The Servant’s Leadership

For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.

Luke 22:27

Jesus gave this instruction in the Last Supper. He had just instituted His own memorial meal emphasizing His upcoming death on the cross. The Lord’s Table was created to keep all disciples well aware of what Jesus has done for us. At the end of this sharing and bread and wine in awareness of Jesus’ death for sin, Jesus also informed His disciples that one of them would betray Him. They disciples immediately defensively question each other over who that might be (Luke 22:23). Simultaneously they also began to argue about who among them was the greatest. I imagine each of them saying something like: “I won’t betray Jesus! I’m His greatest disciple!” It was pretty childish and totally insensitive to everything that had just happened. Jesus pauses to teach them once again.

Greatness comes not in authority, power, or ability, but in humility and service. In Jesus’ topsy-turkey kingdom, the servants are great. The irony is not lost on the disciples. All of them have reclined at this Passover table. Jesus has already been serving them when He washed their feet. Peter and John prepared this Passover (Luke 22:8-0), but it was Jesus Who was the servant all night already. He had just told them minutes earlier He would die and that communion was to be the means in which they centered regularly to humbly admit their need of salvation and remember His ultimate act of service. His example must motivate servant leadership among His people.

Lord Jesus,

To serve You and to serve others is to worship You. Help me keep my eyes on this truth. You have blessed me with a lifetime of learning to serve Your church. I’ve been blessed to serve a quarter century now this year at my current church home. Forgive me when I want acclaim. Forgive my selfish attitudes of being great. May I never claim to be entitled to any recognition or applause. You are the big deal in my life and I am content to be Your servant. Keep me humble. Keep me content in serving joyfully, busily, with humility for Your glory! You are the One Who serves Your church. I will serve You.

Amen

nations are nothing

The nations roar like the roaring of many waters,

but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away,

chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind

and whirling dust before the storm.

Isaiah 17:13

The world of humanity puts its power and hope in the nations of the world. Geopolitical landscapes shift over time. Uprisings, wars, plagues, and disasters change the nations in the slow grind of history. The human nations that were the power players just decades ago have changed drastically. Over centuries nations rise and fall. World powers clash, briefly dominate, and then dwindle. Even those once heralded as bastions of liberty have fallen from their zenith, just like every other empire that has ebbed and flowed on the surface of the earth like some human ocean in humanity’s brief history. In God’s scale all nations are nothing.

In fact, no nation is truly a power when God is the controller of all human history! The waters may roar, but He controls their flow. He orders the destinies of all people. And even the most threatening of empires crumbles to whirling dust in God’s relentless storm. He blows away the chaff of mighty empires as He winnows His way through history. He chases away false pretentious civilizations showing that even the mightiest of human power is vulnerable and truly nothing compares to His rule. Not even the most threatening of militaries or impressive of economies can overcome God’s rule of His world.

As the nations rage, the King in heaven laughs (see Psalm 2). His rebuke silences the weak pipsqueak rulers of empires. He sends His wind to blow them away, even using other peoples to do so. His storm grinds monuments to dust. Only His rule as King of kings and Lord of lords will last forever.

Keeper of kings/King of Kings

Steadfast love and faithfulness preserve the king,

and by steadfast love his throne is upheld.

Proverbs 20:28

This proverb is meant to be a reminder to every king who ever sat upon Jerusalem’s throne that it was only the grace of God and faithfulness of the covenant that led him there. God was the true King over Israel. God faithfully kept covenant with His people, provided graciously all they needed, and established thrones and rulers. And kings who acknowledged this, worshiped Yahweh, and were faithful to God’s covenant were preserved by God. Their rule prospered. Their kingship thrived. Israel was kept in peace, not by human politics, but by divine decree.

And grace and faithfulness are now found in the kingdom of Christ where the true King now rules this world as Son of David and Son of God. Jesus showers us with steadfast love. Jesus is faithful in all things. We are called to receive His grace, find mercy, thrive in His faithful love, and in faith to follow Him submitting to His lordship. His throne is unfailing, His rule is best, His love is everlasting, and His hand provides all we now need. Jesus is the true and faithful King of grace!

Lord Jesus,

I bow to You. I yield to Your rule. I acknowledge Your kingship. I have pled Your mercy and receive Your grace. I know Your forgiveness and seek Your wisdom. I have followed You and will follow You. And You have kept me. You have led me. You have saved me. And all the earth will one day bow the knee to You and confess You are Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Amen

complete grace and justice

What will you do on the day of punishment,

in the ruin that will come from afar?

To whom will you flee for help,

and where will you leave your wealth?

Nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners

or fall among the slain.

For all this his anger has not turned away,

and his hand is stretched out still.

Isaiah 10:3-4

God will judge sin on His timetable, in His way, with exactness and with perfect holiness. And it usually does not look as we imperfectly imagine. Longfellow’s poetry is quite observant: “Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.” God is very patient in His mercy. He is also holy and has appointed His day and His means to bring His justice and judgment to bear.

The warning to errant Israel in Isaiah 10 is that when God does indeed bring Jerusalem down, it will be definitive. No sin will escape. No sinner will go unpunished. There will be two outcomes for all of the people: captivity as prisoners, or death. That is indeed a wheel grinding small and grinding all. God is as complete in judgment as He is in holiness. His justice goes to all just as His grace does. He is perfect in righteousness and perfect in punishment. We do well to remember both truths for a complete theology and a proper attitude of worship of God.

God is a God to be both loved and feared. He is to be respected, obeyed, worshiped, and adored. He is great in mercy and grace, forgiving all sin, providing redemption in Christ, and revealing His tender care for us. He is also holy and just and will not let us treat sin with less wrath than He does. And God will discipline His people who might slip into a diminished concept of Him with light views on the evil of sin. A relationship of balance believes and lives according to God grace and God’s justice.

Enthroned

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.

Isaiah 6:1

Enthroned sits the Lord

God over all

filling His temple

with awesome glory

On His throne, King of His world

God Almighty

Holy in His temple

adored

Above the throne, seraphim fly

worshiping God

shouting in His temple

“He is holy!”

Enthroned, sits my God

majestic and alone

smoke filling His home

shaking thresholds

On His throne a God to be feared

feeling unworthy

sinners shiver at the sight

shaking over iniquity

Enthroned a holy God

dispatches angels

with burning coal

to purge guilt

On His throne Almighty God

is bigger

more fearful than we know

yet atoning our sin

Enthroned and in control

God most Holy

purges sin and forgives

speaks to sinners in grace

On His throne sits the King

God over all

calling all to His temple

redeeming them for His glory

humbled by the Holy God

Man is humbled, and each one is brought low,

and the eyes of the haughty are brought low.

But the LORD of hosts is exalted in justice,

and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness.

Isaiah 5:15-16

God’s justice is perfect. And even though we may see earthly situations where proud humans seem to be able to defy God’s holiness now, rest assured that this will not stand. God will show Himself holy and righteous. God will judge sin, particularly those in defiance of Him. And when He does, people are clearly humbled. The proud are brought low. God is exalted. His perfect righteousness prevails. He will not let sin go unpunished.

Isaiah’s perspective prophesies to a rebellious people. Jerusalem will soon fall. The Jews will suffer for decades of defying God. The generations who have turned from God’s Law to worship idols will fall. The leaders who perpetuated this national rebellion will be disgraced. The structure built on idolatry, pride, and rejection of the covenant will collapse with nothing left. History shows this to be exactly what happened. God judged sin. God’s justice was exalted. God showed Himself holy and righteous in the destruction of sinful, societal structures and ending an idolatrous, selfish culture.

Man is humbled. We either humble ourselves in worship of God, accepting His means of salvation and trusting His Word, or we are humbled by His complete, grinding, relentless justice. The first humility leads to a pleasant experience of grace and glory. The humility of judgment leads to loss, regret, and ultimately a dark eternity of torment away from God.

Lord Jesus,

I thank You that You humbled Yourself and obeyed to death on a cross. And I, a humbled sinner, plead Your gracious gift to believe God’s judgment fell on You for me. And in my place condemned You stood… sealed my pardon with Your blood. May that gospel truth, the story of every Christian’s new life in You, be saving many even today who believe!

Amen

humbly hear it out

The one who states his case first seems right,

until the other comes and examines him.

Proverbs 18:17

Good friends and wise counselors will seek to hear all sides of a dispute before forming an opinion. I have experienced the truth of this proverb in every family counseling and marriage counseling situation I have ever faced as a pastor. And in 34 years of ministry there have been a LOT of them. It is crucial to hear things out and to not quickly form conclusive opinions. There are at least two sides to every conflict. And EVERY dispute is a dispute between sinners with unique personal twists, turns, and corruptions. It is impossible for one party to be completely without some fault in any matter for this simple reason: even when we are sinned against we tend to respond sinfully. The result is that change is needed on each side to some degree.

This is not only a true principle when dealing with others, but is is most true of my very own heart. My own conflicts are distorted by my own selfish sin nature. I have no doubt of this. It is why I need to be quick to examine my own motives in the light of God’s truth and the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. It is why I need the gospel applied most in my conflicts. It is why I must seek counsel and accountability with maturing Christians who will wisely apply Proverbs 18:17 to my own situation. It is why humility surrenders to peacemaking, not self-administered forms of incomplete warped justice.

Jesus,

You are the Great Mediator between God and humanity. And You give wisdom to help us, by the gospel, in repentance, confession, and forgiveness resolve our sins before God and our conflicts and wrongs with one another. Help me both to seek godly counsel in my own broken relationships, and to seek Your wisdom to listen well and point to Your mediating work when helping brothers and sisters find Your great peace.

Amen