THE SACRIFICE OF SERVITUDE // S02E04

We’re called to serve not just those we like or love, but our enemies. When we put serving first and our own interests second, we bring God glory and present Christ to others. This week, we talk about the sacrifices—and blessings—of servitude.

QUESTIONS WE TOUCH ON IN THIS EPISODE:

• Are you serving God?
• How are you serving people?
• Does serving others helps you?

VERSES FROM THE SACRIFICE OF SERVITUDE

1 Corinthians 10, Matthew 23, Colossians 3, Joshua 20:21, Isaiah 28:7-10,  Philippians 2, 1 Corinthians 9.

QUOTES FROM THE SACRIFICE OF SERVITUDE

“So don’t serve to get yours or to prove that you’re something or that you’re working on who you want to be. Right? Because then you’re still hyper-focus in the wrong place. And things are going to just get to be too much. You’re going to feel overwhelmed. And you’re going to feel like you don’t have enough to get through. Whereas when you’re humble, thinking of others, as better than yourselves, that’s when your heart’s really in the right place. And you’re drawing from that well of Christ that will strengthen you and provide you with what you need.”

Michelle Watson, The Pantry Podcast, S02E04, The Sacrifice of Servitude.

“God likes to slap me sometimes. And he’s like, why are you going to church? Is it for you? Is it for them? Or is it for me? And it actually led me to the verse that says, therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do it all to the glory of God. And that’s in 1 Corinthians 10, do it for the glory of God.”

Shea Watson, The Pantry Podcast, S02E04, The Sacrifice of Servitude.

Transcript

Shea: Here we are again, sitting across from one another. I hope everybody’s doing okay out there. I just like sitting here. I think I like starting it like that sometimes. And just telling you how much I like sitting here discussing the word of God with you right back at you. Awesome. And I always want to be a servant to you right back at you. Right?

Michelle: As imperfect as my servitude appears, I don’t mind it.

Shea: And if y’all haven’t caught on yet, this episode is about servitude. We’ve been called to serve by our King. We have been called to serve without expecting anything in return. There are huge amounts of edifying that happens when we serve one another. Because now it’s two people who have put themselves aside to be there for someone else. And tonight we’re going to talk about that, how deep that can go. Jesus was a beautiful example of serving and we’re actually gonna use Jesus. I mean, Hey, who better than you to use than Jesus. But like, I really see this in something that’s happened in my own life. I remember when I first came to church, man, we were a set up church. We were in a school. It was like every Sunday you show up, you take all of the instruments out, all the music out, all the stands out, all the chairs out. And we have a, really a driven pastor. What’s better things and wants it to look good and be good. And just, and why? Because he has a servant’s heart. Right. But he adds a lot. Yeah. And I remember showing up and it’d be like two, three, four people sometimes.

Shea: But I came from the military and I know that there was like 80 to a hundred people every Sunday at church and four people showed up and I got bitter. I mean, real bitter, like what is wrong with people? Bitter I’m coming from like in that military background where everyone comes in as a team and plays as a team and everyone works together. We might not always like it, but we always came together as a team. And I remember just, it was riling me up. I know we had discussed it a couple of times, but I finally was driving to church one morning and it was the pipe and drapes that brought this famous pipe and drapes.

Shea: Right. It was an addition to an already daunting task. And it was all about me. What about me? What about me? What about them? You know, like in an accusatory and I was driving chairs and God likes to slap me sometimes. And he’s like, why are you going to church? Is it for you? Is it for them? Or is it for me? And it actually led me to the verse that says, therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do it all to the glory of God. And that’s in 1 Corinthians 10, do it for the glory of God. If you can dial that in, you are on top of things.

Michelle: Yeah. When we were going through that. Cause I remember I was struggling just because it’s easy to focus on it. I kind of saw it like Mary and Martha, like that I felt like I was having an existential crisis. I was like, am I being too Martha? And everyone’s doing it right. Cause they’re Mary and they just come for the word and I’m Martha in here, like scrubbing dishes, like, is, am I wrong? Like, and I think a lot of us, when it comes to servitude, sometimes we might land on one of these stories and try and figure out, you know, who are we supposed to be in our servitude? And what about when it doesn’t seem fair when it doesn’t feel fair. And then I came to the realization that honestly servitude is the highest honor. You know, Jesus came humbled as a servant in Matthew 23, it says the greatest among you shall be your servant.

Michelle:  And when he started revealing those verses to me, they spoke to me because I was like, who am I to think I’m in the lowest position when I’m doing what Christ would be doing. And I need to overcome these feelings that are causing bitterness and causing judge that passes on into the service. When everyone else arrives. There’s people who have different callings. There are people who were ignoring their calling. Let me call those people out as well. But there are people who that wasn’t their role to play regardless, but no matter what role you’re in, anytime you serve, there’s a blessing. And rather than being focused on all the toil, it’s so much better to focus on. What’s being built up on the eternal side for you. The, you know, the Bible says that you are blessed when you bless and you’re watered when you water.

Michelle:  But when you came, even pass that optimism up and go to the next level where it’s like, no, I’m helping God. I’m furthering his kingdom in this little way. Look at all the people benefiting all the people being blessed. And in Colossians 3, it says whatever you do work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. And I love shout out to our pastor who he adds stuff, but you know, he’s always there to help with what he added. And you know, before any of us before Shay joined the church, before I joined the church, it was pastor and his family that were there. And they came with a smile, served with a smile, worked with a smile with excitement and joy. That’s a lesson in itself. It’s not about counting up. Who’s there looking at the attendance roll call. It’s about being there, being present and being happy to serve God.

Shea: So then can you imagine the 12 disciples when they were told by Jesus that yeah, we ain’t going around Samaria. We’re going straight in. I be like, they had some stuff there. Lots of history, a lot of history there, but you know, Jesus dug right in because why he was called to Southwest service to bring glory to God. That is what we’ve been called to do to bring selfless service so that we bring glory to God. When Jesus said, Hey, let’s go into some area. He had a purpose. His disciples were probably like, Oh Kay. I mean, we promised we’d follow him. You know, we said we would follow him. So they just followed him. Probably a lot of things were going through their minds. And then when he meets the Samaritan woman and everybody else is away, you know, getting food from town, we see this beautiful opening to how someone who knows how to serve, who knows how to bring love and the word of God, to somebody who knows how to glorify God really plays in this role. They came into some area to serve the Samaritans and to serve them what God’s glory. It had nothing to do with, Hey, let’s have friendship bracelets that let you know, let’s, let’s, let’s draw pictures and stuff together. You know, who knows maybe that happened. I don’t know. I don’t know the disciples like that, but anyway, but it was the brain glory to God. Do you think it

Shea: But it’s like, but it’s like that though. We, we do. We always expect in the, in this serving and, and, and what’s beautiful about this stories. I mean, here is Jesus taking water, the first thing, Hey, I’m thirsty. It’s a beautiful story of how a people who occupied part of the country formerly belonged to the tribe of Efram, right? And the half tribal Manasseh, they intermarried with foreigners, you know? So they were mixed, adopted the foreign idolatrous, religion vigorously attempted to halt the undertaking of rebuilding the wall, Jerusalem and Nehemiah. They built a temple for themselves. And then, you know, the leader of some of the Samaritans established his son-in-law Manassas as a high priest, wasn’t even Levitical seminary became a place of refuge for Outlaws of Judah. You can find that in Joshua 20:21, right. Willingly received Jewish criminals and refugees from justice that they received.

Shea: The ex-communicated only accepted the five books of Moses and rejected everything. We’re good. Right? And this is where Jesus was going. Isaiah even breaks it down. I just want people on a stand. You know, like sometimes we look at the Samaritans and we’re like, Oh, you know, they were just mean to those, those people who were of, you know, of a different background, but even Isaiah comes in and Isaiah 28:7-10, he says now, however, Israel is led by drunks. Now, Israel, if you read up from that, it’s the Samaritans he’s talking about Israel. It was the break. It was the, the Israel, Israel went North Judah stayed in Jerusalem. It was during their split, which happened in like nine. It was nine 75 BC, somewhere around there. But anyways, but here he is. He says, now haver Israel’s led by drunks who real with wine and staggered with alcohol, the priest and prophet staggered with alcohol and lose themselves and wine. They real, when they see visions and staggers, they render decisions. Their tables are covered with vomit. Filth is everywhere. Who does the Lord think we are? They ask, why does he speak to us like this? Are we little children just recently weaned? He tells us everything over and over one line at a time, one line at a time, a little here and a little there, obviously there were some bad blood here,

Michelle: Right? They felt condescended to by the Lord, they felt like the Lord was insulting their intelligence. When really with a humble mind, they’d be like, so we’re just not getting it. And we need to do better. But when you have a rebellious heart, that’s how you come at God,

Shea: Right? Yeah, we do. Right. But when my hearts,

Michelle: Right, we come at him like why do you have to be like that? And it’s like, well, why am I the way I am?

Shea: Well, his cool is Jesus. With all of that. He didn’t care about it. The religious aspect, the Pharisees Sadducees and the Jewish people cared why? I said, I’ll bet. The 12 disciples really had a moment when Jesus said, now we’ll just go through some area. There was really a lot of that bad blood, but see Jesus comes on the scene in this serving and see, this is kind of how we should design and, and, and kind of mirror how we serve. It doesn’t matter who they are or what they’ve done. The point Jesus was going towards when he went into the area was to what? Glorify God, to bring a message of God

Michelle: With the disciples. It’s a perfect reflection. Because when you hear love your enemies, serve your enemies, feed your enemies, close your enemies, bless your enemies. This might offend, depending on who you’re picturing in your head right now, I always say, who’s your Nineveh, right? Like going back to Jonah, who’s your Nineveh, the group that you would not be excited for if they got saved, because you hate them that much. So depending on who you’re thinking of as your enemy right now, it might be offensive to think, wait, why is God calling me to be so good to them? Because maybe they don’t have Christ or they’ve shown that their track record is they have him, but they don’t care about serving their enemies right back. You know,

Shea: No, they’ll jump, I’m sorry. They’ll jump right to the heap coals on their head, but we’re giving it back to God.

Michelle: We might want to shirk it off because it’s incredibly powerful stuff. That’s, that’s how you know, it’s incredibly potent because we want to, in our flesh, in our anger, in our feelings, we want to shirk off this call. We want to excuse it away with actual excuses, but it diffuses bombs. You know, Jesus was the King that was promised. He is the King that was promised, but they were not looking for him. They were looking for someone to deliver them out of their current situation physically. Right? They weren’t looking for someone who on an eternal level, on an individual personalized one by one level would deliver them out of anything. They were looking for someone to take control as a literal King right then and there, and literally killed their enemies right then and there. And so when they saw someone who was calling them to do more and their enemies, Hey, come over here, join us completely counterintuitive.

Michelle: But the difference is that kind of behavior interrupts a person’s oppositional stance that makes them check themselves because they’re seeing Christ through you in that moment. Right? And they have to reconcile that even if they don’t find Christ, you did God’s will, you know, sometimes the worldly winner is the eternal loser, right? Not wanting to serve your enemies is not a you and your enemy issue. It is a you and God issue. If you decide not to do it, cause it’s not about what they’ve done. And it’s not about who they are. And it’s not about who you are. It’s about. God’s saying you need to, no matter what, he doesn’t give an asterick right. We always are looking for the fine print. He doesn’t give an asterick. He’s saying, do this uncomfortable sacrificial frankly, annoying thing, you know, until your heart’s in a better place, but do this thing. And he’s going to tell you and show and reveal to you like the methods in which you’re to serve them. Sometimes it’s going to be more radical than you think. And sometimes it’s going to be smaller than you think, but regardless, he calls us to do it.

Shea: And that’s why I like that, that, that one verse heap coals on their heads, he calls and see, you know, I like that. It’s not that I see a punishment, but I’ve given it over into God’s court. I feel so much better when I just turn things over the pipe and drape, I seriously had a weight lifted off my chest on that drive to church that Sunday, when I said, you know what? I’m here to serve God. And through serving God, I will serve his people. And my wife knows generally, I would say 90 something percent of the time, it’s pretty high. I go in there with, with a joyful heart wanting to serve our, our body because you know what? I just liked being there. I like being with people that love God that serve God that want to be with God.

Shea: And it does usher in. I remember you earlier in this conversation, you were saying how it wrecks the rest of the service. Now I am assured and in worship, right? And my heart it’s like this complete alignment you come in to serve. You serve with a genuine heart. That genuine heart goes into the worship. And then now you’re in this beautiful worship to God and you’re in, you’re in communication. And then you hear the word of God. See, now you’re receptive to the word of God. And then in the closing, it’s almost like, no, no, no, no. You’ve seen me stand up on stage and see what the band is. They play out, you know, it’s like, I don’t want to stop. Right? You don’t want to stop. And that’s what that leads you to when you have that servant’s heart, that selfless heart, that heart that wants to serve others without expectation. So that is what we need to do. That is what people need to do. Because when you serve, it leads people to God’s glory.

Michelle: Right? You know, last season we had the episode about worship obedience to the Lord, his worship. And that explains what you were saying about why, when you usher that in, you know, you and the people around you can ride that wave for the entirety of service. When you’re focusing on other people, a lot of your own problems fade into the background. They’re taking care of. You find that they’re taken care of because the Lord’s working in them at the same time, he hasn’t forgotten about you. He’s just calling you to focus elsewhere. Because how often is it when you’re hyper focused on something, it gets worse, right? Like when you’re on autopilot, you can do a lot of things better than when you realize you’re doing them and become super self conscious about them. And it makes me think of Philippians 2. I would recommend reading the entire first 12 verses read the whole thing.

Michelle: But the first 12 verses are really about this. And so I’m going to paraphrase a little, but in three, as, don’t be selfish and don’t try to impress others. So don’t serve to get yours or to prove that you’re something or that you’re working on who you want to be. Right? Because then you’re still hyper-focus in the wrong place. And things are going to just get to be too much. You’re going to feel overwhelmed. And you’re going to feel like you don’t have enough to get through. Whereas when you’re humble, thinking of others, as better than yourselves, that’s when your heart’s really in the right place. And you’re drawing from that well of Christ that will strengthen you and provide you with what you need. You know, so that you’re not only looking out for your own interests, but you’re focused on theirs as well.

Michelle: And it’s a beautiful symbiotic relationship. He’s put into the body of Christ. And it says in five, you must have the same attitude that Jesus Christ had, which is what we’ve said. You know, he says, though, he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead he gave up his divine privileges. He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. Therefore God elevated him to the place of highest honor, which goes back to what I was saying earlier about being a servant is the highest position because you’re emulating the creator of all things who has dedicated his existence to serving his creation, his children. He’s, he’s put all this effort, all this work, all this time and love and dedication into us. And it’s benefiting him as well, of course, but that’s the mindset that we need to have. It shines brightly for Christ.

Shea: Wow. That leads in perfectly. The apostle Paul who wrote the majority of the new Testament had that mentality. He wanted to serve, but he wanted to bring glory to God through that, serve it to 1 Corinthians 9. And I like how he, I always call him the chameleon, but whatever. He never, he never sold out for what he believed, but he embraced other people. He embraced other cultures, common ground found common ground with different demographics, right? Even though I am a free man with no master, I have become a slave to all people to bring many to Christ, to bring many to Christ. When I was with the Jews, I live like a Jew to bring the Jews to Christ. When I was with those who follow the Jewish law, I have to live under that law. Even though I am not subject to the law, I did this.

Shea: So I could bring to Christ. Those who are under the law. When I am with the Gentiles who do not follow the Jewish law, I to live apart from that law so that I can bring them to Christ. But I do not ignore the law of God. I obey the law of Christ. When I’m with those who are weak, I share their weaknesses for, I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes. I try to find common ground with everyone doing everything I can to save. So I do everything to spread the good news and share its blessings. Christ has mentioned so many times in that short little section of earth to bring it to Christ. So when we serve, it’s all about that, it’s all about bringing it to Christ. No matter what you do, bring it to Christ. You serve others, do it with an image of Christ. When you love others in that servitude bring glory to God in it. Don’t be selfish. Don’t be angry. Don’t be bitter like me in the pipe and drapes trust. It will just slow you down, but let it go. So I challenge everyone today. Let it go. Amen. Amen. This has been awesome. Yeah, it’s been.

Michelle: I think this is a pantry staple for sure. Cause this is at the heart of the Christian walk. So store it up there with your flour, with your sugar, chocolate chips, you know, that’s a pantry staple, in my opinion, as always, we want to hear from you, we want to hear your prayer requests, your thoughts and your questions. And you can do all that by contacting us out of the pantrypodcast.com or on Facebook and Instagram, the pantry podcast share a view, comment, subscribe that just helps this message of Christ get out further. And that is the goal each and every week. So until next time.