnson. He was the pastor at Church of the Open Door. Brian has a story like this too, we've heard before, but I remember him telling a story about being in church. He was a little, he and his brother were little boys and the services going on, and they were being just like little boys when you have to sit still in church. They were playing. They were wrestling. They were giggling. They were doing everything but paying attention, being quiet and being good. Some lady in front of them, finally she got fed up with it. She turned around, she pointed her finger at them, and she said, "Are you boys saved?"
One of the best things we will ever do for our children is to make church a wonderful place for them to be, make it fun. I have no problem with kids running in church, because that's what kids do. They run as fast as they can all the time. Don't you wish you could still do that? It is really important for us to honor our children and to lift them up and to encourage them. And when we are they are misbehaving, we take them aside and we teach them a better way, but we do it respectfully and gently and lovingly and kindly.
Cheryl: Not scary.
Jeff: Not scary. There is enough scariness in this world. It doesn't need to be in church.
Cheryl: Have some of you noticed that when you smile at really young babies in public, if you stop and smile at them, they will go like this and then pretty soon a smile comes on their face. I want you to try it. Babies love it when adults notice them and just give them a smile, look at them and just watch what happens. It's powerful. It's beautiful. It changes your life and probably theirs, because I think some of us think, I don't need to pay attention to them. We are not in the same league at all. The age difference is too great. But if you just start paying attention to the young kids, that's important that they are noticed by us and that we are connecting with them. They soon will be up here, ruling the world. Let's do our best at acknowledging them.
Jeff: In all seriousness, our, our children's ministry is really, really an important part of why we are here: to raise up children with a sense that they are loved, and they are loved by Jesus and to know who Jesus is. Our children's ministry is vital. And so whatever we can do to support that-- Jackie's in there now and she is got plenty to do. I signed up for once a month. Cheryl is in there once a month. There is room for any single one of us once a month to go in and be with the bigs or the mids and to lead a Sunday school class. And what's really cool is it's really easy because Cindy does all the work. But the more that we commit ourselves and involve ourselves in the lives of our children just in teaching Sunday school. That is a very powerful and meaningful thing. So consider it.
I spent many years here teaching Sunday school, fourth, fifth, and sixth, and I've had parents come and-- Shayna was one of my kids, one of my rock stars. You have parents who come, and they say, "Thank you for what you instilled in my kids in those years." It really is powerful and important. You can be part of that. You can be part of grooming, preparing the next generation for what God is going to do. Get off my bandwagon there.
We need to talk a little bit about how we decide what greatness is. Here is what I wrote. We equate greatness with achievement, fame, wealth, authority, status, position, and power. That's what greatness is. So if you have a lot of money and you have a high position and you have authority and you have some power then you are great. But Jesus is trying to help us, disciples, understand that if that's how you measure greatness, you are missing the point. Because what Jesus said is that greatness embodies the qualities of humility and of service.
If you look around the room and you want to see who is really great, don't look at the people who are always in the limelight, pat their own backs or being always acknowledged and applauded by others. The really great ones, you don't see because humble people don't worry about the limelight. And many times, as Brian says about our like our tech team, you don't even notice the people who are serving until they are not serving. Jesus, the father has such a different perception of greatness. I'm jumping ahead but I'm here so I'm going to say it anyways. You can have no money, you can have no position, you can have no power or authority, and in the father's eyes, you are truly a great person. The question is, who do you want to be measuring your greatness? You want your greatness to be measured by human standards or you want it to be measured by God's standards.
Cheryl: So in this church, those of us who have a title of something, we don't ever mean to look down on you, but we've been given the position, and what we want to do is come under you and serve. We are willing vessels, like all of us here should be, and we are here to serve. That is the greatest thing. And we try to see it from his point of view, his thinking, not how us humans would think of it.
Jeff: Yeah, Pat, we had a good laugh, Pastor Robert and I last summer, we had some event at your house. Maybe it was a Joy event or something. We had dinner and everything, and then after the event was over, everything got packed up and brought back to church. And there are dishes to wash and food to put away and whatever you have to do. Who's in the church kitchen at 7:30 at night after everybody's gone home? Pastor Robert and I. We are just laughing to say this is, this is what pastoring is really about, isn't it Robert? He says, "I've been doing this for 20 years." He said, "I've been doing it longer than you, cooking, cleaning toilets, doing whatever had to be done because that's what pastors do." And you can grumble about it, but then you are missing the blessing and then you are not really walking in your greatness. Okay, one more scripture, Luke 22.
Cheryl: Then they begin to argue among themselves about who would be the greatest among them. Jesus told them, in this world, the kings and the great men, Lord, it over their people, yet they are called friends of the people. But among you, it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like this servant. Who is more important than the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? The one who sits at the table, of course, but not here for I am among you as one who serves.
Jeff: So again, Jesus is comparing how we measure greatness God's way in man's way. And even he agreed, he said, who's greater? The one who's sitting at the table or the one who's serving the man at the table. The person at the table. And he says, well, of course. Jesus says this, of course, it's the one who's at the table. He is greater. But the one who was teaching that he was the leader of all this band. He was the one. Jesus was the one all the disciples were following. He was the greatest. And that's what he is saying. He is saying to them, that's not how it works here. I am the greatest among you. And look what I'm doing. This is how it's supposed to be.
If you are humble, doesn't mean that you know who you are, what you can do, the things that you carry, what you have to offer. Humility does not mean, ah, I'm nothing. That's not humility. Humility is a quality that you carry right inside of how, of knowing how good you can do things. There is nothing wrong with knowing that you can really sing, or you speak well or you hit the ball well, you are a great baseball player, or that you are great with numbers and you are a good accountant. There is nothing wrong with knowing what you are good at and even a patting yourself on the back for it. But what humility does is it allows you to take all of those abilities that you know you have. And instead of using them to prop yourself up, you use them to serve others and lift them up. That's what greatness does.
Of course, Jesus really showed this at the last supper. What did he do there? Wash his disciples' feet. And what did he say to them? Here I am washing your feet. This is what you should do for one another. You should wash one another's feet instead of squabbling about who's the greatest. How about if you fight with each other about who can serve the most? I remember when I was a fairly young believer in it was, it was like, this was way back when we, we had a-- when we were in high school, we were part of a Bible study. When we started going, was it every Friday night? Whenever it was. We were so excited for Jesus. This was in the middle. This was our Jesus revolution, you know.
And then we found out that the people who were hosting this Bible study, the adults who were hosting this Bible study for all his kids, they had another Bible study for adults on another night. So we started going to that one too and we took that one over too. But this little fellowship group of high school kids began to grow and eventually we actually became a church. But in the season, even before we were at church, as it is with all people of faith, we had, we ate together a lot, we had a lot of potlucks. And you know how it is when you go to a potluck, you kind of eye the food and there are certain dishes, either the one you brought or the one the really good cook brought, and you are always hoping there'll be some of that left when you get there. And maybe you'll even try to get it in the line early enough to make sure that you get what you want. These scriptures were real even back then. Honestly, I would purposely wait to be the last one through the line so that everybody else could have their choice, and I would take what was left.
Cheryl: Do you know what that meant for me being your girlfriend? I like to be first in line.
Jeff: You finally just started going without me.
Cheryl: Oh yeah. I just kind of like I can't wait for him. I don't want to be last to not get that dish. Honestly, I just was like, I'm going up here. See you later.
Jeff: What it was really humorous about it though, is that there was another leader, because I kind of had become somewhat of a leader in this group, and there was another one. We were of peer leaders. One day we were at a park kind of like what we do at Corcoran Park, and there was a big potluck and it was all on the picnic tables and everybody's in line to eat. I was waiting; I was just walking around waiting for the line to get through and then I would go last. But I noticed that my friend, peer leader was also wandering around waiting to be last. I realized I got a competition with my friend about who can be last in the potluck line.
I equated that to being important. Somehow, if I could be the last one in the potluck line that made me greater. That made me important. I didn't need to be acknowledged. It wasn't for anybody even to notice that it was; it just seemed like that was the pathway to greatness. So I took it.
Cheryl: A small step.
Jeff: That's a small step. Yes.
Cheryl: Nothing wrong with those.
Jeff: No. You are always on the path. Let's talk about identity just a little bit. And again, it's great to have a baby dedication here because of that. One of the jobs of parents and the whole point of childhood is to build inside of this young, fragile human being an infrastructure of identity, an infrastructure that carries a sense that I am good, I am valuable, I am capable. An infrastructure of confidence and in infrastructure of wellbeing, a sense of being safe: those are the things when children grow up and they are loved and they are in a safe environment and the people around them are honoring and building them up, rather than tearing them down, they grow, they move into adulthood with an infrastructure of identity inside of them that is whole. Does that make sense? So that you come into adulthood confident in the person that you are.
We should definitely say that it's not just the parents' job to do that, and the parents don't always get to control the outcomes because there are so many other influences. There are teachers and coaches and classmates at school and friends in the playground. And nowadays it's even worse because now we’ve got social media and all the stuff that our kids are subject to there if we are not careful and they are not careful. So as it is, and because we, especially as Brian has been talking about a little bit over the last, especially 50 years, our families have been decimated. The divorce rate is over 50%. More children grow up without fathers in the home than with fathers in the home. All of that, and then if you take in drug addiction and other types of dysfunctions in people's lives, our homes are so fractured that most children in America probably in the world don't grow into adults with that infrastructure having been established.
They grow up with a little tiny bit of this, little, tiny bit of that. But you know, you can tear down infrastructure as easily as you can build it, probably easier. And so much of the abuse and so much of the bullying and so much of the things that children live through, they actually come into adulthood without any sense of self-confidence or value or meaning.
Many of us who are sitting here and watching on livestream came into adulthood in that state. And so what do you do now? You are an adult, and you are broken. You are an adult, and you actually don't believe that you have any sense of value or worth. You are always trying to do good enough and you never can. How many of us have lived under that oppression? It's not just the devil. It's something that's been formed in us through years of practice. In the self-help group, they always talk about old tapes, the old tapes, all the things that were said to you that replay in your mind over and over and over, all the things your dad said to you, he has been dead for 20 years, but those things are still just alive as ever.
And so that is why Jesus is so wonderful, amen. Because he comes and he loves us. For some of us, Jesus is the first one that actually shows us love. And hopefully, there were some people that showed us love, that brought us to Jesus, but doesn't always work that way.
Cheryl: Another thing too is the scriptures. Our identity is in there big time. Every page tells you who you are, every page, probably every verse. It's big.
Jeff: Jesus is the word. Amen. That's good. I like that. You see in the real heart of it all, the core of your identity rests in the fact that you were made in the image of God. When he got done with you- I forget who I was listening to that said this. Six days, he worked and every day he made something and every day he got done with what he did, he said that's good. But when he made man, he said, "this is very good." When he made you, he said, this is very good. He made you good. He made you capable. He made you lovable, he made you worthy, enough.
Cheryl: He made you a plan.
Jeff: He made you a plan. And not only did he make you, but he loves you. So it's not just that you are made in the image of God, but you are loved by God. He values you. He appreciates you. You are important to him. Right. I think Cheryl, last time we talked, you talked about how you use it as an excuse. Sometimes it's like, well, you have got lots of children. If I check out right now, you are not going to miss me. No, it's not true. It's not true. You, me, each one of us is important to Jesus.
I probably told the story before, but back in the days of the Toronto Blessing, I had friends who went up there and my; it was actually my spiritual father and his wife. She was laying on the ground. She was out in the spirit. In that time when she was there, she was sitting on the father's lap and she was just playing and she was giggling, and she was having the best time with her Heavenly father sitting on his lap. It was her heavenly father, not her earthly father. But she knew it was her. I mean, she was there with her heavenly father sitting on his lap, and she was just in this wonderful place. And then all of a sudden, she just like, wait a minute. I didn't intend to do that myself. She said, "wait a minute. Wait a minute. Where is John?" That's her husband. Where are my friends? And he said, "oh, they are all here. He said, “They are all on my lap, but each one of you gets me to yourself."
Cheryl: I say, how do you do that, God? Oh, I called you God. That's how you do it.
Jeff: Isn't that true? If you grew up and that infrastructure wasn't built, it doesn't mean it still can't be. It begins in your identity as a child of God. Because as his child, he loves you desperately. There are so many other images we have in the scriptures, but this child is good enough. He loves you. You are good enough. He values you. You can do it. All of the things that our self-help groups teach. Look in the mirror, say to yourself, I am lovable. I am beautiful. I am capable. I can do it. Well, it's true. Just let Jesus be your mirror. Because that's what he is saying to you.
As his love forms your heart, and as the scriptures begin to reveal to you the calling and the purposes and the plan that he has for you, that inner structure of greatness can be built. And you don't have to fight for approval, and you don't have to fight for recognition, and you don't have to fight to get the status that you think you are supposed to have. It's not even a conscious thing, but you, you begin to carry it. The outside version of it is no longer important because where it's really real is on the inside. If it's on the inside, you don't need the recognition on the outside. If it's on the inside, you don't need the status. You might have the status because of the role that you've been given.
Someone has got to be president of the United States. Someone has got to be CEO. Someone has got to be pastor. Someone has got to be worship leader. Someone has got to be the teacher. There are so many positions that require authority and trust. And if you are in one of those positions, that's not a bad thing. But what we really want to come to is where we don't need that position to feel like our lives have meaning. As you said, we were talking, if that's where your meaning comes from, it's all the things on the outside. Who are you when you are all alone in a dark room. Cheryl said that one. Who are you when you are all alone in a dark room?
It's so normal for us to measure ourselves by what we can do, what we can accomplish, what we have done. So many of us are workaholics because it's in the work that we find our meaning. Wrong place, guys, wrong place. If you are really good at something, and that's what you get to do for work, good for you. Most people don't. That's a wonderful thing. Enjoy it while you can. But that is not where your purpose and value come from. It doesn't come from your job. It doesn't come from all the things you can do. It's way deeper than that. And what you want is for the underlying sense of value that you carry because of who you are to shore up and support the things that you do, not the other way around. Make sense? Make sense? Let's see if we have anything more to say.
Jesus said whoever the greatest is among you shall be your servant. What he is really speaking to is the desire in all of us to be great and the way that we measure greatness. And he was trying to recalibrate the way we think. Whoever is the greatest among you will be your servants. That hits in the face of what we are most of us are striving for. When we think of being great, we don't generally in this world equate it with being servants. Those two things are polar opposites. The Lord, as he does with so many things, wants to turn our world upside down. No, no, no, no. The first is in first. The first is last. Oh, no, no, no. The last isn't last. The last is first. Oh, no, no. The great doesn't get served. The great serves. And the one who serves is great. Don't you get that? Well, it's so simple. At least it is where I come from.
What I think is that as our inner identity is established and the foundation of greatness informed is formed in us, service is natural. Being a servant to others comes naturally out of an inner structure of greatness. I think that's kind of how it works.
A couple things I wrote down here. Status, which is fame, wealth, position, all those things. Status, if you have a position of authority, power, wealth, success, and you are in that place and you don't have an inner structure of greatness, that status is going to result in the abuse of others. You got that? Status without inner greatness, power without inner greatness will result in the abuse of others. You've all seen it, you've all lived under it at work, in church, in the family. Anybody else have a problem with husband saying "hey, I'm the head of the house here." I mean, if you got to say that something's missing already, right?
Cheryl: To which the wife might say, what are you afraid of?
Jeff: Yeah. Status, power, authority, position with an inner structure. Greatness results in service to others. Other people will benefit from your leadership. If what has been built inside of you is a sense of value and worth and capability, then it will be natural for you to use the power that you've been entrusted with to better the lives of the people around you. For many years-- I mean, this is just for my work life. I understood two things. If I had a boss and I was the employee, my number one job was to make my boss look good. That was how I, that's how I viewed my position. I want to do whatever I can to make my boss look good. I want them to get a promotion, and I'm going to help them get it. If I was the boss, then I understood that my number one job was to help my employees do the best they could. In either position, you get to take the role of servant. If your identity is established, it's quite natural. It's not hard. It's just part of who you are. If the identity isn't established, it's probably will never happen that way.
It seems like lately I've been wondering a lot, um, how come so many famous noteworthy people live such tragic lives and die such tragic deaths? Think of so many people, especially in our lives in the entertainment world, art, music, theater, the people who made us laugh and made us cry and touched our hearts, how their lives were so tragic and they ended tragically. Think of the great musicians and artists who took their own lives, actors and actresses, and just like these people were so good at what they did; they gave us so much. How could their lives be so miserable?
As Cheryl and I were talking about this, I begin to realize that if you have that kind of status, if you have fame and wealth and that, and that status like that, and you don't have the inner infrastructure of identity, the weight of that status will crush you. It will crush you. I think that's what really happens with a lot of people who because they are in the right place at the right time, or they have a really natural ability that's recognized and they end up in this place of great wealth and fame and, you know, and all that kind of stuff, and then the headlines, the tabloids about them are horrible. You just realize they couldn't carry the weight of that. And you just implode. That's my theory.
If you carry an inner greatness, if you have an identity of greatness inside of you, then you are truly a great person without any wealth, status, position, authority, or fame. You understand? You are, and you won't get recognition for it except from the father, which is pretty good. But people won't recognize it. As we were talking about this, one of the, the people that came to my mind was Mordecai. Many of you know the story of Esther, queen Esther, and she was a Jewish living in Babylon, or this was Persian now at this time, I think. She had a father named Mordecai. I never saw this before, but it's a great, great story about identity because you got Mordecai who is a Jew, and the Jews were taking their captives.
They are not exactly slaves, but they are a lower-class people who have assimilated into the Persian culture. They are their own little culture inside this culture. But they don't even belong there. They belong in Israel, right? And they were taken there by force, and they are forced to live there. So they are kind of captive servants, lower class. Mordecai is one of the men there who sits at the city gates every time.
One of the Persian leaders was a guy named Haman. He wanted more than anything else, what did he want? Power, fame. He wanted to be recognized as a great man of power. What happened is Haman would come with his false greatness, come riding through the gates of the city where Mordecai was sitting with his friends. It was expected when someone of that stature came everybody with stand, but Mordecai, in his own sense of personal greatness, knew exactly what this was riding in front of him, and he didn't stand. And so the whole story of Esther revolves around a guy who wanted recognition, who hated a man who was truly great, who wouldn't give him the recognition and sought to destroy him, and in his plans to destroy the man of greatness, destroyed himself. What a great story. Isn't that cool?
Cheryl: You left out a lot, but yeah, it's a good read.
Jeff: Think of the people who we were talking about this-- Are we going too long? We can shut it out any time. I'm just musing right now. We were talking this morning about Gandhi. It's quite an old movie. Anybody remembers seeing the movie about Gandhi? One of the most poignant memories I have of that movie was when he was living in South Africa. Of course, he is East Indian, but in South Africa, he was considered black, and the blacks were not allowed to vote.
And so there is a scene where he brings his ballot to the polls to put it in the polling box. And the guy sees him coming and pushes him out of the way. He says, "You can't vote; you are black." He says, "I'm a man. I'm a citizen. I'm going to vote." And he takes his ballot to put in the box and the guy punches him and knocks him down. He gets up and he proceeds to go to the ballot box and the guy punches him and knocks him down. And he continues to get up to vote until the guy has beaten him so badly, he can't get up anymore. That was kind of the opening scene of the movie.
I thought that man somehow had established in him an inner identity and sense of greatness, that he knew who he was and what he had a right to do. He wasn't afraid of getting beaten in order to do it. Look what that man accomplished through totally peaceful means. He liberated India from Great Britain, really. That wasn't the final thing, but he was a driving force for that. The people who have really transformed history are people who have carried inner greatness.
Cheryl: To the end.
Jeff: To the end. There are a lot of people who haven't transformed history, but they've transformed a lot of lives, and you'll never hear about them. But they have been great to the end as well. And in heaven, we are going to hear about a lot of them. Wow, what a great time of celebration. The father is just going to parade all these men and women across. Well, I have no idea who that is. It's like going to a funeral and you hear the stories of people who have died and you think, I never knew.
Ted's funeral was a great one for me, because I didn't really know Ted. We weren't part of your family. And Ted was just a crotchety old man to me. And Micah got up and BJ got up and people started telling stories about him. And I was creeping. I just thought, what a great man this was.
Cheryl: At so many funerals, I say it to myself, can we go back? Because I didn't know all of this about that person.
Jeff: We were at a memorial service yesterday. My son-in-law's mom died. And by the way, Brad and Paula, we are praying for you; we are so sorry, Brad, that you've lost your mom, but we are praying for you and trusting the Lord to bring you through this time if you happen to be watching. It wasn't a formal service or anything, but they just opened it up for a short time of sharing. It was interesting to me. Every single person that got been shared said the same things about Judy. We were talking about her this morning. She says there is a legacy. She touched people's lives because of who she was. And they'll always remember how she touched them.
The greatness that abides in you transforms lives everywhere you go. You don't even have to try. You just respond out of who you are and the world gets better. If you are really struggling with that sense of value, that's okay because most of us have been there. But the Lord takes us step by step and we are never fully there. But he keeps on forming in us his nature of greatness. He keeps on showing us the calling and purpose and meaning that we have in our lives.
Cheryl: We practice that greatness right here in church. When you come to church, why do you come? And when we would have encounters, ladies’ encounters, when we do have them, we invest so much when we come together. There are times and encounters where we experience his glory and power and unity, that it's almost like something we can't contain. It's almost like God has come and taken over. I think that's because we all know who we are and we are there for the one thing and God sees that and he wants to take that and show us things.
When we meet in church, coming as who we are, knowing who we are, that's a powerful thing. Just showing up on Sunday and just in your thinking, knowing who you are can change so much because you are going to react with people. Your face is just going to react different to people. It's going to be a powerful thing knowing who you are and how valuable you are in your humble position here to serve.
Jeff: You are going to greet people, you are going to love on people, you are going to honor people, you are going to pray for each other and you are going to be expecting for what God's going to do. A joint expectation for God to do something, releases him to do it. A joint expectation for God to do something releases him to do it. That's who we are when we get together. We come knowing who we are and what we are about. And we are ready for God to do something in our lives and each other's. Hallelujah.
Why don't we just pray? Let's just invite the Lord. You might be one who's still struggling with any sense of value. We understand that. You are not deficient in any way. It's commonplace and you are in a perfect, perfect position for Jesus to show you how much he loves you and just how valuable you really are. I especially want to pray for you this morning if that's a struggle that you still have in your life, and you can be 10 or you can be 90, those things we carry with us one way or the other. But Father, I just pray for every one of us that hears these words right now or will hear them, holy Spirit, that you will come intimately and powerfully into each of our lives to show us our love, to show us the image that you see, to show us the goodness that you see in us, to show us the calling that you have in our lives, to show us how able you made us, to show us how valuable we truly are.
Thank you for that Father, that you are making all around us really great men and women of God. Lord, teach us how to live out of that inner identity where love and life and honor and service, they naturally flow in Jesus' name.
Brian: It is truly God that gives us value and belonging. Being made in his image is why we matter so much to him. And so we thank you, Father, for this gift of being created in your image. I just pray that your spirit would encourage our hearts when so much of the world around us is sending us a different message that unless we look like this or we achieve this, we don't matter, but we matter because of how you've made us. And you've made us like yourself. Just bless you, Lord. Let's lift our hands together. Let me bless you.
And now, may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his faces shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace and may your value come from knowing the one who loves you the most. This we pray the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen.
Thank you for being here today. I'll be over here to serve communion after the services. For those of you who would like to have communion, we will serve that shortly. Thank you, Pastor Jeff and Cheryl. Again, Wonderful, wonderful word before the Lord. God bless you. Have a wonderful day.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 3-19-23. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.