Sermon from April 13, 2008
I'd like to begin by looking back and looking forward. I have introduced you to five habits of highly effective Christians. We have two more to go. They help us to answer the questions, “How am I doing as a Christian? How am I supposed to be doing?” The seven habits give us goals to shoot for and standards to measure by.

We began with repentance and moved on to prayer, loyalty to the Church, seeing life through a scriptural lens, and telling our story of faith. Have you noticed that each of these, including the most personal and private act of repentance, turns our attention outward to God and to other people? That fact moves me to invite you to look forward to what it will mean to your life, if you diligently cultivate these habits.

You know that I am not given to exaggeration in my sermons. What I am about to say may seem like an exaggeration. I think it is just common sense. You’d think it was just common sense, if I said to you, “Eat right, and exercise five times a week, and you will look better and feel better. Here is a book that can help you do it.”

I think it is just common sense to say to you, “Cultivate these seven habits over the next five years, and you’ll be a happier, more effective human being, who is remarkably different from the person you are today. You’ll be more marriageable, you’ll be a better parent, a more productive worker, and a better citizen. You’ll be a highly effective Christian.”

Here’s why I believe that. The seven habits, lived out in everyday life, redirect every aspect of our humanity to God. The gospel doesn’t squelch our personalities, it redirects them. The seven habits are practical steps by which the gospel redirects them.

Now, we can cultivate these seven habits. This is not impossible. The Holy Spirit is at work in us to empower us and keep us on track. The seven habits will not bore you. If anything, they may give your life more excitement than you are ready for.

Now, we are ready to consider a sixth habit of highly effective Christians, which is serving the needs of the people around us. Let’s begin by clarifying what we mean by serving. Three familiar actions will help us get our bearings.

Some Misunderstandings
First, all you who know tennis will easily know the answer to this question: How does a game of tennis begin? Answer: one player serves the ball to the other. Now, when you think about the word serve in that answer, it makes you think that tennis players need to come up with a better word.

All you tennis buffs will know American tennis player, Andy Roddick. Roddick can serve a tennis ball upwards of 130 mph. If you are at the other end of the court, you don’t feel served in any normal sense of that word so much as you feel at risk. This action sheds no light on the sixth habit of highly effective Christians.

A second action begins to shed light on this habit, but we have to be cautious. English aristocrats once had and may still have what they called domestic servants. Men and women seeking employment on the manor or in the mansion spoke of themselves as going into service.

The most familiar domestic servant in American imagination is certainly the butler or manservant. Books and movies routinely present this stolid figure as quietly deferential, fiercely loyal and well-spoken. “Yes, my lord!” “Quite so, my lady!” “If I may be so bold, my lord!” “Will there be anything else, my lady?”

This seems closer to serving than an Andy Roddick 130 mph serve. What troubles us about the English butler is the dramatic suppression of his own personality. Of course, if we could see him among his peers, he might be as demanding as his aristocratic master, but neither would he be trying to serve his peers.

Placing himself at his lord’s and lady’s beck and call does tell us something real about serving, but the suppression of his own needs and ideas leaves us feeling uneasy and artificial, if that’s all it means to serve the needs of another person.

A third part of our experience addresses our uneasiness. Fill in the blanks to these short phrases. Sales and . . . ? Right, service. If your car needs a tune-up, you call the . . . Department? Right, service. In the U.S. economy the manufacturing sector has grown smaller, but the . . . sector continues to grow? Right again, service.

Now, I’m sure that most of us have come across people in the service department, who were more like an Andy Roddick serve than an English butler. But even those unpleasant people point out that there is a way of serving people that doesn’t have to suppress our own needs and ideas. To put it more bluntly, we can meet people as their equals, set aside our legitimate needs and ideas, and serve their needs.

I think it is time we looked at the pre-eminent example of Christian service. Look with me at Philippians 2:3-8.

The Mind of Christ
Jesus came face to face with the egotism and ambitions of the world, and the crucifixion resulted. The apostle called the Church to join that strug­gle on the side that has all the obvious disadvantages. He fashioned that call in language that is especially distasteful. Verse three: In humility consider others better than yourselves.

Humility has no place among the values of our culture. As for considering others better than yourself, John Calvin spoke for us all when he asked, “How is it possible that one who really is superior to others can reckon those to be above him whom he knows to be far beneath him?”

The apostle himself may have felt the force of that idea. He certainly restated the call to serve in verse 4: Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. That expresses in a nutshell the sixth habit of serving the needs of other people. It acknowledges that we have legitimate interests of our own; but there will be times, perhaps many times, when we defer to the interests of others.

The motive Paul gave for doing that appeals to the example of Christ in verse five: Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Verses 5-8 tell how He looked not only to His own interests but also to our interests. It is dramatic.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God . . .  “How is it possible that one who really is superior to others can reckon those to be above him whom he knows to be far beneath him?” Wouldn’t you say that someone who is in very nature God is superior to others? Whatever else we say about humility as modeled by Christ, it did not begin in weakness. It began in strength, the strength of being in very nature God.

Now, watch what happens next! In His position of unimaginable strength Jesus Christ, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant. In other words, He made himself nothing in comparison with what He let go.

He deliberately chose in humility (to) consider others better than Himself in the sense of letting go something unimaginably good and unmistakably His in order that He might reach effectively into our world.

Without ceasing to be what He was, He became what we are in order to look not only to His own interests, but also to the interests of others. To do that He gave up the privileges but not the status of being equal with God.

As if that were not enough, His humility took another giant step of letting go something else unimaginably good and unmistakably His in order that He might reach into our world. Verse eight: And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross, a death reserved for those whom the powerful wanted to treat like the scum of the earth. Christian humility never begins in weakness, but it may end in weakness.

The humility of Christ was deliberate. He knew His rights fully, and with His eyes open to the consequences He set aside those rights, jeopardized His dignity, and suffered willingly what came upon Him in order to serve our need. It is clear that one who really is superior to others can reckon those to be above him whom he knows to be far beneath him by choosing to serve their needs. That and no other is the humility we are to imitate.

Serving the Needs of Others
So, what does this look like at street level among us mere mortals? Let’s answer first with a biblical passage that can be inflammatory. Look at Ephesians 5:22-25.Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

The word submit makes the passage inflammatory because of our change in attitude toward women. I think we have lived with this new attitude long enough to leave behind the more irrational passions, which this word awakens in us. I think we can and should rehabilitate this word. After all, there it is on the pages of scripture. In doing so we will begin to see how we can serve each other’s needs

So, let’s do an experiment together. If you are married, think of two things you have done recently, just because your spouse wanted you to do it. If you are not married, think of two things you have done recently for someone you love, just because that person wanted you to do it.

Husbands have a technical term for such things. They call it a Honey-Do-List. Wives don’t have a technical term for what they do for their husbands. They would just say, “I do a lot for him, and it would be nice sometime, if he would just help a little around here.”

The proper name for doing something just because your loved one wanted you to do it is Submit. In the context of this sermon those actions serve the needs of the person you love. I know the word submit in these verses occurs only in the statements about women. But don’t blow off verse 25 as irrelevant: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. The words change, but giving up yourself for your wife qualifies as submission. And besides verse 20 seems gender-inclusive: Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

There is one characteristic of all service that I don’t want to gloss over. Serving the needs of other people almost always has to do with small things. Even service in a great cause almost always has to do with small things. Service can be formal, such as Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, or it can be informal, such as taking out the trash. Either way, it almost always has to do with small things.

Let me give you an example of this from BVBC’s Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Those efforts caught the imagination of thousands of people and thousands of churches. I don’t think it would be wrong to say that they were heroic efforts. Television reported them and to some extent glamorized them.

There was nothing especially glamorous about the actual efforts to clean up after the storm. Going into mildewed houses, waterlogged furniture, refrigerators, with rotten food, cleaning it out down to the studs and rafters, and removing thousands of nails and brads was just hard and sometimes dangerous work.

Amid all these small things, one small thing gave a human face and a human meaning to all the others. Mike Helmar was my team leader. The first house we cleaned out belonged to a lady in her 70s. She came back to her house for the first time since the hurricane the first day we were there.

She was appreciative, and BVBC people were good listeners. At some point in the conversation someone asked her if she knew of any valuables in the house we should be looking for. She said there weren’t, although we actually found quite a few, which delighted her.

However, she did say there was one thing she feared was lost. We asked what it was, so that we could look for it, expecting her to mention gold coins or old photos or family heirlooms. But no, what she mourned was the loss of a thimble her mother had given to her. We knew the chaos in the house, and it seemed a long shot to find it.

While we were still talking to her, Mike Helmar walked back into the house, into her bedroom, which we had not yet touched, and within half an hour, came back into our conversation and said, “Is this what you are looking for?” It was. He had managed to find her treasure. I thought she was going to ask him to marry her right on the spot.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
Very few small acts of service have that kind of emotional payoff. But millions of small acts of service make the world a better place to live. And let’s remember! We are talking about the habit of serving the needs of people around us. It a mind-set that kicks in everyday and goes out the door looking for people to serve.

The places to start are our family of flesh and our family of faith. Servanthood really does begin at home. As I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon, all the habits, but especially this one, turns our attention outward to God and to other people. And it puts us in elite company.

Look at Mark 10:42-45. Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. So many of you already serve. I hope Brandywine Valley Baptist Church becomes a church of servants and a catalyst of kindness in many places throughout the Brandywine Valley.