Servant – Key To God’s Heart
For those of you who don’t know, my job is to manage the computer Helpdesk
at Florida State University. My office receives calls concerning computer
problems from faculty, staff, and students, and we attempt to get their problems
solved in one way or another. During one of our staff devotionals I asked the
members of my staff, "What are you to your customers?" A few of the
answers I got were "problem solvers, mothers, fathers, friends,
assistants, and counselors." What I saw from each answer was my employees
placing themselves above the customer in a "superior" position. You
see, no one gave me the answer I was looking for — SERVANTS! When I told my
staff that we were servants, I received some very interesting looks. I thought
to myself, "this is going to be a good devotional" because I knew
that this message was really going to stretch my people. We then went on to
read the following scriptures:
Genesis 17th Chapter:
1When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared
to him and said, "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless.
15God also said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife,
you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. 16I
will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that
she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her."
18And Abraham said to God, "If only Ishmael might
live under your blessing!" 19Then God said, "Yes,
but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will
establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants
after him. 20And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will
surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his
numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a
great nation. 21But my covenant I will establish with Isaac,
whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year."
Here we see God making Abraham a promise, a promise that Abraham’s
99-year-old body could not keep all by itself. From the promise alone, I know
that I know that I know that viagra ain’t got nothing on our God! God was going
to give Abraham a son and that son would be born within a year (21st).
Now let’s read the next passage of scripture.
Genesis 18th Chapter:
1The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of
Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2Abraham
looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from
the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground. 3He
said, "If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your
servant by. 4Let a little water be brought, and then you may
all wash your feet and rest under this tree. 5Let me get you
something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that
you have come to your servant." "Very well," they answered,
"do as you say."
6So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah.
"Quick," he said, "get three seahs of fine flour and knead it
and bake some bread." 7Then he ran to the herd and
selected a choice, tender calf and gave it to a servant, who hurried to prepare
it. 8He then brought some curds and milk and the calf that
had been prepared, and set these before them. While they ate, he stood near
them under a tree. 9"Where is your wife Sarah?"
they asked him. "There, in the tent," he said. 10Then
the LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and
Sarah your wife will have a son."
To be quite honest this passage of scripture worked on my spirit for quite
some time. We see Abraham, father of many nations, jump up and become a servant
to these three guys — and that worked on me. I meditated on this one item for a
while: "Who were these guys? Were they princes, kings, governors, men of
status — who were they?" The Holy Spirit finally spoke to me and said
this: "Who they were is not important. Look at Abraham’s actions and his
attitude."
So I read the passage again and from the 3rd verse the Holy
Spirit revealed Abraham’s role as servant to me. Abraham really put himself out
there and asked his wife to do the same, and she did. But this is the thing we
really want you to get! After seeing them place themselves in servitude, GOD
WAS MOVED!!! As a matter of fact, He was so moved that He reminded Himself of
the promise He made to Abraham.
10Then the LORD said, "I
will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will
have a son."
Now I don’t see the Lord as saying this casually. I see Him saying this with
enthusiasm, like a proud father eager to bless an obedient son. Again, this
action moved the Lord’s heart in such a way that He reminded Himself of His own
promise . . . "Oooooo Laud" As the old folk say! It’s the heart of a
servant that moves the heart of God! If you ain’t shouting I don’t know what to
say about you. I’m always trying to find out how to get God to move for me, and
here we’ve actually tapped into one of those ways — Be a Servant.
Let’s take a 90-degree turn for a moment. I hear a lot of Christians making
faith confessions in an attempt to remind God of His promises. Straight up —
"I’m right there with you." I believe in making those faith
confessions, and as a matter of fact I need to do more of them myself! However,
my concern is for those Christians who are always trying to remind God of what
He should do for them when they should be remembering what they are supposed to
be doing for Him. I’m talking now about the spiritual couch potatoes that are sitting
back getting full on the Word and still sitting on "their
Excellence." (And believe me we’ve got a series coming on that too!) This
especially applies when it comes to our church service.
Too many Christians need to stop going to church week in and week out trying
to kill the pastor and God’s work. ABC, NBC, CNN, and HBO have not hired anyone
to do Sunday afternoon telephone commentaries about the pastor’s sermons, the
choir, the ushers, or any other part of service. It’s really easy to talk about
how much is wrong in the church as long as you aren’t doing anything in the
church or anything about the problem. And for those Christians who don’t serve
because they feel the church ain’t dealing with sex, money, abortions, teen
pregnancy, gangs, school violence, drugs, divorce, and an on-going list of
millennium issues, the Holy Spirit has given me four words for you: YOU ARE THE
CHURCH!
The reason why the church "ain’t" dealing with it
because many of us "ain’t" dealing with it. If you see the
need, then be a servant and meet the need. Abraham saw brothers in need, so he
ran to meet that need, and God Himself was moved in the process. In the New
Testament, before we see Jesus do tremendous miracles, we see these word
"compassion" close by.
Matthew 14:14 And Jesus went forth, and saw
a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed
their sick.
Matthew 18:27 Then the lord of that servant
was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.
Mark 1:41 And Jesus, moved with compassion,
put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean.
We need to focus less on our needs and more on the needs of others. Yes, we
are children of the Most High God! Yes, we are the righteousness of God through
Christ! But we also need to be God’s servants. Once we find ourselves as
servants it will be no surprise that we will find ourselves blessed!
Psalms 35:27 – Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my
righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified,
which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant.
