“I have set you and example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things you will be blessed if you do them.”1 Jesus spoke these words just after humbling himself and washing the feet of his disciples, telling them that as he had done unto them so should they also do unto each other. This is the most beautiful picture of ministry to me in all of God’s word. Ministry is not religious calisthenics on Sunday morning, its not developing better outreach posters on photoshop, its not modern ministry at all. It is washing feet. It is becoming nothing so He can become everything. My philosophy of ministry is simple. It is a philosophy of, above all else, servanthood. In fact the words ministry, servant, and their derivatives come from the same root word, diakonia. “What we label ministry should be normal Christian living.”2 But to whom am I a servant? First I am a servant to God, and through service to Him I am a servant to man, then through faithful servant hood to both I become a servant-leader.
A Bond Servant to God
“My sons do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before Him and serve Him, to minister before Him and burn incense (emphasis mine).”3 Above all else our duty is to God, not to man. We are to serve Him. We are to be obedient to His will. If first we don’t seek to serve God somewhere along the line there has been a perversion of the gospel into seeking the favor of man. The essence of the ministry is to serve God, and in doing so, be obedient to His will in service to others. Paul said it plainly here. “For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond servant of Christ!”4 We are supposed to love the Lord God with everything in us.5 To Love God means to serve and Obey God. What an honor and what a humbling thought. Daniel Webster said, “The most important thought I ever had was that of my individual responsibility to God.”6We are not to seek to serve man without first serving God, because to do otherwise would be to seek man’s approval, making you a slave to the wrong master.
A servant’s purpose is to be obedient. One could say that this is a servant’s only job, that of performing his master’s bidding, be what it may. God’s bidding is His will. We are to go about fulfilling that at an individual an corporate level. Obedience on the broadest scale I can imagine would be consecration to the purposes of God, being set apart to accomplish them through my obedience. What this obedience encompasses would require volumes to complete, assuming that it could in fact be completed.
A high position on this earth does not negate one’s service in the Kingdom. The Hebrew word ‘eved was originally applied to a slave, but came to mean a trusted servant. Eventually it was applied to those that did a work for a ruler or for God.7 Kings and prophets, people of high earthly standing, were often called ‘eved, or servants, of the Lord. Through this service to God, this upward ministry, we, through obedience serve those around us.
Washing the World’s Feet
“The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He waken me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught” (emphasis mine).8 Isaiah painted many other pictures of servants who, through serving God, serve others. The fundamental spirit of a servant first embodies a deep and intense feeling of serving God. “Through mediating the covenant and bringing others into God’s will, biblical servants had a consuming desire to flesh out essential service to God through ministry to the world around them (Isaiah 52:7-11). Formationally speaking, biblical servants first anchor themselves in service to God and stand ready to serve and lead others.”9 The beauty of this is that even in service to man we are not serving God indirectly, it is still a direct act of service to Jesus! “For what you have done unto the least of these you have done unto me.”10The master hasn’t changed. We are obedient slaves to the Lord, and His commandment is to wash the feet of the world.
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