A Servant’s Heart

GETTING STARTED

I grew up in the church. I remember going to church most every Sunday, and I got involved serving in many different ministries. My favorite was working on the Tech Team for church services and big pageants that our church used to do. One year, our director had shirts made that were emblazoned with Philippians 2:1-11. I remember opening up a pew Bible, reading this passage about serving, and telling myself that this is why I served. Little did I know that this passage would become the foundation for the way God had intended for me to serve in the church.

READ THE WORD: PHILIPPIANS 2:1-11 (ESV)

^2:1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, ² complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³ Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. ⁴Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. ⁹ Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

RESPOND TO GOD

Being a servant, even considering myself a servant, has been a constant struggle in my adult life. I grew up in a generation focused very much on oneself. I was told by society that I should do whatever I could to make myself happy, successful, wealthy, etc. The message was that I should serve only myself, to be a lone wolf. When I have lived as culture told me I should live, I was lonely. This is because thinking only of my needs created isolation.

God has called us to live in a much different way. When I was introduced to this passage from Philippians in my teens, I had no idea what it meant to be a servant. I loved the idea, but it has taken a lot of failure and growth to understand the path that God calls believers to walk.

Consider the way Jesus lived. He was undoubtedly a leader. But how did he lead? He washed his disciples’ feet, he taught them, he fed them when they had no food, and he protected them from a storm at sea. In every one of these acts, Jesus was serving those he led. Jesus was the ultimate servant leader, to the point that he died so that, as believers, we would be set free from the consequences of our sin.

When I have applied this in my life—to serve God with all that I have, to serve my wife, to serve my children, to serve my parents, to serve my church, to serve those who are in need—I have found more joy in being a servant than in being a leader who expects others to serve me. Not only that, but when I serve God and others without thinking about what it will cost me, I have found more joy and satisfaction than when I just considered myself.