Better: Servant : A Better Life

January 11, 2015

A Better Life

Better: Servant

John 12:26

(Advance Slide #1)

Introduction

I read of the famous violinist who gave his prized violin to a cities museum

• However, there was one restriction...it must NEVER be played.
• The wood of such an instrument, while used and handled, wears only slightly.
• In contrast set aside, it begins to decay.
• Today, his violin has become worm-eaten and useless except as a relic.

A Christian's unwillingness to grow as a servant may soon destroy the person’s capacity for usefulness.

PRAY

(Advance Slide #2)

So how can be we get better?

• We will not get better unless we stretch ourselves...it will take effort on our part.
• If we do not...we might just waste away like the violin from the story.

Spiritually speaking, with the new year in front of you, do you want to become better?

• Over the next few week I want us to focus on a few things that we can become better at.
• It is possible for this to happen.
• What will it take for you to become better?

(Advance Slide #3)

• It will take time, effort, and a commitment to become...better!

I hope that each of you will join me today to make a commitment to become better.

• We are going to study the simple verse that was read a moment ago.
• In just this short vs. we can learn a lot about our commitment and our service.

(Advance Slide #4)

Text

“If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.” John 12:26

The text around this verse takes place after His triumphal entry.

• We learn in vs. 20 that there were some Greeks who had come up for the feast and to worship.
• These Greeks came to Philip saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus”
• Philip goes to Andrew and the two go to Jesus to share their wishes.

In vs. 23 Jesus answered them by saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

(Advance Slide #5)

• He foretells His death by telling them a lesson about a grain of wheat:
• The grain MUST “fall to the earth and dies” and “remain alone.”
• Jesus standing alone against the power of sin and death so that the rest of us won’t have to.
• “If it dies, it bears much fruit”
• If they really want to ‘see’ Him, to get to know him and understand what He’s about for themselves, they must get ready to be ‘planted’ in the same way, to risk all in his service.

That was His sacrifice, now Jesus speaks of the personal sacrifice of the people.

• Jesus is the pioneering a route along which his ‘servants’, his ‘followers’, must go after him.

(Advance Slide #6)

• “Whoever loves his life loses it”
• “...whoever hates his life in this world, will keep it for eternal life”

This brings us to the text I wanted us to focus on.

• We learn a few things in this short verse:

1. If we are going to serve Him we must also follow Him.
2. If we are going to follow Him we must also serve Him.
3. Whomever serve Him...the Father will honor!

Here, too, the challenge of being planted with Him is not without the corresponding promise.

(Advance Slide #7)

• “If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.”
• ‘honor’ - to show esteem and pay honor towards
• The best ‘honour’ a chestnut can have is not smashing other chestnuts to bits, but being underground as a whole new tree emerges.
• This must be added to the list of powerful gospel pictures we read, even one for our own sacrificial service.

Lesson

(Advance Slide #8)

Do you have the heart of a servant?  Do you engage in your ministry for the sake of helping your fellow Christians, ultimately to glorify God?  

• These are questions that have to be asked before you can put this lesson into action.

(Advance Slide #9)

Our Sacrifice

Before we trusted Christ, we used our body for sinful pleasures and purposes.

• As a follower of Christ we know that we belong to Him.
• Because of this, we should want to use our body for His glory.
• The Christian’s body is God’s temple because the Spirit of God dwells within him.
• It is our privilege to glorify Christ in our body and magnify Christ in our body.

Just as Jesus Christ had to take on Himself a body in order to accomplish God’s will on earth, we must yield our bodies to Christ that He might continue God’s work through us.

• We must yield the members of the body as “instruments of righteousness” in the doing of God’s work.
• In the Old Testament sacrifices were dead sacrifices, but we are to be living sacrifices.

(Advance Slide #10)

Transformed into a Servant

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:1-2

God wants our minds to be transformed.

• But how can we be a part of this?
• As you spend time meditating on God’s Word, memorizing it, and making it a part of your inner man, we will gradually become what He desires.  
• The end result of this transformation…
• You will be that you begin serving him as He desires you to.

(Advance Slide #11)

Unified Servanthood

Each believer has a gift (or gifts) to be used for the building up of the body and the perfecting of the other members of the body.

• 1 Cor. 12:12; Rom. 12:2 - both text illustrate to us that
• In short, we belong to each other, we minister to each other, and we need each other.  
• We need to be aware of one another and encourage each other as we labor together.

PRAY

Conclusion

(Advance Slide #12)

I want to be a better follower of Christ...do you?

• When we have committed ourselves to Him in baptism...we serve Him.
• When we serve Him we are ‘honored’ by the Father!

We also realize that our becoming a servant:

1. Begins with His sacrifice.
2. Followed up by our own sacrifice.
3. We transform our minds!

What will it take to be a better servant?

• It will take a commitment on our part!

(Advance Slide #13)

“17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” Romans 6:17-18

Let’s become better!