Jesus Was Not Loved, Rich on Earth: He Came as a Servant
Jesus came to earth not to be served, but to serve (Matt. 20:28). He wasn’t rich, and He offended lots of people. Author David Bryant emphasizes the servanthood Jesus embodied. Christ humbled Himself to the point of death on the cross as an act of obedience to the Father so we would be saved from the punishment of hell.
“His supremacy was revealed in His humility,” Bryant says. “We cannot understand Christ’s sovereignty over all things without first understanding the scope of His submission for the sake of all things. His sovereignty [was] revealed in His submission [to the Father].”
In fact, because Jesus came to earth to suffer as a human (though He was perfect, unlike any of us, because He was still God), He understands all the pain we go through on a daily basis, Bryant says on the Christ Today podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. We should feel comfortable bringing our burdens to Him because He fully understands them, having experienced temptations Himself.
“He understands our plight, emotionally, relationally, physically, even spiritually,” Bryant says. “Jesus suffered what we suffer. He knows our destitution as one who Himself had nowhere to lay His head. Remember how He said that? Nowhere to lay His head, just like us.
“He endured the scoffing and the rejection of family and friends. He found no welcome. Rather, what He found over and over again was disapproval and derision, even unbelief in His own hometown. Yet all of this was for our sakes.”
For more teaching on who Jesus is and how He can empathize with our trials, click here for the entire episode.
