1 Peter 4: Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. 9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. 11 If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
Today we’ve been celebrating those who have chosen to serve God in and through our congregation. We do this for a reason, frankly.
We really and truly value what volunteers do and, truth be told, we know that without people who give of their time and energies and love for God, we would not be a church.
You see a church is not the pastor. Jan is not, by herself, the church. Neither am I. Neither are any of us, by ourselves, the church.
A church is a church because it is called into being by God who for two thousand years, through the proclaiming of the gospel, has, by the Holy Spirit, given birth to communities of faith rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ.
And into these communities all peoples are called. Some respond to that call, and those ones, by coming to faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, make up the character of the church. And so in Christ we share a common life. A connected life.
And it is the character of our church and the character of people who serve in the church that I want to talk about briefly today, realizing that our time is more limited than usual because of the time we have spent blessing our volunteers, and we will also share Holy Communion together today.
Let’s look at our passage today:
"Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others".
First off, we find that our gifts, whatever they might be, are to serve others. God blesses us in order to bless others through us. This is an extremely important truth. If we were to get our cue about why God blesses us in different areas from what we see for the most part on “Christian” TV, we’d think that God blesses us for our own sakes.
Christian TV gives us opportunities to “buy a blessing” in the form of ‘holy water’ or teaching DVD’s or sending money to buy air time. As though any blessing we receive from God is for our own consumption. Of course nothing could be further from the truth.
Any good thing that you can name in your life as a blessing...God gave it to you in order to bring blessing, to you first - often - yes, but more vitally, for others.
Do you consider your children a blessing? I do. They are an amazing blessing that God gave to Barb and me, yes, but he has given Jared and Elia to be a blessing to many others...those with whom they will interact for their entire lives.
Has God blessed you socially? Elia, our 13 year-old daughter, has about a thousand friends. She develops and maintains deep relationships with a lot of people. Those friendships bless her, for sure. But so many others are encouraged and, frankly, just laugh so much because of her natural funniness. If we are gifted with many friends, it is so that they might be blessed.
Has God blessed you financially? Are you stable financially? Newsflash. While that blesses you, God has blessed you financially so that you can be free to serve others without worrying about money, so you can give to support Kingdom ministries, so you can be in a position to advocate for the less fortunate.
May we never make the mistake of thinking that our blessings are for us alone. “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others”.
"Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms".
In SERVING OTHERS we administer God’s grace, we apply God’s grace to other’s lives. I find this truly amazing and humbling. We are called to be good stewards of the manifold grace of God. That’s the literal meaning of this verse.
Stewards of grace. Somehow in our service we are extending God’s grace. Grace is all of God’s goodness given even though it is not particularly merited. God is reaching out through undeserving me to bless an undeserving world.
So...it’s not about anyone being good enough for God. It’s not about me getting what I deserve from God because I’ve been O-So-Good. It’s because God loves me, worthy or unworthy just the same.
And he blesses you and me as we do our best to be faithful in blessing others. In part that means I don’t get in the way of God’s intention of blessing you.
I focus my energies not on myself or my own contentment, but I focus on your contentment. I become focused on others, and I can do that because I’m learning that God’s focus is on me...He’s taking care of all my needs according to his riches in Christ Jesus. So I don’t need to worry.
v.11 If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.
There’s a real weight to verse 11. We need to realize the importance of our service and how God forms us through our service. When I was a young Christian I was told that I had a great deal of work to do and God had a great deal of work to do in me before I could really offer myself to God in service.
I was basically told I had to get all my spiritual ducks lined up in a row before I could really serve God. After a while of trying to do this, of reading Scripture and doing my best with the Christian disciplines of prayer and charity, I hit a wall, a feeling of stagnating.
I realized that reading and prayer were not an end in themselves...they were to prepare me to serve. So I left that church and went where I could serve, so I could keep growing as a believer, warts and all.
Our service needs to be in the strength God provides. If we serve out of our own strength or for the wrong motives - to gain respect, to gain position etc, we will, in time, crash and burn.
If we give up the notion of being sufficient for the task, of being well and good enough all by ourselves with or without God’s help, if we embrace the reality of our dependence on the living God for absolutely everything, we line up with reality as it is.
One last word on the character of a church, the behaviour of Christian brothers and sisters towards one another, and, of course, the attitude of a servant. Romans 12:10 says this: “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord”.
As we serve the Lord and live increasingly for His purpose more so than our own, the character of our service is to be one of love.
Why? Because “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 Cor 13:4-7
When we serve one another is this way, how can we help but glorify God and bring praise to his name through Christ in us, the hope of glory.
Today we’ve paused to celebrate Christian service, and those among us who choose to invest their time and energy serving God by serving our congregation and our community.
I hope this becomes an annual thing, because we really need to express our appreciation to one another.
I have another hope, though. That is that we become a church shows our gratefulness to one another all the time, as a matter of course. It’s an awesome thing...to know we are valued, to know that we make a difference, to feel that our contribution matters. And matters it does. God places the highest value on our commitment to love one another practically through service. May we all do the same.
Let’s pray. Father God, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit...you have blessed us with life and with love and with a desire to be a part of this community of faith. Jesus, you came to serve and not be served. May we catch a vision of this generous way of living that you modeled for us. Bless each person here today, Lord, those who have been serving as a normal part of their life, and those who today perhaps consider these things. Thank you for your mercy, Lord Jesus, and for trusting and enabling us to serve. In Your name we pray. Amen.
