October 10, 2004
Service Theme – “Our God Is
Lord”
Romans 12:3-11
When We Practice the
Presence of Christ, We Serve Him with Gratitude and Eagerness
B.
Context
– One of my greatest frustrations as a pastor is that I can’t personally meet
all the needs of everyone in our congregation.
I just can’t seem to spread myself thin enough to get to know 80 or 100
people intimately or to be everyone’s prayer partner or best friend or personal
confidant. It’s kind of ironic, because
intellectually I know that I can’t do it all, and yet at the same time
emotionally I want to be everything to everyone. Maybe it ties in my personal insecurities a bit. Maybe it’s because God has given me such a
great love for all of you. But I still
get frustrated with it. It’s really my
own fault and nobody else’s, because I need to come to grips once again with my
own limitations.
C.
What
really makes me feel helpless is when I’ve invested time and effort into
someone, but they make bad choices anyway.
All of us feel that way when something like that happens in the lives of
folks we know and love. It’s easy to
feel like a failure, which happens to be one of my core fears, but at the same
time as the saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him
drink.” It hurts, but what hurts even
more is when we allow people to fall through the cracks here at church because
we haven’t used our spiritual gifts.
Usually those are the cases that we don’t hear about until it’s over and
done with.
D.
There
are people within every church who are hurting and struggling and are in danger
of falling through the cracks. Lots of
times we set ourselves up to fall through the cracks because we don’t like to
talk about our problems or our struggles.
That’s describes me to a tee!
But when the church functions as it was created to, the members develop ministry
sensitivity. They learn how to
detect needs and then aggressively move to meet them. And that “they” is “us.” (NEW SLIDE) When we as a church are
functioning properly, each of us develops ministry sensitivity. We learn how to recognize needs, and then we
take the initiative to reach out and meet them.
E.
D.
L. Moody once said, “A great many people
have a false idea about the Church.
They have the idea that the Church is a place to rest in… To get into a
nicely cushioned pew, and contribute to the charities, listen to the minister,
and do their share to keep the Church out of bankruptcy, is all they want. The idea of work for them – actual work in
the Church – never enters their mind.”
Moody said that over a hundred years ago, and it still holds true today,
even in our church. But I don’t believe
that the primary motivation for those who aren’t involved is selfishness – (NEW SLIDE) I believe that people
don’t use their gifts because of fear.
Fear of failure, fear of embarrassing themselves, fear of not doing it
just right. But as we learned last
week, Jesus is not a perfectionist when it comes to our performance. So we can take chances in serving Him. As Max Lucado showed us, we don’t have to be
great at everything! Let’s learn more
about what serving Him is all about in Romans 12:3-11, and I’m reading from the
New Living Translation.
II.
Scripture
Passage
A.
Romans
12:3-11 (from the New Living) – (NEW SLIDE) As God’s messenger, I give each of you this warning: Be honest in
your estimate of yourselves, measuring your value by how much faith God has
given you. (NEW SLIDE) 4 Just as our
bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, 5 so it is with
Christ’s body. We are all parts of his
one body, and each of us has different work to do. (NEW
SLIDE) And since we are all one
body in Christ, we belong to each other, and each of us needs all the
others. 6 God has given each of us the ability
to do certain things well. (NEW SLIDE) So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out when you
have faith that God is speaking through you.
7 If your gift is that of serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, do a good job of
teaching. (NEW SLIDE) 8 If your gift
is to encourage others, do it! If you
have money, share it generously. If God
has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness
to others, do it gladly. (NEW SLIDE) 9 Don’t just pretend that you love others. Really love them. Hate
what it wrong. Stand on the side of the
good. 10 Love each other with genuine
affection, and take delight in honoring each other. 11 Never be lazy in your work, but serve the Lord
enthusiastically.
III.
Serving
God Means Serving Others
A.
It’s
pretty liberating when we begin to fully realize that we don’t have to
everything – all we have to be is what God created us to be. What He requires of us is that we use the
spiritual gifts He has given us in the life of the church for His glory. That means that we are all ministers. Check out Ephesians 4:11-13 – He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet,
evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christians in skilled servant work,
working within Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically
and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son,
fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like
Christ. Do you catch how this Ephesians
passage dovetails with today’s Romans passage?
(NEW SLIDE) We’re all
called to be ministers – the work of the church, meeting the needs of the
people, is the responsibility of all
believers.
B.
We
all have that God-given responsibility and privilege. When the church is functioning like God created it to – each
person according to the faith God has given him or her – then the body of
Christ creates a safety net as it works together that keeps people from falling
through the cracks. That’s an awesome
picture, if you think about it. The
responsibility doesn’t just rest on my head, or on John’s or Randy’s or Liz’s
or Judy’s heads, it rests with all of us.
So all of us can use the gifts God has given us to serve others. If all of us get cheerfully involved, as the
Scripture tells us, then the church is a powerful witness to the love of Jesus
Christ and people’s hearts and lives get transformed. If anyone doesn’t get involved, then it hurts the church. It’s not just the pastor or the leaders of
the church who are called to this. (NEW SLIDE) All of us are called to
take the initiative and look out for the interests and concerns of others. That’s how Jesus created our church to
function!
C.
Illustration
– Kurt Kaiser wrote, People have often said, "You could have made it in the secular music world--why didn't you
pursue that?" But I'm not interested. Something my dad said to me years
ago settled that question for me: "Whatever gift you have been given, it
is your responsibility to burnish it, shine it, and make it the best it can be;
then give it back to the One from whom you received it" (as cited on
PreachingToday.com).
D.
This
is a powerful truth. The obvious catch
is: how do we pull this off? How can we
stay motivated to serve others cheerfully and eagerly? Is it even possible? I mean, after all, I get pretty discouraged
a lot of the time and I know you do too.
How do we do it? A key is found
in Matthew 25:40, where Jesus says, (NEW
SLIDE) “I tell you the truth,
whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for
me.” What difference do you
think it would make in our attitudes if we imagine Jesus as being the recipient
of our Christian service? In other
words, if in our minds we believed Jesus would personally benefit from whatever
ministry we did, how would that affect us?
Most of us, myself included, would be more willing to get involved in
others’ lives, even if it meant getting a little messy in showing that we care
where that love is desperately needed.
If we were convinced that Jesus would personally benefit from our
actions, we’d probably begin getting up the courage to ask important questions
about the dreams and lives of others.
You know what those questions would tell people? They’d say, “I’m genuinely interested in you
and I’m willing to help bear your burdens.”
E.
You
know what another positive effect would be?
Our homes would become ministry centers. They’d be open and available to people who need special care and
attention. And whenever we heard about
needs we’d be more likely to respond without hesitation. (NEW
SLIDE) You see, the critical truth is that Jesus does personally benefit
when we reach out in service to the needs of others. He said, “Whatever
you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” We all know that if any of us had a chance
to serve Jesus directly, we wouldn’t want anybody else to do it. We’d jump at it! Once we become aware of the reality of this truth, just as we
become aware of His presence always with us, and we begin to share some of His
grief at hurting people, we’ll be more than motivated to have a deep
involvement in meeting people’s needs.
I know that’s something we all have wanted for a long time, but have
been afraid to try. God will help us
get past our fears. He doesn’t despise
us for our fears – He wants to help us overcome them, and we overcome them by
becoming more and more aware of His presence in our daily lives. When we become sensitive to His presence
among us, we will be motivated to go out of our way to minister to the needs of
others.
F.
My
message for this morning, in a nutshell, is this: (NEW SLIDE) Becoming sensitive to Christ’s presence in the
church motivates His people to go out of their way to minister to the needs of
others. Since this is the fourth
Sunday we’ve been focusing on seeing the unseen Christ, hopefully we’re all
becoming more and more aware of His presence in our church. He is here with us. We don’t have to pitch if He has called us
to play third base. (NEW SLIDE) Because He is always
with us and knows us so well, we have the freedom of serving Him by serving
others according to the gifts He has given us. We tend to think big when it comes to ministering to others, but
it can be as simple as introducing yourself to a new person. Saying something like, “We’re glad you’re
here. Why don’t you come and join us –
sit with us, go to lunch with us, let us introduce you to some others.” Maybe it’d be as simple as saying, “Thanks
so much for faithfully serving week after week. It makes my worship experience much more meaningful because you
serve so lovingly.” Maybe your act of
kindness will happen after you get home from church, calling or emailing or
dropping a note to someone who wasn’t here saying, “I just wanted to let you
know I really missed you today. Is
everything okay? Is somebody sick? Is there anything I can do to help?” Do something specific, with a specific time
frame. It doesn’t have to be big, but
do it using the gifts God has given you.
As Richard Foster wrote, (NEW
SLIDE) Love is not communicated in
the big event but in the small acts of kindness (as cited on
PreachingToday.com).
G.
Now
I know that a lot of what we’ve been talking about is a bit beyond our comfort
zone for most of us. That’s okay. God is good at helping us when we step out
in faith in obedience to His call beyond our comfort zone. And He may call us to get more and more
involved. Sometimes we may get hurt in
the process. I understand that, because
all of us have been hurt while trying to help people. But God is big enough to help us heal from that pain and move on
to help others deal with their pain.
When we become sensitive to Christ’s presence among us, we will be
motivated to go out of our way to minister to the needs of others. All we have to do is to look for
opportunities to share Christ’s love.
Again, it doesn’t have to be a huge deal. Maybe just a few groceries for someone who's a little short this
month. Or a dinner invitation, or
listening to folks who are hurting before or after the service. (NEW
SLIDE) The underlying truth is that when we reach out on behalf of
others, it’s Jesus we’re really serving.
H.
There
is one caution to this whole thing.
It’s a lot easier for us to just do stuff rather than to invest in being
the people that God calls us to be.
What we do flows from who we are, and if we are investing daily time in
prayer and Bible reading so that we can get to know Jesus and His will for our
lives, then what we do will be pleasing to Him. But if we try to reach out on our own following our own motives,
it won’t do any good for the kingdom of God.
(NEW SLIDE) Reaching out
to meet the needs of others has to flow out of a love for others created by our
close, personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Spending time in God’s Word before we reach out is
imperative. Praying before we reach
out, while we’re reaching out, and after we’ve reached out is imperative as
well. I don’t think we realize how
powerfully we can reach people and how much their hearts can be opened to God
if we pray for them. Dee Duke said
something once that has stuck in my head and that I keep trying to put into
practice. He says, (NEW SLIDE) “To make eye contact with you is to pray for you.” We can all do that on the job, in the
schools, in the store, at church, everywhere we go. And we can pray together as a church for those who are
hurting. Think of how powerfully we can
reach people for Jesus, and meet their needs, if we will only pray, reach out,
and pray some more. That’s what Jesus
did, and that’s what He calls us to do.
I.
Illustration
– Watchman Nee writes, The fellowship of
the body is always two-way; receiving and giving. Wanting only to receive is
not fellowship. We may not be preachers, but when we come to worship we
nevertheless bring what we have. There must be help of the pulpit from the pew.
Sitting and looking on will not do. We must give others to drink, not
necessarily by speaking, but maybe by quiet prayer. ... (NEW SLIDE) Every member of the Body has a ministry, and every member is called
to function in the place appointed by the Lord. It makes no difference who does
the work if the glory is his (as cited on PreachingToday.com).
J.
That’s
the truth that Jesus is trying to teach us this morning. We can do great things for Him. We can reach out to meet the needs of others
knowing that it is really Jesus that we’re serving. Our prayers will be powerfully and effective in preparing the
hearts of those we’re reaching out to.
We can make a difference! JULIAN
C. MCPHEETERS, former president of Asbury Seminary, talking about his
predecessor, Henry Clay Morrison, said that he and Morrison were praying one
day when Morrison got excited. As the prayer went on, he started standing, and
finally he looked up and cried out, “O God! Save us from being ordinary!” I
think that is the vision of the servant. “I want to do something for God!” That
drives us. (MISSION FRONTIERS) My
prayer this morning would be the same as that of McPheeters: “God, save us from
being ordinary! I want to do something
for God!” And that’s my prayer for all
of us.
K.
Illustration
- Mikee Yaconelli in his book, Messy
Spirituality, wrote of how individual believers, who may think they are
insignificant, are brought together in the body of Christ to create a
magnificent work of art. "Morehead, Minnesota, the home of
Concordia College, lies across the state line from Fargo, North Dakota, a very
bleak part of the country (especially during the winter). All year, the
community anticipates Concordia's annual Christmas concert. Each December, a
huge choir and a full orchestra give a musical performance in the concert hall
at the college. Every year, the people
in the community create a unique background for the concert—a
one-hundred-by-thirty-foot mosaic. Beginning in the summer, about six months
before the concert, the community designs a new mosaic, rents an empty
building, and the painting begins.
Thousands of people, from junior high schoolers
to senior citizens, paint the mosaic. They paint by number on a large-scale
design that has thousands of tiny pieces. Day after day, month after month, one
little painted piece at a time, the picture on the mosaic gradually takes
shape. When everyone has finished
painting, an artist goes over the entire creation, perfecting the final work of
art. When the mosaic is completed, they place it behind the choir. It has the
appearance of an enormous, beautiful stained-glass window. The anticipates
Concordia's annual Christmas concert. Each December, a huge choir and a full
orchestra give a musical performance in the concert hall at the college. Every year, the people in the community
create a unique background for the concert—a one-hundred-by-thirty-foot mosaic.
Beginning in the summer, about six months before the concert, the community
designs a new mosaic, rents an empty building, and the painting begins. Thousands of people, from junior high schoolers to senior citizens, paint the
mosaic. They paint by number on a large-scale design that has thousands of tiny
pieces. Day after day, month after month, one little painted piece at a time,
the picture on the mosaic gradually takes shape. When everyone has finished painting, an artist goes over the
entire creation, perfecting the final work of art. When the mosaic is
completed, they place it behind the choir. It has the appearance of an
enormous, beautiful stained-glass window. The weekend of the concert, those
people who helped paint arrive early, along with their friends and neighbors.
Throughout the building, you can hear people whispering, "see that little
green spot below the camel's foot? I painted it." Every year in the middle of the summer in
Morehead, Minnesota, thousands of unknown, ordinary people paint a tiny
insignificant tile. Six months later, the result is a spectacularly beautiful
masterpiece" (as cited on PreachingToday.com).
L.
That’s
what we can all do together if we’re willing to be the people God is calling us
to be, so we can reach out to meet the needs of others because it’s really
Jesus we’re serving.
A.
Will
you covenant with me to make certain nobody falls through the cracks, so that
needs will be met and God will be glorified?
Will you covenant with me to be the people God calls us to be so that we
can do the work He calls us to do? If
you’re willing to covenant with me, please stand.
B.
Let’s
pray together.