WESTSIDE BAPTIST CHURCH
PASTOR: TERRY VAUGHAN
SERMON TITLE: BORN TO SERVE
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3:16-18 KJV
TEXT VERSE: JOSHUA 24:14-28 “NOW THEREFORE FEAR THE LORD, AND SERVE HIM IN SINCERITY AND IN TRUTH: AND PUT AWAY THE GODS WHICH YOUR FATHERS SERVED ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FLOOD, AND IN EGYPT; AND SERVE YE THE LORD. AND IF IT SEEM EVIL UNTO YOU TO SERVE THE LORD, CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE; WHETHER THE GODS WHICH YOUR FATHERS SERVED THAT WERE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FLOOD, OR THE GODS OF THE AMORITES, IN WHOSE LAND YE DWELL: BUT AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD. AND THE PEOPLE ANSWERED AND SAID, GOD FORBID THAT WE SHOULD FORSAKE THE LORD, TO SERVE OTHER GODS; FOR THE LORD OUR GOD, HE IT IS THAT BROUGHT US UP AND OUR FATHERS OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT, FROM THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE, AND WHICH DID THOSE GREAT SIGNS IN OUR SIGHT, AND PRESERVED US IN ALL THE WAY WHEREIN WE WENT, AND AMONG ALL THE PEOPLE THROUGH WHOM WE PASSED: AND THE LORD DRAVE OUT FROM BEFORE US ALL THE PEOPLE, EVEN THE AMORITES WHICH DWELT IN THE LAND: THEREFORE WILL WE ALSO SERVE THE LORD; FOR HE IS OUR GOD. AND JOSHUA SAID UNTO THE PEOPLE, YE CANNOT SERVE THE LORD: FOR HE IS AN HOLY GOD; HE IS A JEALOUS GOD; HE WILL NOT FORGIVE YOUR TRANSGRESSIONS NOR YOUR SINS. (He was trying to let them know that God was not a play thing. If you’re going to be about God’s business, you’ve got to be serious.) IF YOU FORSAKE THE LORD, AND SERVE STRANGE GODS, THEN HE WILL TURN AND DO YOU HURT, AND CONSUME YOU, AFTER THAT HE HATH DONE YOU GOOD. AND THE PEOPLE SAID UNTO JOSHUA, NAY, BUT WE WILL SERVE THE LORD. AND JOSHUA SAID UNTO THE PEOPLE, YE ARE WITNESSES AGAINST YOURSELVES THAT YE HAVE CHOSEN YOU THE LORD, TO SERVE HIM. AND THEY SAID, WE ARE WITNESSES. NOW THEREFORE PUT AWAY, SAID HE, THE STRANGE GODS WHICH ARE AMONG YOU, AND INCLINE YOUR HEART UNTO THE LORD GOD OF ISRAEL. AND THE PEOPLE SAID UNTO JOSHUA , THE LORD OUR GOD WILL WE SERVE, AND HIS VOICE WILL WE OBEY. SO JOSHUA MADE A COVENANT WITH THE PEOPLE THAT DAY, AND SET THEM A STATUTE AND AN ORDINANCE IN SCECHEM. AND JOSHUA WROTE THESE WORDS IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW OF GOD, AND TOOK A GREAT STONE, AND SET IT UP THERE UNDER AN OAK, THAT WAS BY THE SANCTUARY OF THE LORD. AND JOSHUA SAID UNTO ALL THE PEOPLE, BEHOLD, THIS STONE SHALL BE A WITNESS UNTO US; FOR IT HATH HEARD ALL THE WORDS OF THE LORD WHICH HE SPAKE UNTO US: IT SHALL BE THEREFORE A WITNESS UNTO YOU, LEST YE DENY YOUR GOD. SO JOSHUA LET THE PEOPLE DEPART, EVERY MAN UNTO HIS OWN INHERITANCE.”
Joshua was basically saying: Choose you today, whom you’ll serve. But he had already made up his mind that as for him and his, they would serve the Lord. You men notice what he said. He said, “As for me and my house...” I believe the man is the leader of the household. The spiritual leader. Thank God Joshua didn’t say, “I have to check in with my wife.” Joshua was saying, I’m going to serve the Lord, my wife is going to serve the Lord and my children are going to serve the Lord. If you’re going to serve the Lord you might as well give it all that you’ve got. I’ll say this, you can’t serve God half the time. It’s not good to serve part of the time. We’ve got to learn to serve God all the time. He gave us His all and we ought to give Him our all. I want to ask you this question? Are you really serving God? I want to share a couple of positive scriptures with you today and then I want to share one negative scripture. You say, there’s negative scripture in the word of God? When I call it negative I’m saying you better listen to what sayeth the Lord. He’s trying to tell you what the right ways are and what the wrong ways are. So we’re going to start out with two positive verses.
HEBREWS 12:28 “WHEREFORE WE RECEIVING A KINGDOM WHICH CANNOT BE MOVED, LET US HAVE GRACE, WHEREBY WE MAY SERVE GOD ACCEPTABLY WITH REVERENCE AND GODLY FEAR:”
We need to serve God acceptably. There’s a verse in the Bible that God was not pleased with what a lot of people were doing and you can ask yourself that question too, Is God pleased with How you’re serving Him? Listen, you’re here to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Joyce shared a thought with me that the Lord laid on her heart and I’ll never forget it and the words were this: We’re born to serve. We’re not born to serve from our natural birth but from our spiritual birth. When we get birthed into the family of God we become servants to God. As a matter of fact you’ll find in Romans 5 or 6 that we are no more the servants of sin but we’re the servants of God.
COLOSSIANS 3:24 “KNOWING THAT OF THE LORD YE SHALL RECEIVE THE REWARD OF THE INHERITANCE: FOR YE SERVE THE LORD CHRIST.”
So now we know that we’re supposed to serve the Lord. Joshua said choose you this day whom ye shall serve but as for me and my house we shall serve the Lord.
Here’s the negative verse:
MATTHEW 6:24 “NO MAN CAN SERVE TWO MASTERS: FOR EITHER HE WILL HATE THE ONE, AND LOVE THE OTHER; OR ELSE HE WILL HOLD TO ONE, AND DESPISE THE OTHER. YE CANNOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON.”
There’s a lot of people trying to serve more than one God. You say no I’m not preacher, God’s always number one on my list. Listen, if you’re worshipping Him, you’ll bear some fruit every once in a while. You wouldn’t be running off on some tangent somewhere trying to believe every word you hear from somebody else, or trying to run around doing God’s business in sin. It makes me sick when children of God try to live like God in the enviroment of the Devil. It will not work. You cannot serve God and mammon. Preacher, what is other Gods? Anything that comes between us and God. It can be material things, a false prophet, a false spirit. All kinds of things that interfere between us and God. The devil is always about his business. The Bible says he’s like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. When we let anything come between us and God, we’re serving other Gods. False Gods. Preacher, what does that mean? That means everything. You can’t let your wife, your husband, your children, mom and dad. You cannot let any person come between you and God. He’s number one and everybody else is number two. Not just people but material things. I’ve heard the excuses when you try to get people to come to the house of God, they don’t even have to think about it, they always have an answer ready as to why they can’t come. God knows what your excuses are. I’m not talking about attending Westside Baptist Church on Sundays. I’m talking about serving God in your lifetime. Every day, every hour, every second, we’re supposed to serve the Lord.
Now I want to share with you some things God laid on my heart. First of all who do we serve? And I said Lord, just lay a scripture on my heart that will go along with that. He laid one on my heart and that’s all I needed. Here’s what he laid on my heart:
MATTHEW 4:10 “GET THEE HENCE SATAN: FOR IT IS WRITTEN, THOU SHALT WORSHIP THE LORD THY GOD. AND HIM ONLY SHALT THOU SERVE.”
I don’t have to add to that. If it was good enough for Christ to run the devil off with it ought to be good enough for us. We’re not serving nobody, no thing, no place; we’re not here to serve Westside Baptist Church,; we’re here to serve the Lord. You can scratch Westside Baptist Church off because it won’t be there when we get to heaven. The name JESUS will be there. Now ask yourself, are you really serving the Lord? What are you doing to serve the Lord?
How do I serve the Lord? maybe you’re here and you’re young and you don’t know how. Maybe you’re here and you’re older and you don’t know how to serve the Lord. Maybe you’re here and you’ve been in church for twenty years and you just don’t know how to serve the Lord. If you have your Bibles I want to share five things and I want you to read with me on how we can serve the Lord.
1 PETER 4:10 “AS EVERY MAN HATH RECEIVED THE GIFT, EVEN SO MINISTER THE SAME ONE TO ANOTHER, AS GOOD STEWARDS OF THE MANIFOLD GRACE OF GOD. IF ANY MAN SPEAK, LET HIM SPEAK AS THE ORACLES OF GOD; IF ANY MAN MINISTER, LET HIM DO IT AS OF THE ABILITY WHICH GOD GIVETH: THAT GOD IN ALL THINGS MAY BE GLORIFIED THROUGH JESUS CHRIST, TO WHOM BE PRAISE AND DOMINION FOR EVER AND EVER.”
Now is that so hard? Ability is the key word. How can we serve God? By our ability. God gives everyone of us the ability to serve Him. When you get saved by the grace of God you get all the ability you need to share the gospel. We’re not serving God by material things. I don’t serve God by the suits that I wear. I serve God by what’s on the inside. God said to serve him in sincerity and service that is acceptable unto God.
Your ability may not be my ability. If God gave you the ability then use it for God. Glorify God. Lift up the name of Jesus in everything you do. You say you don’t know what to do. Open the door for the people coming into God’s house and he’ll use you. God does not have a trash can for Christians. He loves us all. When we take maybe 50 or 60 of us and take all the abilities that God gave us and put them together we can work in the house of God and in the field and this place will be filling over with people. Don’t try to get somebody else’s gift. Just do what God wants you to do. I remember in the Bible he gave out the talents and he gave one man one talent and he told him to use it and he come back and said he was afraid of him and he hid his talent. God took it away from him and gave it to someone else that had ten talents. That old boy ended up with no talents. That’s the problem with a lot of christians; they’re ending up with nothing. If you do not come to the house of God to hear the preached word, if you don’t pick up your Bible and read and study it, you know what you have? Instead of having an ability, you have a disability. If you have a disability instead of an ability, how can you win some lost person to Christ?
MARK 12:44 “FOR ALL THEY DID CAST IN OF THEIR ABUNDANCE: BUT SHE OF HER WANT DID CAST IN ALL THAT SHE HAD, EVEN ALL HER LIVING.”
Preacher, how can I serve the Lord? Give God you’re all. There’s so many Christians in the world today just giving God a little part here and a little part there. They give to God when they feel like it. You have what you have because God gave it to you. You ought to give God you’re all. We just can’t imagine how blessed we’d be if we gave God our all.
JOHN 8:3-32 “THEN SAID JESUS TO THOSE JEWS WHICH BELIEVED ON HIM, IF YE CONTINUE IN MY WORD, THEN ARE YE MY DISCIPLES INDEED; AND YE SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH AND THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE.”
The key word here is continue. I believe that’s stands for longevity. We’re living in a world where there’s a bunch of Christian quitters. They’re always quitting on God, the Pastor, the church. God don’t want you to quit. He wants you to continue. I thank God for those Saints of God that I’ve known twenty or so years that are still serving the Lord.
They’ll pray with you and call you up on the phone and tell you they love you. How many of you are going to quit next week? Tired of Westside Baptist Church. We don’t have what you need? Listen, if you can’t get something from the Lord at Westside Baptist Church, you won’t find it anywhere else. This place is full of the Spirit of God. If you can’t feel it, you’re not where you should be in your Christian walk or your Lost.
I thank God for my daddy. He was a deacon for fifty something years. I remember as a little boy we went to a big old church in Atlanta called “Unity Baptist.” One day in Sunday School they passed out some pens for Sunday school attendance. The Pastor called my fathers name out. They said Brother J. W. Vaughan, we have a pin up here for you for twenty years. He had not missed Sunday school in twenty years. I thought to myself, wow have we been going to church that long? It amazed me. People now a days won’t even come to Sunday school. The point I’m trying to make is have longevity. What you’re doing right now may not seem very important to you. But stick with it and God will bless you. Go the straight and narrow way. There ain’t no stop signs, no yield signs, no cross roads...just stay with God.
1 PETER 3:15 “BUT SANCTIFY THE LORD GOD IN YOUR HEARTS: AND BE READY ALWAYS TO GIVE AN ANSWER TO EVERY MAN THAT ASKETH YOU A REASON OF THE HOPE THAT IS IN YOU WITH MEEKNESS AND FEAR:”
The key word here is reliability. He said be ready always. You’ve seen those Christians who on Sundays act pretty decent but you get around them on Tuesday and their different. Sunday they had the word of God out and they were testifying and praising God and telling how God saved them and that they hang around a new crowd. (I’m not saying that’s a case of someone here). God don’t just use us on Sundays. He uses us everyday and we have to be ready to share the word of God with someone. I wonder how many of you if someone were to come up to you with tears in their eyes and say they’ve never been saved by the grace of God. Could you share some Bible scripture and lead them to Christ? Don’t make up the gospel. Share with them the word of God. Can’t do that if you leave your Bibles on the pews when you leave Sunday. Think it won’t ever happen to you because you’re not a preacher. You don’t have to be a preacher to witness to some lost soul. That’s where we’re lacking at in our churches...we need to spread the gospel. We need to be reliable. Always ready to give that person an answer of the hope that’s in you. There’s several ways to do that. Number one is by being an example. Live a good clean life. Number two you can also do it with your testimony. You’re at work in the break room and there’s just you and one other person with you and the Lord speaks to your heart and you say, can I tell you what the Lord’s done for me? It isn’t hard to share your testimony with people. You can ask them if they’ve ever been saved. If they say they don’t know you can bet they have never been saved. We need to be reliable and ready always to work with the Lord. We get in this routine of coming to church on Sunday. We get filled up and we say boy this is the day I’m going to witness to somebody and pray with somebody but do you get up on Monday morning thinking that?
HEBREWS 10:23 “LET US HOLD FAST THE PROFESSION OF OUR FAITH WITHOUT WAVERING; (FOR HE IS FAITHFUL THAT PROMISED;)”
The keyword here is stability. We’ve got to have stability. How can you win somebody over to Christ when they look at you say, well you’re in and out of church. You’re in for three months and out for three months. You can’t win anybody to God that way. You’ve got to be stable. Jesus was stable. He was on a journey one time and he sent his disciples into town to buy some food and he sat down on the way. He was weary with his journey and thus come a woman. A harlot (a sinner). If you’re going to be weary, be weary in front of some lost person and share the gospel with them. She told Jesus they didn’t have dealings with the Samaritans, this was her fathers well. Jesus said if you’d ask me, I’d give you of the living well. He may have been tired on his journey but he was still seeking to save that which was lost. That’s what he continued in until God called Him home. Let your prayer life be stable. Let your Bible reading be stable. Let the Christian time you spend with your family be stable. Let your church attendance be stable. God uses stability to strengthen Christians.
You say preacher, when can we serve the Lord?
PROVERBS 8:34 “BLESSED IS THE MAN THAT HEARETH ME, WATCHING DAILY AT MY GATES, WAITING AT THE POSTS OF MY DOORS.”
The keyword here is daily. It means always. Listen to what Jesus said in LUKE 9:23 “IF ANY MAN WILL COME AFTER ME, LET HIM DENY HIMSELF; AND TAKE UP HIS CROSS DAILY, AND FOLLOW ME.” Daily! We need to get out of the routine of this Sunday thing. We ought to be having a celebration on Sundays of praising and worshipping God for what he done for us. We should get rid of this sign that says morning worship and evening worship and put up one that says celebration by hour 11:00 for God at Westside Baptist Church. When can we serve God? Anytime! Here’s another question. Where can we serve God? A lot of Christians spend a lot of time trying to figure out where they’re going to serve God. When I was young I wanted to sing in a gospel group. Someone said to me, how are you going to sing in a gospel group when God called you to preach. I thought about that. Well I can sing in a gospel group and preach at the same time too. Sure can but that’s not what God wanted me to do. I did what God led me to do. He didn’t want me in a gospel group and preaching. He wanted me to preach and use my singing as a talent.
2 CORINTHIANS 3:17 “WHERE THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS, THERE’S WISDOM.”
Where ever the spirit leads you, that’s where you can serve at. The spirit is always with you. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there’s Liberty. What is that liberty? Serving the Lord. If God be for us, who can be against us. If we have God on our side, what should we be afraid of?
MATTHEW 8:20 “THE FOXES HAVE HOLES, AND THE BIRDS OF THE AIR HAVE NESTS; BUT THE SON OF MAN HATH NOT WHERE TO LAY HIS HEAD.”
You know what he meant by that? He was saying that he was always serving his Father. He told his mother Mary and stepfather Joseph: wish ye not that I must be about my Fathers business. Where did he serve the Lord? Everywhere He went. He said I came not to do my will but the will of my Father which sent me. He wants us to be like that. You can be a soul winner for Christ. You have family members that are lost that you can witness to. Sometimes it don’t work just inviting them to the house of God. Sometimes you have to get bold and pull out the Bible and read scripture to them. Start on your knees. God will advance your ministry. If you’re saved by the grace of God then you’ve got a ministry.
What’s it going to profit you to serve the Lord? Look at 1 CORINTHIANS 3:8 “NOW HE THAT PLANTETH AND HE THAT WATERETH ARE ONE: AND EVERY MAN SHALL RECEIVE HIS OWN REWARD ACCORDING TO HIS OWN LABOUR.” You’ll get what you sow. Our work is not in vain in the Lord. If you serve God, God’s going to bless you for it.
REVELATION 22:12 “AND BEHOLD, I COME QUICKLY; AND MY REWARD IS WITH ME, TO GIVE EVERY MAN ACCORDING AS HIS WORK SHALL BE.”
He said when he comes, he’s bringing his reward with Him. He said as your work is, that’s what your reward will be. Isn’t that a blessing. I’m not looking for my reward here in Marietta or in the U.S. Everything we do needs to be for His name, for His sake. We need to realize that all the blessings are going to come from God. If we turn from the Lord or forsake the Lord, wed end up in sorrow. We’d have all kinds of trials and troubles in our life because we’ve turned from him. When I read that in the Bible I realized that that’s what’s the matter with a lot of these Christians today. They wonder why there’s so much sorrow and pain and grief and strife in their life. Jesus isn’t going to let you live just any way you want to.
Ask yourself this question. Am I really serving the Lord?
Let us Pray: Father I thank you for allowing us to share your word. We pray that you’d just move in their hearts and they would apply it to their lives. Father I pray that we would spend our lifetime wisely, doing that which is pleasing in your sight. Seeking out those that are lost and spreading the word of your glorious Son Jesus who came to die on a cross for our sins. Lord I pray that if I am not serving you to the best of my ability that you would lead, guide and direct my path so that I may better serve you.
In Jesus name I pray.
