Tangible Love
Notes
Transcript
Getting Outside
Getting Outside
So its kind of a big time here if you are at all interested in football. The state of Florida made a pretty decent showing, with all three teams making it into the playoffs. That’s pretty cool, Jacksonville and Miami put up good fights this year, so we’ll see what happens next year. Tampa, not so much. But that’s kind of besides the point. The point is that I really like sports, and particularly what I like to see is the dynamic that occurs when a team functions as a cohesive unit rather than as a set of individually talented people.
It’s pretty basic knowledge now that a group of the most talented people isn’t always the best team. It truly depends on the attitude of each of those people towards themselves and the team itself that determines whether or not the team is going to be successful. It turns out that often the fame and limelight of superstardom can cause a person to become self absorbed and focused on themselves, often to the detriment of the team. I’m sure you have got some ideas in your head of persons who have embodied this “the team lives to serve me” type of mentality. Typically they end up causing a great deal of harm and then leaving on less than wonderful terms.
However, when we look at teams that function together at a high level, regardless of how highly talented some of their players are, what you see is an attitude of servanthood. Don’t get it wrong, these are people who are idolized by many, who have more money than you and I will ever have, and who quite honestly don’t NEED to win. But they are people who set aside all of that in order to create something special. That something special is a culture of mutual love, equality, and service to one another.
There’s a pretty famous coach, author, and follower of Jesus named Tony Dungy who tells a story of his time serving as the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts while Peyton Manning was their quarterback. He was an excellent, hall of fame caliber player. But when the Colts drafted a young receiver out of Ohio State, Peyton did something quite uncanny for someone of his stature. He would make the 3 hour drive from Indianapolis Indiana to Columbus Ohio twice a week in order to go over the playbook and then run throwing plays to his new teammate because he couldn’t come join the team until he finished his senior year.
I mean this is Peyton Manning y’all. He was spending 12 hours a week just driving to make sure that this kid was going to be the best prepared he could possibly be, because that’s what was best for him and for his team. This kind of action, which is self giving and selfless, is really the core of how we have been called to live as followers of Jesus.
Jesus’s followers were offered a first hand look at what it looks like for someone to live a life of service — even when he didn’t need to. I mean Jesus had all the power of God, and yet used that power in a very unlikely way. But still, having witnessed all of this, Jesus’s followers had to learn a thing or two about having a servant’s heart. Check this interaction out from Mark’s Gospel.
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”
And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?”
And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”
So here we have two of Jesus’s longest tenured disciples asking Jesus to essentially share in his stature and glory when the kingdom comes. Like boys, you’ve missed the point. It’s not about you and your glory. Jesus responds essentially by saying “you don’t know what you’re asking for, because its gonna get real messy where I’m going.”
Mark details a bit more of the scene a few verses later.
When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John.
So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.
But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,
and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.
For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
Living to Serve
Living to Serve
Jesus’s words really lead us into this week’s spiritual discipline well. We’ve been in a series called Brand New in which we are discussing spiritual disciplines that we can practice in 2023 to Ignite our love for Jesus, stretch our love for our neighbors, and transform our spiritual journeys. And today we are obviously talking about the spiritual discipline of service. It’s important for us to learn from both the words and actions of Jesus on this topic, because, well, he was the best there ever was. The Greatest of all Time. The GOAT of serving.
And Jesus’s philosophy on service and greatness is what we find here in the his response to the disciples. You see the disciples were like the rest of us. And even though they were close in proximity to Jesus, that didn’t stop them from having little power struggles amongst themselves.
And we do this too don’t we. We do it within our families, within our workplaces, within our churches, and certainly within the superstructure of denominations. It’s easy to want to be the person who steers the ship, whose influence is felt and heeded.
But Jesus’s response to this is, “hey guys that’s not how my kingdom works. If you want to be great you’ve got be a servant.”
And this is quite the opposite of what conventional wisdom tells us about how the world works. But I think that if we look at reality, if we look at the people who are truly remembered with a fondness in our hearts, its those people who gave. We remember the impact and legacy of people like Mother Theresa, Princess Diana, and others who gave sacrificially over celebrities and -superstar athletes who cared only for their own careers. And that’s because the act of service is something that we are created for and commanded to engage in. It’s written into the very image of God that we carry.
When we serve we are living into our God given mandate on how we have been created to live. If you’ve listened to my preaching for any length of time you’ve likely heard me talk about the fact that God’s original command to the humans in the garden of Eden was that they were to work and till the earth as its humble caretakers. These words can also be translated “serve and guard” and we serve and guard this world when we give of ourselves in order to lean into and work towards the common good of all of God’s people.
Which I understand can be a politically charged statement in our current climate. It sounds radical. But check out Jesus’s words in Matthew 25 as they echo this sentiment.
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.
All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,
and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.
Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;
for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’
Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?
And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?
And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’
And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’
Jesus is quite direct. If you serve those in need then it is as if you are serving God himself. Now I’m not going to read it this morning, but the very next thing Jesus talks about is those who don’t help those in need. And it’s not desirable.
This is not something that is meant to scare you as much as it’s something that is meant to confirm in you that you are who you say you are. If we say we follow Jesus, but we don’t serve in the way that Jesus serves then we are fans of Jesus. We like to watch him on TV or from the stands. But that doesn’t put us on Jesus’s team. The fruit of our Christianity is in our service to others.
This doesn’t need to be some extravagant and lavish thing. It’s in the small decisions that we make day in and day out. Do you tip your server 20%? Do you let people into traffic? Do you every just guy the homeless person outside of 7/11 a coffee or breakfast. Do you do things to let your family know that you appreciate them?
Of course there are bigger and greater needs in our community. Where are you being called to make a difference in Fort Pierce? You can come and find out how the Multicultural Resource Center could use your gifts tomorrow at 1pm. You can sign up for Project Love Impact coming up in a few weeks. You can just love your neighbors in practical ways. But remember its not about you. Jesus said elsewhere that when you give you shouldn’t brag about it or do it seeking recognition.
A number of years ago I lost a friend of mine named Maurice, but everyone just called him Butch. He died of cancer that was caused by living a particularly hard life. Now Butch was a tough guy. He was a biker, ex-Army Ranger, and just generally rough around the edges kind of guy. Honestly I was kind of scared of him for a while. But we got close, and I’d go and visit with him when he was on hospice. And he’s sit there and complain about Democrats and Navy Seals. That’s just who he was. But what most people didn’t know was the other part of who he was.
He was a guy who would hear someone share that they were struggling to make ends meet and then anonymously put healthy amounts of cash in their coat pocket when they weren’t looking. He’d show up and leave bags of groceries on the doorstep of single parents who were struggling. He would drive anywhere at any time to help anyone who was in a jam. He was an electrician and he would hire people right out of jails and treatment centers to come and work for him. And he’d get burned sometimes. But he’d do it all again. And he’d never talk about it. He just did all of this stuff.
He’d say “Pastor I believe, but I just don’t think I’ve been good enough.” And I’d say that belief part was enough, but all that you’ve done is proof that Jesus is working in and through you.
You see the spiritual discipline of service is the means by which we recognize the deep price that Jesus paid serving us, and it’s how we show ourselves and the world that we are aligned with and have pledged our undying allegiance to that reality. We are people who are by nature always seeking a good deal. But let me tell you that grace is not cheap, what Christ did on the cross was not cheap. But when we live our lives without serving the world around us, then we really devalue the cost of our salvation. Our salvation is meant to be a driving force behind our love for the world. It’s meant to be a love that is tangible, that leaves a lasting mark, that changes the world.
I do enough funerals to know that people only remember how you served and loved the world around you. So this year I’m inviting you to pray about where God wants you to serve, and pray that God will open your eyes to where you can be Jesus to the world around you. You probably won’t have to look too far. Need is all around us, so how will you be a part of God’s solution?