Why We Serve

i'm going to uh read a text real quick and then i'll let you be seated and we'll get started it feels like it's been a little bit since i've been able to share some thoughts and share this time with you i we were joking around and the vespuel saying they're kind of making fun about they said good to see you as if i hadn't been here in a long time and to be honest i couldn't remember if i was here or not got a little bit of lost uh in the time of life right now

just things are busy things are chaotic so it seems like it's been a while since i've been able to be with you especially on a wednesday night and i'm thankful i'm thankful to be with you and hopefully by the end of this short sermon you will be thankful to be with me as well galatians 5 13 reads you my brothers and sisters were called to be free but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh don't use your freedom to make it all about yourself rather or instead of that serve one another humbly and

in love don't use this freedom that we have acquired don't use this freedom in christ that we have for just your own benefit and it is a personal benefit to experience the freedom of christ amen but don't use it just for yourself but use this freedom to serve others to serve them humbly and in love i want to pray here at the outset that god would speak to us tonight he would instruct us and guide us on our way father we thank you for your word we thank you for your presence that we feel even

here and now i pray god that you had ready the soil of our hearts i pray that you had ready our minds soften them jesus so that we could hear your word tonight not just the words that are spoken from my mouth god but the words of your spirit that are being spoken to your church in this place tonight god i pray that we would hear them and that we would receive them and be instructed by them and then walk in them lord that is my prayer and i know that it is this church's hope

so we prayed together in the name of jesus and everybody said amen you can go ahead and be seated give a couple introductory notes here that the bible itself as a whole is rife it's filled with calls to serve to serve god to serve the church and even to serve society to do good within our society and within our culture and some have even observed that service possibly could be one of the defining markers of what makes the church the church serving one another jesus himself said they'll know that you're my disciples by what the

love you have one for another and that certainly they would have seen manifested in service and the church is indeed called to be servants of god peter says we're priests that's a function that we have to to perform for god and and many people in this room that have spent time in a church service this is so funny i just got distracted by that just i just i have to say at the beginning there is nothing in my sermon about bananas this is a joke between myself and the wonderful man eric operating the screen why

we serve is my title uh maybe i can work it in we'll see we'll see what happens but many people in this room many people that have grown up in church people that are maybe listening live right now or maybe you're listening later many of us are familiar with the calls or have heard the calls to service in the church right we've heard that we've experienced that we've participated in that we've we've seen the various ministries that are an aid to the church an age of the church's programs the aid to the church's events or

various ministries that require volunteers to be successful we're familiar with that maybe it's cleaning up or setting up maybe it's tearing down maybe it's hospital ministry prayer services maybe you're usher a greeter maybe you're a speaker or a food preparer a singer a musician a song or a service leader all of these things are viable but a very limited list of what it means to serve in the church how many have filled at least one of those things oh yeah we're familiar with it some other things could be calling six saints communicating the cancellation of

services which hopefully is not happening too often now maybe you're taking care of the offerings organizing the clerical works of the church being at business meetings counseling sessions or other avenues all of these fit into the category of service for the church and all these things are important all of these things are necessary for the church to function as a church but at times i think we should and maybe we naturally just do ask the perennial the big question why why all of the service why all of the sacrifice why all the extra work outside

of my already long work week why after all of the chaos that life brings all the chaos that a family brings a dog brings why after all of that am i required am i asked to by the word of god to serve his people to serve the church why is that do i not come to church to be served in some sense at least to be refilled with the spirit of god to be fed the word to be strengthened in the presence of god and by the fellowship of his people is not the greater purpose

of the church this act of granting some sort of solace from the craziness the busyness of life isn't that have something to do with the church to offer a sacred space in which we can enjoy that coveted rest that we're looking for the writer of hebrews even goes so far as to say that the spirit of god is rest it's peace it's comfort so why then seeing that rest is an option on the table why then are we called to serve that would seem like an antonym to the word rest service effort giving something of

one's self why is that something that we are called to do and to give something of ourselves is exactly just that it is to give something often ourselves and the bible's full of it and and paul is actually full of this general rhetoric too when he's trying to combat these notions of i don't really want to serve because if we're honest i don't really want to serve naturally i'll be honest but he says this in philippians 2 he says don't do anything out of selfish ambition or vain conceit rather in humility value others above yourselves

not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others and your relationships with one another have the same mindset as christ jesus who being in very nature god did not consider equality with god something to be used to his own advantage rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death even the death on a cross here we are confronted with the reality of our standard christ

that reality that standard is a challenging one have the same mindset as christ paul says and it's easy for him to say our spirits can murmur before realizing what kind of life paul actually lived yet even after remembering paul's rather undesirable life the life of a vagabond with no solace for his weariness no no rest for his wearied head we still fail to understand why a man like that and also individuals like us are called on to serve hadn't paul done enough hadn't he done enough being the great apostle paul was a difficult task it

required much service a lot of cert the guy was stoned and whipped and shipwrecked and still here he is calling the church to service and he didn't just call people to service he didn't forsake his own belief that service was a necessity of being a christian instead of demanding that the church take care of him and his needs while he ministered the gospel tomb and the church with the of the thessalonians he reminded them he said i worked a job while i was helping you so that i wouldn't be a burden on you i did

an extra thing i worked an extra job on top of all of the service i was granting you so that i would not burden you with the needs of my own in other words he served but even still even after wondering why a man like paul would be that way about service we must ask the question afresh to ourselves why would he believe in serving so strongly and perhaps more pressing for us why would or why should we believe in serving the church now and today why should we believe that giving of ourselves for the

sake of others is a christian virtue that we ought to seek out even in our weariness even in our busyness even when we're tired the basic answer to that question is pretty easy to find in scripture we could even go back to our opening text in galatians 5 13. he says christ has made you free you were called by christ to be free christ has granted us a freedom yes in context of galatians freedom from jewish practices we don't have to do all all of those things to be in a relationship with god that's true

that's good but also he says freedom from the curse of sin freedom from the bondage and the stronghold of sin that had such a grip on our lives at one point it even possibly has a grip on this world today we are free from that the mental emotional and spiritual torment that aches a person to their innermost core has been defeated by christ and now all that is left on the table all that is left and free for the taking is freedom that is all that is left this is the source this is the cause

this is the reason of our service to others this is why it's okay for me whenever i have to serve in the church because i once was not free i had experienced moments of depression oppression anxiety i had experienced the consequences of sin i had experienced addiction i lived all of that but whenever i accepted christ for myself and my own life i had been made something new and so when christ says hey i would like you to do something for me serve my people i say okay whatever you want because the things i was

doing in the past never granted me the sort of freedom that i have now that's the basic answer that's the exciting answer that because christ has done something in my life i feel a freedom to serve i feel a freedom to be a servant as oxymoronic as that sounds the old model really the model that needs to be updated because it it's still a present model as i i serve or her service uh means it's a have to do to be a part of the church meaning well i'm a part of this community so i

might as well pull my own weight it might as well put my time in i might as well you know do my own thing to be a participant of the culture and and the group that i'm a part of and that's all fine that's good that can get us by that gets stuff done that helps us but i think that misses the biblical model of service of why we commit to service this new model really this ancient biblical model i'm going to call it the new model though his service equals a i must serve not

because of a law not because someone is making me do it but because of my transformed life and my new identity i want to invest in the source that gave me freedom i want to find what god finds important i want to find that important i want to give my life to the things that god wants me to give my life to because i have been transformed and set free this is the simple and basic answer this is the basic form of the gospel we were once servants to sin and now we are free to

serve the church but i want to try to expand that vision just a little bit i want to just add something to that vision maybe a new lens for understanding why service in the church is so important when you read the new testament it doesn't take long to come across what i'm going to call temple language meaning language that refers to that old testament jewish temple we have in first corinthians 3 16 paul's writing he says don't you know that you yourselves are god's temple and that god's spirit dwells in your midst that sounds an

awful lot like the spirit of god dwelling in that tabernacle or dwelling in that temple he's very explicit here he says in fact you're the temple and god's in your midst he says it again later in the same letter in first corinthians 6 19 he says do you not know that your bodies your individual bodies not just the corporate church but your body is the temple of the holy spirit who is in you whom you've received from god you are not your own that's more of an overt reference to being the temple we have some

vivid or graphic examples maybe in revelation where jesus is seen in the middle of all the lamp stands representing the church jesus is literally dwelling in the middle of the church as god's spirit dwelled in the temple we have less obvious examples to us i i believe they would have been obvious to those original audiences though we have things about jesus where they say in colossians 1 19 paul says for god was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him you catch that temple language jesus himself is the embodied temple of god where the

eternal spirit of god dwells bodily so that when we come in contact with jesus we are coming in contact with the fullness of god we're not getting part of god we're not getting a little bit of god we are getting the fullness of god paul says it again later in that same letter colossians 2 9 for in christ all the fullness of the deity lives or dwells like that tabernacle like that temple dwells in bodily form john 1 14 is a little more explicit in the greek he says the word became flesh and made his

dwelling that greek word you could even say tabernacled uses that specific word referencing that spirit of god dwelling that place in the wilderness he says that word that jesus became flesh and made his dwelling among us we have seen his glory the reference to that shekinah glory that we see in the old testament we have seen that glory in jesus christ the glory of the only one and only son who came from the father full of grace and truth we have seen that that temple language about jesus we see that in scripture right jesus is

that temple where the spirit of god is but what about the church paul says in ephesians 1 22-23 and god placed all things under his meaning jesus's feet an appointment would be head over everything for the church which is his body catch this the fullness of him who fills everything and every way paul makes it a little more explicit in the next chapter he says and and and in him you two are being built together to become a dwelling in which god lives by his spirit do you hear that dwelling language that spirit of god

language that temple language in the church right here on a wednesday night in this place we are a dwelling for the shekinah glory presence of god and i have other scriptures i went light on eric tonight maybe first peter where he says we're being built into a spiritual house i could go there but i'm going to move on read your bibles it's almost every other page the spirit of god is in the church but why is this important this temple language well i'm glad you asked the temple or the tabernacle when you look at it

in the old testament it was an awesome place you had to do a lot of things to make sure that the temple was operated correctly you had to behave certain ways you had to wear certain things you had to bring certain things to the temple you had to leave certain things at the temple you had to live a distance away from the temple there's a lot of rules and laws about the temple in the old testament there were special vestments or garments special practices methods appropriate times and types of sacrifices there were special prayers offered

in the temple maybe the prayer on the day of atonement that we find in leviticus leviticus 16 where the sins of israel were prayed over this scapegoat and that scapegoat was sent off into the wilderness to die representing the departing of the sins of israel into the wilderness to never be found again that happened in and only at the temple maybe we have the blessing prayer that we find in number six where where the priests would pray over the people of israel and say the lord bless you and keep you lord make his face shine

on you and be gracious to you the lord turn his face toward you and give you peace and he goes on and says so they will put my name on the children of israel and i will bless them that happened where at the temple in the temple because it was in the temple where the presence of god dwelled it happened in moses and the tabernacle it said the cloud the glory of god would fill that temple and moses would go in and speak to god as a friend face to face imagine that speaking to the

glory cloud the shekinah of god it happened to solomon when he built that first temple in first kings 8 10-11 they bring the ark of the covenant in they built the temple it says the glory filled that temple and the cloud was so tangible it says the priests could not even stand to do the things that they were supposed to do in the temple because the spirit of god was so tangible and powerful and present in that place the temple if you haven't caught it yet was the nexus the meeting point between heaven and earth

it was the source of hope and continued prosperity protection and peace and blessing for israel not because the temple was some special building in and of itself not because it had so many walls or so many dimensions not because of that but because the spirit of god was in the temple and to destroy or fail to operate the temple properly was to cut israel off from the source of her identity and purpose if you didn't take the temple seriously you were not taking yourself seriously you were not taking god seriously because if you were to

mishandle the temple it meant the mishandling of god for if god was mishandled there was a threat of him leaving the temple and if he were ever to lead the temple which he did and it's painted very vividly in ezekiel 10 18. if god were ever to leave the temple israel will be abandoned by their hope and the world would have lost its light say that again if the spirit of god would ever have left the temple israel would have been abandoned by their hope and the world would have lost its light all of this

understanding of the importance of the temple the consequences of not taking the temple seriously are imported into the new testament when it says the church is now the temple of god paul even goes as far to say in that first corinthians chapter 3 passage a little after he says if you destroy the temple in context he's talking about a sowing discord and disunity if you're destroying the relationships of the church he says if you destroy the temple god will judge and destroy you god takes the temple seriously both then and now he takes the temple

seriously we as individuals yes and as the corporate body yes are that temple the nexus point at which heaven and earth meet we are the place in which god communes with his creation we are the space in which god pours out his blessings to the world we are the dwelling place of god how is this related to service i'm glad you asked that too you all are full of questions tonight and it's helping me teach so thank you just as israel serviced the temple because it was important as the place that brought them and god

the creator and the creation into relationship so too does paul and the rest of the new testament warn us to service the church for it is now the place where god and the world meet and just as if israel would have forsaken her duties to the temple meaning the presence of god just as if they would have done that the risk of corrupting the whole enterprise losing all of the power associated with the temple so too are we if we do not pay attention if we do not take heed to the temple of god we

too are at risk of corrupting the whole thing and losing out on the power that is associated that dwells in the temple and when viewing the church in this light i believe it's an important light as the connecting point between a dark world and the light of god a chaotic world and a god that offers peace i am compelled all the more to serve her and in case we're falling into the world of abstraction i don't i don't mean serving this building although that's a part of it i don't mean just servicing these four walls

making sure all the programs of this church are taken care of and that's a part of it sure that's good but i'm talking about you and i serving one another relationships that we have as the temple of god i'm compelled knowing the importance of this body to serve her to serve you all the more i'll give more of me if it means more of god is poured out into the hurting i'll offer my hands my feet hello from my time my speech and my mind i i'll give it to him if it means god will

and does dwell here i'll make sure that the church stands in trying times i'll make certain that she continues ahead even in stormy conditions i'll give up my preferences if it means the securing of her status and i laid down my life for her because it is through the church that god dwells in the earth yes god fills all of space and he's really bound by nothing i know that but i believe there may be a difference between god simply being around and god dwelling somewhere when god is simply around he's just sort of filling

the space around us he's often avoided and he's easily ignored when he's just around but when god dwells he cannot be missed because the very atmosphere changes when he dwells thus i will fight for the church's integrity for god longs for a church that is without spot or wrinkle and the church is not perfect i readily admit that so i will contend for her honesty for the lord is near to those of a contrite heart i will struggle for her harmony for how good and pleasant it is when god's people live together in unity i

will wrestle in prayer for her healing for god will heal those that turn to him and i will defend her message for it pleases god through that message to make right all that is wrong with the world in other words i will serve the church in other words this is a dangerous public commitment but in other words i will serve you i will serve the people that constitute the body of my lord i will give of my time and yes even my possessions if it means the building up of the temple of god because it

is only when the temple is functioning appropriately does god do well and when we're serving in the church when we're serving each other we're maintaining the very thing that matters most in this world yes we need balance i understand that because people can take advantage of of people who are willing to sacrifice i get that and we do need rest and we need balance we need all of those things but we must also never forget that giving of ourselves for the sake of each other for the church in that act we're never really giving anything

up from for by maintaining the temple of god we avail ourselves to all the blessings and goodness that the presence of god brings or has jesus said it possibly better than i whoever wants to save their life make it all about themselves they'll lose it but whoever loses their life for me they'll find it i hope you understand my heart tonight whenever i'm calling people to service amid a busy season i feel like every season has been busy is it really even fair to say a busy season anymore it's just busy right i'm learning that

i guess even amidst all this business we need to still hear the call of god to serve because when this is right meaning the church and i don't mean just the people in this from the church at large but for the sake of tonight when this is right our field benefits when the temple is right the glory of god can dwell this might be asking too much for god i don't know maybe i don't have enough faith i wish there was a moment and i i've heard past moments of apc of this happening i wish

all around st louis sometime when people when we're having service in here you could see for miles maybe a cloud above this building the glory of god resting in his temple and i wish it would draw all of st louis to encounter this god of glory that we worship i pray for that i long for that but i also want to take the next step and i know this church does too i also want to serve to those means let me just make can i just get plain is that okay if someone's feelings are hurt

let's resolve that let's serve one another in love and in humility if someone has a need and we have the physical ability to meet that need let's meet it let's serve one another and humility and love if someone needs to talk and maybe they're that annoying person that always needs to talk maybe listen to him anyway all of this sounds menial all this sounds like little steps that we take but what it really means is that this this is the avenue for the glory of god to come down to a properly maintained temple and to

change the world that surrounds us this is what i want this is what we need i want to quote something a.w tozer he's a pastor of old and he's really talking about some of the things we do as christians he calls them the religious externals he's talking about that and he's talking about uh essentially for people that are already saved people that have experienced the the deliverance of god those things mean something to them they have purpose for them but for people that have no relationship with god it doesn't really matter because for them it's

just stuff they're doing it's not relational with god he says religious externals may have a meaning for the god-inhabited soul for any others they're not only useless but may actually become snares deceiving them into a false perilous sense of security let me just rewrite that for the sake of tonight serving the church service in the church has meaning for us because we know what it means we know the source and reason and purpose for our service and if we ever lose sight of that that we serve to maintain the dwelling glory of god in his

temple if we ever lose that then these become just simple externals that are not only useless but possibly even become snares to us a snare called burnout a snare that causes us to ask the question why am i doing all this work i'm not even being paid but for those of us that know why we're doing it it's for the glory of god yes bringing glory to him but also for the glory of god and the effects that ripple out from the presence of god taking up residence in a place yes musicians can come i

want to have a time of prayer here at the end in fact you all can stand i'm done we've been talking a whole lot about our theme about being the church and serving our field and being the church is sometimes more practical than we like to admit like listening to that annoying person that needs to talk or making right with somebody who maybe you have a hurt relationship with that could sound trivial that can sound small that can sound too practical for the spiritually minded of us but those small practicalities are of immense spiritual and

theological importance they are the means by which we achieve spiritual health the means by which the church not only survives but thrives they are the means by which the church is the church i remember uh this is fun don't nobody get worried i remember old foot washing services as a child does anybody remember them i was scared not because i was afraid to wash people's feet but because what my feet look like most of the time i wear boots for work and i play a lot of basketball so i've got nasty calluses and i won't

you know disturb you but i i really like that that symbol that we have in the new testament don't worry there's no buckets anywhere you know i really like that symbol in the new testament because i think it captures exactly what the church is supposed to be all about jesus even starts washing one of the apostles feet peter he says what are you doing you're the lord no hold on don't wash my feet he says if you don't if you don't let me wash your feet to model service to model servanthood servant to model what

this church should be all about if you don't let me do that you have no part in me and then peter gets real zealous he's like then give me a bath you know go read it it's weird peter gets real happy about it he's like well i want to be a part of christ i want to be a part of this body i i want all of that so let's do it but i love that i love that scene because jesus tells us what it's all really about service i'm here for you and you're here

for me not to put words in your mouth but that's what it's all about and what comes of all of that of all of the foot washing and sometimes service feels like you're washing a stinky foot sometimes you are washing a stinky foot sometimes that's what service is about but what is really happening i just i love that scene of somebody down on their knees scrubbing away at some nasty calloused feet all i can imagine is the glory of god hovering over that moment affirming what is happening the service of the body to and for

the body mother teresa was confronted by a reporter we all know mother teresa she's a little crazy she did some crazy stuff stuff that people don't think about doing but her life was devoted to it and somebody said i wouldn't do what you do for all of the money in the world she looked back and smiled and said neither would i it was about something bigger for her and it should be about something bigger for us we can't do any grand deals or grand gestures of service tonight but we can do one thing and that's

pray for each other and those of you that know me know that i don't just walk away from a service so if you're checking your watches put them away for a second give me three minutes starting in two minutes who who has a need in their life tonight of any kind whether it's provisional lift him up high i want to see him whatever it is okay keep your hands up for me please if anyone does not have their hand up and even if you do look around keep them up for me if you can look

around and find somebody that has a hand up target acquired now here's what i want you to do i want you to go to them and i want you to ask if you were comfortable enough would you share what that need is with me so i can pray more specifically if they're not comfortable with that that's okay god knows and you can pray a general prayer and the glory of god will meet you right there that's fine that's okay god's good god's awesome he can do that but if they will share with you i want

you to do what paul says at the end of galatians where he says i want you to bear up one another's burdens i want you to pray for that need as if it is your own and i want you at least in our mind maybe in some very small way serve that person dedicate the next few minutes of your life that you'll never get back to praying for someone other than yourself praying for that person that need raise your hand again if you had a need lift him high for me so i can see him

everybody look around we've got a lot of options here okay we've got a lot of options i'm gonna put the mic down and we're gonna we're gonna play sister melody might even sing for us who knows we're gonna find out but i want us to enter into a time of prayer and service to the body of christ and i promise you the glory of god will meet us here tonight let's do that so if you can use anything lord you can use me if you can use anything lord you can use me take my hands

lord take my feet touch my heart lord speak through me if you can use anything lord you can use me if you can use anything lord you can use me you can use anything lord you can use me take my hands lord take my feet touch my heart lord speak through me if you can use anything lord you can use me if you can use anything lord you can use me if you can use anything lord you can use me take my hands lord take my feet touch my heart lord speak through me if you

can use anything lord take my hands lord take my feet touch my heart lord speak through me if you can use me if you can use anything lord you can use me if you can use anything lord you can use me take my hands lord take my feet touch my heart lord speak through me if you can use anything lord you can use me if you can use anything lord you be through me so i know i don't have to ask but who felt that when the temple is working the glory of god is present

and the good news is we're the temple right and the temple has wifi the temple has cell service the temple has internet which means if you're outside of this building and you can't get immediately to somebody physically call them say hey will you pray with me right now i've got something going on and the glory of god somehow i don't know how you would imagine it but the glory of god will rest on those cellular waves however you want to imagine that in your mind the glory of god will meet the body because the temple

is functioning right it's functioning right it's about service it's about the glory you can't separate the two they go together father thank you for the challenge of your word thank you for the instructing that it brings thank you that you have led us and spoken to us and even met us here tonight jesus thank you that you heard our prayers that we just prayed for one another and thank you god that you worked even here and now in this place but that you're going to continue to work as we go to our jobs we go

back to our homes our families our schools lord you you're going to meet us there and be with us there we thank you for that jesus we want to serve well we want to serve well thank you lord in jesus name we pray everybody said amen you're more than welcome to stick around and fellowship and and continue praying even if you like as far as this service is concerned you are dismissed in the name of the lord go with god and be blessed and serve amen