Some of you may be following the story that Israel is strongly considering attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities by the end of the spring. We have to remember that any middle eastern war is a Holy war. Middle Eastern countries see the West as Christian, we’re all Christians to them. And who are the allies of Iran? Russia and China. Who is Israel’s most powerful ally? The US and the European allies.
Now I don’t mean to scare anybody, maybe it’s all propaganda, but the chances of a great world war are considerable right now. Economies are bad, religious fanatics are on the rise, and if the US and Russia and China get involved, this will be big. We know from Scripture that eventually something has to give, and the only people that God has made a covenant with are Christians and the people of Israel. Now just because you live in what many people call Christian nations, the fact of the matter is that real Christians are a minority in every country including the US and Canada. So citizenship in these countries means very little to God, only citizenship in his kingdom.
The question I put to you today is, “Are you serving your King”. No country is going to be spared when all hell breaks loose, only citizens of the Kingdom of God. The bible says even believers will go through some of the tribulation, but not all because no one could survive. There’s also talk of a rapture, and whether that is a quick mass death and resurrection, or a literal being zapped up to heaven in the blink of an eye while your washing the dishes, I don’t know. But I do know that only those who are identified as servants of the King will be spared.
Here’s what the first part of verse 10 in 1 Peter 4 says. “As each has received a gift, use it serve one another”. Stop there and let’s look at this.
Each one, every Christian, is to use whatever gift they are given. Let’s look at two words. First of all it says whatever, meaning there are endless gifts. The point I want to make is that these are not just the more supernatural spiritual gifts that are listed in other places in the New Testament, we’ll talk about those in a couple weeks. These are talents, skills that God has empowered us with that we just seem to naturally be good at, and are to use to serve God and others in this world.
And I believe that God gave every one of us at least one of these gifts. Notice it says gift and not gifts. I truly believe that each person in every church in the body of Christ has a special talent that God gave and fore ordained to be used in the body of Christ.
What do they call it when you enlist in the armed forces? Serving your country right? In fact they call the armed forces the services. Last week I told you we are in a spiritual war, and it is more important than ever to know which uniform you’re wearing. You were made to serve, and the choices are not the Navy or Army, but Satan’s world or God.
Now I want to take you to the book of Joshua, I think this is just amazing. Joshua in chapter two is preparing to take Israel into the promised land. For our purposes this morning equate Israel with Christians, and the promised land with Heaven, or where all the promises of God become your possession. Now some spies had gone in and come back with a report that there are some bad dudes in the Promised Land. But the people there have heard about our God and are terrified of us. …We need to know that the enemy is afraid of us, we don’t need to be afraid if we know who lives in us?
Now because of doubt and disobedience every person that left Egypt 40 years earlier dies before crossing the Jordan into the promised land, including Moses. Only those born on the journey are allowed in. So here’s the first thing I want you to see. The people were separated from the promised land by this great river, just like now every person is separated from God. But God makes a way for people to cross over into the promised land by drying up a path through the Jordan river, just as he has made a way across the chasm between us and God, and the promise of eternal life, through the cross. It’s a picture of what Christ would do for everyone who calls on His name centuries later.
So they get across and into the promised land and they in essence have a worship service. As chapter 5 begins we hear how the Amorite and Canaanite king’s heart’s melted with fear when they heard how these people got across the river. Amorite means physical or matter, what you can see and touch. Canaanite means controller, subjector, subduer. God is going to give them a victory over the physical or flesh represented by the Amorites, and the subduer, Satan, represented by the Canaanites.
The enemy wants to use our physical appetites to subdue us. He wants us to be afraid, especially of serving and surrendering to God. He wants us subdued by what we see rather than operate by faith in what we don’t see. But he is way more afraid of us. The Bible says even demons believe in God and they shudder. Satan doesn’t want us in the land of milk and honey, he wants company in hell.
Look at Mt 8:28. Two demon possessed men come from the tombs to meet Jesus and they say “what do you want with us Son of God, have you come to torture us before the appointed time”. (they even seem to know what Jesus was going to do later). They beg him to not torture them but send them into a herd of pigs instead. He says “go”, they possess the pigs and run down the bank to drown in the water. There you have in Matthew chapter 8 for the very first time, devilled ham.
The point if you can’t find it in there is that serving and completely surrendering to God can be scary. Listen, I was terrified of public speaking to the point that I failed almost all my first year university courses because I went to the lectures but I didn’t go to the small classes or what they called tutorials, because I might have to talk. Ever since then, every job I’ve had was mainly speaking in public and God has used that skill that he gave me, that I was terrified to use, to make a difference in the world. I am still terrified, but I’ll tell you what, I would be much more afraid to have to go fight in a war.
What was I afraid of, your faces? You don’t really look that scary, and some of you are sleeping anyway. Was I afraid of fainting, so what, I probably wouldn’t remember. I was afraid of failing, being wrong, embarrassing myself. But again, so what? I’m sure even if I don’t do very well up here one Sunday, you aren’t going to be lining up to take my place are you?
Now, they get into the promised land and they have a little worship experience and then what is the very next priority? It’s circumcision time, let’s go get some sharp rocks and circumcise all the men because they didn’t have the privilege when they were wandering through the wilderness. And they do this at Gibeath Haaraloth, now I am going to spare you what that means, you can look it up yourself. But it’s a kind of hill and there are thousands of circumcised men there.
Now what this symbolizes is an obedient sacrifice of the flesh where sin can breed. As soon as they enter the promised land, they immediately do what God tells them to do just as we should when we are saved. This was a command and they were following marching orders. It is very serious and you see in this chapter that after this, they celebrated the Passover and ate from the fruit of the promised land. Up until that day they had lived on manna (a partial promise), now they have the bounty of the land and the manna stopped because the full promise was fulfilled.
Why is this circumcision thing so important (stay with me), because in the book of Exodus it says that no male who is uncircumcised may eat of the Passover meal. Clearly after Christ came and died that rule no longer applies, but what is the condition for participating in the Lord’s supper today? A circumcision of the heart, a putting to death of the flesh which breeds disobedience, and putting on Christ, living to serve him and His children through faith.
Let me ask you, would you rather follow Jesus’ commands today and use the gift he has given you to serve him, or voluntarily get circumcised with a sharp rock, and whatever the equivalent would be for females? On that I rest my case.
Now pastor what does all this have to do with serving in the Kingdom, I thought we were talking about gifts? Well, when a country or kingdom goes to war everyone is involved in some way. So we need to ask, how are we individually involved in the war effort.
World war two is happening on the Waltons series that we’re watching at home, and you have people preparing food for the military folks, providing entertainment, encouragement, prayers, building roads, bridges, machinery, weapons, providing medical care, fighting, strategy and vision, financial support, visiting the wounded, writing letters to lonely soldiers, everyone is on rations so the military can have what it needs. You get it? When a country goes to war every one takes part whether they are on the front lines or not, and many different skills are needed.
What is the goal, what has always been the goal? Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. The promise is that, and it comes more and more as we serve in the kingdom with the talents and skills God has given us.
Let’s take a look at another passage from Romans 12:3-8. In this passage we see some steps on the path of becoming the highest functioning member of the body that you can be. Think about it for minute, do you really want a body that’s falling apart? Would you like to have a good leg but lousy arms, or be able to hear really well but not be able to see? This is the body of Christ and it should be the greatest, highest functioning body on earth.
So we should strive to find our place in it and be the best we can be to glorify the beautiful body of Christ in the world, with the gift that God has granted to us through his grace. Everything about our church should be done with excellence, we are representing Christ.
What this verse about not thinking too highly of yourself means is not that we should make sure we are not excellent, but that we are to be realistic or sober about ourselves and our church. Thinking not too highly and not too lowly of ourselves. False humility is as bad as pridefulness. Just be honest when you evaluate yourself.
It also says in verse three that God has assigned each of us a measure of faith. That we should think about ourselves realistically in accordance with the faith that God has given us in this moment. I believe this faith refers to the actual individual faith that each person has, that influences their behaviour and how they “step out” in faith. It is different from saving faith that all believers have in equal measure.
In other words the implication would be that if I have a lot of faith and am willing to really follow God, I might be given a so-called higher calling in the body. I may be a pastor, or missionary, whereas someone with less of this faith may do more menial behind the scenes service. All saved, but with differing amounts of faith.
If this is the case, we are to assess ourselves appropriately and not think too highly of ourselves even if we do have more faith than someone else in the Body because it’s God that gave it to us. This faith mentioned in verse three would be the faith to step out as more of a living sacrifice, willing to take more drastic steps for Christ. Can this faith build over time, absolutely?
To put it simply, this view would say that I am a heart so that is clearly a more prestigious position than an armpit. But that does not mean that I am better than the armpit and that the armpit has no purpose. Imagine life without an armpit, you wouldn’t be able to make that sound (you know).
If I am an armpit, I am going to be the best armpit I can be with the armpitness that God has given me, and the heart should be the best heart it can be and not slack off just because you think you’re more important. Another way of translating this verse is “to each and every one of you according to how God distributed a degree of conviction”.
God is a perfect standard and it makes sense from observation throughout the history of the church, that God has apportioned differing degrees of conviction or desire amongst believers to strive for that perfect standard. Why would God do that? Maybe because it just wouldn’t work if we were all pastors, or all missionaries, or all singers, or all good at cleaning. He is the one that gives gifts and puts people in specific places in His body based on their faith. We may think we are making choices but he is like the guy controlling the video game, the characters on the screen are just doing what they do not knowing they are being controlled, while all the while someone is controlling every move.
All right, let’s not get stuck there. Let’s suffice it to say that we all have a different role and that role may be based on the degree of faith or conviction that God gives us in combination with the gifts or talents he also gives us. We are not supposed to have the same function according to verse 4 in Romans 12. And the language also suggests that this body is not just the local congregation but the universal body of Christ.
He then goes on to list some of these gifts, and obviously it’s not an exhaustive list, but he is simply using a few gifts as examples. He’s just being flat out logical about the idea that if this is the gift you were given according to God’s grace, use it for that purpose, don’t be too proud, and do it happily without envy of somebody else’s gift. You will be rewarded for how you use the gift God gave you, not using someone else’s gift.
Bottom line, you have nothing God needs, but you have everything you’ll ever need in His strength to perform the role in His body that he wants you to perform. And the more you align yourself with that, the more effective and God honouring you will be. You see God’s power has only one function, to glorify Him, not you, not me, not anyone else, just him, why? Because it’s his power.
Back to 1 Peter chapter 4, “whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength or grace God supplies, so that in all things (from preaching to toilet cleaning) God may be glorified through Jesus Christ”.
Let me explain what it means that we are given these gifts according to God’s grace. God comes into your life and you accept his pardon from the electric chair you’re sitting in, you accept salvation. God then says to you, “I am not only saving you, I’m giving you the opportunity to work for me so you don’t have to live on the streets after you get out of prison, and I would like you to be an elbow on my crew”. You, who were rescued from the electric chair that was about to have the switch flipped, respond, “An elbow, why can’t I be an eye, I think I could be a great eye.”
He says, “That is the very reason I don’t want you to be an eye, because you think you will be great. I took you out of that electric chair so you could show the world how great I am. Would you rather be back in the electric chair, or do you want to be an elbow? Now I have given you everything you need to be a great elbow that will glorify me, and it should be your highest goal to glorify me because of who I am and what I have done for you and your human race. When you decide to want what I want, and what I want for you, I promise you will be happier and more fulfilled than you would ever be chasing after your own desires and greatness. Do you believe me, or are you going to sit there and pout and not do anything for me?”
I stand here before you saying I believe this in the deepest part of my heart because that is me. And I remember after being saved, I would have done anything anyone in the church would have asked. I was happy to clean up, to clean the bathrooms if necessary. I believe God saw that I was truly willing in my heart, that I had the conviction and joy and desire to serve him in any way, and he called me to other things, maybe more glamorous things.
But you know, it won’t always be what you like or feel comfortable with. Like I said, I was terrified of public speaking, and my whole life I avoided being in any kind of leadership role though I would often get invitations I guess based on what others saw in me. It wasn’t humility, it was flat out fear. But when I would say yes to each of the things God would ask, often through other members of His body, I would experience peace and energy. His power.
And I stand before you today in a place where I never could have imagined myself, happier than I have ever been, and seeing God do amazing things through the gifts that He has given me that I never really wanted to use. And I am absolutely humbled because I know that I never would have brought myself to this place in my life.
I am confident that if you do the same, God will do for you what he did for me and you will experience his power in your life like never before. What are you really good at, not necessarily what do you love to do, it may be that, but not necessarily. What natural talent or skill has he given you that maybe you have put on the shelf? What do other people say you are good at that you kind of go “Oh I don’t know”. What do you sense; on a repetitive basis that God wants you to do? What do you do that when you are finished, you have more energy than when you began, while other even easier tasks suck the life out of you?
How could you apply that gift or skill to the body of Christ to build it/them up rather than yourself? That is the idea expressed in the verses we are looking at today. This all reflects the basic philosophy of the Christian faith, you are not your own. You are part of the Body of Christ, he bought you with a price, gave you everything you have and will ever have, and our purpose now is to find out what he wants to use us for, for his glory, which will give us better rewards than seeking our own glory ever will.
How are you serving God? Not are you saved, are you reading your Bible, praying and so on, but how are you serving your King? Are you an inflamed appendix just sitting around using the body as a shelter, are you poisoning the body or sucking from it, or are you a healthy active member of the body of Christ doing what you can do to help build it up for God’s glory?
The Jesus way was to serve. He said in Matthew 20, whoever would be great amoung you must be your servant. In Luke 22 Jesus says “I am amoung you as the one who serves”. And what do all of us want Jesus to say to us when we meet him, “Well done, good and faithful servant (literally bondservant or slave)”.
How are you serving the lord and his people, the church that he died for? In Romans 12 we read that we are to be living sacrifices and in John 12 Jesus restates that somewhat by saying that “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever cares nothing for his life in this world will keep it for eternity. If anyone serves me, he must follow me because my servants must be where I am. If anyone serves me, the Father will honour him”. …I don’t know how that looks, but I want to be honoured by the creator of the universe. I bet it would be better than even winning an academy award.
Let me just illustrate this whole message with a diagram and something simple you can take home. There are three places we can be as Christians: in a comfort zone, a sweet spot, or a place of false expectations. If we’re honest, most North American Christians are sitting in their comfort zone. They aren’t really following Christ and what he has planned for their life. They’re comfortable going to church most Sundays, maybe read the Bible once in a while and pray at meals and when something bad is happening. If they are asked to do something in service of God or the church, they’ll do it as long as its something they don’t mind doing, and doesn’t require too much of them, and their schedule allows.
But God wants you in a sweet spot. A place where you are not necessarily comfortable, but you know you are where God wants you and you feel like you are nailing what you are doing under God’s power. If you asked me to come fix your door, you’re in for it, because God gave me nothing to be able to do that well, I’ll give it try but it will probably make it worse, that isn’t my comfort zone or my sweet spot, and I have no false expectations there.
But if you want me to come teach or preach something from the Bible, I’ll be sick to my stomach, nervous, have a headache, definitely not in my comfort zone, but I know I’ll be where God wants me to be and I will feel his power carry me through it making something happen for the good.
Now there is this other side of the equation where we might be willing to get out of our comfort zone, but we have this idea that I can do this (whatever it is) under my own power because I want to do that. This is actually the least comfortable place to be if God didn’t give us the gifts and talents to do that well, and it turns out bad, and you struggle, and are chronically disappointed and bitter.
Say you want to be a pro hockey player but you have no athletic ability, and you try your hardest and persevere, work so hard for years with false expectations, and live a disappointed life. I know a friend I grew up with like that, and he pretty much destroyed himself with drugs and alcohol once he realized he was never going to be a good enough player. Wanting to be gifted in an area is much different than being gifted in that area.
You might as well stay in your comfort zone then. But, why not find your sweet spot? You have one, God has given it to you, don’t have any false expectations though, it might be uncomfortable, it might not be what you really want to do, but when you do it you will feel God empower you whether its preaching the Gospel or vacuuming the church. He is going to make a you prodigy at that. Do you think if God wants you to do it, he won’t give you the power and joy to do it? …And do it as unto the Lord, with excellence, not for your own glory but for the glory of God.
And one more thing, related to what Romans says about this. He wants humble servants, and I think at least sometimes he will give you a gift based on your level of not only faith, but humility. If he knows your heart and that you would become proud and abuse the gift, and try to glorify your self with a more glamorous gift, he might give you one that humbles you.
But even if that’s the case you will feel his power, and you will rejoice in the change you feel in yourself as you become more authentically humble and obedient, and proud of the unglamorous job he has given you to do. We can’t fake humility, God knows your heart, but he can transform you into a humble person, and it will feel good when he does, like a weight coming off your shoulders. His yoke is light as long as its his yoke.
Here is very simply what I encourage you to do in your action plan this week. Determine what practical gift God has given you based on what we talked about today, and think about how you can use that to build up the body of Christ (not necessarily just in this local church), and how you can glorify God with it. Because, as this passage in Romans ends, to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever, Amen
