Serving with Endurance and Honesty
At 26.2 miles, the marathon is one of the most grueling tests of physicality. According to 2 Corinthians 4:1-6, the life of service shares similar qualities with the marathon. First, it is a test of endurance. Reflecting on his own approach to life and ministry Paul concludes, “We do not lose heart” (v. 1). The life of serving others in Jesus’s name does not throw its hands up, or walk off the job when life gets hard. Paul uses the aforementioned phrase again in verse 16 amid connecting the Christian’s and Christ’s suffering. Paul decided that true service is durable; it upholds under affliction, perplexity, and despair because it is lived in expectation of life in the age to come through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Boston Marathon is one of the more prestigious races in the U.S., as it is filled with some of the best runners from all over world. In 1980 the female winner was afterward stripped of her medal because race officials discovered that she cheated. Dishonesty disqualified her. Similarly, honesty must mark our service to others.
For the Christian, honest service rejects manipulation, and exalts Christ. Paul describes his approach to Christian ministry like this: “But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God... For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord” (v. 2, 5). Put simply, the manipulative ministry seeks to promote self, but the honest life aims to exalt Jesus.
Here are some ways this looks practically. If we’re serving our children because we want our peers to think we’re good parents, then we will be humiliated when they misbehave. If we’re hard workers because we’re angling for the promotion, then we will be crushed when we’re passed over. If I’m trying hard as a pastor because I want people to attend my church and my pastor-friends to respect me, then I’ll be filled with despair when things don’t work out. Self-centered serving is both shameful and fragile as it can’t hold up under the afflictions and perplexities of life. To become the kind of people who genuinely serve others to make Jesus known we need a better fuel source than our own egos.
There is an episode of The Office where Michael and his staff run a 5k. Minutes before the race Michael eats a to-go box full of pasta Alfredo, and as a result the race goes horribly. He pukes his guts up, and finishes in last place. Serving others after the pattern of Jesus cannot be fueled by the hunger to make our names great. We need to be empowered by the sight of Christ himself.
Jesus tells a parable that goes like this, “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness” (Matt. 6:22-23). This parable explains that to be spiritually healthy, that is to be full of light and life, then we need to see the Light, who is Jesus himself (John 1:4-5; 8:12). In the light of Christ we are energized to become like him who did nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility counted us more significant than himself by taking the form of a servant to the point of death on a cross to the glory of God the Father.
According to Paul this kind of sight is a gift from God: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (v. 6). So as God increases our capacity to bathe in the light of the Christ, that light is converted by the Spirit into the energy to freely serve others in Jesus’s name for the long haul. Since this kind of Divine sight is a gift from God we pray that He would open our eyes and enlighten our hearts.
