Dharius Daniels - Let Me Be Great

Matthew chapter 23, verse 11 says this: «The greatest among you will be your servant.» For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. I want to talk from this subject and tag this title to this text: «Family, Let Me Be Great.» In this introduction, I want to reintroduce to you a term that I believe has been captured by culture but needs to be redeemed by Christians. It’s a term that creates conflicting emotions among many in the Christian community, causing some to be apathetic and dismissive of it and others to be repulsed by it and resistant to it. But it’s a term that I want us to embrace and employ as we attempt to go beast mode this year, and it’s a term called greatness. We are not afraid of it; we are not running from it; we are not apologetic about it. Those of us who are following the Jesus of Scripture will undeniably and unashamedly say, «I want to be great.» Yeah, we say that because we’ve read the words of the Quaker Christian Elton Trueblood, who said, «Deliberate mediocrity is sin.» I’m going to say that one more time: he said, «Deliberate mediocrity is sin.» In other words, he is suggesting that when you fail to make full use of the gifts, talents, and acquired skills God has given you, you are, first of all, insulting the God that gave them to you, saying to Him that you could have taken what you’ve given me and given it to somebody else who would have done more with it. You are also robbing the world of the benefit of what you have to offer when you step into your greatness. I came, even in this introduction, to encourage some who are watching today to step into your greatness. If people misunderstand it, step in anyway. If they call it idolatrous and self-serving, step in anyway. If you feel like you’re leaving people behind who are addicted to average, don’t wait to move; move and step into it anyway. Because greatness is calling you, and you have been called to greatness. Reggie McNeal puts it this way: he says there seems to be this sense in some Christian circles that greatness and godliness are oxymoronic. However, greatness, watch this, is not unbecoming to a Christian because the Bible uses the word «great» to describe God. Come on, it says in Psalms 48, verse 1, «Great is the Lord.» One translation says, «And greatly to be praised.» It means that, watch this, praisers—watch this—my praise should flow from my revelation of His greatness. Watch this: a praise problem is never a praise problem; a praise problem is always a perception problem. You can’t praise right seeing Him wrong, but when you see Him right, the automatic response to proper perception is praise because you’ve been wired to respond to majesty. Whenever you see something great, you organically and automatically respond; it’s built in you. That’s why, as a child, when you see little cars that you like, you would say, «That’s my car, that’s my car, ” because innate in you is the ability to respond to greatness. So when a person is not appropriately responding to God’s greatness, it’s because they’re not properly perceiving how great He is. Greatness, listen to me, family, listen to me: greatness from a biblical perspective is not self-serving, it’s not idolatrous, it’s not ostentatious. Greatness from a biblical perspective isn’t a vice; it’s a virtue. The word is not just used to describe God; the word is also used to describe what God wants to do for and in His people. The father of the faith, a man named Abraham, got this promise from God in Genesis chapter 12, verse 2: „I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you. I will make—Lord, I don’t have time there, I’m going to do it—I will make your name great.“ I want us to embrace this and understand this because, watch this, if you don’t embrace it, you will not be intentional about evolving into it. Because greatness from a biblical perspective, family, is not experienced automatically; it is stepped into intentionally. Pastor, what do you mean when you say greatness from a biblical perspective? You see, there’s a difference between the way greatness is seen in culture and the way greatness is seen in God’s kingdom. See, there seem to be two extremes in culture: the first of which is you are nothing in culture until you do something, and then the other extreme is you are something, even though you’ve done nothing. Did you hear what I’m saying? Right? So you’ve got those two extremes in culture, but from God’s perspective, it’s different. It’s not either/or; it’s both/and, but one comes before the other. From God’s perspective, faithfulness to who you’ve been called to be produces fruitfulness in your life. You become a tree—not just a tree that has leaves, optics, aesthetics, appearance; you become a tree that has fruit. So from a biblical perspective, biblical greatness is the closer I get to you, the more respect I have for you. Oh my gosh! It means that people who know me the best respect me the most, not just because of what I do, but because of who I have become. It’s a being that produces the doing. Watch this now. Watch this. And because it’s not experienced automatically—because it is an evolution—in order for us to experience it, we must be willing to overcome the obstacles and the enemies that get in the way of it. And Jesus points to the greatest enemy of our greatness in this text. He says you’re going to go beast mode.