I walked into the Mac’s store, picked up my items and went to the counter. The clerk, male, about 18, was reading a magazine. I stood at the counter for 20 seconds or so when he finally sauntered from against the wall toward the cash register, punched on the keypad, took my cash, gave me my change and walked back to his parrot perch, almost completely without looking up! My reaction is typical to most: “What ever happened to service?”
The point of this story is to show what servant-living is not. Service is much more than an exchange of pleasantries for products purchase. So, when we explore service today, I want you to empty your mind of any images that are similar to the one I just shared. The servant attitude we will address goes well beyond these types of stories or situations.
If you’re facing tough times today take comfort in realizing God can use you best when you are weakest. St. Paul talked about a weakness in his flesh, a thorn, a problem that annoyed and caused him pain. Upon asking God to remove it God said ‘no’. The reason God said ‘no’ became plain to Paul and he tells us in the Scriptures in 2 Corinthians 12:9 why God said ‘no’: “Each time he {God} said, "My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness." So now I {Paul} am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me.”
That’s service – to completely focus on a purpose and will of another that is not for my personal benefit.
Why bother with talks about service and servant-hood anyway? Jesus said in Matthew 20:26-27, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.” I suppose a person can use these as their reasons for service; they want to be great or first in line but that hardly seems terribly noble or something of which one should be proud. However, Jesus says greatness and being first starts here.
I can think of another reason to be concerned about having this attitude of heart. St. Paul gave it to us in our Bible reading earlier in Philippians 2:5, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” Should we need anything else to motivate us who say we’re in love with Jesus? Shouldn’t our desire be to imitate the one we love for the sole purpose of pleasing him?
Jesus suggests that if you learn the art of servant-hood you’ll be great in God’s Kingdom. I’m not sure it’s an offer to be top-ranking angel #1. Angel Gabriel has that seat and I don’t think God’s going to take it from him! I wonder to what extent God is telling his disciples that when we want greatness and recognition we need to walk the road of service because it gets our feet on the ground to what really matters about life and what really matters to Him. The road of service removes the vain desires for glory and greatness that would otherwise rob us of real life and yet, doing so also bestows greatness on us that was otherwise unreachable. Go figure!
If you want to be fulfilled and purposeful in a time when there’s pain and problems; when you’re tempted to run after all the wrong things and waste energy and resources trying to hold on to sand, I encourage you to pursue service and in so doing you’ll discover life and you will acquire greatness.
Whatever our assumptions you and I are called to servant-living. To refuse to listen is suicide and foolishness. There are people here who want to obey and you are wise for choosing so. Therefore God offers some insight to those who run after the real treasure called service. It starts with Christ. Is that a surprise? There’s a process to learning to being a servant.
1. Having Christ should lead to being like Christ 2:1-2
The first simple lesson we must understand is that everything we’re talking about today depends on one important premise and that is I know Jesus. Do you know Jesus? I’m not asking if you know about Jesus. Some people know Jesus about as well as they know Stephen Harper (PM of Canada), Rick Warren (Pastor and best-selling author), Sara Palin (Governor of Alaska who ran for Vice President for Republican John McCain), or Carl Zehr (Mayor of Kitchener). They may know some of their political platforms or social policies and reforms but when it comes to really knowing the individual that’s an entirely different focus.
You may know about Jesus’ claim as God’s Son. You may know about the credit Jesus is given as having died on the cross and rising again three days after and that life with God in heaven after this life is only through Jesus. You may know about His humanitarian heart and stories of His healing power. But until you say “I believe all that to be true and I accept Jesus as God’s Son and believe I can only be right with God through Jesus’ death and resurrection” you don’t know Him. You continue to know about Him. But He wants you to know Him!
Knowing Christ or having Christ leads to being like Him. Paul teaches us in these two verses that the smallest measure of evidence of Christ should lead to being of the same mind, having the same love and being one in spirit and purpose. Our unity in Christ should birth the unity of Christ in his Church. Paul shows us that servant-living in the interest of unity is an act of will with God’s help. Paul’s statement implies it when he tells the believers they should make his joy complete by being of the same mind, having the same love and being one in spirit and purpose. It’s a choice.
I suggest that a life of unity or a life of ‘togetherness’ is one of the highest calls in servant-living. Anyone can say ‘yes’ to a proposal where we stand to personally benefit or everyone agrees with my position on things. It is quite different and requires the servant heart and attitude of Jesus to live in unity with others when there is nothing to gain personally.
Jesus “made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant” (v7). Friends are we willing to take the lowest ranking position to everyone else and be nothing as it were, in exchange for the heart of God and to bring praise and glory to him.
2. Being like Christ results in serving like Christ
Verse 3-4…
These verses are the “social services” of servant-living. We usually perceive service as things we do for other people, and it is that, but not that entirely. Service is often about how we behave toward other people in a given situation. Behaviour characterized by selfless attitudes and in the interests of other people is service.
Verse 3 is a case in point. Paul is not saying we should not be ambitious. Ambition is not a negative trait. It is ambition that gets the PhD or grows the business to successful proportions or finishes post-secondary studies and launches your new career. Lack of healthy ambition could result in laziness. Paul is telling us to be careful of selfish ambition. Such ambition leads us to do things because we will gain by it personally and our interest in other people has more to do with what’s in it for me than what I’m giving for someone else.
Paul says, “In humility consider others better than yourself.” To be humble is to have a “modest opinion of yourself” according to the dictionary. So, the lesson is this. When you don’t take yourself serious and realise you’re not all you think you are, you have a better chance of avoiding selfish ambition and the temptation to use an forfeit the opportunity to bless someone else using it for personal gain.
Verse 4…
1 Corinthians 10:24 puts a different spin on Paul’s intent with this verse 4. It says, “Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.” The spirit of Philippians 2:3-4 and 1 Corinthians 10:24 are critical in today’s climate of economic unrest as we face the highest unemployment rate in Canada in the last 11 years according to one source (http://www.hrmguide.net/canada/jobmarket/canadian-unemployment.htm) Then there are the not-so-obvious needs facing our communities and our members. Things like divorce, addictions, need for recovery support, emotional breakdown and critical care of family members are just a few.
Jesus’ focus was about meeting peoples’ needs and facing life with people for what it was and where they were. He didn’t run programs or maintain church institution. He provided what people needed. What a lesson for today’s church! If someone wants to start something or we need to evaluate what we’re doing, we start here with verses 3-4. When we look to the interests of others it can mean building relationships over a ball game to providing support in a crisis. Servant-living is about responding to where people are and letting them know it matters to us.
When people are fighting or not in unity you will always find the presence of selfish focus and prestige. Prestige is even as simple as fighting for ‘my rights’. Human rights has it’s justification such as social justice and people being exploited and taken advantage of, but can quickly slip into the crazy ideas people have of using ‘rights’ to get their own way even when it’s not justified. Prestige is about influence and some people are awfully proud of themselves when someone is afraid of them or intimidated by them. That’s prestige. The way to combat disunity is get our eyes off ourselves to the interests of others or make it our goal to look after what is good for someone else.
Do you see how tough servant-living is?
When we know Jesus his influence changes us as we spend time with him every day and we start becoming like him which involves serving like him. The only way however that we serve like him is by realizing
3. Serving like Christ is born through humility 2:5-8
My eldest daughter, Julia is a customer service agent for a cell phone company. While Julia receives calls from customers who are complaining and unhappy about a lot of things, Janine, who works at a dairy bar, gets all the happy people! I don’t need to tell you how unreasonable and sometimes outrageous peoples’ demands can be and Julia faces no small number of those on a daily basis. On one of her venting days and sharing how tough it can be, I wrote a prayer that I encouraged Julia to pray everyday before she started her shift. Here’s the prayer.
CUSTOMER SERVICE PRAYER
Lord, today will be another day very similar to every other day. Many people who call will complain about products or service. They will place expectations on me that I cannot always meet. They will say things that hurt and annoy me.
Some of them will be selfish and overbearing in their demands, and I will feel attacked.
Satan will use these pressures to try to bring me down and destroy my faith.
Help me focus on the good things about the opportunities this day will bring.
Help me to realise:
Most of the people I talk with today I’m "meeting" for the first time. They are like me…people with pressures and problems, trying to get through their day. Some of them have broken lives, screaming bosses, live lonely lives and just need to talk. The anxiety on the other end of the line may have more to do with their pain than their technology.
Help me to be salt and light where their lives are bland.
Give me your heart to listen and really care.
Use me to brighten their day instead of adding to their troubles. Carry me above my circumstances to a higher plane of relationship with you that is bigger than the pressure I face.
When I feel overwhelmed with the pressure of people coming against me, guide me to "turn my eyes toward you." (2 Chronicles 20:12) AMEN
This prayer reflects choice, the choice to choose an attitude that is deliberate and on-purpose. For Julia to choose to put the customers’ interests above her own feelings and to seek the good of the people she serves, she chooses humility. Julia trades the temptation to be right, for humility, when her choice is to make customers happy.
Jesus chose to be a servant by choosing to be humble, which was an intentional choice to be nothing (which is precisely what being human is when you’re God!) (v7). Jesus stooped to be a human being. There really wasn’t anything in it for him when the end of the road, humanly speaking was torture and death. Sure God exalted him in the following verses but it was simply a restoration to what was his to begin with, which he never had to give up in the first place.
If you and I have an aspiration to be remotely like Jesus, we have to accept the condition of a humble attitude.
WRAP
When life is falling apart we need to turn our attention to the things that really matter and not drown in despair by focusing on the wrong things such as our problems and tough situations.
Gaining that focus and perspective starts by focusing on the reality of Jesus in our lives and not forgetting he’s waiting to work for us.
As we focus on the reality of Christ in us we begin to look at life through his eyes and heart and we begin to be like him and serve like him.
This being and serving only comes about however when we are prepared to take a humble stance and look to the interests of other people and get our eyes off self and seek to live for the good of those around us.
