Service, In Giving. Series

Today I’d like to start with a question before answering it. Who owns what, what can we give to God? The answer is this and it may come as a bit of a surprise, God owns everything, it all belongs to Him, including our skills and our capabilities. As Christians people saved by the grace of God, we are to use them to bring glory to Him. I would like to acknowledge Dr Harry Wendt’s contribution to this message.

This material is to be used in conjunction with Dr Harry Wendt’s material “In Heavens Name, Why on Earth.”

The 1970’s Bob Dylan on his Slow Train Coming Album, sang a song entitled. “Gotta Serve Somebody”

The song chorus goes like this:

You’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed,

You’re gonna have to serve somebody,

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord,

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

In the album Bob sings about his belief in Jesus and how he sees Jesus at work in the world. While there are a few who doubt Bob’s sincerity he is a believer. In a 2009 interview with Bill Flanagan promoting his Christmas LP, ‘Christmas in the Heart’, Flanagan commented on the, quote, "heroic performance Dylan gave of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and that Dylan "delivered the song like a true believer". Dylan replied: "Well, I am a true believer." [Wikipedia].

Now after last week when I started teaching on the Lifestyle of Generosity incidentally how are you doing with the devotional, there is still time, I still have spare copies if you didn’t receive one. Thanks to those of you who gave me feedback last week. Speaking about those areas of what God has given us can be a bit hard to address sometimes, because we get into God giving us our time, talents and treasures. It took me a wee while to sort out the third of those three in my own life. I understood that God had given me my time and he could have it when required, Sunday Morning 10.00-11.30am, Bible study and reading, Bible Class, mowing someone's lawn or visiting the elderly, I was alright with all those things, even a few evening meetings. Talents, well as a young fella, I was a bit devoid of useful church friendly talents. I’ve mentioned the lawn mowing, also did that on a roster at Church, read the scripture a bit at the Methodist service in Stoke but not often, was a Bible Class leader and helped in a few other areas. As an officer, God gets the lion's share of my time and talents these days. I am hopeful that I will have used them to make a difference for God’ Kingdom in what time I’ve got left. That is my prayer.

But and it’s a reasonably big but, but the treasures were a bit of an issue. I got a bit like Gollum with the one ring, with MY treasures; “My Precious” or like the seagulls in Finding Nemo. MINE, mine, mine mine.

The theme I’m looking at today is along the lines of “Worship God alone you are His people” (SBI). That worship is how we live in response with our whole beings and the use of our time, talents and treasures.

Originally back at creation God had a plan; where all humans would live in harmony worshiping Him, for what He has done in for us, our ancestors blew it and sin entered the word, we also know that God is not lost, we are or were lost and God came or comes looking for us! Some don’t want to be found. Remember the parable of the Prodigal Son, he was off doing his own thing, he spent all his inheritance, and he was living with the pigs, and came to his senses, then returned to his Father, who on seeing him, ran to meet him. This is a picture of God running to us when we come to our sense's and realise that we are losing our current and eternal inheritance. God owns everything and we are provided with what we need to live. God provided a way for us to have a relationship with Him through Jesus the Servant King. As believers and because of Jesus actions we are to Worship God alone as His people

I’m unsure about the rest of you but there have been times in my life when I have wondered, looking at the mortgage, the car, books and the other possessions “How does my relationship with Jesus fit into all this?” or “How do I fit Christianity into all these other things?”

Really the question should be “How does all this stuff fit into my relationship with Christ?”

The guts of the matter, a good Olde English word that “guts” meaning a few things, oh yes, I did say guts. In this case it means “the inner parts or essence of something.” Google it; the guts, of the matter is that Christianity is not just an important part of life, for us Christians, “Jesus is to be Lord of all life, not just part of it.” As believers and because of Jesus actions we are to Worship God alone as His people.