Living to Serve

Intro

Good morning church family. I pray that your Christmas was blessed. I pray that Jesus is the reason for not just this season, but every season of your life. It is about Him. Always has been and always will be.

Today marks not only the last Sunday of the month, but the last Sunday of 2024. Next week we will begin our year with missions month. Dan Keck our missions director has scheduled some missionaries to come in and share with you what is going on their ministries that you support and next week one of our very own, Kim will be sharing with us her and her husband, Com, about their experience. They are from Laos which is in Southeast Asia.

While Christianity from what I understand is legal, the government is very anti-Christian. Christians face daily pressure, discrimination, attacks, and government raids. Converts risk losing their homes, families, and communities. In fact, Kim was just sharing with me this week that Com, who is visiting there, was in a place that got raided and they arrested the pastor.

Missions is important. Missions is vital. Missions is the heart of our Heavenly Father. Missions is the reason that God wrapped himself in flesh, walked among us, died on the cross, and rose again. God’s missions was and is to seek and save that which is lost.

Because this is God’s mission, we as followers of Christ are to follow that same mission. In fact Jesus commanded us,

Matthew 28:19–20 NASB95

19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Matthew 22:9 NASB95

9 ‘Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.’

That wedding feast is none other than the second coming of Jesus. Jesus is coming back at the sound of the trump of the Lord, and the dead in Christ will rise first and the rest of those who accepted Christ as Lord & Savior and follow Christ, will be caught up and meet with Jesus in the air where we will spend eternity in the place that Jesus PROMISED He would prepare for each and every person who calls upon His name!

But here is the thing church. We have work to do. In fact there is a GREAT work to do.

Matthew 9:37–38 NASB95

37 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 38 “Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”

Even though the house is full of souls, as you look around there are empty chairs where souls should be seated. We have the ability New Life, to expand even more seating than what we currently have. Meaning there is room for more souls. Not that church will save anyone, because it can’t, but it is a place where we gather corporately to worship Jesus, encourage one another, and serve one another. The church is a place where we are discipled and sent out.

I likened it to an aircraft carrier. Those fighter pilots are given a mission and they take off from the ship. Once they accomplish their mission they fly back to the ship where they refuel, eat, sleep, be encouraged by their fellow servicemen and women, then given new orders from their captain, and fly back out into the mission field.

New Life, we come to the church and refuel, eat from the Word of God, find rest, are encouraged by our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, receive new orders from the message of the day, and we too are sent back out into the mission field with new orders.

Today I want to share with you those new orders. New orders that are not new as in God gave a brand new set of orders, but new in the sense that some of you are just now going to learn.

The Lord gave me a Word for 2025 for New Life. That word is simply “serve”. We are servants of the Most High, and we are called to live a life of serving.

Wrong Reasons

Serving is to be a lifestyle of the Christian. I want to share with you a couple wrong reasons to serve and one right reasons.

Too often though we believe it is an “extra” thing to do in the Christian life or some believe it is a optional.

Serving is not optional.

This reality hit me when I had a church goer come to me and Carly wanting to become members of the church. One of the questions they asked us was, “How many hours are we required to serve?” I looked at Carly after our meeting and said, “We can do that? We would never run short of volunteers for anything!”

To them serving was more of a chore or job that was assigned. New Life, may it not be. Serving is not a chore, it is not a job, it is a lifestyle.

Secondly, Christians serve not expecting anything in return.

Some believe they should receive some kind of reward or recognition when they serve and therefore that is there motive. If you serve in order to gain anything other than the gift of serving, you are serving for selfish reasons.

There are many other wrong reasons to serve, but there is only ONE RIGHT REASON to serve. And it is very simple.

We serve because Jesus served.

Matthew 20:28 NASB95

28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

As Christians are goal in this life is to think, speak, and act more like Jesus. Less of me, and more of Him. We serve simply because that is what our Lord and Savior did.

Servants of the Most High

We are called to be servants of the Most High.

When I serve, I am not a servant of man, but I am a servant of the Most High.

1 Corinthians 7:22–24 NASB95

22 For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord’s freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ’s slave. 23 You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. 24 Brethren, each one is to remain with God in that condition in which he was called.

Some get it wrong when it comes to whom we serve. If I am a servant of mankind, then I will do everything in my ability to make mankind happy or pleased with me.

One time years ago in my ministry I was on staff and was asked to preach a message. The lead pastor gave me the Scripture he wanted me to preach. As I was praying about the direction of the message concerning that passage, the Lord told me to change it. I felt very conflicted. I even called a friend of mine who served at a state level and told him the situation.

I told him the pastor gave me a passage to preach, but God gave me something else. I was told to honor the pastor because he was the pastor. In other words, serve the pastor. So I did. I will tell you this, I will NEVER do that again. I felt horrible. I felt so convicted. I was more concerned with pleasing the man of God rather than the God of man. I was serving to please man and not God.

Colossians 3:23 NASB95

23 Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men,

Everything that we do, should be for the Lord and not man. I serve the Lord. I serve mankind for the Lord. When my reason for serving and whom I am serving for makes a difference.

Serving for God brings Joy

When you serve for God, it brings joy. When I served for that pastor, to please him, I did not have any joy. When we serve for man rather than for God, there will be times when your emotions will go up and down and you are left unsatisfied. But when you serve for God, nothing will take away your joy. Even if the people you are serving or others around do not like you are get mad at you.

When we were youth pastors every year we did a service project with our youth. One year we decided to collect hats, scarves, gloves, and made lunches and we took off to Chicago. We walked up and down the streets of Chicago and passed them out to any of the homeless that we could find. We prayed for them and fed them. You know, the things Jesus did.

After we finished praying with this one gentleman, a lady walks up to us dressed in what looked like a fur coat and she very rudely snapped at Carly and I “Why don’t you give them what they really need. Bring them home with you.” We responded with “Why don’t you?” (I am a firm believer that if God shows you something He wants you to do it and not run and tell someone else to). She responded, “I put my time in and helped already”.

Looking back she wasn’t serving people for God, she was serving people to gain something. She certainly didn’t have any joy. But we did. Our teens had joy. They had a deep satisfaction that they impacted peoples lives for eternity. They were fulfilled.

Ephesians 2:10 NASB95

10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Knowing that serving others can have eternal significance brings deep satisfaction and meaning to life. But pastor, how do you know they were impacted for eternity? I don’t. Not this side of heaven anyways. Who knows, maybe one day someone will come up to us and say “I was a recipient of a hat, lunch, and prayer from you and some teenagers.”

Does it really matter if I see the reward? No. Remember, we are not serving to get anything. We serve simply because Jesus did. Not expecting anything in return.

Acts 20:35 NASB95

35 “In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

There is joy in being a vessel of God’s love. Serving others allows us to extend His grace and care. Each time we help someone, we mirror God’s love, which in turn enriches our lives with joy.

I seen this played out this Christmas. My youngest Evie really wanted a positive potato. It is a potato stuffy that holds a sign that says something like, “You got this!” My second oldest Chloe taught herself how to crochet and so my wife asked her to make one for Evie.

It was the best to see Evie’s face light up. She was almost moved to tears and she gave her sister a hug. Chloe didn’t have to take time and make that for her, but because she loves her, she served her in that capacity. I know it brought joy to Chloe and it definitely brought joy to Evie.

Chloe showed the grace and love of God to her sister. In turn I was filled with joy.

This brings me to my last point.

Serving Keeps us Focused on the Mission

Serving others keeps us focused on the mission. The mission of Jesus hasn’t changed since the fall of man.

Luke 19:10 NASB95

10 “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

When God is the reason we serve, it helps us to stay focused on the mission of God. God still desires to seek and save those who are lost. God chooses you and me to be the conduit in which this can be accomplished. We have a message of hope that this world desperately needs.

The other night Carly and I watched a movie based on a true story called The Six Triple Eight. It is a movie inspired by the first and only Women's Army Corps unit of color to serve overseas in World War II. These women only orders given was to sort through and organize 17 million pieces of back logged mail and had to do it in six months.

There was a scene in the movie where Commanding Officer Charity Adams was giving a speech to explain what they were called to do. Their mission was to sort through 17 million pieces of mail and make sure they all get delivered. Moral was low because the soldiers hadn’t heard from home.

I loved what she said in this scene:

“Every hangar is full of mail. The soldiers who are fighting this war have not heard from their loved ones, and their loved ones have not heard from them. The war department is getting thousands of complaints and the morale of our soldiers is at an all time low. And if our soldiers have low morale, they have no fight. Ladies, we have been ordered to provide hope, communication, and care packages to our exhausted soldiers on the front lines”

Church, our world is at war. Not a physical war, but a spiritual war.

Ephesians 6:12 NASB95

12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Because we are in the middle of a spiritual war, we have been ordered by our Commanding Officer Jesus, to go into this world with the letter of His Gospel message, to provide hope, communication from God, and yes even care packages, in order that they may be found and saved!

There is no plan B church, there is no other people group. We are it.

When we serve, we prioritize people and their spiritual needs, which keeps the Great Commission at the forefront of our minds. Serving those around us reminds us that it is not just about meeting the physical needs of someone, but ultimately pointing them to Christ.

I want to leave you with three things that serving allows us to do.

1. Builds Relationships for Evangelism

• Serving creates opportunities to build trust and relationships, making it easier to share the gospel.

• Meeting physical or emotional needs often opens the door for spiritual conversations.

Matthew 5:16 NASB95

16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

2. Demonstrates the Gospel in Action

• Serving models Christ’s sacrificial love, which is central to the gospel message.

• Through our service, people see a living example of what it means to follow Jesus, inspiring them to learn more about Him.

Mark 10:45 NASB95

45 “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

3. Fosters a Kingdom Mindset

Having a Kingdom mindset is crucial to the health of any church

• Regular service shifts our focus from self-centered goals to God’s kingdom.

• It reminds us of the urgency of reaching the lost, as every act of service can lead to salvation stories.

Closing

Here are just a few ways you can help serve here at New Life:

Serving in kids’ ministry plays a crucial role in keeping our focus on the Great Commission by shaping the next generation of disciples and sharing the gospel with children and their families.

Serving in the food pantry is a powerful way to stay focused on the Great Commission because it provides practical opportunities to demonstrate Christ’s love, share the gospel, and build relationships that point people to Jesus.

Serving on the church safety team helps believers stay focused on the Great Commission by providing a secure and welcoming environment where the gospel can be proclaimed and discipleship can flourish.

Serving as an usher helps keep believers focused on the Great Commission by facilitating a welcoming, orderly environment where the gospel can be shared, and people can connect with Christ.

Serving as a social media manager in ministry is a vital way to stay focused on the Great Commission because it allows the church to reach a broad audience, share the gospel, and disciple others using modern communication tools.

Serving in Celebrate Recovery (CR) helps keep believers focused on the Great Commission by providing a Christ-centered approach to healing and discipleship for individuals facing hurts, habits, and hang-ups.

There are more ways to serve that I haven’t share and I know there are ways to serve that we haven’t thought of yet.

Here is my challenge to you as we end this years last Sunday service.

Ask God how can I serve in 2025.

It is part of our walk with Jesus that find an area of ministry and serve. Serve as unto the Lord.