How To Improve Your Serve In Community! Series

Series: How to improve your serve?

Thesis: As Christians we are called to be servants! Yes, I said the “s” word “servants” – for many this term seems to imply to some – a slave, a person lacking self-esteem, someone of lower class, a person crushed in spirit, a person with low self-worth. But Jesus (The Great I Am) came to serve and so should we.

Scripture Texts:

Philippines 2:4-8 (NIV)

4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Introduction:

Last week I shared how I had to get good at improving my serve so I could become a better racquet ball player. I demonstrated by hitting the ball into you the audience to make a point to you that you would not forget. When I did this, in practice and in service. I hit the two chandeliers – up there in front of the balcony – and one ball bounced out of the balcony and hit Nancy in the head – my illustration did not go as I planned but I think you will remember that illustration for a longtime – so today I will not be hitting any racquet balls – I desire to prevent any more damage to the chandeliers or people – but I would like you to know that I did warn you last week in my sermon that Christianity is dangerous and not always safe! The same could be said about Sunday service at CHC 😊.

But my point in sharing this illustration was: If I wanted to improve my racquet ball game. This meant I had to improve my serve. To improve my serve took commitment, repetition, training, practice, and hard work to improve it.

I also shared last week that Jesus had an awesome serve in the game of life – It was miraculous and powerful serve and Jesus hit the ball with divine power smoking it past all who even tried to return His serve! His serve defeated the great deceiver and won back a host of people for God. Jesus instructed us through his life and ministry that we too need to serve God by loving Him and loving our neighbors. So, we all need to take the challenge to improve our serves. Why serve? So we can see changed lives and neighborhoods for the Kingdom of the Lord!

Quote Swindoll:

He states, “Listen as He declares His primary reason for coming: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). No mumbo jumbo. Just straight -from-the shoulder admission. He came to serve and to give. It makes sense, then to say that God desires the same for us” (Page 18).

Why improve our serve today? Because our Covid world has caused even more and more people to disconnect from each other – it has caused Churches and organizations to lose volunteer people who are willing to serve others like never before. Our impersonal world is causing more distance than ever – we have the highest rate of suicide ever – highest rate of mental health problems, depression, hopelessness and so I see the need is greater than ever to start serving again. We need to be the church and be like Jesus by choosing to improve our serve by serving others: More than ever before we need to commit to work on improving our serve in the following areas:

1. We need to improve our serve with God!

2. We need to improve our serve in our community!

3. We need to improve our serve in the workplace!

4. We need to improve our serve in church and in other ministries!

5. We need to improve our serve in our families!

Observation: Nancy MacRitchie funeral Tuesday night lessons learned! Serving makes a difference in people’s lives!

Study: UNSELFISH AND HAPPY: A fascinating study on the principle of the Golden Rule was conducted by Bernard Rimland, director of the Institute for Child Behavior Research. Rimland found that "The happiest people are those who help others." Each person involved in the study was asked to list ten people he knew best and to label them as happy or not happy. Then they were to go through the list again and label each one as selfish or unselfish, using the following definition of selfishness: a stable tendency to devote one’s time and resources to one’s own interests and welfare--an unwillingness to inconvenience one’s self for others." In categorizing the results, Rimland found that all of the people labeled happy were also labeled unselfish. He wrote that those "whose activities are devoted to bringing themselves happiness...are far less likely to be happy than those whose efforts are devoted to making others happy" Rimland concluded: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." SOURCE: Martin & Diedre Bobgan, How To Counsel From Scripture, Moody Press, 1985, p. 123. CITATION: Rimland, ’The Altruism.