| Introduction The desire for success is part of the human condition. It is something that pre-dates the fall, so it is not a sinful desire in and of itself. We all who are followers of Jesus Christ must strive to be as successful as we possibly can. The issue we have to keep in mind is that we need to have the right metrics, the right way to measure success. So far, we have considered three biblical metrics that we should use when trying to figure out if we are successful or not. 1. Being loved by God through Jesus Christ and loving him in return. 2. Believing in practice all the things we say we believe concerning who God is and what he does. 3. Being faithful to the Word of God through obedience and hard work. When we are done with this series, our success measuring toolkit will consist of seven parts. It will be made up of the three I just mentioned. It will include today's metric (service). And we will add three others: prayer, holiness, and godly attitude. Today I want us to think of serving God and others as a measure of success as opposed to the worldly concept that success is being served by others. In 1980, John Lennon recorded a parody of a Bob Dylan's song "Gotta Serve Somebody, Serve Yourself," in which he said the following: You say you found Jesus Christ; He's the only one. You say you've found Buddha, sittin' in the sun. You say you found Mohammed, facin' to the East. You say you found Krishna, dancin' in the streets. Well there's somethin' missing in this God Almighty stew, and it's your mother, (your mother, don't forget your mother, lad.) You got to serve yourself, ain't nobody gonna do it for you. You got to serve yourself, ain't nobody gonna do it for you. John Lennon was as brilliant of a composer as he was depraved. He was able to capture human nature very well in the refrain, "You got to serve yourself, ain't nobody gonna do it for you." We live in a world that views success as being served. The "great ones" of this world have people at their fingertips to do their bidding. And if we are honest with ourselves, we see that this idea of success is also present in the church. We have defined success as a kind of lordship: whoever has more people catering to them is the greatest in the church of Jesus Christ. This idea is obviously present in the Prosperity Gospel, but we all seem to be tainted with the thought that Jesus came to make my life better and to give me the preeminence. "For those caught up in such thinking, Christianity exists to give me eternal life, to increase my physical health, to coddle my body, to enlarge my power, to elevate my prestige, and give me money for whatever my heart desires." Kent Hughes I. First – This Is not a New Problem. A. The disciples themselves struggled with the wrong view of success – success as being served. 1. As Jesus and his disciples were making their way to Jerusalem in order for Jesus to serve them by dying on the cross, the disciples were fighting among themselves about who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 2. John and James even had their mom go talk with Jesus about giving them the best seats in the court of heaven. B. So, Jesus had to redirect their thoughts on what it means to be successful in the kingdom of heaven. Mt. 20:25b-28 – 25b You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. 26 Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. 27 And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave—28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. C. The disciples didn't seem to get what Jesus was teaching them since none of them thought about washing each other's feet. 1. Foot washing is not something that is part of our culture today, but it was very common in NT times, 4-5. 2. It was expected that the host of a dinner party would provide a foot-wash for his guests (remember that Peter and John had been in charge of setting everything up for the Passover). 1. The host himself would not wash his guests' feet because that was a menial task, a task the lowliest of servants should do. 2. In a time of sandal wearing, dirt roads, open sewers, and walking everywhere, it makes sense that it was a good thing to have your feet washed when you came into someone's home for dinner. a. They were stepping on your rugs. b. They were reclining on your couches. c. It would be the equivalent of taking your shoes off when you go into somebody's home today. 3. So, Jesus and the disciples go up to the room, sit on their spots, the meal is brought in, but there is no servant to wash their feet. 1. The towel, the pitcher, and washbasin are there, but nobody to use them. 2. The disciples certainly are not going to do it. 3. As a matter of fact, on the way to the room they had continued the discussion about whom the greatest of them was! Lk. 22:24 – Now there was also a dispute among them, as to which of them should be considered the greatest. 4. While the disciples seemed to have been too proud to do this task, the Lord of the universe stoops down to do it. 1. He dresses down to his undergarment, which would be what a lowly servant would have done; he wraps a towel around his waist so that he can dry their feet and starts washing the disciples' feet. 2. I can only imagine the horror and shame in the eyes of the disciples, to the point that I think they were paralyzed. 3. I picture John's eyes welling up with tears while writing this chapter as he remembers what his Lord did so many years earlier. a. Verbs are in the present tense in order to make the story even more vivid. b. Look at all the details John included, 4-5. 4. Isn't it partly what Paul had in mind in Phil. 2? Phil. 2:7 – … but [Christ] made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 5. As a matter of fact, the whole feet-washing account is a microcosm of Jesus's ministry on earth. II. Jesus Teaches Them (and Us) That Success Is Measured by Service A. After he had washed the feet of a few paralyzed disciples, Jesus gets to Peter and is met with opposition, 6-10. 1. Does it surprise you at all that Peter is the one who speaks up and that he speaks up the way he did? You are not going to wash my feet, no way, never then you going to give me a bath, 8-9. 2. Though Jesus says Peter doesn't quite understand what is going on, Peter is certain he does. 3. There is no way he is going to let Jesus stoop down this low. a. This is often true in the area of loving and serving people. b. We don't like God telling us who we should love and serve. 4. Peter doesn't realize that in a few hours Jesus is going to stoop down even lower when he is nailed to the cross. B. We often are like Peter. 1. Jesus is not after our doing more than what he asks us to do, nor less. 2. He is after our doing exactly what he asks us to do (remember Moses last week when he struck the rock instead of just speaking to it like God commanded?). 3. We often play the part of Peter when we decide that God could not have possibly meant for us to believe and do what he said. 4. Of course, "wisdom," our wisdom, dictates what parts of what God said we should do the way he said it and what parts we should not. C. Even though Peter challenges Jesus in this hardest hour, Christ lovingly explains to Peter why he needs to have his feet washed, 8, 10. 1. What had begun as an object-lesson in serving one another morphs into a lesson about the cross before it goes back to illustrating service and love. 2. Jesus is no longer speaking of the physical washing of their feet, but the spiritual cleansing that is provided through the ultimate act of service: THE CROSS. a. Jesus grounds his teaching on serving and loving one another on what the cross accomplishes for his people. b. So, why do we love and serve one another? Because of the CROSS, the ultimate act of love and service that frees us to love and serve others. c. As a matter of fact, our love and service for one another is the clearest evidence of the supernatural work of God on the cross. 1) A bunch of selfish, unloving, and unlovable people living in covenant with one another? 3) That is why our fervent love for one another demonstrated by our serving one another proclaims loud and clear to the world that Christ is Lord. 4) And there is no possibility of selfless love and service if one does not participate by faith in the ultimate act of selfless love and service, namely, the cross. 3. Those who have been thoroughly cleansed by the atoning work of Christ on the cross only need the fatherly cleansing from sins that occurs by God's grace in our sanctification, 10. D. Jesus expects us to do the same kinds of acts of service as he did, 14-16. 1. His point is that no one is beneath serving others. 2. If God incarnate is a servant, how dare we, his creatures, be anything else? 3. We are expected to pick up our cross daily and follow Jesus and necessarily implied in picking up the cross is this notion of serving others. III. Why Is Serving Christ by Serving Others Is Often So Difficult? A. We have a wrong view of others. 1. We serve Jesus to impress others – that's why I started reading the Bible. Mt. 6:1-2 – Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. a. We often "serve Jesus" in order to serve our own reputation. 1) An illustration – one Wednesday you are working late to meet a deadline, humming to yourself happily, knowing that it is a blessing to work as one who serves Christ. You are surprised on Thursday morning to find an email from your boss saying that he/she noticed you at your desk late and appreciates the work you put in. At 5:30 that evening, you see he/she is still in the office and decide that maybe you'll stay an extra hour or so… you move your chair slightly to make sure it's in her/his line of sight. 2) This same subtle shift often happens as we serve Christ. 3) Once we begin doing good in order to be noticed, we are letting other people's opinion define us and what good is. 4) Jesus says that if that's what you are seeking that's all you are going to get. b. When we serve to be noticed by others, we are making them our god. c. There are a couple of easy ways to work out if this is why you serve. 1) If you are thinking about doing something as a service to Christ, ask yourself: would I do this thing if I knew no one, other than me and God, would ever know I had done it? 2) Or, think of the last time you served someone knowing that no one else would know what you had done. d. This attitude turns Christian service into competition and often makes us miserable. 1) We look at friends and see that they are better servants than us, and we are crushed by it. 2) We either give up serving or we serve more and more, but only to get our identity as the impressive servant back. e. If it doesn't make us miserable, this attitude makes us proud. 1) I compare myself to others, and I find myself better than they. 2) I have managed to make myself better than my friends in my eyes by doing two things: a) I lie to myself about myself. · I look at my strong points and never at those of my friends. · I lie about my weakness – I generally find that when I sin it is someone else's fault, or that I am tired, or that life has been hard recently. · I see myself as a victim and my sin is easily understandable. · To be honest, when you take all the sin in my life that is because of tiredness, there is hardly any left. · The Bible tells me I am not perfect, but I'm pretty close. b) I drag other Christians down in my mind. · When I hear someone else preaching, I look for mistakes. · I look for my friend's sin and enjoy it. · I delight in exposing the sin of those around me instead of letting love cover a multitude of sin. f. That's the only way I can come up with a "reputation" for myself. 2. We serve Jesus in order to belong. a. People want to belong. 1) We want to know that we are in the inner circle. 2) We fear that there is a better party going on and we have not been told about it, let alone invited. b. Christians can use "service for Jesus" as a way to belong with other people, Acts 8:15-23 – Simon. c. We don't want to know the bitterness of being left in the fringe. d. We want to be identified with the inner circle, those whose opinion matters. e. We put them on pedestals and make "serving Christ" about them. B. We have a wrong view of ourselves. 1. We serve Jesus because he needs us. Lk. 10:38-42 – Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. 40 But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, "Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me." 41 And Jesus answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. 42 But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her." a. One way to spot whether you have this perspective is to see if you are people-focused, but never God-centered. 1) Martha never sat down with her sister to spend time with Jesus. 2) She was too busy serving him and the people with him. b. If you ever find yourself not listening to Jesus's Word because you feel there is too much "Christian service" to be done, it is perhaps because you think he needs your work more than you need his Word. c. We are no one's savior, no one's ultimate refuge or rock. 1) Jesus is and he is quite capable of doing all he wants done without us. 2) We are liberated by knowing that there is a Savior, Refuge, and Rock, and that we are not it. 2. We serve Jesus, but we don't need Jesus. a. This happens when we actually think, or act as if, we can actually do the work. b. This happens when our service is not bathed in prayer that recognizes our inability to serve Christ apart from his grace. So, a biblical way to measure success is through Christ-centered service. How can you and I figure out what exactly we should do to be successful in this area? The primary way to figure that out is to realize that service always expresses itself in terms of relationships and identity. These are the media for service. For example, I am a child of God because of Jesus Christ. Because that is my identity, my Father's Word will shape the ways I serve. I am also a husband and a father. Those relationships and identities will express themselves in terms of serving the people in those relationships, namely, my wife and my children. I am a pastor. This identity and relationship will show themselves by serving you through preaching, counseling, leading through humble service, and administering the day-to-day of business of the church. What are practical things that you can do to serve those who are in relationship with you? This is not super complex or innovative, but I think it is completely biblical and helpful. Look at the 10 commandments and they will give you plenty of ways to serve God and others. Specially look at them alongside questions 101-148 of the Larger Catechism.
Jesus calls you to be successful. And he tells us that that success is measured by love, faith, obedience, and service to one another.
http://olympiabp.blogspot.com/2020/04/i-came-to-serve-john-131-20.html
|  | Send olympiabp blog feed to OBPC Podcast |  | | | | | |
