We Are Joyful Servants

Sermons | Cities Church

“We are Cities Church” means that we take our orders from Jesus, which he gives to us in the Bible.

We are who we are and do what we do because of what he says.

That’s most basically what it means to be his church. We are a band of his disciples — and a disciple, most fundamentally, is a follower or an apprentice.

We are apprentices of Jesus, and a couple of weeks ago we saw that means we get our mission from Jesus. Jesus tells us what we’re supposed to do: as his disciples, he sends us out to make more of his disciples.

Since the very start of our church a decade ago, that’s been our goal. Our mission statement has been a direct quote spoken by Jesus himself in Matthew 28:19, “make disciples.” That’s what he said, and so that’s what we’ve been about; that’s what we’re still about — except that now we just want to say more.

When we say “make disciples” we mean “make joyful disciples of Jesus who remember his realness in all of life.”

And when we talk about disciples, we have in mind a fourfold calling that we find in the New Testament. First and foremost, #1, a disciple of Jesus is a Jesus-worshiper. Pastor David Mathis showed us this last week and Wow, it was good!

We are Jesus-worshipers, Pastor Mathis showed us.

Jesus Is Super Clear

And today we’re looking at a second part of our calling: We Are Joyful Servants.

And I’ll be honest with you: this is a softball sermon. And here’s why: There are only two places in Scripture where Jesus just says straight up: Hey, look at what I’m doing, now you go and do the same thing.

Now Jesus doesn’t need to tell us this plainly to imitate him because, again, that’s what a disciple does. To be a disciple, or an apprentice, is to follow your master, and that goes for everything about your master. So in all of Jesus’s life and character, we should follow him and conform our way of being into his way of being. But for some reason, Jesus wanted to be super clear about two ways in particular that we should be like him, one is in John Chapter 20, but the first we see here is in John Chapter 13.

Seeing John 13:15

Go ahead and look at verse 15 here. John Chapter 13, verse 15. You’ve already heard it read, but I want you to see this again. Verse 15 — Jesus says:

“For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.”

So there’s no mystery here to what Jesus is saying, but I just wanna make sure we’re all on the same page. The first thing he says is: “I have given you an example.” And what’s an example? It’s something to imitate. And then Jesus spells it out even more. He says the purpose of the example is … “That you should do just as I have done to you.”

See what I mean when I say Jesus is being super clear?

He says Here’s an example, do what I do.

And if we are truly his disciples it means that we’re gonna say Okay! I’m in.

Are you in? We wanna do what Jesus says!

If we’re onboard, then it means two things:

1. We’re gonna focus on the example of Jesus

2. We’re gonna figure out how to do what Jesus does

1. Focus on the Example of Jesus

When Jesus mentions his example in verse 15, he’s talking about something he just did, which goes back to verse 1. So I’m going to take us back to verse 1, and here’s what I’d like to do…

Instead of just giving you some bullet-point observations of Jesus’s example here, I want to us to try and imagine the scene. Jesus gives an object lesson here. He does a thing that his disciples see, so I want us to try to see it too. I’m gonna ask that you try to use your imagination here as I tell you a story, okay?

It had been a crazy week for Jesus (kinda like when we have a crazy week, except this was much crazier). Jesus started the week by coming to Jerusalem. It was the Jewish Passover and the city was packed, but Jesus didn’t just enter the city by foot, like he normally does when he enters cities, but this time, he found a young donkey to ride into town, and as he rode it, crowds, who heard he was coming, lined the streets and threw down palm branches, and they said “Hosanna!” (Which is Aramaic for Hooray! Hooray!) “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”

And Jesus’s disciples are excited. They had just seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead! Jewish people were believing in Jesus! This is big, and Sunday to Wednesday is a blur! Greeks are now seeking Jesus, and Jesus says his time has come!

There’s some confusion among the people (and the disciples) about this, but Jesus is locked in.

And then it’s Thursday night. Jesus is having dinner with his 12 disciples, and he knew something nobody else knew: At this dinner he knew that within 24 hours he’s going to be brutally killed, and everything about everything will change.

And he’s with these men, these men who he’s spent everyday with for the past three years. Can you imagine how well he knew these guys? They were his friends and he loved them. And now he’s at the table and he’s looking at them, full of love, and he knows how all of this is gonna play out.

He knows about Judas. He knows what Peter will do. He knows all the others are gonna run. There will be so much pain. But he also knows he’s going home. Jesus knows that the Father is happy with him, that the Father is going to honor him and exalt him, and make him shine. The Father has given Jesus preeminence over all things, and Jesus knows it. Jesus knows who he is. He knows where he’s going. And if we could see with our mind’s eye what Jesus was seeing in that moment, it’s blinding light. It’s unspeakable, blazing joy. He’s the freest of kings.

But then Jesus gets up from the dinner table and he takes off his nice shirt. And he goes and gets a towel (and it was probably a damp towel — you know we always look for damp towels for things like this).

He ties the towel around his waist, fills a basin with water, he kneels down, and he takes the feet of one of these guys, and he’s starts washing them. I don’t need to tell you how gross feet are. The water turns brown, and Jesus is wiping these feet with the towel around his waist. This man created Jupiter. He spoke the oceans into existence and now he scrubs the toes of men, and Peter didn’t want him to. Peter said No, Lord, not you. You’re never gonna wash my feet.

And Jesus said, Peter, if you don’t let me wash your feet, you’re not with me.

And it was an amazing moment. Peter said, Fine! Wash my feet! And my hands! And my head!

Peter says I am so with you — but he wasn’t that with him, because Jesus is about to tell Peter that he’ll deny him. Jesus knew Judas was about to leave dinner early to betray him.

Jesus knew everything and he washed all the disciples’ feet. And when he finished, he took off the towel, now soaked, and he puts back on his nice shirt, and he goes back to his seat at the table, and all the guys are looking at him, and he says: “Do y’all understand what I just did?”

And of course they didn’t really understand.

So Jesus tells them, “You call me your Teacher and Lord, and you’re right. That’s who I am.” These guys already recognized that Jesus is the one they’re supposed to imitate.

So Jesus says, “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 just as I have done to you.”

And I think we just need to sit in this for a second. This was the most amazing dinner in human history. How could you be one of these disciples and ever have dinner the same way again?

This was an unforgettable dinner, for these disciples and for every disciple of Jesus who has come after them.

Jesus gives us an example. He demonstrates how he wants us to be. And we need to figure that out.

2. Figure out how to do what Jesus does.

We need to figure out how we do what Jesus did. I don’t think Jesus means that we should literally wash feet — I mean, you can — but it’s more than that. Jesus wants us to be servants. That’s the name we’d put on his example. That’s what he’s demonstrating by washing feet.

He wants us to be servants like him, and if we’re keeping his example in mind, to be a servant like Jesus means three things:

1. We serve at a cost.

I want to start here with the cost of serving because there is a real cost … because we’re talking about real serving …

It’s serving, not partyin’.

It’s serving, not keeping your hands clean from the grit and grim of difficult things — Jesus had to change his clothes!

Serving does not mean finding your happy place. Everything does not go perfectly. That’s what makes it serving!

William Carey and Sacrifice?

I love the legacy of William Carey. He was an English Christian who served as a missionary in India from 1793–1834. He’s considered to be the father of modern global missions, and he was a Calvinist Baptist. William Carey is my guy.

And toward the end of his life, he made this famous quote about all the work and ministry he had done. He said, “I never made a sacrifice. Of this I am certain. It was no sacrifice. It was a privilege.”

In the 41 years that William Carey spent in India he had to rack his brain everyday to learn and translate several local languages and dialects. He experienced frequent illness, including malaria and dysentery, often without good medical care.

In 1807, he suffered the tragic death of his wife after she got sick. And of and on, over four decades, he faced constant opposition from Hindus and Muslims and he struggled at times with loneliness and isolation.

William Carey made a sacrifice.

There was a cost to his serving. Now what he means by “I never made a sacrifice” is that the end reward is so good it eclipses the cost. Like after a mother has given birth to her child (Jesus uses this example). Once the baby is born, it’s just joy! — so much joy that you’re not even thinking about the intense pain that you were experiencing five minutes ago, which was painful (I’ve been in the room a few times!) But the reward eventually transcends the cost — that’s what William Carey is saying. But there’s still a cost, and while you’re paying, it’s not a party.

Troubled in Spirit

It is amazing that in this narrative of Jesus serving we’re reminded constantly of what these disciples are gonna do. Judas’s betrayal is mentioned in verse 2, then again in verse 11 and verse 18, and the whole passage is about Judas from verses 21–30, and then this chapter ends with Jesus foretelling Peter’s denial. All of this in this chapter about Jesus serving — do you think Jesus was giddy about all this? You think Jesus would say none of this hurt? That there was no cost? Is that what we see when Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane?

Already here, at this last supper, John tells us in verse 21 that Jesus was “troubled in his spirit.” And John knows, because, remember, John was sitting right beside Jesus! There was a cost here.

Brothers and sisters, if we serve like Jesus we serve at a cost too.

And so if I could say so gently, when it comes to serving, some of us need to stop trying to be more spiritual than Jesus — don’t ignore the cost; count the cost. And then tell Jesus he’s worth it.

#2 — to be a servant like Jesus means …

2. We serve from freedom.

There’s something here we need to clarify: Jesus was a servant, we’re called to follow his example and be servants too — but servants of who exactly?

Are we servants of Jesus or servants of others?

And the answer is both. And that might be obvious to you, but I think it’s important how this comes through in the text. Jesus doesn’t use a lot of servant language in the Gospel of John. The first time he mentions us being servants is one chapter before this one, in Chapter 12, and then there’s a few key places in Chapters 13, 15, and 18, and in all these uses — every time Jesus talks about us being “servants” — he’s talking about us being his servants (see 12:26; 13:16; 15:15, 20; 18:36). We serve him.

And of course we serve others too — that’s the whole point of our passage today — when Jesus says “you should do just as I have done to you” he implies “you should do to others.” In verse 36 he repeats the same idea and says, “just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

So yes, we serve others, but there’s an important connection here we need to see: it’s that we can never serve others the way Jesus served us unless we are first his servants.

“You Are Serving the Lord Christ”

Our calling is to serve Jesus first, and then as his servants, following his example, serving him, we serve others.

And I love the way Paul captures this in 2 Corinthians 4:5 — this is a verse to memorize. Paul says about his ministry:

“For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.”

This is profound. Is Paul serving Jesus or others? He’s serving both, but it’s even more than that: because in Paul’s serving of others, he’s actually serving Jesus too. Paul serves Jesus by his serving of others, and in his serving of others he’s serving Jesus.

William Carey translated the entire Bible into six different Indian languages. He translated part of the Bible into at least 29 different languages and dialects. Which was painstaking work. He would have spent hours and hours hunched over his desk, laboring by candlelight, serving, but get this: he wasn’t merely serving the people who would read his translations, but he was serving Jesus! So finally, we have the whole Bible in Bengali! Here, Jesus, it’s for you.

Hey mom and dad, when you feel at your limit with what you can give your children, and you wonder if it’s ever gonna do any good, remember that you’re not merely serving your kids in what you do, you’re serving Jesus in serving your kids. Here, Jesus, this 10,000th PB&J, it’s for you.

People at work — employees — when you’re tired at work and you’d rather be a hundred other places, you can work heartily for the Lord, not men — because “you are serving the Lord Christ”(see Colossians 3:23–24). Here, Jesus, this report, this project, these tasks, it’s for you.

We serve Jesus first!

And get this: serving Jesus first is the only way we can serve from freedom.

The Freedom of a Christian

Serving from freedom means that our serving is not constrained by anything. It’s not forced by some desired result, but it’s willingly!

Serving from freedom means we serve because we want to, not because we’re trying to get something. And the reason Jesus is the only one we can serve this way is because Jesus is the only person who loves us purely by grace.

We don’t have to earn his favor or score points — he’s already given us his favor! We have all the points! And he has given them to us not because of what we’ve done — it can never be because of what we’ve done — but it’s all because of his grace.

The grace of God is a life-changing discovery. Just ask Martin Luther.

Back in the early 1500s, Martin Luther read the Bible and was transformed by the gospel of God’s grace. We are saved not by our works, but by God’s grace through faith in Christ. And there were a lot of people who did not like that, and one reason was because they said:

Hey, if people know they’re saved by grace, not by the good works they do, then they will stop doing good works. We have to tell them that their works earn their salvation, so they’ll keeping doing them.

And in the fall of 1520, Luther published a small treatise called The Freedom of a Christian (still is an amazing book!). And Luther argues that the gospel demolishes that way of thinking. He says the gospel implies two things:

1) A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.

2) A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.

This is what the gospel does. First, it means we’re free!

Luther says salvation by grace means “every Christian by faith is exalted above all things so that nothing can do the Christian any harm.” He writes,

As a matter of fact, all things are made subject to [the Christian] and are compelled to serve him in obtaining salvation. Accordingly Paul says in Romans 8, “All things work together for good for the elect” and in 1 Corinthians 3, “All things are yours whether … life or death or the present or the future, all are yours; and you are Christ’s …”

He just rejoices! He says:

The cross and death itself are compelled to serve me … This is a splendid privilege and hard to attain, a truly omnipotent power, a spiritual dominion in which there is nothing so good and nothing so evil but that it shall work together for my good … Christians are the freest of kings!

It’s amazing, brothers and sisters, how free we are in Christ! Ultimately we are untouchable! All by the grace of God, not because of what we do.

But then, how does that affect what we do? How do we kings and queens treat one another?

Luther says that because we are so free in Christ, all we care about is divine approval and therefore we are freed to serve. Luther writes,

[The Christian] ought to think: “Although I am an unworthy and condemned man, my God has given me in Christ all the riches of righteousness and salvation without any merit on my part, out of pure, free mercy, so that from now on I need nothing except faith which believes that this is true.” …

Behold, from faith flows forth love and joy in the Lord, and from love a joyful, willing, and free mind that serves one’s neighbor willingly and takes no account of gratitude or ingratitude, of praise or blame, of gain or loss. For a man does not serve that he may put men under obligations. …

But as his Father does, distributing all things to all men richly and freely, making his sun rise on the evil and on the good, as his Father does, so also the son!

[The child of God, the Christian] does all things and suffers all things with that freely bestowing joy which is his delight in God, the dispenser of such great benefits.

Brothers and sisters, we serve from freedom, and do you see that it’s when we serve from freedom that we serve with joy?

That’s the third and final point. To serve like Jesus means …

3. We serve with joy.

We serve with joy — because our salvation is secure in Christ.

Because my salvation is secure in Christ, I don’t have to serve you to get Jesus to love me. I get to serve you because Jesus loves me.

Do you see? Because we are so free, our serving one another is not a have to, it’s a get to.

We serve as the overflow of our joy in God — joy we have by grace! That’s why we are joyful servants.

Serving with joy is not an add-on — it’s just what makes sense in light of what God has done. And it is the example of Jesus.

Jesus knew who he was, he was free, and he knew the cost, and yet the Book of Hebrews tells us that “for the joy set before him, he endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2).

Still a cross, still a cost,

But joy he found beyond the pain,

Joy that carried him from loss to gain.

That’s what brings us to the Table.

The Table

At this table each week, we remember this dinner that we’ve talked about. We remember the sacrifice of Jesus for us — that Jesus, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved us to the end.

The bread and cup represent the death of Jesus, which means, they represent his love. And when we eat the bread and drink the cup, we are resting in his love. This is why this Table is for Christians. This remembrance is for those who have put their faith in Jesus.

If you’re here this morning and you’ve not yet done that, you can just pass the bread and cup to the person beside you, but don’t pass on the moment. If you’re not a Christian, today is the day of salvation. Today you can trust in Jesus. You can just pray, simply:

Jesus, I can’t save myself — I’m sorry for trying.

I believe you died for me, you are raised from the dead.

I trust you. Save me.

You can just pray that, or something like that. You can rest in the love of Jesus this morning too.

The pastors will come, let us joyfully serve you.