Day 21: Matthew 20:20-28

“But among you it will be different.” This sentence should sum up the Christian experience. We should be as different from the world as the light is from darkness. The way we live should stand in stark contrast to the rest of the world.

But Jesus is specifically addressing leadership in this passage. He basically says that it’s not the way you lead, but the way you serve that makes you like him. That concept is so foreign that we as Christians even have a hard time wrapping our minds around it. When you search for Christian books on leadership on Amazon there are over 2,000 results that pop up. When I change that search to Christian books on servanthood there are 49, and many of those would fall under the “servant leadership” category. 

To be like Christ means we must serve based out of love and nothing else. I serve you, not to get something in return(like you following me), but just because I love you and I want what is best for you. We should not be jockeying for position among other Christians. We shouldn’t be comparing ourselves to others to see if we are better than they are. Jesus promised his disciples in verse 16 of this same chapter that “those who are last now will be first then, and those who are first will be last.” Or put another way in Matthew 19:30: “But many who are the greatest now will be least important then, and those who seem least important now will be the greatest then.”

No one modeled this for us better than Jesus. Jesus quotes Psalm 118:22 to describe himself, “The stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.” He was rejected by those who deemed themselves important. He was despised by the elite of society. But now, time itself is divided by his life! He can legitimately be described as the most important person to ever walk the earth. But, “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others.” Do we have the same approach and attitude as Jesus did?