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Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

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All right, welcome back to the Daily Blade, day five in Matthew, chapter 20. We're talking about the five attributes of a great man. This is not an exhaustive list. These are just five things that I see in Matthew, chapter 20. Hope and pray they have been helpful and challenging. Number five is this this is really the foundation of the whole thing A great man is a ransomed man. We're going to read the whole text again because we need to hear it again.

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Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons and, kneeling before him, she asked him for something and he said to her what do you want? And she said to him say that these two sons of mine are to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in your kingdom. And Jesus answered you do not know what you were asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink? And they said to him we are able. They've been there the whole time. And he said to them you will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my father.

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And when the 10 heard it. They were indignant at the two brothers, probably because they wish they would have had the idea to go ask to be senior VP of Jesus Incorporated. But Jesus called them to him and said you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. All right, two things. One if you don't know Jesus as your ransom, then you'll never be a great man. You see, because if you don't know Jesus as the one that paid your sin debt, if you don't know Jesus as the propitiation for your sin, the one that came and satisfied the law and justice of God on your behalf so that you could receive by grace, freely, the salvation that he offers you and the adoption into his family, then you will never have the mind of Christ or the power of the Holy Spirit in you. So you, by definition, will never be able to be a great man in the kingdom of God if you are not in the kingdom of God because you've never surrendered your life to the Lordship of Christ. Secondly, the moment that you are rescued, that you become a part of the rescue team, you see, fundamentally, why a great man is a ransomed man is because a ransom like you've seen those movies where somebody gets kidnapped and the kidnapper asks for a ransom and so the person comes and pays off the kidnapper to buy back the person who has been kidnapped. We have been ransomed that Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves. And the moment we realize that we are a ransom people, then we realize that I ain't got this. I need somebody to do something for me that I can't do for me. That's what Jesus does. So let me ask you this the moment you are rescued or ransomed, you become a part of the rescue team.

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A great man is the kind of man that knows that he's been rescued and is willing to to do what it takes to rescue others. Are you willing to lay down your life for others? You see a great man. Here are the five. A great man puts Jesus first, including first in your week by Sabbathing, finding your rest in Jesus, so you're ready to do what he has called you to do.

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A great man knows how to endure suffering because we push back darkness and we fight against the systems and the values of this world, and that's going to cost us a lot. A great man lives under authority. Don't ever expect God to give you any modicum of authority until you learn to live under the authority that God has put in your life. A great man serves. A great man is not trying to fight his way to the head of the table, but a great man like Jesus dresses himself as a servant, takes the lowest job, takes the most humiliating job and to demonstrate his love for others, because Christ has loved us, dresses himself as a servant and knows that that's not a means to an end, but being obedient is the end and that's where the blessing is. And a great man has been ransomed by Christ and is a part of the rescue team.

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Men of the Daily Blade. I pray that we would shake off whatever this world has taught us that it means to be great, to have a great name or to have a great fortune or have some kind of great accomplishment and that we would be great men, like Jesus has called us to be great men, just like he was and is. Now I want to warn you, a warning that James gives us. May we not be merely hearers of the word and so deceive ourselves, but may we do what we have been taught. Amen.

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