Christlike Servanthood
Friday 27 September
With Philip Ryken
Acts 20: 13 - 38
Grace and love in the name of Jesus, our suffering, dying, reigning servant leader. For all of our diversity, there is only one kind of Christian that is able to carry forward the great commission and that is someone who embraces Christlike servanthood as a way of life. We are all called to be servants.
It is true personally and individually but also corporately. A community that embraces the servanthood of Jesus is able to proclaim the gospel in a kingdom way. In the church, we often talk about servant leadership. A brother called it a “leading servant”. A better definition is “leadership is servanthood”.
This is essential to our evangelism. At the opening of the book of Acts, Luke says that his first book was all that Jesus “began to do and teach”. That suggests that the Acts of the Apostles are gospel works of Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit, through the apostles. The book of Luke is volume one and the book of Acts is volume two. What Jesus is doing in the world up until today is volume three. We have to do Jesus’ work in Jesus’ way and that way is servanthood.
Our Saviour always sought the lower place, taking the very nature of a servant. Christ the king bends over to wash the feet of his beautiful bride, the church. Even before he went to the cross, he said, “Whoever wants to be great among you must be the servant of all.”
Hear the spirit’s call to serve the way your Saviour serves. Before you declare or display there must be a desire to serve.
Servant-hearted sacrifice is not only our message, it is also our method.
We are not proclaiming ourselves but Christ as Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus sake.
We see this throughout the book of Acts but maybe most clearly in the apostle Paul. He characterises his entire ministry as serving
1) Paul was a servant of the Gospel [the Word]
I consider my life worth nothing to me, my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task that God has given me. Paul has devoted his life in the service of something more precious than life. We see this same approach to evangelism in every sermon in Acts. Forgiveness through crucifixion confirmed by resurrection, all preached through fulfilment of the Old Testament scriptures.
“I simply taught preached and wrote God’s Word. Otherwise I did nothing and while I slept the word did everything for it is almighty and takes captive the heart.” Martin Luther
Trust the word to do its work. The gospel is more precious to us than the lives we are ready to lay down. Have you counted the cost of becoming like Jesus in his death. As a congress we spent a full day looking at the persecuted church, knowing that for some of us it will mean servanthood unto death.
2) Servanthood to the Spirit
God poured out his spirit on His servants. Paul surrendered to God’s spirit. We see this here, v22 “compelled by the Spirit”. Not making independent plans for the ministry and then asking God to bless them. Not resisting or running ahead of the Spirit. Maybe the clearest evidence of the Spirit’s power in us is Christlike service.
When the Spirit makes us more like Jesus, we always become more servant hearted.
One teenage girl witnessed a transformation in her brother, the loving change in his life. She said to her father, “I knew the Holy Spirit was powerful, I just didn’t know He was that powerful!”
What is the Spirit ready to do in your life and ministry across all the hard issues that Lausanne is seeking to address? We say come Holy Spirit. He is the advocate. The heart transformer. The corpse raiser. We depend on his work to become world changers.
3) Servanthood to the Church
v18-19 Paul reminisces about his ministry. At this congress, we are opening a 9 to 5 window for Evangelism. Paul did it first. Working his day job and then working to share the gospel. He wasn’t being self-aggrandising, he was seeking to be self-replicating. How they loved him because Christlike servanthood touches the heart. Paul was effective in his evangelism because he gave them himself. Christ’s evangelism must humbly seek to empty themselves…
For those of us blessed with families, the love we share for those we meet in ministry doesn’t come before our love for our husband and wives, our children, parents and siblings. Do some of us need to hear that, this morning? Maybe we have loved ones at home. Don’t serve God at the expense of family life but out of the strength of family life. Serve your family at home before you serve the church in ministry.
4) Servanthood to Leaders
Paul was passing along the same kind of investment that others made in him. Ananias and Barnabas stood up for him. They were outstanding leaders but not jealous of his strength. They promoted his ministry. These men recognise God’s call to collaborate because they wanted to serve one another. The spirit of Lausanne is Christlike servanthood.
It was the spirit in Simone called Niger… and everyone else who worked hard for the gospel in Antioch. In some cultures, servanthood is considered lowly but we also learn this from the Chinese church: servanthood is as high as the hill called Calvary where our suffering servant bled and died for our sins. Now we get to serve one another.
Maybe the most important question is who is God calling us to serve? Whatever gifts you have in your community, your church or part of the world, share it with the global church. This is the hope of the apostles. We honour their legacy when we lay down our lives for one another. Servanthood is polycentric. Our church is so much more beautiful when we elevate other ministries and collaborate. God is calling us to give to one another time, money, experience, intercession, expertise, ourselves.. this is what it means to declare and display the gospel together.
5) Servanthood for the Lost
Our servanthood is for those from every tongue and tribe, from every people and nation, to the ends of the earth for those who do not yet know the joy of knowing Jesus. Paul’s servanthood of the Gospel, by the spirit, to the church, to other leaders were for the sake of those who were lost without Christ. We are at this congress for those who are not here, for those who will never experience the worship we have had here unless they hear about Jesus. We want the lost to join us in this worship.
The Ephesian elders had seen Paul preach the gospel. He knew he could not reach people in every sphere of society unless he went out to them.
In chapters 27 and 28 we read the remarkable tale of the shipwreck. As a result of Paul’s leadership, everyone was saved from the storm. He had a concern for them body and soul. This is the type of servanthood that was turning the world upside down. It is still transforming the world today.
A Japanese student came to the US. A friend invited her into her home and later this student testified “You built a bridge to me, a bridge of friendship and one day Jesus came walking over the bridge.” It is a bridge of servanthood. Jesus served in all the ways we have been talking about.
He always served the gospel. He always served the spirit. He always served the church and its leaders, the church He loved so much that He bought her with His own blood. Will you make His servanthood, your style of leadership, your way of life? God is calling us to this servanthood.
Acts 28:3 Paul and his shipmates have made it to shore. What do we see Paul doing? We see him teaching in the synagogue. On this day, he was the hero who saved the ship yet he was picking up sticks for the fire. This simple beautiful act tells us everything you need to know about His as a leader. One of the most effective disciple making disciples the world has ever seen. Loving servanthood makes the grace of Jesus visible, beautiful, credible to the world.
Dr. Philip Ryken is the eighth president of Wheaton College and the author of more than 50 Bible commentaries and books. He lives and works out of the United States.