Be a Servant For God

We are asking the question “Who Are You Following?” as we look at what it means to be a follower of Jesus. How we should choose to follow the ways of God instead of the ways of the world.

This week we focus on being a servant of God. Our scripture comes from Mark 9:30-37.

30 They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, 31 because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.” 32 But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it.

33 They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” 34 But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.

35 Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

36 He took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”

Please pray with me…

These last few weeks focusing on “Who Are You Following?” leads us to these last two weeks where we get to show are attentiveness to God through our actions. It is through our actions that we are showing God and the world who we are following.

It is through a servant heart which is what we are looking at this week and a willingness to follow the ways of God which is our focus next week. It is through following the example of Jesus and attempting to be the person that God desires for us to be that shows the world who we are following.

Answering this question will many times have more to do with “Who are you listening too?” Meaning,what are you allowing to have a greater impact on how you are living your life, the voices around you or what you have heard from God.

The voice of God meaning through what we read in scripture and through prayer and listening can often get quieted by the voices around us. That is why it can be difficult to consistently choose to follow God.

(Transition)

We start today where we left off last week with Jesus a second time explaining to his disciples what is about to happen to him. Last week the response was not positive as Peter tells Jesus he doesn’t know what he is talking about.

This week the disciples seem to be afraid. They heard from early on in their lives that the Messiah would be a conquering hero who would remove their enemies from their midst. Jesus seems to be saying the opposite.

They were confused but they also were afraid to speak up. Understandable since Jesus responded to Peter last week by saying “Get behind me Satan.” That was not the response that they wanted to receive if they spoke up.

We need to remember that God doesn’t mind us asking questions. Peter didn’t say last week, “Are you sure that is the plans of your Father?” He just made a statement basically telling Jesus he is crazy which led to the response that was received.

(Transition)

We again seem to have the disciples focusing on the bad news that Jesus will be killed instead of the good news that in three days Jesus will rise again. Jesus is saying “Yes, I will be defeated temporarily, but, in the end, I will even be able to defeat death.

The life of Jesus seems to be filled with these contradictions. On the one hand he was going to die, but yet he will conquer death. He was a Jewish Rabbi who didn’t follow the rules of the Sabbath like the rest of the Rabbis.

He tells us that he has not been sent to abolish the law but yet he has a focus on love and compassion. This is why the Christian faith can be so difficult for us to live out. It takes a balanced approach

If we are not careful, we can get so caught up in following God’s laws that we forget about love our neighbor. On the other hand, we can get so focused on loving our neighbor that we forget that God has designed a specific way for us to live our lives.

What can often happen to us is that how we were raised in the church or our family background if we weren’t raised in the church can lead to us deciding on how we live out our faith. We often find this balancing act having us leaning one way or the other.

There is a story about a woman who is cooking the turkey for Thanksgiving for the first time for her family and she takes the drumsticks off of the turkey and debones them and places them back in the pan. Her husband asked her why and she said because that’s the way you are supposed to cook a turkey.

Her husband said that he had never seen a turkey cooked that way. It led her to ask her mother why she took the drumsticks off the turkey before she cooked it. She said it was because her pan was to small to hold a whole turkey.

We can allow what has been done in our childhood effect the decisions that we make later on in life. We can have our spiritual understanding from when we were kids remain the way we believe today.

We are not supposed to stay stagnant in our faith. We are supposed to grow in our faith which may mean we may have to make changes in what we previously believed as the way Jesus wants us to live our lives.

(Transition)

I believe there is one aspect of the Christian faith that has no contradiction. Our focus is not to be on us. We are called to focus on living our lives by serving God and those around us. Meaning if we are going to be a follower of God, we are going to be a servant of God.

It is why we sing about God being the king of kings and lord of lords. He is the leader, and we are to be the followers. He is the shepherd, and we are to be his sheep. We are to let the commands of God help us to live our lives.

We can assume that the disciples believed Jesus, this is because of what they are doing while they were walking to Capernaum. They were arguing over who was going to be the next leader. They were trying to decide who would be the right person to replace Jesus.

Jesus knows what the bickering was about which leads him to decide that he needs to teach the disciples what it means to be one of his followers. Jesus had already been teaching them but now he needs to let them know what it will mean to be the one that would replace him as the leader.

(Transition)

He tells them and us that we need to place others before ourselves. We need to be focused on how we can serve those around us instead of focusing on how those around us can serve us. We are to choose to not follow the ways of the world. We are to choose to follow the ways of God.

We can see this best exemplified by Jesus’ right after his last meal with his disciples. The meal took place in a room in which they were borrowing so there was no actual host. It would normally fall upon the host or one of their servants to wash the feet of those in attendance.

None of the disciples were willing to fulfill such a role. They would be placing themselves below the other disciples if they would wash their feet. This leads Jesus to set the example. He gets up and calls the disciples forward to have him wash their feet.

(Transition)

If Jesus, the Rabbi, the Messiah, is not too good to serve others then none of us are too good to serve those around us. That is what makes Jesus different from other Lords. Jesus served those around him instead of expecting them to serve him.

Our first reading points out what can get in the way of us serving those around us. We can have “envy” or “selfish ambition.” We can be so focused on ourselves that we become unwilling to serve those around us.

This is most likely what the discussion on the road was about. Each one of the disciples had “selfish ambition” or “envy.” Meaning they either wanted to be the one in power or they didn’t believe that none of the others were good enough to be in charge of them.

(Transition)

In the end,Jesus chose Peter to be the leader but not in the sense of someone who will Lord over those around them. He was to be the rock. He was to be the foundation of how the church was to live out their calling.

We find out though that Peter was not in charge without any accountability. We have the Jerusalem Council led by Jesus’ brother James who would speak into any controversies. We also have Paul mainly being in charge of the ministry to those that were not Jewish.

The followers of Jesus were accountable to God and those in their community. This is similar to the church structure in the United Methodist church. I am accountable to God, the West Ohio Conference, and to each one of you. I am called to serve those around me just like each one of you is called to serve.

(Transition)

That is why the church is to be a place that focuses on others. The church should not be for us. The church should be a place where we learn and become prepared to reach out and serve those around us. It should be a safe place where we can invite those that are hurting. The church is to be there for those that need Jesus.

Jesus ends this section of scripture by taking a child and using the example of a child to point out that “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me.” This doesn’t seem controversial to us, but a small child was a burden on the family.

The family would need extra resources to support a small child. Almost every family lived what we would call paycheck to paycheck. Most of the time that meant that if the father didn’t work that day, it was possible there would be no food. A small child meant that there was an additional family member to feed.

What Jesus is saying to his disciples and to us is that we are to serve those that can offer us nothing in return. In fact, those we serve might only take and we will receive nothing. We are to not allow a person’s ability to help us as a church to be the reason for us to choose to serve them or not.

This is spoken of more clearly in James chapter 2 where it points out that the status of an individual in the community or in the church should have no impact on how they are treated by the church.

(Transition)

We are living out what God desires when we are seeking our wisdom from Heaven. When we are making decisions not out of selfishness but out of love to those around us and through our love for God.

We have a list of what that looks like from our first reading. We are to be pure in our actions. This would mean that we don’t have any ulterior motives. We are attempting to help those around us only because that is what God desires for us to do.

We are to be peace-loving. We are to do all that we can to stay away from conflict. We are to be the people that attempt to unite instead of divide. We are to offer calmness into the noise that is around us.

We are to be considerate. We are to look at a person and ask them how we can help them. The church is known for helping first and asking questions later. We should be asking how we can help and then attempting to help people the way they want helped.

We are to be submissive. This would be us remembering that what we do is not about us. It is about us serving God and those around us. Jesus bent down and washed the feet of his disciples. We are to be servants to those around us.

We are to be full of mercy and good fruit. We are to be people of mercy. We are not the judge or jury. We are people that are called by God to help those we meet. We are to commit acts of mercy to those we meet

Quick side note, what this doesn’t mean is we don’t give a drug addict drugs. We maybe showing mercy, but we are not offering good fruit when we help with addiction. We are to be supportive in helping someone find the place where they can find help when they want help.

We are to be impartial. We aren’t supposed to decide who we are only going to help. We aren’t to only help those like us or those that we like. Jesus says for us to “love our enemies” for a reason. We are to be people of compassion to all the people God places before us.

And the last trait mentioned in today’s reading is that we are to be sincere. We are to help those around us with a joyful heart. We should not be helping out based off of obligation. We should serve people out of love because God first loved us.

(Transition)

Who are you following? Are you living a life that reflects these traits that come from Heaven. We will fail but that does not mean we shouldn’t keep trying. We should be always attempting to show the world that we are a “Servant of God”

Please pray with me…