Among you as one who serves
Jesus at the table
Even at the Last Supper, a dispute breaks out among the disciples about which of them is the greatest. Jesus answers not with a rebuke about ambition but with a description of himself: the kings of the nations exercise lordship, but I am among you as the one who serves.
The Lord of all, hours from the cross, defines his own place in the room as the servant's place. He was not merely teaching servanthood; he was embodying it, at the very table where his followers were jockeying for rank.
“I am among you as one who serves.”
— Jesus, at the Last Supper — Luke 22:27 (WEB)
Lead the way Jesus did — as the one who serves, not the one served. Take the servant's place in the very rooms where rank is at stake.
“For you, brothers, were called for freedom... but through love be servants to one another.”
Jesus, on the night before the cross, located himself as the servant among his followers. A leader formed here takes the servant's posture even where his rank would entitle him to be served. He embodies servanthood rather than only teaching it. The inner work is being among your people as one who serves.
Take the servant's role in the rooms you lead, especially where deference would be natural. Counter status-jockeying not with lectures but with your own visible service. Use your position to serve the people in it with you. Let your posture, not just your words, define greatness as serving.
Leaders teach servanthood while quietly occupying the served seat, deferred to and waited on. The blind spot is talking like a servant while sitting like a lord.
In one meeting or room this week where you would normally be served or deferred to, deliberately take a servant's role — and let your team see it.
Even Jesus' closest followers, in his very presence, fell into ranking themselves. The pull toward jockeying for position is that strong. His response was not a lecture but a posture: he took the servant's place at the table himself.
In the rooms where you lead, are you the one being served and deferred to — or, like Jesus, the one who serves?