Worship Through Serving Series

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,