Servant Mentality and the Breath of God 1988

I'd like to begin by reading from John chapter 13, beginning at verse 13. Jesus is speaking. You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.

If I then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you also should do as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him.

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. The most notable change which has occurred in this congregation over the last few years has been the expansion through the flock of what could be called the servant mentality. There are many, many more people among us now than five or ten years ago who think of themselves as servants of God and of each other and deliberately seek to put this into practice in their homes, here in the body, on their jobs, in their neighborhoods.

Servants. Many, many more people among us now than a short while ago who come here on Sunday morning not so much with the question, what am I going to get out of it today? As rather the question, what does God have for me? What does God have for me to do in that place today? Understanding that as we learn to practice being servants, we'll receive everything we need. God will give us just what we need, a living word or whatever it is.

We're learning to be servants, to serve God in worship, to serve each other with words and deeds that encourage and up-build and strengthen, and to serve the seekers and the searching people who find their way among us from the world around us, who are looking. Serving is a mindset. It's a way of thinking.

And it always creates an atmosphere which draws the Spirit of God into our midst. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, we're told in Acts 13. The Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.

As they serve the Lord, and this is really the pattern of heaven always, the Holy Spirit comes to a servant body, dwells among a servant people, inhabits the servant mind. And the more we pursue that servant mentality and seek to practice it and develop it, the more powerfully we will see the Spirit of God moving with resurrection grace through our lives. Now this is expressed most clearly and simply from the mouth of our Lord in Luke chapter 11, starting at verse 5. And Jesus said to them, Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey and I have nothing to set before him.

And he will answer from within, Do not bother me. The door is now shut. My children are with me in bed.

I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his opportunity, his persistence, he will get up and give him whatever he needs. And I tell you, ask and it will be given you.

Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

What father among you, if his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? Now this is a classic teaching in all Scripture of the promise of the Holy Spirit. And it begins with someone who makes himself or herself a servant. A friend comes to you in the middle of the night.

Now this friend is not a moocher. It's not somebody who makes a habit of spawning off people and calling it living by faith. But here's a person who really comes with a need.

And so you make yourself her or his servant. You want to refresh them. You want to give them something to eat.

And then you discover that the cupboards are bare. You know, the kids consumed the last jar of peanut butter. You know, the bread's gone.

Nothing in the house. But you have a friend, the living God, who has more than enough, all the bread you could ever want. So you go in the middle of the night and wake up your friend.

But remember now, you go there as a servant. You go there as someone who has put yourself under this guest who has come. Needing food, you've got no food to give them, and you're trying to be a servant here.

Friend, lend me three loaves. A friend of mine has come on a journey. I have nothing to set before him.

I've got to have bread. Now even though God seems to give you a hard time, the door's shut, too late, my kids are with me in bed, I can't get up right now. Come back tomorrow.

You persist. You say, no, no, my friend is hungry, they're desperate, I have to have bread for them tonight. And you don't let him sleep.

You're persistent. You're a pest. And so then, in great joy, the Heavenly Father gets up and pours out His Spirit, His Life, His Breath, giving you the grace to feed your guests with living bread.

Now I'm sure we all agree that the greatest need in this body is for more of the Holy Spirit, so that we can bring good news to the poor, and deliverance to the captives, and sight to the blind, and bring freedom to the oppressed. A steady stream of needy souls comes into this building, comes into our lives, on our jobs, and in our neighborhoods. They call us on the phone, they spill their guts to us at family reunions, and we earnestly desire to be able to have something effective to give, something that will do some good.

The promise is that God will give us the Holy Spirit, enabling us to do all that. And all we have to do is ask. What father among you, if his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? But, the strange thing is, that the only ones who ever catch on to this teaching of our Lord, I'm going to stop right here and ask if that child will be given a seat.

Somebody was trying to go down in the basement and stash something, and we're going to have to kind of cut the traffic. During church, you know, bathroom time comes when it comes. That's between Sunday school and church, unless you have a kidney problem.

End of commercial. Okay, got that. Okay, we need to keep order.

Very important. Things were getting out of hand a few weeks ago. We've got to clamp down.

Yep, come in and have seats. I'm not going to go on until we get settled here. Looking for his dad.

I don't know if his dad's in here. I don't believe he is. Okay.

Alright, we got that problem. Any other problems before we go on? Okay. The only ones who ever get hold of this promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit, even though he says all you have to do is ask, the only ones who catch on to that, take hold of it, and make it work, are those who fit into the first part of the teaching, which is that you make yourself the servant of the guest who comes in need.

You make yourself a servant. The only congregations of believers that are able to receive an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and translate that outpouring of the Spirit into flesh and blood deeds, into something that's valid and that lasts, are those congregations of believers that are ruled by a servant mentality. Without the servant mentality, you get some hooting and hollering and jumping up and down, and a few months or perhaps a few years of charismatic excitement with little or no lasting fruit.

But with the servant mentality, the Holy Spirit comes and stays and works and moves on and on and on and bears fruit that abides. Now to cultivate the servant mentality in our walk with God, we need to concentrate on four things. Number one, the servant strives to please the master, not the whole world.

Reading from Philippians 2, verse 5, Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Jesus did not come to put on a show for the human race. He came to please his Father.

His one desire and joy was to please his Father. This gave him tremendous freedom in dealing with people. He didn't have to worry about his ratings.

He didn't care whether they loved him or hated him. He loved them. But the only eye he was concerned about pleasing was the eye of his Father.

That was his joy, to please his Father, and that alone. Now, we are his servants, servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. When our eye is on him, we cannot fail.

When our heart is set to please only Jesus, we succeed every single time. See, when we become confused and discouraged and defeated, it is invariably because our eye has slipped off Jesus, and now we're making a pitch for the approval of our audience. And even if the audience begins to clap and shout, and throw us money, we know in our own hearts that we're failures and hypocrites until we get back to the one business of pleasing our one and only Master.

His eye alone is the eye that counts, only his. Point number two, a servant knows who he is, who she is. Everybody else, no matter who it is, has an identity crisis.

Everybody else, they can be the president of the world, they don't know who they are. The servant knows who he is. Reading from John 13, starting in verse 2, And during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, knowing that he had come from God and was going to God, rose up from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel.

Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. Knowing that the Father had put all things into his hands, knowing that he had come from God and was going to God. Jesus never knew that more clearly than when he was serving his Father by serving these disciples.

Knew it most clearly when he was serving his Father by laying down his life on the cross as a ransom for many. The man or the woman who is a servant of Christ knows who he is, knows where she's going. And if you will commit yourself afresh today, truly to being a servant of Jesus, just his servant, you will find that your identity crisis is ended and you will know who you are.

If everybody else walks past and doesn't even notice you, if everybody, you know, questions everything you do, if you know yourself to be a servant, you will have no problem, you will know who you are. Point number three. A servant is unafraid to take initiative.

Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey and I have nothing to say before him. You're a servant. You've made yourself a servant of this guest.

And you're serving the guest really in Jesus' name. So you do what you gotta do. And if it means that you have to go and pound on the door of heaven and keep pounding until you get an answer, that's what you do.

And you don't worry about it. You do it. The servant is not afraid to speak a straightforward word where it's called for.

So you write that letter. You make that phone call. You gather those friends together.

You begin that Bible study. You go visit that person who's sick. Being a servant of the Lord, you do what has to be done.

You know what has to be done and so you do it. You don't sit back and say, how come Susie Smith is crying all the time? Why doesn't somebody talk to her? How come George Johnson doesn't know whether he's ever going to have a ride to church? How come this and how come that and I can't understand this and why isn't it that way? The servant never does that. The servant takes initiative.

You do it or you get somebody to do it. Don't say how come. When you're the servant, you take initiative.

You don't complain. And finally, the servant knows that the master, he's confident that the master will provide all the bread that's needed, the Holy Spirit. And he will answer from within.

Don't bother me. The door is now shut. My children are with me in bed.

I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, though, he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend. Yet because of his persistence, he will rise and give him whatever he needs.

The servant will continue to persist because of his persistence. He'll persist because he knows that this friend who has the bread is also the master. If God is my master and I am his servant, I can ask for whatever I need.

If Jesus is my master and I am his servant, I can ask clearly for whatever I need. The people who pussyfoot and hen and haw before the throne of God, never sure if they should ask or if it's proper or if it'll do any good or whether it's worth the trouble, are not servants. They are the spectators and the critics and the armchair prophets of christened good.

The servant always has a clear shot. Father, I need bread. Gets it.

Father, I need the Holy Spirit. Comes. Jesus, I must have a living word for these people.

The word comes. We have been called not to be a club for nice people. We have been called not to be a Christian social agency.

We have been called to be a servant church. An army of servants of the living God. Every one of us a servant.

Every one of us a servant whose eye is not on the whole world but on the master. A servant who knows who she is. A servant who is not afraid to take initiative.

Doesn't sit back and blame everybody else for things that don't happen. A servant who absolutely is confident that the Father will provide all the bread we need, all the power of the Holy Spirit that's necessary. If we will strive to be servants, if we will pursue the servant mentality, we will see heaven open upon us and the life and power of heaven flowing through us like rivers of living water.

Let's just take a little time in silence and wait upon the Lord. Let the Spirit speak to our hearts.