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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/daniel-shutt/how-will-i-serve/
Luke chapter 22 and verse 19, and I am breaking into the scene in the upper room where the Lord Jesus was gathered with his disciples. The old supper, the Passover supper, had now come to its conclusive dispensational end, and there is now a new supper being instituted that will last until the rapture.
Of course, that supper will be followed by the marriage supper of the Lamb in the great unfolding of God's fellowship suppers. And I'm going to begin reading at verse 19, and Jesus took bread and gave thanks and break it and gave to them, saying, This is my body, which is given for you, this do in remembrance of me.
Likewise, also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you. And I want to stop for a minute and say, what do you think the believers talked about after the first observance of the Lord's Supper?
Do they think they talked about how wonderful it was to be there? How great it was to sit around the Lord Jesus, not in spirit but actually physically to be with him? Do you think they discussed the meaning of the bread that represented his body that was given for them or the cup that they had just drunk from representing his blood that was about to be shed?
Is that what they talked about? Read with me verse 24. And there was also a strife among them. Are you surprised? Which of them should be accounted the greatest? And Jesus said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.
But ye shall not be so. Now here's my text. But he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger. And he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether he is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth, is not he that sitteth at meat.
But I am among you as one that serveth. One more reading in the book of Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3 and verse number 22. Colossians chapter 3 and verse number 22. Colossians 3 and verse 22.
Servants obey in all things your masters according to the flesh. Before I go on, let me just make a passing comment. We don't live in a world today of masters and servants. But I believe that in a world of employers and employees, that the New Testament message about masters and servants applies to our secular employment.
And I'm afraid that sometimes Christians are not always the best employees. That grieves me to say that. And there have been times that Christians have not been the best employers either. But I just want to make this observation.
This book that we hold in our hands is a timeless, eternal, relevant book. And if you want to know how to have employees, and if you want to know how to be a good employee, you read the epistles. Because the directions given to masters and servants suit the year 2009 perfectly.
Just a little word of encouragement. Servants, verse 22, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh. Not with eye service as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily.
No leaning on the water cooler. Do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. Verse 24 is my text here. Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance. Six words, for ye serve the Lord Christ.
That's all I want to read. And I trust God will bless it for the remaining minutes of this meeting. I want to talk to you at the close of this conference about the joy of being God's servant. We have a little problem with nomenclature in the gospel halls.
And I don't mind every once in a while giving it a good kick on the way by to remind you that I'm not always happy with some of the language that we use. For those of you who were here yesterday, Brother John rather thoroughly demolished the idea that a missionary is a person who goes to a foreign country to serve the Lord.
All of us have a mission. All of us are to be missionaries for God. Let me do the same thing to this word, servant. Who is the Lord's servant? Well I know that, I know how we use it. And actually I'm just going to say it right out, we use it wrongly.
Is there anybody in this room who is saved that has not been called by God to serve? Anybody? Thank you. The answer is no. Well, well, I hear the backbenchers back there in the back, you know, they're saying, oh Mr. Schutt, you're just being too technical.
You know what we mean. We're talking about full-time servants of the Lord. Is there anybody here that God saved to be a part-time servant? I don't think so. I'm here to tell you that you are like the Thessalonians that God saved you to be a servant.
You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven. This is a room full of full-time servants for God. And my job before God and in his sphere this afternoon as I send you on to your home assembly is to leave you with this idea ringing in your ear, a little homework from God.
How will I serve him in the days that are to come? I just have four things I want to go over and I'm going to do this briefly. I want to talk first of all about the servant's role model, something I prayed before I came to this conference and I pray before I go to every conference and that is this, that there will be ministry that exalts the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'll tell you what, I'm going to echo what Brother John said. You know, there's a verse in the Bible that says they that endure to the end get to criticize or get to talk about those that didn't endure to the end.
And since Brother Sandy is gone, I'm going to echo what Brother John said. It's just this, I was absolutely thrilled this morning to listen to that ministry about the Lord Jesus Christ. Were you? If you're not, stick around for Murray's Gospel meeting.
You need a dose of something else. I want to tell you about the servant's role model, about a man who was a king and yet lived in this world as the servant of all. Secondly, I want to tell you about the servant's responsibilities because you and I have not been saved to while away our days and simply look for a future day of glory in heaven.
God has worked for every one of his children. You're saved today. God has something for you to do and your first duty is to find out what it is and get busy. The servant's responsibility. Then I'm going to talk for a couple of minutes about the servant's rebuke.
Because when we fail to serve as we should, there is no end of mischief that will come to God's people. My mother was known for some clever little aphorisms and one of them that I heard when I was a child was this, idle hands are the devil's playground.
Well, I don't know what verse she based that on, but as a good mother, I think that just represented good sense, if not Holy Scripture. Christians who are not busy serving God are not a blessing, they're a burden to everybody else.
Brothers and sisters, the Bible rebukes idleness and slothfulness. God is looking for you to serve. Last of all, I want to talk to you about the servant's reward because I want to tell you that there's a God in heaven that is waiting to reward the tiniest act of service that is done for him.
The servant's role model, the servant's responsibility, the servant's rebuke, and the servant's reward. I want to say with deepest reverence that the strangest man who ever lived was a Jewish carpenter named Jesus Christ.
And all of you who know that I love the Lord Jesus and I try to honor him will not think of that as an insult. I just want to say that there was something amazing and unique about him. He was a man who came from heaven.
He was a man who came from a scene where he was served by a multitude of created beings of amazing and immense glory. And yet there came a day when the word became flesh and tabernacled amongst us. And you heard what he said in Luke chapter 22, I am among you.
As one who reigns, that was his right. As one who serves. I think the Apostle Paul captured that in the soaring language of Philippians 2, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and took upon himself the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man.
He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. That stands in marked contrast to the petty bickering of those self-centered men that gathered around him. Men that he had rescued from the lowest depths of sin and rebellion against God.
Here was one who by right could reign, and yet he chose to be a servant. Here were men who deserved to be servants, and they were arguing about who was going to be the greatest. But I love the words of the Lord Jesus, repeated over and over again, the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.
Whoever would be first among you must be the slave of all, for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. I want you to think for a few minutes at the end of this meeting about the greatness of the service of the Lord Jesus.
I want you to think first of all about the descent of this servant. You know, there are some extraordinary things about the coming of the Lord Jesus into this world that really human language can scarcely describe, that the Eternal One should stoop into time.
Isn't that amazing to you? That the One who is pure Spirit should step into flesh. How can that be? That the One who lived in the glorious expanse of heaven should confine Himself to the dusty Judean backwater of Bethlehem of Judea.
That the One who is surrounded by endless peons of praise should Himself be the object of drunken reproach as He moved through this world. I'm not Pentecostal today, but I could just throw up my hands and say, hallelujah, what a Savior.
The descent of the servant. I want to tell you about the devotion of the servant today. You know, I hope that for my young friends here, that you will not only learn to read the Bible in part, but that you will learn to read the Bible in whole.
I hope that you will learn to begin at the book of Genesis and read it daily and consecutively right through from front to back. Because you see, I think maybe it was Brother John mentioned it yesterday, that these aren't two Bibles.
They're one Bible, just divided into two parts. And really, and I say this gently and I'm not being critical, but you will never have a full appreciation of the New Testament without coming to a grasp of the Old Testament.
And I'm going to tell you about one of the most wonderful stories I know in the Old Testament that illustrates what I want to say about the devotion of the servant. In Exodus chapter 21, there is a man who has been taken a slave.
And the day comes when there is the opportunity for him to leave the conditions of servanthood and to go out on his own. But during the years that he was a servant, he married a wife and he had children.
And the way that the society was set up was this. He could leave, but he would have to leave his family behind. And God established a wonderful ritual. And I use that word carefully. I don't mean it in the dead religious sense.
I mean it just in the sense of a ceremony that God ordained. You read this when you get home, will you? Exodus chapter 21, And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go out free.
That man was to be pierced through the ear by an awl to the post of the door. And with the blood running down his body, he professed his love for his master and his wife and his family. I don't know, outside of the story of Christ himself, a more beautiful illustration of the devotion of a Savior who died, that the world might know that I love the Father.
That's why I gave out Handel's famous hymn 419. My glorious victor, Prince Divine, clasp these surrendered hands in thine. At last my will is all thine own, glad vassal of a Savior's throne. My master, lead me to thy door.
Pierce this now willing ear once more. Thy bonds are freedom, let me stay with thee to toil. Endure, obey the devotion of a servant whose devotion would be measured in the blood that he shed. I could tell you a little about the discretion of the servant.
Isaiah 52 said he would be the one who would deal wisely. We could speak for a moment about the dealings of the servant who would not cry nor lift up his voice. He was the gentlest of all servants. I could tell you about the determination of this servant, Isaiah 42.
He shall not fail nor be discouraged. There was no fair-weather service on his part. It was service that completed the mission and the will of God. It would be carried out to its fullest degree. This determined, devoted servant.
How could I tell you about the servant's role model without telling you about the death of the servant? I am guilty of a lot of incomplete service. And I think that honest men that I love here in this room would have to admit that that's been true of all of us.
We've tried to serve God in some measure. But the measure of our love for Him, it's just limited by these wicked old hearts. And there's a lot of things that Mr. Schutt should have done. A lot of things Mr. McCandless should have done, you know.
And we really haven't carried him out all the way. We're a couple of stubborn guys, but you know, sometimes we just haven't got to the finish line. I want to tell you about a servant whose devotion to God was so great.
It carried him all the way to Calvary. He gave his life. A ransom for many. I wonder if I could call for that sort of service from someone here today. You know, when I was a young Christian, there's something I get asked quite frequently.
And I have to admit, I really wish you wouldn't ask me to do this. But people ask me to write down the ten most influential books I've ever read. And some of you know that I have read tens of thousands of books.
And I find it very difficult to try and analyze that. Most people I just send away with a rather curt, go read your Bible. And pick out the ten books in the Bible you like the best. But, you know, there are some books that have deeply moved my soul.
And I'll tell you, one of them were the journals of Jim Elliot. For all of you young believers here, don't walk. Run to the nearest bookseller and read about Jim Elliot. I tell you, there's something, when I read it, I have trouble reading it.
Because I have trouble reading through my tears. At the thought of a man who gladly surrendered the things he couldn't keep to gain the things he couldn't lose. A man who on the banks of the Curaray River in Ecuador would yield his life for the Savior that he loved and served.
When I read the story of Jim Elliot, it condemns me. But I'll tell you, it stirs me to follow a master. Who even more than Jim Elliot, went to the death of the cross. I want to tell you not only about the death of the servant, but I want to tell you about the decoration of the servant.
When I come to the servant songs of Isaiah, I discover, my servant shall be exalted. I want to tell you, God's no man's debtor. God is no debtor to his son. You know, I wasn't going to say this, but I'll just tell you a little something.
Brother Murray has mentioned a little assembly up in the north of Michigan that he just went to for the first time. And I'm glad he went. Because I knew that if he went, he would come away a happier man.
And isn't it fascinating? I just love that. I'll tell you about an assembly that he hasn't been to yet. And maybe he never will. But there was an assembly for many years in northern Michigan. And there was a dear older man there.
He was a Finnish gentleman. His name was Eugene Mackey. I've known Eugene Mackey, or I did know Eugene Mackey until he went home to heaven for close to 30 years. He was one of the most faithful assembly elders in a very small and discouraging assembly that I've ever seen.
And loyal to the Lord, and loyal to his word, and loyal to the people of God. I mean, he was a man that you just couldn't help but love. But, you know, Brother Eugene was a very modest man. And, you know, I'm a curious guy.
When I meet people, I'm always prying and picking and trying to find things out. And Brother Eugene always just brushed me off. And I really never had a sense of who Eugene Mackey really was. Besides just the ordinary banal things of his everyday life.
I'll never forget when he got old. One day I was sitting in his living room. And he wasn't there. His daughter came into the room and she said, Dan, there's something that you have to see. And I thought, I wonder what this is going to be.
She went over to a sideboard, a bureau that stood there in the dining room. She pulled open the drawer. And she pulled out a box. As I looked at that box, I recognized that this was no ordinary box. And as she lifted the lid to that box, my breath was absolutely taken away.
You know what was in that box? A Congressional Medal of Honor with a purple heart. Because the man that I knew as the humble Finnish log cutter in World War II was actually a hero. Who in the Po Mountains of northern Italy in the fierce of winter, under withering enemy fire, skied back and forth to carry ammunition to men who were pinned under Nazi fire.
And through his bravery, and through his wounds, and through his blood, there was a victory that was won. That carried Allied troops north of Germany. The decorations of a true hero. Not everybody knew that.
None of you did until I just told you just now. The man that was just looked at as an ordinary man on the streets of Pelkey, Michigan, was a man that had received the highest decoration of an appreciative country.
I want to tell you that today in heaven, the servant's role model, though despised and rejected, though often overlooked in the rush and hustle of our modern information age, there is a man in glory who has been highly decorated by the Father.
It's not the purple heart of an earthly injury, or the Congressional honor of a wartime hero. It is this that the man who went to Calvary has been raised from the dead, and God has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name.
Blessed Lord Jesus Christ, the decorated servant who sits at God's right hand is the role model for every servant here today. I want to tell you for a few minutes not only about the servant's role model, but I want to tell you about the servant's responsibility.
I want you all to listen carefully to some statements that I'm going to make over the next couple of minutes, because I want to tell you that the highest position in the kingdom of God is what? The man who preaches at conferences?
The editor of Truth and Tidings? The elders in a local assembly? No, the highest position in the kingdom of God is the one that Jesus Christ now occupies. It is the servant. The Lord Jesus himself said, you have no debates with me, you can argue with him if you like, that he who would be greatest will be the one who serves.
God has not called us, brothers and sisters, to rule, but to serve. And that's why the words of Colossians 3 to me are most instructive. Whatsoever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.
You are serving the Lord Christ. You know, it's a sad thing when people forget that. 3 John, there is a man named Diotrephes. He had no time to be a servant. I know I'm mixing my fairy tales up, but he huffed and he puffed and he blew himself up, you know.
Diotrephes was pretty impressed with himself. Boy, no servant place for me. I want to be the boss. How different from the Lord Jesus, who understood that being the servant of God was the highest position in the kingdom of heaven.
I want to tell you just about some places that you can serve because God wants you to be a servant today. I want to talk about the opportunity to be a servant spouse in your home. I want to talk about the opportunity to be a servant in the local assembly.
And then I'm going to give you a little evangelical kick in the pants and I'm going to tell you that God has called you to serve a perishing world in which he has left you. When I come to Ephesians chapter 5, I discover that God intends that I should relate to my spouse as a servant.
You know how it goes in life. When you're 18 years old, you're an expert in everything, right? You know how marriage should work. You know how kids should be raised. You know all that stuff. I'm in my 50s.
I don't think I know anything now. It's amazing just how stupid I'm getting. I remember when I got married, I thought, Oh yeah, I've watched my mom and dad. I probably know a whole lot about being married.
I'm going to be an expert. And I'll never forget the day a very, very kind brother that many of you know here, he took me aside. He actually took me to lunch. I appreciate that, by the way. Here's just a little word.
I'm kind of like Brother Murray. If it comes to mind, I'm going to just give it a kick on the way by. You know, if you've got something to say to a younger believer, don't just walk up to them and drop an atom bomb on their head at the back of the hall.
You won't do anything except tick everybody off, including me if I see you do it. Take them out to lunch. Show them a little kindness. You know, it's possible to say hard things in a soft way. Most of us need to do a little practice on that one.
And this brother, he knew my wife and I since we were children, and he just came to me and he said, I'm putting food that he paid for in my mouth, so I had to listen. And he said, Why do you think that you should be good to your wife?
Now, you know, I'm really smart, you know, so I've got an answer, right? I said, So she'll be good to me. What are you laughing about? Half of you still believe that. He said, Dan, that's not the way the Bible works.
He said, God is calling you to be a servant to your wife. God is calling you to treat her right because it's the right thing to do. And he said, if for 50 years your love for her was unrequited, God would still hold you responsible to serve her in love.
I'm not very smart, but I did learn something that day that I've tried to practice for the last 25 years. That was a great blessing to my soul. I want to ask young men and young women here today, and if there are some middle-aged folks that can get in on this, you go right ahead.
Please make sure that your relationship with your spouse is not just the idea that you're going to give so that you can get that is the selfish, self-centered attitude of a world that does not know God.
May God help you today to serve out of pure devotion with no anticipation of return. Can I tell you something? The day I started loving my wife just for her and not for me, the returns for me have been absolutely extraordinary.
See, may God help us to be servant spouses. May God help us to be servants in the assembly. Galatians chapter 5 and verse 13 says, By love, serve one another. And I know my brethren already today have been on this idea, and I'm going to camp on it a little longer.
There is a world of service that is available in God's assembly. You know, there were two men, they're gone so I can talk about them because both of them would kill me if they knew I was going to do this, that have already preached up here today.
I've known them both for just about the same amount of time, just about 30 years. I first met Sandy Higgins when he was a young doctor. I'm now related to him because I married his niece. I met him as a young doctor in a sleepy little assembly of about 15 or 20 people that was going nowhere.
I'm going to tell you that there were four overseers in one year that died or moved away, and Brother Sandy, along with two other brothers, was left with an awesome responsibility on the shoulders of a young man.
I'm going to tell you what he did. Long before you knew him as a preacher, long before you knew him as an editor of a magazine, there were years of faithful, patient, quiet service to an assembly. Do you know what the results are?
I just closed a gospel series in that assembly. It was one of the more thrilling gospel series that I've had. First of all, to visit that assembly, today there are over 50 in fellowship, and of that 50, 75 of them are under 30 years old.
During that gospel series, the hall could hardly contain the number of people that were brought into that series. I think there were over 100 new people that came in to hear the gospel. Some nights, 150 people in that building, 30 or more unsaved people listening to the gospel.
Do you know what I trace that to? Now, Brother Sandy didn't work alone, and you all will know that, but there was a man who was willing to serve. There's another man that's not here, and I've lived with him, I did live with him in Stark Road for a number of years.
When I first came there, he was a young college student going to the University of Michigan. What was he doing in his spare time? How was he spending his summers? Was he off water skiing? Was he out goofing around with the rest of us?
No, he was out with David Oliver in the heat of a Pennsylvania summer. If you haven't experienced it, you ought to try it. The humidity is about 238%. Pushing up gospel tents, working in children's meetings.
He graduated from college and began his teaching career, holding meetings in the evenings, using his vacation, opening his home, serving in the Stark Road Assembly. And the man that you now know as an excellent preacher, a wonderful servant down in Mexico, seeing assemblies formed, the gospel preached, where did it begin?
It began with a young man with a heart to serve. I haven't used any illustrations of sisters, but I'm going to say something to the sisters here. God wants you as his servant as well. There is a marvelous field of service for our beloved sisters.
I'll tell you something, sister, don't you believe the feminist garbage that argues that you need to rise to the top of the corporate world to be a success for God. That's rubbish. You raise a young family for the Lord Jesus.
You teach those children the Ten Commandments, and you teach them the Beatitudes, and teach them the Lord's Prayer, and teach them the gospel verses, and you'll be a greater success in the kingdom of God than all the CEOs lined up from one end to the other.
There's a world of service in the gospel. Brother Murray would jump up here on the platform and agree with me on this. We wouldn't be anything without our wives. I'll tell you, my wife is a far better evangelist than I am.
Don't worry, she doesn't preach. But I'll tell you, she knows all the ladies in the neighborhood. There's not a person who comes into the gospel tent that she doesn't befriend. Dear sister, you have a vital role in the gospel and in the assembly.
You have a vital role encouraging your husband. I'll tell you, there's days I would just slip my wrist and die after some of the stinky gospel that I've preached on occasion. And you know, my dear wife, she comes along and says, well, Dan, it's not so bad.
Tomorrow's a new day, and who knows, maybe you'll get better with time. You know, wonderful. I need her. May God help all of us today to see that there is a world of service to be done in the assembly and in the world.
I think of the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 9, for though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more. Now, I don't want to cut into the gospel meeting, so I just want to omit the idea about the servant's rebuke.
In Luke's gospel, there is a servant who loses sight of the master's return. As a result, he begins to maltreat his fellow servants. He begins to beat them. And in an hour that he does not expect, the Lord returns.
And the secret to the story, the analysis, the root cause of the failure is this. This man failed to serve because he took his eye off the returning Lord. May God help us today that we will never be rebuked for this, that in our ignorance of the fact that Christ is coming, we will somehow become slothful in our service for him.
Let me close with this. We have thought about the servant's role model, the Lord Jesus, and the servant's responsibility in the home and in the assembly and in the world. Let me tell you just for a minute about the servant's reward.
Listen carefully, please. In the economy of heaven, there are no uncompensated servants. Do you know what that means? That for every little bit that you put into the kingdom of God, he will reward you with multiples of glory for what has been done for him.
I've probably said this here in Garneville before. I'm going to tell you what I think the strangest verse in all the Bible is. Do you want to know what it is? It's the verse that says this, then shall every man have praise of God.
You know, if I were writing the New Testament, what I would have written was, then shall God have praise of every man. That's reasonable. I want to tell you, I bow my knees and thank God that everything that is done for him will ultimately be rewarded in the riches of his grace.
Would you be a servant today? That will be a life well lived. That will be a race well run. That will be a heart well satisfied. To meet him in that day and hear the master's words, well done, good and faithful servant.
You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of thy master. As you leave the Garneville Conference, I hope this last message will leave some small or large impression on my heart and yours as well.
May God help us to understand that we follow a man who came to be a servant. May God help us that we like him might serve the Lord Christ.