After Pentecost Devotional - Day 44

“Servants are fortunate if their master comes and finds them doing their job. You may be sure that a servant who is always faithful will be put in charge of everything the master owns.” Matthew 24:46-47

Faithfulness is what we are called to. God establishes responsibilities for us to fulfill and expects us to do more than simply sing praise songs and call Jesus “Lord.” We are to live up to the responsibilities set before us as emissaries of God's justice, love, and grace.

Jesus' words here come on the heels of a discussion about no one knowing the day or time of Jesus' return. Rather than predicting the future, Jesus wanted his disciples to focus on the mission set before them, a mission of sharing the good news of redemption and reconciliation through God's grace and love. Jesus was not concerned with so many ritualistic aspects of Jewish religious tradition. He was concerned rather with extending the message that God was ready to accept all people simply by grace.

The Scribes and Pharisees of chapter 22 were very focused on religious prescriptions. They were very motivated to make sure that the traditions surrounding worship, sacrifice, and ritual purity were carried out to the letter of the law. What they were completely missing, however, was God's gracious forgiveness and seeking to reconcile all people. The religious focused on definitions keeping people at bay, out of bounds, or otherwise unworthy of God's attention. Jesus was focused on an inclusion that became God's primary mission.

While the legalism of the religious leaders was built on concepts of self-importance and the centrality of an identity associated with Abraham and Moses, Jesus' message was very different. He called his followers to serve the lowly and outcast. This service included the hated Samaritan half-breeds and other non-Jews. His parable here calls the faithful to administer God's resources for the benefit of others, rather than self. The message places service above comfort and personal importance.

By definition, servanthood is anything but self-centered. It requires placing external needs above our own. It requires an outward instead of an inward focus. It requires that we understand the resources at our disposal as designed to fulfill the mission with which we have been charged. This mission has to do with benefitting others rather than ourselves.

More interesting, perhaps, is the reward of faithful service as Jesus describes it here. It is greater responsibility for further service. I don't think we could get much further from the emphases of a prosperity theology than this. Jesus wants faithful servants who will care for the needs of others. He promises to repay that service with more service built on an increased level of responsible stewardship.

Neither the characteristics of that service nor its rewards have anything to do with benefits for ourselves. Both service and its reward are outwardly focused. The gospel requires so much more than any superficial adherence. It requires wholesale new values in loving one another to unprecedented degrees.

What steps are needed to move your values more in keeping with becoming a steward of the gospel?


"Lord, transform my values to bring them into line with your priorities and mission."

—©Copyright 2016, Christopher B. Harbin
http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/ 
My latest books can be found here on amazon

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