Am I ready to serve?
Last Saturday I preached at a wedding for two of our members on Philippians 2. This is a well-known passage. Not for weddings usually, but generally speaking! It is a significant passage of Scripture:
Philippians 2:5-8
5In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:6Who, being in very nature God,did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;7rather, he made himself nothingby taking the very nature of a servant,being made in human likeness.8And being found in appearance as a man,he humbled himselfby becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
This passage of Scripture never ceases to amaze me - that Jesus would give up all he had in his heavenly glory to come to earth... to die. it is extraordinary.
But then, has it that's not enough, he calls us to follow...
Philippians 2:5
5In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus...
Verse 5 actually calls us to be like him. To give up our privilege and to give up ourselves in order to serve others. How can we possibly do what Jesus did? Yet we do. Perhaps not in the same way, but in small ways.
That same wedding day, last Saturday, I saw so many of our church members doing just this - serving. Setting up, serving, packing up... caring for others, and giving up their time to love others.
And this is not an isolated thing! I see it at every church wedding, I see it every Sunday morning and night and I see it during the week with ESL, kids and youth programs, Growth Groups, Sunday school, Scripture, lawn mowing teams, maintenance teams and much, much more. it has become so commonplace that I take it for granted when I look out my window at home adjacent to the church grounds and see people serving in these ways.
And I am glad about this. I am glad I almost take it for granted. For this is how it SHOULD be and this is how it IS. We are children of Jesus. We are to have his mindset. We are to serve like him. It should be our nature, our instinct, and our desire.
We do not deserve Jesus' sacrifice. And so we respond in kind. We respond by taking every opportunity to serve others in whatever sacrificial way we might be able to find in order that we might see his kingdom advanced. We give from our gifts, our time, our finances, our heart and soul, all to serve others because the King has served us to the point of death - even death on a cross.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, May we never grow tired of serving sacrificially. May we never tire of giving for the sake of others as we seek to reflect our Lord Jesus and his character. May this be our regular day-to-day life in service to the King and in service to others.
Amen.