Gifted to Serve

Intro to Serve-ay

We have talked a lot about being saturated in the word, in community, and in mission this year.

We believe the Christian life is a life that is lived in community, learning God’s Word together, seeking to Love one another as Jesus loves us, and Leading others to follow our Savior.

Those 4Ls (Living, Learning, Loving, and Leading) make up our identity and calling as a church family.

We are in unique season as a church, uniquely challenging, but also uniquely exciting.

We have new faces, returning faces, and faces who have journeyed through the last 24 months through the oddness that we have had to navigate through.

As opportunities for ministry have continued to grow, the need for people to step into those ministry areas has grown as well.

The need for people willing to step up and lean in to ministry here at EHBC (Loving one another through serving) has become a growing need, which is challenging and exciting.

So we wanted today to be a day of service.

As you sat down today you had to move the piece of paper in your seat.

That piece of paper is what we are cleverly calling our “Serve-ay”

We have sought to include all the possible opportunities we have as a church family to connect each and everyone of us to serving within this family of God.

It includes ministries we currently have going, ministries we have had in the past, and possible ministry opportunities that we could dive into in the future.

It isn’t an exhaustive list (hence the need for the bottom section) and we are not saying we intended on doing everything on this sheet.

But we trust that what God is calling us to as a church, He will equip us with those that are ready to serve.

Some of you go-getters might have already started filling out your sheet, and that’s okay, but we will have a time to at the end of the service as well.

This call to serve isn’t just a church growth strategy, but something the Lord clearly and passionately lays out in scripture.

So we are going to spend the next few minutes looking at 1 Peter 4:10-11 asking the question:

How do we live out the call to serve?

1 Peter 4:7–10 CSB

7 The end of all things is near; therefore, be alert and sober-minded for prayer. 8 Above all, maintain constant love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Be hospitable to one another without complaining. 10 Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others, as good stewards of the varied grace of God.

We are going to focus mostly on verses 10-11, but context is important here.

Peter is writing this letter to a scattered group of Christians who are being persecuted for their faith in Jesus.

He is seeking to help them navigate the difficulty of follow Jesus when the world around them is hostile to their faith.

He is teaching them truth and then spends time practically applying that truth to their every day lives.

Here in Chapter 4 he is drawing his letter to a close and making some final exhortations to the believers.

A call to self-control and clear-headedness for the sake of their prayers.

A call to sincere and sacrificial love toward one another.

And a call to selfless service toward one another, serving each other’s needs using the gift given to us by God.

The simplicity of Peter’s exhortations here is important.

He isn’t calling them, nor us, to spectacular feats, or huge undertakings.

No, he is calling us to disciplined prayer, real love for one another, and giving of our selves to serve.

And the whole exhortation springs from and is grounded in verse 7, and is where we find our first answer to our question:

We must...

1) See ourselves from the PROPER PERSPECTIVE.

1 Peter 4:7 (CSB)

7 The end of all things is near; therefore...

That’s a powerful statement isn’t it?

We may read it and think Peter must be one of those guys who takes the books of Daniel and Revelation and calculates the date and time when Jesus is going to come back. But that isn’t what he is doing here.

Peter is calling us to shift our perspective.

Peter is using a very common expression among NT writers.

The idea of the “end being near” or that we are in the “last days” is an expression of the season of history we are in, not claim of date and time of Christ return.

Peter is saying “Time is short, the days are drawing ever closer to the end, we must keep our perspective not on what is right in front of us or behind us, but on the surety of what is to come.”

We have all grown up hearing the saying “time seems to speed up the older you get.” And the older I get the more I am learning the truth of that statement.

Peter is calling us to see our lives from a different angle, to see how short life is and focus our attention on the things that matter most.

How are we investing ourselves into people and into things that have eternal significance.

By no means does that mean church work only, but one outworking of it.

Grounding his exhortation in the brevity of life ought to cause us to pause and reflect.

Let’s skip down to verse 10 now.

1 Peter 4:10 CSB

10 Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others, as good stewards of the varied grace of God.

2) See ourselves as SERVANTS not as CONSUMERS.

“Each one has recieved a gift”

Paul makes this same statement in 1 Corinthians 12:7 “7 A manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good:”

Peter and Paul would agree, every person who trust in Jesus and becomes a christian is empowered with a unique and important giftedness for the sole purpose of serving the Church of Christ in the world.

He doesn’t use the term “some” or “certain ones”, but “EACH” has been given a gift.

Peter uses the word “charisma” that we translate as gift.

obviously we get the word charisma, which we use to talk about someone who is charming and has influence over people.

But that skews the biblical word.

Peter, and other bible writers, are referring to the unique ways God empowers us to serve the needs of the church, community around us, and the world at large.

The gifts then are not talents, they are equipings, empowerings for the purpose of serving.

This is so important for us to understand because there is a really dangerous trap that we as American believers are so prone to fall into.

It is the trap of consumerism. Thinking of ourselves more as consumers of the goods and programs of the church,

rather than understanding ourselves as called out, redeemed, and empowered servants of the church.

Consumerism is a cancer to Christian community and the ministry of the Church.

Peter is calling us to see the needs of the body over the needs of us as individuals.

Peter is calling us to engage with the needs of others by serving and giving ourselves to those needs.

But there is a promise embedded in the call...

3) See ourselves as GIFTS not just GIFTED.

We have all received gifts in order that we might USE them to SERVE OTHERS.

The list of gifts given in the bible are not meant to label us in certain ways for specific ways of serving. (if you are a teacher you have to find someone to teach, if mercy if your gift you must find or start some type of mercy ministry).

The lists are also not exhaustive.

The key throughout the bible is that we are empowered/gifted to serve.

It isn’t so much about the gift as it is about the service.

We can’t view service as an obligation (something we have to do), we need to see it as a blessing (something we GET to do).

We are gifts to those walking in on Sunday mornings as we greet them with a smiling face and a welcoming spirit.

We are gifts to the kids we teach and care for in Sunday school classes on Sunday.

We are gifts to the church as a whole when we provide clean, safe, secure, and attractive spaces and grounds for us to gather.

We are gifts to the disconnected, sick, and mourning when we seek to love and serve them with friendship, community, and care of varying kinds.

We rob ourselves and others from the blessings that come from serving when we don’t engage and embrace the gifts God has and is empowering us with.

Paul makes the case in 1 Corinthians 12 that we are all like body parts in the body of Christ, essentially serving the needs of the whole body.

We must see our selves as gifts to be used to bless others.

4) See ourselves as an INTEGRAL part of a ETERNAL PURPOSE.

What we do as THE CHURCH, from the simple, seemingly mundane, to the great and grandiose (which is not often), is all integral to the Kingdom of God.

When we serve we are influencing and advancing the Kingdom of God.

We often get too concerned about building our kingdoms to understand the significance of the Kingdom of God,.

But everything we do is meant to bring glory to Jesus.

In the context of our Church family, weed-eating the culverts, painting a bathroom, changing a diaper, teaching a 3rd grade Sunday school class, making a meal for a family with a new baby, running the presentation software in the sound booth, and countless other things that make up who we are as a church serve the greater good of making the name of Jesus known in the world.

God has chosen US to do this task of making Him known.

But we have to embrace a perspective and attitude of servants.

Growing as a disciple doesn’t happen by sitting in a classroom or living room.

It happens when we engage in the work of ministry.

How Serving Helps us Grow

1) The life and words of Jesus take on flesh.

2) We begin to focus less on US and more on OTHERS.

3) We experience God’s Spirit working through us.

4) We begin to have deeper connections with other people.

5) We experience what THE CHURCH really is.

Call to Action

We are going to give you 2-3 minutes to fill out the survey.

Then Cody and the band are going to lead us in one last song, you can come pray or talk, we will be up front here to meet you.

As you fill out the card, check the boxes you would where you would be willing to serve.

You are not signing up to be in those positions of you check the box, you are just expressing the willingness to serve and giving us an idea of where God is providing us with servants.

This is not a guilt trip, it is an invitation to grow deeper, connect, and make a difference.