People like to get nostalgic about working with their hands. There is a true beauty and honor to the reality of “Dirty Hands Clean Money.”
But anyone who works in manual labor will tell you that life can get tiring working on your hands and knees or climbing up and down ladders.
Our bodies tire and alongside this fatigue, a quiet resistance to the work can build.
Someone who used to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty now leaves those tasks for someone else.
While some leaders step out of these tasks for reasons that help the whole group, most construction crews have encountered a boss who has become too good for the grind.
So have most churches!
I was struck by the example of John the Baptist this morning.
7 And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.
Mark 1:7
John the Baptist had large crowds listening to and flocking to him. John had an important assignment in the salvation history of the world.
Yet John knew he was not worthy to unstrap Jesus’ sandals.
After years of serving, or amid important callings, it is easy to forget our place and lose perspective.
We must beware when our heart resists the challenging tasks of serving Christ’s body. Perhaps we are losing a servant’s heart or losing sight of our Master’s glory?
John the Baptist's simple words celebrate the worth of the smallest task because Jesus is worthy.
Does your smallest act of service celebrate the Savior?
The way we serve in the simple aspects of life in the local church, from structured ministries to personal relationships, displays our view of ourselves and our Master.
This is double-edged sword brings that encouragement and conviction.
When we commit to volunteer and don’t follow through. Or take a task or role and treat it as the last thing we get around to… we display disregard for the Lord.
Our service shows what we think of the feet of Jesus and we show that we think His feet are beneath us.
Like an iceberg that hides 90% below the waterline, a lot of selfishness sits below expressions of haphazard, last-second, or lazy service.
When we scrub one toilet with zeal, clean our ministry space, or ask an intentional question of a struggling person.. we highlight the glory of our God!
Serving a widow, teaching a class, or caring for children in the nursery should never be beneath us.
Every task you’ve been given is one that you can offer to the Lord!
Some congregations get off track by focusing primarily on externals. Excellence can become code for an impersonalized industrial productions of ministry.
But there is such thing as excellence that is deeply personal–think of a master craftsman!
Many times believers can let “volunteer” mean “lowest priority” in our materialistic culture.
This is dangerous for the church and destructive for Christians.
We might not say we are above the tasks of cleaning up a ministry space or cleaning up for a shut-in, but the way we work tells a story.
9 One who is slack in his work
is brother to one who destroys.
Proverbs 18:9
Ministry in organized programs or ministry in the life of God’s people doesn’t need to be impersonalized or professionalized, but it must not be trivialized.
The smallest tasks, like untying a sandal, are infinitely worthy when the sandal is on the foot of Jesus!
Christians are called to be master craftsmen in every aspect of life because we are pouring it all in worship at the feet of Jesus!
The psalmist understands the privilege of being a doorkeeper in service to God.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
Psalm 84:10
Better to be a butler in God’s house than to have a place of honor in a palace of corruption!
We can never be above a task or willing to do the bare minimum in the house of the Lord.
The heart of Christ’s servants will rejoice that they have any way to touch the feet of Jesus!
It’s worth praying over this question: What area of your service might benefit from renewed energy and humiliyt with the help of the Spirit?