By Jesus’ standards, greatness is not expressed through eloquence, seen in competence or measured by the amount of wealth, might or control someone possesses or where they rank on the food chain. No food chain or human hierarchy is respected in Scripture; instead we find God exalted above all things and the rest of us existing as servants, either amplifying his honor and fame or looking out for our own (Matthew 6, Romans 1). In Matthew 20, Jesus teaches us those who seek to spend their life in the service of others will see greatness and the ones who spend their lives searching for power will discover they’ve been asking the wrong questions and really only been kidding themselves. In Jesus’ eyes, the normal is radical, the humble and weak will be exalted and cared for and share in the kingdom comes through identification with his scars and suffering, not what someone “brings to the table.”

Service teaches us to see power, ourselves, others and, ultimately, God the way He Himself does. We begin to see the entire Bible not as a book of wise sayings or written to ensure our prosperity but as the record of God actively, mercifully reversing the power structures of this world so that no man can boast in their salvation and He alone is seen as great. (1 Cor. 1:26-31; 1 Samuel 2:4-8). As the weak, the meek, the shameful and the sinful are brought to faith, they then form communities in which weakness is not to be avoided but to be embraced (1 Cor. 12:22-25) and, in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “authority” is only conferred through “brotherly service.”

A Biblical understanding of service also teaches that we are not altruistic enough, kind enough, thoughtful enough or even “Christian” enough to sustain a lifestyle of service. Only as we learn from the one who came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many (v. 28), only as we depend on his righteousness lived out on our behalf (Phil. 2:1-11) will we be able to truly love and serve one another in a way that points away from our goodness and to God’s greatness.

I spoke two Sunday ago of seven tensions that a Biblical view of service will lead us to embrace and I’d like to briefly recap them here along with another I didn’t have time to articulate:

1. Service is both normal and radical: Service should become a normal part of our daily lives but the fact that we serve Christ at all and not ourselves makes it a counter-cultural exercise. We should also begin to look past the great, bold, adventurous deeds we can dream up and see the radical impact of the everyday tasks and situations God is preparing us for, what Richard Foster calls the “ordinary, the trivial, the mundane.”

2. Service must begin at home but be extended out to the world: we can build orphanages in Africa but if we’re ignoring service to the body of Christ, we need to revisit what God has asked of us (Gal. 6:9-10).

3. Service is unnecessary to God yet very necessary for us: God is not waiting, as John Mayer wrote, for the world to change, paralyzed by our inaction. He has no needs (Acts 17:24-27) but, in his providence and wisdom, designed service to keep us low and close to him, where we can see his greatness. What a kindness that he allows us to serve Him and participate in His work!

4. Service gives evidence of salvation but is also an exercise of freedom: Scripture associates our service of God and others with true spiritual rebirth (1 Thess. 1:8-10) but it’s also an exercise of the freedom we have in Christ, freedom from self-destructive service to sin and freedom to serve God and enjoy Him forever (Gal. 5:13-14, Romans 7:5-6)

5. Service must be unique but also uncomfortable: We should look for ways to use our natural gifts/talents to serve others (1 Peter 4) but also know God will call us to serve in ways which make us uncomfortable and deviate from our natural ideas.

6. Service is not the entire Gospel but it cannot be separated from the Gospel: In a not-so-distant past, homeless shelters and ministries to the poor would require people listen to a Gospel message before getting a hot meal or soft place to sleep. At Karis, we affirm the service of the Word proclaimed to be the highest service we can render another, yet we also reject this old paradigm in favor of an approach which does not apply a prerequisite for receiving or giving kindness.

7. Service is immediate but also eternal: We are called to serve in the here and now but we will serve God in the new heavens and earth (Rev. 7, Rev. 22). How wonderful to know that our service now is preparation for eternity and will have lasting effects.

8. Service is not about what we receive but we do receive something: In 1 Peter 5:4-6 and Malachi 3:15-18, we find promises that God will do all the exalting that must be done in due time.

In light of what we’ve learned, here are just a few of the ways you can connect to service in the corporate life of Karis:

• Serving the littlest and dearest among us by working in Karis Kids (members only)
• Serving communion on Sundays (members only)
• Looking out for the safety and care of fellow believers through serving on the security crew (members only)
• Being one of the first, friendly faces someone sees when they walk into the Tiger, serving on connecting team (open)
• Helping foster a welcoming environment conducive to worship by serving on the aesthetics team or through tech/set-up (open)
• Bringing your creativity to bear in the life of the church by serving on the worship team or helping with art, video, graphics, web and print materials, etc.
• Leading a c-group
• Hosting a c-group
• Contributing food/money to relieve the burden off your c-group host/leader
• Offering to help your c-group host/leader clean up/do dishes, etc. at the end of the evening

• Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Service is not the subject, per se, of Bonohoeffer’s work here; it is a classic volume on Christian community. But, as we’ve argued, since service is woven throughout the fabric of community, the subject comes up often. Bonhoeffer encourages the believer to take on the meanest, smallest, most humiliating tasks so that we might see the goodness in those we’ve treated with disdain and see the humanity in those we’ve placed on pedestals. In God’s strength, we see the world as it is, he argues. He exhorts the believer to push past worries that, by serving, we’ll be stepped upon or treated unjustly and instead embrace that reality, knowing that we embrace Christ’s sufferings as we do.
• Celebration of the Disciplines by Richard Foster: Foster’s classic text applies to all the means of grace we’ve studied this summer but his chapter on service is especially heartening, challenging and compelling. He outlines the differences in motivation and result between true and self-righteous service and penetrates the heart by exposing our infatuation with the ‘big deal,’ showing how Christ actually calls us to a life often marked by the menial. Foster also wisely points to the ways that service and humility lead us to victory over sin as, in Christ, our earthly desires begin to pale and we embrace a Godward life.

Will leave you now, friends, to ponder all we’ve talked about and the following thought from a great saint: “I am afraid that as a rule we do not penetrate far enough into the mystery of the cross to realize this situation. What must it have meant to the Son of God whose blessed life had never been disturbed by the least cloud of trouble to enter into that tremendous strain of the divine justice, to feel the waves of guilt and wrath unleashing their fury upon him, so that he cried out in the bitterness of his anguish: ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsake me?’ All this and more than we can possibly realize lies in this single phrase – that he gave his life a ransom for many. But only in the same proportion that we realize something of all this shall we begin to measure what is meant by the other phrase that he came to serve and what is the unique force of the admonition that we should serve not like, but at an infinite distance serve as he did serve,” – Geerhardus Vos in a sermon on Mark 10:45.