Aaron Ivey talks about Jesus’s servanthood, and how being a servant is an inherent desire of ours. We were designed and created for servanthood. Our aim should be for the name of Jesus to be lifted high and glorified.
Here are some of the main points:
I want to be part of a group of people that live in a city and are relentless in serving it, that will go to any length to say, “I got this. I want to serve my church, and I want to serve people, and I want to serve my city, but I don’t need credit for it. I’m not doing it for upward advancement. I’m doing it because I love Jesus, and I want to see him glorified.”
The only one that really deserves to be glorified is the one that’s already been buried beneath the soil of a little town. The only thing that’s different about his story and the end of our story when we die is that he actually stood up and he walked out of the grave. He wasn’t held by it. He wasn’t the kind of servant that was buried in a catacomb and still has some bones that are left there. He’s the one that got up out of the grave. He’s the one that deserves the monument. He’s the one that deserves the photo-op. He’s the one that deserves a website that says, “Look how awesome this guy was.”
But he chose again, and again, and again, and again to resist that.
So it makes me think this – if that’s the way Jesus postured himself, and if that’s the way he wants us to posture ourselves, then I want to be a part of a collective that says, “We’re gonna go into whatever town we live in, and we’re gonna do whatever task is right in front of us, and we’re gonna do it with a heart that says, ‘I’m going to serve and not be served. I am going to give and not take. I am going to say ‘yes’ and not ‘maybe.’ I am going to be relentless in saying, ‘I’m gonna go do it. I’m gonna fill up this town with servants, and I’m gonna do it in the name of Jesus, not my own.'”
That’s the kind of collective I want to be a part of. That’s the kind of church I want to be a part of. That’s the kind of friends I want to have. That’s the kind of peers I want to have. That’s the kind of bandmates I want to have. That’s the kind of production people I want to be around. That’s the kind of people I want leading my kids in worship.
That’s the kind of people that I want to do life and ministry with, and I think if you’re really honest with yourself, there’s something that kind of wells up inside you that says, “I want that too,” and it’s because you were created for that. It’s the way that you were designed to live and operate.
