S101302 So you want to be a servant! Matthew 8:14
Beginning:
Marion Mill was born in a fairy tale royal palace in Hungary. Her first spoon was solid gold. They sent her to school in Vienna where she became an actress, and there she met and fell in love with a young medical student named Otto.
Otto and Marion married and went to live in Hollywood, CA. There, as they “set up house,” he began to dabble in movies. He became so interested in movies that he gave up his medical practice, and went on to become the internationally famed movie director Otto Preminger. Marion’s beauty, wit, and irresistible charm brought her everything a woman desires. In Europe, New York and Hollywood she became a famous international hostess.
But Otto’s princess could not handle the fast life of Hollywood. She went into alcohol, drugs and numerous affairs. Her life and lifestyle became so sordid, even for Hollywood, that Otto Preminger divorced Marion. She tried to take her own life three times, unsuccessfully, and finally moved back to Vienna.
There at a party she met another doctor, named Albert Schweitzer, the well-known medical doctor, musician, philosopher, theologian and missionary. Schweitzer was home on leave from his hospital in Lambarene, Africa.
She was so fascinated by Schweitzer, that she asked him if she could talk to him alone, and he permitted that. For almost six months, every week, she met with Dr. Albert Schweitzer. At the end of that time he was going to go back to Africa, and she begged him to let her go with him. Schweitzer surprised everyone by agreeing. Marion, the young princess, who was born in a palace went to a little village in Lambarene, Africa, and spent the rest of her life emptying bed pans and tearing up sheets to make bandages for putrid sores on the poverty-stricken nationals.
She wrote her autobiography. All I Want is Everything. When she died, Time Magazine quoted from her autobiography these words: “Albert Schweitzer says there are two kinds of people. There are the helpers, and the non-helpers. I thank God He allowed me to become a helper, and in helping, I found everything.
What kind of person are you? Are you a helper or a non-helper? I believe that everyone of you here desires to be a true servant of Christ
Burden
Most people wish to serve God—but in an advisory capacity only. The person who lives figuratively with a towel over their arm is the person who is nearest the heart of God. If it all has to be about you, life may never make sense and you will never find satisfaction in anything.
Background
The greatest teacher who ever lived is about to open His lecture notes and lead a Masters class in discipleship. This is not a 100 series study. Jesus will teach through several life episodes that following Jesus requires one live with a towel over your arm. Christian discipleship is never complete until the Christ follower learns to become a servant
Basic Truth Living as a servant offers the greatest joy one can experience in this life.
Burning Question Why should I want to live my life as a servant?
Because servants get to see lives changed
Matthew 8:14 When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. 15He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him.
Nothing or no one is ever the same following the touch of Jesus. When we reach out in His name and become a servant we get to see lives changed ourselves.
Bill Hybels tells about a man in his book titled Courageous Leadership that, in his own words, wasn’t talented and couldn’t do anything but build buildings and fix things. Because this man was willing to serve God and his church God used him to lead the building committee to build millions of dollars worth of buildings for his church.
Life Application:
#1. If you need the touch of the Master in your life, He is here today to serve you.
#2. Once you have been touched He will use you to serve others. Get ready!
TS: There is nothing more exciting to me than seeing lives changed. That is what makes my job so much fun. I can’t wait to see who Jesus is going to touch and change next.
There is more.
Because servants get to be near Jesus
Matthew 8:18 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. 19Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”20Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
I hope you see this great truth. If you have to have the best of everything as concerns creature comforts you may miss servant opportunities.
God is no respecter of persons and he will go where he goes. He usually goes where there is the biggest need. Where this need is may not have a Holiday Inn.
The Messages says it like this, “As they left, a religion scholar asked if he could go along. “I’ll go with you, wherever,” he said. Jesus was curt: “Are you ready to rough it? We’re not staying in the best inns, you know.”
I’ve known some students and young adults that were glad and willing to serve students and young adults, but were repulsed by “Old people.”
Some Christ followers will serve if their service is visible and people brag on them all the time.
If you want to be near Jesus you will find him in the eyes of the marginalized, in the hands of the poor, near the sick and injured and with the under-dogs.
Life Applications:
#1. Find a way to serve in secret. Do some servant thing and don’t try to get glory for God, your church, your community group or even yourself.
#2. If you want to find the heart of God it will not be found where most are looking. It will not be in a glamorous place and it will not stroke your ego when you serve where God is working. The only reward is that you will be working side by side with Jesus.
TS: Yes, servants see lives changed and get to be near Jesus. This is motivation enough to make all of us want to become servants, but there is even more.
Because the focus of an authentic servant is life, not death
Matthew 8:21 Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 22But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
This person really wanted to be a servant so he could see lives changed and be near Jesus, but he seemed more driven by the eventual death of his parents than the immediate opportunity to see life explode all around him.
Jesus knows the importance of taking care of parents and dealing with final issues like death, funerals, wills and the like. He is simply teaching that one day of life is more important than anything else.
The suffering servant Jesus died so that you might live. Servant hood is about life. If you are focused on anything but Jesus you are focused on death.
Life Applications:
#1. Set down with your calendar and see how much of your time is used on serving other and how much is used on doing your own thing. Remember, servant hood focuses our lives on life and living. Everything else is death.
#2. Set down with you financial spread sheet and see how much of your money you spend on serving God and man and how much you spend on your self. We are Stewards of God’s investment in our lives. We will give an accounting someday.
What do I want you to know?
Servants get to see the power of God up close
Matthew 8:23 Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. 24Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. 25The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” 26He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. 27The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”
What do I want you to do?
Find the joy of becoming a servant of God.
See lives changed - The biggest change may be in you
Get to be near Jesus – Not just here but after this life is over too
Experience life as it was meant to be lived totally focused on living not on dying
