Servant
– one who gives himself up to another’s will;
one
devoted to another with disregard for their own interests
A
friend of mine asked me and a mutual friend of ours to sing a duet at her
wedding. Our friend had moved out of the
area some years before and made the trip back for the wedding festivities. As the order of the ceremony was discussed at
the rehearsal, we singers were left as bystanders just waiting for our signal
to sing. My friend commented in his
humorous fashion, “We are just the lowly musicians.” But he was actually right. We were there to do the bidding of the bride
and groom. We were standing by to sing
when we were told to sing and sit when we were told to sit. And it was the right thing to do. We were not the central focus of the
wedding. Nor was the wedding being held
so we could perform. We were honored to
be asked to play a small part in our friend’s special day. A lot of people came and sat through the
ceremony, but we had the privilege of being invited to take part in it.
Paul
called himself a servant of Jesus Christ.
The Greek word used is ‘doulos’, which means slave. He had voluntarily given up himself and all
his earthly interests to answer the call of God and to do His bidding. He didn’t consider the cost too great. He considered the honor more than he
deserved. Paul was single-minded and
wholly devoted to Christ to the point of disregarding his own desires
completely.
If
we constantly consider our rights and what is fair, we won’t be Christ’s
servant, and we will get in the way of God’s purposes. Jesus came to this world as our Savior and
our example. He didn’t fight for His
earthly rights or stop carrying out the Father’s will when He wasn’t being
treated fairly. He said what the Father
told Him to say and did what the Father told him to do, regardless of the consequences. He knew God’s plan was perfect, and he didn’t
allow His flesh to lead Him away from it.
God will not go along with our inferior, selfish plans. He has a greater purpose than we could ever
imagine. And we are blessed beyond
measure to be asked to take part in it.
But we need to remember, we are servants. [See Luke 17:7-10.]
Jesus
was clear about what is required of His servants. He said, “If any man come to
me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren,
and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke
14:26-27) The Greek word for ‘hate’
means to love less, to give a lower place of prominence. It does not mean that we totally disregard
our families and hold them in contempt.
It is a measure of our love for Jesus Christ compared to our love for
our families. Our love for Jesus must
supersede our love for them.
Jesus
also said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up
his cross daily, and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) If we deny ourselves, we completely set aside
our personal interests. We put the will
of God first, and we follow wholeheartedly.
Taking up our cross simply means we follow Jesus’ example of saying what
the Father tells us to say and doing what the Father tells us to do, regardless
of the consequences. We conform to the
example He gave in His life and His death.
Becoming
a martyr is not the point. The point is
to follow the directions of the Master with complete abandon, and see His
powerful results. Our dream may be to do
great things and have a large following.
God’s plan may be for us to do His work in obscurity. On the other hand, we may want to settle down
in a small, peaceful neighborhood, and God may be calling us to the front
lines. The question is, will we follow
Him wherever He leads? Will we set aside
our dream in this world in order to break into enemy territory and release
souls from the kingdom of darkness and bring them into the kingdom of God? Will we do the work God has called us to, or
will we take our ease, guarding our comfort and our rights?
It
may seem we are being asked to give too much.
After all, we only have one earthly life. Jesus only had one life as a human, too. But He gave it up for you and me, so that we
could have eternal life. It is not an
unreasonable thing Jesus asks of us. He
gives us the opportunity to work with Him toward eternal things. Think of a high-profile person you would love
to be asked to work with. It cannot
compare to being invited to work alongside the God of the universe. And we can only do it because He paid the
ultimate price for us.
First
Corinthians reminds us we are bought with a price, then tells us what to do
about it. “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your
body, and in your spirit, which are God's.” (6:20) “Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.”
(7:23) Jesus set a value on us when He
died in our place. The value was
high. The price was the shed blood of
Jesus Christ. Nothing else can remove
our sins. Nothing else can save us. It was a tremendous price when Jesus took our
sins on Himself. “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on
the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by
whose stripes ye were healed.” (1 Peter 2:24) Jesus bore in His body the sins of the whole
world for all times. He took on our pain,
our sin and the death that belonged to us.
Have you ever felt the condemnation of your own sin or the pain of your
disease? Imagine having the weight of all
humankind on you all at once. He didn’t
have to do that for us. He chose
to. He valued us. What value do we place on Jesus? How we live our lives will give the answer.
Paul
wrote in Romans 6:16, “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants
to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of
obedience unto righteousness?”
Jesus gives us a choice. Without His sacrifice, we had no choice. We served sin and we were going to die and go
to hell for eternity. Now, we can choose
to be free from that sentence of death.
We can trade it for “life more abundant”, being in right standing with
God and living forever in His presence where there is fullness of joy. We all make a choice. We either choose the default, which is
serving sin, or we can opt out of the default mode and choose righteousness by
yielding to Jesus.
So, how do we yield? When we yield to sin, we listen to the urging
of our flesh and we follow what it says.
Often, we are so used to the “little voice” that we obey without even
realizing what we are doing. If we
choose to yield to Jesus, we listen to the urging of the Spirit of God within
us and follow what He says. (The Holy
Spirit resides in those who are born again.)
We also need to immerse ourselves in the written Word of God to guide us
and help us know right from wrong. We
simply stand ready by God’s side and do what He says. We offer ourselves to be used of Him. Now, in this world, people use us and then
let us down. God loves us. He won’t do that. Remember the value He placed on you? He has a lot invested in us. He goes with us on every mission and never
leaves us on our own. So we can
confidently submit to his commands. If
we yield to sin, the results will be disastrous and are irreversible. But we must make a choice. We cannot serve this world and Jesus at the
same time. “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the
one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the
other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon (treasure or whatever is
trusted in).” (Luke 16:13)
As if having Jesus pay our penalty
of death and giving us new life in Him wasn’t enough, He gives us more. If we want to receive it, we need to continue
moving forward with Him and recognize the great authority He has as well as His
endless resources and matchless power.
There is no one greater than He is in any way. His majesty is unequalled in heaven and
earth. We must bow to Him in every area,
and recognize who we are without Him.
But, we must also understand who we are because of Him.
Scripture tells us Jesus taught with
authority. He cast out devils, healed
the sick and raised the dead with authority.
Even the religious rulers recognized His authority, but they were
jealous and resisted Him. Authority is
the ability or strength that one is empowered with. Someone with authority possesses the power to
cause others to submit to their will and obey their commands. Those with authority in this world have
limited, territorial authority. Jesus
has unlimited power in every sense of the word.
He could have made the scribes and Pharisees bow down and worship Him,
but that was not the point of His coming.
In Mark 13:34-37, Jesus spoke a
parable that tells us what He has done for us, His servants. “For the
Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave
authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter
to watch. Watch ye therefore: for ye
know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at
the cockcrowing, or in the morning: Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all,
Watch.” A servant has certain responsibilities, but with those
responsibilities come the resources and authority of the Master. This master
gave the servants everything they needed in order to carry on His work until he
returned. Jesus gives His servants
everything they need, too.
In Luke 9:1-2, we read, “Then he
[Jesus] called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority
over all devils, and to cure diseases.
And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.”
[See also Matthew 10:1-9]
Before
Jesus ascended, He told his disciples, “ But ye
shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you….” (Acts 1:8a)
It is the same Spirit by which Jesus worked miracles and the same Spirit that
raised Jesus from the dead. As servants
of Jesus Christ today, we have been offered the same power and authority by the
Holy Spirit. Jesus will return, and we
will be called into account for what we have done with His power and authority
while He was gone.
If we are still yielding to the
things of the world, God cannot use us.
If we yield to Him, the Holy Spirit will reveal to us the will of God
and empower us to do it. This is not an acquired
power, but power that is inherent, “power residing in a thing by virtue of its
nature”. It is not inherent in our
fleshly nature, so the fleshly, sinful nature must die. This power is inherent in us only by the Holy
Spirit abiding in us. That is why Romans
12:1 tells us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, not being conformed
to this world, but being transformed by the renewing of our minds. We are to provide a body for the Holy Spirit
to work through, and the Spirit within us is alive, fresh, strong, efficient,
active and powerful. It is then that we
can complete the “good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God” in our
lives.
When
we choose to allow the Holy Spirit to direct who we are and what we do, we have
begun to walk in the Spirit. We have
become obedient to the character of Christ as well as the calling of Christ in
our life. We have become a servant of
Jesus Christ, and, like Paul, we will disregard our own desires to do His
will. We stand by, ready to hear His
command. When He says ‘go’, we will
go. When He says ‘be still’, we will be
still. A servant stays close to his
master and listens…then obeys.
What are you doing with your authority?
No comments:
Post a Comment