Starting in Bolivia, God has been teaching me a lot about true, selfless service. The kind where you learn to keep on giving of yourself to the people around you despite what you will or will not get in return.
The following blog is a conglomeration of my thoughts about service in relation to the Gospel. It is also a condensed version of a talk I had the opportunity to give a couple times in Peru, once to some squad mates and once to a church.
—
“This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” -1 John 4:10
The purpose of the salvation offered to us in the Gospel isn’t to escape this broken world so we can get to heaven. In dying to transform us, Jesus also offered salvation to transform the world. He came to earth to redeem us and the whole world.
Jesus wasn’t just a great guy, he was GOD. Reality for us, as Christians, is that a man on a cross DIED loving people who didn’t love him, forgiving people who abused him, and sacrificially serving people who opposed him. As people who believe in the gospel, as Christ-followers, we’re called to serve others. To love others unconditionally, no matter how they treat us.
In Jeremiah 29, God calls the children of Israel into the city of Babylon to seek it’s peace, seek it’s prosperity; to work for peace and prosperity for people that DON’T agree with them.
Ultimately, we should always be looking for opportunities to serve each other, whether it’s a person we’re meeting for the first time, or if it’s the people we’re around all the time. If we take the gospel into the center of our lives, we’ll be humbled and we’ll serve, because our entire life is built on this incredible example of true love, humility, and service.
“Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.” -Luke 22:26-27
Approach someone on the street and ask them what this world needs. They will probably tell you that we need peace. If you take the heart of the Gospel into yourself and really own it, it will compel you to be the exact thing that this world needs; and what the world needs are agents of peace, reconciliation, and service (Timothy Keller)
Don’t you want to be that in the world? Don’t you want to release this incredible force of goodness in the world? (Timothy Keller)
“There was a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man coming into the world.” -John 1:6-9
How beautiful would it be, would WE be, if we served to the end of ourselves? What choice would we then have but to rely entirely on the holy spirit, on Jesus, to fuel us, to fill us back up?
If the love we give to each other shines the love of Christ, we can show this light by serving those around us and directing them to Christ.
Obviously this doesn’t mean that it’s something that will be easy, so I want to leave you with a few questions to challenge yourself with (they still challenge me every day), and ask God to answer for you:
1. What parts of my sin nature are keeping me from serving the people around me? What parts of myself need to die to make me a better or more willing servant?
2. What am I going to DO to be a better servant?
After all, “we don’t think ourselves into a new way of living; we live ourselves into a new way of thinking (Richard Rhor).
I want to encourage you today to keep on pursuing those around you through service. Or if you feel like you need to begin serving more, then I encourage you to start. This doesn’t mean people will notice that you’re serving, that they will thank you for it, or that they will reciprocate with the same amount of service. We serve because serving is one beautiful way we can share the hope that we have found in Jesus Christ’s sacrifice.
Allow me to testify that if you step out in faith and serve with the right heart, God will be faithful and fill you with an overabundance of patience, joy, and peace.
—
Special thanks to Timothy Keller’s sermon “Exclusivity: How can there be just one true religion?” for helping me relate my experiences with service to a biblical foundation. I definitely used some of his thoughts from that sermon to outline this blog/talk.
