To be successful in life, we must be a servant

Thanks for joining me for this little update.

We probably have some race fans out there so here is an update. Right now in the Cup series we are sitting 5th, 13th and 16th in points with four wins. Joey has one, Denny has two and Kyle’s got one. It is chaotic to say the least. Every week something crazy is going on. This past weekend we had two great cars and sat on the pole. We had the fastest car and wound up second through a crazy set of circumstances. There was some miscommunication. My racing world is kind of wild to say the least. Our Nationwide Series cars continue to set records. We’ve got 5 wins there and we are excited about that. In Motocross we finished up with those 18 events in Supercross with Davy Milsaps second in points overall. So that was great.

I’ve got a lot going on and I think God has me right where he wants me. I can’t control any of this. It is going all over the place.

From a ministry standpoint, we just finished two exciting speaking events. One was in Palm Coast, FL. Over 700 attended that morning. I gave my testimony. Remember we are putting that on a grass roots level where we go to a city for an event at a hotel or convention center – not a church. We don’t want any one discouraged from coming to the event. We give them a free book. I stay and autograph it if they want it personalized.
It makes for a great outreach. We have a committee that selects the table hosts (trying to get roughly 80 to 100 table hosts). The table hosts get to invite 9 of their friends – hopefully unsaved – and then they can do the follow up. It’s an exciting time for us. We also did Columbus, OH. If anyone out there would like to contact our website with a potential city where you think we might be welcome, we’d love to have that information.

We are also coming out with some new material from Zondervan, A New Testament study Bible which I will mention at the end of our update. Zondervan is going to do a Devotional. There are going to be 40 devotionals. We are also coming out with our Game Plan for Life Bible. They should be out next month.

I always try and share with you something that kind of spoke to me inspirationally. That happened to me this past week. I have been studying in a Matthew study that was done by William Barclay. Something really jumped out at me. I think it was speaking to me so I just wanted to share it with you. Barclay was bringing up Matthew 20:20-28. He mentioned the fact that the Mother of Zebedee’s sons had mentioned to Jesus about having her two sons sit to the right and left of Christ. Lots of times we think about that and generally what we do here on Earth (and I am the biggest offender of this). We try to do what? Gain position? Make money? We want to control things. For instance, here at Joe Gibbs Racing there are 440 employees here. So many times in life we want to achieve and gain status by having people working for you or controlling other people. That is kind of how we are measured.

The point was made here in Matthew where Jesus says back to her the following:

        You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them… It shall not be so
        among you (meaning his disciples) but whoever wishes to prove himself great
        (which we all want to do and I am sure those disciples wanted to do) among you
        must be your servant…

When you think about His life – He was a servant. He wasn’t trying to control people. He was loving people. His life was a servant ministry. He was trying to reach out and help others by being a servant.

Also in this booklet, it tells the story of this great Japanese saint, Toyohiko Kagawa. He became convinced of Christianity and he cried out to God one day “O God, make me like Christ.” As he prayed like that, he felt that his ministry was in the slums of Tokyo. He moved there and although he had tuberculosis he lived in a 6 x 6 hut at night in the slums. They say he would speak during the day and at first he was laughed at, but later on they started seeing his ministry and at night would actually carry him back to his small hut. That was his life. The point being made by Barclay was that he was a servant. Many times we think – “who is going to be great in the eyes of the Lord?” J. Vernon McGee in his work says that we are going to be rewarded based on what God wanted us to do in this life and how much of that we do. I don’t know about you but my whole life I have been trying to get something, win something, achieve something, build a company, make money. I fall into that trap. You know we all want to be successful. And really when you see what Christ wanted for us – he says for us to be successful in this life is to become a servant.

I thought I would read this last little chapter with you from Matthew 20. Here is what Barclay says in closing:

The world may assess people’s greatness by the number of people whom they control and who are at their beck and call; or by their intellectual standing and their academic eminence; or by the number of committees of which they are members; or by the size of their bank balances and the material possessions which they have amassed; but in the assessment of Jesus Christ these things are irrelevant. His assessment is quite simple: how many people have you helped?

I am going to try and make a point of being a servant – not controlling things, running things, competing. But am I really a servant because that is what Christ lays out in his Book.

I would love for you to go to gameplanforlife.com. We want to send you a free New Testament Study Bible. Remember you can get our book Game Plan for Life which we are still speaking about and we also have through LifeWay our small group study. All of those things are there and we would love to have you visit the website. Thank you for joining me.