Practicing the Discipline of Servanthood
There’s a joke about three friends who were stranded on a desert island for a year. One day they stumbled upon an ancient lamp half buried in the sand. Upon picking it up, a genie appeared. The genie explained that he had three wishes to grant and would offer one to each of them. The first friend said, “I miss my wife and my children. I wish to go home.” Poof – his wish was granted and he was back home. The second person said, “I miss my job. And my dog. I wish to go home, too.” Poof – his wish was granted and he was back home as well. The third friend said, “Those guys are my best friends and I'm lonely here without them. I wish they were back here on this island with me.” Poof [1].
Such a display of self-interest with no regard for the wants and desires of others can make us cringe. Naturally, we're quick to disapprove of selfishness – in others! When it comes to ourselves, we often tend to justify or be completely blind to our own selfish acts. But we're all guilty of acting selfishly and we continually struggle to think of the needs, wishes, and interests of others above our own.
According to the Bible, our selfishness is due to our sinful nature inherited from the fall. Nobody has to teach us to be selfish. Someone has put together a pretty astute list of toddler property laws that includes things like this: If I like it, it's mine. If I can take it away from you, it's mine. If I had it a while ago, it's mine. If I say it is mine, it's mine. If it looks like mine, it's mine. If I saw it first, it's mine. If you're having fun with it, it's mine. If you lay it down, it's mine. If it's broken, it's yours [2].
You might assume that we simply outgrow this kind of selfishness, but do we? Or do we just get more sophisticated at expressing it? Consider that an entire population demographic was dubbed the “me- generation.” And shameless self-promotion seems to thrive on social media where many of the pictures we take are of ourselves (properly edited, of course, to look our best) [3].
Hearty doses of self-interest and self-obsession are lodged in each of our hearts – and that includes those of us who follow Jesus. We discover that this was true of Jesus' disciples in the Bible, too. But Jesus called them – and calls us – to something different: the serving Son of Man calls his followers to live out the discipline of servanthood. In Mark 10:35-45, Jesus issues this call in three ways: first, by challenging the motives for our service; second, by describing the manner of our service; and third, by providing the model for our service.
CHALLENGING THE MOTIVES OF OUR SERVICE
Jesus’ call to the discipline of servanthood is occasioned by a request from two of his disciples in Mark 10:35: “And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you’” [4]. That’s quite brazen. It sounds like what my kids would sometimes ask: “Dad, will you promise to do something for me?” Wise fathers usually respond with, “That depends. What do you want?” This is basically how Jesus responds in verse 36: “What do you want me to do for you?” Then they state their request in verse 37: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”
At the heart of this request is a desire for recognition, honor, position, and power. This is what sitting at the right hand and left hand signifies. They want status and title. They want the notoriety that comes from being part of the innermost circle. They want the personal acclaim derived from proximity to the king. Such a request exposes the motives of their hearts. There's something in their following Jesus that’s driven by vanity. They approach him here as a means to the end of their own advancement – like he’s a genie who exists to grant their (self-exalting) wishes.
Not surprisingly, Jesus declines their request, explaining in verse 40 that those positions are not his to grant [5]. Then we’re told in verse 41 that when the other ten disciples heard about the request, they were indignant. Why? There isn’t going to be an elevation of James and John above the rest. No harm, no foul, right? A reasonable guess as to why the others reacted so strongly is that James and John's petition was taken as a personal affront. I mean, the nerve. How dare they? But what made it so unacceptable was likely not so much their principled commitment to equality as much as that their hearts were self-centered and self-promoting, too. This interpretation is supported by the fact that this isn’t the only time we find the twelve jockeying for position. We read in the chapter just before this that Jesus asks them: “‘What were you discussing on the way?’ But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest” [6].
The disciples have self-focused and self-absorbed hearts. Sound familiar? It does to me. That's my heart. Far too often I make it all and only about me. I want Jesus to give me what I want. I want the universe to orbit around me and my desires. I want to do what I want to do, when and how I want to do it. I want you to assist me in getting what I want rather than have you stand in my way. If everyone would simply think how I want them to think, drive how I want them to drive, and vote how I want them to vote, we’d all be happy. Well, at least I would be. And selfishly, that’s all that really matters to me sometimes. Paul Tripp states the truth about our selfish hearts bluntly: “Sin turns us in on ourselves ... Sin causes us to shrink our focus, motivation, and concern to the size of our own wants, needs, and feelings ... Because of sin, we really do love us, and we have a wonderful plan for our own lives!” [7].
“If we’re honest, even when you and I are serving we can do so in ways that are ultimately selfish and mostly about what's in it for me. This is why our motives need to be challenged.”
If we’re honest, even when you and I are serving we can do so in ways that are ultimately selfish and mostly about what's in it for me. This is why our motives need to be challenged. If we’re motivated by selfishness and fueled by our pride, we’ll only serve if we’re properly recognized and appreciated. We’ll only serve if it's reciprocated or if I get something out of it. We'll only serve on our terms – when we feel like it, when it's convenient or easy. We’ll only serve those we deem “worthy” of our time and effort. We’ll only serve who, what, when, and how we want. This may be the kind of serving we observe in the world around us, but Jesus calls us as his disciples to something more in verse 43: “It shall not be so among you.”
Jesus' higher calling requires more than simply performing outward acts of service – which can be done while concealing inwardly selfish motives. It’s about the deeper discipline of servanthood. We can better grasp what this means when we hear him describe the manner of our service.
DESCRIBING THE MANNER OF OUR SERVICE
In response to the tension that has surfaced among his disciples, Jesus gathers them around him and says, “Okay, so you want to talk about honor and status and being first? You know how the Gentiles go about it, but that’s not the way to true greatness.” We’re told in verses 43-44 that he instructs them: “[W]hoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” That’s pretty straightforward: if you want to be great, be a servant; if you want to be first, be a slave. Note he's not simply saying, “Do acts of service.” It’s much more – or maybe a better way of putting it is that it’s much lower – than that. He is calling them – and us – to adopt the mindset of being a servant [8] and to assume the posture of a slave [9]. The language Jesus is using doesn’t call us merely to serve but to practice the discipline of servanthood.
The terms servant and slave describe the manner of our service. When you adopt the mindset of a servant and assume the posture of slave, you don’t assess who is “worthy” of your service but you’re quite indiscriminate [10]. When you adopt the mindset of a servant and assume the posture of a slave, you don't demand recognition, thanks, reward, or reciprocation. You don't make conspicuous gestures or comments to ensure your service is noticed. You don't decide to serve only when the task is easy or convenient or when you feel like it. You don't distinguish between small and large tasks, but you do whatever's helpful and beneficial to others.
Because life is made up mostly of ordinary moments, many of the daily opportunities we have to practice servanthood will consist of seemingly small things: cooking, washing dishes, cleaning toilets, folding laundry, listening, praying, maintaining order by putting things back where they belong, letting others go ahead in lines. Servanthood means performing mundane, common, routine tasks for those around you as readily as you would more esteemed and noticeable deeds. John Newton, the eighteenth century pastor best known for penning the hymn Amazing Grace, concluded that: “If two angels were to receive at the same moment a commission from God, one to go down and rule earth's greatest empire, the other to go down and sweep the streets of its meanest village, it would be a matter of entire indifference to each which service fell to his lot ... for the joy of the angels lies only in obedience to God” [11]. That's an attitude of servanthood.
Not only is a mindset of servanthood willing to perform whatever task, whether large or small, for anyone in need, whether deserving or not, it also operates in any place, whether at home, at work, in the community, or in the church. As Christians, God has given each of us a gift in order “to serve one another” [12]. But we should expect that serving in the church, like any other place, will seem small, often go unnoticed, benefit the ungrateful, and be inconvenient and disruptive. Things like opening up the building on Sunday mornings, running sound, working in the nursery, or cleaning up after pitch-ins won’t earn you ecclesiastical celebrity status. Here's how one writer advertised servanthood in the church: “Wanted: gifted volunteers for difficult service in the local expression of the kingdom of God. Motivation to serve should be obedience to God, gratitude, gladness, forgiveness, humility, and love. Service will rarely be glorious. Temptation to quit place of service will sometimes be strong. Volunteers must be faithful in spite of long hours, little or no visible results, and possibly no recognition except from God in eternity” [13].
“True greatness isn’t measured by the number of employees, butlers, maids, groundskeepers, cooks, or bodyguards you have. It’s not defined by how many people serve you but how many people you serve – or to state it even more accurately, by how many people you become a servant to.”
Although it may not be glamorous, according to Jesus this kind of service is what defines greatness in the kingdom. True greatness isn’t measured by the number of employees, butlers, maids, groundskeepers, cooks, or bodyguards you have. It’s not defined by how many people serve you but how many people you serve – or to state it even more accurately, by how many people you become a servant to.
Some might infer from hearing Jesus talk about being great and being first that he is simply revealing the unexpected truth that performing acts of service is the real path to the personal recognition, status, honor, and acclaim our selfish hearts crave. If that’s how you’re understanding Jesus’ words, you’re still missing the point. He's calling us to renounce personal recognition, status, position, and acclaim altogether for the sake of others – for the sake of their interests and their promotion. That’s greatness according to Jesus.
A tale is bandied about that when Mother Teresa was passing through a crowd in Detroit a woman remarked, "Her secret is that she is free to be nothing. Therefore God can use her for anything” [14]. That’s what Jesus is calling each of us to here. But he doesn't point us to Mother Teresa. We have an even more excellent example. Jesus calls us to the discipline of servanthood not only by challenging our motives and describing our manner but also by providing our model.
PROVIDING THE MODEL FOR OUR SERVICE
Jesus isn’t calling his disciples to something from which he exempts himself. He makes this clear in verse 45 when he says: “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” When it comes to adopting the mindset of a servant and the posture of a slave, he points to himself as the model.
Think about how Jesus supremely demonstrated the discipline of servanthood. First, he didn't discriminate between large and small acts of service. In the passage just before this in Mark 10:32-34 he is talking about his crucifixion – the ultimate act of servanthood in which he would offer himself as a substitutionary sacrifice to save sinners. But in the passage immediately following this in Mark 10:46-52, he stops before entering Jerusalem for the final time to heal a blind man calling out for mercy. Additionally, we see him performing the menial task of washing the disciples’ feet in the Upper Room in John 13 just hours before his death.
Second, he didn’t only serve when it was easy or convenient or when he felt like it. In fact, according to Philippians 2:6-7, Jesus’ whole life consisted of giving up his rights and assuming the role of a servant: “though he was in the form of God, [Jesus] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” [15]. Significantly, he maintained this mindset of a servant even when it meant saying: “Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” [16]. Indeed, even when it meant “becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” [17].
Third, he didn't reserve his ministry for the worthy. He didn’t limit his service to those who would thank him or reciprocate. He served sleeping, fleeing, denying disciples. And he did so in a way that only he could: by giving himself as a ransom. As C. J. Mahaney explains: “A ransom represented payment of a price required for deliverance from various forms of bondage, captivity, or condemnation that were common in those days ... [it] wasn't a term associated with respectability. The person being ransomed was either a slave, imprisoned enemy, or a condemned criminal” [18]. In case you missed it, that's us: slaves to sin, enemies of God, and convicted lawbreakers. Jesus took on the role of a servant to ransom the unworthy by laying down his life to rescue us. So he isn’t just our model – he's also our Messiah.
CONCLUSION
This is the servanthood of your Savior toward you, Christian. And the serving Son of Man calls us as his followers to live out the discipline of servanthood in imitation of him. But it's hard – very hard. Our selfish, sinful nature rails against it. John Calvin recognized that the self-denial involved in practicing the discipline of servanthood requires “no little violence to nature.” He goes on to explain that this is because our sinful nature “so inclines us to love of ourselves alone that it does not easily allow us to neglect ourselves and our possessions in order to look after another’s good …” [19]. This is why servanthood is rightly regarded as a spiritual discipline.
But if it’s so hard, why bother? Donald Whitney tells a story that helps answer this question. He says: “I read of a missionary in Africa who was asked if he really liked what he was doing. His response was shocking. ‘Do I like this work?’ he said. ‘No. My wife and I don't like dirt... we do not like crawling into vile huts through goat refuse ... but is man to do nothing for Christ he does not like? God pity him, if not. Liking or disliking has nothing to do with it. We have orders to go and we go. Love constrains us’” [20].
“We love because Jesus loved us. We can serve because Jesus has served us. We can give ourselves up because Jesus gave himself up for us.“
Why bother? Love is why. Love always propels us to service. Think about why we spend so much of our limited time and energy serving our newborn babies – changing their smelly diapers, wiping their dirty bottoms, feeding them, rocking them, getting up in the middle of the night with them. Is it because they're so thankful? Is it because it’s so readily reciprocated? Is it because it's so glamorous? Is it because it's so easy and convenient? No. It’s because we love them. Steve Robinson is right when he observes: “it is love that will drive and sustain your service... genuine service only comes from genuine love” [21]. Jesus is simply telling us that greatness consists of extending this kind of loving servanthood to everybody.
And we can do it because Jesus has extended even greater sacrificial, loving service to us. We love because Jesus loved us. We can serve because Jesus has served us. We can give ourselves up because Jesus gave himself up for us.
Those who receive by faith the sacrificial service of Jesus’ atoning ransom are themselves transformed into servants. Consider how James and John, our earlier self-campaigners, were ultimately changed. James became one of the earliest Christian martyrs [22] while his brother John taught: “He laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” [23]. They got the message. Are we getting the message? “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” May God give us the grace to strive for true kingdom greatness by faithfully practicing the discipline of servanthood.
[1] A version of this joke is posted at https://jokes.scoutlife.org/jokes/three-friends-stranded-on-an-island/.
[2] See https://kellymom.com/fun/wisdom/property/.
[3] One website references a survey indicating that people take more photos of themselves than they do of their friends or family. See https://www.lightstalking.com/photo-statistics/.
[4] The parallel account in Matthew 20:20-21 tells us their mother issued the request.
[5] According to Matthew 20:23, these positions have been appointed by the Father, though it is unclear to whom they are ultimately granted. One intriguing idea is that the positions were occupied by the two criminals at the crucifixion. We are explicitly told that there was one on his right and one on his left in Mark 15:27. While Mark uses a different Greek word for “left” at the crucifixion scene, the words are identical in Matthew’s account of these same events (see 20:21; 27:38).
[6] Mark 9:33-34.
[7] Paul David Tripp, What Did You Expect? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 47.
[8] The Greek word translated “servant” is διακονος from which we get the English word deacon.
[9] Understandably, the term slave (from the Greek δουλος), can trigger adverse reactions and may even sound insensitive and inappropriate given our nation’s history and ongoing racial tensions. Some translations will opt for the less jolting term bondservant in some passages to reflect the Greco-Roman context of slavery in the New Testament. In considering Jesus’ words here, we must bear in mind that there’s a big difference between willingly and without coercion choosing to assume the posture of a slave and being enslaved against one's will or enslaving another by force. Jesus isn’t calling us to the latter but to the former. For an in-depth study of the Greek word δουλος and its cognate forms, see the entry by Karl Heinrich Rengstorf in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964). For a thoughtful exploration of how the idea of slavery is treated in the New Testament, see Murray J. Harris, Slave of Christ: A New Testament Metaphor for Total Devotion to Christ (Downers Grove, IL; England: InterVarsity Press; Apollos, 1999).
[10] When Jesus assumed the role of a servant in the Upper Room in John 13, he washed both Peter’s and Judas’ feet.
[11] Quoted in E. M. Bounds, The Essentials of Prayer (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1979), 19.
[12] See 1 Peter 4:10: “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.”
[13] Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1991), 129.
[14] The report appears on numerous websites. For example, see https://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/1997/december/4895.html.
[15] The Greek word translated “servant” in Philippians 2:7 is actually δουλος, usually translated “slave” (as in Mark 10:44).
[16] See Mark 14:46.
[17] See Philippians 2:8.
[18] C. J. Mahaney, Humility: True Greatness (Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Books, 2005), 51.
[19] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (2 Volumes), ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 695.
[20] Donald Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 122-23.
[21] Steve Robinson, Serve: Loving Your Church with Your Heart, Time and Gifts (UK: The Good Book Company, 2023), 87-88.
[22] See Acts 12:1-2.
[23] See 1 John 3:16.