Newsletter Essay: October 

Already, in Luke 9, the Master had given them the power and authority to heal and to cast out demons. You would think this would be enough. They were with Jesus daily. They saw miracles that would make our hearts stand still. And they wanted more faith? What more could Jesus possibly give them? The answer is, he doesn’t give them anything more.  Notice how Jesus answers their request.  He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.”

I believe he is saying to them and to us, “Your problem really isn’t a lack of faith. It doesn’t take much faith to do sensational things. What it takes is commitment. What it takes is determination, and persistence and a will to see it through to the end.”

The problem, Jesus was saying to his disciples, is not that you have too little faith. The problem is that you are not applying the faith you have.

The truth of the matter is that many people want to serve today--when it is convenient for them, when it is within their area of expertise, when they can receive recognition and appreciation.

Servanthood is really an alien concept for many of us. If I were to ask you what it would really mean for you to take up a cross and carry it, many of you would look at me like I was from Mars.

The disciples thought their problem was that they lacked faith. Jesus told them that was not the problem. The problem was a lack of commitment.  That is our problem, too, isn’t it?

That’s who we are--servants. We serve because there was One who first served us. We are not seeking to work our way to heaven. That is already taken care of because of what Christ did on the cross. But our salvation came about because once long ago the Lord of all the universe was willing to take upon Himself the role of a servant. Now God calls us to service. Not because it will look good on our resume, not because we will be praised for it, but because that is who we are; we are followers of the Man who became a servant of all that we might be sons and daughters of the Most High.

Does this make sense to you? Can you sense that we have a crisis of commitment, a crisis of servanthood in our society? Can you sense that the “Look out for # 1” attitude has taken something very important out of our character? Sometimes that crisis makes itself felt even in the church when there is a job that needs to be done, a job for which there is little opportunity for recognition and praise, only hard work, toiling in relative obscurity, sometimes without even the sweet scent of success.  Teach a junior high Sunday School class, sing in the choir, serve on the finance committee--”Oh, pastor, I couldn’t do that.”

The disciples asked Jesus for more faith. There is no record that Jesus granted their request. They didn’t need more faith. What they needed was simply to show up for duty. He would give them what they needed, but first they needed to show up. They needed to say with Isaiah the prophet, “Here am I, send me.”