“I hope you permit Sunday morning deeply inspired by the gospel — and I additionally hope you permit type of drained.”
I’ve had various puzzled appears come my means as I’ve stated that sentence in my church’s prospective-members class. Many Christians perceive company worship in response to the gas-station illustration — church is the place you go to “refill your non secular tank” for the week forward. We go to church anticipating it to serve my wants and depart me with a sure feeling or vitality degree. However the gas-station strategy is actually a consumeristic one.
True, company worship certainly will fill us up as we freshly encounter the goodness and glory of God. In that sense, sensible Christians come to church to get. However as I clarify in our prospective-members class, company worship ought to depart us feeling each inspired and a bit of drained. As a result of, like different areas of church life, company worship additionally is a chance to serve.
From Service, for Service
God designed the church’s life collectively and its worship to incorporate acts of service to others. We sing praises to God to encourage others with the lyrics of the gospel (Ephesians 5:19). We labor to concentrate to the preaching of the phrase in order that we will have a tendency not simply to our personal souls but in addition to the non secular well-being of others (Ephesians 4:11–12). We pray collectively for the sake of the unity and holiness of the entire physique. Even the act of gathering is itself an act of serving others (Hebrews 10:24–25).
All of this service takes vitality, after all. And it may be tiring. It forces us to shed our consumerism and undertake the place of a servant. But it surely shouldn’t come as a shock that God designed church life this fashion.
“In Jesus’s upside-down kingdom, residents race one another to the underside.”
For the church was born out of service. It exists solely as a result of “the Son of Man got here to not be served however to serve, and to present his life as a ransom for a lot of” (Mark 10:45). The struggling servant didn’t decrease himself to die below the torment of God’s wrath for our sin in order that he might make for himself a group of customers. He died to make us like him — he died in order that we too is likely to be “servants of God” (1 Peter 2:16).
Jesus himself made this level plainly all through his educating ministry. When the disciples argued about which ones was the best, Jesus responded, “If anybody could be first, he should be final of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). And when James and John requested to sit down at Jesus’s proper and left in glory, he stated,
You realize that those that are thought of rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their nice ones train authority over them. But it surely shall not be so amongst you. However whoever could be nice amongst you should be your servant, and whoever could be first amongst you should be slave of all. (Mark 10:42–44)
Two Methods to Have interaction
Jesus’s educating provides a stark distinction to the assumptions of the world and our personal consumeristic inclinations. In Jesus’s upside-down kingdom, residents race one another to the underside. They shove their approach to the again of the road. They make investments that generate returns for others. They go for the help document relatively than the scoring crown. They function out of the seemingly preposterous concept that it truly is extra blessed to present than to obtain (Acts 20:35).
After all, this name to serve challenges the notion that the blessed life is all about private success. It’s additionally a homing missile fired towards the consumerism deeply entrenched in our hearts — a consumerism that usually rears its head even in how we strategy our relationship with the native church. As an alternative of going to church like a restaurant critic, appraising the vibe and asking whether or not the music matches our style, Jesus teaches us to point out up like waiters, able to clear tables, wash dishes, and get drinks for others — at the same time as our personal souls feast on God’s all-satisfying glory within the parts of worship.
Sadly, our consumerism might be so pernicious that it warps even our ambition to serve into extra consumerism. We will make service about attending to do the exercise we would like and expressing ourselves within the methods we discover fulfilling. We could ask about how we will serve, however we angle for the service that brings us most pleasure. We will jockey for our fantasy ministry positions, or we will even count on the church to run sufficient applications in order that our present might be platformed. Catechized by the gospel of expressive individualism, fashionable Christians could make even serving within the church extra about private success than assembly wants. Even in service, we could need to get greater than we give.
Our Sample and Energy
How can we reply to such deeply entrenched self-absorption? To begin, we acknowledge that on the coronary heart of our consumerism is satisfaction. We predict extra extremely of ourselves than we ought. Like James and John, who needed to sit down at Jesus’s proper and left within the kingdom, we baptize our satisfaction with the language of non secular ambition.
The one answer to that satisfaction is seeing and savoring afresh the humility of the Son of Man, who got here to not be served however to serve — the one who, “although he was within the type of God . . . emptied himself, by taking the type of a servant” (Philippians 2:6–7). As Paul makes clear, Christ’s humility is each the sample for our service in addition to the facility for our service. We’re to “have this thoughts” of Christlike service, even whereas recognizing that it’s already ours by religion (Philippians 2:5).
“Fashionable Christians could make even serving within the church extra about private success than assembly wants.”
Solely by seeing within the gospel the depth of Christ’s personal humility can we start to place away satisfaction and the consumerism that flows from it. We will cease pursuing our personal glory when, by religion, we grasp that Christ laid down his glory for us. We’re free of pursuing egocentric ambitions for our future once we consider that the Son of God himself was bold for our future, so bold that he was keen to undergo God’s wrath to buy that wonderful future for us. We don’t must pursue mere private success as soon as we notice he “emptied himself” (Philippians 2:7) so that we is likely to be “crammed with all of the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19).
Go away Drained — and Christlike
Embracing truths like these can break consumerism’s stranglehold over our strategy to church life and company worship. We’ll cease trying just for applications the place we will categorical our items, and we’ll begin on the lookout for individuals, fellow members, with actual wants that we will meet. We’ll acknowledge the church isn’t a catering firm; it’s a covenant physique the place every member has the Spirit for the “frequent good” (1 Corinthians 12:7).
We’ll start to see that church membership isn’t merely a possibility to get one thing, however a possibility to decide to a sure group of Christians with a purpose to give them one thing. We’ll embrace that life within the native church entails caring simply as a lot in regards to the holiness of fellow members as we do our personal. In the long run, we’ll uncover that serving, not consuming, is likely one of the deepest methods God fills up our non secular tank. As a result of in his kingdom, you save your life by shedding it (Luke 9:24).
The subsequent time you collect with God’s individuals, I hope you permit strengthened and spiritually fed, I hope you’re constructed up by the gospel, and I additionally hope you permit a bit of drained. I hope you permit trying a bit of extra just like the Son of Man, who gave his life to serve.
