Gifted to Serve

Today we are going to talk about serving the Lord and your specific acts of service. Service is a value which I have always held very high esteem.

When I was 12 years old my mentor Bob Korthuis called me up and asked if I would serve alongside him in the ministry. It was during this summer ministry that I was introduce to house to house visitation. We would go from house to house and invite the children to a VBS in their area. Much like here in Indiana in Colorado there are often small to large mobile home parks in various stages of decay. We would often set up these VBS’s in these mobile home parks because they had a club house or play area that we could meet at. One of these was called by the oddly prestigious name of Aristocrat Acres however no one ever called it by that name because everyone knew it as the Dog Patch. The Dog patch had dirt streets, run down mobile homes, and more dogs and children then you could count. Every year Bob and I would go door to door and invite kids to come to the VBS that we held in the community building and you just never really knew what you were going to see or hear when you knocked on that door. I was yelled at a few times, witnessed neglect, saw drug paraphernalia, alcohol in abundance and as I stated earlier a lot of kids. I hated visitation especially in the Dog Patch which usually took the two of us about two 8 hour days of walking and knocking to cover. Every year I would ask Bob why we had to go door to door. There had to be a better way to let kids know about the upcoming VBS. Bob would just turn to me and say, “This is our service to God and if we want Kids to hear the Gospel then it has to be done no matter how much we don’t like it.” That was the thing, even Bob didn’t enjoy doing the visitation but he did it because it meant that these kids had the opportunity to hear the Gospel and their lives could be changed by it. Every year visitation was difficult and I hated it but every year there were kids who made decisions for Christ and it was then that I realized how important it was to do this act of service. If I didn’t let them know about the VBS how were they going to hear about Jesus. Serving the Lord will never be easy, however the outcome of the service is more rewarding then you will ever know.

The problem is that service inside the church looks different and some tasks seem really important while others are tedious, boring, grueling, outside of your comfort zone, beyond your capabilities or may even at times seem demeaning. However, as we will discuss no matter how you serve God you will find that none of those things are true because we are all member of the body and every part of the body is necessary. Read 1 Cor. 12:12-19.

Expected to Serve

This 1 Cor. passage is one that we look at in-depth in each membership class because it defines the need for each believer inside the local church body. What we see here is that while there are different types of members inside a church none of them are of more importance then others. In fact the beauty of a well functioning body of believers is that all of them are needed in order for the Gospel to go forward and for the work of the church to be accomplished.

If we take a look at that from the perspective of the many different tasks done in the church we see: Greeters greet so that attendees and visitors can feel welcome in God’s house and hear His message of salvation. Junior church workers teach children so that the Child will be shown the Love of God, hear the Gospel given in a manner they can easily understand, the children are given the opportunity to study and deepen their love of God. and their parents can hear the Gospel Message presented as well, knowing that their children are well cared for. Pastors spend hours studying and preparing a sermon so that it will present the Gospel in a way that people will listen and apply it to their lives, while also giving everyday application to believers in how they should live out their faith. Janitors clean so that attendees and visitors alike have a clean will put together facility in order to worship and hear the Gospel of Christ given. The important point to take from this is that there are no jobs of service inside the church that are more important than others and there are none that are demeaning or unnecessary.

Every job done in a church should be done with the understanding that:

You are an integral part of the church as a whole.

Your act of service is furthering the advance of the Gospel.

Without your service other parts of the church can’t function.

Now I know that you might be saying, “Yes, I should serve, but don’t we pay a pastor to do most of this stuff? Shouldn’t they be doing the bulk of the work?” I know those questions are out there and I know that they are meant to be rude or necessarily meant to shirk responsibilities. The truth is many believe that they are doing their part by hiring a pastor and paying their tithe in order to do the work of the church. If all we were worried about was that the “Work” of the church was being done then I could conceed to your point but a good portion of that work is to be done inside your own heart. Therefore the reason we serve is two-fold. The first is so that the message of the Gospel will go out and the second is so that you will grow in your walk with God. Romans 12:1-2 tells us that not only is this our reasonable act of service but this is also what transforms us toward of will of God.

Romans 12:1–2 NKJV

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Motivated to Serve

Look at Eph. 4:11-13

God has determined several different positions for service in the church, and these positions listed in verse 11 seem like they are held in higher esteem. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. So you say to yourself since I don’t fit into any of those titles my services in the church aren’t as needed or necessary. But the truth is we each fall into these categories because we are all called to be present the Gospel to the world around us.

A Treasury of Great Preaching God’s Service and the Holy Spirit (D. L. Moody)

I believe that it is clearly taught in the Scriptures that it is the privilege of every true child of God to bring forth fruit.

John 15:8

Moody believed that there were 3 classifications of Christians represented in the church and that they were motivated differently to serve God.

The first classification is represented by Nicodemus in John 3 - Nicodemus was too fearful of what his fellow sanhedrin members would think about him approaching Jesus that he chose to come after it was dark. He was too fearful of power, position and popularity to actually identify with Jesus, or as Moody described “that despised Nazarene”. Nicodemus believed but in secret with little to no growth behind it. This is representative to day of those who say they believe in Christ but they don’t do anything with their belief. They won’t stand on their faith in the daily walk, they won’t present the gospel went given opportunities, they won’t serve others in the church, and they will prioritize almost anything over church or church activities. They are much like the servant who buried the talent given to him in the ground because he was fearful. They might be believers but their lack of service and faith will leave them stagnant in their spiritual lives and they are useless to the kingdom of God.

The second classification of believers given by DL Moody was the Woman at the well in John 4. This woman that we meet is on fire for the Lord she meets Jesus, receives the living water, is told amazing truths from Jesus and immediately she is telling everyone who will hear. She is all in with nothing held back, bubbling over with living water. On fire for the Lord but did this continue? We would like to think it did but often passion often fizzles. When we see this in our lives we see the times when we were on fire for the Lord and we wanted to tell the world the Good News of Jesus. It would be nice if those mountain top experiences stayed with us forever but it is hard to maintain that type of passion over the long run. Therefore as Christians we need to get to a place where the passion is still there but it is calmed by spiritual maturity. And that is the type of person DL Moody talks about as the 3rd classification.

Moody describes these people from John 7 as those believing in the Holy Spirit in John 7:37-38 - Moody describes them as being a people who are so filled up by God that not just a river is flowing out of them but rivers. People who not only know God but serve God with all that they are and they are sharing their faith with unbelievers they are discipling believers and they are serving their church because that is what they are called to do. They know that the power of God is found in the Gospel and that by sharing the Gospel, teaching the Gospel, living the Gospel, and applying the Gospel they are able to find meaning and truth to get them through their hardest days.

Power to Serve