LEADERSHIP IS SERVING OTHERS Leadership Lifter

Transcription

1 LEADERSHIP IS SERVING OTHERS Leadership Lifter Rick Warren I want us to look at one of the most radical verses in the Bible. Jesus said in Matthew 20:26 & 28 (Living Bible) Anyone wanting to be a leader among you must be your servant. And if you want to be right at the top, you must serve like a slave. Your attitude must be like My own. For I did not come to be served, but to serve. Then Luke 22:26 But among you the one who serves best will be your leader. These two verses are the foundation for Christian leadership. If you re going to be a leader at Saddleback you ve got to internalize these in your life. Jesus said the exact opposite of what the world says as what a real leader is. In the world, you build a pyramid and you climb to the top. Dog-eat-dog. Win by intimidation. Look out for Number One. Step on everybody else as you re climbing to the top. Jesus said, No, he who serves best leads best. Servanthood is leadership. The better you serve the more God raises you up to leadership. Leadership is service. Jesus said, I didn t come to be served, but to serve. I want to be like Jesus. Jesus is saying that leadership is not a matter of getting people to serve you but leadership is a matter of serving them. The more that I serve others, the more God raises me up in leadership. The more you serve others, the more God raises you up in leadership. Jesus said, If you want to be great, you learn to be the servant of all. What does that mean? Why should I serve others? I want to give you seven motivations, why you ought to serve others. We all like to serve God, but we don t like to serve others. If somebody said, There goes Mike, the servant of God, that s a pretty great title. That s a title Paul used, Mary and Peter, even Jesus said, I m a servant of God. But what we don t like to be is the servant of others. Jesus said, the way you be the servant of God is to be the servant of others. Seven Motivations. God is much more interested in why you do what you do than He is interested in what you do. Check out your heart on these: WHY SHOULD I SERVE OTHERS? 1. BECAUSE WE WERE CREATED FOR SERVICE Ephesians 2:10 It is God Himself who has made us what we are and given us new lives from Christ Jesus. Long ago He planned that we should spend these lives in helping others. Circle long ago. The Bible says that even before you were born, God planned a life of service for you. The reason why so many people are miserable today, why so many people want to commit suicide, feel empty is because they ve missed the point of life. The Bible says that long ago God planned that I should serve others, that you should serve others. As I serve others, my own needs are met and as I give my life

2 away, I find it. You were created for service. If you re not serving somewhere, you re missing out on the very reason you were created. That s a mind-blower! 2. IT PROVES THAT I BELONG TO CHRIST Romans 7:4 You are part of the body of Christ and now you belong to Him in order that we might be useful in the service of God. God says that the way that you know that you re a part of the body of Christ is that you serve others. It s the proof. A non-serving Christian is a contradiction. There s no such thing. It s a contradiction. There s no such thing to say, I m a Christian but I m not serving. 3. SERVING OTHERS IS THE WAY TO SERVE GOD Serving others is the way to serve God. Colossians 3:23-24 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord and not for men. It is the Lord you are serving. No matter what you re doing, who are you doing it for? You re doing it for the Lord. Matthew 25:40 Jesus said, What you have done for the humblest of My brothers you have done for Me. He states it positively, If you feed and cloth others, then you feed and clothe Me. If you haven t fed and clothed others, you haven t fed and clothed Me. The greatest honor is to serve the Lord. 4. BECAUSE I OWE GOD EVERYTHING Romans 12:1 Because of God s great mercy to us, offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him. The reason why I serve the Lord is because of what God s done for me because of His mercy. When I think of what Jesus Christ has done for me, the sacrifice that He s made for me, there is no sacrifice that I can make for Him that will ever compare to what He s done for me. Even if I never got any reward for the service that I do for the Lord, I owe Him my service. The fact that He saved me, He made me His, I m going to go to heaven when I die, He forgave all my sins. So I give Him my life. 5. BECAUSE IT S THE BEST USE OF MY LIFE 1 Corinthians 15:56 (Good News) Keep busy in your work for the Lord, since you know that nothing you do in the Lord s service is ever without value. If you re in Children s ministry and you change a diaper, it s not without value. If you pick up a piece of trash on Sunday morning because you say, Saddleback Sam walking in might be turned off by this, that s not worthless. It s of value. If you walk into a restroom and you see paper spread out all over and you pick it up thinking, Some visitor coming in here might be offended by this, nothing you do is without value if you do it for the Lord. The Bible says, whatever you do, since you do it as to the Lord, it all counts. When I go home and play with my kids that s as important a service as preparing a sermon. When I take out the garbage or do the dishes for Kay so she can go do something, that s just as significant service as when I m leading a S.A.L.T. training because it all counts in God s eyes. It s not so much what you do, it s your heart and how you do it. What is my attitude? So there s no insignificant service in God s eyes. It s not like being a singer

3 on the stage on Sunday morning is more important than stuffing bulletins. Or stuffing bulletins is more important than parking cars. Or parking cars is more important than leading the third grade class. The Bible says that nothing you do in the Lord s service is ever without value. When you minister, you re making an impact for eternity. When you do other stuff (we do things all during the week) that won t count five years from now, much less for eternity. But as the old saying goes: Only one life will soon be past, only what s done for Christ will last. It is the best use of my life to serve other people. If I didn t believe that, I d get out of the pastorate and go make a million bucks somewhere. I d go start a business, make a million bucks, retire and play golf. The fact is, what counts is giving your life away. 6. BECAUSE IT MAKES LIFE MEANINGFUL Jesus said in Mark 8:35 (Living Bible) Only those who throw away their lives for My sake and the sake of the good news will ever know what it means to really live. I don t pity people who are up to their neck in service. I happen to know that those are the people who are most alive. If you re not serving, you re not living; you re just existing. That s why we want to move people into the core because Jesus says, Only those people who are throwing their lives away for My sake and the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live. It makes life meaningful. 7. IT WILL BE REWARDED FOR ETERNITY John 12:26 Jesus said, My Father will honor the ones who serve Me. Matthew 25:21 He says, Well done good and faithful servants. You ve been faithful in a few things. I ll put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master s happiness. This life is a test. This is just probation down here. You re just being tested and God is seeing what kind of faithfulness you have. You re going to spend far more time on that side of eternity than you do the 60, 70, 80, 90 years you re here. How you spend your time here is going to determine what s going to be done with you in the next life for eternity. Jesus said, You ve been faithful in little things. I ll put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master s happiness. That s the greatest motivation in my life. Someday I want to stand before Jesus Christ and I want to hear Him say, Well done thou good and faithful servant. You were not perfect, but you did your best. You gave it your best shot. You tried to make your life count for Christ. You gave it away. You had mistakes and bloopers and did all kinds of things that were worthless, but you gave it your best shot At that point, when Jesus says, Well done thou good and faithful servant, it will be worth it all. Because that s where I m going to spend eternity. Those are the motivations for being a servant. What does it take to be a servant? Nine characteristics we re going to look at. There are many more than this. What does it take to be a servant-hearted leader. You can t be a leader without being a servant. 1. A SERVANT IS TOTALLY DEDICATED TO GOD S SERVICE

4 A real servant is totally dedicated to God s service. Psalm 119:10 With all my heart, I try to serve You. Psalm 86:11 Teach me to serve You with complete devotion. Circle complete. That is a great prayer for you to pray if you re in ministry. If you re getting ready to do something for the Lord, say, Lord, help me to do this with complete devotion. A servant is totally dedicated. Can you imagine a part-time slave? There s no such thing. Let s say I was your slave, that we were in a country that had slavery. And I come up to you and say, I know I m your slave, you bought me and paid for me, and you own me completely, but I will be serving you between eight and twelve on Sunday morning. And the rest of the week I ll have to myself. That s ridiculous. One of the biggest fallacies in Christianity is the phrase; He is in `full-time Christian service. Do you realize that every Christian is in full time Christian service? A non-serving Christian is a contradiction. Every Christian is in full time Christian service. And everything you do can be done as unto the Lord, whether it s taking out the garbage, or finishing a deal you say, Lord, I m doing this as unto You. You re in service for the Lord at all times. A servant is totally dedicated to God s service. Romans 12:1 says we are to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice totally dedicated to God. The only problem with a living sacrifice is it could crawl off the altar. Lots of times we do that. We come to church in Sunday and God moves us God, I m going to be totally dedicated to You this week. I offer my life as a living sacrifice -- and we climb up on the altar. Then on Monday, we climb off. On Sunday, we sing Onward Christian Soldiers then on Monday we go AWOL. It s a constant total dedication. 2. A SERVANT SEES SERVICE AS AN OPPORTUNITY, NOT AS AN OBLIGATION. Psalm 100:2 Serve the Lord with... a sense of duty? because you have to? No. Serve the Lord with gladness. Not with sadness. Nothing is a poorer testimony than somebody who s serving the Lord because they have to! That s no testimony. If you can t serve the Lord with gladness, you need to check your attitude. You need to go back over all those things Christ has done for you and realize the motivations that will create gladness in your life. I feel like Paul in 1 Timothy 1:12 (Phillips) I m deeply grateful to Jesus our Lord for trusting me enough to appoint me to His ministry in spite the fact that I previously blasphemed His name. God uses imperfect people. He uses ordinary people like you and me. If God only used perfect people what would get done? Absolutely nothing. Paul says, When I look at my past, I think `I m so grateful that God has chosen to use me! All of us have skeletons in our closet. All of us have things we wish we could change. All of us have regrets and mistakes and memories we wish had never happened. Dumb choices that we re sometimes still paying for. We all have these things in our lives. But God s grace is that He takes ordinary people, with ordinary backgrounds and uses them in extraordinary ways. The next time somebody comes to you and say, You re serving as Who do you think you are? That s the wrong question. The question is not Who do you think you are? but Who do you think God is? The next time somebody says that say, I am a trophy of God s grace! Because that s what every one of us are.

5 It takes me about twenty-two minutes to drive to church on Sunday morning from where I live in Laguna Niguel and the whole way I m going, God! I don t believe You re going to do this again. Who am I? What do I have to say to these people? I m very aware of those faults in my life, yet God says, I saved you by grace. And I use you by grace. I don t deserve to be saved, much less be able to serve Him. You are a trophy of God s grace. And God loves to use imperfect people who have skeletons in their closet. A servant sees his service as an opportunity, not as an obligation. 3. A SERVANT IS MOTIVATED BY WHAT GOD THINKS NOT WHAT OTHERS THINK. This is very important. A lot of people want to serve the Lord but for the wrong motives. A lot of people want to serve the Lord, want to be in a ministry, a position of leadership in the church so they can be a big shot. Particularly, you see this more in little churches. Somebody wants to be a big fish in a little pond. The guy is thirty rows down in a bureaucracy at work and has absolutely no control at all. He comes to church and he s appointed head of the flower committee and he rules it with an iron fist. It s his little empire, his public domain. That s not the right motivation. A servant is motivated by what God thinks, not what others think. Galatians 1:10 Paul says, Am I now trying to win the approval of men or God. If I were trying to please men, I would not be the servant of Christ. I have to ask myself, What motivates me to serve? It s a continual heart-check, Rick Warren, why are you doing this? For glory? For fame? Because it s easy? Why are you doing this? I m doing it for Jesus sake. Because I owe Him everything that I have. 4. A SERVANT DOES NOT JUDGE OTHERS SERVICE. A person with a real servant-heart does not judge other people s service. Romans 14:4 (Phillips) After all, who are you to criticize someone else s servant? It is to his own master that he stands or falls and he will stand for the Lord is able to make him do so. That s the mark of a real servant. You have to ask yourself, Do I secretly compare my service with other people for the purpose of criticizing them? Do you say, Look at all these other Sunday School teachers! I m always here on time and they arrive late! I always get my lesson done but they don t! I always show up for the S.A.L.T. training, but they don t! Jesus said, It doesn t matter. They will report to God and so will you. If I m a servant of God, I don t have any right to criticize anybody else s servant. God will hold them accountable. And they will report. I don t have to worry about them. I just have to worry about me. 5. A SERVANT GIVES THE CREDIT TO GOD. 1 Peter 4:10-11 (Phillips) Serve one another, with the particular gifts God has given each of you. You all have gifts spiritual gifts. CLASS 301 explains how to recognize your gift. And in whatever way you serve the church, you should do it recognizing the fact that God gives you your ability, so that God may be glorified in

6 everything. He s saying that a real servant recognizes where his ability comes from and he or she gifts the glory to God. I can t take credit for what God does through me on Sunday morning. In fact, I m in awe of it. God uses me on Sunday morning. That s not a statement of pride. That s a statement of fact. I can t take credit for it, because He s gifted me to do that. Where do you think I got those gifts? From a Cheerio s box? I got them from the Lord. I didn t even ask for them. He sovereignty said, Warren, these are the gifts you get. And that s what He s said to you, too. So we have no right whatever we ve done for the Lord to say, Wow! Look at me! God, you got a jewel when You got me! Who do you think gave you everything you got? So a real servant gives the glory to God. Yes, I have abilities, talents, gifts. But they re from God. So thank God! It s not something you ve earned or deserved. One of the things you re going to hear me say over and over is We believe everybody s a 10 in some area. When you look at people around you who you re serving with or working with and maybe they re just not clicking in that area, maybe they just haven t hit their niche yet. Because everybody s a 10 in some area. When you discover the area that God made you to be in, you start soaring! It clicks. It feels good. It feels natural and other people affirm it. The only way you find that out is by trying. When I started out in ministry, I started as a musician a singer. I learned real quick that nobody was affirming that. Everybody s a 10 in some area. 6. A SERVANT IS MORE CONCERNED WITH MINISTRY TO OTHERS THAN WITH MAKING MONEY. Luke 16:13 Jesus said, No servant can serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and money. I don t know how to say it any clearer than the way Jesus said. You can t serve God and money at the same time. The number one excuse I hear people say why they can t get involved in ministry is I m too busy. What that often means is, I m too busy making a buck. I ve got fifteen different jobs and investments and other incomes I m into but I don t have any time for serve. I realize I m preaching to the choir tonight, because you re here. But The fact is, you cannot be involved in your number one goal of making a million and serving the Lord at the same time. You just have to decide your values. You can t serve them both. 7. A SERVANT SERVES WITH A SPIRIT OF HUMILITY. 1 Peter 5:5 All of you must put on the apron of humility to serve one another. For God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Apron of humility is a great word picture. To serve one another. The best example of this in the Bible is Jesus footwashing. He was so superior to anybody on earth and yet on His knees He washes the feet of the disciples. He s the servant. The spirit of humility.

7 What is humility? Humility is not saying, Oh, me! I m lousy. I m no good. I m worthless. I m junk. I can t do anything. I have no talent. That s not humility. In fact, that could be a false humility. Humility is not denying your strengths. Humility is being honest about your weaknesses. All of us are a combination of both strengths and weaknesses. You have some great strengths and you have some great weaknesses. They counterbalance. I have some great strengths. I have some great weaknesses. Humility is not denying your strengths. It s being honest about your weaknesses. It s not putting yourself down. A.W. Tozer used to say it like this, There are two kinds of Christians. There are those Christians who think they are humble, but are proud. There are those who are humble and worry that they re proud. I d say that there was a third group. There are those Christians who are totally self forgetful. I think that s what humility is. Humility is not wondering, How am I? High or low? Humility is when you re so focused on serving other people you don t even think about yourself. A servant gives, forgives and forgets. A real servant is totally forgetful. They are so focused on other people that they re not worried about whether they re full of pride or humility. They re just focused on other people. Years ago, the Salvation Army, which is known for it s servant attitude, held a big convention in the Midwest and the founder, General William Booth, was to speak. But because of an illness he could not be there. He promised that he would send a telegram with a message for the next decade of where the Salvation Army was to go. They were all excited. The Convention Center was packed out with Salvation Army people, waiting in anticipation. They got the telegram. The man who was to read the message that was to be the vision for the next decade for the Salvation Army got up. He opened the telegram, kind of frowned. There was only one word on the telegram Others. What s your word for the 90 s? What s the word that s going to motivate you? Self? It s not natural to be a servant, is it? It s natural to be selfish. It is the nature of Rick Warren to be selfish. That s human nature. I don t want to serve, I want to be served. It s human nature. So it takes more than your own power. It takes God s power to make you a servant, to give you an attitude of putting on the apron of humility to serve one another. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. 8. A SERVANT IS A PEACEMAKER, NOT A TROUBLEMAKER. 2 Timothy 2:24 The Lord s servant must not quarrel. Instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. That s a strong qualification. It says the Lord s servant must not quarrel. Don t get in fights. If I quarrel with people, it s an indication that at that point, I m not being a servant. Not resentful. I m a peacemaker not a troublemaker. I think one of the reasons why Saddleback has so very few problems in terms of dissention is because we have so many servants in this church.

8 9. A SERVANT IS FAITHFUL TO THE MINISRY HE S GIVEN 1 Corinthians 4:2 The one thing required of a servant is that he be faithful to his master. What counts in life is not ability. What counts in life is dependability. Trustworthiness, persistence, persevering. The Bible says that what counts is faithfulness. These aren t all the characteristics of a servant-hearted leader. Philippians 2:1-10. Who was the perfect model of servant leadership? Jesus Christ. There was nobody who was more of a leader and there was nobody who was more of a servant than Jesus Christ. This is the classic passage on Jesus. In this passage, pick out what you see are the qualifications of a servant-leader. v. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. V. 7 He made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant. So if our attitude is to be like Christ s and He was a servant, what are some of the characteristics of a servant? Humility Loving Compassionate Obedient unto death. A servant obeys God, not out of convenience, but conviction. A lot of people want to serve the Lord if it s convenient, but a real servant will serve the Lord from conviction, not out of convenience. Even when it s raining, they ll serve the Lord! Encourager Relinquishes His rights. That s un-american! The whole American society is built on I have my rights! And God says the exact opposite is what a real leader is. A leader is someone who relinquishes his rights in order to serve others. Interested in others. One spirit Not selfish. I heard a story about a little boy. He went to check out his next door neighbor who had a brand new Cadillac setting in the driveway. The man came out and said, So you like my new car. My brother gave it to me. The little boy said, Wow! I wish and the man said, Stop right there. You were going to say, `I wish I had a brother just like that. The little boy said, No, I wish I could be a brother like that. That s the kind of people we need at Saddleback. Servants who love the Lord and serve the Lord with gladness. Once in a while, I hear someone has said, I m leaving the church because my needs aren t being met. If I was a pastor and somebody said that to me, I d say, Fine. Your needs are not being met. If you have that attitude that the church is there to meet your needs, then you, of necessity, must grant the privilege of everybody else having that same opinion. Everybody else has the right to say, `My needs aren t being met. If everybody is saying, Who s meeting my needs? I want to know who s doing the meeting? The fact is, I don t go to church to have my needs met. As I meet the needs of others, God meets my needs. As I give my life away in service, in unselfishness, God assumes responsibility for my needs. Jesus said You lose your life to find it.

9 What else did you see? Deep sympathy Each of you should look not only to your own interests but also the interests of others. Don t do anything out of selfish ambition. Considers others better that yourself. Not vain. When you look at this and the verse If anyone wants to be a leader, you must be a servant Jesus is saying that ministry is measured not by status but by service. He s measuring your ministry not by how much glory it gets but how much service it produces. Matthew 23:11 would be a good verse for all to memorize. In the Living Bible The more lowly your service to others, the greater you are. To be the greatest, be a servant. The more lowly your service, the greater you are. What I love about my staff the most is not the ministries they do, but it s the fact that I catch them all the time on Sunday morning doing the little things that nobody else will do. I see them seeing a piece of trash and picking it up. I ll catch one of them in the bathroom cleaning the mirror or picking up toilet paper strung all over. We want this to look nice, give Saddleback Sam a good impression, because eternity is in the balance and somebody might come in and say, I m not going back to that church. The Bible says, the more lowly you serve others, the greater you are. I challenge you to think about this next Sunday, What could I do to be a servant? Apart from the ministry I have that God s given me. How could I be a servant? I got this card last week in the offering, Rick, by God s grace I m going to do all I can to help make this church what God wants it to be. I m thrilled to have a small part of it. I pledge all my time, talent, and treasure to accomplish God s best for this fellowship. Thanks for letting me help out and serve. That is a servant. Prayer: Jesus said, you measure your ministry by its service, not its status. Who could you serve? What are some ways that you could be a servant? Ways that nobody else will ever see? A servant doesn t live for the reward of others, but he/she realizes that God sees it all and God sees your heart and knows that the little things really reveal our character. Would you say in your heart, God, I want to be a servant. Would You help me to serve with a spirit of humility? Would You help me to be a peacemaker and not a troublemaker? Would You help me to be faithful to the ministry that You put me in, to see it as an opportunity and not an obligation? Help me to be motivated by what You think and not what others think. Help me not to judge other people s service, but just to report to You. Help me to give all the credit to You, realizing that all the abilities I have came from You. Help me to be more concerned about ministry than making money. Help me to be totally dedicated to serving You. Lord, I realize that I was created to serve You. My service shows, proves, that I belong to You. When I serve other people, I m really serving You. God, you ve done so much for me, I realize I owe everything I have to You. Remind

10 me that service is the best use of life and it makes life meaningful and that You will reward it in eternity. Father, I thank You for these folks as we embark on a new year together of advanced leadership training here at Saddleback. May we be a church known as That s the church where people serve each other. May we be known for a servant s heart and that we would have an army on Sunday morning and in any other service, any other meeting, of people who are looking for ways to serve in addition to their regular ministry. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.