John Bevere - Seek to Serve, Not to Be Served
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Hey everybody, welcome to lesson 10. This one is so exciting! First of all, I’m going to go back to 1 Peter 4:10: «God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.» In this lesson, I’m going to talk about the catalyst that really gives us the ability to serve effectively. When I say «effectively,» I’m referring to the kind of serving that will produce fruit that will endure forever and ever and ever.
So first of all, let’s define this word «catalyst.» A catalyst is a key ingredient that precipitates or accelerates an event or change. So what is the catalyst for multiplying? It’s serving. Listen to what Peter said: «Use them well to serve one another.» Now, all true serving has to be motivated by love, because true serving will endure adversity, rejection, and anything else thrown against it. If you listen to what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 1:3, he says, «For we remember before our God and Father how you put faith into practice, how your love motivates you to serve others.»
I want to tell you a story about some friends of mine. They’re very, very close friends, and I have to give them a fictitious name, and you’ll understand why. So I’m going to call them Riley and Dave. Okay, so, Riley and Dave—it was destiny that they met. They had two apartments next to each other, both single, and eventually fell in love and married. Riley, right at the beginning of their marriage, was so burdened. Why didn’t the soup kitchens, the Salvation Army, and the churches help people more during Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving is one of our biggest holidays in America, but it’s very important that it centers around a meal, family time around a meal. She saw the soup kitchens helping people, but it didn’t create that home atmosphere.
So Riley prayed to help people by getting a turkey around their table for Thanksgiving. She went to her family and friends and said, «Hey, we will match dollar for dollar what you give to feed hungry people. My husband, Dave, and I, if you give a dollar, we’ll give a dollar. You give five, we’ll give five.» Well, the first year, she was able to serve 11 turkeys to families and delivered them in the trunk of her small car. The next year, she went up to 35 turkeys. By the third year, she went to her family and friends and said, «Alright, you can share the vision with people, but don’t tell who’s behind it.»
By the time they got to the fifth year, they were feeding 500 families turkeys on Thanksgiving. But it continued. Now the Salvation Army stepped in; they were able to screen the people in her county who really were in need. These were people who couldn’t get a turkey with food stamps or any other governmental provisions. So now they started giving her a list, and she began announcing to them to come to the Salvation Army’s parking lot, and she would give them a turkey. Well, people started pulling wagons, riding bikes, asking neighbors or people they knew who had vehicles to please drive them there. The amount of people they were feeding kept escalating.
Eventually, the parking lot of the Salvation Army wasn’t big enough, and a neighboring YMCA became involved. The Salvation Army and the YMCA in that city, which is a very large city in the United States, weren’t getting along, and Riley, coming to them asking for the YMCA’s parking lot, caused them to reconcile. The two organizations have been working together ever since. Now she had over 200 volunteers working for her. The situation kept escalating until they decided to start giving two cans of vegetables and stuffing with every single turkey.
They faced challenges because people were moving away who had volunteered the year before, and they had to find others. Riley wanted to keep her identity unknown, and they eventually reached a point where they were giving away thousands of turkeys. The story gets even better! They couldn’t distribute the turkeys in one day—it was impossible—so they had to do it over a two-day period. The problem became, «Where are we going to store the frozen turkeys?» One of the public stores they were buying turkeys from, at the last minute, said they would give her five refrigerated trucks.
Let’s fast forward to today. At the very last feeding, which was their 26th year, Riley and her husband and their team of volunteers gave away 10,500 turkeys. Yeah, you heard that right! If you do the math, let’s say there’s an average of four people per family; that means they fed just this past year 42,000 people. It is commonly known that not one person in the entire county went without a Thanksgiving meal, and they significantly affected the lives of people in two neighboring counties.
What has happened from all this? Many people have been saved, even her husband Dave ended up giving his life to Jesus Christ when he saw what God was doing through this feeding program. Riley is not a minister; she’s not a pastor; she’s not a businesswoman. She’s a stay-at-home mom who had a burden to feed hungry people because she has a heart to serve. If you look at Jesus’s example, Jesus is the greatest example of serving in the Bible. He made a statement in Mark chapter 10: «The path to promotion and prominence comes from having the heart of a bondslave who serves everyone. For even the Son of Man did not come expecting to be served, but to serve everyone.»
Jesus identifies His serving in John 12:24 when He said, «I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted into the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels.» Isn’t this interesting? Jesus uses His supreme serving example as a kernel of wheat going into the ground again to produce a harvest. What was Jesus’s harvest? He got many sons and daughters added to His family.
As a minister of the Gospel, I always know my final point is so important. Whenever I’m preaching a message, that final point has to drive it home. Jesus was the greatest preacher of all, and He chose to leave the most powerful illustrated sermon right before His crucifixion. They were in the upper room after dinner; He took off His garments, girded Himself with a towel, and began to wash His disciples' feet.
Now we need to talk about this because when I first got saved, I avoided getting my feet washed. I didn’t want any man touching my feet; the only person I wanted to ever touch my feet while I was still single was my wife. There was a fad of foot washing when I first got saved in 1979-1980, and when they would do that foot washing, I’d say, «Ah, I gotta go! I’ve got something that just came up; I’ve got to get some homework done,» and I would get out of Dodge. But I found out later that my dislike actually was founded because we made a tradition out of washing feet, almost the way Israel made a tradition out of the serpent on the pole. They started idolizing that serpent; originally, it had the right intent—it was God’s way of ministering to them—but eventually, it ended up becoming an idol.
So let’s talk about why Jesus did this. Back in those days, you have to remember that streets weren’t paved, and people didn’t have Adidas tennis shoes. They were barefoot or wore sandals. When you came into the home of a very wealthy person, which the disciples had done that night, a typical wealthy person’s home had enough room to house 13 guys having dinner in an upper room. When you came into that home, it typically had 20 to 30 servants. Some servants were over cooking, some were over housecleaning, some were over the garden, and some were over the animals. The lowest of low servants was the person—usually a female—whose job was to wash the people’s feet when they entered the house because people were going to have mud on their feet, horse urine on their feet, donkey urine, camel urine, and possibly even poop on their feet. That person’s job was to ensure their feet were clean before entering this person’s beautiful home.
So, that woman would wash their feet; do you realize that all those disciples had their feet washed by the lowest of all the 30 servants of that household? So when Jesus gets down and starts washing their feet, He is communicating a massive message: «I am the lowliest of all servants, the most humble of all servants.» Can you imagine how that affected them? No wonder Peter said, «No way am I letting you do this. I just had the lowest servant of the house wash my feet three hours ago! You’re not doing this; you’re my master; you’re the Messiah.» And Jesus said to them, after doing this, «You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, because that’s what I am. And since I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example to follow.»
Let me explain my incorrect mindset of serving. When I first started in ministry 35 years ago, I remember working for this church with 400 team members and over 8,000 people in the congregation. We had an international outreach, and I saw my pastor as the pinnacle of ministry. The mindset among us was that if you got promoted, you would one day not have to serve anymore. In other words, we viewed those in management positions and our pastors as being in the ultimate place, and one day, if we did a good job, we might get promoted out of serving into being managers or pastors.
Well, my mindset was totally wrong and incongruent with Jesus’s. I’ll never forget my job was taking care of my pastor’s dry cleaning, picking up his kids from school, and washing his car. One day, I was driving his car to get it washed, and the Spirit of God spoke to me and said, «Son, if I promote you—and there is an 'if'—if I promote you, it will be a promotion in serving.» He said, «If you mess up now, it’s just a dry cleaning shirt, but if you mess up in that day, you will mess up the life of an individual.» That riveted me, and I realized how important it was to have an attitude of serving.
So in our multiplying, we want to realize it’s only giving us the ability to serve at a greater capacity. If you look at Rebecca, she’s probably the greatest example of serving in the whole Bible. If you remember, Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for his son Isaac. The servant traveled a long distance back to Abraham’s hometown and prayed, «God, it’s time for the girls to come out and get water for their daily duties. I’m asking you that the girl you have chosen for my master’s son will be one that, if I ask her for a drink of water, she will not only give me a drink, but she will give a drink to all of my camels.» Well, sure enough, he just finished making the request, and here comes Rebecca.
So this guy, Abraham’s servant, looks at Rebecca and asks, «Will you give me a drink?» Listen to Rebecca’s response: «Yes, my Lord,» she answered. «Have a drink.» And she quickly—listen to the word quickly—lowered her jug from her shoulder and gave him a drink. When she had given him a drink, she said voluntarily, «I’ll draw water for your camels too until they have had enough to drink.» So she quickly emptied her jug into the watering trough and ran back to the well to draw water for all of his camels.
Now let’s talk about this. She is a classic example of what it means to be a true servant. Number one, she’s eager. Rebecca did everything swiftly; she ran; she moved fast, even running back and forth to the well. Slow or convenient serving is not true serving. Have you ever noticed people serving but doing so lethargically and with an attitude of, «Oh, I’m so tired from all this work»?
Number two, she went the extra mile. Rebecca far surpassed what she was asked. She was only asked to give him a drink of water, but she gave a drink of water to all of his camels. Now, let me tell you something pretty amazing because this is mathematically going to blow your mind. A typical camel, after a long journey—because camels can go for a long time without water—will drink anywhere from 30 to 50 gallons of water. Now, Abraham’s servant had 10 camels, so let’s go with the low end: 30 gallons. If you multiply 30 gallons by 10, you get 300 gallons. A typical water jug holds five gallons.
Now, there were two types of wells in those days. There was the well that had a rope that went down with a bucket that you could draw up; the other well had steps that went down to where the water level was underground, typically about 25 to 30 steps. We know what kind of well it was from the response of Abraham’s servant to Rebecca’s family. He said, «She went down to the spring and drew water.» So in other words, it was the one with the steps.
Can you picture this? This is a girl making trips down steps and up steps to water all of his camels, and she wasn’t even asked to do it, plus there was no reward for her. She did it out of just having a servant’s heart. What was her reward? All those camels carried treasures for her, unbeknownst to her, and she ended up becoming a mother of a multitude. Boy, did she multiply!
Number three, a servant is responsive. A true servant doesn’t wait to be asked when a need is evident; he or she moves forward immediately. In all my years of ministry, it’s become very evident to me that people who wait to be asked to do something that’s needed end up not multiplying. Those who are always the first to go into action are the ones who see increase in their life.
Number four, a servant is committed. Even though the task was difficult, Rebecca was diligent in serving. Through the years, I’ve observed a pattern: the harder the task, the more quickly great attitudes diminish—it’s human nature. Jesus never quit; He had the attitude of serving all the way up to His final breath. He looked at His Apostle John and said, «Please take care of my mother,» again thinking about others and serving others.
A true servant, as we see with Rebecca, does everything to completion. 99% of the task is not complete; she went the whole route. She gave those camels a drink of water until they were satisfied. Let me tell you something: if you truly want to multiply with eternal ramifications, yes, you can multiply like the farmer who says, «Hey, I’m going to plant all these seeds, and I’m going to get such a harvest that I can sit back and take it easy for the rest of my life.» The one that Jesus said was covetous—it works. The principles of multiplication work for him. But if you want to multiply in a way that will endure forever, that you’ll be rewarded eternally by the Master with, «Well done, good and faithful servant,» it has to be motivated by serving.
So we have talked about so much in this course. In the next lesson, I’m going to talk to you about the hindrances to multiplication, and these hindrances can be discovered through our third servant that we call Larry.