Service and Fulfillment 1985

I'd like to really use the first lesson, the Old Testament lesson that Charlotte read, that general theme about serving. Choose this day whom you shall serve. But I'm not going to read that text.

I'd like to begin by reading from the book of Matthew, chapter 23, verse 1 and following. Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat. So practice and observe what they tell you, but not what they do.

For they preach, but do not practice. They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders. But they themselves would not move them with their finger.

They do all their deeds to be seen by men. For they make their phylacteries broad, these things that they stick up on their heads here, and their fringes long. And they love the place of honor at feasts, and the best seats in the synagogues, and the salutations in the marketplaces, and being called rabbi by men.

But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher and you are all brethren. And call no man father on earth, for you have one father who is in heaven. Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ.

He who is greatest among you shall be your servant. It's difficult for us to get the feeling of how unsettling those words of Jesus were when he first spoke them. Because we've all been brought up to think of the scribes and Pharisees as villains.

But in their own day, they were not villains. They were very successful people. And seen that way, they appeared to be people who had found fulfillment in their lives.

They were respected by everybody. When they went to the feast, they were given the seat of honor. When they went to the synagogue, they got the best position in the whole building.

And when they walked down the street, everybody said, good evening, rabbi. Good morning, sir. And they loved it, as we all do.

Along comes Jesus. And he says, that's not the way to fulfillment. Fulfillment in life is never found by being served, but by serving.

Never found by receiving honor from everybody, but by giving honor to our master and in his name to each other. And then he goes on, all through his teaching, elaborating on this. And I'd like to pick up again at Mark chapter 10, and Jesus, verse 42.

And Jesus said to them, called the disciples to him and said to them, you know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them, but it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be the greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever would be the first among you must be slave of all.

For the son of man also came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for men. Here we see Jesus comparing, really, the successful person of this world with a successful person of the kingdom. Now, you're a success in this world if you are driven to the very best hotel and the best entrance of the best hotel in a sleek limousine.

A man in uniform opens the door for you and greets you with great honor. Three bellhops run to grab your luggage. The manager is waiting in the lobby to escort you to the presidential suite.

Fresh flowers are on the table. The best food, the best wines are brought out. The city is just bowing down before you because you're a success.

Now, granted, you know, it may be that people are saying, oh, I don't want that. You know, we don't make names. Perhaps you want the limousine and this and that, but the idea, what I'm trying to say, is that we want, secretly we desire, even our sense of our own worth comes from people showing us that kind of respect and doing a little something for us once in a while.

By comparison, the successful person of the kingdom is quite different. And the model that Jesus gives for the successful person in the kingdom is not the mayor or the governor or the president or the rock star or the business tycoon or the Christian celebrity. And for all of these, we see, you know, people bowing straight, people run and do for them, people give them respect.

No, our model for the successful person of the kingdom is the Messiah himself washing his disciples' feet, praying for his friends, taking our sins down into the grave with him, and on the third day, breaking forth the firstborn of the new creation. Clearly, he's telling us that success is not in being served, but in serving. Now, this service that we're talking about is not some, you know, gloomy, depressing duty.

It's not some dull, boring, flat, religious lifestyle. We're talking about success. We're talking about fulfillment.

Being able to get up in the morning with something to live for. Being able to greet every single day with hope. Knowing where we're going, having a goal, a purpose.

A purpose which makes sense. A purpose that's worth living for and worth even dying for. And Jesus tells us that that kind of fulfillment, having that kind of life, is never in the limousine syndrome where people run and jump and bow and scrape and fight with each other to kiss the ground we walk on.

But that this fulfillment is only and always found in finding our true master and then serving him with everything we've got. Reading in Matthew 4, verse 8, Again the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. And he said to him, All these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me.

Jesus said to him, Be gone, Satan, for it is written you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. And what Satan's doing to Jesus is showing him the limousine. Here, you can have the limousine and everything that goes with it.

Everybody in the world will serve you and all you have to do is just turn around and serve little old me. And Jesus says, Get out of here. I haven't come to serve you, I've come to serve my Father.

And yet many of us fall into that trap. I've come to serve my Father. And never, never, never does Jesus look upon his service to his Father as drudgery.

His service to his Father was joy. It was fulfillment. It was his meat and drink.

As we read in John chapter 4, verse 31, Meanwhile the disciples besought Jesus, saying, Rabbi, you can call him Rabbi, only him. Eat. He said to them, I have food to eat of which you do not know.

So the disciples said to one another, Has anyone brought him food? Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. My food, my nourishment, my satisfaction is simply to serve my Father. And when we come into his kingdom and get under his blood and are filled with his Spirit, our food is to serve God.

Now, the truth is, God alone knows our hearts, but he can see them, that much of the time many of us feel far from fulfilled. We're frustrated and all bent out of shape and not sure if we're worth anything at all. And this is true even if we should have the great big sleek limousine or anything comparable.

And even if we are in a position where we're getting a little bit of respect, and we can buy our way here and there and go where we want, even those of us who have that kind of freedom are still in doubt. Many times we are feeling very fulfilled. And what we need to see is that the limo syndrome, which is as always the human race, is a disease.

And the pursuit of it is a disease. There is only one way to fulfillment as far as Jesus is concerned in the kingdom of God, and that is not to be served but to serve. And he gets quite specific.

He shows us, you could say, a four-step way to the fulfilled life. Step number one to fulfillment is to find the right master. First thing, find the right master.

Everybody is serving a master of some kind. Without exception, you're serving somebody or something. Who is it? What is it? Jesus said, You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.

You can't serve God and mammon. And the big popular Christian gospel today is that you can serve God and money. Jesus says you can't.

Make up your mind. What are you serving? What are you going to do about this? That's what he says to us. He says, The light of the body is the eye.

If the eye is single, the whole body will be full of light. And to have a single eye is to have an eye that is aimed at God. And looking to Him as a servant looks to his master.

Who am I serving? Who am I giving my thought to? Who am I spending my energy upon? Where is my time going? Where are my possessions being spent? And it begins really with worship. If we worship God, we are giving ourselves, we are presenting ourselves to Him. We are giving ourselves to Him.

And if we begin even today in this place to worship God, we'll begin to get again on the right track of service to Him. You could say that this gathering which takes place here week after week is like a, it should be, and in many ways it really is, an island of peace in an ocean of confusion, a turbulent sea, where we week after week remind ourselves and help to remind each other who our master really is and give ourselves to His service again and begin to worship Him and get on the right track once again. Second step toward fulfillment is to serve God with a clear conscience.

You know, many of us, if we're really honest, have to admit that much of our service to God is kind of working off of guilt. You know, I'm feeling guilty. You know, whenever somebody puts me on a guilt trip, then I move.

You know, and sometimes the dynamics of whole churches is built, you know, underneath, this is what's going on. You know, and you can get all kinds of things out of people by playing on guilt. But that's not, that's dead worse.

When we serve God with a clear conscience, then it's joy. It's not drudgery. It's not heaviness.

It's tremendously joyful. Reading from Hebrews chapter 9, verse 11. But when Christ appeared as the high priest of good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, He entered once for all into the holy place, taking not the blood of goats and calves, but His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead worse to serve the living God? It's a mystery. Who understands it? But it works. The blood of the Lamb has the power to cleanse.

It cleanses the guilt, washes away even our predisposition to sin, gives us something fresh and new to begin with. And that's the place where we go again and again. We're coming to get cleansed.

We come to get washed. So that we aren't going around on a treadmill of guilt. Everything we're doing, we're doing because if I don't, I'll go to hell.

Or somebody will think bad of me. Or this or that will happen to me. But what I do now, I do out of thanksgiving because He's given me heaven.

He's taken away the fear of hell. He's made me His son, His daughter. I'm a new child.

I'm His. And so I give my life back to Him in praise and thanksgiving. So what do we do with the guilt that we have right now? The things that we're not feeling very good about.

The things that we've done even today or this past week. Or the things that are haunting us from our past. We bring them to the cross.

You don't work that off. You bring that to the cross. He's the one who takes that away.

You bring it to the cross and He says, My child, your sins are forgiven. We bring it to the altar today. And here He says, This is my body broken for you.

This is the blood of the new covenant. My blood shed for your sins. Receive it.

You're forgiven. Go in peace. And having received that, we can go out there and we can serve Him with joy.

Step number three toward the fulfilled life is to serve God in the body. In the body of Christ. Reading from John chapter 13, verse 12.

When Jesus had washed their feet and had taken His garments and resumed His place, He said to them, Do you know what I've done to you? You call me teacher and Lord and you are right, for so I am. Don't call anybody else teacher or Lord, but He is. If I then, your teacher and Lord, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

For I've given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. The place where we learn to serve God, first of all, is in the body. And we learn to serve God by washing each other's feet.

And sometimes we get all mixed up trying to figure out what's my gift. The Lord hasn't told me what my gift is. I don't know if I'm supposed to prophesy or heal.

And the Lord says, wash feet. Start washing feet. And every other gift you have will come out.

Now that's something everybody can do. Washing feet meaning to serve each other. To bring encouragement to each other.

To bring blessing to each other. Now every single one of us, without exception, has a gift of grace for the body. Everybody.

A word of encouragement. A little material help for somebody in need. Certainly intercession.

There's not one of us who can't take the time, if we will, to pray for our brothers and sisters. Lift them up before the throne. Daily.

And as we do this, as we begin to serve each other, we are fulfilled. Now we're getting on to how to do this. And as we serve one another, then we're able to go out and bring life to the world.

By this, all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. He's not talking about goo and, you know, some kind of schmutz. He's talking about deeds.

Action. Not feelings of, oh, I feel so loving. No, I'm sorry, I can't.

I'm busy today. You know, but doing. Maybe, I don't feel like doing it.

But you get up and you do it. That's love. Never mind how you feel.

You did it. And finally, step number four, toward the fulfilled life, is to feed that world out there with the bread of God. Remember how Jesus took the five loaves, lifted them up toward his father and gave thanks for them, and broke them.

The next thing he did was give them to the disciples. And the disciples took them and ran out there and fed the multitude with this bread. That's precisely what he does here today.

He takes himself, broken and shed, and gives himself to us. Take a knee. My body.

Give it for you. Take a drink. My blood.

Shed for yourself. Then he says, now, go out there and feed the world. Give them a living word.

I am the living bread which came down from heaven, so that if a man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. But how will they eat that bread unless you take it to them? And in taking the bread out and feeding those people out there, we are fulfilling our purpose. We're doing something of eternal value.

Finally, going back into the book of Mark, one more time, picking it up at verse 35 of chapter 10, James and John, typical of all of us, the sons of Zebedee came forward to Jesus and said to him, Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. He said, What do you want me to do for you? They said to him, Just a little thing here. How about granting us each a seat at your right hand, one at your right hand, and one at your left in your kingdom and in your glory.

Jesus said to them, You don't know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am to be baptized? They said, We are able. Jesus said to them, The cup I drink, you will drink.

And you remember, James was one of the first to be killed. And with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized. But to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.

When the ten heard it, they began to be indignant with James and John because they were made of the same stuff and they beat them to it. You know? Really. And, you know, this is a picture of you and me.

This is us. You know, and we're all, you know, it's the limo syndrome. Let us have the limo.

You know, let us be, you know, I know you're going to be the chief one, Lord, but let us be right there next to you in glory. And Jesus says, That is never the way to fulfillment. Never.

You're wasting your time. You're on the wrong track. You can waste your whole life chasing after the limo.

Don't do it. This is the way to fulfillment. Jesus called them to him and said to them, You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.

It was interesting, you know, all this going on about the buying of the Detroit News or the evening news association, you know, and all the limos pulling up and all this stuff going on. Typical. And that's a symbol, I mean, and we look at the men who were involved in this and we say, There's a guy who really did it.

He's arrived. Not to knock him. He may be a man of God sitting in that limo.

You know, he may well be a servant of the Lord, a prophet, a man. Then again, maybe he isn't. But that's not where it is.

You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But with you, it shall not be so. Uh-uh.

Whoever would be great among you must be your servant. That is a command. And whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.

For the Son of Man also came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. Fulfillment is to find the right master and serve Him with everything we've got. And we can do that afresh today, to serve God and worship Him.

Fulfillment is to serve God with a clear conscience, a conscience washed in the blood of the Lamb. You've got guilt feelings, you've done something wrong, you're still dragging around something from your past, bring it to the altar and give it to Him. Let Him wash it away.

Fulfillment is to serve God in the body of Christ by washing each other's feet. We can do that today. If you're willing, God will send into your life, before you leave this building, somebody whose feet need to be washed by you.

And finally, fulfillment is to take the bread of God out there and feed the world with it, so that whoever eats of this bread, of which we've already tasted, may live forever. Let's just think about that for a minute in silence.