The Requirements of Servanthood

Welcome to the In Touch podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, October seventh. Today we'll be challenged to consider Christ's example of humble service to others. A familiar story from Luke chapter nineteen reveals the requirements of servanthood. Would you complete this sentence? God saved me because.

How would you complete that sentence? God saved me because. What is the only legitimate answer? He loves me. That is the only reason he saved me.

Anything you add to that, you're adding to God's love. In other words, there cannot be any merit on our part. God saved us because he loved us. All right, next question. God's purpose for saving me was what is it?

All right, to glorify Him.

Next question. I am most like Jesus when I am. All right, to answer that question, listen to what Jesus said. He says, "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but rather to serve." And to give his life a ransom for many, Jesus saw himself as a servant. Jesus always saw himself as a servant.

Now, let me ask you a question: How many of you think you know how to serve God? I wonder how many people really and truly have ever thought about how do you serve God? What are the requirements of being a real servant? It's very clear in the Scripture. That's what it's all about.

If I am not going to serve the Lord, then I am not going to glorify Him, and if I am not going to glorify Him, it would be better for Jesus to save a person at eleven, fifty, or twelve o'clock, and then to give them an opportunity to say goodbye to their family and take them on home, and within about thirty minutes, they wouldn't have any more sin in their life, wouldn't have to be broken, wouldn't have to go through valleys, wouldn't have to learn all these marvelous, wonderful, painful lessons that we learn. You know why He left you here? He leaves us here in order to pour out his life through us into the lives of other people.

Now there is a passage of scripture in Luke chapter nineteen, Luke chapter nineteen, beginning in the first verse. The scripture says, "And he Jesus entered and was passing through Jericho, and behold, there was a man called by the name of Zacchaeus, and he was a chief." Tax gatherer, and he was rich, and he was trying to see who Jesus was, and he was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature. And he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see him, for he was about to pass through that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house. And he heard and came down and received him gladly.

And when they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, "He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner." And Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, "Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much." And Jesus said to him. Today's salvation has come to this house because he too is the son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.

Now here is a simple incident in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ on his way through Jericho to Jerusalem, and within just about a week or so, he's going to the cross. But he takes the time to recognize. And to serve someone else, I want you to jot down five words. The first word in the requirements for servanthood. If I am going to learn to be a servant, the word number one: awareness.

Awareness is the key word.

Now, listen to what happened here. The Bible says that Jesus was passing along through Jericho, and there were crowds all alongside the street who were watching him. They'd heard he was coming. The streets are lined up, and there's a fellow there by the name of Zacchaeus who is a tax collector.

Now, a man who was a tax collector in those days among the people of Israel was considered a traitor to the cause of his own people.

So here he is, the chief tax collector. He's the administrator. He has other people working under him, and besides that, he's known as a thief. People don't like him. They've rejected him.

He doesn't have any friends. When they see him coming, they want to cross the street. He felt all kinds of rejection. Why do you think he had to climb a tree to see Jesus? Because every time he tried to itch up in line to get on the street on the on the curb, so he could see him.

And when they saw who it was, they just close ranks. Not about to let him in. Most anybody they would have let in, but not Zacchaeus. He was an extortioner. He was a tax collector.

So the scripture says, because of his curiosity, he runs ahead and climbs up into the sycamore tree.

Now there were other folks in trees, probably there watching Jesus come by. But then he comes to this particular tree, and all of a sudden Jesus stops. He looks up and he says, "Zacchaeus, hurry down! I'm going home with you today." You know why Jesus stopped under that tree? Because Jesus knew that Zacchaeus desperately needed him.

Let me ask you a question: How many people where you work are up in the tree, and you walk by them every day, and you never even look up? You see, in our busyness to carry on our vocation. And in our business to serve the Lord, and I have to work at this. And there are times I have to go to people and say, "Look, I want to ask you to forgive me. I really didn't mean to ignore you.

That was not my heart. I didn't mean to just pass you by." It's easy for that to happen to us, amidst our going about our duties to walk right by the people who hang. Did you know the truth is there are people hanging in the trees everywhere, who are saying, "Well, somebody help me." Calling to us, pleading with us. Won't somebody care? Won't somebody listen?

I can't handle much more. Doesn't anybody really care about where I am? You see, he didn't have to work in the life of Jesus because Jesus was perfectly sensitive.

Now we'll never be as sensitive as he was, because there was no sin. You see, he is part of the problem. If my eyes are all. Turned inward to my needs and my hurts and my cares and my wishes and my wants, friends, you hanging the trundle. Jesus comes and I'll never see you.

And I wonder how many people are hanging there. And because we are so wrapped up in our little old selves, we can't hear their weeping. Because you see, we're so wrapped up down here doing our thing, we don't even know there's anybody hanging up there. Learn to be sensitive. To what's around me?

Who's around me? Who's hurting? And who's in need? Second word. Availability.

Listen to what happened. The Lord Jesus Christ was on His way to Jerusalem to the cross to die for the whole world. I mean, we're talking about redeeming all of mankind, past, present, and future. And the Scripture says when He came to this particular tree that Jesus stopped. Looked up.

Now listen. He looked up and he said, "Zacchaeus, I'm on my way to Jerusalem. If I had time, I'd spend a little time with you, but you just hang in there, buddy. You'll make it. I'm going to the cross.

I'm going to die for the world. But I'll keep you in mind." That wouldn't even be in the Bible if that's what Jesus had said. But the Bible says that Jesus Christ, on His way to die for all the sin of all mankind, stopped and made Himself available to give time to the most wretched, despicable, rejected, unliked man in all of Jericho. He didn't call the mayor or the governor. Not the most respectable citizen.

He chose a man that nobody else would have gone home with. Requirements of a servant. Not only must I be aware, but available. Available what? Available to give some time, just a little time, to listen.

Available not only in time, but available with my testimony. Jesus was available not only to give Zacchaeus some time; he was available to spend time listening to this man and talking to him. He said, "I'm going with you to your house." He went to eat with him.

Now, what do you do when you sit down eat with somebody? You talk and you listen and you enjoy each other's company. Are you too busy to tell somebody who's hurting real bad what Jesus Christ can do in their life? Then if we're that busy, we're too busy to live any longer on Earth. We ought to just be taken on because we're too busy to do the very thing that's keeping us down here.

Available in my time, available with my testimony, available with my treasure. Let me tell you something. What you and I have doesn't belong to us in the first place. Everything he sends through our life and through our hands, our hands must always be open for him to have any part of it he wants at any time. He says, "If I'm going to be a servant, it's not enough for me to have a little time with you, but I've got to be willing to give out of my resources, not for credit." That's why I hesitate to say some things.

Sometimes I would never do it for credit. God already knows my heart about that, but I want you to understand what God is willing to do if you just give Him a chance. The third word is acceptance. If I am going to be a servant, I've got to be willing to accept other people just the way they are. And now, listen.

Jesus didn't say to Zacchaeus, "Hey." When you clean up your act, if you'll come down here, you get it all straightened up in the tree. I'll wait for you. Come on down here. You and I'll have a little fellowship. That's not what he said.

He accepted him just the way he was. And I want to remind you of something. Don't ever forget this. The day you came to the Lord Jesus Christ on bended knee, you came with a filthy heart, dirty, nasty, stinking. In fact, God said that our heart was like filthy rags.

His response to you was, "I accept you, just the way you are." You know what you have to have to be a servant? You have to have a forgiving spirit. Then you have to have a forgetting spirit. Did you know that some of the folks the Lord may ask you to serve and to help may be somebody who's wronged you? If you can't forgive.

And you can't forget, then I doubt if you will serve. The next word is abiding. What do I mean by that?

Well, I want you to turn, if you will, for just a moment to John chapter fifteen. And in this passage, here is the key that our Lord wants us to remember. He says, "I am the vine; that is Christ. Ye are the branches; that is the believer." He says, "Abide in me." Now, watch this. Abide in me—that is, live in me.

When you and I were saved, it's as if we were grafted into the vine, and now we're living in the vine. What does Paul say in Colossians chapter two? You have to watch this. He says, "Just as you trusted Christ to save you, trust Him too for each day's problems. Let your roots grow down into Him." And draw up your nourishment from Him, and keep on living and loving and serving the Lord.

Now, what do I mean by all of that? By abiding, I mean simply this: that within us there is not the resource to serve other people like they need to be served, and that's why the Lord Jesus Christ has become our life, and that's why He says in this passage, John fifteen, "I am the vine." Verse five. You the branches, he who abides in me, and I in him, he bears or she bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing, or your life is going to be fruitless and non-productive.

Now, the Lord Jesus Christ was Himself dependent upon His Father. Go back to John chapter eight for a moment. Listen to what He said in this eighth chapter of John. He says in verse 28, "Jesus therefore said, 'When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on my own initiative. But I speak these things as the Father taught me, and He who sent me is with me.

He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him. He was dependent upon the Father.

Now you and I ought to serve the Lord not out of our resource of time." Not out of our resource of testimony, not out of our resource of treasure, but we are to serve the Lord by serving others, trusting in the omnipotent life that lives within us, that is overflowing out of our life day by day. We are to trust in the inner resource of Jesus Christ to meet the needs of other people, as He sends us to serve them. He is my resource for all that I need. What's the fifth word? Abandonment.

Now, what do I mean by that?

Well, I want you to notice something that happened in this passage. Scripture says, when the Lord Jesus Christ stopped and said, "Zacchaeus, come down! I'm going home with you right now." Verse seven. And when they saw it. They all begin to grumble, saying, "Oh no, he's going to be the guest of a man who is a sinner." What do I mean by abandonment?

Turn to John chapter twelve for a moment. Look at this verse, John chapter twelve, verse twenty-three. And Jesus answered them, saying, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." Verily, verily, or truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life, self-centered, self-seeking, selfish, loses it in essence.

And he who hates or is willing to abandon his own self will in this world shall keep it to life in eternal. If anyone serves me, let him follow me, and where I am, there shall my servant also be. If anyone serves me, listen to this: the Father will do what? Honor him. Do you understand that the God the Father says, when you and I are serving him, he honors us.

Now watch this. Here is the barn; it is perfectly clean. I mean, the floor is spotless. There's not a thing on it. It's warm in the winter.

It's a little cool in the summer, and it's always clean. On the barn floor, there are two grains of wheat. Grain number one, grain number two. The farmer comes in and says to these two grains of wheat, "I would like to sow you." That means I'm going to take you out of this comfortable barn. And I'm going to plant you in the earth.

I'm going to dig a grave and put you in it. I'm going to cover you up, and it's going to be dark. You're going to experience heat. You're going to experience cold. You're going to experience dryness.

You're going to experience moisture. But if you will allow me to do that, you will be multiplied innumerable times. Grain number one says nothing doing. Not gonna bury me. I like it all cozy on the barn floor.

That's the way I like it.

So grain number one just lays there for years, years and years and years, still lays on a clean barn floor. Grain number two says, "Well, you know, I don't like darkness either, and the cold, and the heat, the moisture, and the dryness. I don't like to be buried." I surely don't want to die. But if it means that I would be multiplied, then I'm willing. All the terrible things the farmer said were true.

Buried, darkness, moisture, cold, hot. But then something happens when the grain dies and breaks open. Before long. There's a little touch of green where it died, and then before long, it's taller and taller. Till finally, it's one single stalk of wheat.

Thirty grains, forty grains, fifty grains, a hundred, whatever it might be. One grain has now become, let's say, fifty.

Next year, all fifty of them get planted. The next year. All those multiplied numbers get planted. Back in the barn, grain number one still lies there, all cozy, all wrapped up in its own quiet, lonely self.

Now let me ask you a question: Which grain had you rather be? Keeping it cozy, keeping it comfortable. Everything going your way. Don't get your hands dirty. Don't have to give.

Don't spend any time with anybody. Let them hang by the trees, man. You walk right under them. Or are you willing to die to your old selfish, self-centered, self-seeking lifestyle, and let God multiply you? By the thousands and the thousands and the thousands, that's what the Christian life is all about.

Thank you for listening to the Requirements of Servanthood. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or Intouch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of Intouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.