Sermon For Pastors And Leaders

The Greatness That Kneels

Mark 10:35-45 And Philippians 2:1-11 (Csb)

Leadership is one of the most discussed subjects in the church today. Bookstores are full of it. Conferences are built around it. Entire ministry philosophies rise and fall on it. And yet, for all the conversation, the church keeps circling back to the same painful question: why does leadership so often look more like the world than like Jesus?

That is not a cynical question. It is a biblical one. And Jesus himself answered it directly, not in a letter or a parable, but in a moment of raw, uncomfortable confrontation with two of his closest disciples.

Here is the lesson this sermon will walk through. We are going to let two passages of Scripture teach us what authority looks like when it has been reshaped by the cross. We will look at what the disciples wanted, what Jesus said in response, and then how Paul, years later, pressed the same truth into the life of a local church. By the time we are finished, every person in this room who leads anything, whether a congregation, a ministry team, a small group, or a volunteer effort, should have a clearer picture of what genuine Christian leadership is and what it is not.

So open your Bible to Mark chapter 10, beginning at verse 35.

Lesson One: The Request That Exposed The Problem

James and John came to Jesus with a request. They wanted the seats of highest honor in the coming kingdom, one on his right and one on his left. Read it plainly and you see ambition dressed up in the language of devotion. They called him Teacher. They said they wanted him to do for them whatever they asked. It sounds polite, but the request underneath was a power grab.

Jesus did not shame them out of the room. He asked a question. "You don't know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup I drink or to be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?" They said yes without hesitation. And Jesus told them that they would indeed share in his suffering. But the seats of honor were not his to assign. That belonged to the Father.

When the other ten disciples heard about the request, they were indignant. Notice that. They were not indignant because James and John were wrong. They were indignant because James and John asked first. The whole group was infected with the same ambition. They all wanted to be great. They all wanted to be first. The only difference was that two of them said it out loud.

This is where Jesus gathers all twelve of them and says something that should stop every leader cold.

"You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them. But it is not so among you."

That phrase deserves to be read slowly. It is not so among you. Jesus was not describing what the disciples had achieved. He was describing what they were called to become. The world runs on positional authority, on rank, on leverage, on the ability to make people do what you want. Jesus said the kingdom runs on something entirely different.

"On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave to all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

That last sentence is the hinge of the whole passage. Jesus did not simply model servanthood as a leadership style. He grounded it in the cross. He gave his life as a ransom. That is a redemptive word. It means something was owed that could not be paid, and he paid it. The servant leadership of Jesus was not a management philosophy. It was a sacrifice. It cost him everything.

The lesson here is this: the ambition to lead without the willingness to serve is a form of leadership that Jesus explicitly rejected.

Lesson Two: The Mind That Makes It Possible

Now move to Philippians chapter 2, beginning at verse 1. Paul is writing to a church that was experiencing internal conflict. There were people in that congregation who were pushing their own interests, seeking their own recognition, creating division. Sound familiar?

Paul's answer was not a policy change. It was a call to a different mind. "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others."

Then Paul points to Jesus. And what he writes next is one of the most theologically dense and pastorally powerful passages in the entire New Testament.

Jesus, who existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. He emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Think about what Paul is saying. The one who had every right to be served chose to serve. The one who held all authority chose to lay it down. Not because authority is evil, but because love expressed through sacrifice is greater than authority expressed through power.

Paul is not telling the Philippians to pretend they have no gifts or no responsibilities. He is not calling leaders to be passive or to avoid making difficult decisions. He is calling them to hold whatever position they occupy with open hands, with the interests of others genuinely in view, with a willingness to spend themselves rather than preserve themselves.

This is the mind of Christ. And Paul says this mind should be in you.

Here is the lesson from Philippians: servant leadership is not a technique you apply from the outside. It is a disposition that forms from the inside when you fix your eyes on what Jesus actually did.

Lesson Three: What This Looks Like In Practice

Let us be honest about where this gets difficult. These two passages are not hard to understand. They are hard to live.

Every person who leads in a ministry context faces a version of the James and John temptation. It may not look like asking for a throne. It may look like needing to be the one whose idea gets credit. It may look like becoming defensive when someone questions a decision. It may look like building a ministry around a personality rather than around the Word. It may look like surrounding yourself with people who will not challenge you, because challenge feels like threat.

Jesus said the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over people. That word in the original language carries the idea of exercising dominion, of using position to press down rather than lift up. It does not only happen in secular boardrooms. It happens in churches. It happens in ministry teams. It happens wherever leaders forget that the people they serve belong to Christ before they belong to any program or institution.

So what does servant leadership actually require?

First, it requires accountability. A servant is answerable. The leader who places himself beyond correction has already departed from the pattern of Christ. Every pastor, every elder, every ministry director should have people in their lives who can speak honestly to them. Not to undermine authority, but to keep it honest. The New Testament church was never designed to be a one-person show.

Second, it requires a genuine concern for the people being led, not just for the outcomes they produce. Jesus saw the crowds and had compassion on them. He did not see them as a platform. He saw them as people. When leaders begin to see the congregation primarily as a resource for their vision rather than as souls entrusted to their care, something has gone wrong at the level of motive.

Third, it requires a willingness to do the unglamorous work. Jesus washed feet. That was not a symbolic gesture performed once for a sermon illustration. It was a picture of a life. The leader who is only willing to serve when people are watching has not yet grasped what Jesus was teaching in that upper room.

Fourth, it requires staying close to the cross. The reason Paul could call the Philippians to humility was because he pointed them to Jesus on the cross. The cross is the great equalizer. It reminds every leader that whatever authority they hold was entrusted to them, not earned by them, and it will be accounted for. We are all stewards. None of us is the owner.

A Word To The Congregation

This message is not only for those who stand behind pulpits or sit on leadership teams. If you are part of a congregation, you are part of a community that is called to honor those who lead faithfully, to pray for them, to support them, and yes, to hold them accountable to the Word of God. Healthy churches do not produce leaders who lord it over people, because healthy congregations do not allow it and do not demand it.

The priesthood of all believers means that every member has access to Christ and responsibility before him. That is not a threat to pastoral leadership. It is the environment in which genuine pastoral leadership can flourish.

Conclusion And Charge

Here is where we land. Jesus did not come to be served. He came to serve. He did not come to accumulate. He came to give. He did not come to be protected. He came to lay himself down. And he calls everyone who leads in his name to follow that same path.

This does not mean leadership is easy or that authority is wrong. It means that authority in the kingdom of God is always shaped by the cross. It is always oriented toward others. It is always answerable to Christ.

If you lead anything today, a church, a ministry, a small group, a team of volunteers, take this question with you: am I leading in a way that points people to Jesus, or am I leading in a way that points people to me?

That is the question the servant way of Jesus asks every generation of leaders to answer.

May God grant us the grace to answer it rightly.

Sources Consulted

Cranfield, C. E. B. The Gospel According to Saint Mark. Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary. Cambridge University Press, 1959.

Edwards, James R. The Gospel According to Mark. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Eerdmans, 2002.

Fee, Gordon D. Paul's Letter to the Philippians. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Eerdmans, 1995.

Hawthorne, Gerald F. Philippians. Word Biblical Commentary. Word Books, 1983.

Stein, Robert H. Mark. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Baker Academic, 2008.

The Holy Bible, Christian Standard Bible. Holman Bible Publishers, 2017.