Is being great, as our society defines it, really that great? Or, is greatness quite the opposite of what we think it is?
<blockquote>Jesus defined true greatness in a very different way.</blockquote>
He showed that the greatest thing we could be is in humble service to others.

How does his version stack up with ours?

Jesus redefined

By Caleb, guest collaborator for He Gets Us
Americans are obsessed with greatness. We celebrate it. We desire it. We expect it. If we aren’t achieving it, we’re failing.
And it’s not a bad thing. It can be healthy to encourage, even push kids to do and be their best — to tell them they can be anything they want with enough effort. And as children, we often start a lifelong celebration of elite athletes and our popular performers and presidents, seeing a future where we can expect to be just like them.
For me, and many others like me, expecting greatness makes me feel inadequate in a bunch of different areas of my life. And there’s this deep desire inside to do more, and have more, and be more than my peers. And when I don’t experience that, I feel like I’m failing. And when enough people feel that, the whole country starts to feel like it’s failing. I think that’s what might be happening to us right now.
Why are we obsessed with greatness? And why does something that seems like a good and healthy pursuit feel so bad?
It seems like greatness is something Jesus had a lot to say about. Like most people, I have a complicated relationship with religion and church. But after my conversation with Nicole Martin, I get the sense that we often define greatness all wrong.

Interview: How did Jesus actually show us true greatness?

While all eyes were on the Superdome for the Big Game, we turned our gaze with New Orleans’ own Jon Batiste and his Love Riot to uncover stories of greatness in the Ninth Ward. NOLA is often defined by resilience, but we found something even deeper—the kind of greatness that sees a need and responds with the kind of love, leadership that leads to transformation.
From the graffiti-covered walls of BMike’s studio to the classrooms of Carver High, from the bridges of the 9th Ward to the sacred steps of the Second Line, we met a community that refuses to be defined by tragedy. Instead, they create, teach, and rebuild—not just for survival, but for a future where greatness is measured by how we care for one another.

A Greatness Story: New Orleans’ 9th Ward

It’s probably not a stretch to say we all want to be happy. But right now, it seems most of us aren’t. At least not totally. To be precise, 97% of the thousands we asked across America are sick of something.
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He Gets Us spent weeks traveling across the country trying to find out why — why we’re so divided, anxious, isolated, and frustrated. We don’t have all the answers, but we started to suspect that our discontent could be tied to the fact that so many of us pursue fulfillment and flourishing by pursuing greatness. And that shouldn’t come as a surprise. This country was built on the pursuit of greatness. The American dream is all about bootstrapping your way to success and happiness and fulfillment. We want to build successful businesses, pad our reputations and our bank accounts, and make it to the top. That’s the proven recipe that will make us happy and content, right?
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-3137 size-large" src="https://hegetsus1dev.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Imagen3-1063x495.png" alt="" width="1063" height="495" />
But the dream isn’t panning out. We talked to people all across the country from every walk of life. We sat down with people who have made it to the top and people who are climbing back from rock bottom — and we’re pretty much all sick, at least a little. So, are we aiming at the wrong thing? Jesus seemed to think so.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-3138 size-large" src="https://hegetsus1dev.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Imagen4-min-1065x495.png" alt="" width="1065" height="495" />
If you rewind the clock to 2,000 years ago, you start to see that, like us, people carried all sorts of discontent around with them, and, like us, they desired greatness. There’s this moment in the Bible where Jesus’ disciples were arguing about which of them was the greatest, and when they asked Jesus to settle the argument, he flipped the definition of greatness on its head. He said the greatest is the one who is humble — the one who serves. For Jesus, it wasn’t about getting to the top; it was about lifting others up. And this humble service that Jesus was talking about? It was also his response to the discontent he saw all around him.
So, what’s at stake here? If Jesus is right about this, following him in pursuing his version of greatness, there’s a potential that not only will we help other people overcome their discontent, but we also might find we’re pursuing something that doesn’t come up empty — a greatness that actually leads to fulfillment.
DIVE DEEPER: 
<a style="text-decoration: underline;" href="https://hegetsus.com/en/articles/discontent-by-the-numbers-are-we-all-sick-of-the-same-things"> 
97% of us are sick of something. Are we sick of the same things?</a> 
<a style="text-decoration: underline;" href="https://hegetsus.com/en/sick#home-videos"> 
Jesus went searching for the dissatisfied. What if we did the same? 
</a>

Is our pursuit of greatness leaving us dissatisfied?

Discontent by the numbers: Are we all sick of the same things?

Our friends at the Bible Project put together a 9 part video series designed to introduce the main beliefs of what it means to be a follower of Jesus through a study of the overarching storyline and themes of the Bible.
While He Gets Us focuses on the story of Jesus’ life on Earth, this series explores the basics of the Christian faith. There are videos clarifying what Christians mean when they use terms like God, Heaven and Earth, Gospel, sacrifice and atonement, salvation, and the Holy Spirit. It explores the origins of the Bible too.
We like this series because it explains basic Christian beliefs in a self-paced journey that clarifies Christianity for skeptics, Jesus followers, and everybody in between.
For more information on Bible Project, please visit: <a href="https://bibleproject.com">https://bibleproject.com</a>

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Interview: How did Jesus actually show us true greatness?

A Greatness Story: New Orleans’ 9th Ward

Is our pursuit of greatness leaving us dissatisfied?

Discontent by the numbers: Are we all sick of the same things?

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