Be Served
I am about to include a quote here that sometimes I wish I never read. It goes this way:
“You know how far along you are to becoming a servant by how you react when you are treated like one.”
Great. That means, whenever I squirm under someone’s thumb, I show how much less like Jesus I am. He is the greatest servant that ever lived - not only because he stooped so low to be one, but because he squirmed the least. He came to serve (he said so himself) and we find him not only washing his disciple’s feet, but healing multitudes, feeding thousands, teaching all who would listen, and inevitably giving his very life for the whole world. He didn’t resist the betrayal, the punches, the flailing, the lies, the mockery, or the nails. He never squirmed.
So what about me. How does Christ’s servant-hood help me to be a better servant? Well, I’m going to try to shock you and say – it doesn’t help one bit – at least as far as an example goes. It would be like trying to imitate Donovan Bailey (100m Gold). I’m not made of the right stuff to do it. Once again, the Christian life is ultimately not to be imitated, but to be reproduced. What’s the difference between imitation and reproduction? One is not real, while the other is. That’s the difference. An imitation can fool a lot of people, but the money is always on the genuine article. Christ is the servant. I will become more like him not because I’m good at emulating him, but because I let him serve ME. Read that again if you have to. When Jesus went to wash Peter’s feet, Peter said, “No Lord! May it never be!” He realized in part what Jesus was doing. The King of planets and atoms was bending down to clean up his filthy feet. But the Maker of water and wool replied, “unless I wash your feet, you have no part with me.” That’s an absolute statement. No part with Christ, unless he serves you.
The truth is, believers stop allowing Christ to work in their lives all the time. All the while, they wonder why he is not working. When we try to simply imitate the Lord, we undermine the cross. The cross says, “there is no possibility of human effort to achieve spiritual ends.” It’s a hard lesson to learn because it is the exact opposite of our nature. When we are treated like a servant, we feel it don’t we? We chafe under it. It is grating to us. We want to rise up and smite the oppressor! But to find the cross to be the operative agent in our lives, we need to be submissive to the very factors that led Christ to it.
The cross goes to the root of the problem. We want to be more like Christ, but WE are unable. But HE is able. The only way you will ever be more like Christ, is to trust that the cross took the best man that ever lived – and somehow made more of him! I don’t think that’s blasphemy. What I mean is, Jesus himself is the grain he talked about in John’s gospel, that went into the ground, died and REPRODUCED itself. The cross was the means by which the Lord Jesus Christ grew. His Body is growing. We are that body. It’s a strange thought, I know, but I have to continually submit to this idea – this truth – that God is not forming some kind of club or institution. He is supernaturally, super-organically growing the Bride of Christ. Just as Eve was taken out of Adam, made of the very same stuff (woman means “taken out of man”), we are made out of Jesus – not that we share in the “I AM” divinity or “become God” or anything like that. It’s hard to put into words, but the Word has been put into us.
So let Jesus serve you. He doesn’t get tired of it. We really don’t even test his inexhaustibility do we? Let’s try. Watch him work. He does all things well, you know. Trust the One who both could not do more and would not do less. Isn’t that a good definition for a servant? He’s waiting…
BJ
“You know how far along you are to becoming a servant by how you react when you are treated like one.”
Great. That means, whenever I squirm under someone’s thumb, I show how much less like Jesus I am. He is the greatest servant that ever lived - not only because he stooped so low to be one, but because he squirmed the least. He came to serve (he said so himself) and we find him not only washing his disciple’s feet, but healing multitudes, feeding thousands, teaching all who would listen, and inevitably giving his very life for the whole world. He didn’t resist the betrayal, the punches, the flailing, the lies, the mockery, or the nails. He never squirmed.
So what about me. How does Christ’s servant-hood help me to be a better servant? Well, I’m going to try to shock you and say – it doesn’t help one bit – at least as far as an example goes. It would be like trying to imitate Donovan Bailey (100m Gold). I’m not made of the right stuff to do it. Once again, the Christian life is ultimately not to be imitated, but to be reproduced. What’s the difference between imitation and reproduction? One is not real, while the other is. That’s the difference. An imitation can fool a lot of people, but the money is always on the genuine article. Christ is the servant. I will become more like him not because I’m good at emulating him, but because I let him serve ME. Read that again if you have to. When Jesus went to wash Peter’s feet, Peter said, “No Lord! May it never be!” He realized in part what Jesus was doing. The King of planets and atoms was bending down to clean up his filthy feet. But the Maker of water and wool replied, “unless I wash your feet, you have no part with me.” That’s an absolute statement. No part with Christ, unless he serves you.
The truth is, believers stop allowing Christ to work in their lives all the time. All the while, they wonder why he is not working. When we try to simply imitate the Lord, we undermine the cross. The cross says, “there is no possibility of human effort to achieve spiritual ends.” It’s a hard lesson to learn because it is the exact opposite of our nature. When we are treated like a servant, we feel it don’t we? We chafe under it. It is grating to us. We want to rise up and smite the oppressor! But to find the cross to be the operative agent in our lives, we need to be submissive to the very factors that led Christ to it.
The cross goes to the root of the problem. We want to be more like Christ, but WE are unable. But HE is able. The only way you will ever be more like Christ, is to trust that the cross took the best man that ever lived – and somehow made more of him! I don’t think that’s blasphemy. What I mean is, Jesus himself is the grain he talked about in John’s gospel, that went into the ground, died and REPRODUCED itself. The cross was the means by which the Lord Jesus Christ grew. His Body is growing. We are that body. It’s a strange thought, I know, but I have to continually submit to this idea – this truth – that God is not forming some kind of club or institution. He is supernaturally, super-organically growing the Bride of Christ. Just as Eve was taken out of Adam, made of the very same stuff (woman means “taken out of man”), we are made out of Jesus – not that we share in the “I AM” divinity or “become God” or anything like that. It’s hard to put into words, but the Word has been put into us.
So let Jesus serve you. He doesn’t get tired of it. We really don’t even test his inexhaustibility do we? Let’s try. Watch him work. He does all things well, you know. Trust the One who both could not do more and would not do less. Isn’t that a good definition for a servant? He’s waiting…
BJ
posted by BJ at 11:00 a.m.
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