Expressing Christian Love Through Service

Exeter Temple Bible Notes 24th February 2013
Living a life of sacrificial loving service is inherent in the DNA of the Salvation Army. Every soldier declares that they are “saved to serve”. That is what the two “S” on the uniform stand for. The Salvation Army hasn’t just made this idea up. It is a call that comes straight from the word of God. Philippians 2:5-8
“You attitude should be the same of that of Christ Jesus who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to death even death on a cross!”
Many of us have been taught to be a bit wary of ambition. We have perhaps had experience of people with ambition and they have been rather selfish and ruthless.
Jeremiah 45:5 asks the question, “Should you then seek great things for yourself? Seek them not.”
Yet these verses don’t tell us not to have ambition. In other parts of the Bible Jesus us to engage in asking, seeking and knocking. Paul talks about pressing on towards a goal. Peter talks about making every effort to gain possession of certain things. The important thing is to make sure we are ambitious for the right things. Jeremiah, Jesus, Peter and Paul show us that we are should be seeking to do God’s will, to be the best God can make us both individually and corporately. We are to seek the rule and reign of God in our own lives and in the world around us.
But how do we do this? Normally when we want something badly enough the method is to be first, push, shove, use and exploit every avenue to get it.
But this is not the way of Christ. He calls us to fulfil our ambition to build His kingdom through our mission by demonstrating sacrificial love.
It runs counter to conventional wisdom.
In society greatness is measure by how many people serve you and cater to your wants and needs. Servant-hood is not what the world would suggest as the best method to make gains, win friends and influence people but it is the way of Christ.
1. To Serve Christ we must serve other people
This does not mean we put ourselves completely under the influence of another person that we need to be someone’s puppet or a people pleaser. When we do things for other people so that they will be grateful to us and reward us accordingly that is not service but manipulation.
It is Christ who should be our master and our Lord. Nevertheless we will find very quickly as we read God’s word and we are led by the Spirit of Christ that we will be challenged to give service to others. There may be some who want to separate their service for God from serving mankind but Jesus never did.
Warren Johnson who was part of the Salvation Army’s Spiritual Life Commission said, “Service is a practical ministry. It is not only a reaching out into the body of believers with the heart of a servant it is also reaching out to a desperate and dying world with love in action.”

2. We are called to simple service.
Most of the time, we will be called to do very ordinary things usually for one person at a time.
DL Moody: “I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything but I can do something and that which I can do by the grace of God I will do.”
John Wesley: “Do all the good you can by all the means you can in all the ways you can in all the places you can at all the times you can as long as ever you can.”
Our service doesn’t have to be complicated, but to the level to which we are capable. This means it will cost us something. It will go beyond our convenience. We are called to sacrificial service. In Matthew 25:35-36 feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, caring for the sick and visiting the imprisoned are all areas that we can get involved in on lots of levels. Feeding the hungry can mean helping out a neighbour with a food parcel or it could mean organising a petition to governments to reduce third world debt.
Being a servant isn’t about a list of things we do. It is an attitude of mind and a daily lifestyle.
AW Tozer: “Before the judgment seat of Christ my service will be judged not by how much I have done but by how much I could have done. In God’s sight my giving is measured not by how much I have given but by how much I have left after I made my gift.”
If we are to be true servants of Christ then personal sacrifice will be involved. The Good Samaritan took risks; the risk that he would be viewed as the assailant, that the man was a decoy and he would be robbed; that the robbers were still there. There was the cost of time, the oil and wine, the cost of the inn. The compassionate person may also pay an emotional price as well. It is hard to go through times sharing the burdens of others. It is difficult because it affects you emotionally.

3. Service opens the door to people’s hearts.
There isn’t anybody who really cares how much you know. There isn’t anybody who really cares how much you have and where you been but when you care for them it opens a door to their hearts. In our modern world where all ideologies are suspect, where family and community is often broken down, it is loving, caring open Christian communities that will be profoundly attractive. Sacrificial loving serves opens hearts.
People are not just minds who need to receive the information of the gospel. Before they can hear its truth they often have to see it work and feel it it’s affect through us in ways that touch them materially, physically and emotionally.

Sometimes being a servant stinks. Superstar’s demands entertainment. Servants risk getting frustrated, bored and disappointed. Sometimes you can invest hours of time in a person they seem to respond to you. Sometimes you will be the ones who do all the running around, listen to someone’s problems over and over again, help them out time and time again and then they might join another Church. Servants can feel used and unappreciated.
Being a servant is tough and means facing the challenge that sometimes you don’t want people to move forward because your need to be needed.
At times it is making the choice of forsaking appearances for the sake of the ones you are trying to help. Sometimes it’s risking displeasure because to give people what they ask for is not what we should do. We also need to finish what we start. Jesus the servant king was able to say on the cross “IT IS FINISHED. We haven’t really served if we haven’t finished.” We need perseverance and loyalty.
We need to be very sure of our relationship with Jesus.
I read in my preparation that there are three kinds of servants. Slaves who are driven by fear, hirelings who are driven by wages and Sons who are driven by the love for the Father.
We belong to an organisation that is known for compassionate service, but we have to keep reminding ourselves that we are not driven by love of service or of busyness or by guilt or by the reward of a good reputation but by love for Christ.
Staying in love with Him is absolutely crucial to being a servant. The command to serve is impossible when we rely only upon our own love.
The promise of the Bible is that we don’t have to.
Romans 5:5 “And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us.”

God bless

Carol