Pastoral - Christ Serves Us

Generous God: Christ Serves Us

The previous four years of my life were spent in the U.S. Coast Guard on active duty in various locations within the United States. One of my more memorable units that I was stationed at was in Mobile, Alabama aboard a 175 ft. ship that performed maintenance on the gigantic buoys that line the commercial ship channels. Coming into the Coast Guard, I expected The Guardian with Ashton Kutcher, but I received a construction site. I was routinely convinced that the Lord was punishing me when he sent my family to the functional purgatory that is Mobile, especially in the summers when the heat index would reach 115 degrees. However, there were multiple moments when I was stationed on that ship that the Lord really moved inside of my heart. One of those moments was when we were servicing the buoys from the Mobile Ship Channel and we were short one man. A typical buoy would take about an hour with a full crew. Because we were short one, that time was somewhere around one hour and forty-five minutes per buoy. When this happened, we would usually arrive home a day late. However, that day was not going to be one of those days. Instead of running with 4 out of 5 men, the Commanding Officer of our ship came down to the deck. He wasn’t wearing his standard USCG Dress Uniform with his two shoulder boards and smorgasbord of ribbons. Rather, he was dressed in work overalls, steel-toe boots, and a hardhat ready to work for the next 8 hours. If you know anything about military structure at all, you will know that this is not normal; the highest ranked person on the boat does not come down and work with the lowest rank. He had the power to ask anyone else on the ship to work, but instead took that job himself to serve the crew.

            While this example is not perfect, it reminded me of what Jesus did for us. Although he was the King, he didn’t remain on his throne; rather, the king stepped down from his throne to not only serve his people, but also pay the debt that they owed. We see this most clearly in Philippians 2:5–7:

            Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.   

While God would have been just and right if he left us to our own devices, he didn’t. Instead, in the greatest act of humility and grace, Christ stepped down from his rightful place as King to serve the lowest of peasants. Jesus, the God that holds everything together in the universe, both macro and micro, by the word of his power, took on flesh to serve and redeem his people. Jesus perfectly displayed to us what he meant when he said in Matthew 23:11:

The greatest among you shall be your servant.

Jesus embraced the role as a servant as an identity. In the Old Testament, Isaiah prophesied about Jesus and referred to him as the suffering Servant of God (Isaiah 40–53). From the gate, Jesus primary role as the Christ was going to be in the role of a servant. In Jesus’ life we see him:

• Change water to wine so that a wedding celebration can continue (John 2:1-11)
• Heal a man with leprosy (Matthew 8:1-4)
• Heal a man that was born blind (Matthew 9:1-12)
• Heal a woman that had a blood disease (Matthew 9:20-22)
• Raise Lazarus from the dead (John 11:19-44)
• Washes the feet of his disciples (John 13:1-17)
• Feeds  a crowd of 5000 that were following him (14:13-21)
• Heals a Samaritan (Luke 17:15-19)

These are just a few examples in the Gospels where we see a life of serving from Jesus. Yet, these examples are not the most incredible way that he served his people. Jesus identity as a servant was clearly shown in his life, in was more clearly shown in his death. Jesus, in an effort to serve his people, bore the weight of our sins on the cross to satisfy the wrath of God that was meant for us. In his death, Jesus held true to the prophecy that he would be a suffering Servant of God, and did so to the glory to God and the good of his Kingdom.

           The Gospel is the epitome of what it means to be a servant. The Gospel is the fountain that we draw from to drive our serving. My heart for Providence is that we would be a church that serves because we understand that Christ first served us; that that our motivation is to become more like Jesus, whose identity was a servant. My prayers are that our serving would be an extension of our worship, not the object of our worship. Most burn out happens because something other than Christ is the object of our worship. This is when most people try to hit the eject button on serving, not realizing that serving was never the issue; their object of worship was. Healthy servants are healthy worshipers. Healthy servants laser their focus on the finished work of Christ.

Reflection:

What is your motivation to serve? Is serving an extension of your worship of Christ? Why or why not? (Hint: the easiest way to know: How do you feel when you are scheduled to serve? Are you excited? Burdened? If it is the latter, then something other than Jesus might be your object of worship.)