CALLED TO BLESS
Many years ago there lay a large boulder in the middle of a well travelled roadway. Traveler after traveler walked past the boulder, veering off the side of the road to get around it. All the while, they were shaking their head and muttering, "Can you believe that? Someone should get that big thing out of the way. What an inconvenience!" Finally, a man came along and, seeing the boulder, took a branch from a tree and pried the boulder enough to get it rolling and rolled it off to the side of the road. Lying underneath the rock, he found a small bag with a note. The man picked up the note and read it. It read as follows: "Thank you for being a true servant of the kingdom. Many have passed this way and complained because of the state of the problem and spoken of what ought to be done. But you have taken the responsibility upon yourself to serve the kingdom instead. You are the type of citizen we need more of in this kingdom. Please accept this bag of gold that traveler after traveler have walked by simply because they didn’t care enough about the kingdom to serve."
I wonder what "bags of gold" we’re missing each day, simply because we don’t bother to get involved in serving our heavenly kingdom. Today we are continuing in our series Called. God calls us to worship and to be in community, but the third purpose of my life is to serve Jesus.
Ephesians 2:10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
This passage says that we are God’s workmanship. We are God’s masterpiece. You are unique. There’s nobody like you in the world. And you were created by God to be loved, you were created by God to be in community and you were created by God to do good works.
Doing good works is called Service. It means your ministry. All of us are called to be ministers, to minister to other people. God designed you and created you with a specific purpose in mind.
Someone asked me the other day how many ministers we had in this church. I said around 1200. All of us are called to minister. We are not all called to be pastors, but we are all called to minister. So what is a pastor? The job of the pastor is administer the ministers.
What is your calling? Your life calling is to be a bi-vocational minister of Jesus. Let me try to explain that to you. What does bi-vocational mean? It is like the word bifocal, which I have over my eyes right now. When you get glasses that are bifocals, that means you can see two things at the same time. You can see far away and you can see up close. You can see both with clarity. When you are a bi-vocational minister of Jesus it means that no matter what you do in life you do it for two reasons and not one.
It does not matter if you are a truck driver or an attorney or a janitor or a nurse or a homemaker or a teacher or a stockbroker or an accountant or a farmer, it doesn’t matter what you are. If you are a Christian you are to do it for two reasons – to help others and to honor God.
Everything I do in life, if I’m a follower of Jesus, is bi-vocational. I have an occupation and I try to be the best employee I can possibly be, but in that job I do it to help others and to honor God.
So it says whatever you do, it can be ministry. Serving is not limited to your vocation. There are many opportunities to serve beyond it. There are many places to volunteer.
What happens in my life when I begin to serve others? What happens when I begin to stop thinking about me all the time and begin to start thinking about others around me? It brings three amazing benefits.
1. Satisfaction
Serving others creates enormous satisfaction. It beings joy in my life. Most people are looking for happiness in all the wrong places. They think that happiness lies in the accumulation of things, but that is temporary. Joy doesn’t come when we get things but when we give ourselves away.
How do you create joy in your life? There are two secrets to joy.
The first secret to joy is getting the focus off yourself. The more you focus on you, the more miserable you’re going to be. It’s not by accident that the word “miser” and “miserable” come from the same root word. You’ve got to shift your focus from inward focus (it’s all about me) to an outward focus. Life is all about God and serving others. When you begin to give your life away, the more you give the more you get. The more joy flows into your life.
Philippians 2:17 But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.
It is a fact of life that the most helpful people are the most happy people in life. If you want to be happy you’ve got to be helpful. The more self-centered you are the more unhappy you are going to be in life. That is just the way the universe works.
Philippians 2:4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
If you lack joy in your life, if you are not happy right now, start serving. Find a place where you can volunteer to give part of your time away and you get nothing in return.
Albert Schweitzer said: “I do not know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know, the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
Dr. Karl Menninger, a world-famous psychiatrist, was answering questions after giving a lecture on mental health when one person asked, “What would you advice someone to do if he felt a nervous breakdown coming on?” Most people expected the doctor to say, “Consult a psychiatrist.” Instead he said, “Lock up your house, go across the railroad tracks, find someone in need, and do something to help that person.”
The second secret to joy is that joy comes when we use the gifts we have been given. Using your gifts just feels good. It is the feeling of knowing that you are doing what God made you to do. Remember in Chariots of Fire, Erik Liddell, the runner said, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.”
I really enjoy fishing. I do not know why. I am really the only person in my family that does. From the first time I tried it, I was hooked! I know that most people do not share this passion. When you think about it, it is really a pretty weird thing to derive pleasure from. I just know I enjoy it. Somehow it is just how I am wired.
As great as fishing is, it is nothing compared to the joy I receive when I use the gifts God has given me.
We are blessed to be a blessing. God blesses you so you can bless other people. We’re blessed to be a blessing. And how do we bless others? We bless others by using our skills, by using our time, our talents. Whatever we’ve got. When we use it to help other people in service you bless other people.
Serving others unselfishly will create satisfaction and joy in my life, but it goes even deeper.
2. Significance
Serving not only leads to a feeling of satisfaction, it leads to a sense of significance. There is not only joy but a deep sense of peace that comes from using the gifts you have been given.
The world understands this truth. There was a movie that came out in 2000 called Unbreakable. Bruce Willis played the part of a man with a tremendous gift. After a car crash he gives up a promising football career and tries to walk away from his calling. This leads only to frustration and a failing marriage. It is only when he rediscovers his gift and begin using it to help others that he finds true fulfilment.
Back in 2004 Disney made a movie called The Incredibles. It is about a family of superheroes not allowed to use their gifts. For 15 years they are forced to stop using their abilities to help others and just adopt a normal life in the suburbs. This only leads to frustration and failure. It is only when they use their gifts and help others that they truly find peace.
The great violinist, Niccolo Paganini willed his marvelous violin to city of Genoa on condition that it must never be played. The wood of such an instrument, while used and handled, wears only slightly, but set aside, it begins to decay. Paganini’s lovely violin has today become worm-eaten and useless except as a relic.
I could go on to give many more examples, but you get the idea. When you don’t use your gifts to help others, bad things happen. You have heard me say before that all people live at one of three stages in life. The first is SURVIVAL. That means you are just trying to get by. It is the person who is just trying to get through the week and make it to the weekend. The second is SUCCESS. These are people who have put some money away and have achieved some form of acclaim from their vocation. The third is SIGNIFICANCE. These are the people who know they are doing what God intended for them to do.
Meaning always trumps money. Meaning comes from ministry. From giving your life away.
“I probably know a dozen billionaires. I could invite any of those friends of mine to come on stage. Every one of them would tell you money has many good uses. It can make life easier. It can give you opportunities. It can open doors. It can save you time. But money cannot give you meaning. No amount of money will ever give your life meaning.” – Rick Warren
We serve Jesus by serving people. A wealthy American traveler visited a hospital in Southeast Asia. He walked in just as a young missionary nurse was cleaning the sores of a sick, dirty, elderly man who had been found lying in a gutter. The rich man said to the nurse, “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars.” She answered quietly and firmly, “Neither would I. But for Jesus, I do it for free.” Money couldn’t buy her extravagant devotion to Jesus. Her life was broken and spilled out for the love of Christ.
Mark 8:34-35 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.
Those who give their lives will save it.
In Yorkshire, England, during the early 1800s, two sons were born to a family named Taylor. The older one set out to make a name for himself by entering Parliament and gaining public prestige. But the younger son chose to give his life to Christ. He committed his life in serving God: Confidently, unconditionally and wholeheartedly. With that commitment, Hudson Taylor turned his face toward China and obscurity. As a result, he is known and honored on every continent as a faithful missionary and the founder of the China Inland Mission (now known as Overseas Missionary Fellowship). For the other son, however, there is no lasting monument. When you look in the encyclopedia to see what the other son has done, you find these words, "the brother of Hudson Taylor." If you want to succeed in life, commit your life in serving God.
3. Succession
Serving does not simply bring blessing to your own life, it also brings blessing to the lives of people around you. Ultimately it results in transformation and change in the world around us. God has called us to be change agents in the world, to be salt and light in our society.
What is succession? It means the passing on of success. When a king succeeds it means they pass on their title and throne to another. Their power does not die with them, it continues. Knowing this, what should be my attitude toward service?
1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
Notice a couple words in that verse. It says always give yourself fully. That word fully in Greek literally means not half hearted. You are all in. When you do that your life is not wasted. That word waste means empty. It is not useless, not without purpose. Everything you do for Christ has a purpose. It may seem insignificant and maybe no one else seems to know about it but it’s important.
The Bible says that even if you give a cup of cold water in God’s name, in Jesus’ name, that you get rewarded for that in eternity. Sometimes we can see the difference our service makes immediately. Sometimes it is less apparent.
I heard about a pastor that was preaching on service. That church, like ours, served coffee after the services. During the sermon the pastor asked the congregation why they thought it was important to serve coffee after the service. One little boy near the front spoke up. "I think," said the boy, "it’s to get the people awake before they drive home."
The truth is that our service always makes a difference. You may think “I just helping in the nursery to change diapers.” The reality is that you are serving so that another person can be in the service and therefore get saved or set free.
You say “I’m just greeting people at the door.” You can never underestimate the power of what a friendly welcome can be. If it were not important that Walmart would not be paying someone to do it.
Bottom line, find a place to serve. Let me ask you a simple question. What are you going to be remembered for? If you were to die tomorrow would people say about you? Would they say that you were a real blessing? Would they say that you really lived for other people. That you were a servant, that you were generous and always thinking about other people?
What do you want to be known for? Deep down everyone want their life to count. They want to know they lived a life of significance. They want to know they made a difference.
Matthew 20:26-27 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave
The more you serve the greater you’re going to be. Mother Teresa went to the poorest of the poor, the most outcast of the outcasts in Calcutta, India to people who were on the street and dying. Nobody has less influence than them. And she began to take the dying into her home and she cared for them. And she began to serve those who everybody was trampling over. As she went to the least influential people in life, God gave her enormous influence around the world so she could walk into the Congress and everybody would listen. She could walk into the United Nations and everybody would listen.
Abe Minor, a man nicknamed “The Houston Hero,” was out rescuing people the week after the Houston floods. It started when his wife suggested he take his small boat and go and rescue her friend’s family, which included four kids. As he was going there, others called out for his help as they saw him with his boat. He said that he couldn’t ignore their pleas, and told them that he would be back to help. He ended up rescuing at least another 20 families as of Tuesday, and goes back out to search for more. They interviewed him on Good Morning America.
John 12:26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
Serving may not earn you the Noble Peace Prize or the Congressional Medal of Honor or get you Good Morning America, but scripture says God will honor those who serve him. If you want to make a difference in the world then you need to start serving. Unselfishly. Doing something with your life that you don’t get something back for.
The greatest use of life is to invest it in that which outlasts it. There is only one thing you can to heaven with you, and that is other people. Invest you life in others.
There are lots of opportunities to serve in this church. The easiest way to get involved is to go to our church website. On the front page is a tab that says Get Involved. If you click on that it will take you to the page that says WE NEED YOUR HELP. At the bottom of the page is a document VOLUNTEER DIRECTORY BBC 2017. Download it and go through and pray about a place where God may be prompting you to get involved.
Maybe you are saying right now, “but I do not know what my gift is, so how can I know where to serve?” The former editor of Christianity Today, Kenneth Kantzer, once said that he never knew what his gift was. He just served where he saw the need. If someone like that never knew what his gift was but just served where he saw a need, then this should serve as a good example to all of us.
Edward Kimball, was an ordinary Christian who taught Sunday school in his church and made a living down at the shoe store. But his real passion was sharing the gospel. One day Edward determined that he was going to look for an opportunity to explain the gospel to a salesman named Dwight, who had just joined the staff. Edward was nervous. He hemmed and hawed and paced back and forth. Dwight was in the back room putting shoes away. Finally Edward mustered up his courage and launched into the story of Jesus birth, death, and resurrection. That day Dwight gave his life to Christ.
Dwight is probably better known to you as D.L. Moody, who went on to become a great evangelist. The story doesn’t stop there. One day Moody was preaching, and a man named FB Meyer was listening. He was deeply stirred and went on to establish a nationwide preaching ministry. Later, while Meyer was preaching, a young man in the audience named Wilbur Chapman accepted Christ.
Chapman later felt the call to evangelism. As he was proclaiming the gospel in various places, he decided he needed some help. He knew a young former baseball player named Billy Sunday, who was looking for a job, and Chapman hired him. Under Chapman, Billy learned to preach and was given the opportunity to do so every now and then. Billy Sunday ultimately emerged as one of the greatest preachers of the early 1900’s.
One day Billy Sunday was preaching in Charlotte, North Carolina, where a great move of God was taking place. Many people believed. These new believer then invited a relatively unknown preacher, Mordecai Ham, to set up his tent in Charlotte and keep preaching. It was at this time that a tall, lanky farm boy walked down the aisle and gave his life to Jesus. His name was Billy Graham. And he has personally delivered the gospel message to more people that any other man in history.
I could go on to list the many influential people that are the fruit of Billy Graham’s ministry. People like George Verwer who would go on to form OM. I hope you understand my point.
