Servant Leadership: Becoming Last to Be First

I'll give you a quick example. Christmas, right, we had that huge tree. Well, we had a we had to plan that sucker out. We had to cut it down. We had, like, 10 guys all go that day. And at the time, I didn't know half of them. But by the end of this afternoon, cutting down trees and eating together, it was such a great connection event. And guys, you know, guys know this. Women, if you didn't know, guys need to do something together to connect. We don't like sit and chitchat that often. And so it's a great opportunity to connect. It's a byproduct. Connection is a a byproduct when you serve. And then also when you serve, you get to impact people around you. [00:49:09] (36 seconds)  #ServeAndConnect

It's when you're serving a church, and you're staying late, or you're doing this. You're going to church because you gotta serve in kids or or something. And they're like, man, why are you spending your Sunday off serving at a place where they don't pay you? And it's your opportunity to say, come and see. [00:47:59] (19 seconds)  #ServeAndInvite

Or setting up for the kids downstairs, showing up early, or showing up to set up and do all the ushering, or set up communion where you're gonna show up an hour early before church. It's like, oh, I gotta go do this thing. Or you change your mindset and you say, I get to be a part of when somebody says yes for the first time just like I did one day. [00:50:21] (22 seconds)  #IGetToServe

And when it comes to that, you gotta remember, here's the key. When we choose to serve in the church, the key is this. It's not to say, oh, man. I gotta go and serve base camp the kids area. But rather, I changed my thinking. I even pray about it on my way walking into the doors and I say, this is gonna change me, and this is gonna change a kid today that I get to serve. [00:49:58] (23 seconds)  #ServeWithIntention

And at the end of the summer, I was like, you know, I just wanna run this myself. I'm I'm tired of, you know, all the the hoopla, and I've been there long enough and proved myself enough. I was like, okay. And they let me open and close one day. So I ran the thing the whole day. And real quickly, I realized, oh, this sucks. I gotta stay after everybody else is gone. I gotta count the till out. I gotta clean up the yard, and I gotta show up early and make sure everything's ready. And I realized the position and the power that I wanted was just hardship. [00:34:11] (35 seconds)  #LeadershipIsHardWork

You see, the reason why is these are not human traits. These are godly traits, and for us to practice them on a regular basis requires a spiritual mind change. We need God's help for him. Jesus led the way, challenged us to live this way, and then he gives us the strength and the discernment to live that way. [00:42:17] (21 seconds)  #GodTransformsUs

Jesus' purpose was found in service. He said he came to give his life as a ransom for many. And I know the word purpose gets thrown around a lot today. Right? Find your purpose here. Do your purpose here. But purpose I like to say it better, contentment. Purpose brings us contentment. So if I was to ask you, are you do you feel content or fulfilled? [00:42:55] (26 seconds)  #ServiceBringsContentment

Because really, service is more about impacting our heart than it is anything else, but it's a great blessing to those that you serve. Do you serve outside of the church somewhere? You know that one of the coolest things about serving is when you serve, it actually has this great byproduct of connecting with other people. [00:48:47] (21 seconds)  #ServiceConnectsHearts

the funny thing is is the principles of Jesus work for everyone even if you don't believe. The the thought of there's this bible that has all these principles. I believe a person who never chooses to put their faith in God, they could follow the principles of the bible and be better off than living just how would they would want in normal life. These principles work. They're they're universal. [00:30:06] (27 seconds)  #UniversalPrinciples

Are you the first out the door, or do you help do you stay late to help clean up? This is anywhere. Friend's house, church, work. Are you first to pay the bill, or do you linger hoping somebody else will pick it up for you? Do you care for your coworkers, or do you see them as steps for your next position? [00:41:31] (33 seconds)  #StepUpServe

But the problem is we want power, and I would say our world wants power and position without hardship. Because anybody here, when you've ever gotten that new job, when you've ever gotten that big raise, the big thing you've ever wanted, there's like, yeah, the big moment that the paycheck or the offer comes across the table, but then also the reality that there's another weight that you're gonna have to carry. [00:33:09] (28 seconds)  #PowerCarriesWeight

And this world wants power and influence the quick way. The world wants power and influence the quick way. See, back in that day, that was a pretty normal thing to say and to request. Because back in those days, there was kings, there was emperors, there were rulers, there were dictators, and nepotism was very normal. [00:32:03] (23 seconds)  #NoShortcutsToPower

And for us as Americans, we talked about it last week, our money is where our heart is. And so a lot of the times, we try and when we're not feeling good, we'll buy something. We have the means in America to do that. When we hit these things, we we purchase things and it makes us feel good, but it always is fleeting and it always goes away. [00:45:11] (23 seconds)  #MoneyCantBuyFulfillment

Something for us in our family is that we we love to camp. Now for us though, we're tent campers. And if you know there's a difference between tent camping and you got the pop up trailer, and then you move to the pull behind trailer, and then the Taj Mahal is the RV. Right? And so we've raised our kids tent camping. So they like poop in a bucket. You know, we got rattlesnakes where we're where we're tent camping, and they think this is normal. Okay? [00:26:40] (32 seconds)  #ChooseSimpleLiving