Matthew 20:28

A PATTERN OF MINISTRY

‘The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.’

Matthew 20:28

It is true not only of the first beginnings of our Lord’s reign on earth, when He was the despised and rejected of men, but all through.

I. To whom did He minister?—To all men, and to the whole man, body, soul, and spirit; no one, nothing, was outside the sphere of His ministration.

II. Why did He minister?—Because He would help the helpless; For us men and for our salvation He came down from Heaven.’ He came to give the glorious liberty of the children of God in place of sin’s slavery; to replace the tyranny of evil by the freedom of Divine Grace.

III. Through what channel did He minister?—Through the channel of a common humanity. ‘He was made like unto His brethren.’ He was and is the ‘Son of man.’

IV. In what spirit did He minister?—A spirit of humility, self-sacrifice, patient endurance, and toil.

V. How did He minister?—Through the law of association. He did not only deliver a message and proclaim a Gospel, but He built a Church, a city of God, where they might go in and out and find safety, a Kingdom, a concrete fact, a visible reality, in which all men might be gathered in.

—Dean Ridgeway.