Serving with Your Spirit

Introduction

The last two messages dealt with the service of the Gospel. Here in verse number 9, Paul pulls back the curtain on his heart before the people. He wants them to see his love for them. But Paul makes a claim in vs 9 that he serves in the gospel with his Spirit. Here Paul tells us how he goes about serving.

Romans 1:9 “For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;”

Three ways of taking with the spirit:

the Spirit that God has given to me

wholeheartedly (evidence Paul refers to it as “mine”)

with my spirit in relation to God.

I believe that Paul is using this phrase to refer to his spirit to say that he serves wholeheartedly.

How many time do we serve others, do ministry just out of habit or even in the flesh? Every believer is called to some sort of ministry in the church, a truth we will develop in Romans 12, but this message is even more directly to those who serve as Sunday school teachers, secretaries, deacons, pastors, janitors, youth leaders, nursery workers. What kind of heart do you have when you serve?

Sometimes we are like our children. You know when you have asked them to go clean their room and they were in the middle of playing a video game. They might comply because they are afraid of the consequences, but they grumble, they take their time and procrastinate because it isn’t what they want to do. They are doing the right things, but they don’t have the right attitude about it.

What it looks like to not serve with all your heart:

Procrastination

Grumbling

Half-heartedly

Emotionally absent

Merely habit

But Paul says that he serves wholeheartedly. Paul is completely invested in his ministry. It excites him, he loves it and he gives himself completely to it.

Have you ever noticed how passionate people can be when they are doing something they really enjoy? Recently, I went to a Thunder game and people were going crazy all around me. Screaming, jumping up, cheering. They do that because they love the game. When was the last time we were excited like that to be involved in ministry? Where has the heart gone in our service?

Paul is passionately wholeheartedly dedicated to the service that God has called him to. Today, I want to ask you to evaluate your heart and ask when the last time you were passionate about your opportunities to serve God. As we look at this passage, we will see three attitudes of Paul’s heart for service: He had a thankful spirit, a worshipful spirit and a prayerful spirit.

A Thankful Spirit

Romans 1:8 “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.”

The word first here is funny because Paul never gets to second or third. I take it to mean Before I say what I have to say, I want to say this. But notice the first thing off Paul’s lips after his introduction in the book is thanksgiving. Paul doesn’t lose sight of how good God has been to him because of the trials he faces.

God- Paul realizes that every opportunity we have, a friend in our lives, every ability that we possess; all the things related to ministry are only because of God’s grace. Paul doesn’t lose sight of the privilege that it is to serve God. Maybe you have begun to slip into thinking you have to go do this ministry thing again. It has become a burden to you. But Paul remains grateful for every opportunity to minister.

through Jesus Christ- Paul is reminded that all our prayers go through Jesus Christ. He is the intercessor before the throne of God on our behalf. I think there is an element of comfort here because if Jesus is bringing my prayers to God, they are being heard. I don’t know about you but I am thankful that Jesus can take my faulty, weak prayers and bring them before God on my behalf.

for you all- Paul is not just thankful to God for the opportunity to serve. Paul is thankful for the people he serves.

Application: Ministering to people can be hard. They have needs at inopportune times, they don’t understand your life or care about whats going on in your life, they get upset without mercy, take advantage of you, they aren’t always reliable. People hurt you. It can be easy to have a heart that gets bitter and complains about the people that God has called you to serve.

You want to fight that tendency to get bitter towards the people you serve whether its the kids in your Sunday school class, the kid in the nursery who won’t behave, the adults who act like children, or the people who make your life harder, your husband or wife who isn’t giving you what you think you deserve; practice gratitude.

Thank God for them

Think about the blessings that they have been in your life

Tell them you are thankful for them

Show them gratitude in your actions

Paul truly loved these people and he was grateful for them. I just want to throw this in here: church ministry isn’t the only ministry in our lives. Parenting, marriage, going to work, in all of it we are to be serving God. Maybe if we shifted our perspective on these things principles like we are looking at today would change our homes, our marriages and our workplaces.

What is it that Paul is so thankful about?

Paul was grateful to see that their faith was spoken of throughout the world. That phrase throughout the world is hyperbole, but it references the fact that people all over the known Roman empire people knew there were Christians in Rome and saw their faith in their lives.

3 John 4 “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.”

It makes Paul’s heart happy to see them thriving. This is the heart of a pastor, this is the heart of a Sunday school teacher, this is the heart of a nursery worker, this is the heart of a parent. Even those seemingly unconnected aspects of ministry like mopping the floor can bring joy knowing that our labor helps bring spiritual growth to people’s lives.

A Worshipful Spirit

Romans 1:9 “For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;”

The next attitude that Paul has in serving Christ isn’t obvious on the surface. But the word serve in verse 9 speaks of acts of worship. It is used for the daily ministry in the temple performed as worship to God. Paul does not make a distinction between the acts of service we perform and our worship of God. Sometimes we think of worship as sitting in our room, meditating on God’s goodness and singing songs of praise to Him. It is that, but it is also, serving God because He is worthy. The word worship comes from the idea of weight, but it means to acknowledge, declare, delight in the worthiness of God.

As we saw last week, Paul dedicated his life to the ministry of the gospel because Jesus is worthy. He did it for the sake of His name. Paul acknowledges that everything that he does is for the glory of God. It is because of God’s beauty and worth that he serves.

We must not lose sight of who it is that we are serving. When you truly see how worthy God is, you will not struggle to serve Him even when it is difficult. It is easy to wholeheartedly serve God when you see that God loves you, when you see that God is good, when you see that God is awe inspiring, when you see that God knows everything, when you see that God is in control of everything. It is easy to trust him with your life.

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.

For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.

We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God.

AW Tozer

A Prayerful Spirit

Romans 1:9–10 “For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers; Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.”

When was the last time you prayed for people in this church other than during a Wednesday night prayer meeting? What is it that we pray about when we don’t have to pray in the first place? The things we pray about when we don’t have a scheduled pray time are the things that are most important to us. Many of us are self-focused in our prayers and it isn’t wrong to pray for your needs, but there is more to prayer than just praying for your needs. In this passage, we see that Paul prays for two things:

He prays for them- Do you ever stop to pray for those you are serving in the church? There are a lot of things we cannot do to help them, but God can. Laboring on their behalf before the throne of God is probably one of the greatest things we can do to serve them. Remember Acts 6 when the first deacons were elected. The Apostles gave the following reason for electing deacons; so they could dedicate themselves to the word and prayer. Spending time praying for someone is work. Colossians 4:12 “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.” It reveals our hearts. Epaphras loved these people in Colossee, Paul loved these people in Rome; so he prayed for them.

He prays to be with them- He also prayed to be with them. Do you desire to be around the people you serve or is there a desire to get away from them as soon as possible? There is something wrong with the heart that can’t stand the people they are called to serve. They remind me of Jonah who stood outside Nineveh waiting for fires to come down from heaven.

Notice that Paul prays for them without ceasing. He had a regular pattern of praying for them because they were constantly on his mind. Paul wholeheartedly serves God for them because of his unfailing constant love for them.

Conclusion

It is easier to hear a message that is hard from someone you know loves you than it is to hear it from a stranger. Proverbs 27:6 “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” Before Paul lays into the deep, hard message that he has to bring to them; he bares his heart to them. It has been said that people don’t need to know so much how much you know, but how much you care. I think that is what Paul is doing here.

Do we give ourselves wholeheartedly to the service God has called us to? Are we only half-heartedly unintentionally serving God?

Do we give ourselves wholeheartedly to people? Do you serve merely out of habit or duty or do you serve people because you love them? Truly loving people makes all the difference in our service. As we love them, we are windows of the love that God has shed abroad in our hearts. This morning, I want to ask you to ask yourself why you do what you do?

Love for God and love for people was why Paul served wholeheartedly.