Spiritual Disciplines 08
Spiritual Disciplines – 08
SERVICE
Text: Acts 6:1-7
Place Preached - (Mississauga International Baptist Church)
Date Preached - (12/07/03)
Introduction:
ILLUS: The Pony Express – In operation from April 1860 – November 1861. Carried mail along a 2,000 mile route that stretched from St. Joseph, MO to Sacramento, CA. Operated via an organized relay of horseback riders.
The cost of sending a letter was $2.50 even in those days.
This was a rough and demanding and sometimes hazardous job. - A San Francisco paper carried the following ad:
“WANTED: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over 18. Must be expert riders willing to risk daily. Orphans preferred.”
Interesting – the Pony Express never had a shortage of riders!
Likewise, serving God is not a job for those who are only casually interested. The Lord asks for our life, not our leftovers.
It is a priority, not a pastime.
The mental picture that applicants for the Pony Express had must have included scenes of thrill-a-minute excitement.
Yet, although there was certainly occasional heart-stopping excitement, there would be many long hours, of loneliness where the rider was left to himself and the monotony of the work.
The Discipline of serving God is something like that.
Though we surrender to possibilities that make us shiver with excitement, there are many more moments which are mundane, ordinary, trivial – even boring.
Might be Preaching or Teaching (Public Ministry), more likely to be something like nursery duty.
May be singing a solo, or it might be operating the sound equipment that amplifies the solo.
Public testimony, or preparing dishes for the church after-glo.
Truth is – Much is done outside the church
Baby-sitting, preparing meals for those in need, running errands etc.
Most important likely is having a servant’s heart in our homes. Fetching water, taking time to read the child a book, assisting wherever needed.
Service is really quite commonplace – The need for it abounds everywhere.
Service must become a spiritual discipline. Why?
I. Because Every Christian is Expected to Serve
God calls us, but He does not call any of to idleness. We are saved to serve!!
Hebrews 9:14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Psalms 100:2 Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
Service is every Christian’s Commission!
There is no such thing as Spiritual unemployment, or Spiritual retirement.
Now it is not only important that we serve, but why we serve.
The Bible mentions at least six motives for serving.
A. Motivated by Obedience
We should serve the Lord because we want to obey Him.
ILLUS – If you were an angel of God and given the assignment to sweep the back alleys of the world’s filthiest city, while another was given the task of ruling the richest empire on earth, you would tackle it with the same enthusiasm as the other. For the joy of the servant lies only in his obedience to God’s will.
Can you imagine an angel refusing to serve – it is unthinkable.
Plainly - Not to serve God is sinful!
B. Motivated by Gratitude
1 Samuel 12:24 Only fear the LORD, and serve him in truth with all your heart: for consider how great things he hath done for you.
It is No burden to serve God when we consider the great things He has done for us.
Saved us – we were guilty, unforgiven, a heartbeat from hell!!
When the fire of service to God grows cold, consider His works on your behalf.
ILLUS: if $10 million dollars went in your bank account every morning, or you were blessed with talent or beauty and health and given 1000 years to live, but still died and went to hell, what would that be worth?
But He has given you far more!! God has never given anyone something that can begin to compare with Salvation.
C. Motivated by Gladness
Psalms 100:2 Serve the LORD with gladness
Not grudgingly, not with grimness – The Lord loveth a cheerful giver – of money, of talent, of time, of service.
ILLUS: In the courts of ancient kings, servants were often executed for nothing more than looking sad.
Nehemiah 2:2 Wherefore the king said unto me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very sore afraid,
WHY? A sad face gave the appearance that you did not want to serve the king, or worse that you were dissatisfied with the way he was running things.
It’s understandable why service is a drudgery to those hoping to earn salvation by works, but the Christian who understands what God has done for him/her for eternity should be able to serve God cheerfully.
Serving God is not a burden, it is a privilege!!
Psalms 84:10 For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
What message are we sending to our children by the attitude with which we serve God?? That we enjoy or endure?
D Motivated by Forgiveness, not guilt.
READ Isaiah 6:6-8
Isaiah was bursting at the seams with eagerness to serve God is some way.
Why? Because he felt guilty? NO, because God had removed his guilt!
The people of God do not serve Him in order to be forgiven but because we are forgiven.
E. Motivated by Humility
SEE John 13:12-16
With astonishing humility, Jesus, their Lord and Teacher, washed the feet of His disciples as an example of how all His followers should serve with humility.
On the other hand, self-righteous service is highly concerned about results.
The flesh whines about service, but screams against hidden service.
It is the normal thing to strain and pull for recognition and honor.
Philippians 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Can you serve your boss and others at work, helping them to succeed and be happy, even when they are promoted and you are overlooked?
Can you work to make others look good without envy filling your heart?
Can you pray for the ministry of others to prosper when it would cast yours in the shadows?
F. Motivated by Love
Galatians 5:13 For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
ILLUS: A Missionary in Africa was asked if he really liked what he was doing. His response, “NO, my wife and I do not like dirt, we do not like crawling into vile huts through goat manure. – But is a man to do nothing for Christ he does not like?”
2 Corinthians 5:14-15 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:
15 And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.
II. Because Every Christian is Gifted to Serve
A. Service is Gifted Work
At the moment of Salvation the Holy Spirit impart to you a spiritual gift mix. LOOK UP I Corinthians 12
1 Corinthians 12:4 Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:11 But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.
1 Peter 4:10 As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
Other Significant passages on the Spiritual Gifts include Rom. 12:4-8; Eph. 4:7-13; I Cor. 12:27-31.
Not the same as natural ability though they may be complimentary to our spiritual gift.
The gift is a supernatural empowerment for skilled service to the church.
The ministries the Spirit gives us are themselves gifts.
The fruitful effects the Holy Spirit accomplishes through the effects of such ministries are to the recipients also a spiritual gift.
The Holy Spirit himself is the Gift.
Luke 11:13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
THE EMPHASIS SHOULD BE ON SERVING NOT ON NAMING YOUR SPIRITUAL GIFT.
Gifts overlap. God may have us cross over into areas of service where we do not consider ourselves gifted to meet a need in the spirit of service.
We will be moved by Him to serve beyond the bounds of our “Official” ministry.
I’m not against inventories of spiritual gifts, but we often discover our gift through service and not an inventory.
You may not know your gift is ....
TEACHING until you try.
SHOWING MERCY until you spend time with hurting people.
Now you may feel overlooked, or limited by schedule etc., or even have physical hindrances.
But the truth is those with a heart to serve will always find a way to serve.
If god did not intend for your gift to be used, there would no longer be any purpose for your life.
You are still around because He has a place for you to serve!
Some service is in the spotlight, but most is in the shadows!!
B. Service is Hard Work
Notice the emphasis of the next verse...
Ephesians 4:12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
Ministry is work – Every Christian is a servant and servants work!
Colossians 1:29 Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
The word labour means to work to the point of exhaustion. Striving means to struggle or to agonize.
1 Corinthians 16:15 I beseech you, brethren, (ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints,)
Now it is HIS working or enery which “worketh in us mightily”
When we serve the Lord in the local church it will be hard many times, sometimes it will be agonizing and exhausting.
It will take time – there may be more interesting or entertaining things that we could be doing.
Yet it is also the most rewarding and fulfilling kind of work.
John 4:34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
Here is Jesus, tired, thirsty, hungry – Yet the work of serving God was so satisfying and fulfilling to Him that He called it food!
It is also the most enduring kind of work!
1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
Hebrews 6:10 For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.
Conclusion: (Applications)
Worship empowers serving; Serving expresses worship – Godliness requires a disciplined balance between the two.
Those who can maintain service without regular personal and corporate worship are serving in the flesh.
In worship we find fresh reasons and desire to serve.
“Fellowship with God leads straight to obedience and good works” – A.W. Tozer
One measure of the authenticity of worship is whether it results in a desire to serve (SEE Isaiah 6)
To engage in one without the other is, in reality, to experience neither!
You are expected to serve and gifted to serve, butare you willing to serve?
Joshua 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
ILLUS: Faithfulness in service illustrated by Roger – the faithful door & lock man at Bethel.
The Lord Jesus was always the servant, the servant of all, the servant of servants.
Luke 22:27 For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.
WANTED: Gifted volunteers for difficult service in the local church. Motivation to serve should be obedience to God, gratitude, gladness, forgiveness, humility, and love. Service will rarely be glorious. Temptation to quit place of service will sometimes be strong. Volunteers must be faithful in spite of long hours, little or no visible results, and possibly no recognition except from God in eternity.