Models of Sacrificial Service

REFLECTION QUOTES

“I really don’t see how any of us are going to be leaders of the sort that Jesus spoke of unless we completely divest ourselves of our popular notions today of self-actualization and self-esteem…. The best way to find out whether or not you really have a servant’s heart is to see what your reaction is when somebody treats you like one…. How do we expect to follow One Who took up a cross and not encounter suffering? He is not looking for heroics. He’s looking for those who are willing to follow him down that road of sorrows no matter how tiny the form that cross may take.”

“Refuse self pity. Refuse it absolutely. It is a deadly thing with power to destroy you. Turn your thoughts to Christ who has already carried your griefs and sorrows.”

~Elizabeth Elliot (1926-2015), Christian author and speaker, whose husband was killed on the mission field

“No wound? No scar?
Yet as the Master shall the servant be,
And pierced are the feet that follow Me;
But thine are whole. Can he have followed far
Who has no wound nor scar?”

~Amy Carmichael (1867-1951), missionary to India in “Hast Thou No Scar”

“Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.”

~St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226), Italian friar and preacher

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.”

~Maya Angelou (1928-2014), poet and activist

“Look unto the Lord Jesus Christ…as he hung naked, wounded, bleeding, dead, and forsaken upon the cross. Look unto him again as he now reigns in glory, possessed of all power in heaven and in earth, …and then compare your sins with his blood, your wants with his fullness, your unbelief with his faithfulness, your weakness with his strength, your inconstancy with his everlasting love.”

~John Newton (1725-1807), English clergyman

SERMON PASSAGE

Philippians 2:19-30 (NASB)

19 But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, so that I also may be encouraged when I learn of your condition. 20 For I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare. 21 For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus. 22 But you know of his proven worth, that he served with me in the furtherance of the gospel like a child serving his father. 23 Therefore I hope to send him immediately, as soon as I see how things go with me; 24 and I trust in the Lord that I myself also will be coming shortly. 25 But I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger and minister to my need; 26 because he was longing for you all and was distressed because you had heard that he was sick. 27 For indeed he was sick to the point of death, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow. 28 Therefore I have sent him all the more eagerly so that when you see him again you may rejoice and I may be less concerned about you. 29 Receive him then in the Lord with all joy, and hold men like him in high regard; 30 because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was deficient in your service to me.