You're listening to Mountain View Church Audio, Christ-centered teaching from the Wilderness City, Whitehorse UConn. Here's this week's message. I'm Katarina, and I will be reading from Mark, chapter 10, verses 42 to 45. You can follow along with a physical Bible, you can search the table of contents and find Mark, or you can use a Bible app or Bible.com. And Jesus called them to him and said to them, You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you.
But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. What does this mean? It has to do with the casting aside of self and status. This is not the way of human nature, nor is it the way of the world that we live in. It's the way of the kingdom of God and the way of Jesus.
It is a call to the setting aside of what we as human beings deem important, and it flies in the face of that which the world tells us to pursue. It's a statement that smashes our measures of success and points us towards humility, service, and obedience. It is anti-self, and it seems like a radical suggestion to a society infatuated with the self. It doesn't point us toward the goals that we tend to have for our lives, and it points us directly away from the desires that the modern world wants to impress upon us, and consequently the impulses that the forces of darkness, the spiritual forces of darkness, want to feed. Hi, my name is Aaron, and I'm a chaplain at Mountain View Church in Whitehorse. We're so happy that you're joining us online today, and I want to invite you to connect with us via our website, mountainview.church slash connect, or on social media, drop us a DM, at Mountain View Whitehorse. Today, we're continuing our preaching series called Questions and Answers, where we look at some of the big social trends and hot-button issues in society today, and then try and give a Christian perspective. The goal is not so much to tell anyone what they should think, but to speak to why Christians who look to Jesus and the Bible for their answers think the way they do.
Today's topic could be called many different things. Self-idealization, self-obsession, self-worship, or even just the pursuit of status. The question we're seeking to answer today is who defines your worth? Now, there's a pretty big indicator of our value right at the beginning of the Bible. And this is a pretty big hint regarding the answer to our question. Genesis 1.27 says, so God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them.
In the beginning of the Bible, it also says that he gave humanity dominion over all the earth. So even from Genesis 1, we can see that we're made specially and with great purpose. We have value, but it's not value that comes from our strengths, our looks, or our natural abilities. A translation of the Bible that I'm currently reading through is the New Living Translation, specifically the Tyndale Life Application Study Bible. And in the study notes regarding our creation, there's something that's very fitting for today's message. It sheds some light on one of the problems with our assessments of things.
It says many boast of their achievements and abilities as though they were the originators of their own strengths. Others feel worthless because their abilities do not stand out. Humanity looks for value in all the wrong places and misidentifies what is actually important and seeks a self-worth that is affirmed by other people. Our whole formula is problematic. Many of today's youth and even full-grown adults spend inordinate amounts of time trying to figure out a way to be somebody, to be relevant or important, to be a person others respect or are impressed by.
We struggle to find value in ourselves. So many of our society's role models, celebrities, influencers, teachers, and loudest voices are concerned with showing us the value of establishing our brand, and they are motivated by our awe and admiration at what they have accomplished, how they've done that already. It seems like they want to show us what we could be, and that we too can be somebody. But too often, the message that is actually received, especially by those who are young or easily impressed, is not positive. What they're hearing, it sounds a lot like the person that they're watching is saying that they're special, and the person watching will never be as beautiful or rich or powerful or influential or important as they are. That is the takeaway for many people, and then the goal becomes to try and feel beautiful and rich, powerful, influential, and important by whatever means we can. Ironically and sadly, in the pursuit of the realization of our best selves, we can completely lose sight of our actual value, which doesn't depend at all on these false measures. These measures, beauty, wealth, influence, etc., are all tied up in our modern view of self-worth.
They focus our gaze on the self and how we appear to others, and that leads to obsession. When we become the center of our attention, we can easily become obsessed with ourselves. We become convinced that we are the main character, not just in our own story, but we begin to believe that we should be central in the stories of others as well. they should pay attention to us. They should affirm us. They should acknowledge and approve of whatever we want to do. And then this goes further into thoughts like, others need to agree with our perception and adhere to what we think or say is the truth. And they should always tell us what we want to hear. In fact, they should just listen to us. The us versus them mentality devolves quickly into something that sounds a lot like they are wrong and terrible. They should be canceled. They are the enemy. From the time that we're very young, now that we're fully immersed in the online age,
We're taught and encouraged to pursue our self, our truth, and to get ours. The world of social media and online platforms gives us the ability to reach far beyond our own friend groups and social circles and even our communities. And we have easy access to a means by which to exponentially expand our ability to be heard, seen, and hopefully liked. The idea of everyone having their own voice, their own opinion, and their own truth, and the means by which to project that to the rest of the world sounds like it should be a good thing. The problem is often not with the technology itself, but with the messenger and the message that the technology amplifies.
Anyone can be an influential voice now, with little or no accountability to speak the actual objective truth. And as long as the message you convey aligns with the world's appetites for self-worship, you have a good chance of not only being seen and heard, but also being celebrated and admired, which is the goal a lot of times. This attention, admiration, and harvesting of likes, it inflates our perceived self-worth, and it leads us to a deeper obsession with the idol that is I. None of these outcomes line up with the words of Jesus, and none of these outcomes lead us towards God. So what are we to do?
How do we navigate the world of self that we live in today? And I'm speaking to Christians. We do the opposite of putting ourselves front and center. In the words of Christian teacher Dallas Willard, as quoted in the book, The Way of the Dragon or The Way of the Lamb, we abandon ourselves to God. That is a very concise and powerful statement. We abandon ourselves to God. The Bible, and indeed all of human history, is packed with examples of humans doing the exact opposite of that, and abandoning God for ourselves.
When we read the scriptures, we see so many different examples of the same thing. We see people putting themselves in the center of their own lives and pursuing their own desires over what God would have them do. There's a big problem with this as humans are by nature fallen and flawed, and so our desires are often corrupt. And for things that might feel good, offer us a quick hit of dopamine or a sense of inflated self-worth, rather than things that are actually good for us, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We seek affirmation from others in our pursuits so that we can continue them unhindered by our pesky conscience, should it speak up.
offending people becomes more disdained than offending God. And emotions and lived experience are becoming more important than reality. We end up making idols for ourselves or of ourselves and putting these idols, often ourselves, in the place of God. This is not simply an error in judgment that we make or a little area of our lives that just needs a little fixing up. Self-idolization is a symptom of outright rebellion against God. While we are in rebellion against God, we are not on the right side of things and we must surrender as rebels and submit ourselves to God's mercy.
In his book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis says this. He says, fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement. He is a rebel who must lay down his arms. See, a defiant rebel is of no use to God and is not fit for service in the kingdom of God. We must seek to be useful to God, for it is he that made us, and it is he that defines what we are and what we are to be. And God is worthy of all the love, devotion, and worship that we can muster. In contrast, idols are of no use. They do nothing.
and are therefore worthless. And if we center ourselves and define ourselves by that which is worthless, we too can become of no use, do nothing, and become worthless. The Old Testament follows the story of God and his relationship with his chosen people. And in the book of Jeremiah, God makes this point to his people who for generations now have abandoned him in favor of self-made idols and selfish desires. They often are even drawn to the idols that other nations worship, those who completely reject the one true God. And God is speaking through his prophet Jeremiah to the people of Judah, whose ancestors had abandoned God, and these people were continuing to walk the road away from God. So God poses this question regarding the wisdom of their pursuits. Jeremiah 2, 5 says, Now perhaps you're hearing this and it makes you upset.
Did he just say that those people are worthless? That doesn't sound very nice. That doesn't sound like a God that I want to listen to. But we must understand context here before we come to judgment of God. The people Jeremiah was speaking to, they were in a covenant with God. They were his people and representatives of him to the world, kind of like his ambassadors. In rejection of him and voiding their covenant, they had made themselves worthless in their purpose. They sought to define themselves and establish their own purpose and worth by casting aside God's plan and seeking their own pleasure and fulfillment. And therein lies the problem.
If we seek to define our own worth and hold ourselves as the ultimate judge of such things, then yeah, we can easily end up triggered and offended and just plain mad after reading a passage like this. However, we are not the ultimate judge of such things. God is. It is ultimately God who decides. He created us. He is sovereign over us. He is God. And we are a creature made from the dust who had no life in us until life was breathed into us by God. The kingdom of God is not a place of individual worth or status of our own making, but rather a place of community and status of his making.
as his creatures, it would behoove us to hear what he has to say about what value and status look like in his kingdom. So what does that look like? Well, let's go back and take a look at the statement from Jesus that I said at the beginning. Let's look at the whole passage this time. The passage we're going to read is Mark 10, 42 through 45. If there was ever a passage in scripture we could look to that puts to shame the self-worship and status chasing of this world and us people, it's this one. For context, Jesus has just finished telling his disciples that he's going to be arrested and charged, tortured, and killed.
Now, he's allowing all of this. God is allowing all of this so that through this great act of sacrifice, sinful humanity would be given the opportunity to be spared our much-deserved judgment and punishment. And what happens next, after Jesus tells them all this stuff, is an indictment on the selfishness and inward focus of the human heart. James and John, two of Jesus' disciples most prominently featured in the Gospel accounts, and two of the first men that he called to follow him, they show up in true human form. They want Jesus to do something for them. They want to be seated at the highest places of honor in his glory.
To paraphrase and put it in the language of today, I imagine Jesus saying something like, hey guys, some really bad things are going to happen soon, and it's going to cost me my dignity, my body, and even my life. But despite this, I will rise from the grave. And the two men respond with something like, all right, so after that, can we be the most honored and rewarded in your kingdom? Jesus is telling them about the horror that he's about to go through. And their concern and attention is entirely focused on their placement and status in the aftermath. Now, one could say at least they're chasing a status that seems honorable. One in their context, like to be seated next to the Lord and glory seems like a good goal to have. And it's true, they're not asking, you know, they're on the right track. They're not asking for earthly things like money or power or fame in a human sense. But they're still seeking a placement that will lift them above others and set them in a place higher than their contemporaries. They still desire status.
This gives us the impression that they think pretty highly of themselves and also that they don't see it as unreasonable to expect this outcome of them having seats of honor in the kingdom of God and that Jesus will go for it. Jesus' reaction is excellent, of course, and he gently admonishes them and redirects them back to a reasonable perspective. The other 10 disciples, however, they hear this and they're immediately upset. The account says they begin to be indignant at James and John. I can only imagine what the conversation would have degenerated into had Jesus not gathered them all together to set them straight.
There are many moments in the gospel accounts where it seems perfectly reasonable to expect Jesus to just throw up his hands and walk away in disgust at the ignorance or selfishness or despicable behavior of humanity. And that includes his friends and followers. But he doesn't do that. Instead, he sees their hearts, and he corrects their misguided priorities, and he leads them back to the ways of love that he came to teach them in the first place. So, to our passage, Mark 10, 42 through 45. Jesus says, You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you.
In this passage, Jesus gives his disciples a perspective that they've completely missed. He opens their eyes to what really matters and what sets greatness in the kingdom of God apart from greatness in the world. In the kingdom, no one should seek to be over anyone. Rather, the opposite, one should seek to serve another. There's no standing on the royal balcony and looking down upon the peasants of the kingdom.
Even one as close to Jesus as James or John should endeavor to do life right alongside and in service of their fellows. These fellows should in turn also seek to serve, and the end result, if everyone understood their place and had kingdom goals in mind for themselves, it would be a beautiful community built on and through an understanding of God's grace and sustained and cultivated through a practice of service, kindness, sacrifice, and love. Jesus' choice of words here is very intentional as he teaches them about how drastically different the priorities of those in his kingdom are from the priorities celebrated in the earthly kingdoms that they're familiar with. He uses two distinct words with distinct meanings in this passage to explain the roles that are considered of value in his kingdom. He says, whoever would be great among you must be your servant. The Greek word here is diakonos. I'm probably butchering that pronunciation.
but it's used elsewhere in the New Testament to describe roles like waiting on tables. Not glamorous, to be sure, but it puts an emphasis on the service nature of ministry. The servant works to improve the lives of others. Then he goes further in saying, whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. The Greek word is doulos, and it literally means slave. In this culture, a slave is inferior to everyone, including a servant, probably in all cultures. A slave has no position of authority, no agency, no status.
A slave in that context is below all and lives to serve. It is their sole purpose. So one can imagine that upon hearing these comparisons, this might leave a person feeling rather shook, depending especially on how one views themselves and what they imagine their own self-worth to be. And then Jesus brings it all together by showing how he himself is the example that they should look to. He says, For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Remember, Jesus is God in the flesh. He is the divine walking among his own creation.
If he's living out the life of service to others, then that is exactly where his followers' priorities should be as well. The Holy One takes on the lowliest role in order to save those who cannot save themselves. If the Messiah is willing to take on the role of a servant, how much more should they be willing? Should we be willing? We shouldn't even be seeking to serve just because it's good or helpful, but primarily because it is the way of Jesus. James Edwards in the Pillar New Testament commentary explains the why of this beautifully, and it's a long quote, but it's on point.
What Jesus teaches about service and self-sacrifice is not simply a principle of the kingdom of God, but a pattern of his own life that is authoritative for and transferable to disciples. The for at the beginning of verse 45 is strongly purposive. Disciples should adopt the posture of servants and slaves, not on the basis of ethical reasoning, but because it is the posture of the Son of Man. For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. The life to which the gospel calls believers is not an ethical system, but the way of the Lord, of which Jesus is the pattern and incarnation.
This model of ministry cannot come from the secular order, but only from the unique way of Jesus, which defies the logic of this world and its fascination with dominance, control, yields, results, and outcomes. The key to the model, both incarnated and commanded by Jesus, is in the verbs to serve and to give. The reason why a servant is the most preeminent position in the kingdom of God is that the sole function of a servant is to give, and giving is the essence of God. When we pursue living with the right priorities and the correct view of ourselves and who we should seek to be, A lot of the concerns and focuses and priorities of this life and this world, they're laid bare as worthless and empty. When we live to give rather than to receive, we begin walking in the right direction, the way of Jesus. Our occupation with self and status, they don't have a place in the way of Jesus. Our obsession with attention and admiration of others, it seems juvenile and silly when we can see the big picture. The architect and artist responsible for this big picture is the one who created each one of us. And though we are important enough to him that he was willing to sacrifice his life for ours.
we should not be quite so important to ourselves as the world and all the influences out there would have us believe. It is our pride that both motivates us to seek status and influence over others, and it is also our pride that leads us to feelings of self-hatred and worthlessness when we do not attain the heights that we so desperately seek to ascend. Pride is destructive to both ourselves and others, and it is not what Jesus has called us to. This leads us back to the original question we were seeking to answer at the beginning. Who defines your worth? The answer is Jesus. He's God, and our value, our worth, is his to define.
He showed us our value by hanging on a cross. And he doesn't celebrate how many people follow us online or how many likes we get. He does not admire how many people we can get to think that we are something special. He does not care how much wealth we can build or collect or acquire in this life or how many things we have. And he certainly does not attribute greatness to the ones among us who can lift ourselves above the rest. He values service, humility, and submission. He values the heart that serves not the self, but the broken, the downtrodden, and the lost.
For the broken, the downtrodden, and the lost are exactly who his heart served while he walked this earth. In this life, we are told to seek to climb above others and beyond others. And we can be easily tempted to seek greatness and to tie our worth to how high we can climb. Now, I recently read a book called The Way of the Dragon or The Way of the Lamb, and I quoted from it already, but I'm going to go back to it. It was all about power and the seeking of power and influence both in the world at large and in the church. The authors, Jamin Goggin and Kyle Strobel, talk a lot about the difference between the way of the dragon, that being the way of Satan and the world, and the immense contrast with the way of the lamb. It was Jesus. So I think a couple of quotes from this book fit well here in closing. The way the dragon is fixated on the spectacular, obsessed with recognition and validation, intoxicated by fame and power. The way the lamb is committed to worship, pursues God in the ordinary, and is faithful in hiddenness.
The dragon devours and dominates, while the lamb humbly and sacrificially serves. So let us seek to prioritize the way of the lamb by following the example of Jesus. Greatness in his kingdom is not measured by accomplishment or status, but by the giving of oneself. The next time you're consumed with wanting to be seen as more, remember what is superficial and what actually matters. If you don't get as much attention as others, it's okay. If you don't have as much stuff as others, that is okay. If you don't look as well put together as others, or as attractive as others, or as popular as others, it's okay.
Remember what is important to the Lord, and that he is the one who defines your worth. Instagram, Snapchat, X, the popular kids at school, or the rich family down the street that look down on you because you don't have as nice a car or a house or whatever as they do, they all have something in common. They're all about appearances. 1 Samuel 16, 7b, which means the second part of the verse, reminds us of something very important. It says, For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. James 4, 6 says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
Both of these verses, one from the Old Testament and one from the New, make clear the contrast between status and pride of the world, which leads nowhere, and what matters to the one who gives us hope, purpose, and life itself. One more time, I go back to Goggin and Strobel. We want to be special. We use social media to create a significant self, and credit cards are used to maintain a certain perceived lifestyle. Our weaknesses are strategically hidden so that we can get ahead. Our culture proclaims that the mountaintop is the land of flourishing and the place of life, but it's all a ruse. These mountaintops are dry, parched land.
Mountaintops are lonely, windswept places where vegetation is dwarfed and gnarled. We ascend the mountain expecting to find the pinnacle of flourishing at the top, but instead we discover a place inhospitable for life. God wants you to have life and purpose as he defines them. Therefore, do not seek to interpret what gives our life meaning or is important through the lens of our current culture. Seek to interpret how to live in our current culture through the lens of what is important to God, for in him is life. Let's pray.
Father, thank you for today. Thank you for the opportunity to share this message and have a deep look at worth and self-worth and how we feel about ourselves and how we let others' opinions of ourselves matter so much to us. Everything in this world points us towards that, that we need to perform, that we need to be at a certain level and that we need to seek the validation of others and the affirmation of others, but it's just not so. Help us remember that, Lord, when we're stuck in the dark, when we're beginning to hate ourselves or when we're beginning to feel like we're nothing. Remind us who we are to you. Remind us of what is important.
I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you again for joining us today. If you happen to be in Whitehorse, by all means, come by and join us in-house on Sunday morning. And you can also connect with us on our website or follow us or subscribe to us on social media. Now, we usually give you a discussion question, something to ask yourselves or ask the people around you. The discussion question this week is, how have you sought to define your self-worth in the past? And then the prayer focus that probably we should all pray would be for God to show us where we are chasing something which is worthless in our lives.
Last but not least, next week, Pastor Jeremy will be looking at a line that seems very blurred these days. Our subject will be, where do faith and politics meet? Taxes, authority, and civic duty. You're not going to want to miss it. God bless you, and see you then. If you prayed to receive Jesus today, or would like to connect with our church community, visit mountainview.church and click the connect link. If this podcast and radio ministry has been a blessing to you, please consider partnering with us for making a tax-deductible donation at mountainview.church. Thanks for listening to Mountain View Church Audio. Join us next week for more Christ-centric teaching from the Wilderness City of Whitehorse UConn.