Saturday, May 15, 2010

Beware of serving Jesus


Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God

-Romans 14:18a


I was in a Bible study about a week ago and the subject of study was humility. One of the passages that was brought up was from Matthew chapter 20 where the mother of the sons of Zebedee, James and John, asked Jesus that her sons would sit at Jesus’ left and right hands in His kingdom. Jesus gently rebukes this woman saying, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Matt 20:25-28).”


Jesus used Himself as an example, said that He had come to serve, and called His disciples also to serve. At this point someone in the Bible study quoted something they had read from John Piper where Piper said, “beware of serving Jesus.” I was immediately struck by this statement. I knew right away that it wasn’t a statement that could be believed in isolation or one which could not be held in tension with the multitude of times we are called to be servants of Christ in the New Testament. And I knew that Piper was not suggesting that Christians should not be servants of the Lord. But it struck me because I realized that the warning, “beware of serving Jesus,” expressed an important truth which is today often forgotten in churches where the gospel has been obscured or lost and Christianity is presented only as a moralistic system of “serving God.”


I first thought of a prime example where Jesus had served His disciples and one of them had at first rejected his Lord’s service. I was thinking of John’s Gospel where Jesus washes His disciple’s feet. When the Lord came to Peter, Peter said, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me. (John 13:6-8).” Peter then allows Jesus to wash his feet. I was thinking to myself that I’m sure if Jesus had asked Peter to wash His feet, Peter would have gladly done it. But it wasn’t Peter washing Jesus’ feet that would have allowed Peter to “have a share with him,” it was only if Peter allowed the Lord to wash His feet.


I also thought of The Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke chapter 15. In what is one of my favorite parables told by our Lord, we see a younger son who demands his inheritance and then wastes it on worldly living and an older son who stays home with his father and serves him. When the younger son in the story comes to repentance he returns to his father hoping only to be treated as a hired servant. But when he arose and went to his father, “while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’” When the older brother hears of what his father has done for the Prodigal, “he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost and is found.”


The younger brother’s only hope was his father’s mercy. And when he returned home in repentance he allowed himself to be served by his father. There was nothing else he could do, he knew that he had nothing to offer. But the older son can only think about what he has offered to his father, his service. And in serving his father, apparently he has not allowed his father to “serve” him in giving him even a “young goat” to celebrate with his friends. Perhaps this older son saw it as an addition to his perfect obedience and service to his father not to ask for anything like a goat. But his father answered that all that he had also belonged to his son. Perhaps there was also a great deal of pride held by the older brother about his service to his father without asking for anything in return. But the younger brother has no pride, he has nothing to be proud of.


Until we cry out to Jesus, hoping only in His service to us, suffering an excruciating death on the cross, in our place, bearing our sin, bearing the Father’s wrath which we deserved, we have no share with him. If we seek only to “serve God” like the older brother sought to serve his father, thinking that we have something to offer to God, then we will only be puffed up in pride and we will believe that we deserve something from God. But as Paul taught the Athenians at the Areopagus, “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything (Acts 17:24-25).” We have nothing to offer God and as the prophet Isaiah wrote, “we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6 - KJV).”


But if we embrace Christ’s service to us and hope only in Him and His death and resurrection He gives us a great gift, the gift of being His servant. Hebrews 9:14 reads, “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” So there are two kinds of “service” to God, one which is dead works which avails no one anything, neither the sinner nor God, and also a kind of service which is done on the basis of the purification which we receive from the shed blood of Christ. But this is a service to our Lord out of love, without hope of repaying Him or earning some greater standing with Him.


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Matt,

I'm sure things are crazy for you right now at the end of third year, so I will try not to ask too much.
I think, Brother Matt, that hope in Christ necessitates (or, more to the point, is equivocal to) hope for eternal life made available to us via the atonement. After all, what do we hope in someone who lived and died two millennia ago if not to live with them for all eternity?

The scriptures show us this in the very popular 1 Corinthians 13:13 "So now faith, hope and love abide these three;" hope is as central to the gospel as faith, and in accordance with the order listed, probably even greater.

Titus 1:2 states "In hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began" and also in Titus 3:7 we find "So that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life."

This is all from the ESV.

This doesn't mean that we have earned it. Titus openly states "by grace". Hope and expectation are not equivocal. If we believed we were earning salvation via our works, we would not need an Intercessor with the Father at all and would cease to hold faith in what would be an unnecessary Savior.

By being Christian--a follower and believer in Christ, we are openly acknowledging our need for a Savior and Intercessor with God the Father. Anyone who thinks they can do it alone isn't a Christian. Hope defines the Christian.

I hope you have a good week and that you can find a little peace and comfort during this stressful time.

God bless you, brother.

~SP

Matt said...

Hey SP,

Surprisingly perhaps, I think I pretty much agree with what you wrote. When it comes to faith, hope and love I can see how, from the order, you could think hope is "greater" than faith but I'm not sure what that would mean exactly. It would be interesting to study how the words used there for "faith" and "hope" differ from each other exactly in their uses in the Koine Greek Paul was writing in.

You said "Anyone who thinks they can do it alone isn't a Christian." I agree with that but I would take it further to say that anyone who thinks they can contribute to their own justification and therefore salvation is misunderstanding the gospel. I won't say that they are definitely not a Christian because I don't think being a Christian necessarily entails having a perfect understanding of doctrine, I know that my understanding is certainly far from perfect. But I do think that anyone who thinks they contribute something by a work or some inherent goodness in themselves to their own salvation is in a perilous situation of "boasting" in themselves before God instead of boasting only in the Lord.

Good to hear from you SP!

Anonymous said...

Hi Matt,

I've been trying not to hassle you too much as I suspect you're hardly sleeping as is. However, a statement from your last post has been eating at me and I can't shake it...
"Some inherent goodness in themselves".

Do you believe that we, as God's creations, are not inherently good?
What about Psalms 8:4-5 "What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor."

Or, perhaps even more pungent, Romans 8:16 "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God."

Both from ESV.

Of course, 'children' may be up to interpretation here. And, assuming the literal is meant, children can be disobedient--no matter who they or their parents are. Furthermore, just being good can't justify human err and sin. A Savior is necessary regardless.

But what are we?

Are we inherently good with the frailty to be tempted to do evil?

Or, are we inherently evil with the potential to be persuaded to do good?

I'm very interested to hear what you think, but understand if you can't get around to replying right away. This is undoubtedly very far down on your To-Do List;)

God bless you, Matt.

~SP

Joshua said...

Hey Matt,

I enjoyed reading your post about the dangers of "serving Jesus". I think it's so much easier to settle for a servant-master relationship rather than a friendship. 'No greater love than to lay down your life for your friend'.
I think friendship with God carries with it the potential for this great love to be demonstrated. Thanks for the post brother!

Matt said...

Hey S.P.,
Sorry not trying to ignore you, just super busy. I think I might make a blog post out of the issues you raised. Have a good week!

Thanks for the comment Josh!