SAVED PEOPLE SERVE PEOPLE
Notes
Transcript
Handout
“Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’?
Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’?
Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded?
So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ ”
Today’s text is one in which I have never heard preached or one I have preached. There are passages of Scripture that bless me when I read them and others like today’s passage that bother me.
For us twenty-first century Westerners such a passage shocks our sensibilities. We ask ourselves, how could such a passage be included in holy writ? One that is cold and callous. Lacking gratitude and appreciation. Furthermore, one that appears to support the demeaning and mistreatment of others.
A cursory reading of today’s passage leaves its reader wandering how could someone in power treat another in such a demeaning manner. Every word of this passage run against the grain of our culture. It is antithetical to our culture.
Such a passage confirms our suspicions about duty that is a sanitized word for abuse. Its another word for manipulation and control.
Why is this passage in our Bible?
First, it was written to those in the 1st century and not the 21st century. The disciples were not bothered by what we are bothered by when we read the text. They are not surprised by Jesus' description of servanthood because it was typical of how one thought and acted. The disciples were not bothered by the description of the poor servant; they were bothered by Jesus' suggestion that they were supposed to be servants.
This text is tailored to teach us how a servant thinks. It teaches us there are two trains of thought that dominate a servants thinking.
The master's desires are more important than the servant's desires.
“Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’?
Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’?
The master's desires are more important than the servant's desires.
Most people in our churches don't buy into that mindset anymore, at least not in Western culture.
Our culture conditions us to believe that you are number one. You deserve to have the best from everybody around you. Life is like a movie, and you play the starring role; everybody else in your life is a supporting actor whose job is to keep the spotlight on you.
This issue is as old as the human heart. Our first parents fell pray to its desire and everyone since has eaten of its bitter fruit.
Adam and Eve disobeyed God because their heart believed Satan’s lie that God is a dictator who could not be trusted. They wanted to live life own their terms not the Lord’s.
The “me to” movement has exposed abuse against women in our day and the “me first” movement has turned us all against our Creator.
The "me first" mentality supposes all of life is engineered to somehow benefit me. We cannot conceive that the master's needs are more important than our needs. This is the ultimate form of idolatry, and idolatry—idolatry of self—is great in America. Our culture tells us we are most important but Jesus comes and dismantles our cultural belief that we are most important. The gospel tells us that serving our Master, the Lord Jesus Christ is our priority.
In serving the Master we learn what His desires are for us. We learn what we should desire. His desire is that we become like His Son who was the greatest servant of all. We become more like Christ when we the Master’s desires are more important than our desires. When we serve we imitate the life of Christ and participate in the life of Christ.
Serving dethrones you. Serving kills selfishness. Serving takes the scalpel of God sanctification in parts of your heart that only it can affect. Serving is the key to liberate us from the bondage of self-centeredness. It turns us inside out.
Timothy Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, writes:
Pastors often hear, "I work my fingers to the bone in this church, and what thanks do I get?" Is that the way it is? Your service was for thanks? Are you in your right mind? Servanthood begins where gratitude and applause ends.
So the first thing we learn from this text is that the master's needs are more important than the servant's needs.
The second principle we learn is this:
Our obedience is more important than our rights.
Jesus does not say the master thanked the servant. We think the servant had a right to be appreciated for his service but there is nothing in this text that speaks about rights or entitlement. Instead, Jesus says,
So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ ”
Rights are addicting—my right to be appreciated, to be treated like I should be, to be paid what I am worth, to have the last word, and so forth. However, rights mitigate the mindset of a servant. All of us have probably been hurt by abusive spiritual leaders who have taken advantage of us, who have suppressed us but Jesus is not talking about abusive leadership. Here, he is simply focusing on how a servant thinks. A servant realizes his or her obedience is more important than his or her entitlement.
More specifically, this text is talking about the biblical concept of the crucified life.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
This text reminds us that we have been crucified with Christ; we were hung on the tree with him. Just as nails were put through his body, so nails are put through our rebellion and sin; the nails that pierced Christ have pierced our rights, our egos, our reputation, and our self-dependence. Christ died so that we might die to self and live for him. When you were crucified with Christ, you died, and all your sinful habits and tendencies died, too. "I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live." Hallelujah. "Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me."
In his book on discipleship, Miles Stanford listed a number of spiritual leaders in the last three-hundred years—people like George Mueller, D. L. Moody, Jonathan Goforth, and Amy Carmichael—and he said it took these Christian leaders an average of 15 years in their personal spiritual growth to move from working for Christ to the place where Christ was working through them.
When Christ is working through you, you do not focus on your needs, because you are walking in his abundance. You don't think about your rights, because you have died with Christ. It's not that you don't draw the line, that you don't say, "You shouldn't treat me like that" when you are mistreated. There is nothing wrong with seeking just treatment but that's not the subject found in this passage. The subject we are talking about is servanthood.
God takes away our rights when we are crucified with Christ so that the life of Jesus—resurrection life—can flow through us. In turn, that sets us free. Though we have been crucified with Christ, we live with him. We have his life in us, and the things that once held us back—sin, idolatry, self-promotion, and self-protection—have been put to death. We are finally set free.
You cannot hold on to your rights and rightly serve the King.
Gordon MacDonald said; You can tell whether you are becoming a servant by how you act when people treat you like one. Are you serving or self-serving? Whose needs are more important yours or your Master’s? What’s your focus, your rights or your obedience?
The seeds of servanthood are implanted in us at salvation yet they must be cultivated if we are to be transformed into the servant of which Christ speaks.
Full-grown oaks are not produced in three years; neither are servants of God.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Though our text teaches us the mindset of a servant Scripture does teach us that those who serve will be rewarded for their service. Then why does this teaching leave its readers with a dreadful picture of service as duty with no honor. Only those who serve with such a mindset can experience such an a honor. Those who seek no honor will be honored. A true servant seeks not his Master’s reward but the reward for His Master.
For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.
Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.
“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.
Jesus proved himself to be God’s Son by His obedience as a servant. We prove to ourselves and to others that we are God’s Son’s and Daughter’s through our obedience as a servant.
I am a servant of Jesus Christ.
I have stepped over the line.
The decision has been made.
I won't look back, let up, slow down,back away, or be still.
My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure.
I am finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams,
chintzy giving, and dwarfed goals.
I no longer need pre-eminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity.
I now live by presence, lean by faith, love by patience, lift by prayer, and labor by power.
My pace is set, my gait is fast, my goal is Heaven, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions few,
my Guide reliable, my mission clear.
I cannot be bought, compromised, deterred, lured away, turned back, diluted, or delayed.
I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy,
ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.
I am a servant of Jesus Christ.
I must go until Heaven returns, give until I drop, preach until all know, and work until He comes.
And when He comes to get His own, He will have no problem recognizing me.
My colors will be clear.