Jump Start # 1604

2 Corinthians 4:5 “For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants.”

  Our verse today could be summed in with a simple expression, “It’s not about us.” As simple as that expression may be, it’s harder to live by that principle. Our passage presents one negative and two positives.

We do not preach ourselves. We do not. We don’t. That’s the negative. I’m not sure what “preach ourselves” involves other than promoting ourselves, talking about ourselves and putting too much emphasis upon ourselves. That’s a pride issue. Some folks have just too much of them in them. They love to talk about themselves. They love to tell their own story and they love to toot their horn. Give them a moment and away they go. Paul says, we don’t do that. It’s not about us. We talk and preach more about Jesus than we do ourselves. Some of us who stand behind the pulpit forget that. We tend to think we are the superstars. We’re not. God is. We can complain, whine, and have a real pity party. But get over it. It’s not about you. Pride suffocates a marriage. Pride cripples a church. Pride emphasizes the wrong message.

We preach Christ Jesus as Lord. This is what they preached. This is what God wanted them to preach. Preach Jesus. That’s the message that the world needs to hear. That’s the word that will offer real hope and help. Christ Jesus as Lord—that not only implies Messiahship, but it also speaks of authority. Christ is the Lord. It is His church. We worship Him. We can forget that sometimes. We can start making our own rules and add what we think is necessary and in so doing we often burden a person down. We say we follow the Bible and only the Bible, but how easy it is to get side tracked from that. We start talking about proper dress in worship. Here we go. Ties are a must for all who do things publically. Dresses only for women, no pants. Flip flops are out. Some places have those who have designated themselves as fashion police. Dare a person come in with shorts and the sirens go off. Dare a man get up to pray who is not wearing a tie, and you’d think Heaven itself will explode. I remember a congregation I attended during college. They were a “tie only” place. Many of us college boys didn’t own a tie. They had extras in another room. One guy was standing in front of everyone with a tee-shirt on with a clip on tie that was authorized by the powers that be. He sure looked ridiculous. If we are preaching Christ Jesus as Lord, where does the “tie” or “no tie” issues come to be? Jesus never said anything about that. He spent most of His time with poor people. I expect most of them didn’t have a closet full of clothes like we do. Their feet were dirty, that’s why folks washed them when they entered homes. We must be careful about telling folks what they have to do, when it is nothing more than our wishes and not Christ as Lord. Paul preached Jesus. We need to do the same. There are many folks who have forgotten what Jesus was like.

We are bond-servants. That’s Paul’s other positive. We are servants of Christ. We preach Jesus. We know our place and our position, servants. Servants serve. That’s it. They feed the master first, then they eat. They take care of the master first, then themselves. The master is God. We serve God and we serve others. The life of a servant wasn’t pleasant. It wasn’t the dream job that a child longed to have some day. It was long hours and hard work. It was doing what others wanted you to do. It was putting others first. It was taking care of yourself last. That’s the way it is with servants. We’ve rather forgotten that. We like to be served. We don’t like waiting in line. We don’t like having to go out of our way. We certainly do not like putting others before us. But that’s what servants do. When the prodigal came home, he was willing to be a servant. Servants don’t sit at the family table with the family. Servants do not sleep in the house. Servants do not pamper themselves. They serve.

As Christians, we are servants in the kingdom of God. That means the work of the kingdom is what we are all about. That means that comes first. That means we will be busy doing kingdom work when it may be hard, unpleasant and we do not feel like it. The application of this means, we will go to worship when we may not feel like it. We will help others when we feel like staying home and watching TV. We will give up a Saturday to help someone. We will go back out in the evening to talk to someone when we’ve just gotten home. It means working with folks to help the kingdom grow. It means sacrificing myself for the kingdom.

We know what spoiled kids are like. Some can be spoiled Christians. If they don’t get their way, if something may be hard, if it means giving up something, they may have a real melt down. “Woe is me,” they sigh. Get over it! You are a servant. What do you think servants do?

Three simple statements found in this verse. Don’t preach self. Preach Christ as Lord. Be a servant. But somehow we’ve found a way to mix these three things up. We don’t preach Christ. We preach our selves. And we want to be served. Is it any wonder that some congregations are the mess that they are in.

Stick with what the Bible says—that will get you preaching Christ Jesus as Lord. Quit talking so much about yourself and start listening to others. That will help you to stop preaching about yourself. And then get on your feet and do something for someone else. That’ll get you serving.

Can you do that? A better question would be, “Will you do that?”

Roger