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It's easy to see
how, if you really digest the 3 points we've studied so far, your life
would be better, our church would be better.
You were made
to worship, to bring pleasure to God… if everyone in our
congregation lived this out we would have a thousand people here every
Sunday, probably 4 or more services, and the hymns would be amazing and
the prayers would be powerful and the feeling here would be rich and
diverse. And you would have the same indescribable joy you feel every time
you go to a wedding or a graduation.
You were made
for fellowship. The church is our whole new, large family. If
everyone in our congregation lived this out there would be a love here
that would be overwhelmingly attractive to the lost and lonely in our
community. We wouldn't have to brainstorm ways of connecting with folks in
the community, we would have to find ways to open up and take them into
our church, we'd have to have several new members classes running each
week, because so many would be flocking in. And every Sunday would become
a family reunion.
You were made
for discipleship, to become more like Christ. If everyone in
our church were truly becoming more holy, opening up to the mind of
Christ, the heart of Christ, and the peace of Christ, then great hope
would spread throughout our community, hope that we could overcome any
brokenness that we encounter. The self-sacrificing love of Christ, the
power that comes from making ourselves vulnerable in a situation and
leaning on the power of God to save us, this is the amazing power that can
bring down the rulers and raise up the lowly, right injustice and bring
real peace. Becoming more like Christ changes the world, and changes you,
making you better than you already are, removing any rough edges that
still are a part of you.
What will it
look like if you start pursuing all 5 of these purposes in our life?
You'll look more like the first Adam and Eve. Being what you were made to
be. Living in peace and harmony with one another and with nature.
Our 4th purpose,
according to Rich Warren, is that we were created to serve.
In Ephesians 2:10 it is written that "We are God's workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance
for us to do." We are created to work, to serve God in some way. This
is the way we were created at the very beginning.
And we were each
given gifts to help us to those good works.
"Each one should use whatever gift
they've received to serve others."
Our fourth
purpose becomes very clear- It is to serve God by serving others.
Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden to do what? To serve, to
tend and keep the garden. They were migrant farm workers, our common
ancestors, doing a truly humble task, farming, pruning, clearing.
You are called to
do some job, some humble task, some work in the vineyard called the
church.
Or course, soon
after Adam and Eve were given their job the work became hard. They
listened to that little voice of the serpent and began to think that their
needs were more important than God's needs. They disobeyed God, went off
on their own way, and soon experienced work as a chore, drudgery,
exhausting and painful. And that's the way many of us have thought of
work, of service to others, ever since.
But that is not
the way it is meant to be, and that is not the way it must be. We were
made to experience Joy in our work, to do something of value that lasts
and that brings us closer to God through our service to others. And the
joy begins when we simply make ourselves available…
Serving like
Jesus means being available.
Whenever you see a leader in the church, someone who serves on
Finance, or on the church council, or on property, someone who greets you
at the front door or sits behind one of the tables in the Gathering Area
today, I want you to take a good look. Do they look like people with lots
of extra time on their hands to you? Actually they are all extremely busy
people who have made serving a priority in their lives. They have chosen
to make themselves available. And that is a very Christ-like
decision.
There are lots of
examples in the gospels of Jesus going from one place to anther, running
around on one of his hard working days, and simply stopping and helping
when he was asked.
What do you want
me to do was the question that was always on his lips. He was ready to go
at all times to help a seeker in need. He lived out the teaching in
Proverbs, "Never tell your neighbors to wait until tomorrow if you
can help them now."
But unlike Jesus,
we routinely don't make ourselves available. We hoard our time, we guard
our calendars tightly. A majority of the times when I approach someone to
take on a task in the church, whether it is to be nominated for a standing
position in leadership or to teach a class or serve in some daily or
weekly capacity, the response is, I'm too busy right now. Wait till next
year.
We very quickly
put up barriers to service, and all of those barriers are spiritual
issues.
The first barrier is self-centeredness. Maybe the number one
reason we have troubling serving God and working for others and getting
great pleasure out of it is that we get in the way. We are basically
self-centered people. We want what we want. If we are not careful we can
fill our lives with such busy-ness following our interests that there is
no room left for compassion and mercy and service.
The only way to
overcome this self-centeredness of ours is through prayer. It will keep
creeping up on us. It dissipates when we offer ourselves again and again
to God through prayer. Keep the words of St. Ignatius of Loyola sealed in
your heart and pray them often:
Teach us,
good Lord, to serve you as you deserve: to give and not to count the
cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for
rest; to labor and not to ask for any reward save that of knowing that
we do your will.
Perfectionism
is an attitude that keeps us from working well and serving God. You know
how that goes. Perfectionism leads us to say things like, "Are you
sure I'm the right person for the job? You want to get the best person in
there and I think there is a better person than me to do that." Or
maybe your perfectionism runs this way- if I can't do it perfectly right
I'm not going to do it. These attitudes simply don't work. They produce no
work. The fact is if you wait for conditions to be perfect, or if you wait
for the opportunity to do things exactly your way, just right, chances are
good you'll never get anything done at all. Start serving, even though
your skills may not be perfect. Start serving, even though you think you
don't have the time. Start serving and God will find a way to mold you and
shape you and make it fit, make it work.
Rick Warren
suggests that Materialism keeps us from serving well. It's tough to
find the time to serve God if you spend most of your time earning money.
Jesus said, "No servant can serve 2 masters. You cannot serve God and
money." (Luke 16:13) You have to decide in this life whether you are
going to be a kingdom builder or a wealth builder. Making money and having
a satisfying career is wonderful, it really is. But not a penny that you
and I make is ever going to make it to heaven. The character that we build
within ourselves is. Don't let things get in the way of your service to
God and to others. If you volunteer to work with the youth or sing in the
choir or lead a Bible study you won't earn a penny by doing it. It might
even cost you a few dollars. But it might just be the single most
important thing you have ever done with your life. And it will definitely
make a difference in the life of someone else.
Being a good
servant of Jesus Christ all begins with gratitude.
Serving like Jesus means being grateful. We serve because we have
first been served. In a few minutes you'll have a chance to walk through
the ministry fair in the Gathering Area. And if you don't have an attitude
of thankfulness in your heart for all that God has given you, you are
going to experience the fair as oppressive, people just trying to con you
into spending some of your precious time doing work around the church.
Monitor your heart today. We are going to be praying for it in a couple of
minutes. BE careful that these barriers don't spring up inside of you as
you explore your purpose.
The first barrier
to living gratefully is comparing and criticizing. When we compare
ourselves to others, when we criticize others, it just sucks the gratitude
right out of our lives. The Bible talks about this in Romans 14:4. Read it
along with me please…
"Who are you to criticize someone else's
servant? The Lord will determine whether His servant
his been successful."
Don't compare
yourselves to anyone else in the church and say, "Of course they can
give more because they are rich. Of course they can go on a mission trip
because they have more time." Don't criticize in any way people who
are offering any part of their lives in humble service to Christ. That is
not your job. And it only lessens you, not them.
Rick Warren lists wrong
motivations as another barrier to serving. Don't serve as a way to
show off your talents and gifts, don't serve in order to get people to
like you, don't serve as a way to bargain with God- "if I go to
church every Sunday and clean up the parking lot afterwards, God, please
straighten my son out." If you have any mixed motivations when you do
an act of Christian service, your service will soon stop because that
which motivates you will not have its needs met. There is only one
motivation that can lead us to pour out our lives, consistently, deeply,
effectively- it is the desire to give back because we have some sense of
how much God has given to us. That is very childlike, very pure and
simple. And it's essential. It flows out of living a life of faith.
Serving like
Jesus means being faithful.
Faithful means you don't give up. Never give up. Even when you are
discouraged, when you are tired, when you get hurt, when you are
criticized. You don't take your ball and say, "I'm going home."
You serve for the rest of your life. You are persistent.
Do you know what
helps me stay faithful to my call to ministry? How I have been able to be
a pastor in the church for 23 years while a large percentage of pastors
leave the church within 5 years of their ordination? It's because I have a
personal goal, way down the road, that I never take my eyes off of. When I
stand before my Lord, I want to hear the words, "Well done, good and
faithful servant." None of what the rest of you says really matters
to me. You can call me the worst pastor you've ever seen, you can call me
God's gift to the church, that won't stop me. Ok, I might stop for a
little bit to enjoy the "God's gift" thing. And I definitely
slow down and do a little self-reflection when I'm criticized. But I'm not
going to let anything anybody says stop me from hearing those words.
You are shaped
to serve.
The happiest people in the world are the ones who realize they were
reborn to serve. A wise old archbishop form the 18th century, archbishop
Secker once said, "There are 3 kinds of servants in the world: some
are slaves , and they serve from fear, others are hirelings, and serve for
wages, and the last are sons and daughters and they serve because they
love.
Let love lead you
today. Walk through the Ministry Fair and see if there isn't a tug in your
heart to serve. Find a way, find several ways, to take your talents and
put them to use, motivated simply by gratitude to God. Do all that you can
in this life so that in the life to come you may hear the words,
"Well done, good and faithful servant." Amen.
2006,
Rev. Dr. Truman T. Brooks
West Chester United Methodist Church
129 S. High St, West Chester, PA 19382
www.WestChesterUMC.com
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