24. God Wants You
24
GOD WANTS YOU
God is in no trouble. He does not need our service, time or talent. To think He does after one has heard the call of God often leads many young believers into wasted years of fruitless labor.
In 1976, when God called me back into missions from the pastorate, one of my first excuses for not moving ahead in obedience was my pulpit. After all, I argued, this church is obviously being blessed, and “God needs me here.”
How foolish! We have to learn that God doesn’t need us anywhere. He is not helpless!
Regrettably today, too few volunteers are ready to do the work of the Gospel. Almost every day we have a missionary conference on how to win the world to Christ—but the work remains undone because we don’t have men and women with servant-hearts who will go out and lose their personal identities in getting the work done.
Unless we are willing to see ourselves unknown, unrecognized and working behind the scenes, there is no hope for our spiritual service ever to bear real fruit in the economy of God. This is the main reason why I believe God is no longer pleased with many of the denominations, missions and Christian organizations today.
That is also why it is so important we enter into the servant-heart of Jesus. The Jesus-style is the servant-style, and it is the only acceptable approach to Christian service.
Jesus said that “the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister” (Matthew 20:28). And we are to “let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).
Individual believers, Christian churches and missions that refuse to recognize servanthood are traitors to the cause of Christ and do untold harm. Sadly, there are many Christians in our day for whom the New Testament concept of servanthood remains a mystery: “And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” (Matthew 20:27).
Education, family background, talent, beauty, voice, riches and intelligence mean absolutely nothing to God. He doesn’t need our abilities any more than He needs our money.
How sad it is that many talented believers go along for years looking good on the outside, but remaining absolutely useless to the Lord. It is quite possible to be doing the Lord’s work and still not to have entered into servanthood. And so enormous efforts, studies, plans and labor are extended—all uselessly because they cannot stand up to the fires of judgment.
How tragic! And what a contrast from the Spirit-filled service of a surrendered Christian servant. When you really commit yourself to God, He commits Himself to you. Lives are changed. Souls are saved. People are healed in body and spirit. God gives fruit, and the fruit remains.
A great need exists today for believers who will cease chasing their own ambitions, dreams and plans. God is searching for the man or woman who will wait and ask questions like, What do You want me to do? Where do You want me to do it? When do You want me to do it? How do You want me to do it?
Job Description for Servanthood
Often in his writings, the Apostle Paul outlines his job description for servanthood: “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.”
The Greek word here for servant is doulos or “bondslave.” Now a bondslave is no ordinary servant. There is a huge difference.
An ordinary servant is free. He or she is an employee who checks in at 9 a.m. and out again at 5 p.m. The boss has nothing to say about how this servant spends his or her off-duty hours or salary or what the employee eats or wears. An employer/employee relationship leaves the servant free to marry, choose friends and lead a private life.
The bondslave is a different story. This is the slave described in Deuteronomy 15:16–17 who loves his master so much he chooses voluntary, lifelong slavery. He has entered into a contract with the master, symbolized in a ceremony during which the servant’s ear was pierced.
This kind of servant wants to be a slave. A bondslave has given up future ambitions, family, fortune and personal plans. He has chosen to become the property of another. His life is no longer his own.
By the piercing of the ear, the bondslave is saying to the whole world, “I want to stay with this master forever. My ear is open only to him. I give up all my days and all my nights—my hope of family, mate and money. I will exist to do his will.”
The ordinary employee has rights. The slave does not. We need to understand that we who belong to Christ have been called to be His slaves, and we no longer have any rights over our lives. Rarely is it necessary to pump up and motivate such people with applause, awards, prizes or salary.
The Christian who has accepted servanthood as normative has turned over himself or herself to the Lord and says only, “Here am I; send me.”
I keep a little anonymous poem in my Bible that says it so well. This is the kind of servant spirit that God is looking for today.
I am seeking for one who will wait and watch, for My beckoning hand—My eye.
Who will work in My manner the work I give, and the work I give not—pass by.
And oh the joy that is brought to Me, when one such as this I find.
A man who will do all My will, who is set to study his Master’s mind.
This is what God is calling His people to embrace in these end times—a life of servanthood. He is challenging us to join the fraternity of the involved, a fellowship of believers who realize the only real truth is truth lived out.
We can go to conferences, listen to music, read books, attend church services—but see no change. What will it take? How can we move from being the best informed Christians in the world to a life of active service? When will our lives begin to conform to what we know and believe? How can we get to that place where we’ll launch out into action instead of merely talk about the lost and suffering millions around us?
The answer is simple. You need to go to the spiritual doorpost of your house and lay your ear against the wood. You need to hand the awl to Jesus and say, “Please, Master, pierce my ear. I want to be Your slave forever!”
There can be no change until we change our attitude from that of the hireling to become bondslaves.
We have to give up our imaginations. We have dreamed up the idea that we can have a conditional employment contract with God. The Bible offers no such thing. We must give up the carefully crafted escape hatches we have designed. Voluntarily we must turn our backs on our excuses for disobedience. Only when we realize that Christ asks for nothing less than unconditional servanthood will we begin to walk in spiritual reality.
Christ is not looking today for cheerleaders, but for athletes who will get into the game and play.
Everywhere I go I find people who will gladly sing about missions, study about missions and even pray about missions. But where are the ones with the servant spirit who will get involved with their whole lives? These are the ones who are willing to go, send and suffer to obey the commands of the Master.
Paul mentions in Romans 1:1 that he is separated unto the service of the Gospel. The Great Commission involves coming as well as going. You cannot go into all the world unless first you have come away from it and separated yourself to follow Jesus Christ. Bondslavery, like marriage, implies total loyalty to the Master. And there is no way we can have this unless we are committed to living a life of separation from all other masters and all other things.
Be Separated from Sin
You cannot serve sin and Christ at the same time. Romans 6 warns that we are not to let sin reign in our bodies.
“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” (Romans 6:16).
Three of the most powerful words of warning in the Bible are found in Luke 17:32: “Remember Lot’s wife.” Here is a woman who looked back longingly after the sin and rebellion of Sodom, and it cost her everything.
We can’t be looking back to our days of sin—playing games with the lusts of our flesh—and still hope to serve Christ effectively. No, we must hate sin as Christ did, enough to die for it.
We need to picture ourselves crucified with Christ.
Imagine yourself hanging on your own cross of execution. Is there any attraction to sin and the world left in you? Do the temporary pleasures of this world still have an appeal now? This is the death to sin that every servant of the Most High God must taste daily.
“But God forbid,” wrote Paul in Galatians 6:14, “that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
Be Separated from the World
The Bible says that we cannot love God and the world simultaneously. There is no middle ground. You must love one and hate the other—the Lord permits no other position.
From earliest childhood, we learn the ways of this world. Unconsciously, worldliness entered our minds. But we must unlearn these methods and techniques, becoming like children again if we want to be effective servants in the kingdom of God.
We must learn it is impossible to mix worldly and spiritual methods without hindering the cause of Christ.
Be Separated from the Devil
The Bible teaches that Satan is the ruler of this world, and we see that he rules it with cunning efficiency. It is organized and submitted to a dictator who rules ruthlessly.
In business, education, law, government, media and medicine—even in children’s games, fashion, music and entertainment—Satan has established systems to ensnare and enslave the minds and souls of mankind.
We must learn to resist the fiery darts of the wicked one and overcome this evil triad if we want to be servants of Christ. The world, the flesh and the devil are real forces. We must choose to separate ourselves consciously from them.
Sadly, many millions of Christians today cannot follow Christ into a life of servanthood because they haven’t made this conscious choice.
I’m not talking about moving our evangelical churches and homes to the suburbs. This isn’t biblical separation at all. We’re only doing this to avoid confronting the poor, the needy and those enslaved to sin. We’re frightened to go where Satan manifests his reign over this world. In many cases we’re afraid because in our hearts we know we’re not living a totally separated Christian life. And because of that, we still feel vulnerable to Satan.
Jesus wasn’t afraid to visit with corrupt politicians, prostitutes and Mafia-types because He loved people who were in bondage to liquor, sin and vice. He deliberately reached out to the underprivileged, sick and poor people of His day.
The true servant of Christ realizes obedience will often be dangerous, risky and unpleasant. It may mean leaving the comfortable little retreats we have built—our homes and churches in the suburbs—to go into the mean streets of the inner city. It may involve leaving our familiar circle of friends to reach out to neighbors with problems, troubled teenagers, the sick and the imprisoned.
Being a servant of Christ also means being involved in some way with Third World missions to the same kind of people—only worse off because they are in places where the Gospel has not even been preached yet. As the great British athlete-turned-missionary C.T. Studd put it, “Some wish to live within the sound of church or chapel bell. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.”[1]
Bought with a Price
Servanthood is the normal Christian life. This is not a life reserved only for clergy, missionaries or super-saints. The Lord Jesus has every right to expect each of us to fully abandon our lives to Him. The Apostle Paul tells why.
In 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 and again in 7:21–23, Paul writes that our bodies and spirits have been bought by Jesus Christ for a price. His blood shed on Calvary has purchased our redemption. Now we belong to Him.
Servanthood is only giving back to God what already is His.
Imagine a situation where a guest in your home steals your wallet. Later, he feels guilty, confesses the sin and returns your wallet. Has the thief done anything wonderful? No, he has only given you back what is already yours. That’s exactly how it is when we accept servanthood as a way of life. We are only returning what belongs to Him. We’re only doing what we should have done the very minute we were born again.
As a matter of fact, you may have been a better servant in the early days of your salvation experience than you are today. The spiritual temperature in many of our churches is so low right now that a new believer has to become a backslider to feel at home.
If this sounds extreme to you, perhaps you should reexamine your Christian experience to see if you’re really saved. I’m writing this message to truly born-again Christians, because they are the ones who must come to grips with the terms of real Christian servanthood.
I plead with you to choose a life of total surrender because this is the New Testament standard for Christian living.
And something else. Blood-bought servanthood is also the only acceptable motivation for Christian service.
If the driving force for your Christian service is anything like adventure, companionship, ego-gratification or power lust, then it is unacceptable to our Lord. That doesn’t mean we quit serving when we detect false motivation. Rather, it means we repent of the sin and do the work of God with the right motivation.
If the men and women of this world can die for such petty causes as political independence, material wealth and territorial gain—isn’t true servanthood the minimal response we can offer to the love of our Creator? He is, after all, the Living God with whom we will spend all eternity. And He has made it clear that servanthood is what He expects from us.
Why Heaven Is a Happy Place
Heaven is a happy, restful, perfect place because only God’s will is done there. The angels are not running around in a frenzy trying to change the universe and save the world! No, they wait for orders. The angels understand their servant role.
When we as believers can come to that place in our lives, then we’ll begin to understand a little of what it is like to have a servant attitude. Then God can really use us.
Jesus was a carpenter. That means He made yokes, the wooden collars that are used to hitch oxen to wagons. They must have been very good, very comfortable ones because Jesus said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30).
How different this sounds from the frenzied, overburdened lives of so many Christians today!
How we need to learn the meaning of Hebrews 4:9–10: “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works.”
God wants us to lay aside our plans, schedules, schemes and visions and learn to serve Him in the power of the Holy Spirit. He wants to carry us along in our service—to rely on Him for mercy and grace in our times of need.
When you’re doing His work this way, there is no need for fights and squabbles, murmuring, complaining and backbiting. We are no longer intimidated by people or circumstances. We are not on a roller coaster of emotions at each victory or defeat, because God is totally in charge. We know all things work together for good because we are called according to His purpose, and we are conducting our work according to His will.
What a glorious relief. What a change from the yokes fashioned by men, organizations, society and the world around us! What a change from the yokes we fashion for ourselves. They are always tiresome, painful and hard to bear.
The most joyful element of entering into servanthood is the relief it brings from the fears, worries and trials that come from projects undertaken in fleshly wisdom and strength.