Improving Your Serve Series

INTRODUCTION

SLIDE #1

• What is the goal of a lot of the things we read in the Bible? Why did God leave us the Bible?

• Why is Peter trying to encourage his readers to stay strong? Why in the midst of persecution is Peter not telling his readers to go hide in the mountain?

• We are given the Word because God wants us to grow up spiritually and as we do that He wants us to serve Him better each day.

• We are being encouraged to strengthen our serve.

• God’s desire for us is for us to be the best servants we can be. SLIDE #2

• 2 Corinthians 5:20

• When we give our lives to Jesus, we all are representing Him. If we are going to succeed in representing Him, there are a few things we need to do.

• We need to resist the temptation to just sit back and wait for Jesus to return or for our lives to end.

• Our life needs to be about being a better, stronger Christian.

• If you want to use a tennis analogy, if you have a slow weak serve, a good tennis player will jam the return right back down your throat.

• If we as Christians do not work on being better servants for God, the world will jam our faith right back down our throats.

• If we are not careful, the Devil will wreak havoc in our lives. He will get a hold of us and mess us up.

• If we are not careful, the cares of the world will devour us and render us ineffective for Jesus.

• Today we are going to look at three things we can do in order to strengthen our serve for God. These are three areas we can focus on that will help us to be stronger in our faith and therefore help us to serve our Great God in a better deeper way!

• READ 1 PETER 5:6-10

SERMON

Strengthening our serve requires us to: SLIDE #3

I. KNOW WHO TO LEAN ON. (6-7)

• Where do we go in times of trouble? Who do you depend on when the chips are down? Do we rely on our own strength? One of the ways we can strengthen our serve is by knowing who we need to lean on. CLICK #3

1. We need to humble ourselves before God.

o If we are going to serve our God to the best of our ability, we need to first humble our selves before Him.

o The passage literally tells us to permit ourselves to be humbled. Having an attitude of humble submission before God is a choice. There are things that happen in life that should humble us, but ultimately we have to decide to be humble before God. In verse 5 Peter tells us to cloth ourselves with humility towards one another, here we are told to do this before God.

o The MIGHTY HAND OF GOD is as common O.T. phrase that speaks of God being in the control of the destiny of His people if they humbly and faithful accept His guidance. When we humble ourselves before God, God will be in control. (Deut 9:26)

o Gareth Reese in his commentary of 1 Peter states: In the confidence that our Father in Heaven knows what He is doing, we take advantage of the opportunities for service which He permits to come our way that require us to humble ourselves before we can and will act.

o SLIDE #4 Jesus taught in Matthew 18:4 the need to be humble in order to attain greatness. Matthew 19:30

o If we are full of self, we will never be able to serve God to the best of our ability.

o SLIDE #5 The purpose for allowing ourselves to be humbled is so that at the proper time God will exalt us. Matthew 23:12.

o The hope we have in the future should make an impact on how we live in the present. God will exalt us at the time that is best of Him and for us. It is fruitless for a person to try to blaze their own trail, God needs to be the one whom we follow. SLIDE #6

2. Leaning on God allows us to cast our anxieties upon Him.

o Our pride will keep us from leaning on God. We will think we can handle everything ourselves.

o The person who humbles themselves before God will realize they need Him.

o Anxiety means to divide, separate, the feeling when the heart’s attention is drawn in different directions.

o When your mind is full of anxiety, that is when we need to remember God is there for you to turn to for help and consolation. (Gareth Reese, 1 Peter class notes.)