Radiating Christ in a Darkening World
Scripture Reading
Mark 10: 35 - 45
35 And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” 36 And he said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?” 37 And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” 38 Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” 39 And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized, 40 but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” 41 And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. 42 And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 43 But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Introduction:
• Next Sunday is Serve Sunday. We will meet here at 9:15 am for a worship service. 9:45 – 10:00 am we will meet with your project team and head out to the various sites. At noon you will wrap things up and come back to the church for a pizza lunch at approximately 12:15pm and then head home.
• If you have a Pleasant View We Care shirt wear it next week. I have a few left for our newer people who may not have a shirt
• This message is the understanding and motivation for why we go out to our community and serve
o This is not an evangelistic event. I call this a pre- evangelistic event
7 touches with a Christian and the Gospel before someone comes to Christ
There is a process that one moves through for most people to become a Christian
o This is not intended to have anyone come to our church as a result of it.
o The purpose of Serve Sunday is to give back to our community and serve with no strings attached.
Last year Bob Danielson led a man to Christ at Riverview Manor. That was icing on the cake
If someone comes to our church as a result of our serving in the community that is great.
There are times the church just needs to practice being the church beyond the walls out in the community and this is our time and way of doing it.
• Most churches are viewed by non- Christ followers as a place that wants you to join and give them money
• Some view churches as isolation islands not connected to the real world.
Next week it will take real love and commitment to go out and dig in the dirt or wash machines at the YMCA or bake cookies for the Clarrisa C. Cook Hospice Center. Or to pick up trash at a number of places.
We are asking those who can to go out into the neighborhood and do physical labor and those who are unable we things for you
Read off the projects.
• Pleasant Valley High School – mulch and pick up trash
• Pleasant View Elementary School – various projects
• Hoover Elementary School – landscape project
• YMCA – plant flowers and cleans mirrors and machines
• IMHC – Bingo
• Riverview Manor – service
• Clean up Crow Creek Road
• Prayer Team
• Cookies for the Clarissa C. Cook Hospice Center
Illustration: A Sunday School teacher told her class of 2nd graders the story found in Luke 16 of the Rich man and Lazarus. How that when they were here upon the earth the rich man had everything that money could buy and poor Lazarus had to beg for mere crumbs. But when they died, the rich man due to his selfishness went to a place of horrible torment while Lazarus went to a place of paradise. In conclusion, the teacher asked her students the question: "Now, which man would you rather be, Lazarus or the rich man?" One little boy’s hand shot up immediately and he said, "Well, while I’m alive I want to live like the rich man, but when I die I want to be like Lazarus."
Quote: “We’re all selfish. Selfish to the core. God sometimes chooses to deal with our selfishness by giving us someone to care for who is infinitely more selfish than you. Babies are not only the cutest creatures on the face of the earth, they are by far the most selfish. Farrar goes on to write: “The way God deals with my own selfishness is to give me someone to serve who has zero interest in serving me. You can’t tell me that God doesn’t have a sense of humor. Not too many people in the world could out-selfish me one-on-one. But every time we’ve had a baby, I’ve met my match. Each of my kids resembled me. I don’t mean they looked like me, I mean they were as selfish as me. That meant that somebody in the family was going to have to grow up. Guess who was nominated?" - SOURCE: Steve Farrar in Point Man.
Purpose: Every believer will find true joy by serving others
Transition: The answer to breaking the bonds of selfishness is to serve other people. When you serve others you receive joy and you also receive a grateful heart because you see that God has blessed you with so much compared to many others. Serving others gets your eyes off of yourself
Serving others in the Body of Christ
• Preparation to serve comes from a clean heart – 2 Timothy 2:20 – 21; Ephesians 2:10
Quote: “I believe firmly that the moment our hearts are emptied of pride and selfishness and ambition and everything that is contrary to God’s law, the Holy Spirit will fill every corner of our hearts. But if we are full of pride and conceit and ambition and the world, there is no room for the Spirit of God. We must be emptied before we can be filled.” - D. L. Moody
God wants to use a clean vessel. He wants to know we are FAT Christians
• Faithful
• Available
• Teachable
We are to be like the clay in the potter’s hand. Able to be molded to the specifications for the Master’s use for us
• Don’t worry about how insignificant you may think you are or how unimportant what you are doing
• God’s vision for success is faithfulness, quality of work not the quantity
• For some God blesses with quantity but that is up to God to decide and do. We are to be faithful in the small things of life
• Parenting, menial labor, you are still impacting lives that others could never do.
We have to be clean in order for God to use us in our service and be filled with the Holy Spirit
• Not enough to repent and ask for forgiveness of sin but we are to be surrender our heart over to God and be filled with the Spirit
2 Timothy 2:20 – 21
Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. 21 Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.
• Second of all, we are called to do good works by serving others
Ephesians 2:10
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them
o We are to serve others with the right heart attitude because we have been redeemed by Christ and forgiven much and we can share and demonstrate that love for others in how we give to others and help them with their needs
• Motivation to serve is based on love – Galatians 5:13 – 15
Galatians 5:13 – 15
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
o Teamwork in using our spiritual gifts to serve – I Peter 4:10 – 12
I Peter 4:10 – 11
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Each believer was given one or more spiritual gifts and the purpose of those gifts were to support and encourage the building up of the saints through the work of the church.
Spiritual gifts are designed primarily to serve the needs of the church family
To be good stewards, managers of the grace God has bestowed on each of us, we are to strengthen and use our spiritual gifts and not hoard them
The gifts were given with the purpose to be shared
They complement the whole body of Christ – teamwork. All of the gifts are needed for the church to function properly
o Focus on serving the needs of the church family – Galatians 6:9-10
Galatians 6:9 – 10
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
o Sometimes we do get weary of serving.
o Sometimes we get weary of doing the right things when others around us don’t seem to care or to appreciate what we are doing
o Remember we are serving more than the people but Christ
o Matthew 25 – if you did it to the least of these, you did it for me
o We should be looking for opportunities in our everyday life to serve others
A smile
Open a door for someone
Help an elderly person return a shopping cart
Carry some groceries
Clean around the house
The list of ideas is endless. Many of the things we could do to serve others doesn’t take long or isn’t uncomfortable but shows the love of Christ
Application: We serve as Christ followers because we are compelled by the love Christ has shown for us.
Serving others in the Body of Humanity
o Serving our fellow human beings who are non -Christ followers
o I believe that one of the best things you or I could do is to serve others
o It is so counterintuitive to our culture. We love to be served when we go out to dinner, on vacation, when we take our car in to the dealer for service
We want coffee and donuts in the waiting room
Or a valet to shuttle us back to our work
o We want to be served. There is nothing wrong with that.
o But sometimes we are the ones who can serve others in the name of Jesus
o Let’s look quickly at what the Bible says about serving those around us.
• Commanded to serve – Galatians 6:9 – 10
Galatians 6:9 – 10
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
o Don’t get weary of doing good things to everyone, even those who yet do not know Christ as Savior
• Glorify God by serving – Colossians 3:17; Ecclesiastes 9:10
Colossians 3:17
And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Ecclesiastes 9:10
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.
• We are serving others to glorify our God in heaven
• Play to the audience of one even when you do not feel like it sometimes. Even if you are not thanked. When those times come that only God sees, then you will be blessed the most.
• Surprise people with serving them
• Work expecting no recognition
• If you receive recognition, accept it humbly and don’t reject it.
o Every year the PV School District recognizes us in their Board Meetings and in the minutes that go out to the school district. I wish they wouldn’t do that but I am not going to tell them to stop.
• Fruitful in your service – 2 Corinthians 9:8; Colossians 1:10
2 Corinthians 9:8
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
Colossians 1:10
So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
o God will look down on your service and bless you in many, many ways.
o You never know where the blessing will come from or how it will occur
Many people blessed us a few years ago when we were in need
For fifteen years, I served and served at my church and those folks turned around and help me find a job, a place to stay, and many other needs
What goes around comes around. You give, others give to you.
• Reflect who Christ is in our service – Matthew 5:13 – 16; I Peter 2:12;Philippians 2:13 – 16
Matthew 5:13 – 16
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
Illustration: Sun / Moon – the moon is merely a reflection of the sun in relation to the position of the earth – 93 million miles – sun / On average - 240,000 miles- moon. Because it takes 27.3 days both to rotate on its axis and to orbit Earth, the moon always shows us the same face. We see the moon because of reflected sunlight. How much of it we see depends on its position in relation to Earth and the Sun.
• When we serve others who are not yet Christ followers it gives them a glimpse of the love of Christ. Don’t ever underestimate that.
• People are watching and paying attention and see something different as you serve others expecting nothing in return. Very few places where people see that in our society today. People think people serve for ulterior motives, they are cynical.
I Peter 2:12
Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
• By serving others people make say bad things to your face but down deep they respect you because you stand for something and are committed to live it out.
• They watch how you respond to conflict, to mistreatment, to disappointment
Application: The most attractive love is unconditional love with no strings attached
Illustration: UNSELFISH AND HAPPY
A fascinating study on the principle of the Golden Rule was conducted by Bernard Rimland, director of the Institute for Child Behavior Research. Rimland found that "The happiest people are those who help others."
Each person involved in the study was asked to list ten people he knew best and to label them as happy or not happy. Then they were to go through the list again and label each one as selfish or unselfish, using the following definition of selfishness: a stable tendency to devote one’s time and resources to one’s own interests and welfare--an unwillingness to inconvenience one’s self for others."
In categorizing the results, Rimland found that all of the people labeled happy were also labeled unselfish. He wrote that those "whose activities are devoted to bringing themselves happiness...are far less likely to be happy than those whose efforts are devoted to making others happy" Rimland concluded: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
SOURCE: Martin & Diedre Bobgan, How To Counsel From Scripture, Moody Press, 1985, p. 123. CITATION: Rimland, ’The Altruism Paradox,’ Psychological Reports 51 [1982]: 521,522.)
• May we find our true joy in giving of ourselves as we use our time, talents, abilities and money to serve others.
Key Thought: The mark of a Christian is the love that we have for one another as Christ followers. May we love and serve with sincere hearts to radiate Christ.
Quote: “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel…… and use words if necessary”
St. Francis of Assisi
Mark 10:43 - 45
But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
