THE LORDSHIP OF JESUS
DR. JIM DIXON
PHILIPPIANS 2
JANUARY 25, 1981
This past Tuesday was the inauguration of the 40th president of the United States. I am sure many of you saw it. The presidential inauguration is a very special event—the ceremony and pageantry, the presidential procession with all the polished limousines, the great crowds, the speeches—all in honor of this nation’s highest office and the individual in whom this nation has placed, invested, its highest authority. Yet a presidential inauguration is really very simplistic when compared with a royal coronation such as occurs in England and Austria.
If we turn back the pages of history and look at the Roman emperors, we see even greater pomp and pageantry. Whenever a Roman emperor would enter any city within his domain, it was a time of great celebration, a time of great pageantry. Caesar, whenever he came into the city of Rome, came in on a chariot of gold pulled by six lions. Thousands of soldiers surrounded him. Innumerable city citizens and slaves lined either side of the street. Pompeii, whenever he entered any city within his domain, came in on a chariot of gold pulled by a team of elephants. It is rather startling when we compare all this with the humility of what some have called the triumphal entry of our Lord Jesus Christ into Jerusalem. He came riding on a donkey. He said He came not to be served but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). He said His kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36).
Yet the scriptures say of Him that He is Lord of lords and King of kings. We who believe in His name look forward to the day when every knee will bow and every tongue confess in heaven and on earth and under the earth that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11). I want to share with you this morning on the subject of the lordship of Jesus Christ and what His lordship demands of us as Christians. I have two teachings that I feel led to give.
First of all, the lordship of Jesus Christ demands our submission. The lordship of Jesus Christ demands our obedience. Jesus said to the multitude, why do you call me Lord and not do what I tell you to do? He who hears my words and obeys them, I will tell you what he is like. He is like a house built upon a rock. The floods come and the rivers break, but the house stands firm. He who hears my words and does not obey them is like a house without foundations and the floods come and the rivers breaks, and great is the destruction of that house (Luke 6:46-49). Jesus Christ calls us to obedience to His word. He calls us to submission to His lordship.
A Christian is not simply a person who says that Jesus Christ is Lord. A Christian is someone who has chosen to submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ. As Christians, we are called by many names in the word of God. We are called the children of God. We are called disciples of Christ. We are called the church, the body of Christ, the bride of Christ. We are called the New Israel. We are called saints. We are called priests. We are called kings. Peter says of us that we are a holy nation, a royal priesthood, God’s own people (1 Peter 2:9). Yet of all the titles that are given to us in the scriptures, the one title, which more than any other title is meant to describe the Christian heart, is the title servant.
We who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord are called servants of the living God because we are those who have submitted to the reign of Jesus Christ. In the Bible, Peter, the apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ, begins his second letter by saying, “Peter, a servant of Jesus Christ.” James, the great head of the Jerusalem church, begins his letter by saying, “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Jude, the brother of our Lord Jesus, in his little letter begins by saying, “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ.” The Apostle Paul in his letters begins by saying, “Paul, an apostle and servant of Jesus Christ.” The word they all used was the word doúlos, a word which literally means slave.
Peter, Paul, James, and Jude were pleased and proud to think of themselves as slaves of Jesus Christ, servants of the living God. The word slave had great meaning for them because they lived in a world of slavery. In the New Testament era in which they lived, there were 60 million slaves in the Roman Empire. Some of them were doctors, some of them were lawyers, some of them were carpenters. But they all had one thing in common. Their life was not their own. They belonged to somebody else. The entire Roman economic system was built on a foundation of slavery. The Roman rich had accumulated their great wealth through the buying and selling of human life.
There was a Roman named Crassus. Some historians believe he was the richest man who ever lived. He was a lieutenant in the Roman army. He made his great wealth by buying unskilled men and women, training them in various professions, and then selling them for enormous profits. Some of his slaves he would keep. He trained 500 men to be firefighters. He would go into Rome when there was a fire. He would bring his 500 firefighters with him and would offer to put the fire out for a fee. If the fee was not paid, he would let the building burn to the ground.
Slavery was expected in the Roman Empire. Even Aristotle said that some people were born to be slaves. They were meant to serve what he called the higher classes. In the midst of such inhumanity throughout the Roman Empire, it was common for a master to have the power of life and death over his slaves. He could beat them. He could brand them. He could even crucify them. Throughout the Roman Empire, if a slave ran away and was caught, he was branded with a letter F standing for the Latin word fugitive, meaning runaway fugitive. Slaves were used. They were abused. They were also feared because of their great number. Therefore, any disobedience received the strictest retribution. Some slaves loved their work. Other slaves hated their work. Yet they all had one thing in common. Their lives were not their own. They belonged to someone else.
In the midst of this world, Peter, Paul, James, and Jude chose to describe their relationship with Jesus Christ by this word—doúlos, slave. They knew that their lives were not their own. They belonged to Jesus Christ. They had submitted to His lordship and were now servants of the living God.
This is where Christianity begins. It begins when individuals are willing to say, “Lord Jesus, come into my life. I want to live for you. I want You to be my Lord. I want to serve You.” Jesus does come in. The Christian life begins with relinquishment. There is a false teaching going on in Christendom today. It is a teaching that says you can ask Jesus Christ into your heart as Savior. You can ask Him to bless you. You can ask Him to give you eternal life and never receive Him as Lord. That is a false teaching.
Unless you are willing to ask Jesus Christ to be Your Lord and to submit to His lordship in His word, he will not come into you by His Spirit. He will not be your Savior. Jesus said, anyone who would come after me, “let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). A rich man came to Jesus Christ and said, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” If Jesus would have said to him, “Ask me into your heart to be your Savior,” I think the rich man would have said, “Yes. Sure. Why not? Come on in.” But Jesus asked for more than that. Jesus told him to give away all that he had and then come follow Him. The rich man went away.
Jesus Christ demands our relinquishment to His lordship. He says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). It is so important for us to see that Jesus Christ is Lord. A Christian is someone who has said, “Come into my heart, Lord Jesus. I want to live for You.” That is where Christianity begins.
It is very obvious that there are people in this world who have taken the name of Jesus Christ as Lord, and yet live lifestyles that are contrary to His word. That is very serious. Perhaps some of you are participating in immorality. If you are and you take the name of Christ, Jesus Christ says to you today, “I love You, but I ask nothing less than this: that you obey me, that you submit to my lordship.
Peter said, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:14-16). Peter called the people of God to obedience. Jesus Christ calls us to obedience today.
The second teaching that I feel led to share with you this morning regarding the lordship of Jesus Christ is this: the lordship of Jesus Christ demands our participation in ministry. The Lord Jesus calls us into service. We are saved for a purpose. We are saved to serve. At the concluding moments of our Lord Jesus’s earthly life, He appeared to the disciples and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20). Jesus Christ as Lord sends us into ministry. In his three years on this earth, He ministered to the needs of men and women. I think he woke up each morning just looking for people to serve.
At the conclusion of his earthly life, when he was only one day from the cross, you will recall that he girded himself with a towel and began to wash the disciples’ feet. When he came to Peter, Peter said to him, “Lord, you will never wash my feet.” Jesus said to him, “Peter, if I do not wash your feet, you have no part of me.” Peter said, “Lord, wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my face.” And when Jesus had washed all of their feet, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me master and Lord, and you are right for so I am. And if I then your master and Lord have washed your feet, how much more ought you to wash one another’s feet? Behold, I have given you an example that you should follow in my steps” (John 13:1-17). Jesus calls us into ministry.
He said, “He who would be the greatest among you? Let him be the servant of all” (Matthew 23:11). He told a story of the Good Samaritan, a story which is intended to remind us as Christians that we are called into ministry to the needs of other people. In the word of God, the Lord Jesus reminds us that one day our ministries will be evaluated. We will stand before Him and give an account of our service. Jesus Christ said, “The son of man shall come from heaven with power in great glory and all of his angels with him. He will sit on his glorious throne. Before him shall be gathered all the nations, and he shall separate them one from the other as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he shall say to those on his right hand, come, blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and in prison, and you visited me. And they will say to him, Lord, when were you hungry and we gave you to eat or thirsty and we gave you to drink or naked and we clothed, or sick and in prison and we visited you. And he shall say to them, in as much as you have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:31-40). He calls us into ministry.
There is a word in the Greek that is used in the Bible to describe the ministry that the Lord Jesus calls us into. That word in the Greek is huperetes. The word huperetes literally means under rower. It was used to refer to the slaves, the servants, who rowed the oars on the bottom level of the great ships that moved through the Mediterranean Sea. Many of you saw the movie Ben Hur. I suppose you remember how Charlton Heston was taken into slavery and was made an under rower on one of the great Roman ships. He was down in the bottom level of the great ship. He was one of a great line of slaves who were pulling those oars. There was a Roman soldier who would beat the drums. When he picked up the beating of the drums, the slaves had to pick up their pace. When he slowed down the beating of the drums, they could slow down. Every slave, every servant, had to take his turn at the oar.
The word of God uses this word to describe our ministry in the church. We are under rowers called to serve. Most of us would like to spend all of our time up on deck, taking in the beautiful scenery, receiving all the blessings of the kingdom. The Lord Jesus wants us to be able to do that, but he also calls us to take our turn at the oars. The staff of this church, we are not the ones beating the drums. We take an oar with you. Of course, we are paid to take an oar. We are all called to be under rowers as Jesus Christ beats the drums. He is not a hard task master, but He does call us into ministry.
There are many ministries in this church, and He calls us to partake. Most of us, when we think of the ministry of this church, we think of deacons or elders. Those are important ministries. But for me, when I think of ministry in this church, before I think of anything else, I think of Sunday school teachers. I have been at this church for more than seven years now. My first three years here, I worked with the Children’s Sunday School Department. I no longer work directly with the Sunday school ministry, but in a lot of ways that is where my heart is. I thank God for every Sunday school teacher we have in this church. We never have enough. Today, Jesus Christ says to us, take on a minister in My name.
Sometimes we forget the joy that comes through ministry. In the world, people think that joy comes from being served. But Jesus Christ, our Lord, tells us that joy comes from serving others.
When I was in college, I went to a little town in Mexico called Chapo. Most of you have probably never heard of Chapo. I never had. But a church I was associated with was taking 40 college students to Chapo on a mission project. I wanted to go because I heard they were taking 20 men and 20 women. I thought it would be a great opportunity to meet some neat girls, so I volunteered. I think some of the other guys volunteered for the same reason.
When we got down there, I have to say that I was devastated. I had never seen such poverty in my life. The people in this little community had nothing but corn. They would take the corn and grind it on little stone rocks and make four or five different kinds of food from the corn. It all tasted horrible. They lived in little wooden shacks with the boards nailed any which way on top of one another. You could see right through the walls of their little shacks. Most of the people had worms and bugs that lived in their scalp.
We went down there and dug trenches that they might bring fresh water through pipes to that little community, and we held church services in the evenings. I cannot explain to you the joy we saw on the faces of those people at those church services because they loved Jesus Christ. In the evening, those people ministered to us more than we could ever minister to them. Over and over again, we heard the people say, “Tengo alegría en mi corazón porque Jesucristo es mi salvador.” I have joy in my heart because Jesus Christ is my Savior.
After we had been there for a few weeks, we actually began to look forward to serving those people. We felt like it was a great privilege, an honor, and a joy to serve them. For every one of us who went down there, I really believe, if we were to look back on our four years in college that would be the highlight. That would be the time of greatest joy, the time of greatest service. I remember some of the little kids. They had nicknames for us. They called me cabeza de Vaca, which means cow head. I laugh, but it was kind of special to me because you could tell the kids loved to call me by that name.
There is a lot of joy in ministry. There is joy in service. Joy that we will never know or understand until we respond to our Lord’s commands. Many of you around Christmas time went shopping for Christmas trees. It is kind of sad as Christmas draws near when some trees remain on the lot and are never sold. They were cut to bring joy to some home, to bring happiness to some family. But they are never sold. A lot of Christians are like that. They are like unused Christmas trees. They are like beautiful rocket ships never launched. Like ripe apples never eaten. Like bridges never crossed. Like beautiful cars never driven. They spend a lifetime studying the word of God, listening to His commands, fellowshipping with other Christians, and yet never enter into ministry.
Jesus Christ wants us to know that we have been blessed to be a blessing. That was true of the nation of Israel, and it is true of us today. The Israelites were led out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses. They received many blessings. They were surrounded by the supernatural cloud in which the very presence of God dwelt. They miraculously passed through the Red Sea. They ate the bread of angels, manna, which fell from heaven. They drank from the supernatural rock giving water. Yet Paul says, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were overthrown in the wilderness.
Each and every one of us who are Christians have partaken in a new exodus. We have not left Egypt; we have left sin. Our leader is not Moses. Our leader is one infinitely greater. He is Lord of lords and King of kings, Jesus Christ. He has blessed us with every blessing in the heavenly places. He has given us eternal life. But he calls us into ministry, and he calls us to be faithful. If we as a church are not faithful, this church will be overthrown, even as the Israelites were overthrown in the wilderness.
Jesus Christ has called us into ministry and says to us today, “Take, grab, partake in ministry.” I hope and pray that with Peter, Paul, James, and Jude, you will be able to describe yourself as a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Shall we pray? Dear Father, we could never thank You enough for your immeasurable love, Your love that has reached out to us in Jesus Christ. Jesus, You are Lord. You are Lord of lords and King of kings. Lord, we want to be Your people. We love You. We want to serve You. We want to be faithful. We thank You, Lord Jesus, for Your many blessings. Yet, Lord, we do not want to cheapen Your grace. We want to be faithful servants. Use us, we pray, for the furtherance of Your kingdom until that day we see You face to face. We pray these things, Lord Jesus, in your matchless name. Amen.