LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Whoever Serves Me...
True service to God comes from one whose own life has been put away, so that only Christ is seen.
Gonzalo Sepúlveda
"Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant will also be. My Father will honor the one who serves me." (John 12:26).
The words spoken by the Lord Jesus on this occasion are extremely beautiful and encouraging for those who aspire to serve him and to please him. To serve the Lord, to follow Him, to be next to Him and to be honored by the Father, is all that a servant of God can aspire to.
Now then, chapter 12 of John's gospel reaches its peak when the Lord Jesus declares: "... unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit." It is in this context that He speaks of the service that will honor him, because as we can see in verse 25, the Lord makes it very clear that whoever loves their life, will lose it. Before serving the Lord, we must begin by hating our own life. In verse 24 Jesus speaks of his own death; in verse 25 he speaks of the death of those who seek to serve him.
The source of energy
The most important point is the "source" of the energy of our service, because we can begin serving from within "ourselves", and in such a case, the result will be death and failure. But, if we first experience Jesus' death, our service will be in the power of His resurrection.
The apostle Paul clarifies this point very well in Philippians 3:3 when he says that we serve God in the Spirit, not trusting in the flesh. Trusting in the flesh is a great obstacle in any service to the Lord. Many Christians seem to ignore the depraved nature of man and think that Christ only died for their sins, to free them from their bondage, their bad habits, their illnesses and failures; in short, for all that which we consider bad or negative within us.
It is very common to hear brothers and sisters pray, requesting the Lord "to remove all the evil or badness that is in them." Such a declaration presupposes that the Lord shouldn't "touch" what we consider to be good in ourselves. Perhaps they think that the "good" in ourselves serves God; that our kindness and good ideas should be rewarded together with our praiseworthy good intentions. Little it is heard spoken, in Christian circles, of a severe judgment upon the flesh with all its goodness and its faults.
How many Christians are praying that the Lord might free them of themselves so that only Christ lives in them? It is already time for a generation of believers to appear on the earth who rise up in judgment against themselves, who like Job exclaim: "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:5-6). Or, like Paul, consider rubbish all that which before his own judgment was considered as "gain" (Phil. 3:7)
During the entire history of the church, our Lord Jesus Christ's testimony has suffered loss because of this type of faulty service, so evidently of the flesh; of man. If we have, as doctrine, that Christ only died for our sins, without the pristine revelation that He died "for us", that is to say, for our "lives" as a whole, then the whole panorama of life and Christian service will be deformed. Therefore, if we believe that Christ only died for our sins, then we could assume that the rest of our person -especially what we consider good in ourselves- remains standing and therefore, could be of great use in God's work.
Such a thought is extremely disastrous, harmful and dangerous. Just a small insight into the deformed, divided, idolatrous and heretic Christianity will prove this. All the divisions between Christians have been defended based on good intentions, but which were not God's will-which will always be that we are one. Many good ideas born in human interests have ended up causing havoc in the house of God. We have sometimes considered it positive for the Christian cause to follow a leader and in doing so we ignore the principle of the Body and of the plurality in the governing of the church and of the ministry.
This lack of counterbalance among leaders has often ended in shameful scandals, like when a leader, generally labeled as "the servant", takes absolute control of the church and manipulates it to their whim. This has been repeated many times in distant and recent church history around the world. This entire somber example that we have just described generally had, as its beginnings, very good intentions with a strong dose of ingenuousness and of trust in the natural gifts of one man in particular, accompanied by the grossest ignorance about the subjective operation of the cross in the souls of men of God. Many of the current ministries that concentrate masses of Christians in big stadiums have the danger of "deifying" man, exalting their figure by their gifts and natural abilities, without Christ really being exalted. Regrettably, many have already fallen in such a disgrace, and as a consequence, discouraging all their followers.
The way of the cross
The context of John 12 shows the Lord Jesus shortly after being acclaimed by an ignorant crowd, who were delighted with the miracle that he had performed upon Lazarus' life. This is clearly seen in verses 16 and 34. The disciples didn't understand these things, and, on the other hand, the people asked: "Who is this Son of Man?" If we add to this those certain Greeks who wanted to see Jesus, it is understandable that the Lord had to put things in their place, declaring upon which basis His name could receive praise. If the Lord had been seeking popularity in the world, this was the time to receive it. Jews and Greeks were looking to follow him and to praise him, but such applause would have been as ephemeral as the one that the famous of this world receive.
Then, under that momentary trouble that shook his soul, our blessed Lord Jesus Christ clung to the Father. The only person that could understand him and help him in that instant was not on the earth, but on the throne, in the heavens. "Father, glorify your name!", and the answer from heaven did not delay in coming (Those who heard the voice thought it had thundered). Help came immediately, the route was already planned out, no temptation of human popularity could alter it: the Son of Man must follow the way of the cross. As a grain of wheat, he must fall to the earth, to resurrect with much fruit; true and lasting fruit.
In the same way, the true and lasting fruit of all who seek to serve the true and living God lies beyond the cross. Only those that end up experiencing the agony of their natural attributes, to the point of exclaiming, like Paul: "What a wretched man I am! Who will liberate me from this body of death?", will be nearer to meeting the Lord's demand: "Whoever hates his life in this world, will keep it for eternal life."
This is the quality of servants that the Lord is looking for; those who are saying in their heart: "Not my life, Lord, but yours, because mine is useless, it is corrupt; even the "good" in me, simply because it is mine, won't glorify your Name; anything that is mine will always aspire to be recognized and to keep just a little bit of your glory, but your zeal won't allow this. Therefore, Father, glorify your Name. May your Son's character and life be manifested through this vessel and that all the glory be yours."
May we learn how to pray, asking to be liberated from ourselves and that the Lord would free all His servants from themselves. When we come to express this with all of our heart, we will have advanced a step further in consecration and in service to God, because it is not sufficient only to pray to be liberated from apparent sins, from moral temptations and all that which is wrong in our eyes. If we come to the realization that our "good" could end up being even more harmful to the work of God, we will truly have taken a step toward the restoration of the church and the development of God's purpose amidst our times.
Let us say like our brother Roberto Sáez sings in his beautiful song:
"I know that nothing of mine serves you,
but I also know, that in your hands,
a useful instrument I can be."