A servant could...
Illustration
Object:
A servant could mean a slave, or it could mean the messenger of a king -- a high officer in the royal court. It usually starts with us being a disciple, one who is a student and is learning. An apostle is one who has received the message and is "sent" to preach it. A pastor has been set aside for the gospel, and it can be an overwhelming responsibility! It can be rewarding, but it can also be challenging! Pastors must be humble and recognize that we are servants or slaves of our master.
Sometimes it is hard to be humble when our members and maybe even the community elevate us to positions of high regard -- even sainthood (Luther says we are all saints). The little child asked his pastor on the way out of church, "Are you God?" It is hardly our salary that elevates us to such a position!
The job of the pastor is to declare the message we have received. It is a fantastic message, that our Lord was the Son of God and was raised from the dead as proof! That is not an easy message to proclaim. It happened so long ago! But there is proof in the Old Testament that it was coming and in the New that it came. When a Muslim friend asked why I believed in the resurrection and not Muhammad's message, I pointed up the fact that over 500 witnessed Jesus after his resurrection, though a few doubted, and of that number at least four of those witnesses wrote about it and some suffered horrible torture and death because of their belief. It is hard to believe that even one person would suffer like that for a story they had made up! But all we have from Muhammad is a vision that he said came from an angel. No one else witnessed that angel. Paul wrote that if anyone gives you another gospel, other than the one that he was preaching, even if it came from an angel in heaven, let him be damned! No wonder Muslims don't like Paul!
Here again this message is for us Gentiles -- outsiders! And notice that all of us are called to be saints! Not just a few lucky ones. You may have to suffer to be a saint. That suffering may be only from those who don't know the Lord and are ridiculing us for our faith. When and if some do, then it is our opportunity to be apostles for the Lord and offer our message -- the one we have read in scripture or heard from the pulpit.
Sometimes it is hard to be humble when our members and maybe even the community elevate us to positions of high regard -- even sainthood (Luther says we are all saints). The little child asked his pastor on the way out of church, "Are you God?" It is hardly our salary that elevates us to such a position!
The job of the pastor is to declare the message we have received. It is a fantastic message, that our Lord was the Son of God and was raised from the dead as proof! That is not an easy message to proclaim. It happened so long ago! But there is proof in the Old Testament that it was coming and in the New that it came. When a Muslim friend asked why I believed in the resurrection and not Muhammad's message, I pointed up the fact that over 500 witnessed Jesus after his resurrection, though a few doubted, and of that number at least four of those witnesses wrote about it and some suffered horrible torture and death because of their belief. It is hard to believe that even one person would suffer like that for a story they had made up! But all we have from Muhammad is a vision that he said came from an angel. No one else witnessed that angel. Paul wrote that if anyone gives you another gospel, other than the one that he was preaching, even if it came from an angel in heaven, let him be damned! No wonder Muslims don't like Paul!
Here again this message is for us Gentiles -- outsiders! And notice that all of us are called to be saints! Not just a few lucky ones. You may have to suffer to be a saint. That suffering may be only from those who don't know the Lord and are ridiculing us for our faith. When and if some do, then it is our opportunity to be apostles for the Lord and offer our message -- the one we have read in scripture or heard from the pulpit.
