BECOMING A
REFLECTION OF JESUS SERMON SERIES
Servant
Philippians 2:
1-11
Pastor
Three-year-old Katie was taken to
her pediatrician during a recent illness. As the doctor examined her ears, he
asked, “Will I find Big Bird in here?” Katie giggled and said through her
smile, “No.”
Then, before examining her
throat, the doctor asked, “Will I find the Cookie Monster in here?” Again,
Katie smiled, ad shook her head, “No.”
Finally, listening to her heart,
he asked, “Will I find Hello Kitty in here?” With innocent conviction, she
looked him directly in the eye and said, “No. Jesus is in my heart. Hello Kitty
is on my underwear.”
Katie has it right doesn’t she? She
might be only three, but I think she understands the nature of Philippians 2.
Paul tells us we are to become like Christ; to have Jesus in our hearts; to be
servants.
We are to be imitators of Christ,
or as I am phrasing it for our purposes this fall…reflections of Jesus. Who
will know that we are Christ followers unless there is something of Christ
showing through somewhere? The first
theme for us is servanthood.
For us to become servant reflections of Jesus, we need to be available
and accountable to Him.
Available to Jesus
A man applied for a job as a
handyman. The prospective employer asked, “Can you do carpentry?” The man
answered in the negative.
“How about
bricklaying?” Again the man answered, “No.”
The employer asked, “Well, what
about electrical work?” The man said “No, I don’t know anything about that
either.” Finally the employer said, “Well, tell me then what is handy about you.” The man replied, “I
live just around the corner.”
Sometimes the greatest ability we
can have is availability. To be where Christ can call us, to be within whisper
range of His summons, that is the beginning of a life of meaningful
discipleship. Are you available to Christ? Secondly, are you available to
others?
One of my mother’s favorite
Southern writers was Lewis Grizzard. He wrote humorous stories. Among them was his
book titled, Elvis is Dead and
I don’t Feel so Good Myself. He
wrote another one titled Shoot Low Boys,
They’re riding Shetland Ponies. It’s a book full of short stories of
ordinary people who chose to serve others. In Lewis’ estimation they are
heroes. His point is that the real heroes in life aren’t the ones who ride in
on the charging white steeds dressed like the lead character in one of our
legends. Instead, they’re the ordinary people who are available to others,
reach out their arms and do what they can. Servants are heroes who ride
Shetland ponies.
Let me tell you about a senior
citizen in Chicago who decided to become a more committed servant for Christ
and so he asked the Lord to show him what to do. He happened to be a
Presbyterian, which is a good thing. And he happened to be in his seventies,
which is also a good thing.
Over a short period of time he
got a burden and a passion in his heart for the inner city kids in his area.
This senior Presbyterian Christian man didn’t have a big developed plan, he
didn’t turn to experts and strategize. What he decided to do was just to adopt one
inner city high school. And what he did was every time there was a sports
practice that ended he would go there and encourage the coaches. He did this
for both boys’ and girls’ teams. After about a year of doing this he began to
encourage the students. If it was basketball season, he’d be there when the
basketball players came out of the locker room. If it was football season, he
would be there to hang out with the kids. And he made sure in that time that
they knew that he thought they were special and mattered.
Over time he also made sure that
they knew that God and Jesus thought they mattered and they were special.
Somebody who watched this going
on came to him and said, “Man, what are you doing wasting your time with these
kids. You’re not young, you’re not hip, you don’t speak their language. What
are you doin’ wasting your time and theirs down there?”
And our senior Presbyterian
Christian said, “You’re right, I’m not young, I’m not pierced or tatted
(tattooed) and I don’t speak their language, but when I’m there God’s got one
more option than when I’m not.”
It’s not about being great, it’s
about choosing for the sake of our love for Christ and others to give God one
more option when we’re there than when we’re not. That’s being a servant.
That’s being available.
Accountable to Jesus
Another aspect we need in order to
reflect Jesus’ servant nature is to be accountable to Him. (1. Available 2. Accountable)
There is a wonderful story about
a group of military leaders who succeeded in building a super computer that was
able to solve any problem, large or small, strategic or tactical. These
military leaders assembled in front of the new machine for a demonstration. The
engineer conducting the demonstration instructed these officers to feed a
difficult tactical problem into it. The military leaders proceeded to describe
a hypothetical situation to the computer and then asked the pivotal question:
attack or retreat? This enormous super computer hummed away for an hour and
then printed out its one-word answer....YES.
The generals looked at each
other, somewhat stupefied. Finally one of them submits a second request to the
computer: YES WHAT? Instantly the computer responded: YES, SIR.
It doesn’t make any difference
what your answer is or how you answer it if you never really adopt the answer
to the ultimate question and put it into action.
Let me illustrate: When I was in high
school a physician came to talk to the students about the dangers of
smoking. The physician scared us with his grim pictures of smokers’ lungs
and tales of death from lung cancer. The doctor finished his speech by saying,
“Remember, fire on one end, fool on the other.”
We were all impressed, especially
those students who would sneak out behind the shop building at lunch to light
one up.
Now I was editor of the year book
and my best friend was editor of the newspaper at the time. And when one of the
school photographers caught the doctor himself lighting up when he got back in
his car after the lecture, she ran the story. This physician’s credibility was
shot. He was the talk of the campus. It would have been better for the
no-smoking campaign if he had never come to speak. Saying one thing and doing
another is something nobody respects.
And people are watching us. If
our actions don’t match our words, we can claim to be a saint but if we act
like a stinker, someone’s going to get wind of it real quickly. We need to be
accountable to Jesus for our actions. He’s counting on us to reflect His love
into the world.
Let me close with one more story.
There is a Jewish legend that tells of a woman who dies and goes to heaven.
Heaven is beautiful, full of lush gardens and glittering mansions. But then the
woman comes to a room lined with shelves. The shelves are stacked with piles of
human ears! A heavenly guide explains that these ears belonged to all the
people on earth who listened each week to the word of God, but never acted on
God’s teachings. Their worship never resulted in action. When these people
died, therefore, only their ears ended up in heaven.
It’s not a question of who has
our ears. That’s just receptivity. It’s a question of who has our heart,
our loyalty or to whom we are accountable with our actions.
Does God just have your ear or
does God have your will?
We are to be imitators of Christ,
reflections of Jesus. Are you willing to be a servant to others by your
availability and accountability?