The Power to Conquer Selfishness

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00:00:05.220 | Pastor John, you recently tweeted this,

00:00:06.920 | "Serving is the measure of greatness," Matthew 20, 26,

00:00:11.420 | "because it takes greater power to conquer selfishness than to command service."

00:00:15.720 | Take a moment to explain that tweet for us today.

00:00:18.420 | What I had in mind was that the normal view of power

00:00:24.720 | is that it includes the ability to command somebody, to get your way.

00:00:30.720 | If somebody has power, they can tell others what to do, and then that serves them.

00:00:36.720 | And that's what Jesus had in mind. He refers to it in Luke 22,

00:00:41.720 | "The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them,

00:00:46.720 | and those in authority over them are called benefactors."

00:00:49.220 | He knows what the normal, on-the-street meaning of power is,

00:00:54.220 | and of course, in one sense, that's true.

00:00:58.220 | But what makes it not power is that we're just born this way.

00:01:05.720 | Children are born demanding.

00:01:09.720 | They want mama to do for them right away,

00:01:12.720 | and we stay like that unless we're converted.

00:01:16.220 | We're very demanding people. We have a sense of entitlement.

00:01:20.220 | And so in one sense, it takes as much power to command people as it does to fall off a cliff.

00:01:28.220 | It's like falling off a log. It doesn't take any effort at all to be selfish and have power in that way.

00:01:35.720 | So Jesus comes along and he says, "Now whoever would be great among you must be your servant."

00:01:42.720 | So he reverses that, and as I look at my own heart, and as I look at the history of the world,

00:01:48.720 | it takes a huge power to not act powerfully.

00:01:54.220 | Proverbs 16, "Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty.

00:01:59.220 | He who rules his spirit is more powerful than he who takes the city."

00:02:05.220 | So the proverb and Jesus are thinking of another kind of power

00:02:10.720 | that is power over your selfish love of power that is rare,

00:02:16.720 | and therefore Jesus wants it to happen for his glory.

00:02:22.720 | I was just reading—no, I was just looking at the trailer of J.I. Packer's new book, "Weakness is the Way,"

00:02:32.220 | and what struck me about it in this regard is that the subtitle of the book is "Life with Christ, Our Strength."

00:02:42.220 | And I think that gets at the key to what Jesus is really after, what's really new with Jesus.

00:02:47.720 | Jesus isn't just resurrecting a proverb and saying, "I'm your new wise man, and I have more proverbs to tell you."

00:02:56.220 | He was saying, "I intend to be your strength now.

00:03:00.720 | I've come to die for your sins, to sever the root of the control of the love of selfishness in your life,

00:03:10.220 | and to be for you what you thought you had to be for yourself."

00:03:15.220 | And so when you read commands from Paul, he says things like, "Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might."

00:03:24.720 | And I toil, struggling with all the energy that he powerfully works within me.

00:03:32.220 | And the one that I love the most is 1 Peter 4, 11, where Peter says, "Let him who serves serve in the strength that God supplies,

00:03:49.220 | so that in everything God will get the glory through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory."

00:03:56.220 | And so when Jesus is calling us to be servants, contrary to the world's way of thinking about power,

00:04:03.220 | he means he's going to sever that horrible love of demanding selfish entitlement,

00:04:11.220 | and he's going to be our portion, and he's going to give us strength so that when we act against those natural inclinations by faith in him,

00:04:20.720 | he gets the glory, not us.

00:04:23.220 | And so that's what I meant when I said there is a kind of greatness and a kind of power that is much greater than the power to command service.

00:04:33.220 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.

00:04:36.220 | Please email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.

00:04:40.220 | At DesiringGod.org you'll find thousands of other free resources from John Piper.

00:04:43.220 | I'm your host, Tony Ranke. Thanks for listening.

00:04:45.220 | (end)

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The Power to Conquer Selfishness

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