SPEAKERS:

• Steven H. Atherton

SCRIPTURES:

• John 10

SUBJECT:

• Modern Christians often forget the difference between a hireling – who works purely for personal gain, comfort, or a paycheck – and a bondservant, who achieves extraordinary things by dedicating their life to serving others. True Christian joy is found in selfless service, much like Christ enduring the cross for the joy set before Him.
• Look at the contrast in John 10 the “Good Shepherd” who lays down his life for the sheep with the “hireling” who flees and allows the flock to scatter at the first sign of danger, such as a wolf. David, bravely defended his father’s flock from a lion and a bear instead of acting out of self-preservation.
• American churches foster a self-indulgent, consumer-driven culture. Many modern churches cater to personal comfort and material desires – such as offering coffee shops and prioritizing building aesthetics – which is a tragic departure from true, self-sacrificing Christian service.
• In America today, we get a personally curated version of truth and entertainment where absolutely everything revolves around ourselves.
• This unapologetically selfish mindset is horrific and is the exact opposite of being a Christian, because a Christian is meant to live for another.
• The world tells you to prioritize your paycheck, ensure you are fulfilled, and make sure everyone is happy around you, but that happiness is illusory and simply does not last.
• We do not realize how utterly self-indulgent we are – obsessed with how we feel, how we look, and what we own – which has nothing to do with the extraordinarily joyous experience of being a servant of God.
• Before going to the cross, Christ endured the shame “for the joy that was set before him.” True joy of the Lord is found in service and nowhere else.
• To a hireling, a difficult season means the end; they flee because they have no hope greater than the individual moment they are currently in. However, as a servant with hope in Jesus Christ, you have a transcendent hope that enables you to endure through those tough seasons.
• If you look at the epistles, Paul, James, Peter, and John, they all introduce themselves first as a “servant” of Jesus Christ.  These men were not born into slavery in a worldly sense, they were completely free men with family fishing businesses, or backgrounds in tax collection and royalty.  By their own voluntary free will, they chose to reject that worldly freedom to become dedicated servants, even unto death, to a Lord they could not physically see.
• In John 10, we read that the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but Christ came to bring abundant life as the Good Shepherd who gives His life for the sheep. The hireling sees the wolf coming and flees because he is just a hireling who does not own, nor truly love, the sheep as his own. Consider David, recognized as a man after God’s own heart, tending his father’s sheep as a young man. When a lion and a bear attacked, David did not act out of natural self-preservation to run away and let them eat the sheep; he risked his life, displaying a true servant’s heart.
• People refer to the generation that survived the Depression and World War II as the “Greatest Generation,” but that label is false and horrific. While it is true they made extraordinary sacrifices to win the war, their subsequent departure from Christ produced the failed generations that followed because they ultimately made life all about themselves and failed to teach their children properly.
• God’s overarching reign certainly has established bounds, but He only truly reigns in the lives of the faithful; assuming He naturally inhabits all the wickedness on earth would make Him an evil God.
• This self-serving spirit is seen in overseas mission work, where people reject true faith in Christ but eagerly embrace the resources, money, and buildings coming from American churches. We see so much masquerading as Christianity today that actually has absolutely no Christ in it.
• Take a hard look at the church world in America today. Our churches cater to our desire for “stuff,” offering nice air-conditioned buildings, comfortable pews, and even coffee shops, distracting people from true service.
  Jesus essentially said, “You’ve made it a den of thieves,” because nobody wants to be a servant anymore and everyone wants it all to be about them.
• The modern church caters to the false idea that simply attending the building saves you, but no church saves anybody, only Jesus Christ saves, and that is strictly between you and Him.
• We learn to be faithful with the true riches of God by first faithfully serving others with the “unrighteous mammon” of this world, yet today we just want the rewards without doing the service. This directly reflects the generation Jesus described when He said, “We piped unto you, and ye have not danced.”
• There is no way to be great in Christ without great sacrifice.  Excellence and extraordinary feats – things above and beyond what a person can do by nature – are reserved solely for the bondservant, never the hireling.