Years ago, the United States had largely an industrial economy,
manufacturing economy. We, we, we grew food, we produce
steel, we produced oil, we produce products.
Over the years, we transitioned into what many people call a
service economy, and that is we provided services, financial
services, educational services, insurance services, medical
services. We shift then into a, an
information economy and, and, and now we're going into
something and knowing we don't really know what it's going to
be. They'll we'll find out when,
when it's here. But but that, that notion of
being a service economy is, I think, a helpful way for us to
think about the Kingdom of God. That that while it is important
to be productive, the, the, the essence and the basis of the
life in the Kingdom of God is not production, it's service.
We're an Easter people. We gather together, We are, we
have an identity. We are who we are because of
what happened on Easter. Jesus rose again from the dead
and, and has promised that one day a resurrection will come for
all the faithful. We have that hope of the
resurrection. And because we have that hope of
the resurrection, Jesus calls us to live now like we really
believe that and, and to live the resurrection life, live the
Easter life now. And, and that part of that,
again, we saw that part of that is, is realizing that that we
live in a world that's turned upside down, that that
expectations and priorities and status and position all get
reversed in the Kingdom of heaven.
And today we're talking about the reality that the Easter life
is also a life of service. Last week, a life of faith, this
week, a life of service. And I want to, I want to talk
about this business, about the Easter life being a life of
service. This shouldn't have surprised
any of Jesus's disciples. Now we say that they've, they've
kept continually getting surprised by lots of things that
that perhaps they shouldn't have been surprised by.
Jesus told them repeatedly, I'm going to be betrayed.
I'm going to be handed over, I'm going to suffer, I'm going to
die, I'm going to rise again. And then they were all surprised
when it happened. And that's we, we can't really
judge the disciples for that because odds are we would have
had the same struggles in understanding and believing
those things that they did. But this piece of it, this piece
of it was as clear as crystal from the jump with Jesus from
the get go, that a life in the Kingdom of God, they wouldn't
have called it before Easter, the Easter life.
But life in the Kingdom of God, which we now know is the Easter
life is a life of service. Jesus had been modeling that and
doing that and saying that from the very beginning.
Grace read part of that this morning, here today.
Jesus said whoever wants to be first must take the last place
and be the servant of all in. In the Gospel of Luke, we see
the disciples having this argument in the upper room the
night before Jesus is crucified. Who's going to be the greatest?
In the Gospel of Mark, we see the disciples having that
argument much earlier. They're just walking through
whatever part of Israel they're walking through at the time,
doing the things that they've been doing and and having that
argument that human beings seem to so often love to have.
Which one of us is better, Which one of us is more important?
Which one of us should be in charge?
Which one of us should get the credit and the glory and get to
set at the, you know, the head of the table or the front of the
class or or have the corner office?
All of the which one of us should get the biggest paycheck?
And Jesus said you are asking all of the wrong questions.
That is not how my Kingdom works.
If you want to be first, if you really want to be first in my
Kingdom, then you need to get in last place and serve everyone
else. Now, we still struggle with that
in a in a huge way. I have yet to see the Church of
any size that that insists that their janitor be the pastor or
the president of the board, Right.
I mean, if we took Jesus literally, that's how we would
do things. If you want to preach, you got
to clean the toilets. By the way, it's not what I'm
asking for. You can have me clean your
toilets, but ask Amy. They won't.
It won't happen very often. So being out front as a status
symbol is is is a huge temptation in the church in the
West, even more so than in other parts of the world.
I think largely because for so many years, being part of a
church, particularly part of a reputable church had its status
and social advantages is a pastor.
And I've, I've mentioned this before, but one of my favorite
pastors is out there is a fellow by the name of Francis Chan.
He's over on the West Coast someplace, Washington or Oregon,
one of the, the Pacific Northwest states.
And he, he's been a very good writer, a very good pastor.
He's, he started more than one church that grew phenomenally
and, and did amazing things as a church and, and we're what
typically are now called mega churches, very large churches.
And at some point a few years ago, he began to sense the God
working on his heart and saying, this is not what I'm after.
And so Chan walked away from his mega church that he started to
look for other ways to do and be church.
And in part of that, he knew that the church in the East, the
Far East, China and, and, and other areas in Asia had been
growing rapidly, even though there was significant
persecution. And so he went there, he went to
India, he went to and met with Chinese house church pastors
and, and people from those, those countries where, where
it's not always free and not always safe and, and sometimes
never free and safe to be a follower of Jesus.
And he talked with folks from those churches and, and they
said, here's one of the big differences, Francis, between
between church in America and church over here.
He said, you folks in America, take your best pastors and make
them celebrities. They're the one that get the big
speaking gigs at the conferences and the higher honorariums.
And they're get to be on TV and they're taught the president
calls them and talks to them. They may be invited to be part
of these big national committees.
They, they write the books. They, they're, they're well
known. They're recognized.
They are celebrities, he said, where we come from, our best
pastors, we hide them so they don't get put in jail.
That is as clear and stark a distinction between what Jesus
was talking about and what church so often ends up being
like. And, and it, it's, it even in
churches that don't have celebrity pastors and, and, and
I've, I've run into this there. And, and I, I, there, there are
some church traditions and, and some congregations that, that
put the pastor up on a pedestal and elevate them.
This is always a bad idea. And, and, and the pastor is
always first in line at, at gatherings and at meals And the
pastor gets a parking place that's close to the door and the
pastor gets all of these extra, you know, perks and special
things and, and lift that. And it's no, no, no, no, no,
that's not the way church needs to be doing things.
We don't need our pastors. We don't need our any of our
leaders, whether they're pastors, whether they're
ordained, whether they're lay people, to be sort of held up as
as the the Christian Hall of Fame and the local church.
We need the mindset that Jesus tried to drill into his
disciples from day one. If you want first place, get in
the back of the line and serve everyone else.
And he wasn't telling a parable. He meant it literally.
And part of the way we know that is that was one of the last
things he said to his disciples too.
There with Peter on the shore of the Sea of Galilee after the
resurrection, after Peter had denied him.
Peter denied knowing him three times and and three times in
response, Jesus asked him, do you love me?
Do you really love me? And Peter kept saying, yes, I
love you. And the measure of Peter's love
for Jesus, according to Jesus, would be how well Peter served
other people. If you love me, serve them.
If you love me, take care of them.
If you love me, feed them. If you love me, provide for
them. That's the measure of how much
we love God, not whether we jump and shout and, you know, on
Sunday mornings, not, not how many positions we've held in the
church, not whether we're ordained and not whether we have
status within the annual conference.
I didn't even have annual conferences back.
None of none of those things are measure of how much someone
loves Jesus. Jesus says you measure how much
you love me by how much you're serving others.
The Easter life is a life of service.
Probably Matthew 25 is is the at once most hopeful and
threatening formulation of this that Jesus ever gave when he
said the Kingdom of God's like this.
At the end, there's going to be an accounting and, and, and the
master's going to separate every, everybody in the world of
the two groups, the sheep and the goats.
And, and now the goats are the good things.
But but they weren't for Jesus's day.
I don't know why the goat, the goat wasn't the goat in Jesus's
day. It was just a goat.
I know that doesn't make any sense at all.
I'm going to stop. And Jesus said to the sheep, I
was hungry. You fed me, I was thirsty.
You gave me something to drink. I was naked and you clothed me.
I was homeless and you sheltered me.
I was in the hospital and in prison, and you visited me.
Come and enter into my rest. And they said, Jesus, when did
we see you and do all of those things?
And Jesus said, whatever you did for the least of these brothers
and sisters of mine, you did that for me.
And then he turned to the goats and he said, you know what?
You're all out. Outer darkness forever.
Why? Because when I was hungry, you
didn't feed me. When I was thirsty, you didn't
give me anything to drink. When I was hungry or when I was
homeless, you didn't shelter me. When I was sick or in prison,
you didn't visit me. And they said, what?
Jesus, when did we? Had we seen you in that
situation, we would have done something.
And Jesus said what? This is tough.
These are tough words. I think these are the maybe some
of the toughest words of Jesus in the entire Bible.
And Jesus said whatever you failed to do for the least of
these brothers and sisters of mine, you failed to do for me.
The measure of our love of Jesus, the measure of our
faithfulness to God, is the extent to which we serve others.
That is a life of service, That is life in the Kingdom.
That is the Easter life to which we're called.
And I want to just run through real quick five characteristics.
I might throw in 1/6 here at the end as well, but 5
characteristics that that of a life of service to distinguish
it from other ways of living. 1A.
Life of service is a life of humility, not of glory.
So much of our culture pushes us to chase glory, to chase honor.
And, and, and it's good. I, I love, I love the Facebook
posts. I've done the same thing with my
kids. I do the same thing with, you
know, other people at other times.
When you win something, when you get an award, when you have an
achievement, we want to celebrate that.
That's a good thing to honor those kind of achievements.
But that's not what life in the Kingdom is like.
Life in the Kingdom is not about a pursuit of glory.
The risk of those is of those things, and it's good that we do
them. The risk is that we train our
children to seek glory and praise and affirmation as the
measure of how high a quality of life that they have.
Are you getting glory? Are you getting praise?
Are you getting affirmation for what you're doing?
And that's a trap when we come to measure the quality of our
life and the value of our life by the honors, accolades and
glory that we receive. Because a life of service is not
glory. It's not about a life of glory,
it's about a life of humility. When Jesus said servant of all,
he meant servant of all serving everyone.
He modeled it himself when he took on the role of the lowest
slave in the household, got down on his hands and knees and
washed his disciples feet. A life of service is not a glory
seeking life. A life of service is a life that
is content and seeking humility. Humility.
A life of service is a life filled with following orders,
not giving orders. It's a hard one for me since
since I was very young. My definition of growing up was
then I get to do what I want to do.
I I get to be in charge. I get to tell.
I thought it was going to be cool having kids because then I
could tell them what to do. Yeah, you can tell them, but
they got a mind of their own. A life of service is a life of
following orders, of taking directions, of having to do what
you're told. That's, that's what servants do.
The, the servants are, are the, the low people in the
organization. They're the low people.
They're the ones that everyone gets to give instructions to.
You know, you go to a restaurant, you don't, your
server doesn't come and demand things of you.
You ask you, you go, hey, I need another.
I've dropped my stuff all the time.
I need a fresh napkin. I need a fresh fork.
I need a fresh spoon. I I know now.
No. Pick up the fork off the floor
and use it on the food. I've learned that I don't need
to be corrected on that anymore. You got a you got a server
there. Who, when you say can you bring
me a fork, would you bring me a fork?
They'll bring you a fork. Bring me some soup.
They'll bring you soup. Tell me where the restrooms are.
They'll tell you where the restrooms are.
Refill my Coke. They'll refill your Coke.
You're giving orders. They're taking orders.
Even if we're polite about it, that's still the arrangement.
That's life in the Kingdom and that's a life of service that
we're not the ones given the orders.
We're the ones taking the orders.
We're not the ones in charge. We're the ones with someone in
charge of us, and we volunteer for that.
We don't do it because we have to.
We voluntarily accept that role in this life.
That's what it means to live a life of service in the Kingdom
of God. Jesus said it this way to Peter.
When you were younger, you dressed yourself, you went where
you wanted. But when you're old, you will
stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and
lead you where you do not want to go.
Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter
would glorify God. Peter would glorify God not by
being in charge, but by following orders.
And and Jesus makes it clear from this context is that
sometimes following orders means following the orders of people
who do not have your best interests at heart.
We don't have 100% verifiable historical records about Jesus's
death, but tradition tells us that he was crucified and that
because he didn't feel like he was worthy of dying in the same
way his savior did, He asked to be crucified upside down.
He didn't volunteer to be crucified, but he willingly
went. He willingly went because that
was what he was ordered to do. That's what God, it's where God
led him through the voices of the people around him who had
charge of his life. A life of service is not about
being in charge. It's not about being in control.
Control's an illusion anyway, right?
I we can agree on that. Control in our lives is, is
largely an illusion. We can control a little bit
sometimes, but you know, there's so many things in this world,
whether it's health or economic conditions or wars and political
conditions, all of these things around us that we have so little
control over. And life just happens to us and
we have to figure out how to respond to it.
And, and the control that we crave is ultimately an illusion
anyway. And Jesus says, if you want to
live the Easter life, live a life in my Kingdom, then then
you need to acknowledge that control is not only an illusion,
but it's something you're not after anyway.
To be a servant of others, taking orders rather than giving
orders. Number 3A, life of service is a
life of being powerless rather than powerful.
Power is another thing that we're taught and trained from a
very young age to seek in this world.
Power for self determination, power to control your own
destiny power to make sure that that you're the one that that
can direct others rather than the one of the one of the crowd
being directed by someone else. Power.
Now I I distinguish between power and empowerment.
I don't think it's ever wrong for human beings to seek
empowerment, which is to say that that that there are, have
been and, and it changes over time and it changes from place
to place, groups of people, that other groups of people have
their boots on their necks. And, and whether it's because of
their gender, the color of their skin, their nationality, their
religion, whatever it is that, that they're, they are in
society with other people's boots on their necks.
And, and they are, are, are kept, whether it's in slavery
or, or intimidation or fear, whatever it is.
And for folks to want to get out from under those boots, I don't
think there's anything wrong with that.
That's empowerment. Power.
Seeking power means I want to have my boot on their neck
instead. That's seeking power.
It's one thing to seek to be free of of dominating and abuse
of power of others. It's another thing to seek that
power over others life in the Kingdom, life as servant is a
it's a life of being powerless. Jesus was not a victim, but he
did not exercise his power over pilot, over Herod, over the
chief priests. Peter was at one point rested
and and God broke him out of jail and he walked free in the
middle of the night, just walked out.
But when God didn't do that, Peter willingly went to the
cross. Peter knew it wasn't about
getting that power to do whatever I want.
It's about allowing myself to be powerless.
And at times, that means being at the mercy of other people.
That's a life of service. A life of service is a life of
helping more than being helped. I'm not sure that even needs
much more explanation. But in a group be looking
around, who needs help? Who can I reach out to?
Who's struggling? Who?
Who needs a hand? Who needs a word of
encouragement? Who, who needs, you know, maybe
a cut in front of line to, to get their seconds even before
I've had my first because they're they're hungry or who's
struggling with the math or who's struggling with the
assignment at work and the the response, who can I help rather
than seeking to be helped? Again, that's the role of the
servant and a household and a business anywhere is to look
around and see what needs done that's not being done so I can
do it. What's been forgotten?
Who's struggling? Where can I step in?
Where can I help? That's a significant enough
thing that that Paul even identifies it as a spiritual
gift, right up there with prophecy and and healing is is
helping. Being helpful to other people is
part of a life of service, and a life of service is about
serving. Even when leading, because we
find ourselves in positions of authority, we find ourselves in
positions of power. We find ourselves in roles where
we have responsibility not just for others, but over others.
And we see that throughout the Scripture as well.
We're going to look at Joseph in a little more detail.
Ended up being second in command in Egypt, the most powerful
nation in the world. Daniel ended up being second in
command in Babylon, at that time the most powerful empire in the
world. And we see kings, we see all
sorts of people and in God's Kingdom throughout history who
were in positions of power and positions of authority.
Whether they sought those things or not, they were there.
Well, once they were there. The question is, how will I be a
leader? How will I be an authority?
Will I use that role and that opportunity to put my boot on
the neck of others and make sure I get my perks and my privileges
that come with my position? Or will I say, how will I use my
power and my position to serve as many people as possible, to
care for as many people as possible, to lift up as many as
people as possible? Because again, sometimes we find
ourselves in the spot where we've got we've got power over
others. We are the leader.
We're a part of a group of leaders.
Do we use that position and that power and that leadership to
serve ourselves or to serve others?
Now I want to give you an example.
It's a lot of, you know, just theory and stuff words here
today, but I want to give you a real concrete example.
A fellow by the name of Peter Mutabazi, who, who has an
extraordinary story. He first started telling his
story a few years ago. I just heard about it this week.
I, I, no, actually it was last week.
An amazing guy. He's got a couple of books out
there. One of them, well, I can't
remember that I should have put the book titles up there, but I
can. I'll put them with the when I
post the sermons tomorrow. And and Peter grew up in about
as bad a situation as you could grow up in, impoverished in
Uganda. His mother was a drug addict and
I believe a prostitute. His father was physically and
verbally abusive. At age 5 or 6 years old, Peter
fled his home, explicitly with this in mind, he said.
He said if I'm going to be killed, I want to be killed by a
stranger, not by my father. And he grew up in the homeless
on the streets in Uganda until he encountered some people that
treated him like a human being and helped him improve his life
and see a different way of living and being.
He was helped by them, eventually moved to the United
States, went to university and got a job for Compassion
International doing mission work in Uganda.
That's cool. Compassion, one of the if you're
looking for a good organization to support that helps folks
around the world, particularly children, Compassion's a great
one. They're, they are very, very
credible organization that when you give your money, you know
it's going for what you're giving it for and not just
making someone's boat payment someplace.
And, and Muta Bazi was a manager and he led trips of people he
took, he took white people to villages in Uganda where white
people had never been seen before.
But then he started seeing in his own neighborhood back in the
States. He lived in Oklahoma, still
lives in Oklahoma, children in need.
And God started working on his heart and, and saying, I want
you to do something that you haven't done yet.
He's a single man, an immigrant from Africa, living in Oklahoma.
And God started calling him to be a foster parent.
And to do that, Peter had to change everything in his life.
He was living very simply in a small apartment.
He's like, I, it's not big enough.
I got to buy a house if I'm going to be a parent, he said.
I, I spend, you know, 6-9 weeks at a time, traveling multiple
times a year. I can't be a parent, single
parent and do that. So we had to get a new job.
Friend of his had a, a real estate business there.
They, they bought houses and repaired him and flipped him.
And he started doing that with his friend.
He changed his home, he changed his career.
He changed everything about how he was doing his life except for
his faith and a very real sense in order to be a foster dad.
There's a part of a news report, this is from a few years ago
that I want to play and then we'll talk a little bit more
about Peter Mutabazi tonight. We have an update on a story
about a Charlotte man who is once again making national
headlines for spreading awareness about foster care.
After three years of fighting, he just adopted 2 more kids.
Wow. WCC Charlotte's reporter
Michelle Bowden shows us how he's seeking solutions and
growing his family. Hanging out with the newest
Mutabazi kids is both heart warming and heartbreaking.
My parents used to be mean to me and hurt me and now I have a
family that doesn't hurt me or hit me.
After three years of fostering, Luke and his older sister Peter
Mutavazzi was finally allowed to formally adopt them.
It means like you're forever home.
Finally, I got a phone call saying finally I can adopt them.
And I was like thrilled and excited.
And so they've been asking, you know, when can we be adopted?
You know, when can we have your last name?
And I'm like, you don't want to give false promises we had.
To go to the social worker and sign the paper, then we never
have to have a social worker anymore.
That means like he's my permanent dad.
The. 8 year old knows what she wants, including changing her
name. It's going to be Isabella
Evigale with Tbazi. What?
Does that feel like to say your new name?
Oh great, adoption's like special school so I changed my
last name to it, which buys you good.
Job it. Is particularly special for
their dad He too, fled an abusive home as a child, growing
up in Africa and landing in the US for college.
What's? This one as.
An adult, he's fostered 36 kids. He adopted his oldest son,
Anthony, in 2019 and says even with Isabella and Luke, he still
has room for more. Wow, I mean, you get to love
these kids. You get to, you know, prepare
them. You want the best for them.
And you've seen me grow and overcoming the trauma they've
gone through. And so you're hoping the best.
So when it's actually natural for them to say, hey, now it's
for the rest of your life. You, you really know.
OK, now I can truly be their dad.
The family celebrated at home the day they became official so.
Finally, I was able to say, you know what?
You know, I'm going to be your dad.
And they were thrilled. You know, they've been kind of
wanting that and looking for that as well.
So to me, it was truly, truly a joy.
And does this feel like. This is your family?
Yeah. Forever, forever, forever home.
I just think that's such a beautiful story and and it's
such a picture. And again, not everyone is
called to be a foster parent, but Peter's attitude towards
serving others is something that all followers of Jesus are
called to a willingness to change, a willing.
And this was the final characteristic thing I'm going
to add because this is the way Peter describes it.
Is, is their sacrifice in order to serve.
He talks in his book, and I looked up the name of the book
while the video was going, and now I am known is the name of
the book. Now I'm known.
And he's got a second book called Love Does Not Conquer
All, where he's saying it takes more than just a compassionate
heart. You need skills in order to care
for people and meaningfully and effectively.
But he talked about as he was first becoming a foster parent,
all of these changes he had to make.
Then he goes in, he takes a, he takes a 5 month training program
to be a foster parent. And then when he finally gets a
certificate, the, the the director said you can expect to
call in about 30 minutes. And he waited for her to laugh
and he was like, she's like, yeah, we got a backlog, every
available person. And, and within 30 minutes, he
got a call to bring the first child into his house, was a 5
year old little boy who was Native American and ethnicity
who'd been living in his grandmother's ramshackle mobile
home with 10 other kids. And Peter brought him in and he
said, said for two days he was an Angel.
He said there was the the at the end of the second day, a little
boy about 5 years old again was, was playing with his tablet.
And Peter said tablet time's over, boy didn't respond.
Tablet time's over, boy. Didn't respond.
Tablet time's over, boy. He walked up and he took the
tablet out of the boy's hands. And the boy screamed and he
arched his back and he put his head through the window that was
behind him. And he screamed.
And he screamed and he screamed. And Peter, he screamed while
Peter was tending his wound and bandaging him up.
And for two hours, Peter said he screamed without stopping.
And he said those fits would come on him, this boy,
periodically. Sometimes it was in a store,
sometimes it was in public, sometimes it was in the home.
And just absolutely inconsolable, uncomfortable,
screaming at the top of his lungs.
Peter said after two hours, he walked up to him.
The little boy walked up to Peter and said, will you hold me
and can I have a glass of milk? And Peter held him.
It's not one of the boys he ended up adopting.
That was never an option with that particular child.
But that level of sacrifice, that level of service, which
says my life is not about my comfort, it's not about my
glory, It's not about my position and my prestige.
My life is about this other human being or these other human
beings that news reports a few years old at this point.
The most recent numbers is Peter has now fostered more than 40
kids in his house in Oklahoma, mostly white kids, which I think
it's just a fabulous statement for the world in America right
now then. And, and he's adopted 3 And you
saw the picture of his older son there too, who had been
abandoned by his parents. And Peter adopted him to serve,
to love, to care for them, to give these children something he
did not have when he was a child until much later.
Someone in their lives who who would see them, who would really
know them for who they are and to love them.
That's a life of service. That's the life that Jesus calls
us to live, that feeding sheep and caring for lambs is
beautiful language that for Peter gets translated into
fostering children, and for you will get translated in other
ways. But it needs to be translated in
some way that means meaningfully serving other human beings in
the name of Jesus. Amen.