Made to Serve

Intro:

Series Review:

Week 1: What are spiritual disciplines

Week 2: Prayer

Week 3: How to study the bible

Week 4: Worship

This week: Serving

Passage Context:

Holman New Testament Commentary: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians & Colossians I. Introduction: The Sandwich Board of Salvation

Harry Ironside, well-known preacher and author from a previous generation, used to tell the story of his struggle with humility. He asked an elder friend what he could do about it. His friend counseled him to make a sandwich board with the plan of salvation in Scripture on it and to wear it as he walked throught the business and shopping district of downtown Chicago for one entire day.

Ironside did it and found it to be a humiliating experience. As he was taking the sandwich board off, however, he caught himself thinking: “There’s not another person in Chicago who would be willing to do a thing like that.”

Yes, humility is a difficult thing. Just the moment you think you have it, you’ve lost it. Humility is essential to successful relationships. It is the oil that makes the intersecting gears of human personalities turn without grinding on each other.

Paul writes the church that he helped create to encourage the in how they should live.

His letter in the first chapter covers:

Thankfulness and prayer

Telling people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Living with Christ in you and not the world

Read:

Philippians 2:1–11 HCSB

1 If then there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 fulfill my joy by thinking the same way, having the same love, sharing the same feelings, focusing on one goal. 3 Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. 5 Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage. 7 Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form, 8 He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross. 9 For this reason God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow — of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth — 11 and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians

Message Points:

1. Serving is born out of Love (1-4)

Holman New Testament Commentary: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians & Colossians I. Introduction: The Sandwich Board of Salvation

Love and humility go together. You cannot have one without the other. Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “Love is the only force in the universe powerful enough to change an enemy into a friend.” Augustine concluded, “One loving heart sets another on fire.” Benjamin Disraeli saw that “we are all born for love. It is the principle of existence and its only end.”

It is difficult to serve without love.

Mark 12:29–30 HCSB

29 “This is the most important,” Jesus answered: Listen, Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

Acts 20:35 HCSB

35 In every way I’ve shown you that by laboring like this, it is necessary to help the weak and to keep in mind the words of the Lord Jesus, for He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

2. Live and Love like Jesus (5-11)

Ultimately our lives are to look like Jesus who was the ultimate servant.

Matthew 20:28 HCSB

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.”

Matthew

Philippians 2:7–8 HCSB

7 Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form, 8 He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.

Philippians 2:

1 Peter 2:21–23 HCSB

21 For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in His steps. 22 He did not commit sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth; 23 when He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He was suffering, He did not threaten but entrusted Himself to the One who judges justly.

1 peter

Response:

James 1:22 HCSB

22 But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.