Serving the Lord

Introduction

In American Christianity, it is alright to be religious as long as you aren’t too religious. Passion is viewed as a bad thing only possessed by the ignorant. You can’t be too serious about your faith or it will make you strange to everyone around you. Our light is hid under a bushel lest we stand out.

But when it comes to our sports teams, we talk until we are blue in the face about them. We will spend hundreds of dollars on tickets to go see the Thunder, spend hours watching a game or two a week when precious little of our time is lest after work anyways. Some will paint their faces and their bodies and scream and yell for their team. When it comes to food, we can be just as passionate. The food we just had or the next meal we plan to ear grab our attention all too often. Movies and TV consume just as much time and grab our attention. Every conversation we initiate and find the most excitement in is about one of these areas. We are passionate about those things, but how dare you be passionate about God.

Jesus confronted the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2:4 “Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.” Some of us remember days when we were more passionate about spiritual things and enthusiastic in serving the lord. Maybe we even think fondly of those days, but it is exhausting to think about being like that once again.

One Christian wrote one blogger who had recently talked about zeal:

Just wondering if there’s practical ways of thinking about what it looks like to ‘regain zeal’ if you’ve ‘lost it’ … If a person responds by saying ‘I just don’t feel excited about it anymore and I don’t want to go through the motions of serving if it’s not genuine’, where is a good place to start?

To much of Christianity has lost its zeal for the Lord. We are just going through the motions, performing the acts of worship that are expected of us, but there is not heart behind our service. There is no passion for what we do.

Tim Challies wrote a provocative article on How to lose you zeal for Christ:

Major on the theoretical

Love the World

Be spiritually presumptuous (proud)

Neglect the normal means of grace

Refuse to repent

Indulge in known sin

Give in to apathy and lack of faith

Remain ignorant- 2 Peter 1:2 “Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,”

Be a coward- we are afraid to do what God is asking us to do

Our text this morning is one verse from Romans 12:11 “Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;” It contains three commands but there is a relationship between all three of them. They all focus on the attitude behind our service and our passion for it. Where does true passion come from? It comes from authentic love. What you love is what you will be passionate about. Some are passionate about their cars, their sports teams, their lawns, their hobbies because it is what they love. Paul here challenges us that authentic love is going to show up in passionate service. Let’s look at each of these commands and how they relate.

Not Slothful in Business

The first phrase describes the dedication we have to serve the Lord. We are not to be slothful. When we think of this word we probably think of the sloth which is a slow animal. The average sloth travels about 5 ft every minute when it is up in the trees. This illustration gives you some of the idea of the word because it does mean to be slow. but let me give you some other synonyms that go with this word: to delay, to hesitate. Let’s take each of those definitions and apply them.

Being slow to serve the Lord- there are many who are willing to commit to serving the Lord in some way, but they are determined they will get it done when they want to get it done. It seems like it takes forever for them to get anything accomplished. Others are sitting there waiting on them. This is sloth. But why is it that they are not quicker about getting it done: passion. They are missing the motivation or something else has taken a higher priority in their lives. So serving the Lord takes longer than it should.

To delay to serve the Lord- related to the speed that they do the Lord’s work is when they start it. They delay it because they have all these other “higher priority” things to get done first. They procrastinate and put it off until the last minute. Everything is always rushed and half done. Again why? Lack of passion.

to hesitate to serve the Lord- this is a person who knows what they need to do, but they are hesitant to commit to doing in. They don’t want to go all in. Again a lack of passion keeps us from committing. You might say fear or busyness or a number of other things keep us from committing. But if this is what the Lord desires you to do in serving Him, the only real thing keeping you from it is a lack of passion to serve Him.

Proverbs 18:9 “He also that is slothful in his work Is brother to him that is a great waster.” That word waster is an Old English way of saying someone who lays waste to a town or village. It isn’t someone who didn’t eat their food; rather it is someone who went in with a desire to destroy. This is a harsh comparison to make, but Solomon says the slothful is kin to someone who destroys. They are brothers because they produce the same result: loss and ruin.

The slothful may get something done, but because he is slow, delays, or hesitates somethings don’t get done, people are offended by the sloppiness and never come back, half done work causes injury or hurt.

Business- is not talking about the job you perform. In fact the word is the exact same Greek word as we saw in Romans 12:8 “Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.” Paul is saying do not be slothful or lacking in your diligence to serve Christ.

Fervent in Spirit

The next description describes the motivation and power behind our service. Fervent means to be excited or enthusiastic. It means zeal or passion. To be on fire. Passion is often looked down upon because some have been very passionate but ignorant at the same time. Often times the level of passion someone has is linked to the level of ingorance they have. Paul described the Jews as Romans 10:2 “For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.” The Corinthians were very passionate about things that brought the focus on themselves like speaking in tongues, but this passion is not ignorant nor is it misguided.

Just because some have been ignorant and misguided in their passion does not mean that we should be apathetic. Passion, desire, excitement are neutral emotions that can be good or bad depending on the motivation and the outflow of them. In fact, we are told to do everything with passion. Whatever is worth doing in our service of the Lord is worth doing with passion and diligence. Colossians 3:23–24 “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.” This is a different word but it means with all of your being. So it is synonymous with fervent.

in spirit: This phrase could be taken a couple different ways.

The Holy Spirit- Wuest says the presence of the article indicates it is, Stott agrees Colossians 1:29 “Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.”

the human spirit- KJV translators

Probable solution- we are to be passionate in our Spirit as it is energized by the Holy Spirit- like a boiling pot of water, the Holy Spirit is the fire and our spirit is the water. At the end of the message I am going to give you some suggestions for how to regain your passion for serving the Lord, but in the end, the Holy Spirit must set a fire to the cauldron of your heart and set it to boiling once again. To maintain a spirit of passion, we must walk in the Spirit.

Serving the Lord

This is really the central thought of this verse. We must not lack in our diligence to do our service nor must we slack in our passion in executing it, but it is our service for the Lord that we are talking about here. Tucked in where it is, I do not think you can divorce serving God from serving others. Matthew 25:40 “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Our love and our service in the body of Christ for others is our service for God.

There are three words for service in this chapter: Each carries a different conotation to it.

latereia- spiritual service of worship- What we do for God is worship. You might think of worship as singing songs, lifting up your hands, praying even; but your service is worship.

diakonia- practical service- Part of our service is practical in nature. As a pastor, I serve spiritual needs more often than not, but there are practical physical needs as well that we can serve.

duleo- service of a bondslave- this word is the one used here. And it highlights not our service but our identity as a bondslave. In the OT, a bondslave was someone who had served a master and loved serving his master. When his seven years were up, he could choose to stay in service to his master as a servant.

How to stir up Zeal for Christ:

This is not a comprehensive list, but it is a practical list of steps to take.

Meditate on God’s Mercies Romans 12:1 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” Everything in this chapter flows out of our deep understanding of the mercy of God.

Consider Christ Hebrews 12:2–3 “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.”

Get busy doing something- Ecclesiastes 9:10 “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” Motion rekindles devotion- have you ever gotten involved in doing something nice for someone and maybe you didn’t feel it when you got there, but as you started serving, it reignited a passion for God?

Be around other believers who are passionate Hebrews 10:24 “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:”

Be motivated by thoughts of eternity John 9:4 “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.”

Conclusion

Serving the Lord can be exhausting when we are motivated by the wrong things, when we don’t have God’s balance in life and it can be easy to burn out, loose our zeal for serving him. We begin to start skipping opportunities. We begin to say no to everything. This is a natural response to burn out. I understand, but burn out happens when we have not kept our fire going. When we have been feeding it with the wrong things or worse have been trying to serve without fire altogether.

Our zeal is something that can be stirred up. We do not have to surrender to the chains of self-defeat and say well I can’t help how I feel. I do not say this to say that you may not need a good long break, but often you will find that no matter how much physical rest you get, burn out is not cured by it. This reveals there is a deeper problem stealing your zeal and passion for serving the Lord.