Status to Servanthood

Sermon Transcript

All right, we're going to be opening up God's living and active word. So when we cheer, we're not cheering for something that I said, but we're cheering for who God is. Right? So as we've been walking through this series, if you've been here or if you haven't been here, we're going through discipleship. And this is really just a six week series of how we can take our church away from rules and bring us into a relationship. And that's relationship with God and relationship with one another in the body of Jesus Christ. And each and every single week, we've had foundational choices that have come up with each one of these weekends that we are going to stand upon as a church.

And the previous four foundational choices are this. The first one is choose to surrender to Christ's authority. That Christ is the overall authority. And we bring ourself under his Lordship that we deny ourselves. We take up our cross that we follow Christ each and every single day.

The second choice that we have is choosing to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. That God deserves all of our worship. That we give him everything that each and every single week, every day, every moment that we are giving God our best, because he is so deserving of it.

The third choice is choosing to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. That we go about witnessing because of what Christ has done in our hearts. We're not preaching to every single person, but we're witnessing of the transformation in our own hearts and lives of what Christ has done through his cross.

And the fourth one is choose to seek the Lord in prayer. That prayer changes everything. That prayer is our weapon that God has given us for every single moment of every single day that we can be in relationship to the father, and to stand firm in the face of the enemy.

And the fifth one this weekend that we are going to be walking through is choose to serve one another in love. This is the foundational choice that I want you to walk away with. This understanding of Christ loves us so much, and he's served us and loved us through his whole life and death here on this earth. And because of that, we get to serve and love the body of Jesus Christ. We get to love those that are sitting right next to you in those seats this weekend. That we get to love our neighbors, and our friends, and our family.

So the shift of rules to relationship that we're looking at this weekend is really a shift from status to servanthood. We are going from status to servanthood. And if you would open up your Bibles to Mark chapter 10, and we're going to be looking at verses 32 to 45 this weekend. The gospel Mark chapter 10, looking at verses 32 to 45. If you don't have a Bible, there's probably one under your seat or to the seat next to you. You can get it there. But that's where we're going to be as we spend our time.

But before we actually open up the word of God, would you join me in prayer? Father, We thank you so much for who you are. Lord, you are so good. You are so great. You are so mighty. You are so worthy of all of our praise. So father, I pray. Would you move in the way that you can only move? God, would you soften our hearts to your word? Would you soften our hearts to the gospel of Jesus Christ and what he has done on the cross? And father, would I just be a vessel pouring forth your truth, and your righteousness, and your love this morning? So God, we give you the glory, and we ask for you to move, and we ask for you to do your work. And it's all God's people that said amen.

So when Jeff asked me to preach this message this weekend, and we were kind of talking about the topic of choosing to serve one another in love. I'll be honest with you. This topic is not something that I'm just naturally good at. This is not a topic that just flows through my heart and flows through my veins. And I just want to serve, serve, serve, and love, love, love. That's just not who I am.

So I started sitting there thinking through, "Okay, who are the people in my life that really serve and love well, that just do it naturally?" As you heard Scott in the video, he even said that it's easy for him to serve and love the church. So I started thinking of a person. And honestly, the person that came to mind is my wife Alex. And now as you're sitting there, you're probably going, "Oh wow, that's so cute." And some of you are probably thinking, "Wow, we're three minutes in and this person's talking about his wife. Come on now." All right, bear with me here.

So for me in my flesh apart from the mercies of God, I have a hard time with love that is inconvenient. I struggle with love that is inconvenient. I'm all about that convenient love. If someone comes and approaches me and wants to talk to me about something, great. I'm there. But it's not easy for me just to reach out, or love, or come alongside someone, or go visit somebody, or give someone a phone call. That's not easy for me by any means.

But my wife, she's a totally different person. It freaks me out sometimes, right? I mean, she's like, "Hey, we should go visit that person in the hospital. You should probably give that person a phone call. You should probably reach out to these people. We should go bring these people a meal." And I'm sitting there and I'm like, "We probably shouldn't." Right? "We probably shouldn't do that." But she's like, "No, no, no, we should. We should." Right? I'm not about the inconvenience.

Let me just give you a little snapshot into our marriage so that you can fully understand the inconvenience of love that she puts up with on a day-to-day basis. For me, I hate receiving presents. I hate receiving gifts. Now, before you sit there and judge me and you go, "Okay, Scrooge." All right, listen to me. I don't hate the concept or gifts or presents, but I hate receiving them. It's like if someone gives me a gift, it's like they handed me a newborn baby just straight out of labor. And I'm like I don't know what to do with this thing. It's kind of cute. I don't know. It's about to cry, get it out of my hands. Right? I don't know what to do. And I don't know why that is. It's just the way that it is. So I sit there and I struggle.

And if we're going to a Christmas party, or if we're going to a birthday party for me that maybe she planned or someone else planned, and I know that I'm going to get gifts in that, we're in the car driving on the way to that party. And she is coaching me up the whole time. I kid you not, she's sitting there. And she's like, "Okay Mark, you're probably going to get a couple gifts in this party. So now what you do is when you get the gift from somebody, you smile. And you say thank you so much. Even if you don't want the gifts, say thank you, because it's a nice thing that they're doing."

Now that kind of love that she's doing with me in the car, that is a super inconvenient love. I mean, that sounds so weird when it comes out of my mouth. She's coaching me up to help serve and love others so they feel appreciated when they give of me a gift, right? That is what she does on a day-to-day basis.

So the reason why I share this story with you is because I want you to understand that this message I'm about to preach to you this weekend is not one that I just do naturally well, that I'm standing up here and listen to me, listen to all the stories of how I serve and love. Because that is not the case by any means, right? This message that I'm preaching this weekend, I am preaching to myself just as much as we're preaching it together. Right? So since I'm preaching it to myself, you guys can all just leave. And I'm just going to sit here and talk to myself for a while. Totally. Please don't leave. That'll be really awkward.

But let's dig in to the word of God, because the truth is even though I don't have it all together, we're about to look at somebody who does have it all together. Who has the perfect example of serving one another in love and laying down his life. And his name is Jesus Christ. So we are going to be encouraged as we look at the story of Jesus and who he is. So let's start in verse 32.

They were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking on ahead of them. And they were amazed. And those who followed were fearful. And again, he took the 12 aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to them saying, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes. And they will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, and spit on him, and scourge him, and kill him. And three days later, he will rise again." Let's stop right there. Serving one another in love, when we look at this, it really requires three things. And the first one is this. The centrality of the gospel message. Serving one in another in love requires the centrality of the gospel message.

Now you may be sitting here and you've been a seasoned Christian or you've been in church for a long time, and you've heard the gospel at least 500 times. But the truth is church, and listen to this closely, is that we should never, ever grow weary of hearing the gospel message of Jesus Christ. That the gospel message is what fuels us every single day. It changes us. It encourages us. It builds us up. It strengthens us. It removes the ugly pieces of our lives so that Jesus can have more of us. I mean the gospel message is where we find all of our identities so that we can walk in all of our activity for Jesus Christ.

So what is happening in this story is that Jesus is about to enter into Jerusalem. He's walking up, and you know the story, right? When he gets into Jerusalem, he has the triumphal entry, and he's riding on a donkey, and everyone's waving the branches shouting, "Hosanna in the highest." I mean, it's a beautiful scene, right? The king is entering in.

But before they get to Jerusalem, Jesus stops his disciples, and he gives the third depiction in the Gospel of Mark of his death. And this depiction is different. Because what it does is it shows more explicit of what is going to take place. And Jesus uses these future tense verbs here of, "The son of man will be delivered. The son of man will be condemned. The son of man will be beaten. He will be mocked. He'll be spit on. He'll be tormented. He will be killed. But the son of man will rise again three days later." The certainty of what is going to take place, he wants the disciples to understand.

And in scripture, we get titles for Jesus like the suffering servant. And this is one that I really want to focus on today. Isaiah 53, you can write that passage down. But it is a beautiful passage of what Jesus went through. It describes the suffering that took place and how he served us and loved us through that.

But Jesus is called the suffering servant because his life was completely marked of that of suffering, and that of serving. Throughout his ministry here on this earth, Christ went around serving people that we never, ever would think that the son of man would go and serve, right? I mean, he went out of his way to go and heal the sick. To go into cities where there was the sick, and the blind, and the lame. He would go, and go, and go, and serve. He'd heal the blind.

He came up to a man who was lying on the ground for 38 years paralyzed, waiting to go into a pool. And Jesus came up to him, and served him, and loved him. And Jesus came up to the woman at the well. Jeff just preached that story. He went out of his way. A Jewish man would never talk to a Samaritan woman, especially during the day. But Christ did. And he came up, and he served her, and loved her, and cared for her. And Jesus spent all day serving people, and then even served thousands of people with a couple pieces of fish and bread. He hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors. Why? To show them how much God loves them, and that the cross of Christ is for them. Jesus came to serve. Christ broke all of these cultural norms to show the whole world that was watching that the cross of Christ has absolutely no limitations. That the grace of Christ has no limits to where it goes. Doesn't stop on certain people. It doesn't bypass certain towns. But it reaches every single person that would allow themselves to surrender to the gospel of Jesus.

So Christ who is talking to his disciples in this story is sharing just the depiction of his death that is literally going to happen a couple days later. And what you need to know and the overall theme of this morning is that he completely through it.

Isaiah 53, it shows us that that Christ was spit on, and he didn't spit back, right? Christ was mocked and he didn't mock back. That Christ was beaten, but he didn't throw any punches back. Why? It's so that all of you here today in this room, all of your friends, all of your neighbors, all of your families, all of the people in your life would see that we serve a God who can sympathize with us in everything. That we serve a God who went from his throne of glory, came down to this earth, took on flesh and bone, and completely shed his blood so that all who would call upon his name would find eternal life. That they would find life everlasting. And it's easy for us to sit in our circumstances, and to see our hurt, and our pain, and just the torture that we've been through and go, "Why? Why God? Why would you do this? Why would a God allow this? Why would a loving God allow this?"

But Jesus took a stance here on this earth and said that, "Everything that has been done to you has been wrong. And look at my life. It is wrong what has happened to me." But church, "I have endured it for you. I have gone through that beating, and the spitting, and the mocking and the shame for you so that all of you could have the strength within you to endure it as well."

Hebrews 12:3, you can write at this verse down. But it says, "For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself." Listen to this. "So that you will not grow weary and lose heart. You." Christ endured all of that. We easily downplay his trials, but we shouldn't. Because in the fullness of his humanity, he went through all of that so that you who have been abandoned, you who have been just hurt by someone, you have been tempted by the enemy with drugs and alcohol, you who have been abused verbally, sexually, physically can have the fullness of God dwelling inside of you who can give you all healing, all peace, all love, and all grace in the midst of so much pain. Amen.

Church, the gospel message has completely changed my life. The gospel of Jesus Christ has completely changed me. I would not be standing here before you today if it wasn't for what Christ has done on the cross. And I know many in this room can probably share that story. If it was not for Christ, I would've been given away to my selfishness, to my drinking, to my sin, to my lust, to the drugs, to everything. But Christ changes everything.

Strongholds that once enslaved me no longer do, because I am proclaimed victorious in the name of Jesus Christ. The cross of Christ changes everything. And the hard thing is I'm preaching this message, but we don't sit in this truth enough. We don't sit in the love of God and what he has for us enough. Because I tell people all the time that you need to sit in your identity before you walk in activity. That you need to sit as a child before you walk as a child. Because if you don't have a right view of how God sees us as his children, then you're going to have a wrong view of what God desires of us in our works. We need to soak in so that we can pour out.

So what we do as children is we soak in his love, his grace, his holiness, his truth, his mercy, so that we can pour out to the people around his love, and his grace, and his truth, and his mercy. Because if I'm not doing that, then Mark Guthrie is the only thing that's coming out. And trust me, ain't nobody want that. That deserves a big amen in this place. It is only out of the overflow of Christ's love that we even begin to see the right motives and intentions in our heart, that Christ is calling and for us to love others. So we start with the gospel, we start with our identity, and we start with our hope in Christ so that we can see the reality of our flesh.

So point two, serving one another in love requires the centrality of the gospel message, but it also requires the neglect of personal glory. It requires the neglect of personal glory. Let's read 35. "James and John, the two sons of Zebedee came up to Jesus saying, 'Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.' And he said to them, 'What do you want me to do for you?' They said to him, 'Grant that we may sit one on your right and one on your left in your glory.' But Jesus said to them, 'You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?' They said to him, 'We are able.' And Jesus said to them, 'The cup that I drink, you shall drink. And you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized. But to sit on my right or on my left, this is not mine to give. But it is for those for whom it has been prepared.' Hearing this, the 10 began to feel indignant with James and John."

This section right here is so brutally true. I love it because it shows flesh. It shows our weakness. I mean, here is the son of God. We just have to break this section down for a minute. Here is Jesus Christ standing before his disciples, literally depicting his death, showing that the son of man is about to be delivered. And now listen, Old Testament prophecies, everything that this world has been talking up to at this point, all the things that these disciples have learned, it's about to come into fruition in this week. I mean, the cross of Christ is coming just a few days away. And here's what James and John ask. They go, "Okay Lord, we hear that. Thank you for your death, but we want you to do what we ask of you. We want to sit right on your left and your right in glory. We want to sit front row seats right next to you in glory so that everyone can see." And Christ goes, "I don't think you know what you're asking." And they go, "Oh yeah, we do." Right?

And he goes, "So you can drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with the baptism with witch I'm baptized. Which means you can take on the wrath of the sins of all of humanity upon yourself. Right? And you can be baptized in a baptism of death and resurrection?" And they go, "Yeah." And Jesus goes, "Well, you're going to. You will be killed for my name. And you will experience a death and a resurrection in my name. But for you to sit on my left or on my right, that is not for me to decide."

And so I sit here, and I read this, and I go how on earth can James and John ask that to the son of God? How can they ask that to the Messiah, the one who is coming to destroy the enemy? And then I think to myself, I do this every single day. I do this every single day. And what I mean by that is how many of us sit here and we go, "Yeah. Yeah, Jesus. I love the salvation that you bring. I love the grace that you offer from the cross. But you know what? I'm going to go pursue this job over here that's going to make me completely rich. And I'll never have to work another day in my life, because that's what I want. That's the glory that I deserve."

Or how many of us go, "Yeah. You know what Lord? I'm so thankful for the salvation that you give me, but I'm going to go and pursue this completely unhealthy relationship that you're not calling me into. But you know what? I want it. And what I want, I want right."

Right Lord. How about I'm so thankful for that salvation, but I'm going to keep my foot in the world of partying because it's what I want to do. Right? Or I don't want to share the gospel with that person because it's kind of inconvenient for me.

Here's the one that I struggle with each and every single week. Lord, I know that you have given up everything for me. But honestly, I do ministry. So I deal with people every single week. So I kind of deserve a little birth break, right Lord? I deserve a little break today. I mean, I don't really want to call that person. I don't want to hang out with, I don't want to go to coffee with that person because I have been dealing with people every single week. But thank you Lord, for your salvation.

Right. We get so focused on earthly things, the temporary things, right? We get so focused on these earthly riches, and glories, and pleasures, that we completely miss out on the fact that Christ did not die for the temporal. That Christ did not come to give up his life so that he could die for the temporary things of this life. He died so that we can have an eternal, everlasting, joy-filled life in his name. Amen.

And listen, that's not just when we breathe our last here on this earth and then we're up in heaven with him. But that's right now. In this moment, in this church, in this place that we get to experience the eternal kingdom of Jesus Christ. I mean, Christ is sharing what is going to happen. He is declaring victory over the grave and over the enemy, and saying that my final kingdom is coming. That I am about to conquer death through the cross. But the disciples still have such an earthly mindset that they say to themselves, "Christ. It is great that you have given us everything. But honestly, we want a little bit more. We want more. We want to be in glory with you front row seats so that this world can see us."

Christ did not die for that. And yet we still sit here and think that pursuing Jesus on this earth means that he's going to give us all power, all status, all wealth, and everything because of who he is. And what's hard is just before this scripture, just before this passage that we're reading, Christ talks to his disciples about how hard it is for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven. Not impossible, but hard. And then he says, "How blessed are you that you have given up everything to follow after me and to seek me?" And all the disciples here is the word how blessed, right? "Blessed? what do you mean? We're about to be blessed Lord? Yeah, we have given you everything, haven't we? We have pursued you, right?" Their minds are so stuck on the earthly, that they can't see what Christ is really doing.

And here is where it gets even better Church. Let's read verse 41. "Hearing this, the 10 began to feel indignant with James and John. The 10 began to feel indignant with James and John." For you Bible scholars out there, let me give you a literal translation of what that means. Indignant means that they were ticked off. They were upset. The 10 disciples were frustrated at what was taking place right before their eyes. And not because James and John asked that question. They weren't upset at the fact that James and John, how could they ask that? You know why they were upset? It's because they wanted glory too. They wanted that same glory. So for them to sit there and listen to James and John, they're like, "Come on, we wanted to ask. It's not fair that they get glory and we don't. We're upset. We want that same glory. We want the glory that James and John are about to get in your presence Lord."

Does that sound all a little too familiar in your life? Of how come that couple over there gets to just travel wherever they want, and have all of the financial needs met? It doesn't seem like they have to worry about anything. Lord. How about me? What about me, Lord? Where's my piece of the pie, right? Or how on earth could that person get married? And I'm still sitting here single. Lord, what about me? Right? How did that person buy a house or get that job promotion? What about me Lord? What about me? We get so focused on others and what they have, that we want that same glory too. Lord, what about me?

This happens to me every single week. Every single week. Every single Thursday, we meet as a young adults ministry here in the church. And I pray, I pray out to God. And I go, "God, I want your glory to be known. I want your power to be seen. I want you to have your way through this ministry." And yet as I'm praying that, the enemy loves to bring in just earthly lies, right? Just sneaks those in. But, "Hey Mark, what if you got 200 people to come this week? What if you got 200 people to show up to young adults? Wow. Look out world, here comes Pastor Mark. He has 200 people."

I mean, I'm praying that the Lord would have his way. And yet the earthly kingdom that the enemy loves to sneak in comes into play against the heavenly kingdom of Jesus Christ. I mean all the time, I sit here and I look at pastors with large platforms and huge congregations like Piper and Chandler, and I mean Joel Olsteen, right? I mean, he's got a super dome people. I'm sure he comes out of the stage, like Michael Jackson on the Thriller Tour. Right? I want that.

Can I just say one thing that might rub you the wrong way this morning? Christ's blessings for our lives are not the same as what the world would call blessings. Christ's blessings for our lives are not the same as what this world would call blessings.

Do you know that it was not Jesus' main mission on this earth to die on the cross so that you could pray some prayer in church and that he could make you completely rich so that you would never have to work another day in your life? You know that Christ's mission on this earth was not to die on the cross so that you could become some CEO of some company so that you can rule over people and have authority of position and power in your life? Do you know that the reason why Jesus Christ came, and he shed his blood fully, and he rose again three days later is so not that you can just have eternal life, but that you could have the fullness of God dwelling in your life. Jesus Christ came and died not so that I can just have a massive ministry. He wants me to reach a lot of people.

But listen into this. Jesus Christ came and died so that I could have all of the fullness of his love and his salvation dwelling in me. So if just three people or 3,000 people come on a Thursday night, I can pour out to that love that everybody who comes through those doors. That everybody who walks by me would see the love of Jesus Christ pouring forth from me by serving them and loving them. That they would see this sin-shattering, life-altering, selfless love of God pouring out of me. Amen. That is why Christ came to die. Not for the earthly, but for the eternal things of his kingdom. He came to die.

As Christians, it is not our mission to increase our glory. But it's our mission to increase God's glory. And to increase it to a watching world to show them our hope, and our security, and our peace that is set in Jesus Christ. Because I am telling you, this earth is going to constantly to tell you to do things for you. I mean, media portrays the wealthy and the highly athletic to say this is what you should pursue. The enemy brings in lies, even in church to tell you to go serve in a place where you'll be seen and known, and your gifts can be seen so that people can just acknowledge you for who you are.

It's hard being consumed in all of that, and then trying to focus on the heavenly kingdom of Jesus Christ. I mean, it's countercultural. But the thing is church, I'm telling you that it's doable because of who Christ is. So it's important for us to neglect our personal glory. Christ is not wanting Mark's name to be known. Christ is not wanting your name to be known. He's not wanting your glory to be seen. But he's wanting his love to be displayed to a world that is dying without it. Let's bring this home.

Serving one another in love requires the centrality of the gospel message, the neglect for personal glory. But it also requires the heart for following Jesus' example. Requires the heart for following Jesus' example. Let's read verse 42. "Calling them to himself, Jesus said to them, 'You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and their great men exercised authority over them. But it is not this way among you. But whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.'" Here's where Christ really breaks down his kingdom of what it's all about. The whole time up to this point, the disciples are crying out for glory, right? Jesus can perceive in their hearts that they are figuring out who is going to be the greatest. Who is going to be the greatest of all? And in that time, they see greatness as being a king, right? Being a ruler, being an emperor, a Pharaoh. That's what they've seen is that that is greatness. That is power. To be able to lord it over people, to have authority to do whatever I want with whatever I want, whenever I want.

But then Christ comes into the picture, and he says, "That is not the way in my kingdom. The way that me and my father view greatness is by being slave of all. You want to be great? Then you serve, and you do it just as I have." I mean as we have talked about, Jesus has led the example of being the suffering servant. And he did it perfectly. I mean, just listen to this church. Jesus could have came onto this world and said, "Hey, I'm king. I'm Lord. I created everything before you. I am sustaining your heartbeat by the power of my word. I mean, I'm God. Worship me. Love me, obey me, follow after me."

But that is not what Christ did. And for most of his ministry, people didn't even know who he really was. I mean, you look at the woman at the well. He could have came up to her and been like, "Hey, I'm God. You're in sin. Turn and obey." Just like that. And yet he didn't. Christ came to that woman, and he loved her. And he cared for her where she was at in her sin and in her brokenness. And he said, "You know what? What you're trying to find in those men, you'll never find in me. I am the living water. I am the eternal life. Drink of me, thirst after me, and you will never thirst again." That's how he came about and approached people and his love. And this is the kind of love and service that Christ is commanding of us as the body of Jesus Christ. Saying, "Listen, don't run around trying to make your name known, because Christ didn't even do that. Don't try and be in a high position of power where you can rule over people and Lord it over them, because Christ didn't even do that. Don't just love people who look like you, and act like you, and think like you, and talk like you, and live in the same houses as you, because Christ didn't even do that."

But what Christ is showing us through his life is that you need to love everyone. You need to serve everybody. That everyone you come across, everyone you meet, you need to love them with the love of Jesus Christ. You need to love them in their mess. I'm preaching to me right now. You need to love them in their difficulty. You need to love them with their different skin color. You need to love them with their different socioeconomic class, right? You need to love them with their differences of opinions, and their differences of the things that they do, and their differences of cultural upbringings. I mean, you need to love in such to a way that shows that you understand the cross, because the cross has no limitations to its love. Because in order to be great in the kingdom of God, you must be slave of all.

As a pastor, I have a lot of young adults that come through the ministry each and every single week. And there was an instance in the ministry where we had somebody that was in the hospital. So initially, I was like, "Yeah, I should probably reach out to that person. I should probably give them a call or maybe even go visit."

And then my flesh started kicking in. And the enemy was like, "Somebody's going to call her. Somebody's going to call that person. Somebody's going to call them. Somebody's going to go to the hospital and meet that person's needs. Just trust it. It's going to be fine. You don't need to be the one that goes and does that." And then I come to find out that nobody did. That nobody really did. That nobody really reached out, that nobody really went consistently to visit in the hospital. And church, I'm here to tell you that that situation is on me. That's not on the people that I was hoping that would go and see that person. That's not on the people that I was praying that they they'll go take care of that situation. That situation is on me. And the biggest lie that the enemy loves to bring into the body of Jesus Christ is that somebody else will meet the needs of that person, right? Somebody else will go and talk to that person. You don't need to meet that person's needs, because somebody else has it.

No, no, no. Listen church, Jesus Christ is calling for you to meet the needs of that person. Jesus Christ is calling for me to go and to meet the needs when I see it before me and go, and love, and serve that person. I mean, Christ is calling us for a body to go. To not just stand idly by and say, "You know what? Somebody else is going to take care of that." But to be the people who go and take care of that. To be the small group, the type of small group that when financial needs come in your small group and someone goes, "I don't know how I'm going to pay the bills this month." Instead of being like, "I'm praying for you brother," or, "I'm praying for you sister," how about we love them with our wallet? How about we speak love with our cash instead of just speaking love in words? How about we be the small group that meets that needs? How about we be the type of person? Now this is again for me that on a Saturday morning when someone needs to move, and it's super inconvenient, and you don't want to do it, and you just would rather be up in the mountains, that we go and help that person move.

How about when the person calls at night, and you just want to be left alone, and in your jammies, and you're watching Netflix. And it's like I don't want to answer the phone. Let's be the type of people that answer the phone and share the love of Jesus Christ with them.

Now listen, some of you might be sitting here like, "This is just another rule." You guys love your Christian liberties. So you're like, "Mark, I thought this was rules to relationship. Where's the relationship in any of this? This is a command. Or you're telling me to go and love, and answer phone calls, and move boxes? That doesn't really sound like a relationship Mark." That is why I started with the gospel of Jesus Christ, because you have to start with the gospel. Because when you sit in the gospel and you understand wow, how much Christ really does love me. I mean, we just think about that for a second. I'm just thinking about myself in that situation where Christ is up on the cross.

And every bad thing, every sin, everything that I would commit ever on this earth, that was on the mind of Jesus Christ when he was drinking the cup and taking the full wrath of God on his shoulders. Every harsh word that I would ever say to anyone, every drinking, every drugs, every lust. Everything was upon his shoulders. And yet, he still chose to die for me. He still chose to endure, and suffer, and serve, and love, because that is our Jesus. And that love cannot be kept to ourselves. The love that you have experienced because of the cross of Jesus Christ has to be displayed to the people that you come in contact with. Because the world will never know how much their savior loves them. We need to serve them in their mess, and in their shame, and in their brokenness, and in their sin, the way that Christ has served us.

Because by serving, you show the love of Jesus Christ. And then church, it becomes no more of I have to. But it becomes I get to. I get to love and serve those around me because I have been loved and served by my precious savior. That's the beauty of the gospel. That is why Christ commands us to serve. And that's why we're going to take communion this weekend.

Because I want us to sit and reflect on the gospel. And at this time, I'm actually going to hand off the communion to Broomfield. You guys can take it. But here in Englewood, I want us to sit and truly reflect on the gospel message to see what Christ has done for our lives. And I'm actually going to call the prayer team forward as well. Because if you've been sitting here and you've been listening to the gospel message, and it's stirring your hearts, I don't want you to walk away without being prayed up. Because the truth of the matter is right in those seats right now, you could call upon the name of Jesus Christ to be saved, and he will save you.

But I want us as a church body to reflect on the gospel message of Christ, and ask Christ to change our hearts. Ask Christ to change our hearts and our selfishness, and the areas where we know we need to serve, or love, or pick up the phone, or call that person, or be there for that person, right? I'm sure there's people in your mind that are coming up or things that you have to do that Christ is calling upon you to do. But in your flesh and your sinfulness, you're just fighting against it. But Christ is calling us to serve. And as the ushers hand out the trays, there's going to be purple cups on those trays. It's actually gluten-free. So we got the gluten-free body of Jesus Christ in this building today. That's a celebration right there. Hallelujah. But church, let's ask God to reveal those areas and to change it, because he will. He's a good and loving God who wants to change us for his gospel message and his love. So would you join me in prayer? Let's pray.

Father, we just thank you so much for who you are. God, that you are so good and so mighty. And Lord, because of the cross, I stand here victoriously. And because of the cross, we are so deeply loved by you and cared by you. And we have a God who sympathizes with us in everything. So father, I pray that your glory would be made known. I pray that through this time of communion, would we reflect on the beauty of the gospel, and your love that came down and changed everything. And father, I pray too if there's people who are sitting here that don't fully believe, or don't fully trust, or don't fully get it, Lord, would you reveal yourself to the fullness of your glory? And would they come down and get prayed over? Father, we trust you. And we love you, as all God's people that said amen.