Humble Service in a Status-Driven World

In a culture that sees power and status as the highest goal, what would it look like to see greatness through the eyes of Jesus? Jesus teaches us that the path to fulfillment is one of humble service.

Mar 29, 2025

pink and yellow tulips in bloom — Photo by Libby Penner on Unsplash

Hey friends!

The dreary London grey has broken a bit over this last month and the skies opened up with the brightest sun. Taking early walks in the morning as the sun peeks its way through the clouds has been a real joy this month. Listening to the birds chatter on and the cool spring breeze shift through the only just bloomed daffodils which line the path along the river outside my house has been easing me out of winter. We are certainly still quite a ways away from summer, yet the sun carries hope on its rays. Spring is here - new life is beginning to appear after a long winter.

The tulips in my lounge burst open into full bloom last week and I spent hours looking at them. Somehow they seem to open so slowly and then all of the sudden they are stretched wide in full bloom, holding the whole room suspended in their beauty. You know there are over 400,000 different types of flowers? That alone makes you believe in a loving, creative God. Today I thought about all the little ways God’s love and devotion are woven into creation — all the little magical moments we so easily miss when we’re rushing through life, and all the opportunities we have to be part of it all.

As we continue our journey through the practices of Jesus, today we’ll be looking at the practice of service. I actually think Jesus’ teaching on this practice is one of his more subversive lessons. In a culture that sees affluence and status as the highest goal, what would it look like to view greatness through the eyes of Jesus?

So, let’s dig in together.

Serving is the most tangible expression of loving your neighbor.

As I ran up Ocean Park Blvd toward my house, the same run I did several times a week, I noticed a man sitting on a bench at the top of the hill. His clothes looked worn and dirty, he looked tired, and he was missing several teeth. I may have passed him a hundred times before without a second thought, but this time was different—something burned within me as I ran past.

I had been practicing the ways of Jesus for some time, committed to tuning into God’s voice however and whenever he chose to speak. I was also working on slowing down my life a bit — letting myself be interuptible to others. As I made my way home, I heard this still, small voice whisper with unmistakable clarity: "Go back to him. Bring two pieces of fruit. Sit and eat with him."

It felt a bit ridiculous if I’m honest. I had no idea who this man was, we were in the middle of Los Angeles, and it felt strange to just approach him the way I sensed God was inviting me to. But, I couldn’t shake this invitation to love like Jesus would. So, I grabbed a banana and an apple from my house, and I headed back out to the road. There he was, still sitting in the same spot.

I walked up to him and asked how he was doing. I offered him a piece of fruit, and he smiled as he chose the banana. We sat together, each eating a piece of fruit on the bench on the top of the hill. We chatted about his life, bits of his story. He was living on the streets. Life hadn’t gone as he planned. He told me he had a son who he didn’t see much anymore. How much he missed him. He shared his heart. And I listened.

It was a moment. A single moment in millions of moments throughout both our lives. Nothing crazy happened. We just shared a simple conversation as two human beings living in the same city, sharing a piece of fruit on a bench, on an ordinary sunny day in Los Angeles. When I left to head home, I found myself thinking about how simple it all was.

Since then, through the organizations I’ve volunteered with, I’ve had countless conversations with people experiencing homelessness—and time and time again, I’ve heard the same sentiment expressed in different ways:

“I just feel in invisible.”

“I feel like no one sees me - they just always walk by.”

“I miss talking to people.”

I have no idea if sharing a piece of fruit with this man was significant for him. It could have just been a moment in a million other moments. But what I know is that in that brief window of time, I didn’t just walk by. I let my life be interrupted to be present to a stranger. I listened to his story. I shared my food with him. I made space for him.

This moment has stuck with me for years, always serving as a beautiful reminder of the kind of love our God longs to see awakened in us, the kind of service we are called to.

One of the more radical things Jesus says is that greatness and honor come not from power or status, but from humble service to others.

John 13:12-15 – (Jesus washes the disciples' feet) "Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you."

The beautiful thing about Scripture is just how timeless it often feels, and yet, we cannot separate what Jesus is saying from the culture in which he is speaking in. Jesus’ claim that the least shall be the greatest challenged the prevailing social hierarchy at the time in a radical way. In the Greco-Roman world, power and status were highly valued. Social status and hierarchy were everything. In many ways, it’s not so different to the culture we live in now.

And yet, the core of Jesus’ message on greatness emphasizes that true greatness has nothing to do with power and status, but instead has everything to do with humility and service. This is not just a nice sentiment, it’s revealed in flesh and blood through Jesus himself, who completely disrupts the idea of who the Jewish people thought the Messiah would be. His followers assumed his leadership would be one of greatness in their own cultural standards, but Jesus arrives as a humble leader whose teaching prioritizes the vulnerable and marginalized and whose words and actions are humble and sacrificial. Jesus arrives to serve, not to be served.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the image of Jesus arriving on a donkey. The simplicity of this is astounding, but it also had a much deeper meaning in the context of this time. In ancient culture, when a conquering king chose to arrive on a donkey it was meant to represent gentleness, a humble ruler. This was deeply symbolic, not only because it was the fulfillment of an OT prophecy (Zechariah 9:9-10), but because it set the tone of peace and humility. You see when Jesus arrived, he was nothing of what anyone expected. And yet, his selfless and humble leadership, his service to others, sparked the greatest moment in all of human history.

So, what did Jesus actually say about the practice of service?

In Matthew 20:26-28, Jesus says, "Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

This statement was radically counter cultural, and it still is! We are called to practice service. The greatest among you must be your servant. This certainly shocked the disciples. In fact we read in Luke’s gospel of their grumbling over greatness. Luke 22:24 says, “A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest.” Even Jesus’ disciples struggled to see beyond the pursuit of worldly status and upward mobility they had always known.

And it’s just so human. You see, our whole lives are structured around upward mobility. We’re taught from a young age that moving up the ladder is important and your success is built on hard work and determination. And I’m not saying that we shouldn’t value our work or care about doing our jobs well, of course we should, but that if our whole concept of fulfillment is based on success in the sense of upward mobility, we will never live a fulfilling life.

Henri Nouwen writes,

“Somewhere deep in our hearts we already know that success, fame, influence, power, and money do not give us the inner joy and peace we crave. Somewhere we can even sense a certain envy of those who have shed all false ambitions and found a deeper fulfillment in their relationship with God. Yes, somewhere we can even get a taste of that mysterious joy in the smile of those who have nothing to lose. Then we begin to perceive that the downward road is not the road to hell, but the road to heaven. Keeping this in mind can help us accept the fact that in the Reign of God the poor are the messengers of the good news.”

Famously John D Rockefeller, one of the wealthiest men in history, was asked, "How much money is enough?" He famously responded, "Just a little bit more." You see, none of the things the world can give us will ever actually satisfy us. We always find ourselves wanting just a little bit more.

Jesus is saying, the road to a fulfilling life is actually not upward, but downward. Fulfillment is found best in serving others. Have you ever spent an afternoon or evening serving at a food kitchen? Or, volunteering your time with a charity you care about?

Do you leave feeling frustrated, stressed, and unsatisfied? No, of course not.

You leave feeling satisfied. You leave feeling good. You leave feeling like you’ve done something that mattered. There is this deep sense of fulfillment that comes from serving others. It is woven into our very being by a deeply relational triune God.

And yet, it can be so difficult to resist the temptation for greatness and status. Like the disciples, we’re prone to these disordered desires and it is only through intentional practice that we can learn to shed the weights of these idols and put on the heart of a humble servant. Incorporating intentional service to those in need, as Jesus did, is an act of resistance against the idols of our age. It is the path of true fulfillment — the real path to greatness.

True service often means being interruptible—willing to set aside your personal agenda to meet others in their moments of need—and this willingness will transform you.

The first time I began incorporating regular volunteer work into my life was much later than I’d like to admit. Prior to becoming a Christian, I considered myself someone who would stand up in the face of injustice, who was eager to help others in need, but my reality didn’t quite match up to this image I had of myself.

It was only after accepting Jesus where I began to feel a deep desire burn within me to serve others. When I think of all the bits of transformation I have experienced in this faith journey, this is one of the most tangible. Out of the practices of Jesus is born a desire to love others well, to serve those in need, and to do so wholeheartedly. There is no secret or magic about it, the more we learn about Jesus and the more we practice his ways, the more our hearts are drawn to serve others.

And here’s the reality of which I have come to know. When I think of the most fulfilling moments I have experienced in my life thus far, they’ve been moments where I have cared for someone else, moments where I have put someone else's needs before my own. It’s the times when I chose to stay a bit longer after church to pray with someone for breakthrough. The times where I’ve cooked a hot meal for others to enjoy. The times where I’ve sat with a student well after class finished to talk over something they were struggling with.

It’s all the moments where I’ve set aside my own agenda and schedule and allowed my life to interruptible to the needs of others.

The practice of service is just that. Seeing the need of another, sacrificing your time to serve them, and in the process co-laboring with God to bring Heaven to earth.

Do you allow yourself to be interruptible?

This question has been one I’ve been sitting with for some time. Here’s the truth: I can fill my life with a schedule full of Godly things—serving my church, doing my job with integrity, loving my family and friends wholeheartedly—yet still be too busy to notice the needs of a stranger, to recognize the interruptible moments where God is inviting me to step out and love my neighbor.

Serving others brings Heaven to earth — it opens the space for God to break into someone’s life through your act of attentiveness and obedience. God could do all of this without us. He doesn’t need us. He chooses to use us to help Heaven break in. He chooses to use us to reveal his heart.

What an incredible gift that is. Certainly not one to be wasted.

Finally, a quick tribute to my mother who has truly lived a life committed to serving others.

Yesterday was my mom’s birthday and I couldn’t possibly talk about the practice of service without mentioning her.

I was maybe four years old when I went with my mom into an upstairs apartment of a woman I had never met. Mom told me she wasn’t well and she needed some help, and how important it was to be there for people when they needed a friend. The woman had been bedridden for quite some time and the apartment had a damp smell and mustiness about it. The second my mom walked in, the woman’s face beamed with a smile that I imagine was quite hard in the difficult circumstances she was facing.

Mom changed her bedpan and helped her shift around a bit in her bed to relieve some pain. She cleaned up around the house and sat with her. She prayed with her. I remember looking at all of this unfolding and thinking how lonely it must have been in that half-lit apartment stuck in your bed for months on end. As a child, I wondered whether she had many visitors like mom. And I felt my heart break a bit for the struggles this woman faced. I was so proud of mom that day.

This was a single moment in a million other moments, but it is one that has stuck with me. I have countless memories just like this of my mom going out of her way to help someone in need, never steering away from the things everyone else avoided — the messiness, the bedpans, washing someone, cleaning up a mess in the bathroom, you know all the things many of us would cringe at. Mom never shows a single look of disgust. She faithfully does the work to make things better than they were before, as best she can.

My mom serves others like Jesus. Her heart posture if one of service and it both fills me with pride that she’s my mom and inspires me to serve others in the same way.

What would it look like for you to love your neighbor well? Are you moving through life slowly enough to allow yourself to be interruptible to the needs of others?

I am always moving too quickly and it takes intentional practice and rhythms of rest for me to slow down. But, every time I do, I’m aware of the many ways God whispers opportunities to co-labor with him, to help Heaven break into the lives of those around me, to serve like Jesus, and with each opportunity, a bit more of the world is chipped away from within me, making room for more of God to dwell in my heart than ever before.