Service is the essence of discipleship.  It is the cross-bearing Jesus describes when He says, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mt. 16:24).  According to this definition a disciple is one who serves his master, one who is so disposed to do that service that he is willing to subordinate else everything in his life to do so; even his own will.

 

Man is fitted for service.  He was created for that purpose.  Even in the paradise garden Adam and Eve were instructed to perform certain services pleasing to God.  Their failure to do so resulted in their failure to glorify God and sin came into the world.  “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” (Rom. 6:23).  God’s purpose in man’s existence is thwarted by his failure to serve Him, or, in other words, bring Him glory.

 

All service is commendable, but the highest form of it is voluntary service.  When someone is instructed to perform a certain duty and he does it, that is commendable; but when one does what he does voluntarily, that is better–a higher, more noble form of action.  For instance, dogs and cats, plants and heavenly bodies all do what God designed them to do, but by a law of necessity.  They have no choice in the matter.  Man, on the other hand, can deliberately choose to do good or evil and when he deliberately chooses to do what God says, that glorifies Him in a way that no other part of nature can do, simply because it has no choice.      

 

Man is never more noble than when he places himself at the disposal of God.  He is near that same nobility when he intentionally puts himself at the disposal of his fellows.  It is on this principle that the first and second greatest commandments rest (Matt. 22:37). To love God is the supreme service maneuver; to love his neighbor is near to it.  And when man consciously obeys God knowing  that to do so will surely place him in an adversarial predicament or an uncomfortable situation, he not only operates at a high level of manliness, but he simultaneously brings the very highest honor to God.  Service in the face of persecution is service at its finest.

 

Service, as we have intimated, is a choice.  A man makes up his mind that he should do it, that he has some special obligation to it, that it will benefit someone or some situation, and that it will, in the ultimate reality, bring honor to God.  In order to make wise choices man needed to know for a certainty what is true and what is not.  “There is a way that seemeth right to a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 14:12). No matter how wise man becomes, he can never find his way to truth and piety without the revelation of God (I Cor. 2:9; Jer. 10:23), but “God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit...” (I Cor. 2:10).  Furthermore, it is by this revelation of truth that man becomes accountable.  He cannot plead ignorance, for God can be known, His truth ascertained.  Based on that truth, then, man can make intelligent choices to serve.  He not only knows how to serve, but when and where.

 

Humility is the predicate on which all service rests.  Until a man sees that when he is divorced from his relationship to God he has no real value, he will likely serve himself, buying what pleases him, enjoying what the world offers to slake his thirst for pleasure and enjoyment.  In doing so, he values himself too highly and trusts in temporality.  He builds a pyramid with I at its pinnacle, Me next, Mine after that, and Myself at the base.  He bows down to it regularly for it constitutes the object of his service.  Even the Son of God saw the need for humility when He “made himself of no reputation and took upon himself the form of a servant...and humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:9-10).  Humility underscores all service.  

 

In His personal ministry, Jesus everywhere illustrates the connection between humility and service.  When He is headed toward Jerusalem to meet His demise, He stops and stoops to wash the feet of His disciples.  Following that pensive and unnecessary act, He said, “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have given you and example, that ye should do as I have done unto you.  Verily, verily I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him” (Jno. 13:14-15).  Service is never more beautiful than when the greater stoops down to help the lesser.

 

Christianity Magazine

May, 1999