Do you want to be great in the kingdom of God? Clean the toilets!

I would be more than surprised if this statement didn’t raise a few eyebrows just then. In fact, there are probably a few people who think I am using exaggeration to make a point. Nope. There is no exaggeration here. Take me literally.

Toilets and greatness are so interconnected that they cannot be separated. This is a universal principle in the kingdom of God. But it is a principle that is mostly forgotten in the modern church. And because it is forgotten, modern churches experience myriads of problems that are self-inflicted.

Our passage shows us that Jesus has been highly EXALTED and given a name which is ABOVE every other name. But the context shows that it wasn’t because of the things that made Him a superstar in the religious world.

Jesus healed all diseases. But this wasn’t the reason why He was exalted. He did such amazing miracles that those who saw them done were shocked out of their socks. But this wasn’t the reason He was exalted.

I think there are few people who would argue the point that Jesus was the greatest preacher who ever lived. Hundreds of thousands of people sought Him out in remote places just so they could hear Him. But this wasn’t the reason why He was exalted and considered great in the kingdom.

Did Jesus have amazing natural talent? Probably. But this wasn’t the reason He was exalted. His natural talent did not make Him so great that His name would be exalted above every other name.

Jesus was and is exalted by God because He came to clean out the toilets of humanity. What is currently in the toilets in every modern building was in the souls and spirits of every human being. And there was nobody else qualified to clean them! But it was nasty work.

He was the King of the universe. He had come from a throne room that was incomparable to the most amazing mansion that has ever been built on earth.

And yet the reason why God exalted Him to the very highest position in all of the universe is because He became a SERVANT. He came to clean the toilets. It was humility that made Him great.

Now many people have been placed into positions of leadership in churches today that didn’t first start out cleaning the toilets.

This is a recipe for disaster!

When the toilets are skipped, a person has lost the opportunity to learn how to operate in the greatness that comes from humility. And what is the result?

People are doing tasks for the kingdom of God but they are relying on their natural talents. And this disaster is a recipe for something even worse. It is only one step from reliance on natural talent to stepping off the cliff into the abyss of pride.

And is there contention and pride in many churches? Have people set up their own private kingdoms that they defend at any cost? The enormous contingent of de-churched people in our country is testimony that too few people cleaned the toilets before they were elevated into the positions that they now hold.

And when humility is missing, other people get hurt.

When worship leaders are elevated because of their natural talents and not because they were faithful at cleaning the toilets, it is only a matter of time before there will be some kind of contention with other people. Why? Because they were not given the opportunity to learn humility in the teaching grounds of humility.

It is the same thing with every other position of leadership, including the pastors themselves. If they never get the opportunity to learn humility on the end of a toilet brush, an essential foundational character trait will be missing in their life. And eventually, the missing foundation will cause a collapse of the building.

Believe me when I tell you that 100% of church strife and division can be traced to the fact that somebody never learned how to faithfully clean the toilets.

And yet how many churches actually contract this task out to professional cleaning companies? They will never be able to experience the miraculous because they have taken away the essential building block necessary to get there.

They have stolen something from their people. They stole their ability to learn how to be great in the kingdom. They didn’t train them that they could be great by cleaning the toilets.

If Christians REALLY understood how important this principle was to their character development, every church would have people waiting in line to be part of their cleaning crew.