Jesus’ Top Twelve
They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.
Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
If you follow the NFL football, you’ve heard a lot of talk this last year about whether the New England Patriots are the greatest team ever. Many commentators have said that if they go undefeated and win the Super Bowl this weekend, they will have proved themselves the best in NFL history.
It’s fun to get sports fans arguing about what teams or players are “the greatest.” You’ll hear a lot of the same passion in the next couple of months about the best movies, CDs, and TV shows of the last year.
Everybody wants to be the best at something. Sports and business and even academics all turn out rankings. Someone is always on top—and that’s a good thing. Competition is healthy, and it motivates us to work harder, to be better than someone else.
So what’s the problem with the disciples arguing about which one of them was best, each making his case for why he was closer to Jesus, more valuable to the mission, better at understanding Jesus’ hard teachings, able to gather the most sick and lame and blind people for healing?
Whatever the problem with campaigning for COTY (Christian of the Year), you can tell the disciples felt pretty ugly about it. That’s why they didn’t answer when Jesus asked what they’d been arguing about. And then He gave them this weird and beautiful and head-spinning answer:
“If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
So is Jesus saying the 1-15 Miami Dolphins should be crowned champs? Not exactly. They’re just last because they got beat even though they wanted to win. In Jesus’ math, they’d be first if they’d come in last by voluntarily working to help every other team in the league more successful. Dolphins fans might claim that’s what they were doing, but the attitude is a little different.
Jesus’ point was that His followers would be ranked by how committed we are to making it our job to help everyone in our circle of influence do what they do better. That’s what a servant does, after all. He gets paid to help his employer succeed. The “great” Jesus-followers do the same thing — help each other get ahead.
Notice something huge here: Jesus does NOT take away competition as a motive for doing better. In fact, He turns the heat way up for those driven to compete. He just changes the rules. He says there will be a champion — the person who best serves everyone else, who most sacrifices his or her own agenda to turn all the other Jesus-followers into winners.
So get your game face on. Think you can out-serve me? Are you going to talk that smack in my house? Bring it, brother! Right now. Go: Can I get you a beverage? Need a blanket or something? Let me get the door for you? You’re carrying by backpack? Ooh, good one. I can top it, though. I’m going to mow your lawn. Ha!
Okay, that’s a little weird, but it’s kind of the idea. Can we out-serve each other? And imagine if every single one of us lived that way. No need would go unmet anywhere in the church. We’d all be doing things for each other even before we knew we needed them done because everyone wants to be a champion servant. Who wouldn’t want to live in that community?
Unfortunately, very few of us are even suited up for the game. Maybe it’s time for us to start thinking about how to serve somebody in a new way. There will be prizes.
Final thought for all of you thinking, “That’s they wrong motive, dude!” I do take Jesus at His word. I believe the biggest servants really will be first in heaven. But something strange happens when you get into the game of competitive servant-hood. Your motive starts spinning. You start rooting for all the other teams. You wake up one morning and realize you’re not so interested in being the champ as you are in really actually seeing everyone else come out on top. So just when you stop caring about winning the servant trophy is when you have the best shot at getting your name on it.
What a great game.
PlanetWisdom Student Conference
What’s the Plan?
One of things that makes students unique is that your life is all about making plans. What are you doing Friday night? What classes are you taking next semester? Are you going to approach that girl or guy you’re into? Bottom line: What are you going to do with your life?
I’m not trying to make you feel more pressured about all this planning; it’s just the way the world works. When you were a kid, your folks took care of all that planning for you. You went where they made you go, ate what they gave you, read and watched what they allowed, and pretty much spent your days living out their plans for you.
If you’re like most people, you’ll come to a point in life in a few years that will involve far less plan-making. For better or worse, you’ll be living with the results of your plans. Married to someone. Working a job a set number of hours a week. Getting the bills paid and the kids taken care of and your acts of service done. Your planning will be limited to whatever a limited budget and limited free time will allow — if you’re like most people.
So you’re living right now in the prime of your plan-making life. The consequences of what you decide about some big and little things in the next few years will have a lot to do with how your days and hours work themselves out.
That’s why it matters that you learn to become a wise maker of plans today. We’ll see in a few Proverbs below that wise planners and foolish planners end up with very different results.
How to be a Wise Planner
1) Ask the right people to help you make a good plan.
We all make a lot of plans inside our heads. We look at the different angles. We talk ourselves through big and little ideas about what we might do. But with the plans that really matter, Wisdom tells us to makes some phone calls, send out a few e-mails, invest in a serious interview or two.
“Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.” (Proverbs 15:22)
“Make plans by seeking advice; if you wage war, obtain guidance.” (Proverbs 20:18)
You might not be planning a war, but is it less of a big deal to plan what college you’ll go to, how you’ll spend your summer, or what ministry you’ll invest in? Pride says, “You know yourself best; go with whatever sounds good to you.” Wisdom says, “Find someone wise who is also doing what you might like to do, and ask them how they got there.”
But don’t ask just anyone: “The plans of the righteous are just, but the advice of the wicked is deceitful.” (Proverbs 12:5)
2) Be a righteous dude. Or girl.
Shocking news: People who live according to God’s design for life make better plans that people in rebellion against God. It turns out God has a “veto” button for bad plans.
Again: “The plans of the righteous are just, but the advice of the wicked is deceitful.” (Proverbs 12:5)
The wicked—or anyone out to do things his own way instead of God’s—make plans, too. But God delights in tripping up those plans. He’s watching, and we’re mortal:
“They encourage each other in evil plans, they talk about hiding their snares; they say, “Who will see them?” They plot injustice and say, “We have devised a perfect plan!” Surely the mind and heart of man are cunning. But God will shoot them with arrows; suddenly they will be struck down.” (Psalms 64:5-7)
“Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.” (Psalm 146:3-4)
3) Surrender your plan to God.
“Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.” (Proverbs 16:3)
Now we come to the biggies. God controls all the plans of all the people in all times and places. If we want any hope of having our carefully made plans work out, we’ve got to start by giving those plans to Him.
The idea here isn’t just to say, “God, I commit this plan to you.” The idea is to actually think about who God is and what you already know He wants from you—to believe Him, to obey Him, to love Him—and to build your plans out of that knowledge. That’s wisdom.
4) Let God change your plan.
Here’s the hardest part of making plans. You might consult the wisest counselors. You might be committed to living a righteous life by obeying God and finding ways to love Him. You might make a perfectly legit plan, fully ready to give Him all the glory.
And He might still allow life to turn your plan upside down. If so, our only choice is to see our frustrated plans as evidence that God loves us enough to change the direction of our life to something else, something we choose to believe He knows is better than our best-laid plans.
“In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9)
“Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” (Proverbs 19:21)
Remember, God’s plans never fail: “But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.” (Psalm 33:11)
5) Work! the plan.
This final wise proverb is a message to all of us who like to spend all of our time making better plans, organizing our calendars and computer desktops and backpacks, researching more and more and more options. Eventually, we have to get to work working the plan! Wisdom says it pays off in the long run.
“The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.” (Proverbs 21:5)
Finally, Psalm 20 is a blessing written by King David. It’s my prayer for you, as long as you walk in God’s plan:
“May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.” (Psalm 20:4)
PlanetWisdom Student Conference
Vote for Wisdom!
[Note: The following devo is NOT really about politics or political parties. It is NOT about what presidential candidate you or anyone else should vote for this year. It’s an analogy. Or a metaphor. I’m never sure which is which.]
Wisdom: “Let all who are simple come in here!” (Proverbs 9:4)
Folly: “Let all who are simple come in here!” (Proverbs 9:16
Have you noticed we’re in the height of the political campaign season? Of course you’ve noticed! The ads and news talk about all the candidates and their positions and their promises and personality glitches—it never stops. Who won the last primary and why? Who’s the frontrunner? Why do voters make their choices?
Young voters have been a big deal in the primaries. On the Democratic side, we’re told they gave Obama a huge boost in one state, but not in another. Newscasters: “Who do the young people like where you’re at, Jim?” “Well, Brett, it looks like the young people are making their choice for . . .”
Proverbs 9 could be read as a kind of political campaign. And this election battle is all about the young voters like you. You’ve got two candidates to choose from. Both make speeches. Both briefly describe their very different worldviews on the hot issues. (Perfect soundbites.) Both want your vote. And both candidates are women!
Even crazier: Both candidates are inviting young people (really, anyone lacking experience in life) to join their party. No, not a political party. An actual party in each of their prominent homes in the best part of town. Listen:
Ms. Wisdom: “Let all who are simple come in here! Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed.” (v. 6)
Ms. Folly: “Let all who are simple come in here! Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious!”
You’re going to notice right away these two women have very different platforms.
I should also mention that the voting process is a little different, as well. Instead of making an “X” on a ballot or voting machine, you vote for these candidates by moving in with one of them. Or at least hanging out at either of their houses. You vote with your time, with how you spend your life, really. You’re not voting for a leader—you’re voting for your own lifestyle. (And you’re never too young to start voting in this election.)
Let’s break down their basic messages.
Ms. Wisdom believes you cannot understand your own life if you don’t start by giving all your respect and support to the God who designed your life. (“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” she always says.) If you vote for her by getting to know God better and allowing her to help you learn to live His way, she promises three huge good things: “understanding,” long life, and “reward.”
She goes a little negative about her opponent. Wisdom says those who reject her and vote for Folly—she calls them “mockers”—will basically end up clueless and suffering (and maybe lonely).
Ms. Folly responds in verses 13-17. She’s cagey. She refuses to get into the debate with Wisdom. You’ll notice right away she’s kind of a mess (“loud,” “undisciplined,” “without knowledge”). But she makes one bold campaign promise that wins over lots of young voters: “Move in with me, and we’ll have a blast! I know how to party! Don’t let wisdom tell you how to live; do your own thing! Try it all! Why put limits on your own life or let others tell you what to do? Make your own choices to do whatever feels good in the moment. That’s what I call living.”
Well, those are the candidates. You will vote one way or the other. There’s always 100 percent turnout. Every day, we either choose to live with wisdom or foolishness, to live by God’s design or to do whatever feels right to us.
In the last verse of the chapter, you get the idea the writer is on Wisdom’s side. He makes a nasty (but true!) editorial comment about people who vote for Folly, suggesting they’re not “really living” at all. Check it out.