Day Three: Why Christians Serve

In his book In His Steps, Charles Sheldon tells the fictional story of a church congregation who agree to not do anything for a year, without asking “what would Jesus do?” Though the book was written over one hundred years ago, “WWJD?” was revived by youth groups in the nineties, and showed up on tee shirts and bracelets across America. In all the marketing, the question somewhat lost its power. What would Jesus do?
Though there are four Gospels full of answers, the most succinct is in Matthew 20:28 “The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  That’s the first reason Christians serve others: it’s what Jesus would do.
Additionally, it’s what Jesus commands Christians to do. Again, and again, and again, in generalities and specifics, the Bible commands believers to serve. The greatest commandment is to love God and love others as yourself, Christians are to do all “with all your heart, as working for the Lord” (Col 3:23), and the greatest love is laying down your life for a friend (John 15:13). Theologians spend their lifetimes debating the things in Scripture that are unclear, but the call to servanthood is not one of them.
Servanthood is the outward manifestation of an inward change. Everything about our natural world and instincts pull us to self focusedness. Survival of the fittest teaches us that we can only succeed if others fail. The laws of thermodynamics demand that for one thing to gain something, another must loss it.   And the exclusivity principle tells us that two things cannot share the same space in the universe ; one must displace the other.
The work of the Holy Spirit in our lives turns these principles upside down. Success is no longer measured against others’ failures; instead the body of Christ loses and wins together (I Cor. 12). Christians give and receive more (Mark 8). And you maintain your identity, but are filled with the indwelling presence of God—two beings sharing the same space.
These are the realities of fellowship with the Omnipotent Creator. Serving others is the flow of these realities into our daily lives.
Unfortunately, these realities are not what controls and motivates most Christians. On Monday, we will start looking at some of the reasons Christians do not chose to serve others, so stay tuned!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Christian Response to Church and State

Image
In Matthew 22, a group of Jews asked Jesus if they should pay taxes to Caesar. For the Jews, this was a religious question. There was no separation between religion and government. Until the unwanted rise of Herod the Great, the Jews had been led by the priests--- they were the clergy, the Congress, and--- when uncircumcised Greeks tried to desecrate their Temple-- the generals. Romans also blended religion and government--- Caesar was Lord, Emperor, and God. The Jews thought they had Jesus backed into a corner. If he said to pay taxes, that was blasphemy against Yahweh God who should be the head of the Jewish government. If he said not to, that was blasphemy against the man-God Caesar. Either one was punishable by death. Instead, Jesus rejected the premise that loyalty to a government was a religious requirement. He told them to “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (Mt 22:21). This is one of the first times in western history that someone attempted to separate
Read more

A Christian Response to Welfare

Image
     Many evangelical churches practice “giving Sunday”--- the one Sunday a year it is acceptable for the preacher to talk about money and to suggest--- sometimes aggressively, sometimes timidly--- that the church members consider helping pay for the church ministries and services that they benefit from. It is a reliable fact that the pastor will at some point bring up Malachi 3:8-10, where God accuses the people of Judah of robbing him by failing to pay their tithes and offerings. Every prosperity gospel-preacher’s favorite verse follows this where God promises that he will pour out blessings if they resume tithes and offerings.           Most of these sermons miss two vital aspects of this passage. First, failing to bring tithes is one of three offences that God is putting his people on trial for. Before he talks about money, he talks about the poor--- about those who “defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners of justic
Read more

A Christian Response to the Enviornment, Part Two

Image
         Although the Bible is bookended by the creation and rebirth of creation and God’s concern for his world is woven throughout its story, a shocking number of modern Christians see environmentalism to be extra-biblical (something the Bible simply does not seem to care about either way) or anti-biblical (contradicting some biblical text). While many of this reactions come from a blending of environment concern with other liberal concerns rather than dealing with it on its own, there are two other assumptions that must be addressed.           The first assumption is related to the position that this world will be destroyed by fire; therefore, humans need not worry about conserving it. This is a biblical image found in 2 Peter 3 where Peter talks about how the “heavens will pass away with a roar and the earth with be destroyed with fire” (2 Pet. 3:10). However, fire is not simply to destroy. In this passage it is a part of rebirth process that will produce the new heaven and ear
Read more