Monday Evening, July 3, 1972
Richmond, Virginia
Ministry given through Brother Stephen Kaung
Let us have a word of prayer first.
Lord, we do thank Thee for bringing us together here tonight. We do desire to meet Thee, to see Thee, and to hear Thee.
Deliver us from just having a meeting and hearing someone speak. Oh Lord, we want Thee to speak. Do manifest Thyself to us at this moment through Thy Word, Lord, that we may not just touch the letter, but that we may touch Thee behind the letter.
Lord, we cannot be the same if we have met Thee. So we just commit ourselves to Thee for tonight, trusting Thee to come, to be the Head among us, and to reveal Thyself to every one of us.
Thou knowest each one of us. Lord, Thou knowest what we need. Thou art the One whom we really need. So, Lord, give Thyself to us afresh in a new and living way tonight.
And we are ready to give Thee all the praise and the glory that is Thy due. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
We have the whole Gospel according to Mark before us tonight. So I will not use the whole time reading from Chapter 1, Verse 1 through the last chapter, Chapter 16, of Mark. Instead, I would just like to read one verse, which is actually the key to the Gospel according to Mark.
Mark 10:45. This is the key verse of the Gospel according to Mark:
For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister,
and to give His life a ransom for many.
Now, if you do not like the word minister, you can use the word serve. Probably people are more used to the word serve than to minister. We can read it: “For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
This morning, we shared together on the nature of servanthood. Mark presents Christ to us as the Servant of the Lord, the perfect Son, by whom God’s whole purpose is realized. In Him we see the nature of true servanthood.
How can we be servants of God? We have to have in us this very nature that characterizes Christ as a Servant of God.
We mentioned very briefly this morning two points. One is this: the principle of servanthood is the principle of sonship. It is the Son who is the Servant.
How can we serve God? How will God accept our service to Him? Only when we serve God with the life of God’s Son. It is only when we serve God with the Son’s life that we are true servants of God.
How often we serve God with our natural mind, with our human, natural wisdom, and with our carnal mind and fleshly energy. We cannot serve God in that way. God will only accept the service of His Son. If we serve Him in His Son’s life, then we become true servants of God.
The second point is this: as our Lord Jesus was baptized before He began His public service, in like manner we have to present these bodies of ours, which have been redeemed, as a living sacrifice. It is only out of this living sacrifice that God will entrust us with service. You find this in Romans 12.
Tonight, we would like to go into this matter of the character of the servant of God.
When we read the Gospel according to Mark, probably our whole attention is arrested by the words and deeds of our Lord Jesus.
As a matter of fact, the Gospel according to Mark is very different in one thing: He does more than He speaks. You will find in the record of Mark concerning the life of our Lord Jesus that he does not record much of the speaking of our Lord Jesus. Rather, you will find that he records His doings a great deal.
A good servant works more than he talks. Suppose you have a servant who is talking from morning to night, but he never does his job.
So here you find the characteristic of the Gospel according to Mark. There is not much recording of the speaking of our Lord, and yet it is filled with the doings of our Lord.
But whatever it may be, I think that as we read the Gospel according to Mark, we will be fascinated and arrested by what the Lord does and, of course, by what He speaks.
But, brothers and sisters, is this all that you find in the Gospel according to Mark? Are you just occupied with the words and the deeds of our Lord Jesus? Or do you, through these words and deeds, begin to see the Lord Himself?
These words and deeds are expressions of what He is. In other words, the character of the person shows you the type of work he does. The man is more important than his work.
If we see only His words and deeds and fail to see Him—that is, His character, His inward character—then we do not have the explanation. We see only what is visible, but we do not know the source of all His words and deeds.
I believe the Holy Spirit, in giving us this record of the life of our Lord Jesus, means that we may see Christ and His character, that we may be transformed and conformed to that character, more than merely seeing what He has done and what He has spoken.
Now, not that what He does and speaks is unimportant. It is important. But there is more to it. God wants us to get behind His words and deeds and to get to know that Person.
Unless you can see Christ in this way, unless you can read the Gospel in this way, you miss it.
So, brothers and sisters, when Mark presents Christ to us as a Servant of the Lord, it is more than just giving us a continuous record of what He does. Thank God for all that He has done, but it is more than that. He is trying to show us the character that is behind all His words and deeds.
That is the reason why He called disciples to Himself. When the Lord was on earth, He not only did things and said words, but He called people to be with Him as His disciples. These disciples were to stay with Him and go around with Him.
They were not just to learn the technique of work, but more to learn the life of the Master.
Brothers and sisters, I believe God is more interested in the workers, or the servants, than in the service or the work. The kind of servant will determine the kind of service.
Our emphasis is always on the service, always on the work. Because of that, we think that if we can master the technique, the art of it, then we will be successful in serving God. But, brothers and sisters, God’s thought is very different.
His attention is more upon the servant, that the servant may be so transformed and conformed to Him. Out of that will come service that is pleasing to God.
Therefore, when we study the Gospel according to Mark, it is not enough simply to know what the Lord does or what He has spoken. We have to see the character of Christ as a Servant of the Lord. In seeing Christ and His character, we are to be characterized by His character.
I believe this is the purpose of the Gospel according to Mark.
Now, of course, the building of character takes time. There is much in our lives that has to be set aside. There is much that has to be gradually developed and built up. There will be many adjustments to be made, and we have to go through the school of discipline a great deal in order that a different kind of character, which we do not have naturally, may be built up.
Only when we have such features of such a character are we able to serve God in a way that will be pleasing to Him.
That is the reason why the Lord called them to Himself to be with Him—not just to learn the technique, but to learn Him. After they had learned Him, then when they went out to do the work, that work would be like His work.
This is actually what we wish to see tonight. When you go through the Gospel according to Mark, you will see many features that characterize Christ as a Servant of God. We do not have time to go through all these features, but tonight we would like to fellowship on just a few, simply as thoughts.
As you read the Gospel according to Mark, I hope that more and more the character of Christ may appear before you.
First of all, to be a servant, one character is very basic and necessary: diligence.
When you go through the Gospel according to Mark, you will find one word repeated again and again and again. Throughout the Gospel according to Mark, you find the word immediately, or straightway.
Immediately. Straightway. Altogether, I do not know if I have counted rightly, but perhaps thirty-seven times.
When such a word is used so much, the Holy Spirit has something to say to us. As a servant, one quality of a good servant is that he is diligent. He is very diligent in doing the master’s will. That is just the thing that characterizes our Lord.
You know, God never uses a lazy person. Have you ever found in the Bible that He calls a lazy person to be His servant? On the contrary, you will find that when God calls for a servant, usually that servant is busily occupied.
Even in the world, if you want something to be done, you do not go to a person who is doing nothing. You go to a person who is quite busy. Why? Because you know he will do it.
A lazy person will never do anything. It is the diligent person who does the work. God never calls a lazy person. There must be that character of diligence.
Probably you will say, “Some people may be born more diligent than other people, or some people may be naturally energetic.” No, do not think that this disqualifies you. To be diligent does not mean that one has to be brilliant.
You may be very busy, but you may not be diligent. To be diligent is a character that we have to learn from Christ.
Naturally, none of us is diligent, because we may be very diligent in doing what we want to do. But when we come to God’s will, there may be no diligence.
We try to avoid it. We try to evade it. We try to push it to tomorrow—mañana, tomorrow.
When you come to finish your own things, you begin to realize that we are not naturally diligent. No one is. The Lord has to do something in our lives to make us diligent.
It is not merely a matter of being busy. It is not a matter of doing what we like to do. No, diligence is a spiritual character.
God has to do something in our lives to make us very diligent. That is to say, whenever there is God’s will, we do not delay it. We do not drag along, but we quickly follow the Lord. That is it.
Look at the life of our Lord Jesus. How diligent He was.
In the parable our Lord Jesus gave concerning service, one man was leaving the country, so he gave his goods to three servants. One was given five talents, the second was given two talents, and the third was given one talent.
Now, a talent is a great deal. A talent is not a little thing. Even the one with one talent was actually given a great deal. Of course, in comparison with two talents and five talents, it was little, but the little itself was great.
These servants were entrusted with a great substance, and the master said, “Trade with it. Be occupied with it.”
The two faithful servants traded with the talents. The one with five earned another five, and the one with two earned another two. When the Lord came back and took account, the Lord said, “Well done, good and faithful servants.”
They were wise because they knew the master’s heart. They were faithful because they were diligent.
But the one with one talent was not only lazy, but foolish. Why? He did not know the master’s mind, and he did not do the master’s work because he was wicked and lazy. When the master came back, even that which had been given to him was taken away.
Now, brothers and sisters, the Lord has given us much. Even the little that we have is much. Never look down upon the grace and the gift that God has given to you.
Some people say, “Well, who am I? What do I have? I have only one talent. Why bother?” Remember that one talent is a great deal.
We need to be wise, knowing the Master’s heart, and we need to be diligent in doing His will.
To be diligent and to wait upon the Lord are not contradictory.
Sometimes we think that in order to be diligent, we have to rush here and there and get everything done. Then we imagine that we are diligent. Not at all. Not at all.
You find that after our Lord Jesus had done a day’s work, He rested. But the next morning, before daybreak, He went into the wilderness, and there He prayed.
When His disciples came and said, “Lord, people are coming here. They are waiting for You,” the Lord said, “Let us go to the neighboring towns, because for this purpose I came forth.”
In other words, His work was not governed merely by the need. His work was done by the Father’s will.
Today our problem is this: our work is done merely because there is a need. Because there is this need and that need, therefore, praise God, we are willing to give ourselves to these needs. But the result is that we are doing many things, but are they the things that God wants?
There is no time for waiting before the Lord. We think that waiting upon the Lord is a waste. Not so with our Lord.
He waits upon God. He knows the Father’s will, and He is diligent in doing the Father’s will.
That is something we have to learn. Either we are so occupied doing things, or we are just lazy and do nothing. We go to two extremes.
As God’s servants, there is a place for waiting upon the Lord. If we do not know God’s will, do not do it. Do not rush ahead, but wait upon the Lord until you know the Lord’s will.
But the moment you know the Lord’s will, do not delay. Be diligent. Be thorough. Go out and do it.
This is exactly what you find in the Gospel according to Mark. It is true that the Lord traveled here and there. It is true that He did many things. But remember, He was never rushing.
He was never busy to the point that He had no time to wait upon the Father. You have heard many of God’s servants say, “Well, I am so busy, I have no time to pray. I am so busy serving the Lord, I have no time to wait upon the Lord.” The result is that many become nervous.
But this is not the character that characterizes the Servant.
So, brothers and sisters, in reading the life of Christ according to Mark, you find that the Lord may be visibly occupied, yes, but He is never without time to wait upon the Father.
Once He knows the Father’s will, He never hesitates. He never postpones. He carries it out with diligence.
This is the first feature of the character of the Lord.
Second, the Lord is full of compassion—compassionate.
It is not just a matter of doing a work. You may do a work, but if your heart is not involved, it is cold; it is dead. The work may be done, but before God there is very little value.
But here you find that our Lord Jesus is compassionate. This characterizes Him as the Servant of the Lord.
For instance, a leper came to Him. When this leper came to the Lord Jesus, he was desperate. According to the custom of that time, according to the law, a leper was not allowed to come into the city.
When people approached a leper, that leper had to cry out, “Unclean, unclean! Do not come near.” If a leper dared to come into the crowd and was discovered, he would be stoned to death.
This leper knew that no one could heal him. No one could cleanse him. When he heard of the Lord Jesus, that was his only hope.
He believed in the power of the Lord Jesus, but he was not sure whether the Lord was willing to do it or not, because he had never known the Lord. He may have thought that the Lord was able to do it, but that He would do it only for people who were more worthy. He felt that he was not worthy.
But anyway, he was desperate. When he came to the Lord, he put his life in his hands, as it were, because if the people discovered him first, he would be stoned to death.
He came to the Lord and said, “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.” In effect, he was saying, “I believe in Thy power, but I am not sure whether Thou art willing or not. I cannot force Thy hand. If Thou thinkest I am unworthy, then I do not deserve it. But if Thou wilt, if Thou art compassionate and willing, I believe Thou canst do it.”
You must remember, this leper came to the Lord on the one hand with boldness because he was desperate, but on the other hand he came trembling. He was not sure whether the Lord was ready to do it or not.
The Lord could very easily have said one word, and he would have been cleansed. But the Lord knew the trembling heart of the leper. The Lord knew that he was fearful lest the Lord was not willing.
Therefore, the Lord stretched out His hand and touched the leper, and said, “I will; be thou clean.”
He did not need to do that. He could have said a word, and it would have been done. That was all that was required. But why did the Lord stretch out His hand and touch the leper?
In touching the leper, if He had not been able to heal him, He Himself would have been defiled. The Lord risked the danger of being defiled by touching the leper.
But thank God, of course, He was not defiled. Instead, He cleansed him. In this very action you can see the compassion of the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, very often when we are entrusted with a work, we can do it technically correctly. We can do it mechanically. But where is the compassion of the Lord?
If there is no compassion, in the sight of God there is very little spirituality in it.
Another case: the Lord was in a house, and many people crowded around Him. The place was filled with people.
You remember that four friends brought a man sick of the palsy to the Lord. But they found that the door was blocked. The place was packed. There was no way to get near to the Lord.
So they went to the roof. In the Orient, in the land of Judea, their way of building was quite different from ours. You could go to the roof from outside. There was a stairway that went from outside to the roof.
Usually, when a person wanted some privacy, perhaps to pray or to be alone, he would go to the roof.
These men took the man sick of the palsy to the roof. Then they broke open the roof and lowered the bed on which the man sick of the palsy lay, right before the Lord Jesus.
Now remember, this was very unconventional. The Lord was using another person’s house, and when that roof was broken through, who was to pay for the repair?
But instead of getting angry and saying, “Now you have disturbed our peace,” the Lord, when He saw their faith, said, “Son, thy sins are forgiven thee.”
Compassion—oh, what compassion.
Every time you find that the Lord does something, He does not do it merely with His hands; He does it with His heart. That is the Servant, the Servant of the Lord. He never gives merely a service; it is service from the heart.
How often we may be doing certain service, but we do it only with our hands. Our heart is not there.
A real servant of the Lord has a heart full of compassion. But compassion is more than an emotion.
We may be emotionally stirred, but compassion is a character.
The difference between emotional stirring and character is this: an emotional stirring means that you may be touched by some environment, become emotionally stirred, and do something. But a character is deep-seated in your life.
The Lord is compassionate. That is His character, not merely an emotional outburst.
A man may be very emotional, and usually when a person is emotional, he is impulsive and blind. But the Lord Jesus is compassionate, yet He is neither impulsive nor blind.
One day, the Lord came to the border of Caesarea Philippi, and a Syrophoenician woman came to Him. She cried to the Lord and said, “Son of David, have mercy on me, because my child is attacked by the devil. Have mercy on me. Heal my child, Son of David.”
The Lord did not answer. She was quite insistent: “Have mercy on me, Son of David. Have mercy on me.” But the Lord did not answer.
Even the disciples of our Lord began to wonder. They did not understand why the Lord did not answer that woman. It did not look like the Lord Himself.
So they came to the Lord and said, in effect, “Either You do something, or send her away. You cannot let her cry out to You as if You have not heard. That does not look like You. What is it?”
Now, if the Lord’s compassion were merely an emotion, then certainly He would have responded right away. But His compassion is a character. He knows what He is doing. He is not blind.
That woman, in crying to the Lord and saying, “Son of David,” had limited the Lord. She had bound the hands of the Lord, because as the Son of David, He was sent to the house of Israel. This woman was a Gentile.
He could not do it. His hands were bound by the ignorance of this woman.
So He said, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.” In saying that, actually, He left an opening for that woman to take up.
That woman immediately said, “Yes, Lord. The bread is for the children, but I am a little dog. I am a household dog. I can at least have some crumbs under the table. I still have a claim upon You.”
And the Lord said, “Great is thy faith. Thy child is healed.”
Brothers and sisters, you find that He was not only compassionate, but very clear in what He did. He was not merely emotionally moved and ready to do anything whenever His emotions were involved. That is character.
That is the reason why His work was not governed merely by needs. It was governed by the Father’s will. His heart was warm, but His mind was very clear.
That qualifies one as a servant of the Lord. A servant who is cold not only in his mind but also in his heart can never serve God. But neither can a servant who is warm in heart but hot in mind serve the best.
So the second point is this: the servant of the Lord is compassionate.
Number three: Christ as the Servant of the Lord is sacrificial.
As we find in Mark 10:45:
For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto,
but to minister,
and to give His life a ransom for many.
The servant of the Lord has no self-interest. He is not seeking personal gain. He has no ambition of his own. He is willing to give everything, even his life. That is a servant of the Lord.
He does not withhold anything for himself, but He is willing to give everything.
Our Lord Jesus, as the Servant of God, is marked by gentleness. Oh, how gentle He is.
How do we know that He is so gentle? Look at the way He deals with children.
The Lord was busily occupied with His great work, and then the parents brought the children to the Lord. The disciples pushed these parents away. They said, “Our Lord is too busy for the children. He has no time for the children. You had better take the children away.”
But the Lord said:
Suffer the little children to come unto Me,
and forbid them not:
for of such is the kingdom of God.
So the Lord, even though He was busily occupied with more important work, as people would say, set aside everything. He took the children in His arms and blessed them. What gentleness.
Another act—and you find this only in Mark—in the narrative of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, He asked the women to bring a message to His disciples that He would meet them in Galilee. But in the Gospel according to Mark, He said, “And Peter.”
That is the reason why some people think Mark’s Gospel is according to Peter, because this is the only place where you find those words: “And Peter.”
Peter denied the Lord three times. Peter repented, but even so, Peter was not sure about the Lord. He was literally living in fear and failure. He had offended the Lord so much. He wondered whether the Lord would ever forgive him, whether the Lord would ever remember him.
So the Lord said, “And Peter.” What gentleness. What tenderness.
But do not misunderstand as if gentleness is weakness. Sometimes we think of gentleness as weakness. Not at all.
When it comes to the matter of truth, the Lord never compromised.
You remember one day He entered into the synagogue, and there was a man with a withered hand. The worshipers, perhaps the Pharisees, were all watching to see whether the Lord would do something for the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath.
The Lord knew it. He stood up and asked the question: “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good, or to do evil? To save life, or to kill?”
Nobody answered. You remember the Bible says that the Lord was angry. He looked angrily at the congregation, and He asked that man to stand up. “Stretch out thy hand.” And the withered hand was healed.
Gentleness does not mean weakness. He is strong, brave, and bold when it comes to the matter of truth.
You know how He denounced the Pharisees and the scribes. The Pharisees and scribes were the elite of society, the rulers of His time. If you offended them, then you would suffer. But the Lord denounced them as hypocrites. He did not compromise in any sense.
When it comes to truth, read the Gospel according to Mark and you will find that the Lord never tried to take away the sharpness of the truth.
Sometimes a person is naturally gentle, but when a person is naturally gentle, he rounds up everything. There is no more sharpness.
Therefore, this gentleness has to come from Christ. The gentleness of Christ is there, but whenever the Lord speaks, it cuts like a two-edged sword. It is not blunt. It is not rounded off.
Brothers and sisters, that is what we need: a gentleness, and yet no unfaithfulness to the truth.
Number five: you find that the Lord is single-minded.
A servant cannot serve two masters. Either he will love the one and despise the other, or he will listen to the one and not listen to the other. You cannot try to serve two masters. It is impossible.
Here you find that our Lord Jesus is single-minded toward God. His whole life was to do the Father’s will. That was all—the Father’s will.
He set His face toward Jerusalem. Even though He knew what was waiting for Him, He did not look back.
He tried to tell His disciples that He would go to Jerusalem, that there He would be killed, but on the third day He would rise again. He knew what was waiting for Him, but He was single-minded toward God.
Every time He disclosed that He would be killed in Jerusalem, His disciples reacted in a very different way.
The first time, you find it in Mark 8. After Peter confessed the Lord Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, then the Lord began to open His heart to His disciples. He said, “I will go to Jerusalem. I will be persecuted. I will be killed. But on the third day I will rise again.”
But when He disclosed that to His disciples, Peter immediately took hold of Him. I do not know whether Peter shook Him or not. He said, “Now, come to Your senses. Be mindful of Yourself. Have mercy; pity Yourself. Do not do such a thing. You do not need to do that. You can gain the world. You can take the throne of David without going to the cross. You do not need that.”
The Lord turned around and said, “Get thee behind Me, Satan: for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men.”
The second occasion was in Mark 9. When they passed through Galilee, again the Lord began to tell them that He would go to Jerusalem, He would be killed, and on the third day He would be raised from the dead.
And what happened? When the Lord was talking to them about His cross, the disciples were discussing among themselves who was the greatest. What a contradiction.
So the Lord took a child and set him in their midst. He said that the greatest in the kingdom of God is like this child. Unless you are converted and become like a little child, you cannot enter into the kingdom.
Then on the third occasion, in Mark 10, when the Lord said He was going to Jerusalem and would be killed, James and John came to the Lord with their mother. They said, “When Thou sittest on the throne, wilt Thou please let one son and the other son sit on Thy right hand and on Thy left?”
The Lord said, “Can ye drink the cup that I drink? Can ye be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They said, “Oh yes, yes, yes,” without knowing what they were saying.
The Lord said, “Indeed, ye shall. But to sit on My right hand and on My left hand is not for Me to give; it is for the Father to give.”
Then He said, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he has to deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. In the world, those who rule lord it over others and exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. He who is greatest among you must be the bondservant of all.”
Then He gave the word:
For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto,
but to minister,
and to give His life a ransom for many.
Three times, whenever the Lord disclosed something about the cross, the reaction of the disciples was entirely off. They were seeking the throne while bypassing the cross.
But the Lord said, “No. It cannot be. It cannot be.” Our Lord was single-minded toward God.
Brothers and sisters, if we want to be servants of the Lord, we must be characterized by single-mindedness.
If your eye is single, your whole body is full of light. But if your eye is evil—that is, if you have double sight—then your whole body is dark. The Lord said that if that is the case, how great is that darkness.
Brothers and sisters, we need to be single-minded toward God. Because of that, we have to see that the way to the throne is by the cross. You cannot escape it.
Finally, I mention one more thing: the servant of the Lord is confident, not in himself, but in God.
Our trouble is that we are confident in ourselves. We put our trust in our flesh. We say, “I can do it.”
But the Lord Jesus is a Servant full of confidence—not in Himself, but in God.
The Lord said, “Have faith in God. If you have faith in God, you can remove the mountain to the sea. Whatever you ask, if you believe that you will receive, you will receive.”
Oh, brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus had full confidence in the Father. That is the reason why He did not retreat, withdraw, or flee, but went straight forward to finish the work that the Father had entrusted to Him, confident all the time that God would take care.
Just as we cannot serve God if we have confidence in the flesh, neither can we serve God if we do not have confidence in God.
Serving God requires us to go through many difficulties. If you have no confidence in God, you cannot go on.
But our Lord Jesus, to the very end, was confident in God.
By briefly going through these occasions and incidents, you find behind these things the manifestation of a certain character. This character is the character of Christ.
It is the will of God that we who are called to serve God must be characterized by these features.
Again, I say, we do not have them naturally. These characteristics have to be built up gradually. The Holy Spirit is the One who builds that character in us.
How is it to be built?
First, He has to put Christ before us. As 2 Corinthians 3 says, we behold the glory of the Lord. We have to see Him first. If we do not see Him, the Holy Spirit does not have any ground upon which to work.
We have to see Christ as He is: His diligence, His compassion, His sacrificial life, His gentleness, His single-mindedness, and His confidence in the Father. We have to see Him. That is what He is.
As we behold Him, with our hearts opened to Him, then the Holy Spirit is able to transform us according to His image, from glory to glory.
And of course, in the process of transformation, there is much that has to be cast aside. There are many adjustments to be made. We have to go through discipline.
That which belongs to us has to go out. That which belongs to Christ has to come in, and gradually His character is built up.
But thank God, the Holy Spirit who dwells in each one of us has a very special job. What is His job? To reveal Christ to us.
Not merely to reveal Him that we may see Him, but by revealing Him, that we may desire Him. And desiring Him, we may allow the Holy Spirit to do the work that He does.
The fact is that the Holy Spirit is doing that work, either through revelation or through discipline. He is building that character.
Brothers and sisters, God is more interested in building the servant character in us than He is interested in our being busy doing things for Him.
It is not because you are busy doing things for Him that you are therefore a servant of the Lord. Unless we allow Him to build the servant character in us, brothers and sisters, whatever we touch, we spoil it.
But when God builds that servant character in us, then whatever our hand touches glorifies God. It pleases God.
I believe this is the reason why Mark presents Christ in this way—not merely that we may copy His work or imitate His words, but that we may be transformed and conformed to Him. Then, out of that, God’s work will come forth.
If we can read the Gospel according to Mark in this way, I believe we will be touched by the Holy Spirit. What He is after is Christ. It is Christ Himself, brothers and sisters—always Christ.
Lord, we pray that we may see the servant character in Thee.
We pray that we may open ourselves to Thee, to allow Thy Spirit to work in us, that whatever we touch may be Thine work. It may be a work that is pleasing in Thy heart.
Oh, deliver us from merely doing things and saying things. But, Lord, we pray that whatever we do and whatever we say may be the expression of what we are by Thy grace.
Lord, we want to serve in the best way, in the right way. So do use these feeble words. Bless us, and do Thy work in every one of us.
Thou art worthy to be served, and we do desire to serve Thee. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.