"The heart of service" (Devotional at Ushers' Gathering 18/9/16

“Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mt 20:27-28)

The disciples of Jesus had been upset with one another because James and John had asked to be 

pre-eminent – the greatest - in Jesus’ kingdom. Jesus took the opportunity to teach His disciples about greatness. He does not discourage the desire to be great – but he tells them to change their ideas about what greatness means. To them and according to the world’s ways of doing things, greatness means being honoured by others, being able to impose authority on others, and being served by others. But Jesus says us that real greatness has nothing to do with how others regard us, but by how God regards us. The kind of greatness God desires is in a heart that can humble itself to serve people. Greatness in the eyes of God is measured in servanthood. This is not the same thing as ‘service’, because we can serve without a servant heart. We can serve out of obligation. We can serve to gain personal satisfaction and worth. We can serve to give an impression of humility (e.g. politicians). But a true servant fully accepts and rejoices in service as something provided by God. “Serve the Lord with gladness!” (Ps 100:2)

Jesus sets Himself as the model for all His followers. He came as a servant (Lk 22:27, Mk 10:45). He did not only come to tell us that we should serve others. He came so that the world might know that it is God’s nature and desire to serve His people. In God’s kingdom, God is the greatest because He serves us all. When we serve God, we put our resources at His service – we give Him time and effort and money. In the same way, God serves us in the sense that He uses His divine resources to help us and strengthen us and guide us and support us and provide our needs. Paul affirms in Acts 17:25 that God is not “served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” He does not need us. He is completely self-sufficient. We are the ones who need Him.

This truth changes our attitude to service. Firstly, it means that what we can offer of ourselves really comes first from him. When David was offering funds for the building of the temple, he said, “Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willing? For all things come from you, and of your own we have given you” (1 Chr 29:14). Whatever we received from God is out of grace – completely undeserved. So whatever we can offer Him in return in terms of our resources and abilities really comes from Him. It’s like a child buying a present for his parents with the pocket money he or she has received from them! All the service we can offer comes first from God’s grace to us.

Secondly, God is also at work in us not just enabling us to perform our service, but enabling us to serve in a way that pleases Him – out of a humble attitude that Jesus demonstrated (Phil 2:3-8). This means that we cannot read Mt 20:27 as meaning that we fulfill worldly desires to “be great” and “be first” by engaging in service. Service shows our greatness, it is not a means to achieve it. Our desires to serve must be like the desires of Jesus, who served because He was great in his humility. This is a work of the Holy Spirit is within us to transform us into the likeness of Jesus, the ultimate servant. We have no power of our own to develop attitudes that please God. We need God’s supernatural power to serve in a way that is acceptable to God because it imitates God.

If serving God does not mean fulfilling God’s needs, or a means of obtaining greatness, what does it mean? Servanthood means that we allow Him to tell us what to do. It is to give up our own preferences and desires for the preferences and desires of God. It means telling God that He we submit to His authority, that He has the right to direct us and plan our life for us as He pleases. We should not be afraid to do this. God’s preferences and desires for us are always perfect and always for our good (Ro 8:28). We can therefore trust God when we give Him the right to direct and control our lives. Surrender is the heart of service.

These truths stop us from sinful pride in our work. We will be willing to serve even though no one sees our contributions. They also free us from frustration and burnout, because we can fall back on God’s power working in us. We can always release the results or service back into His hands. Trusting in God’s grace does not mean that we do not give our best. “Paul said, “by the grace of God I am what I am… I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Co 15:10). “Do your best, and let God do the rest”.

May the Lord keep us serving with joy because we can rest on Him. Let us let Him serve us as we serve Him. Let us turn from the sins of pride that make us abuse our service, and turn instead to our loving God who “daily bears us up” (Ps 68:19)