Servanthood
This past weekend I spoke at Family Camp on the subject of Servanthood while those at EBC heard from Pastor Mark, Chaplain at Open House Ministries (you can watch the video he showed at the EBC services on Homelessness in Clark County here).
I thought I’d follow up on the challenges you received by sharing an excerpt from a sermon I preached before coming to EBC. It deals with what true meekness looks like. It is through meekness that we can become people that happily look to the needs of others.
“The Meek person sees Jesus’ submission and follows in His submissive footsteps. Thus, if God calls you to be a martyr one day, you may be able to answer this call in meekness. Your brokenness can keep you from crying out because of the injustice of it. You know that you deserve worse. You’ll be able to control yourself and keep from returning blows, and you’ll submit yourself to the plan of God for His glory. And you’ll rejoice in being able to join Paul in filling up the suffering of Jesus. This is a Meek person, the opposite of a weak person. This is a person who looks to Jesus who will one day return as a roaring lion, untamed but good.
Until that day, we remember the Cross. We remember that Jesus could have called down legions of angels, especially when He was mocked, and taken out His mockers. But He was meek. He humbled Himself to death on a Cross. He was so broken over the sin of the world that He allowed Himself to be broken and crushed for our transgressions. He used self-control to not take the form of the wild, untamed lion when the timing wasn’t right to devour his enemies. He submitted to the will of the Father and went to the cross as there was no other way. He was the one who had to drink the cup of judgement. The father would not take the cup from Him and so he drank it. Jesus embodied Meekness in His life & in His death. And so we praise the Lord.
A.W. Tozer said: “The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto.”
What a great God we serve!
~Matt Daniells
Categories: Evergreen Connection