The Royalty of Service

III. The servant-leader sacrifices.

Jesus’ self identification is that of a servant who willingly gives His life in exchange for others (v. 45). Rarely are we called to make that significant a gift. But we are called to daily sacrifices of life’s moments and goods.

Once again it’s Paul Cedar who says, “The servant leader must be ready to give to others whatever God has given to him or her. The servant leader owns nothing; all he or she has comes from the Lord and is readily available to be given to anyone who needs it.”³ I vividly remember watching Donald McRae “work the crowd” on Sunday mornings. As an elder in our congregation he would seek out those with specific needs and, through a handshake, leave behind a monetary gift.

It always costs us something to love people. You can’t invest in the lives of others without paying for it in some way.

It may be sleepless nights, broken dreams, tear-stained cheeks—but it will always be something. And, if necessary, it may be nail-scarred hands.

The church needs leaders but not leaders who succeed on “The Apprentice.” The church needs leaders who succeed in the gutters of Calcutta.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “The church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren. Not in the former but in the latter is the lack. The Church will place its confidence only in the simple servant of the Word of Jesus Christ because it knows that then it will be guided, not according to human wisdom and human conceit, but the word of the Good Shepherd. The question of trust, which is so closely related to that of authority, is determined by the faithfulness with which a man serves Jesus Christ, never by the extraordinary talents which he possesses. Pastoral authority can be attained only by the servant of Jesus who seeks no power of his own, who himself is a brother among brothers submitted to the authority of the Word."

1. In the early 1980s Dr. Robert Lowery (Lincoln Christian Seminary) published a paper based on the parallel text in Matthew 20. The following structure is taken from that article.

2. Hans Kung, The Church, 401.

3. Paul Cedar, Strength in Servant Leadership, 85.