Worship through Serving
Ephesians 2:10
God Saved me to Serve
God Gifted me to Serve
God Blesses me when I Serve
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Good morning.
So glad to have you here this morning. I am glad our PowerZone kids get to join us today for our service.
And I am excited to have our Ministry Faire for all of you after this service. You will be able to see our serving ministries, ask questions of the leaders and sign up to give serving a shot in some of these ministries.
We also have bagels and donuts and drinks available for you to enjoy as you look through the ministries.
To go along with this theme of Worship and serving, we are going to finish up our series on worship today talking about worshiping through serving.
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I began this series talking about Romans 12:1 and we saw that worship came about as a response to God’s mercy among other characteristics of God, and stems from a desire to please our merciful and gracious God who has given us the free gift of salvation that we could never earn or do anything to pay Him for.
In fact, in regards to this free gift of salvation, we have one of the most famous passages of the Bible in
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Ephesians 2:8-9 that tells us “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.”
The salvation we have is a free gift from God, it is not earned or given in response to anything you do. It is freely given by a gracious and merciful God to all who will receive Jesus.
It is to God’s glory that He saved us apart from anything we could do.
Why are We still Here?
So He saves us freely and then ….What? Why are we still here? I mean if his hope is to save people, then once I am in that relationship with Him, why doesn’t he just take me out of this sin filled world to be in heaven with Him where there is no more suffering or pain?
Listen to what Jesus says in John 17, when he prays right before He was arrested.
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John 17:15, 20
15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one …20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,
What message is that? It is the message of the gospel that they are to proclaim, the word of God they are to teach. That is what we learn in the great Commission
Matt 28:19-20
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
In John 17, Jesus was praying for His disciples and for those who followed as part of the church to preach the message of the gospel and see to it that others came to know and trust Christ and follow Him.
We are here for a purpose
You have been left on this earth for a purpose and that purpose is to help others to come into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ and growing in that relationship so they too will come to maturity in the faith and help others come into that relationship.
Maybe you are thinking that is pretty scary!
Maybe you are thinking that I am not that good at speaking, and I can’t teach, or I just don’t know what to say to help people grow, because I myself am only a new believer and don’t know much yet.
How I am supposed to help others come to Christ and grow in Christ?
By serving others as part of the body of Christ.
In fact that is one of the reasons God saved us, to serve.
God saved me to Serve
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A moment ago, I read Ephesians 2:8-9, which talked about our salvation being a free gift. Well verse 10 goes on and says,
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)
God saved us to serve Him. And we serve Him by serving others. That is what he wants us to do and that is one of the ways we bear fruit in our lives.
In Colossians 1:10,
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Paul prays for the Colossians and says he is praying, “in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work,
We bear fruit in our good works and good works are works that are for God’s glory and help others come into a relationship with Him and or grow in their relationship with Him.
So if one of the reasons God has saved us, is to serve others and to be used in helping others grow or helping others come into a relationship with Him, and one of the ways we worship God is by obeying His commands and desires to serve others.
Am I worshiping the Lord through my service?
Am I serving in some way that is helping others to do that?
I want you to think about that for a few minutes as we continue on, but realize that one of the reasons you are still here if you have already received Christ, is to serve.
Transition
Now maybe as you are thinking about that, you are thinking that there is no way you can preach or teach the Bible. You may feel you don’t have the knowledge of the speaking abilities to do that.
And maybe that is true, but you need to realize that God not only saved you to serve, but
God Gifted you to Serve
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The Bible tells us that when we receive Jesus as Savior, we receive the Holy Spirit in our lives to help us do the things Christ wants us to do.
One of those helps is by giving us a spiritual gift.
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Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:1, 7
2 Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant…7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.
We have the Holy Spirit not just for our good, but for the good of all.
And , Peter tells us in
1 Peter 4:10 - Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.
The Spirit gives us gifts to use for the good of everyone, in service to others so they can know about and grow in relationship with Christ.
If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you have received a gift of the Holy Spirit to be able to serve the Lord through the church in some capacity.
Now how do we know what our gift is?
Well there are things called Spiritual gift assessments. I think those assessments are good at helping us put a name on what our spiritual gift is, but it is really not rocket science.
I think you really just need to ask yourself what do you like to do?
If you have served in various ministries, you may find that you like serving in some ministries better than others.
Do you like to make people feel welcome?
Do you like to teach? Do you have a passion for kids? For youth? For adults? To see them grow in the Lord and experience the joy of the Lord?
Do you like to help in the background? Do you dislike being noticed by others? Do you like to use your resources to help others?
Ask yourself what you like to do?
Maybe you don’t know what you like to do.
Give something a try
Then the way to learn that, is to step out of your comfort zone and try serving in a ministry.
Just give it a shot. If it turns out that it is not for you, try a different one.
Years ago, we were in need of teachers for our kids ministry and a lady who became a member said, I will give it a shot. She had never taught kids before, but as she did it, she found she loved it and she was gifted for it. She would have never discovered that if she did not step out of her comfort zone and try it.
After the service, go check out our ministries, and sign up for one, so you can serve others with the gift God has given you.
Transition
Now as we have talked about worship during this past month, we have said that worship is something that is directed toward God in response to recognizing that He is worthy of our worship for who He is, a merciful and grace filled, Loving God, and that we worship him in various ways in order to please Him because He is worthy.
And then we talked about some specific ways we do that, through our sacrifice, through our singing and now through our service.
The interesting part of that is that as we worship Him in each of these ways, we find that He blesses us.
As we sacrifice for the Lord and declare our trust in Him as we give back to Him, we find that He meets and provides for all of our needs.
As we sing songs in worship to Him, we find that he connects us to himself on an emotional level and we grow in our ability to experience Him and His love for us emotionally.
And even in our service, we find that
God Blesses me when I Serve
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Colossians 3:23-24
23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving
And Paul tells us
Ephesians 6:7-8
7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, 8 because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does
As use our gifts to serve and to worship the Lord, He blesses us by promising us rewards in heaven and blesses us with peace and joy and fulfillment now.
Now there are times when we are serving, when it is just plain hard.
And I have had times in my life when I was not feeling much peace, joy or fulfillment as I served.
You know what the problem was? It is a loss of focus on why I do what I do.
When we realize that the Lord is using us and our gifts to help others enter into the kingdom of the Lord and grow in their relationship with Christ, we can find joy and fulfillment.
When we lose sight of that, serving often becomes tedious.
How do we avoid that?
How do we avoid that when sometimes, we have to deal with people that are ungrateful or when it is just plain hard?
This is why it is imperative that we serve as part of the body of Christ
I must serve as part of the Body of Christ
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To receive encouragement to Endure
The author of Hebrews says,
Hebrews 10:24-25
24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another …
If we are not using our gifts as a member of the body of Christ, we are not going to find that encouragement that is necessary to persevere during the hard times, and believe me, there will be hard times.
We need the fellowship of other believers to find encouragement to keep on keeping on when it is hard.
So we have to serve as part of the body if we are going to be encouraged to endure during the hard times.
We also need to serve as part of the body of Christ
To be effective in Fulfilling the Great Commission
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You will never be effective at making disciples, baptizing disciples and teaching disciples by using the gift you have received on your own.
Earlier I read from 1 Corinthians 12, that the Holy Spirit has gifted us to serve others.
Paul goes on in that text to describe the church as a body.
He says,
1 Corinthians 12:14-17, 27
14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15 If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
What that means is that your gift is not near as effective, no matter what gift it is, without the rest of the body.
As we use our gift that we have been given as part of the body of Christ, serving together, and encouraging one another, we become effective at fulfilling the great commission.
Are you serving as part of the body of Christ?
If not, you need to be. It is one of the ways we are to express our worship to the Lord. It is also one of the ways we experience the pleasure of God and the blessings of God.
Serve the Lord through the church.
Application
Each one of us have the blessing of being part of a church that has been being effective in fulfilling the Great Commission.
We have seen people come and trust Christ as Savior through the ministry of Hickory Creek.
We have seen about 45 people make professions of Christ that we know of in the past year and we have had 35 baptisms in the last year. That is about 10% of our congregation if we consider we are averaging 400 in weekly attendance.
We continue to see more and more people showing up and
Considering that we have an average attendance of around 400 right now, that would be about 11% of our congregation receiving Christ and nearly 9% of our congregation getting.
Over the past 5 years we have averaged a little more than a 15% growth rate in attendance. There are about 50 more people attending Hickory than there was in September of last year.
For us to continue to be effective, means that each of you must be using your gifts as part of this body.
If it were not for all of our volunteers, we would not be seeing the lives the changed lives that we have been seeing.
If it were not for those who serve in our nursery, there would be the distractions of crying babies and there would be less people coming, less people staying, and fewer people receiving Christ and following Him in obedience.
If it were not for those who serve behind the scenes each week, you would not be sitting on these comfortable chairs right now. Most of you probably have no idea on how this sanctuary gets transformed each week with the help of volunteers.
On Mondays the chairs are torn down and set up for MOPs or a Bible study
On Tuesday afternoon, the tables for Mops are torn down to prepare for AWANA
On Wednesday morning, chairs are set up for TBD
On Wednesday evening after TBD, the sanctuary is set up for Friday Bible studies.
On Friday afternoon, the sanctuary is set up for the men’s Bible study.
On Saturday after the men’s study, all the chairs are set back up for Sunday!
Praise God for those who use their gifts to help behind the scenes.
If it were not for our AWANA, and Impact and TBD volunteers, we would have no midweek ministries for our youth.
If it were not for those with a teaching or shepherding gift, we would not have the studies we do or the small group Bible studies that we have.
If it were not for our host homes, we would not have the space here to meet with all the studies and ministries we have going on.
If it were not for our greeters and ushers and welcome center volunteers, our church would not be as welcoming.
If it were not for our PowerZone volunteers, our kids would not be able to be taught and encouraged in their faith at their level.
If it were not for our volunteers on the worship team who practice on Thursday evenings and arrive here before 8am to practice again, our musical worship would not be as helpful in leading us to express our worship through singing because they would not play as well together and there might be things that distract us.
There are dozens of volunteers needed each and every week and as each of us use our individual gifts as part of the body of Christ, we are more effective for the kingdom of God.
And as we add a Saturday evening service this January, we will need even more.
I want to encourage everyone here for the first several months to be willing to serve one Saturday per month. It is not like it is going to take your whole Saturday evening. The service will be from 5:30 to 6:30 so you would have most of the day and you could still have dinner by 7pm.
I want to encourage you, for those ministries that will need to have more people because we will add this service, to say to them, you can count on me 1 Saturday per month.
And for a select few of you, whom the Lord may be laying this Saturday evening on your hearts, I want to encourage you to make this a missional opportunity for you by praying about committing for 2 and a half months, from January through Easter at the end of March, to 3 out of 4 Saturdays for that time. That would be nine out of 12 Saturdays during that time.
Could you do that? Remember it is only like an hour and a half out of your Saturday for most of our ministries. You arrive 20 minutes early and leave about 10 or 15 minutes after the service ends. You will be out by 6:45 or so each week.
Could you commit to that?
Immediately after the service you will have an opportunity to put your faith into practice and take steps to worship the Lord through your service by visiting our ministry fair and signing up to serve.
If you can serve on a Saturday, make sure you let the ministry leader know so we can begin making preparations for expanding our ability and effectiveness in fulfilling the great commission and we can all be worshiping the Lord through our service.
Let’s pray.
