Make Me A Servant

Introduction

It’s good to see everyone here tonight. If you would, go ahead and start turning in your Bibles to 2 Philippians, or 2 Philippians, 2nd chapter of Philippians, and this is how the night is going to go. That is already a sign. The second chapter of Philippians, we’ll be starting from there in just a second. But before we go into that, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank the elders for giving me this time to come up here and preach to you tonight. This is my first time preaching. So as I said, I was going to say it’s either going to be a treat or a disaster, but if it continues like that, it’s going to be a little bit quicker than I had expected. But hopefully that was the only disastrous part of it.

Also, tonight we started our young people’s class and our learning class and our training, and I told them to go ahead and critique me. So afterwards I may have a whole bunch of young ones coming up to me and telling me everything I did wrong. So hopefully that’s not the case. Hopefully. But if we turn in Philippians 2, starting verse 1, it says, Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete. By being of the same mind, maintain the same love, united in spirit. Intend on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourself.

Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. What I want to look at during the time that we’re here tonight is what we read in verse 8. That Christ was found in appearance of man, but humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even at the cross.

I want you to think and dig deep inside of your heart, and ask yourself how well you humble yourself. How well you lower yourself to others like Christ did right here. How well you put yourself below everyone else around you. But not the people that you see in this room. I don’t want you to even think about the people in this room right now. I want you to see and think. How much do you humble yourself in the people of the world? The people that are sinners, the people that are evil, the people that we don’t like to be around. Because if you read in verse 8, he humbled himself so much that he died for everybody, including the sinners. And that’s what we’re going to be talking about a little bit more this evening.

We’re going to be talking about how to make ourselves a servant. Serving others like Christ served us. A few weeks ago, Tony preached on what happens if we start hanging out with people of the world, spending all of our time with people that are evil. And in a way, associating. Living our lives with these people and becoming one of them and the dangers of it. But tonight I’m going to talk about the opposite of that. I’m not going to undo anything that he said, but what I’m going to talk about is the importance that we have and the role that we have as Christians towards those sinners, the inspiration that we can have for them. When Tony talked about it, he mentioned conforming of the world.

1. We Became His Servants and Workers

I think they can be conformed to us. It’s preached. Christ came to the earth so that they can conform to him. And that’s what I’m going to talk about this evening. That’s our important role as Christians. To teach the word of God, to be a servant that Christ came to earth and wanted us to be. Humbling ourselves. We read of Jesus humbling himself over and over, washing the disciples’ feet, sitting with people that he wouldn’t normally sit with, and ultimately dying on the cross. And that’s what we need to have that desire to go out and teach like Christ did. In Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2, starting in verse 8. We read for by grace you have been saved through faith. And that not of yourself, it is the gift of God.

2. Christ Our Example of Being a Servant

Not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in him. When we became God’s children, we became his servants. We became the people that are supposed to teach his word and have the desire to go out and teach his word. We became his workers. And that’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to do exactly that. Be his workmen that he created for us. To save those around us and teach them of the Lord. If we look at Mark 2, verse 15 and 17, we see Christ as an example of being a servant. It says, and it happened that he was reclining at the table in the house, and many tax collectors and sinners were dying with Jesus and his disciples.

For there were many of them, and they were following him. When the scribes and the Pharisees saw that he was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, Why is he eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners? And hearing this, Jesus said to them, It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Think about Jesus’ reputation. The reputation that he had walking the face of this earth, teaching things that people had never heard of before, besides prophecy. His reputation’s on the line sitting with these men. They were questioning who he was, what he was, and if what he was saying was true, because he was spending time with men that they would never have even come across as being remotely available to talk to.

But we read, we read again in verse 17. It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but the sinners. Christ came for those men that he was talking to. He came for the men and the women and everybody from then until now and even in the future for those who are sinners, and that is all of us. And that is why he was sitting with them. He humbled himself to a point that he didn’t mind being close to them. He didn’t mind spending time with them, and he didn’t mind being around them, because his ultimate goal was to save them. That’s being a servant of God. That’s our example of being a servant of God.

3. Preaching His Word Like Philip Did

Saving those that are lost, teaching them the word of God. That’s what we’re here to do. In Acts, we read another example. More closer to us, because we know Christ came to earth as a God. We read that he was God’s son. We know what he was. But we see another example in Acts 8, starting at verse 26. It says, But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza. So he got up and went, and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all his treasures, and he had come to Jerusalem to worship. And he was returning and sitting in his chariot and was reading the prophet Isaiah.

Then the spirit of then the spirit said to Philip, Go up and join this chariot. Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said, Do you understand what you are reading? And he said, Well, how could I, unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of Scripture which he was reading was this. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before his shear is silent. So he does not open his mouth. In humiliation, his judgment was taken away. Who is he who will relate his generation? For his life is removed from the earth. The eunuch answered Philip and said, Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this?

Of himself or of someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this scripture, he preached Jesus to him. And then we read on. As we read on in this passage, we read that the eunuch, a well-known verse, here’s water, what hinders me to be baptized. But I want to look at Philip in this. I want to look in his role in this. He went up serving God, going all throughout teaching his word. Went up to a man that he never knew and started studying with him. Because he was a sinner, because that is what he was doing as a servant of God. He was told to go up to him and talk to him and teach him the word. And that’s what happened. The eunuch didn’t know who Jesus was.

4. Not Groups but Souls That Need to Be Saved

He was reading it, but he needed to be taught. And he asked Philip, and Philip was there for him. There’s people out there that need to know who Jesus is. There’s people in our lives that need to know who Jesus is. And it’s up to us to tell them. If we want to be servants of God, we have to be able to go out there and preach his word, like Philip did. Going up to a random person, now, sure, he was told by an angel. But we are too. We’re told by God, go out and preach this word. It’s necessary for us to do so. Being a servant, preaching God’s word. Preaching Jesus. Teaching those who had never heard it before. But one of the hardest challenges that we come across, one of the hardest challenges, and it doesn’t matter who you talk to that’s ever talked to anyone of the world, the hardest challenge to go out and preach is having that door slammed in your face.

Because there’s people that don’t want to learn the God’s Word. They don’t want to learn the gospel. Their lives are too easy to live. They don’t have to worry about waking up on Sunday morning, going to bed late on Wednesday night. They don’t have to worry about going out and partying through the weekend. It’s an easier life. So what do they do? They slam the door in your face. They don’t want to talk to you about it. We start feeling that way, and then we start putting barriers up. We start looking around at other people and we start putting people as a whole, as a group. Building barriers that don’t need to be there. But when we look back at Jesus in Mark 2, he didn’t look at those men as men that he was sitting with.

He didn’t look at them as sinners. He didn’t look at them as people that he was eating with and reclining with. What did he look at them as? What we need to be looking at people as, and that is souls that need to be saved. There’s no evil person. There are souls that need to be saved. And that’s being a servant of God. Saving those souls, giving them the opportunity to preach Jesus. But then those barriers come up, and what do we say? We group people. We put them in a group. We say, those people can’t be saved. Why do we do that? Well, we can’t. We need to put them as a group as God sent Jesus to this earth so that they could be saved.

And we read that in Romans 5. Oops. Disaster number two. Forgot to put something up. I have it right here. We’re good. In Romans 5, starting in verse 6, it says, For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ God, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man, someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates his own love towards us, and that we, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Christ died for the sinners. He died for those who are, as we sometimes put it, unsavable. Putting it to the terms of we are afraid to talk to them because they might not listen. Because we categorize people.

Let me ask you a question. When we hear, when people have a term called Christian, when the people of the world hear the word Christian, what do they think of? Recently it’s been bigot. Recently it’s been hateful. Or they hear the word Christian, they might think Catholic. They might think denominational. But do they think Church of Christ? Not always. They hear the word Christian and they have it in their own mind. But can we be categorized as the same as Catholic as denominational? Nope. We can’t. Not at all. And but the sad thing is that’s what we do to other groups. We hear things like homosexual, and we automatically think they’re not going to listen to us because we’re challenging them in the way that they live their life.

We hear the word alcoholic, and we don’t want to talk to them because of the way they live their life. Because they’re not going to listen to us because they like their way that they do they do their thing too much. But what I’m saying is we need to stop looking at the group as, or the people as a group, but look at them as individuals that have the potential of being saved. Because we look and we see that anyone can be saved. If you look at 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 9, 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9, it says, or do you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

That’s a list. That’s a good list to go off of. And do you know why it’s a good list to go off of? You do, but I haven’t told you yet. So whatever you said might not be what I’m going to say. Because verse 11, it says, such were some of you. But you were watched. But you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. Such were some of you. A powerful five words. This verse right here is what created this lesson right here. That verse, those five words, such were some of you is what wanted me to put this together. Because after having conversations with people, we get so fearful for the things that are mentioned in verse 9 and 10 that we forget that they’re not groups of people, they’re individuals that live this lifestyle.

Because the people that Paul is writing to, these men were idolaters. These men were fornicators, adulterers. They were homosexuals. They were thieves, they were covetous, they were drunkards. But they were saved. And that’s what being a servant of God for us is. It’s to find these people that need to be saved, which is everybody, not a group, but everybody, and save them. We’re to go out, we’re to live our lives the way God wants us to live. Going out and preaching the word like Philip did. Going out and studying with those that we might not want to study with. Because we’ve built barriers up to them. We’ve built barriers in a way that we can’t knock them down because we have in our minds that they’re not going to listen.

But this right here, this right here shows that they still have the opportunity. Because the men that were in, the Church of Corinth. Look at these groups. They’re people that we don’t want to talk to. Homosexuals. We’re scared. We’re very scared. And rightfully so. We’re scared of their lifestyle because it’s becoming a lifestyle that is acceptable. But we don’t need to be afraid of the lifestyle. We need to be afraid that those people that are homosexuals, those people that are adulterers, the idolaters, those are souls that haven’t been saved. They’re not a group of people we disagree with. They are souls that are lost. When we go out of the world, when we go into our jobs, when we go to school, we come across people that fall in this category.

5. After Failure, Get Back on the Horse

Revelation 21, 8. We’re not going to turn there, but if you have time, read it. Because they’re in this category too. They’re the lost. But they can be saved too. Don’t be afraid just because you hear a word as a grouping of a people. Hear a person admit to the lifestyle that they live, and then find your way to serve God by teaching them Jesus Christ. That’s the desire we need to have. That’s how we need to live our lives. But we always have to remember that there’s many times that we’re going to fail. We’re going to fail at teaching those. We know about the story of the rich young ruler. Again, we’re not going to turn there. But we know the story of the rich young ruler.

A man that Jesus had a love for. A man that he cared about. A man that wasn’t willing to give up his wealth. That was lost at the end. But guess what Jesus did? He didn’t go out and give up. He didn’t quit. Thankful for us, he did not quit. He pressed on. He went to the next people and started teaching. He went forward in his quest of saving as many souls as possible. We are going to fail from time to time. We’re going to come across people that will not listen. They’re going to have their own barriers up, and they’re not going to be willing to break them down. But it’s about after that failure, what happens after that? Do you stop? No. You get back out.

My parents, my mom used to say, get back on the horse. You get back on the horse and you keep going. You find the next person to teach. And if they fail, you find the next one and the next one and the next one. There’s people in your lives that are going to be willing to listen. And they make it all the way up to how the rich young ruler did. And there’s that one part of his life or her life that they don’t want to give up. But we just continue pressing on and pressing on. Serving God the way that he wants to serve. Being his worker. Teaching Jesus Christ. And most importantly, we can’t worry about what they think of us. The more that we go out and we’re and we feel failure, we may be afraid to lose a friend because we’ve known him for so long, but we can’t have that fear because either way you look at it, there’s still a soul that needs to be saved.

6. Above All Things, Put On Love

Finally, we look at John 13. John 13, starting in verse 34.

In John 13, he talks about one of the big things that we need to focus on whenever we’re serving God, when we’re humbling ourselves. When we’re going out into the world and preaching. Starting in verse 34, it says, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you. That you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Being a servant of God has so much to do with love. Humbling ourselves is showing true love. Even when we look back at Philippians 2. In Philippians 2, back at verse 1, it says, Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintain the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.

The love that Christ had. Can our love ever compare? We talk about that all the time about the love that Christ had for us. And that our love can never compare to the love that he had for us. But he’s the ultimate servant of God. The love that he had, that he was willing to die on the cross. He knew he was going to die on the cross. From the get-go, he was prepared to die. Even Peter, a man that followed Jesus, he was persecuted, he was tortured, and he knew he was going to die preaching the word of God. But guess what he did? He pressed forward. And the reason he pressed forward was because there were still lives that needed to be saved, souls that needed to be mended.

That’s the kind of example that we have. That’s the kind of example that we have of being a servant of God, willing to go out there and put our reputation on the line, willing to go out and lose some friends, and not worry about what other people think of us, but worry about the end result. The end result of their souls being saved. Because we have the greatest gift of all. We have the gift of teaching God’s word. It’s amazing that many times we go back and we look at, we look back at 1 Corinthians, and there’s the people that are listed there that we’re afraid to talk to. But we should have, we should be honored to go and talk to them and offer them something that they have never known.

And that’s a blessing to us. And in Colossians 3, Colossians 3, so it says, So, as those who have been chosen by God, of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other. Whoever has a complaint against one another, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you, beyond all things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Above all things, put on love. We talked about humility. We can go into detail about patience. We can speak about kindness, but above all, put on love. When you show true love to someone, when you show that you truly love someone, you’ve shown them Christ. Because love isn’t just saying, going out and saying, no, I love them because they’re children of God.

Love isn’t saying, no, I love them because they walk the face of the earth and we’re supposed to. That’s not true love. True love is going out, saying you love them, and then trying to save their soul. That’s the true love that God talks about. That’s the true love that Christ shows. Because true love, knowing God’s word and preaching God’s word. And if we do that, then we are serving God the way he wants us to. And whatever the reason is, no matter what reason you decide to not talk to someone, the only thing you’re being at that point is selfish. You’re being selfish that you have the greatest gift of all to offer to someone. The greatest gift of all. Knowing Jesus Christ and knowing who God is.

Conclusion

And you’re not willing to go and give it to Him. I’m challenging everyone tonight. And it’s hard to challenge people because a lot of times they’ll challenge it back. But I’m challenging everyone tonight. Go out into your lives. Go into the world. Go to school on Monday. Go to work on Monday. And the person that you’re fearful of because of who they are and the lifestyle they live as mentioned in 1 Corinthians, go up and talk to them. Because that’s the opportunity, that’s the starting of an opportunity to teach them the word of God. To save their souls and to show them the love that Christ gave to us. You don’t have to rush into it. We saw in Mark 2. Jesus sat with sinners and tax collectors.

He started out by just eating with them. And then taught them about God. You can start off slow, but you have to open that door. The first part is showing love because if you have a barrier up, they already have an opinion of you. You have to break down those barriers. You have to talk to them, and you have to show the gift that you have for them. And that’s being a servant of God. I’m done a little bit early. Timing it doesn’t work, apparently. I guess I’ll learn that along the way. But I hope.

At this time, I’d like for everyone to just go ahead and close up your Bibles. Open up your song books, because the next part might even be more important. Because this is the part, the time that we usually offer the invitation. The time that it’s time for you to become a Christian. And even though we offer this time right now, it’s not the only time that you have. You have all week long. You have all your life, but the time is now. I heard once that if you think it’s time to become a Christian, if you think you’re ready to be baptized, if you think you know who Jesus is, then you know who Jesus is. You know it’s time to be baptized, and you know that this is your best opportunity.

And even if you’ve fallen away, because there’s times that we do fall away, there’s times that we go into the world and we like what we see a little bit better. But that’s a good time now, too, to come and confess those sins. If you have any needs of the congregation, please come now as we stand and as we sing.