On Saturday, August 16 of last year at our annual staff retreat, Jonathan (“The Inquisitor”) Sarr started the second half of our morning session by asking is to share our favorite passage of Scripture on serving. We, being the biblically armed squad we are, quickly assembled quite a list.

• Philippians 2:1-11, where Paul exhorts us to count others more significant than ourselves, looking not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others. We’re to follow the ultimate example of Jesus who, though He was God, made Himself nothing by taking the form of a servant. How we serve is a Christlikeness issue.
• 1 Peter 4:10-11, where Peter exhorts everyone who has received a gift, not only those with a speaking gift, but especially those with a serving gift, to serve by the strength that God supplies. We’re to serve like that so in everything God may be glorified through Christ Jesus. How we serve is a worship issue.
• Of course Mark 10:42-45, where Jesus teaches His disciples that greatness is not about authority and control over people. Whoever would be great must be a humble servant, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many. How we serve is a greatness issue.

Staff mentioned a few other passages as well, and if nothing else, the exercise demonstrated that we know immediately and clearly that service is not a marginal matter. We might not have complete clarity about what baptism for the dead means (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:29). We may limit certain practices like head coverings and holy kisses to particular cultures. But there are no doubts or qualifications about service. God’s people serve, we are servants; service defines us.

Even on the night before His crucifixion, in a context of betrayal, injustice, coming torture, mockery, and death, Jesus washed the disciples’ dirty feet.

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. (John 13:3-4)

As if he painted a building sized mural, John leaves us nowhere else to look but at the divine, supreme, reigning God-man who deliberately humbled Himself.

When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” (John 13:12-17)

That truth presses the point that if we don’t serve, if we only expect or wait for others to serve us, we put ourselves in a position higher than Christ. We presume the impossible, namely that our importance surpasses His. Not one of us would dare say that, but sitting on our hands is no less corrupt. God’s blessing doesn’t come on those who know the priority of service; blessing comes on those who do it.

So why don’t we serve more (or at all)? Why is service so difficult for us? Collectively, but not exhaustively, the staff suggested we don’t serve because:

• we are lazy. We serve alright, but only our flesh.
• we are short-sighted. We apply effort only when the results are immediate rather than sacrificing with the long-view in mind.
• we are unbelieving. We have trouble trusting God when He promises favor and joy for servers. We don’t believe others won’t take advantage of us.
• we are fearful. We know our weaknesses and realize we are barely fulfilling our basic responsibilities. We panic, desperate to preserve our limited resources/energy, afraid He won’t give strength to get it anything “extra” done.

Those excuses wouldn’t fly in the work world, though we try to pass them off as God’s servants. Someone who calls in sick every Monday will soon have no boss to call on Monday. Do we think God missed that the reason we didn’t show up was because we didn’t feel well, but that we didn’t feel well due to our own lack of discipline? Those who stop working on Wednesday because they can’t wait for Friday’s paycheck don’t understand the cycle. God’s reward for service is even more dependable. And someone with free-flowing French Roast and endless energy bars provided by their employer who refuses to return from their afternoon break, afraid they’ll fall asleep at their desk, is mental. As believers, we’re indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the supernatural strengthener with unlimited resources at hand.

So how are we doing, as a ministry, when it comes to service? We asked that question as well seven months ago and attempted to evaluate and answer that question as best we could. We had just finished the strongest student serving World’s for Sale ever. We’ve had girls serving regularly by babysitting at staff meetings. The set-up guys prepare the room week in and week out.

However, we knew of (then, and know of now) minimal student initiated or organized service for one another, at small groups, or most importantly, at home. Last year’s Gym Jam and Girls’ Gardening participation was pathetic (only partially due to some of us spending that Saturday in the hospital).

One seed planted during that staff retreat discussion grew into one element of our theme this year–Starting at the Beginning–namely, an emphasis on service. Service is discipleship 101, if we try to follow Christ without service, no matter what 400 level theology we’re discussion, we’re Christian ignoramuses. For example, I’ve had some fantastic discussions with the last few small groups I’ve visited, talking about God’s sovereignty, the origin of evil, and how both of those work for His eternal glory. That really is great. But as important as those conversations are, if they don’t trigger deeper worship and more diligent service, we’ve missed the point.

With less than a week before our biggest, organized service event of the year, it seemed right to take some time and talk about service. It was incredibly exciting to watch all the happy service at the last snow retreat, but has that hot service cooled down already? Did you do it there because it was fun? Did you do it because everyone could see you? Did you do it because it really wasn’t that tough to stack together five plates from your table?

Much of the time, service is unglorious. It takes tiresome preparation and clean-up. The benefits rarely come immediately, including appreciation from others, if that even comes at all. Service is work. Service is often messy. But as I said at the beginning, service is an issue of Christlikeness, an issue of worship, and an issue of greatness. It is also an issue of wisdom.

Wisdom literature, including Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, is full of instruction and recommendation to diligence. The lazy man lives inferior to an ant. The excuse maker says more about himself than the lion in the street. The irresponsible might as well carry a stool around with him so his authority has easy access to look over his shoulder, since he’ll be doing that a lot.

The wise man builds his house, and then takes care of it so that the roof doesn’t cave in on him. The wise woman burns the candle on both ends, not only because she’s frugal, but also because she needs the light to work more. The wise work, when no one even knows it, when it wears them out, even when it stinks.

That brings me to my all-time favorite proverb. I’ve loved the book of Proverbs since high school when my youth pastor suggested I read a chapter a day every month. No parallel resource exists that provides prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth like Proverbs (1:4).

I’m sure I had read this verse multiple times, but it established a special place in my heart when, as a 21 year-old intern, I lead a group of six younger college students on a short-term missions trip to New York City. I’ve had few other long weekends as miserable, difficult, taxing, fun, memorable, and profitable as that one. I shared this proverb with the team so many times on the trip that it became our motto, and donned our t-shirts front and center when we returned.

Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean,
but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.
Proverbs 14:4

Let’s agree that the scene is agriculture. Meanwhile, back at the ranch…. But the implications of this wisdom are almost limitless, stretching far beyond the farm.

The proverb begins with a deceptively simple observation: where there are no oxen, the manger is clean. The Hebrew word oxen* is different than the word **ox in the second half of the verse, not only because the first is plural and the second is singular. It is a generic word that refers to cattle, male and female. Using this word, instead of using the plural form for male-only oxen used in the second line, suggests breeding for sake of a large herd.

If you have no cattle, the manger is clean. Manger refers to a crib, a long open box or trough for animals to eat out of. Single people living by themselves understand this principle. If slick doesn’t eat, slick doesn’t have dishes to do. So, if you don’t have animals, you don’t have to provide grain or corn for them and you don’t have to clean up after them. What goes in will come out, typically in a much less pleasant form.

Talk about a hassle. Think about all the work livestock require. Once you purchase them and transport them back to your place, you’ve got to keep them from wandering off with a fence or a barn or both. You’ve got to get food for them, either by growing, harvesting, and storing it or by buying it. You’ve got to clean up after them. How miserable is that? I was talking with my local horse-loving barista on Friday and she was telling me about her Saturday plans to spend four or five hours shoveling. No thanks.

Where no oxen are the manger is clean. Save yourself some time before you die, during the few days of your vain life under the sun. Forget about all the extra, unenjoyable work. Don’t worry about where you’re going to find the money for food for the oxen, or building a boxen for the oxen to eat from, or getting up early to put food in the boxen, or getting dirty cleaning the boxen. It will be much easier, much less annoying, and much less smelly if you don’t have any oxen in the first place.

That is so simple even a fool can understand it. What the fool doesn’t understand is that avoiding the hard, inconvenient work will also be much less profitable.

The second half of the proverb states, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox. Crops could also be translated harvest or produce, and by implication, income or “revenue” (NAS). Crops, and the profit from selling those crops, will be multiplied by the strength of the ox. The ox can do things you can’t, presumably pulling the plow.

It’s true, you could save yourself a lot of work in the barn by not owning an ox, but you will multiply your work in the field. You could put the yoke around your own neck and start pulling, but the likelihood is that you won’t get very far. If it was too hard for you to put food in the trough, how long, really, will you try to pull the plow? Assuming you could even pull it at all, how many times hitting a rock in the field that jerks you off your feet will it take before you throw in the towel?

The wise man understands the cost and endures the draining, demanding work for sake of a bigger payoff.

Of course, your friends, who slept in every day and went swimming all summer, will act surprised in October when you walk home with a big wad of cash. They’ll ask, How did you do that? What is your secret? They won’t believe you when you say that there is no secret. And they’ll still mock you next summer for going to bed so you can get up early again. They will forever avoid commitment in fear that something more fun might come up.

Abundant crops grow in the fields of wise farmers. They are wise, not because they learned a trick, but because they spent time preparing and planning to keep the ox’s trough full. They are wise, not because they figured out how to avoid the messy work, but because they understand that the feeding and cleaning is part of the plowing is what enables the selling. None of it is a waste of time. They are wise because they do the things no one else wants to do in order to gain the results everyone else wants to gain.

If I could summarize some of the implications of this passage:

• Success (abundant crops) is rarely a surprise; it usually comes from sacrifice, commitment, and hard work.
• Profit routinely results more from patience, perseverance, and perspiration than position or power.
• Greatness (at least in God’s economy) ordinarily doesn’t come from doing glorious things.

The applications fall beyond the farm, beyond business, and onto spanking kids, learning multiplication tables, washing another’s feet, and scraping gum off a gym floor.

Wise men get out of bed, roll up their sleeves, work hard even when the task is unpleasant, and even when no one is watching. They work and serve, not by way of eye-service as people pleasers, working heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord they will receive inheritance (of abundant eternal crops) from the Lord.

Conclusion

Gym Jam and Girls’ Gardening are one, small, unglorious opportunity for us to serve. It is totally possible for you to participate in order to be seen and get praise from men. If that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get, and that’s all you’ll get.

Others perhaps won’t be able to serve next Saturday, and that may not be a reflection of their heart or service. But it is a great opportunity–again, one among many you’ll have this week, starting at home–to build greatness into your life through tiring, inconvenient, messy work. Own the ox.