Do Church - Devoted to Service

1. God has given us life and His great mercy. We must be joyful about this – we have Jesus’ life inside of us.
2. We have been talking about being the church, and we hear the word “devoted to” many time to worship and to the word. Devoted to Christ so that we can be like.
3. Today we will talk about being devoted to service. I have so many ideas about what this means. Philippians 2:5 Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus – that He came not to be served but to serve others. He so loved the world that He came to earth to serve mankind unto death, death on the cross. He being King of Heaven and earth, took the form of a slave or servant by coming to earth. He was God and He will always be God.
4. Many of us simple people, not kings and rulers, believe that only a few should serve and all the rest of us should be served, believing that only the pastor or a deacon should do things and we find many excuses. Many say they don’t have time to serve, others say they don’t know how to serve, preferring not to ask how we should do certain things in the church. Others say they don’t have the ability to serve. We give many excuses so as not to serve others. We think that serving is a burden, which takes up time, but the Lord says I gave Myself joyfully to serve others. We should have this joy in us when we serve. All the excuses we referred to are based on our own abilities, but God’s word says that in our weakness, the power of God is perfected in us. God can give us ability, time, identity and can make us faithful servants in His Body, the Church.
5. Many others believe that service is for few people. They refer to what Paul said that God has given, Teachers, Pastors, Prophets, Evangelists and that only those are able to serve the Body of Christ. But God doesn’t want us all to be one of these, but He wants us all to have the mind of Christ, all to serve with whatever we have. Each one of us has abilities, talents. Some people even have the ability to give you courage when you feel you are dying. These are encouragers, that will hold your hand, when you need it, they speak the correct words to you, because they have this talent from God. We often forget about these small gifts to encourage us and give us joy. Don’t feel that your gift is only small, give it to someone and let them open them to have joy. Sometimes we serve for the wrong reasons, like to become accepted by others, for their approval or to impress others. We even do this to impress the Lord. God doesn’t need to be impressed, He looks at the heart, at our motives, our availability, our enthusiasm and because of our love for Him. The love of God covers all our weaknesses. Serving God should not oppress us but give us joy.
6. When the last supper was prepared, Christ did something that is indescribable. This King and creator of heaven and earth washed His disciples’ feet – this is the ultimate humility, while His disciples were arguing amongst themselves as to who would be the greatest in heaven. At that moment the disciples weren’t humble, they didn’t have the spirit of service, yes, they eventually did. Jesus said to them that there is no servant who is superior to his teacher. Jesus knew exactly who He was – God, the giver of life and yet he knelt down and washed feet. This is correct humility. In the same way, when we serve others, we should be humble. This is the type of humility that Jesus wants from His servants. Serving one another we should protect one another, to hold the member who is hurting, we can pray for one another, talk on the phone. Because Christ in in us, when we serve one another, we are basically serving God. The word of God says “How good it is for the brethren to dwell together in unity”.
7. When we serve, we should serve thinking the others and when people outside see our love for one another, they will be amazed. In this way we will begin to see miracles in our lives. In this way our relationship with God will grow as well as our relationship with one another.
8. Pastor Gail says that it is beautiful to think that when we serve people, serve Christ, but we must never forget that it is also people we are serving. Because Christ is in us, when we serve others, we are blessing Christ who is in them. We do this we joy, grace tenderness and words that come from Him. The world is so broken and needs Jesus who is in us.