RECOVERY ROAD WEEK 6 - Entitled

Jesus on Entitlement

• Give to Caesar what Caesar is entitled to.
• “Whoever can be trusted with little should be entitled to more …”
• Wealth and power were tests, stewardships, and opportunities.

The issue for Jesus was never what a person had or if he deserved what he had, but what he did with what he had.

It was just before the Passover Festival, Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal took off his outer clothing … and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” —John 13:1-7 (TNIV)

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place … “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 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. Very truly I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. —John 12-17 (TNIV)

Recovery begins when we

Conclusion

1. We are here because the disciples “got it.”

2. After the resurrection, they became rock stars in Jerusalem and they leveraged all that for the sake of the kingdom of God.

3. The first 300 years of Christianity were all about others first. Sacrificial love. Picking up babies off the streets. Nursing pagans back to health. Offering to go the second mile and confounding the Romans.

4. It’s our turn.

5. Can you imagine what our world would be like if Christians through the centuries had followed Jesus’ example?

Recovery begins with

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for man. —Mark 10:45 (TNIV)