Every person has influence—even if they don't realize it. In this opening episode of Season 6, Who Is Influencing You?, Todd Baker explores one of the most important questions every follower of Jesus can ask: How can we influence others toward the goodness of God instead of simply chasing influence for ourselves? Looking at Matthew 20:20–28, where James and John's mother asks Jesus for positions of honor for her sons, we discover that God's definition of greatness is radically different from the world's. While culture tells us that influence comes through status, power, popularity, and recognition, Jesus teaches that true influence begins with humility, service, sacrifice, and love. Whether you're a parent, student, teacher, coach, business leader, pastor, or friend, God has uniquely positioned you to reflect His goodness in the lives of others. Your influence isn't determined by your platform—it's determined by your willingness to serve. Join us as we begin a season dedicated to learning how God shapes us into people who influence others for His Kingdom and His glory. Key Scripture: Matthew 20:20–28
Season Theme
Who Is Influencing You?
Every day we are influenced by countless voices. But as followers of Jesus, we are also called to become people who influence others toward God's goodness.
Big Idea
The world's definition of influence is built on status, power, and recognition.
Jesus teaches that true influence is built on humility, service, sacrifice, and love.
Key Passage
Matthew 20:20–28
Jesus reminds His disciples that greatness in God's Kingdom is not measured by authority over people but by serving people.
"Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant."
Whether you recognize it or not, God has placed people in your life whom you influence every day.
Your influence may include:
The question isn't if you have influence.
The question is: What kind of influence are you becoming?
Culture tells us influence comes through:
Jesus completely overturns this way of thinking.
According to Jesus:
Jesus never asked people to do what He wasn't willing to do Himself.
He served.
He humbled Himself.
He sacrificed.
He ultimately gave His life as a ransom for many.
Influencing for God's goodness often looks ordinary:
These seemingly small acts create eternal impact.
Choose one person this week.
Encourage them.
Pray for them.
Serve them.
Celebrate them.
Ask God to use your life to point them toward His goodness.
Welcome back. This is season six in our 343 Ministries podcast and I am so excited to have you here with us in this first episode of this concept of influence.
The idea is that the world influences us and we influence others. This is one of our pillars at 343 Ministries that we want to be people who influence the influencers. So you are an influencer, whether you realize it or not, whether you're very popular or very unpopular, whether you see yourself as an influencer or not. We believe that God can take you... no matter who you are, no matter where he's positioned you or placed you in your life... to do the good things that he wants you to do.
And that through your influence, people can come to know him and come to know his goodness. And that's really what this entire season is about. It's about learning how to influence people towards the goodness of God. Now I'm going to say that multiple times throughout this entire season, but that's the key take home that I want you to think about in your life. How can you start or continue influencing others towards the goodness of God... the people in your life, your family, your friends, your co workers, it could be people that you are in authority over, an authority under, it could be somebody that you go to school with.
So it could just be a peer, it could be a teacher, it could be a coach, who knows, because I don't know exactly the people that you connect with and that you have been positioned by God to influence. But here's what's cool. No matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter your family history, God accepts you for who you are and he wants to take you and mold you and help you to learn to become just like Jesus so that you can influence the people in your life.
And in turn, those people will then know what it is to experience the goodness of God and go and influence others in the same way. All right, so that's where we're starting and we're going to look at a passage in the book of Matthew today.
So in Matthew 20, if you'll turn to your Bible there or flip to it somehow, whether it's on a device, I'm going to walk us through a story about how the disciples really wanted influence, but they didn't want it for the right reason.
In Matthew 20, I'm going to start with actually verse 25 through 28, and then we're going to back up to get a little bit of context as to what's going on in this story. Okay, so the setting is Jesus, and He's with his 12 disciples. And James and John's mother has come to visit.
"So Jesus called the twelve together and said, "You know, that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be your slave. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matthew 20:25-28)
Lord, take these words. Help us to understand them better so that we might know you how you want to influence us, so that we would know your goodness and be a light that shines in this dark world to help others to know your goodness too. It's in Jesus name that we pray. Amen.
All right, so we jump right in, and Jesus is with his 12 disciples. Okay, that's in verse 25 of Matthew, chapter 20. If we back up to verse 20 of that same chapter, we're going to find out that the text says, "Then the mother of Zebedee's sons", that Zebedee was the father of James and John, two of Jesus's disciples. All right, John being the one who wrote the Gospel of John, and James, his brother, were fishermen, and they knew Andrew and Simon Peter, if you go back and reflect on the Gospels, but their mother comes to them now.
The setting of James' and John's mother arriving is the event right before the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. Now, if you don't know what the triumphal entry is, it is what we call in the church world Palm Sunday. So if you've ever been to a Palm Sunday service, this event happened right before Jesus was paraded into Jerusalem in order to enter into that passion week before Easter, before he would be crucified. So this is his third and last year of ministry.
And these are, in fact, the last few days of his earthly life with his disciples. Okay, so that's our setting. And so what happens is that James and John, their mother comes to visit, and it says that she came to Jesus with her sons and kneeling down, asked a favor of him. So think about this all right, in the 1st century, women were not seen as authority figures, alright?
But within the Jewish home, the mother is very much in charge. She's running the household. She is the one who helps to train her sons. And in this case, James and John are close with Mama, right? And what we think of in our culture is, or we've been told is that Mama knows best. And often that is true. But in this case, it's not. In this case, this is a mother who really wants success for her sons and she wants them to influence those around her.
So much so that she asks for Jesus to grant her a favor. All right, so then in verse 21 it says, Jesus says, "What is it you want?" Simple question. I want to think about this, though. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus asks the same question in different ways to different people. And I want you to think about that same question: what is it that you want? Let's step back from the story for a second, all right?
I want you, you're listening right now, to think about when you come to God, what do you ask him for in your prayer life? I know I'm meddling here a little bit, but when you pray to God, what is it that you ask him for? Do you ask him for material things? Do you ask him for a new place to live? Do you ask him to rescue you from a situation?
All of us do, we ask for all of those things. But do you ever ask for him to use you to influence others for his glory or for their benefit or so that the love of God might be made known in the world? Now, I know that's a big ask and some of us don't feel worthy of that, but let me just take that idea out of your head.
You are worthy to be used by God no matter who you are. Any believer in Christ Jesus can be used for his glory. The smallest of us, the youngest of us, the most inexperienced, ill equipped people, can be used for God's glory. In fact, two chapters prior to this, Jesus takes a little child and says, unless you change grown ups, unless you change college student, unless you change husband or wife, middle schooler, high schooler, older adult, unless you change and become like this child, unless we begin to understand that we don't actually know the will of God, we don't know, we are guessing most of the time, even the best of us, what is it that God wants me to do today?
That's the question we ask each other. And we ask that question because we want to do his good. I believe that about you and I Believe that about me. I want to do God's will, but there are times where I don't know exactly what to do or who he wants me to influence or how he wants me to influence them. And so I think that's what this podcast is about.
Learning some basic ideas according to God's Word, about how we can go about influencing others so that they know him and so that they know his goodness. But in this case, back to the story. In this case, the sons of Zebedee, James and John and their mother thought that this is what they needed in order to influence people for Christ. She said, grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.
And Jesus answers, you don't know what you are asking. Pretty simply, he says, what do you want? She tells him. And he says, my dear child, you do not know what you're asking. What is he talking about? Because I think part of this is our misunderstanding about the world's perspective. Now, the world will tell us and has told us since the beginning, it's about status. It's about importance.
If you can just have the right position in a job, if you can just have the right ranking within your class, if you could just have the right salary that would take you to the place that you need to be so that people would see that you're important, then they would listen to you, right? That's what the world tells us. That's what Instagram tells us. That's what Facebook used to tell us, still kind of tells us.
Social media in general, the media, television, movies, music, whatever your influencing factor is all of those things, if they are based on this world paradigm and this world dynamic, they are going to tell you and me and try to convince us that if we just have privilege and status, all right, and power based on our situation, then people will listen to us and people will follow us and.
And we can lead them to the promised land. But the problem is that is wrong. It's not about our status. In fact, there arepeople throughout scripture and throughout time and history that have influenced people towards the goodness of God with none of those things, no status, nobody even knows their name. But do you know who does? The Lord Jesus Christ, God our Father, and God the Holy Spirit.
And that's enough. We don't have to have the world's influencing factors to be an influencer for the Kingdom of God. Now, why is that so hard for us to understand? It's because we can see the things that this world gives to people with status and importance. We can't see the kingdom that is to come. We can't see it. And so it comes back to belief. What do you believe in?
Do you believe more in this world and what it can offer you? Or do you believe and can you wholeheartedly devote yourself to that kingdom that you can't see? That's what faith in Jesus Christ is. That's what faith in general is. Believing in something or someone that you cannot see and trusting that that's the direction you need to go. And in this case, of influence. James and John's mother said, look, their place is a position.
Jesus, okay, I recognize that he's the Messiah. I believe in him. And, wow, what if. What if my two kids could sit at his right and at his left, and then I would have the glory? The mother of the sons of Zebedee. Do you see where that went? And we don't see that in the story because Matthew doesn't tell us why. But can't you see, in our flesh, in our sin, we use people so that we can have the glory, so that we can have the influence.
And so their mother comes, seemingly out of respect, and she uses the cultural norms to show Jesus, I'm going to submit, like, publicly, so that everybody can see that I respect you with kneeling. I'm going to kneel in front of you. But I'm goingto ask for something very, very selfish. I want my two kids to be so successful so that I can be known for what they did.
Now, at the heart of it, that's not bad, right? To want your children to leave a legacy. To want to leave a legacy through your children. Or let's say you don't have kids, let's say you're just. You're a mentor and you have been mentoring people, right, for years and years and years through your company. What is it that you want them to do? Do you just want them to be successful?
Sometimes maybe? But a lot of what happens in legacy is that we want more people to remember that we had the influence over them. And I think what Jesus wants is he just wants his goodness to be known by everyone. And so, no, there's nothing wrong with leaving a legacy, but why are you wanting to leave it? And so that's why Jesus says, you don't know what you're asking.
And he follows that up. And Jesus says to them, can you drink the cup? I am going to drink. We can. They answered right away, oh, yes, yes, we can do anything. Anything you ask. Now remember Nobody is persecuting them at this point. Nobody is squeezing them. Jesus has not been betrayed, beaten and crucified. He's in a good place. He's about to enter Jerusalem as a king. So track with me.
You can understand why their mother would want them to be his soldiers or his knights or the people that would be second and third in command behind the king. And so prestige is the driving factor, status is the driving factor. That is the kind of influence that the world has convinced us is more important than God's goodness. All right, so I want to point you to a proverb that James and John completely ignored or just didn't know.
All right, Proverbs 18:13. This was written by Solomon. He who answers before listening, that is his folly and his shame. So Solomon is saying, you are a fool if you don't listen before answering someone's question or before speaking. And because Jesus asks a question, he says, can you drink the cup that I am going to drink? Can you drink the cup of suffering that I'm going to lay the path for my followers to follow?
Can you do that? Can you be crucified? Will you sacrifice yourself for all the rest of the men and women who are following me now? And they answered, yeah, we can do that. But do you see there's foolishness in not thinking something through? That's what proverbs teaches us. It teaches us how to make the right decisions at the right time and for the right reason. And Jesus says to them, as a Father would say to a son, you will indeed drink from my cup.
In other words, you will experience suffering for following me. He said, you will indeed drink from my cup. But to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. Think about that. If Jesus can't grant that, then he's deferring to his Father. See, Jesus does this quite a bit. And it shows us just once again this glimpse into what the Holy Trinity is. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
That there is this perfect community within the Godhead of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. It's this understanding that Jesus has authority to do some things. And that comes from the Father. It's this sense of Jesus saying, look, if you think I'm important and you think I have status, then you don't understand my Father. You don't understand what he's calling me to. And so how could you understand what he's going to call you to do?
And Jesus says, these places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father. So he goes ahead and he again says and confirms, yes, I actually have my Father, who I submit to for direction. Even though Jesus. If you believe in Jesus as God, how does that work? It is a mystery. But Jesus talks about it openly, my father later, especially in John, he talks about the coming Holy Spirit, the counselor who, who will come to guide us once Jesus has been crucified and goes to sit at the Father's right hand in heaven.
But in this case, he says, look, those places are prepared by my Father. That's not my thing to give. And that's where I jumped in at the beginning of this podcast. When the 10 heard about this, they were indignant, angry with the two brothers. So what does this do when we only seek to influence by status and privilege and prestige and importance perceived because the world gives us this perception and we've bought into it, that everything's going to work out.
Hey, if I just follow that guy and do what he does and influence the way I think he does or she does, then people will love me. But look what happens. The 10 were angry. They heard that this happened, and they were probably angry because they were like, why didn't I think of that? Right? Or some other reason, right? Well, I've been serving more than they do. I made breakfast this morning, and they didn't even pay attention.
Right? But what this does is it cuts back to the heart of when we influence from the world's perspective, the result really is sin. We cause other people to sin by how we influence them. If we do it this way, I think that's one thing I pulled out of studying this passage, is that I actually, as an influencer, and you too, we have this responsibility to help people not to sin.
Now, if you're a Christ follower, that's what you've heard and hopefully understood. But that's the mandate Jesus gives. He says, hey, don't cause these little ones, these people who are not necessarily far along in their faith, to think that that's how I want you to treat them. Jesus says in John 13, a new command. I give you to love one another as I have loved you. There's no room for influencing people towards sin, anger and bitterness and jealousy and greed and prestige and status.
Those places are of this world. They're not in the kingdom of God, at least in the way that we understand them. And that's why Jesus had said before, unless you change, unless you can change, unless I. And really, I think that's where he's going. Unless you allow me the God of heaven and earth, who created you, who loves you, who sees you for who you are as his child, Unless we allow him to change us, we won't understand this.
And we'll always seek status, will always seek privilege. And let me tell you, the grass always looks greener, but it's not always the better place to be. And so it's about influencing others, for goodness sake. And Jesus answers this. He says, look, I see what you're struggling with, and I know that everybody else that is going to come and contact you is going to struggle with this. And everybody in the world struggles with this.
And that's why it says in verse 25, Jesus called them together and said, you know that the rulers of this world, the people around you who have taken over Jerusalem, who have taken over your hometown and are telling you, look, you need to do this. You pay your taxes to Caesar. You serve me. I am in authority over you. That's how the world rules. What he's saying is he's flipping it around in our minds.
He wants us to understand that's not how my father rules. Yes, he is a king. I am his son, and so I am in that lineage of a king, but I am a good king. Just as he will say In John chapter 11, Just as he said In John chapter 10, I am the good shepherd, and I lay down my life for my sheep. And so he's saying, look, the God of heaven and earth does not lord things over you.
He does not think that authority needs to be used to oppress people. In fact, he thinks that authority is to forgive people and to welcome people and to be kind and to be generous and to not create an environment of fear and trembling like a dictator or an authoritarian would do. And so if that's what you've grown up learning, I am sorry. But there is a way to unlearn it.
There is a way that we can learn a new path. And that's what Jesus was trying to tell these grown people. These are grown ups. These are grown men. I mean, Peter had a family. He's, you know, well advanced in his life. And yet God used him and helped him to change, to become more like him and to understand that the authority of this world is different. And he continues and emphasizes their high officials, the people that have been elected or have risen to power within this construct of the world.
They exercise authority over people with a brutal hand. But not so with you. Not so with you, my influencers. Jesus is saying, the people who will influence for me and follow after me, instead must be your servant. They must be willing to learn to serve. There's a willingness to serve, right? A lot of times we're willing to serve if we see we're going to get something out of it.
Now, Jesus promises rewards, and that is helpful. But it's this willingness to learn to serve others for their good, not just to serve others so that we can be rewarded. That's the heart of God. He's not helping you because he wants you to do something for him. He's helping you and giving to you because he loves you. He made you because he loves you. And yes, he wants great things for you.
He knows that there are these works that you can do that are so good that they will help people to come out of difficult situations, to be reconciled in their relationships, to be incredibly successful. But that's not the end goal. The end goal for God is so that we might know his love and to feel accepted in his love. That's how good God is. And Jesus was saying, you've already seen me do this.
I am your servant. And he's going to show the disciples later when he washes their feet that he's willing to serve them in the lowliest position. All right? And so what he's saying is that if you want to be great, you've got to learn how to be willing to serve. And so if you want to be great, you actually have to become a slave. The word doulos in Greek was a real word that they knew.
And they did not want to be that in Roman society. They did not want to serve the Romans. They didn't even want to serve each other. They just wanted to have the status and the privilege of others coming to be their slave. And Jesus really made them think. And he makes us think, are you willing to actually serve someone without any compensation? Because that's what a slave was given.
They were not given compensation. They were maybe given a meager place to stay and some small meals from a family, maybe enough to continue living. Right? But that's not the success that you think of. That's not the path to success in our minds, is it? No, the path to success in our minds is to rise to the top of the company, to be the CEO. And when you are in charge, then you can make all the decisions.
But the problem with that is that it is a path that leads to this continued idea that that's how you'll influence others and say, hey, if you follow me, I can show you this path to riches and wealth and what we perceive as greatness. But Jesus says, that's not greatness at all in my kingdom. And then he says, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom, are you willing to sacrifice yourself, your prestige, your honor, your glory, so that someone else can know God's goodness?
That's the question. How willing are you to become great in those terms? Because that's what God the Father is calling all of us to do. In this passage, we get this idea that we, as a ransom, Jesus was the ransom for us, that he would take our place, that if someone had to die, he would do it without even blinking. Do we have that same mindset toward others?
And so when we say the two commandments, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, do you really love your neighbor? Do you really love your family member enough that you would sacrifice yourself for them and your dreams and your goals in this world so that they might know the goodness of God?
That's the question that Jesus was asking his disciples here. And he goes back. And I think this hits John and James and their mother very personally. And it should hit us personally, too, because it should reorient us to realize most of us don't want to change. And that's why we don't. And that's why we stay the same. And that's why we're not happy, and that's why we're not fulfilled.
And that's why we don't see and understand God's purpose for our lives. And that's why we don't know what to pray for. But there is a new way. There is a new way today to begin thinking about this concept. How can I influence, for goodness sake, for God's goodness, for others, how can I begin doing that today? How can you and I begin doing it today? Now, let's think about it tangibly.
How can you do it? Is it just going and saying thank you to someone? Maybe. Maybe you don't say thank you enough, or please. Those are the two words that I care about the most for my son, is that he would learn to just go and say, "May I please have that? Or may I please help you with this?" And when they do, for him to say "thank you" and to have a thankful heart.
That's what I want to be for him when I come to him with something to say. If I'm not polite to my son, why would I expect that he would be polite to me? If I'm rude and angry and bitter all the time, why would I expect others to not reciprocate that response? And so in our daily life, it's as simple as that. It can be that serving others is about treating them well, about respecting them honestly, not because you want to get something out of it, but because you want God's goodness for them, that you want to celebrate their wins, and that you want to cheer them on and say, you're amazing.
How often do we hold back those comments instead of giving them to those that we love or that we say we love, Whether it's our family or our friends or maybe you have a friendship and you know that someone in your life needs encouragement, serve them by just sending them a text, shoot them an email, give them a phone call, go see them and say, hey, I was just thinking about you and I just wanted to encourage you.
I think that you're an amazing person and that God has something really cool that he wants to do through you. And I'm not sure I've told you that before, but I want to share that with you because God told me to tell you that. And listen, when we start doing those small things, they seem small, but listen, the ripple effect in eternity is huge. It is absolutely exponential.
The goodness and the kindness and the generosity that you show towards others, those are characteristics of our Heavenly Father and those are the ways that he wants us to influence others. Today, just start with today. Don't look, you know, to next week. Don't look to next month. Now, maybe you got to plan out a time to go see somebody to make things right with them or to just go and say, hey, I'm going to plan out two or three people that I can really invest my time in.
Maybe it's just one. Maybe it's just that one person on your mind today. Hey, God wants you to do that. God wants you to bring his goodness, his light into someone's life. And that's how you can start influencing for his good. Hey, thanks for listening today. I hope this has encouraged you and I hope you'll reach out and tell me a story, share your story with me so I can share it with others to know that God is using you in this world.
Thanks for listening. I'll see you next time.
Hey, thanks so much for listening today. If you enjoyed this message, I just want to invite you to check out some of the other resources that we have in our new 343 Ministries digital discipleship library, one that we're offering right now just as a free three day mini course. It's about overcoming anxiety with God's help, really finding direction in your life when worry seems to take you over.
It's called Peace on Earth and you can find that if you go to our website 343ministries.com resources. We'd love for you to sign up for that. And as always, we are a 501c3 tax deductible organization and so feel free to give or to invest in the future of what our ministry will be. And so much of what we're trying to put our resources into is developing resource material for you.
And so check out not only our resources, but go to our Give link and you can find ways to invest with us and partner with us in our ministry.