Part I: The Value Of An Mba Series

Having a Servant’s Heart Series: Part I: The Value of an M.B.A. Matthew 20:20-28. CBC August 18, 2007

Well, I know that I have missed you over the last several weeks in my travels to China and Vermont and I hope that you have missed me maybe a little. But as Amanda reminded me the other day, that she would really miss my jokes. Well it’s nice to know that someone appreciates my humor. I found it very funny that while we were in China I met this sweet 10 year old named Daphne and Daphne wanted to practice her English. And so she had this little book helping her work on English. And guess how Daphne and I worked on improving her English. That’s right. She loved to tell corny jokes. Just like me and that’s how we worked on English. And so today as we begin a new series on Having a servant’s heart, I thought that I would share with you some new material.

Q. What do you call a chicken crossing the road?

A. Poultry in motion.

Q. What do you call four bullfighters in quicksand?

A. Quatro sinko.

Q. Where do you find a dog with no legs?

A. Right where you left him.

Q. What do you call cheese that isn’t yours?

A. Nacho cheese.

Here is one that really is not a joke: What do you call a Christian who isn’t serving?

A. An Oxymoron

Here’s the problem. In today’s society there are many Christians who believe that being a Christian does not require any work. That a Christian can simply sit back and take the easy road with no responsibility. But that is not the case. All are called to serve. Now I am thankful that there are many in this church that serve the Kingdom of God and I want to applaud you this morning. Thank you for your service. Thank you for being willing to further the Kingdom. Yet, I must be honest, I also understand that not everyone serves. Now I might be making some uncomfortable but we must not hide from the truth. My aim in these messages over the next few weeks is not to discourage but to encourage all of us to see the blessings that come from serving. You heard Linda share earlier about the blessings she receives in service to the Lord and that is the point that I am trying to convey over these next few weeks. How you and I can become better servants for Christ. And so as we begin our quest for servant hood through the ministries of this church, let’s understand how we can become better servants.

Here at CBC we have a mission statement and that statement states that we have a mission to Welcome all to a new way of living by Believing, Belonging and Becoming in Christ. Well to do that you and I must be willing to serve.

When we accepted Christ into our hearts we committed our lives to serving Him and not ourselves. We committed ourselves to following His will and not our will. And so over the next several weeks, I am going to encourage this church to stand up and declare before God that all of us here at CBC are willing to improve our service to God.

But today you might be here saying well, I’ll be honest Chris, how can I serve. How can I be a better servant? Well there is a passage in the Gospel of Matthew that helps us how to become a better servant. So this morning let’s learn that there are 4 Key ingredients to getting our M.B.A. in Servant hood.

1. Understand your purpose.

In order to become a better servant for Christ, we understand our purpose in serving. If we are not careful we can lose sight on the real reason that we serve. Someone asked me this week wouldn’t it be great to bring all of those Chinese people over here to America and I said actually no it would be great to take all of us Americans over to China. And she looked at me questioningly and I said the reason we all need to go over there is because over here our purpose in doing something is either to better ourselves or to make ourselves look good while in China their purpose in doing something is to help the community and each other. In America the focus is on me and in China the focus is on community. In our passage this morning, the mother of James and John had it all wrong.

Our passage tells us in verse 20 that the mother of Zebedee’s sons who were James and John who were also disciples of Jesus comes before Jesus kneeling and asks a favor. It is interesting to note who this mother was. In Matthew she is the mother of Zebedee’s sons. Mark tells us that her name is Salome and John says that she is Jesus’ mother’s sister. What does that mean: It means that Salome Jesus’ aunt kneels down and asks a favor for Jesus cousins.