Servants by Calling
If you had to ask 10-year-old Luke Powell what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would have said: a cricketer. If you knew me then, you’ll recall that cricket was everything to me! I always had a tennis ball to throw around. I would stand and play cricket shots for no reason (I still do that!)
For the longest time, cricket was all that mattered. You know what never crossed my mind as I thought about my adult life? Becoming a servant.
If you had to go around a class of grade 1 children and ask them what they want to be when they grow up, I don’t think that any of them would say I want to be a servant! Nobody really sets out to become a servant in life. In particular, in biblical times, servants and slaves were very badly treated. Being a servant meant you were subjected to abuse, mistreatment and hatred. You were looked down on by society and seen as nothing!
Servants of Christ
And yet Jesus comes along and says this is Mark 10: “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Imagine the confusion in the people’s hearts and minds when he said that! He wants us to become WHAT?
Even in today’s world, some church circles are very much about self-empowerment. Making much of ourselves because we are God’s! And before we know it, we’ve forgotten that we are called to humility and service above all.
Listen to the way the early church leaders described themselves:
- Paul in all of his letters, for example Rom 1:1, introduced himself as “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus”
- Peter too introduced himself as “Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ” (2 Pet 1:1)
- James, one of Jesus’ brothers does the same. Instead of looking for a bit of recognition for himself because of his brother, he opens his letter to the church with these words: “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”
- Jude, another of Jesus’ brothers does the same thing: Jude 1:1 “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James”
Called to Serve
Even in the Old Testament – Abraham, Moses, David were called “my servant”, by God. And do you remember when Joshua, leader of Israel, said to his people as they were settling into the Promised Land: “if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”
Would you say the same thing about yourself? Am I “Luke, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus” before I am anything else in this world? Can I say as for me and my house, we will SERVE the Lord?
Friends lets wake up in the mornings and ask ourselves not how can I get as much as I can out of God today? but how can I SERVE God today?
Because we are called, above all to be servants.
