How Can I Serve The King?

I’ve been enjoying Paul Kroeker’s book In The Way of Jesus.  It is a book I’d easily recommend to anyone concerned with the state of the church and disciple making today.  

One part of the disciple making journey is humility.

Kroeker relates a story of a time he took a group of young adults to inner city Chicago for a week of ministry among the urban poor.  Their first day of action found them serving at a soup kitchen where they washed dishes most of the day.

The second day found them back at the soup kitchen and back at the dish washing.  When the third day rolled around and they found themselves headed back to the drudgery of the dishwasher, the group became visibly upset.

When asked about it one young man replied, “I didn’t come all this way just to do dishes.  I could do that at home. I thought we were here to do something more exciting, like ministry.”

The response from the leader of the ministry was this:

“Until you can do dishes to serve the poor, I’m not sure we can use you anywhere else.   Humility is the posture of Jesus.  When we see that quality in you, we know we can ask you to serve anyone, anywhere, at any time.”

Humility.  

What does true humility look like though?  The anointed and future King David gives us a picture of humility in 1 Samuel 19.

Once more war broke out, and David went out and fought the Philistines. He struck them with such force that they fled before him.  But an evil spirit from the Lord came on Saul as he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand. While David was playing the lyre, Saul tried to pin him to the wall with his spear, but David eluded him as Saul drove the spear into the wall. That night David made good his escape.

I’ve most often been drawn to the spear in this story.  It’s hard to miss Saul trying to pin David to the wall with it.  But in this passage we see the true character of David.

It begins with war and glory.  David leads the men into battle and once again routes the enemy.  He is the top dog, the leader of men, the hero of the hour. He should be given the key to the city, a ticker tape parade, his picture on the front of The Jerusalem Times.

But rather than all of that, David returns to playing his lyre as a servant of the king.

He returns not to a hero's welcome but to step again into his position as one of the court servants.

David doesn’t dwell on what he deserves or what is the best use of his time.  He skips all the questions of prestige and honor and his rights.

He has just one question to answer.  It's a question we all need to answer:

How can I serve the King?

If you found this article, click on this button to subscribe.