The Servant King

H. M. Stanley went to Africa in 1871 to find the missionary David Livingstone. He spent several months in Livingstone's company, carefully observing him. Livingstone didn't speak to Stanley directly about spiritual matters. And he was amazed by Livingstone's patient compassion for the Africans. He could not understand how Livingstone could have such love for these pagans. Livingstone spent himself in the untiring service of those he loved for Christ's sake. Stanley wrote in his journal,

When I saw that unwearied patience, that unflagging zeal, and those enlightened sons of Africa, I became a Christian at his side, though he never spoke to me one word.

A steady devotion to untiring service is not a prospect that naturally appeals to most of us. We want to be served. If we do something for others, then we do not like it if someone else gets the credit. But those of us who call ourselves Christians should not be in any doubt about the nature of the man we claim to follow. We follow a man more powerful than all the politicians and potentates the world has ever seen rolled into one. He is the Son of Man who Daniel saw in his vision:

[The Son of Man] was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

You are probably aware by now of the majestic comet "Hale-Bopp" that is slowly making its way across the skies. I understand that it last came around about 4000 years ago. About the time God called Abraham. So from the perspective of this comet, the last four millennia have been the equivalent of once around the block. That's a thought that puts politicians in their place. It puts our own lives into perspective. But listen to Colossians 1:16 and 17:

For by him [that is, Christ] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

A comet with a 4000 year orbit is a tiny fragment of the "things in heaven and on earth visible and invisible" that Christ created. Jesus is a man with inconceivable power and glory, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Alongside him other kings are really no kings at all, and other lords are really no lords. And yet this is the King who rode into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday on the back of a donkey. This is the King who says of himself, at the end of this passage in Mark 10:45 :

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.

We should not be in any kind of doubt about the nature of the man whom we claim to follow. He is the Servant King. Nor should we be in any doubt about what kind of life it is that pleases our Servant King. What Jesus wants is people with hearts like his. Servant hearts. What the disciples in this encounter want is quite different. Which brings me to my first heading. WHAT THE DISCIPLES WANT Take a look at Mark 10: 35-37 :

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask." "What do you want me to do for you?" he asked. They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory."

What is going on in this passage? James and John wanted to be at the top of the pile. For all their fine words, they were reluctant to serve. They are not alone in that. We have the same tendency in us. Recognise that, and then something can be done about it. What is it that gets in the way of our wanting to serve wholeheartedly? The context of this incident can help us to identify some of the weaknesses that Satan can exploit. Shortly before this incident, Jesus had encountered a rich young man. Like many of us, this young man claimed to want eternal life. But he didn't really mean what he said. Jesus saw into his heart. He saw that there was an obstacle holding him back from wholehearted service of God. What was this obstacle? It was his materialism. It was eating away at his heart like a cancer. So in went the surgeon's knife. Chapter 10 verse 21:

Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

Do not be under any illusions. Wholehearted service of Christ costs us money. If we measure our lifestyles by shopping, then following Christ will damage our lifestyle. Are we ready for that? Or is our love of the good life that money buys like an icy wind that freezes our hearts and destroys our usefulness to Christ? When this particular prosperous young man heard Jesus, Mark says, "[his] face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth." There has just been a landmark legal settlement in the US in which a tobacco company has accepted for the first time that smoking is addictive and causes cancer. In this country the bill board warnings are familiar: Smoking damages your health. Disciples of Christ who are serious about living to please him could do with some warnings fixed in our minds. Here is the first Spiritual Health Warning: Materialism damages your usefulness. But there are more obstacles in the way of wholehearted service. As well as materialism, there is resentment. Resentment of others who seem to get a better deal from God than we do. Matthew's account of this incident is preceded by the parable of the workers in the vineyard. When it came to pay time, those who had worked all day grumbled and moaned. People who had only just started were paid just as much as them. It seems so unfair. An unspoken calculation creeps into the recesses of our minds: "What is the point of years of slaving away doing thankless tasks and taking on responsibilities that no-one else wants? What's in it for me? The truth is that when all these people who have taken advantage of me year in year out decide in the end that they will turn to Christ, God's going to open his arms to them anyway! They get all of the benefit with none of the cost." As the elder brother says to his father in another of Jesus' parables,

"Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!"

"Why bother?" we say to ourselves. And we down tools. Resentment paralyses our service. So another Spiritual Health Warning for the disciple is this: Resentment damages your usefulness. A further obstacle to service that we need to face up to is giving in to wrong pressure from family or friends. Just before this incident, Jesus has said to the disciples:

"I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields - and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life."

God is no man's debtor, and his generosity is overwhelming. But the implication of that is clear. Following Christ may require us in some way to leave behind our families. In Matthew's account it is the mother of James and John who puts the request to Jesus that they be given pride of place among the apostles. Jesus nicknamed James and John "the sons of thunder". To suggest that that was a reference to the character of their mother would be somewhat speculative! But it seems she had ambitions for her sons. And she makes them plain. But her ambitions were out of line. James and John needed to resist family pressure. We may need to do the same. It is all too easy to abandon a course of action that Christ is asking us follow, because it seems like a waste of time to some of those close to us. Christ may require us to spend our energies in ways that do not make sense to those who we love dearly, but who do not share the values of the Kingdom of God. So another spiritual health warning: families can damage your usefulness. But there is another obstacle to wholehearted service. It is the desire for status. We want to raise ourselves in the pecking order. This desire manifests itself in different ways. If we are the pushy sort, we can start shoving our way to the front of the queue, as James and John attempted to do. If we are more reticent, our own desire for status can show itself in efforts to pull others down as they try to climb over us. So (v41) when the other ten apostles realised what was up, "they became indignant with James and John". And a spirit of service gives way to backbiting, bickering and bitterness. Spiritual Health Warning: Status-seeking can damage your usefulness. If we are to be wholehearted servants of Jesus, then we need to overcome these obstacles. Reluctance to abandon our materialism. Resentment of others who seem to have it easy. Giving in to pressure from those close to us who do not understand what we are about. Desire for status. All these things are the predators of a servant spirit. When we see them in our lives, we need to stamp on them and put them to death before they bite and inject their poison into our Christian lives.. What the disciples want is status and power. They made all the right noises about being ready to serve. But in fact they were looking after number one. So how did Jesus respond? We come to my second heading: WHAT JESUS DID Jesus does not crush their ambition. Instead, he redirects it. And he challenges them to face up to the price that they must be willing to pay if they are to be useful in his service. The truth is a selfish lifestyle has a great many attractions. We are free to do what we want when we want. We are free from the demands of others. Free to look after number one. It is no good simply denying the magnetic pull selfishness. If we don't count the cost of uncompromising service, then we will balk at it when we are asked to begin to pay it. The cost can be summed up simply enough. We have to be ready to give our lives. We may not be called upon literally to die for Christ, though that day may come for some of us. But if not, then we are called on to die a little each day as we hammer those obstacles on the head. We mustn't be glib about this. We mustn't do what those first disciples did and jump in too soon saying "Yes I'm ready. I'll do anything." If we say that without reckoning up what it really means, then we will just be so much hot air. The response that Jesus made to the request of James and John is in verses 38 and 39:

"You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with?" "We can," they answered. Jesus said to them, "You will drink the cup I drink"

Jesus warns them that they do not know what they are letting themselves in for. The cup that Jesus was going to drink was the cup the prophets had spoken about - the cup of terrible suffering for a sinful world. The fact is that uncompromising service brings us close to Christ. And that is both cost and reward. From a worldly point of view it is a deeply dangerous place to be. But from the perspective of eternity there is nowhere more secure. In verses 33 and 34 Jesus has just warned the disciples that that he is going to be betrayed and condemned and mocked and flogged and crucified. He is not a safe man to be close to. But he also says that beyond death he will be raised to life. And that is the promise for the servant of Christ: the deep satisfaction now of a life that counts for the kingdom is followed by the glory of a life close to Christ for eternity. In John 13:38 Jesus challenges the overconfident Peter:

"Will you really lay down your life for me?"

But after the challenge comes the reassurance about the future (John 14:2):

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you."

As the apostle Paul puts it:

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

(Philippians 1:21). God always out-gives us. He has already given us everything in Christ. The more we give, the more we will discover his generosity. If we give our lives to Jesus for him to use as he wants, we need not fear losing out. So there is a simple challenge to us all: Will we answer the call to serve the Servant King? Jesus says to us: "Can you drink the cup I drink?" What is your answer? What are you doing with you life? For whose benefit are you living it? Can you count the cost and still say to Jesus "I will drink it"? None of us has the strength to go it alone. None of us can do without the power of the Spirit at work within us. But the Lord does not ask us to go alone. He is with us. Verse 42:

Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you"

In other words, reject worldly values that have no place in the church or in the heart of the Christian. Verse 43:

"Not so with you. Instead, 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."

Make Christ and his self-sacrifice the role model of your life. Live for the sake of others. Live to the glory of God. Those who have the heart of a servant, God will use effectively in his service. There is plenty of unemployment and there is plenty of unproductive work in the world. But no-one is unemployed and no-one is unproductive in the Kingdom of God. One other illustration. In the eighteenth century, William Carey was one of the main inspirations of the world wide missionary movement that sprang from the evangelical revival. As a young pastor in Northamptonshire he published a pamphlet known as "The Enquiry". He urged a massive revival of effort to preach the gospel around the world. In The Enquiry he answers possible objections against such missionary endeavour. One problem was distance and the difficulty of travel. He answered that by saying that the invention of the mariner's compass had solved that one. As he puts it:

Men can now sail with as much certainty through the great south sea as through the Mediterranean.

Then there was the barbarous way of life that might be encountered. His answer:

It was no objection to the apostles and their successors, who went among the barbarous Germans and Gauls, and still more barbarous Britons!

Then there was the danger of being killed. His answer: yes, anyone who goes does take his life in his hands. But the goodness of the cause of the gospel warranted any risk. There was the language barrier. Carey's answer:

It is well known to require no very extraordinary talents to learn, in the space of a year, or two at most, the language of any people upon earth

... at least enough to communicate. And there was the difficulty of getting supplies. No problem, he said. Take enough to tide you over, then go native or grow your own. He says

A Chistian minister is a person who is not his own; he is the servant of God, and therefore ought to be wholly devoted to him.

It can come as no surprise that this is the man whose motto was:

Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.

That is the bold, adventurous servant spirit that the Lord looks for in us. We may be asked to stay and serve, or go and serve. Either way, we must not let that adventurous spirit be cramped and crowded out of our lives. We are called to give ourselves in uncompromising service of the Servant King. Do that, and we will be able to look forward to the day when Christ says to us:

Well done, good and faithful servant.
Lord, teach us to be generous with our lives; teach us to serve you as you deserve; to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest to labour and not to seek reward, save that of knowing that we do our will. In the name of Christ, our Servant King. Amen.
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