Lord, SHAPE me to be a servant!

Last week as we gathered together we talked about how to be a Biblical servant. There were four priorities we considered important—remember what those were? God—family—others—ourselves. It’s just as important to keep those in proper order as it is to remember to make sure we serve in each of those areas on a consistent basis.
We also talked about the progression of service. Service works from our heads to our hearts to our hands. Service that stops with a mental attitude or a passionate belief but doesn’t reach out in tangible acts isn’t truly service, it is selfishness.
The Apostle Paul tells us in Philippians 2:3-11, “3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Paul tells us two things in that passage. 1) Jesus Christ is our servant. In Christ we are given an enormous, abundant gift, a gift that overflows and positively begs to be passed on into the lives of others. And 2) we can serve others in abundance because Jesus Christ first served us.
We are given both the blessing and responsibility of using our God-given gifts and talents in service to others. When we make ourselves available to God by serving others, we receive the dual blessing of building God’s Kingdom, and of the personal satisfaction of a job well done. But when we refuse to use our gifts to serve, then we are in violation of God’s plan and we are actually working against Him at that point.
Being of service to God is a matter of allowing His gifts to flow through into blessings for others. Working with God is a life-giving vocation. Ron Chewning, in his book Life at its Best, likens it to the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River. The Sea of Galilee receives the gift of water from the mountain rains and in turn passes that water along to the Jordan River. Because it doesn’t withhold that water, the Sea of Galilee is a pleasant place, full of life. Flowers dot the surrounding countryside. People come to lie on its beach and swim in its cool waters. Animals drink from it and receive life-giving moisture. The Sea of Galilee is, in that respect, truly living water.
In contrast to the precious, life-giving waters of the Sea of Galilee, however, is the Dead Sea. The Jordan river receives the overflowing water from the Sea of Galilee and carries it down to the Dead Sea. But the Dead Sea does not give it’s water to anything. It takes without giving, it receives without passing along those blessings. And so the Dead Sea is just that: dead. No fish can live there, no plants can grow. In fact, the water destroys life.
Being a Biblical servant is a life-giving vocation. The Biblical servant receives gifts from God in abundance, and rather than hoard those gifts and thus become a destroyer of life, the Biblical servant graciously passes along what God has given. Service, like water, is best when it flows freely.
But you may be thinking that you don’t know exactly how God would have you serve others. But pay attention to the last part of Ephesians 2:10, “10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
You don’t have to worry about how to serve others, because God has already prepared service for you to do! He already has good works just waiting for you to do! And furthermore, you are already SHAPEd by God to be a servant.
If you remember way, way back to what we learned earlier this year in our Forty Days of Purpose spiritual campaign, you may just remember that we learned about our God-given SHAPE. SHAPE: it’s an acrostic that stands for spiritual gifts, heart, abilities, personality, and experiences, and it is how God has prepared us to do works of service for others.
Each of us has been gifted by God in each of those five areas, and each of us has a choice to be a Sea of Galilee and let His gifts flow freely through us onto others, or to be a Dead Sea and hoard them to ourselves. I know which one God asks me to be, and I know which one I want to be. I want to be a servant and be God’s life-giving instrument to others. I think that’s what we all want.
Assuming that’s true, that we all want to be good and faithful servants, let’s talk about how to use our God-given gifts in service to others.
No doubt you’ve heard of what’s called the 80/20 Rule, where eighty percent of the people only do twenty percent of the work. Now that’s not the way God designed it to happen; His intention is that 100% of the people all chip in and work together to accomplish His good purposes. But there’s also a variation on the 80/20 rule that I think we can find helpful, and that is this: A good servant spends eighty percent of his time in serving according to his God-given SHAPE.
Generally speaking, the way in which we serve falls naturally into our area of giftedness. That’s good and appropriate. When we serve according to our particular giftedness, we find service to be energizing. We enjoy it. We reap the double benefit of not only helping others but also of having a good time doing it.
For instance, I spend about eighty percent of my time playing video games . . . .

Okay, not really! But I do make an effort to structure my time and service around those things in which God has gifted me. By operating within my strengths, I find that I have more energy to keep getting up every morning. I find that I want to continue to grow in those strengths, to be even better at what I do so that I can serve others better than I do now.
I have long advocated that God’s people should find the one thing that they love to do in the church, the one thing that in which God has uniquely SHAPEd them for service, and then do that one thing for the glory of God and in service to others. I don’t like it when one person does twenty jobs, I’d rather have twenty passionate people all serving in one job that fits their God-given SHAPE. You know why? Because servants like that can serve week in and week out without burning out. They serve with a passion, they serve with a true servant’s heart, because they are doing what God has SHAPEd them to do. They’d serve even if they weren’t asked, because God made them for that one special work.
But of course, to be a Biblical servant also means that there will be times that we gladly step out of our comfort zone. Yes, please, spend eighty percent of your time serving where God has SHAPEd you, but also remember the Biblical servant has a willing and ready heart that is prepared to do anything at any time.
The Lord once spoke to the prophet Isaiah, saying, Isaiah 6:8 “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” Do you remember how Isaiah responded? Isaiah said, “Here am I. Send me! Send me!”
We need more servant hearts like that today! We need more people who cry out to God, “Make me a servant! Whatever you desire, I will do! Wherever you lead me to go, there I will follow! Whatever I can do to help, I’ll do it! Here am I! Send me! Send me!”
I was once told that Chuck Smith, the founder of Calvary Chapel, would put potential young pastors to a little test. They would come to him and tell him that God had called them to ministry . . . and he would hand them a mop and point them towards the bathroom. “But you don’t understand, pastor . . . God has called me to ministry!” And he would tell them that if they weren’t willing to serve anywhere that needed service, then God couldn’t use them anywhere.
Being a servant demands sacrifice. It demands a willingness to do what God requires for the benefit of others. There are times when God gives us an opportunity to witness the truth of Jesus Christ to people. It doesn’t matter at that point whether or not we consider the gift of evangelism to be part of our SHAPE, it only matters whether or not we do it. Next week we’ll have an opportunity to commit to a certain level of giving to the church over the coming year—we’ll have a sheet just like this one. It doesn’t matter if God has given you great wealth or only a little bit, what will matter is whether or not we will be able to use what we have been given by God in His service. “Here am I, send me! Send me!”
The reason for that is because, in being a Biblical servant, God will often test us with smaller tasks to see if we truly have a servant’s heart. God knows that (Luke 16:10) “10 Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” Even if a task of service doesn’t seem to fit within our SHAPE, very often God will ask us to perform it anyway.
But God also knows that a servant’s heart, once assessed in the small things, can also then be approved in larger things. Jesus, in telling the parable of the talents, relates that the master of the house said to an approved servant, (Matthew 25:21) “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!”
No matter what the task God asks us to do, when we approach it with a servant’s heart we will find that two things are true. 1) That God rewards the servant for his service to others. That may be nothing more than God saying to us, “Well done, my child . . . well done,” or it may be more, but God does reward His faithful servants. And 2) you will find that in Christ God has given you the gifts necessary to get the job done. When He calls us to service, He equips us for service.
God gives us gifts, and He intends for them to flow freely to others. (Philippians 2:5-8) Our “attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!”


Lord Jesus, you gave your life in service to us. Through your shed blood on the cross, we have every good gift imaginable. We have peace with God, we have love, we have life. You have given us the ability to serve others so that you may be glorified and that your name may be praised throughout all the earth. Help us to see where our neighbors are hurting . . . help us to see the needs of our families. Hold us and mold us. Choose us and use us. Lord take our lives . . . and shape us to be servants.