Jesus' Servant Leadership: A Holy Week Reflection

I took Heidi on Monday to have a spot cut out of her thumb. When the surgery was over, Heidi was still a little flighty from the anesthesia she starts telling me about a job she once had, when she lived in San Antonio. She told me that she had gotten a job as a flight attendant and her first flight was to Chicago, they were going to stay over night and their next flight took off at 11:30 the next morning.

She was so excited, but a little nervous because she had never been to Chicago and wasn’t sure about all the logistics. After they landed, the captain showed Heidi the best places to eat, shop and stay for airline personnel.

The next morning, as the pilot was preparing the crew for the flight, he noticed that Heidi hadn’t made it. He knew where she was staying and he called the hotel and was transferred to her room. When she answered the phone, she was crying and said that she couldn’t get out of her room. The pilot said, “You can’t get out of your room, why not?

Heidi replied, “there are only 3 doors in my room,” she continued to cry. “One is the bathroom, one is the closet and the other has a sign that says, ‘Do Not Disturb!”

Probably a good thing she doesn’t have a job in the service industry. Something that we all should know. We are actually in the service industry.

Let’s read our main text found in Mark 14:1-9 and Matthew 23:11.

As we enter into Holy Week, the last week of Jesus’s life, we should pay close attention to the things that he talked about, the things that happened to Him as well and think about the things that He told us were most important.

We need to take a look not only at what He taught and did, but why He taught them and why He did them. Let’s break them down together this morning. Hopefully, we can all find a little something for us to make our time on Earth a little better served.

One of the reasons that Jesus consistently talked about serving is point one.

1. Serving draws others to us.

So many stories in the bible about the crowds following Jesus. We talked last week about the 4000 and when you include women and children that would be about the same number of people in Neosho. They followed because He served them. He served them with His teaching and with His healing and other miracles. He gave up His time to serve others. He gave up His life to serve others.

John 10:11

As we read through the New Testament, especially the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John we find a lot of interaction between Jesus and the religious leaders and the disciples and the religious leaders. The leaders were in no way any type of a servant. They were proud and arrogant. They made a point to let everyone know how smart they were. Jesus even made it clear that people should listen to them but not follow their examples.

Jesus was setting up a new covenant a new type of Kingdom, the Kingdom of God and if the disciples acted like the religious leaders, they would draw people away from God and would not draw them to God. Jesus knew that people are drawn to us when we serve them.

“Impressing people catches their attention. Serving others captures their hearts!” Steve Chiles

Jesus drew people to Himself through serving. We will too. We will draw people to us, to God by serving them.

2. Serving keeps our selfishness in check.

James 4:1

3. Serving aligns our hearts with the heart of God.

John 13:1-14

Mark 10:45

4. Serving is the holy use of power.

Isaiah 40:29

Matthew 20:25-26

One More Thing - SERVE