I Am a Servant ?Romans 12:3-8?September 23, 2018
What is to be the nature of our role in the Body of Christ?
?1. I seek positions of service. v.3
2. I participate on the team. vv.4-5
?3. I invest what has been entrusted. vv.6-8 ?
If you watched March Madness this last Spring, you became familiar with Sister Jean (pic). This 98 year old nun caught everyone’s attention. She was a nun at Loyola-Chicago University, a catholic school. She would show up at all the games, pray with the players, encourage them, and then after a game, win or lose, she would write a hand written note to each player that would lift their spirits catapult them higher. The Loyola Ramblers hadn’t won a conference championship in years and had never made it to the NCAA Tournament. No one picked them to win in the round of 64, but they did. No one picked them to win in the round of 32, but they did. No one picked them to win in the round of 16, but they did. They made it all the way to the Elite 8 before bowing out. Some people owed the team’s success to Sister Jean’s prayers. I prefer to believe that their success was not from Sister Jean’s prayers, but from her presence and participation and encouragement. A 98 year old nun, stuck in a wheel chair, seemingly the least important person on the team—probably had the greatest impact. ? Turn to Romans 12:3-8 We are now in week 3 of our 4 week series entitled, I am ________. It is a series designed to focus us on what it means to be a part of Rush Creek, to be a partner of Rush Creek, to be joined to the Body of Christ here at Rush Creek.? We’re no longer using the term member. We’ve switched using member to using partner. The Bible says in Philippians 1 that we are partners in the gospel. Membership is passive; partnership is active. Membership can lead people to join and then feel as if they have done all they need to do. Partnership prompts us to own the mission and vision of the church and work together to bring them to pass.? Each of you is indispensable to the mission and vision that God has given us. If God has called you here, then He has called you to join us, partner with us to achieve this great privilege, this great responsibility to push back the darkness, advance the kingdom, and go into all the world and make disciples. ? Participating in the Great Commission is not only the duty of the staff and leadership of the church. It is the duty and joy of each person God has saved and called to be a part of the body here at Rush Creek. ? As I’ve said these past 2 weeks, if you’re not joined to us yet, you can wait until January and go through our new on ramp called, “First Step Experience” (logo?). It’s a 4 week experience that at the end of it we’ll accept you as a partner into this great enterprise called Rush Week. OR, you can join at the conclusion of this service today by just coming to the Next Step area over here after the service.? We’ve isolated four characteristics of what it means to be joined at RC:?I am a Christ-follower(build). First and foremost, to be a part of the body here means that you have given your life to Christ and are following His will in every area of your life.?The 2nd characteristic: I am a partner. You own the mission and the vision of the church and are fully committed in seeing God do great things in you and through you.? Now this morning we take on the 3rd characteristic of someone who belongs to RC:?I am a servant
Jesus talked a lot about being a servant. And he modeled that for us. In Mark 10,
“Jesus called them over and said to them, ‘You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave to all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’.” Mark 10:42-45
No doubt you’ve read and heard that passage a thousand times, right? But hearing is one thing—doing is another. We prefer to be served, don’t we? We prefer for others to bend their desires to ours. We prefer to feel comfortable rather than to discomfort ourselves in serving others.? Think of the people you serve. If you’re married, hopefully you serve each other: getting coffee for the other, helping with projects, watching a Hallmark movie with your wife. If you’re a parent, you serve your children by protecting and providing for them. You may take on the attitude of a servant at your school or your workplace. These are all important areas that we are to serve. But in the scheme of eternity, serving the Body of Christ must have a critical role in your life.? This is what the Apostle Paul was getting at in Romans 12:3-8. Now before we study vv.3-8, I want you to understand the context of the passage. If you have your Bibles, look at the 2 verses before vv.3-8 “Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.” Romans 12:1-2
Let me give you the Russ Barksdale paraphrase: Now that you’ve received the mercy of God through Jesus, realize that personal sacrifice must be a continual part of your life; so die to yourself and your pleasures, and live to please God—this is how you worship Him, by living a holy life. So don’t get caught up in the values and customs of this culture that clamors for self-fulfillment and self-absorption and self-comfort, but instead pour into the Word of God and let it change how you think and how you see and how you live so that you will experience the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
Now Paul points us to the specific of how to experience the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. And guess what it is: serving to Body of Christ. Let’s read the passage from vv.3-8. (vv.3-8 On screen)
You can see in vv.4 and following that Paul is talking about life in the body of Christ. And the question is: What is to be the nature of our role in the Body of Christ??1. I seek positions of service. v.3 (on screen)
The key phrase here is what? To not think more highly of ourselves than we should.
This echoes what Jesus said in the passage we read earlier, right? Jesus said, “Don’t seek high positions which the rest of the world does; instead seek low positions”.? “The highest lesson a believer has to learn is humility.
Brethren, here is the path to the higher life. Down, lower down!”? Andrew Murray, Humility? Rusty Stehr, banker, attorney, shows up ever Sunday and sits on the floor with a bunch of ???
2. I participate on the team. vv.4-5 (on screen)
Paul is talking about the Body of Christ: that the body has many parts but not all of us have the same function; the same role. ? Listen, we (motions) are one body. We are one entity. We are one team. Everyone in the room has been on a team of one sort or another. Sports. Work. School. We all know how team works. Each teammate has a role, a function, but not everyone has the same role or function. And the team can only be as good as each team member performs its role.? Funny story of someone who didn’t perform…? Team Rush Creek can only be as strong and effective for the gospel as each of you are strong and effective. That means you come to training events; you show up on time; you don’t shirk your responsibility. If you’re a partner in the gospel, if you are a genuine teammate, you will seek a position of service and you will discharge the responsibilities of that position as if your life depended on it. Because you know what, someone’s eternity DOES depend on it.? Reading Bible stories to the little ones in the preschool area: neuroscientists are discovering that words spoken to us even in the womb, and certainly in our first 2-3 years are incredibly formative and impactful for our entire lives! Loving on gradeschool children at such a foundational time when so many of them are in environments where love is hard to find. Being available to students on Wednesday nights at such a critical juncture in a young person’s life—someone who will listen and love and enter into their pain and confusion. Life group leaders, who wade into the middle of the messes we make of our lives and shepherd and pray and care for the people in their group. Servants at the doors whose smile and greeting may determine whether or not the person walking thru the doors feels welcomed enough to actually think this good news is for them. I could go on and on, but you get the point: there is no higher calling than being a servant and participating on Team Rush Creek and the Body of Christ.?3. I invest what has been entrusted. vv.6-8 (on screen)? The word grace is charis; unmerited favor. The word gift is an extension of that charisma. Charis-grace; charisma-gift. So here’s the deal: when you surrendered your life to Christ and received His grace and were saved, His Spirit came into your being and when He came into your being He did a number of things. First, He sealed you—like a jar of pickles that has been sealed, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit. No demon, not even Satan Himself can get into you. You’re sealed by the Holy Spirit. Another thing that the Spirit did is that He brought gifts into you; spiritual propensities so that you could serve the body and build it up. These verses list some of them: prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, and mercy. As a Christ-follower, I am to participate in all of these actions, right. I am to exhort and encourage even if it doesn’t come easy to me. I am to be generous, even if it is difficult for me.? The point is that as a Christ-follower, you have a spiritual aptitude that has been given to you for one purpose, and that is to build up the Body of Christ; to serve the Bride of Christ and to bring glory to Jesus.? Do you know what your spiritual gifts are? We have an online assessment you can use…. NEED TO GET!
God has entrusted this gift to you—are you investing it in the Body? Are you investing your time, your energy, your resources, your gifts to build up the body here at RC?
On the day of her impending move, Jenny Hayden Lamey indeed found herself moved, but not in the way she expected.
Lamey was greeted early in the morning by Walter Carr, one of the workers who were sent to come help her family pack and move their belongings. Carr had arrived early thanks to the help of local police, and when asked to elaborate, he simply said, "I walked." It was quite the understatement.
Police had previously spotted Carr at 4 a.m. that morning, walking the 14-mile journey from his home to the Lamey household in Pelham. His car had broken down, but because this was to be his first day on the job, he didn't want to offer any excuses for missing work. So he left his home at midnight, on foot.
Lamey was so flabbergasted by his story (not to mention the irony of a man named Carr being so tragically without one), that she shared it-first with the other movers as they arrived, then with friends on Facebook. The ensuing post went viral, and came to the attention of Luke Marklin, CEO of the Bellhops moving company, who subsequently tweeted:
This is an incredible story. The grit and heart Walter showed defines Bellhops' culture precisely. I'm really proud to be on the same team as Walter... we set a high bar on service and he just raised it. Look forward to thanking him in person this week.
Marklin followed up on his promise-and thanked Carr with a 2014 Ford Escape.
If Mr. Carr was so dedicated to his job that he would walk 14 miles to his job in order to fulfill his duty and help his team, how much more dedication and sacrifice should we have to serve and participate and invest in the greatest endeavor in all of history?
