September 17, 2025 - Matthew 20:28 - "Christ Came to Minister"

Matthew 20:28

"Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."

This verse silences our pride and turns our eyes to Christ alone. Notice carefully—our LORD did not come into this world to be ministered unto. That may shock some, for so much of religion today revolves around what we are doing for God: ministering, serving, building, teaching, striving. But Christ Himself declares that He did not come to be served. He came to serve. He came to minister.

Why is this necessary? Because sinners have nothing to bring to Him but an empty hand and a sinful heart. Left to ourselves in spiritual blindness, we imagine that our ministry, our service, our sacrifices, even our best efforts, will commend us to God. But Scripture shows us otherwise: “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). Notice that it does not say "all our sins" but "all our righteousnesses." What can we minister to Christ but sin from a sinful nature? It is impossible for anything in our sinful flesh to please God. As Paul said in Romans 3:19, the law was given that "every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God." That is where we must be brought—silenced before Him, seeing ourselves as nothing but spiritually impoverished beggars.

As sinners, we are poor as beggars, yet proud as devils, blind to our true condition. But here is the Grace of God: Christ came to minister. He came to do everything for the sinner that the sinner could never do for himself. He came to live a life of perfect righteousness, satisfying God’s law in both letter and spirit, and then to die the death that justice demanded, laying down His life as a ransom for many.

Think of that word “ransom.” It is the price paid for the release of captives. That is exactly what we were—captive, guilty, under the sentence of death. But Christ, by His obedience and His sacrifice, has paid the full ransom. Nothing remains for us to add. Nothing remains for us to boast in. He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and that ministry was His very life poured out for sinners.

And for whom did He give His life? The text says, “for many.” Not for all without exception, but for those the Father gave Him from eternity (John 17:2). For them, Christ came. For them, He lived in obedience. For them, He died as their ransom. For them, He rose and ascended, and for them, He will come again. “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me,” He says, “and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).

What then does He minister to His own? Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:30: wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

• Wisdom—for apart from Christ, we would never know God. 1 Corinthians 1:24-“But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.”

• Righteousness—for we could never establish our own, but Christ has worked out that perfect righteousness that God imputed to the spiritual account of every one of His elect when Christ died on the cross. 2 Corinthians 5:21 – “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

• Sanctification—He sanctified Himself for His people that His sacrificial death might sanctify them by His obedience unto death. In Him, they were set apart to God in holiness. John 17:19- “And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.”

• Redemption—the final redemption, when even our bodies shall be raised incorruptible at His coming. Romans 8:23 “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”

Oh, the fullness of Christ’s ministry! We are nothing, and He is everything. We have no works to bring, no goodness to offer, only our sin and our need. But He came to minister. He came to meet the sinner’s poverty with His abundance, the sinner’s guilt with His righteousness, the sinner’s death with His life. 2 Corinthians 10:5 tells us, "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ," (His obedience that He earned and established and God the Father approved on behalf of those for whom Christ died). Let every attempt to commend ourselves to God be seen as dung. Let us take our place low at Christ’s feet, confessing with Paul, “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” And let us look away from ourselves to Him Who came, "not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many."