In the Line of Duty — Selfless Service

This weekend culminates Military Appreciation month as we appreciate those that made the ultimate sacrifice for their country through selfless service; in fact, that is what I want to discuss today. So far we have covered “bravery”, “joy” or “delighting” in the Lord, “integrity” and last week “loyalty”. Loyalty is our faithfulness to our commitments to God, that when given the choice between God and anything else, we choose God. I wonder how many of us had opportunities this week to display your loyalty towards God over something or someone else? I know I did. So the premise of the series is this; in the line of duty we become more like Christ. As we fulfill our duty before God to obey His Word in every area of our lives, we grow in stature and maturity in these characteristics that should mark our lives like “courage”, “joy”, “integrity” and “loyalty”.

Now, understand and be encouraged that it doesn’t happen overnight. More often than not it is imperceptible growth that takes place over time as we consistently do what we ought to do according to God’s Word, the Bible. And that is how we defined Christian Duty — That which I owe Jesus Christ. That which I am bound by natural, supernatural, moral and legal obligation. Obedience and submission to God. Reverence and respect towards my heavenly Father. What I ought to do according to God’s Word, the Bible.

Our main passage of scripture for this series is found in Ecclesiastes 12:13.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 (NIV) 13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.

Now we’ve said that duty is what we do even when we don’t feel like doing it. But we don’t want what we do to be some legalistic, robotic, joyless existence because that is not how God created us to live. We want what we do to be motivated by love and affection towards Jesus. So we want to move from mere duty-driven Christianity to doing what we love to do, because what we love to do is what we ought to do. I love that! That’s my prayer now.

I want to look at a characteristic that embodies who we are to be because it embodies who Jesus was and is. Also it is the most outward-focused action-oriented core value of the core values we have looked at thus far. Today we are talking about selfless service. You might ask, isn’t all service “selfless”? I wish that it was, but I don’t have to look much further than my own heart at times to know that is not true. It is possible to serve with the sole intention of trying to be recognized and also for what you could get out of it and this would be known as self-righteous service. We are not talking about political or celebrity photo ‘opps’ of us serving the disenfranchised so we can look good. We are talking about selfless service where we serve for the sole purpose of doing something for someone else expecting nothing in return.

Here is the point this morning — Saved people serve people. Period. It is that simple (in theory but not always in execution). If Jesus has saved you and you belong to Him you serve people. Why? Well let’s say it this way, saved people serve people because the Savior served us first.

To be saved means to be invited into a relationship of becoming more and more like Jesus who was a servant of all Himself. Jesus said this,

Matthew 20:28 “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

What was the result of Jesus being willing to serve us? Our salvation. I was saved because Jesus served me, lovingly humbling Himself to meet my great need, knowing I could never repay Him — so… the least I can do is serve Him so that others might be saved. Here is the impetus behind why we do what we do as a church; Jesus made a way for me to be saved by serving me so I make a way for others to be saved by serving them. This perspective is the only way for our church to stay healthy and growing, and to fulfill our mission to reach people with the good news of Jesus Christ.

The word servant comes from the Greek word doulos, which means to be enthralled with or one bound to serve. Webster’s defines it this way, to work for, carry out the duties of, to be used by… and if we would insert the word God after all of those phrases we would have a good definition today.

Saved people serve people. So let me establish whom we are to serve. We are to serve God, we are to serve our brothers and sisters in Christ and we are to serve the lost. They all go hand in hand, here’s what it looks like… Salvation makes you a servant of God, and God puts his servants together in a loving community called the church where we prove our love for God by serving one another. This loving community of servants called the church then exports their love for God and one another to the lost by serving them. We serve God, we serve each other and we serve the lost because saved people serve people and served people become saved people.

That should excite us, motivate us, bring us joy… And we’ve said all along we want our duty to be our delight, so in line with that we want our service to motivated by love and gratitude. A saved heart is one that wants to serve or we must question whether or not Christ is really in our lives. Theirs is nothing quite as underwhelming and unappealing as forced service. The grumpy greeter, the angry usher, the pouting pastor, the whiny worship leader. (Unless you are serving with us you can’t laugh that any of those.) We cna broaden the scope and say there is nothing quite as unappealing as a joyless Christian serving. Jesus served so I must serve. But not “must serve” out of compulsion but “must serve” out of delight. Selfless service is motivated by love.

God’s Word gives us some insight into the motivation for service in an amazing story found in Luke 7:36–50. I won’t read it all but as the story goes the disciples are gathered together with Jesus at the house of one of the religious leaders (A Pharisee named Simon). As they are reclining around the table for dinner their meeting is interrupted by a woman only described as a “woman who lived a sinful life.” I think this is interesting that she remains nameless because it describes all of us positionally before we met Jesus. We were all just a sinful person with a sinful life until Jesus stepped in and forgave us much.

Verse 38, As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

This is an amazing picture of extravagant love and worship but all the religious leaders become indignant because of her reputation as a sinner. However, Jesus is never offended by sinners who interrupt him; he is a friend to all who call on His name for help.

So Jesus decides to make a point with Simon by telling him this story.

41 “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”43 Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

He then goes on to make a comparison between the woman’s response to Jesus versus Simon’s response to Jesus

44 I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven — as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

Now, let’s not misinterpret this comparison. Jesus is pointing out that Simon doesn’t understand the forgiveness of sinners if he thinks that he’s only been forgiven a “little.” If we understand what Jesus is trying to communicate to Simon this would be our own thinking, “No one should love Jesus more than me because no one has been forgiven more than me.” Bottom line, there is no such thing as “forgiven little” for a sinner.

Well didn’t Jesus just make a comparison? Yes, because he was pointing out that her service toward Jesus was motivated by extravagant love because she recognized how much Jesus had forgiven her. On the other hand Simon knew nothing of love and gratitude toward Jesus, because he knew nothing of the forgiveness and salvation Jesus brings. He thought he’d been forgiven a little which meant he’d not been forgiven at all because if he’d truly experienced the forgiveness and salvation that Jesus brings his heart would have been full of love and gratitude and he would have served Jesus the same way as this “sinful woman.”

Until we realize how much Jesus has forgiven us by serving us to death, we can’t love and serve like Him. It wasn’t she loved God so much he forgave her, it was that God loved her so much that he forgave her and she was so grateful that her love could not be contained for Him and she served him this way.

Hasn’t God forgiven you much? I know he has forgiven me much and I give him much more to forgive me for on a daily basis. So I am so overcome with love for Jesus for what He has done for me, I am so grateful that He served me that the desire of my heart is to serve Him. To reiterate our definition, I am enthralled with him, bound to Him; therefore I am bound serve my brothers and sisters in Christ and bound to serve those that are lost.

Selfless Service is motivated and precipitated by great love. God’s great love for me and then mine for Him.

I’d like to point out a few other characteristics of serving that we can see from this story. Selfless service doesn’t care what anyone else thinks except God the Father. It is marked by humility. Humility is obvious in this story. Our forgiven woman does not care what anyone else thinks when it comes to serving and loving Jesus. She’d been forgiven so she just wanted to serve because of her gratitude and love for Jesus. She took the lowest most menial task and did it like it was her greatest joy. Selfless service is marked by humility. We don’t do it for recognition or what we can get out of it because it is humbling and humilty places us squarely in the middle of God’s presence.

Selfless service is costly. This expensive perfume was probably her entire inheritance some commentators believe. It basically represented her life that she was willing to give up for the one who saved her; she was willing to pour her life out for Jesus.

This is why Paul said in Philippians 2 he was being poured out…

17 Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.

Paul tells the church that Jesus humbly came and took on the form of a bondservant, took our place on the cross so that we could be his hands and feet in the earth today by pouring out our lives for Him.

We understand service is costly from a practical standpoint in the sense that serving is never typically convenient. No, it’s humbling, costly and by its very nature selfless service causes me to deny myself while I look to the good of someone else. It is in those moments where I thought I had nothing to give, no energy to offer, no time to sacrifice that God’s grace comes flooding in to make me more like Jesus, while pointing others to the sacrificial love of Jesus. So if you are wondering if you have grace to serve the answer is yes but here is a simple fact, you can’t operate in the grace of God to be a servant until you are actually serving. Serving God, serving your brothers and sisters in Christ and serving the lost. God has grace for you in all of that, but it is only experienced in the actions of service.

Here is a good rule of thumb when it comes to service, Self-righteous service comes through human effort and yields nothing, selfless service comes from the gentle leading of Jesus Christ and makes us more like Him.

Here is the last thing I see in this story of the feet washing, selfless service is worship. Romans 12:1.

1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God — this is your true and proper worship. (NIV)

Or as another translation puts it, that’s the most sensible way to serve God.

We don’t serve God out of guilt or fear, but out of joy, and deep gratitude for what he’s done for us. We owe him our lives. Through salvation our past has been forgiven, our present is given meaning, and our future is secured. In light of these incredible benefits Paul concluded that service was worship. Worship is love responding to love, so God so loved us that He gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. Because of that great love for me I am filled with love for God so I worship Him by serving Him. True worshipers are servants just as true servants are worshipers.

Now, there is one other story I want to mention and it’s found in John 13. Just one chapter after the disciples had witnessed this extravagant form of service, they are reclining around a table preparing for the final Passover where Jesus, the Lamb of God, would become the once-and-for-all sacrifice for sin. In the midst of this holy backdrop, in certain accounts, there is an argument going on between the disciples about who is going to be the greatest in God’s Kingdom. So Jesus shuts the argument down, not by giving an eloquent rebuke, but by serving the disciples through washing their feet. I love how Pastor Chuck Swindoll painted the picture, “The room was filled with proud hearts and dirty feet. The disciples were willing to fight for a throne, but not a towel.”

So Jesus starts to wash their feet and Peter tries to stop him:

8, “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” 9 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” 10 Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean.

Jesus uses two different verbs here, “bathe” and “wash”. What He was doing was giving a picture of the Christian life. Once he has bathed us, we have been cleansed from our sin once and for all — we are His; saved to serve. But in this life, we will need continued washings of forgiveness — not unto salvation but unto holiness. Amazingly Jesus not only served us by saving us, he continues to serve us by washing us clean through the forgiveness of our sins on a daily basis. Incredible.

You cannot be saved until you are first served. That is the gospel. The savior served us by laying down His life and washing us clean with His blood. Because of this great act of service towards us we also must serve. Here is another truth we see here. We cannot serve like Jesus until we have been served by Jesus.

And just so we could be sure that no Christian is exempt from this type of towel and basin life Jesus says this,

13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

You see Jesus’ motivation was because He loved His father. He said God sent Him and the messenger was not greater than the one who sent Him. So for us we are certainly not greater than the one who saved us so we serve because he first served us.

Philippians 2:5–7

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!

We must be willing to humble ourselves and get our hands dirty. This is what we were saved to do, this is when we are the most like Jesus, this is when we truly are the church we are supposed to be. Saved people serve people because served people turn into saved people, (just like we did).

We want to be the hands and feet of Jesus and bring glory to God the Father, while bringing people face to face with Jesus, and Jesus showed us the way to do that is through selfless service. We can’t drift inward — but if we are motivated by the love of Jesus, in view of the love and mercy he lavished upon us when he saved us, we will become a compassionate community that must… wants… loves… to serves others. Then, we will see served people turn into saved people because saved people were willing to serve people.