What is Proper Christian Service?

Have you ever eaten in a restaurant? And afterwards, someone says, well, the food was pretty good. And then someone says, yeah, but the service was terrible.

How many times have you gone to any place, whether it's a department store, my wife comes home, or she hates shopping. She's one of the few women that doesn't like shopping. So when she goes shopping, she comes home and she always says, oh, the service was so terrible.

I tried to take something back. They didn't know how to do it. They didn't understand it. The computer got messed up. It took me 45 minutes. Or, you know, there was nobody to help me within someplace. And there was nobody there. And I asked somebody, what's the price of this? And they said, I don't know. She already does these stories about how... But then she likes going to HEB because she says the service at HEB is always better. So we talk a lot about service. All of us appreciate good service. But someone is there to take care of our needs.

And, you know, it's interesting that throughout history, people have had servants to take care of their needs. Servants and slaves to take care of their needs. Servants were people who were hired to do it, and slaves were people who were owned and forced to take care of somebody else's needs. At the time of the Roman Empire, it is estimated that in Rome itself, a third of the population were either servants or slaves to the other people. And, of course, slavery at that point was not a certain race of people. It was just whoever they conquered and gave their slaves.

We know in the Cervadette, Mr. Lockhart talked about service as his last point.

I'm going to pick up on it. He was the perfect introduction. He talked about service.

I want to break down what it means to be a servant as a Christian. What does it mean to be a servant as a Christian? You know, Jesus, when talking about leadership, gave a radical definition of what it is to be a leader. Let's go to Matthew 20. Matthew 20.

This was a radical idea at the time. It's interesting that you could go to Barnes and Noble and you can look through all kinds of books on management and leadership. They'll have an entire section on management and leadership. When you go through there, you'll see that half the books talk about how to be a true leader in the business world or nonprofit world or whatever.

You have to see yourself as a servant.

Matthew 20, 25. Jesus called them. This is His disciples Himself. He says, you know that the rulers of the nations, the rulers of the Gentiles, lorded over them, those who are great exercise authority over them.

Throughout history, most people who have some kind of position, whether it's a king, a congressman, whether it's the local mayor, whether it's some warlord someplace, unfortunately, sometimes whether it's the husband over a household. They see their position as privilege. In other words, my authority gives me privilege. It gives me extra rights. And therefore, it is my job to maintain and protect my own rights. In fact, it is a strange anomaly of almost all human government. If you study history, you only find a couple times where this hasn't happened, where the purpose of government eventually gets down to one point to maintain its own power.

It exists to maintain its own power. So today, when an elected official gets in, what happens?

Within a short time after they're elected, they're spending all their time and energy preparing for the next election, not taking care of their duties or taking care of the people or doing what they're supposed to do, but they're preparing to maintain power. And that is what happens so often in leadership roles, no matter what it is, whether it's in business or whether it's in politics. That privilege is what authority is all about. Jesus says to His disciples, verse 26, yet it shall not be so among you, for whoever desires to be great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave. He says, here's the approach you are to have. Now, He's talking to the man who would be the future leaders of the church that He was starting. They had responsibilities. They had authority. They used their authority. You see it throughout the Scripture. And yet, He says, in your responsibilities, in your authority, you're not to see this as privilege. You're to see it as a servant. Just as, now here He gives an example, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for men. He says, you want an example of this? Jesus said, look at me. He said, I came here to serve humanity. And He said, here I am as a servant. He washed their feet. He took care of them.

He acted as a servant. And yet, He also exercised leadership. He exercised authority. He carried out His responsibilities. But His attitude was, why does He do what He does? Most people use position as a means to promote themselves. Jesus said leadership is there to help take care of and promote others. Christian service. Well, we're talking about a service. He said this about leadership. This is the basis of Christian leadership. Let's talk about the whole basis of the Christian interaction with other people. Let's break this down today into the real practical points of what you and I can do. Very practical points of what you and I can do.

Christian service is more than doing some acts of service.

Now, we do those acts of service. We did a turkey drive. It was mentioned in the Sermonette. We have our local food bank. But it's more than that. When we talk about this type of service that Jesus Christ is talking about here, He's not saying, leave those things undone. But what He's saying is, that's not enough. We think, well, wait a minute. I get an act of service. But Christian service is more. It includes that, but it's more than that. Because Christian service is an approach to life. It's an approach in how you treat everyone you meet on a daily basis. Now, you can see why I said that this is a Lockhart Sermonette. It was a perfect introduction on what I'm going to talk about today. Christian service is based in an approach to how you treat every person every day. It is based in doing good deeds or good works, doing what is good in actions and words towards others. Now, it's interesting that in the Scripture, when you look at service, you will see two great places where service is emphasized, and then you'll see it expands from there. One is inside the family, and one is inside the church itself. Service is talking about inside the family, and then inside the church itself, and then it expands out. And there's a reason for that. Because inside your family, service is an aspect of relationship. You know, I've seen fathers that have thought they serve their children and serve their wives simply by bringing home the money. And so they've worked hard, and they brought home the money. And I thought, see, I'm serving my family. I work 12 hours a day, and I bring home the money, and I give them a nice house, and there's food on the table. And yet they never related to the wife or the children.

And yet later in life, you hear those same men say, I don't understand. I don't have a relationship with my wife. I don't have a relationship with my children. What happened? I serve them. Well, inside the family, it's not just good deeds. If you see service only as good deeds, then that's all you would have to do. You know, if a mother sees service only as I feed the kid and change the diaper, right? I put the food in one end, and I clean it up when it comes out the other. And that's all I do. That's my service. The relationship between that mother and that child is not going to be very strong as that child grows older. So service is more than just simple acts of service.

The service that the Bible talks about as Christian service is an approach to every person you meet and how you approach that person. The community of the church. There's an awful lot in the New Testament about how we serve each other in the community of the church. In fact, it is in the family and in the church that we find out what service is all about. It's in these two arenas which an attitude and approach to service is developed. That's why it's important that we, as parents, help develop an attitude of service within our children. Not just that they do acts of service. Just doing an act of service sometimes isn't for service at all. It's so that, oh good, I can feel good, I can check off my act of service this month. I did my service project this month, oh good. Now the rest of the time I can do what I want.

We have to see how service breaks down into how you approach everybody every single day of your life. This is the one place where it talks about service in the church. Romans 12.

Romans 12.

Let's start in verse 10. This is a long passage here. Paul's writing about a lot of things within the church. In verse 6 through 9 he talks about the gifts of the Spirit. Then in verse 10 he says, "...be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, and honor given preference to one another." Now this is a very long sentence here in English, where it starts here in verse 10 and it goes on and on and on. It ends down in verse 14. But let's look at what he says here to begin with. When he talks about the relationship between people in the community of the church, this isn't just the fact that they get together and go to SABAS services. It isn't just the fact that they get together once in a while and do some good deed for the community or for themselves. Now I found something the other day that some of you may remember. It was a little book full of pictures of a service project we did, I'm guessing it was in 99, maybe 2000, somewhere there, at the Norin's house. They had their house, they had a big backyard and they had grown into a jungle. And a whole bunch of us, there must have been 30 of us.

Well, there's more than that because part of it was a team project and I think there was 15 teenagers and there was probably many more adults. And there were pictures of people driving tractors and there were people cleaning out things. And I remember that very well, that activity. But you know, I look through that group of people, it's interesting, over half those teenagers have left the faith. We left the faith to determine.

Here it is, maybe 12 years later, 14 years later, and over half those teenagers.

The service project wasn't enough. It's important.

We have to understand what Christianity is about as a community.

It is not just about projects, it's about being kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love. In other words, we are actually to have emotional feelings towards each other. As brothers and sisters in Christ. You can't do that if you don't have a relationship with each other. Now this has to do with service. Service just can't be, oh, here I gave some money, I can walk away and now I don't have to feel bad about those people suffering anymore. You know, that's what they try to do all the time on television. You know, for 50 cents a day, and then somehow you can feel good. I'm not saying you shouldn't do those things, I'm saying service has to be more than that. And inside the church, just like inside of a family, it can't be just because you do these actions and, you know, live lives as absolutely separate human beings. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love and honor giving preference to one another. In other words, we have to see the value of each other. We're going to expand this outside the church, but we start here. We see the value of each other. This is what happens to so many people. Inside your own family, you didn't value each other. You see children who are never valued by their parents. And the devastation that happens to those children as adults, where they tend not to value other people either.

We must have this... we have to have emotions for each other. It can't just be, let me do an action for you. The action has to be coupled with emotions. Now, we talk a lot about the actions because you learn by doing the actions, but it's not enough. He says, verse 11, not wagging and diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Now, this is very important as we go through this. You're going to see that serving other people is part of serving God.

Sometimes what we do is we think, well, as long as I keep the tit commandments, I'm serving God. Well, yes, if you don't keep the tit commandments, you're not serving God.

Oh, good. See, I'm keeping the tit commandments, I'm serving God. It's not enough.

We have to have this attitude, this approach to life that says, I serve others. I am here. Part of our purpose of being here is to serve in any way we can, properly, those who we come in contact with. He says, rejoicing in hope. I find this interesting because remember in English, it's all one sentence. It says, county affectionate, giving preference, serving the Lord. And what this produces, rejoicing in hope, patience and tribulation, continuing steadfast prayer. As we serve others and serve the Lord, we begin to have this joy. There is within service a reward built into it. When you serve in the right attitude, you receive a blessing through the act of service. Serving becomes a reward in itself.

I want you to think about that. Serving becomes a reward in itself. You do it, and you receive a reward.

You say, well, what? Somebody's going to give you some money? No. You receive a reward at what happens to you spiritually and what happens to you emotionally.

Verse 13, distributing to the needs of the saints and giving to hospitality.

So he said, in this relationship we have within the church, we now give to the needs. We take care of the needs of each other, and we are hospitable to each other. Now, this is within the church.

When you look through the early New Testament, you will find lots and lots of cases where this was happening. What's interesting is if you read through the New Testament, the farther you get away from the life of Jesus, the more congregations they have, the more they battle with a lack of service, a lack of attitude of service within the communities. Let's look at a place where this was very strong, Acts chapter 4. Here's where service is very strong. Service is a fundamental value. You know, I talked about values a few weeks ago, and probably over the next six months I'm going to be talking quite a bit about values, different values we have. Service is a fundamental value.

It is an intellectual and emotional response to the needs of other people. Now, I'm not going to talk about how you can... Well, we will then, because we have to balance that some. Before I get there, let's look at a case here. Acts 4, verse 32. And with great power, the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. Nor was there anyone... Now, this is the church in Jerusalem. Nor was there anyone among them who lacked, for all who were possessors of lands or houses, sold them and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet, and they distributed each as anyone had need. And Joseph, who is also named Barnabas by the apostles, which is translated, son of encouragement, a Levite of the country of Cyprus, having land sold it and brought the money and laid it to the apostles' feet.

Now, we know from what happened in chapter 5 that they weren't commanded to do this. So, not everyone was selling everything they had. But people were selling land and houses, and they were contributing it there to the church of Jerusalem, and they were taking care of their people. The church had grown at a remarkable rate, and it exploded with numbers of people. And so, here they are, serving each other. Barnabas is such a server, such an encourager, that they give him a nickname.

They give him a nickname, and it's son of encouragement. How would you like to have that nickname? Here comes the great encourager, the son of encouragement.

You know, now, you know, people just like me, I walk around and he goes, oh, there's the grouch, right? So, we have nicknames for each other, the son of encouragement. Now, what's interesting is we have this example, and the whole church is encouraged by what's going on. What we have in chapter 5 is the famous story of Ananias and Sapphira. When you read through chapter 5, Ananias and Sapphira said, oh, look! Barnabas is, like, held up in the church. Everybody really looks up to him. Everybody thinks he's special. We want to be special, too. So, what we're going to do is sell some land and give part of it to the church. But they said, we're going to keep part of it for ourselves. So, they go to the apostles, they say, here, we sold some land and we're giving it to the church. What an act of service. We're going to help everybody. But what happens is, Peter, because God chose him for the Holy Spirit, Peter knows that they actually kept some of it. And if you read through chapter 5, Peter says to them, why did you do this? It was your money. You didn't have to give any of it. God didn't require you to do this. You kept all of it if you wanted it. Why did you do this? It's one of the few times in the New Testament that God strikes someone dead. Well, I tell you, when God strikes someone dead, he's making a real important point, okay? Now, the reason why is, they didn't see service as a way to care for others.

They saw service as a way to be recognized. There is a great danger when we see service as a way to be recognized. I need to be recognized because of my service. That's why I'm automatically a bit jaundiced when someone says, boy, I want to serve in the church. Can I start giving sermonettes and leading songs? And sometimes I'll say, I've actually done this before, well, are you visiting the widows? Oh, no, my service is that. Visit the widows for six months and come back and talk to me. You know, I've had, I don't think I've ever had anybody come back and talk to me. Well, then why are you doing it? You see, service has to be from the heart.

It has to be how we approach that person. That person has value to God and value to you.

Now, you can't serve everybody. And there's some people we're actually not supposed to serve, but that's a different issue. We're talking about the attitude, the approach. Wisdom says, wait a minute, this is an evil person. I'm not going to go serve them, right? That's wisdom.

But what is the attitude? So we're not talking about every specific situation. We're talking about the attitude. Then wisdom is how you apply the attitude, your approach to life.

Spiritual growth, like growth in anything, involves doing it. It involves practice. It involves actions. These actions become habits. But these habits must be accompanied by understanding.

Why do you do what you do? This is where service must come from a pure motivation.

Serving God because you love God and serving others because you see that they have value.

Let's look at a number of practical ways that you can think about, that can help you develop an attitude of service. Not just do actions of service, but an attitude of service. In fact, sometimes when you really understand what service is, you may change what you're doing.

You may be pointing forth a lot of effort into something. You realize, well, I could use that effort in a better way. Let's start with Luke 10.

Well-known story. In fact, all what I'm going to cover today are well-known stories. Luke 10.

Verse 38. It's a lot easier to talk about actions than attitudes. But what I'm going to show you are attitudes through the actions. We can see through these people's actions, and we can see through the way the story is designed, what it teaches us about the attitude. Luke 10. Now, it happened that he went, let's talk about Jesus, and they went out. He entered a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him to her house. She also had a sister called Mary, who sat down at Jesus' feet and heard his word. But Martha was distracted with much serving. Martha was the person who did it all. She was always worried. Everything had to be perfect. She was the type of person, when you walked in her house, you know, if you were going to go over to her house, she had it perfect for you when you walked in. And she served you.

She was the type of person, you know, have you eaten? Yes. That's okay. You have to eat again.

Here, I made a pie, just for you. Here, I did this. And, you know, people would have loved Martha, and she had a great big heart. Martha was a very important person in her community because of her serving. Okay? So, this is not a negative against Martha's serving.

But the story tells us something that she needed to learn. And she approached Jesus and said, "'Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore, tell her they help me.'" You know, my sister never really measures up. She doesn't serve like I do. You know, she just likes to talk. You know, I do all the work. I'm the one stuck doing all the work while she's having all the fun. And, Lord, you know, I tried to set this up for you and the disciples, and here she is, off hanging around with the men. That's not a woman's job.

And Jesus answered and said to her, "'Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things.'" Her service was driven by anxiety. I'm not saying she did have a big heart. That's not the issue here. She's famous for her serving, but she was also very anxious, very anxious that her service had to be perfect. And in this perfectionism in her service, she admits something.

"'But one thing,' Jesus says, "'is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.' And what was the good part? She was sitting at Jesus' feet, learning from the Christ, from the Messiah." What happened was that Martha, in her anxiety about serving and forgotten, the most important point about serving, serving God must be our first priority. Serving God has to be our first priority. An affectionate desire to please God. That has to be our first priority, to serve Him. And Martha sort of lost track of that. And Mary said, this is Jesus.

I'm going to go listen to everything He has to say.

And poor Martha's worried. You know, the pots are boiling. The lamb got burnt.

I didn't get to clean the house good enough. I didn't know Jesus was going to bring this many people. I don't have enough wine. She was full of anxiety because she had to have everything perfect. And Jesus said, Martha, calm down. Put God first. Calm down. Put God first.

That's the first lesson about serving. Serve God first.

You know, any time we get so caught up in helping the sick, in visiting the poor, should we do those things? Yes. If you don't do those things, you're not serving.

Every time we get so caught up in listening to others' troubles, which we should do, sharing other people's troubles, that we don't study our Bibles, we don't pray to God, we don't worship, we don't take time off our own spiritual rejuvenation, then we're doing what Martha did. And you know how you know that's happening? Because you're all anxious about everybody else's problems, and you're always anxious about what didn't get done, and you're always anxious about how, I need to go do this, I need to go do that.

Go to mid-time with God and let Him help you prioritize what needs to be done. But serving God first. The second point is in Acts 9.

Acts 9. We talked about this in one of the women's Bible studies, Acts 9.36, because this is a remarkable story. When you go through the entire New Testament, there's a handful of places where God raised somebody up who was dead.

Now there's always a reason. You know, God just doesn't go around raising people from the dead.

There's always a reason. And we look at the reason. You know, when Jesus was killed, people came up out of the ground. Why? It proved He was the Messiah. There's a reason God does this.

The reason God raises this woman is phenomenal. Look at verse 36.

At Joppa, there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which is translated Dorkus. This one was full of good works and charitable deeds, which she did. She is a server, just like Martha.

Martha was a good server, a little too anxious. Got mixed up with her priorities.

All of us could do that. Dorkus, good server. Always doing these good deeds for everybody else, always helping others. But it happened in those days that she became sick and died.

When they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. And since Liddo was near Joppa, the disciples had heard that Peter was there. They sent two men to him, imploring him not to delay and coming to them. Then Peter rose and went with them. With the account they brought him into the upper room. And all the widows stood by him, weeping, showing the tutics and garments which Dorkus had made while she was with them. But Peter put them out, knelt down and prayed, and turned to the body and said, Tabitha, rise. And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up.

And then he gave her his hand and lifted her up. And when he had called the saints and widows, he presented her alive. And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed O the Lord. So we see that she is resurrected so that many can believe in God.

Ah, Peter. God is working through Peter. I mean, you raise somebody from the dead, and the whole community finds out about it, because the whole community had known she had died. But what is her fame? Is it that she was a great leader in the synagogue?

Was it that she was a great preacher?

No. Well, let's see. She must have written one of the books of the Bible.

No. All the things that we would think are important, and say, well, God would resurrect that person. You know what she did? She made clothes for widows and poor people. She made clothes for widows and poor people. And so God had Peter resurrect her from the dead. Not permanently. She died again. This time went on. But why? To encourage those people so she could continue her work and to prove that Peter was of God. Remarkable. You'd think he would have raised up Stephen or James, some of the other apostles that were killed. It's just a woman who makes clothes.

Which shows us that our second point is serve. We say, well, how do I serve? People ask me all the time, how do I serve? What do I do? You start in the simplest ways. Sometimes we're looking for big ways to serve. Serve by helping the physical needs of others. Serve by helping the physical needs of others. It can be as simple as helping somebody walk out to the car.

It can be as simple as that. It can be as simple as going over someone's house and helping them clean for the days of the night of the bread.

But serve the physical needs of people.

So first of all, keep those priorities straight. Solve God first. Don't be like Martha and be anxious all the time because everything is getting done and you're so worried and you want to get it done. Her heart was right, but she was going to drive herself crazy. And she was missing the fact that Jesus was right there teaching in her house. What we have here with Dorcas is the example of someone who, what she was known for, yes, she was a great Christian woman, but what actions was she known for? She took care of physical needs of other people. Third point is in James 1, 27.

See, this is very simple stuff today. Last week I went through some complicated scriptures.

Today it's very simple. It's simple in its stories. It's complicated in its applications because it has to be an attitude. It can't be something you think about once in a while. It has to be what you do all the time. James 1, 27. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this. Whoa! Important statement. This is pure religion before God to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. We really zero in on to keep oneself unspotted from the world, so we try so hard to have our doctrines perfect before God, and we should. And we try so hard to keep the law of God, and we should. But you know, that's not the complete sentence here, is it? You see, we must strive to serve the emotional needs of others also.

To visit orphans and widows in their trouble, in their trouble. I always, on the day before Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving, I try to call a lot of the shut-ins to see how, you know, just wish them a happy Thanksgiving. And sometimes, we end up in 45-minute conversations. I always set aside a couple hours before Thanksgiving and a couple hours on the day after. I just try to call some of the shut-ins, see how the Thanksgiving was.

And sometimes, they had a great time. And sometimes, they were alone.

Sometimes, they're alone on Thanksgiving, members of our own congregation.

Visiting these people is easier than it's ever been, because we can call them on the telephone. They couldn't do that at the time of James. We could call them on the telephone.

It's a word of encouragement. It's sending a card. It's giving them a phone call. It's going by and seeing people. The third point is serving by helping the emotional needs of people.

The fourth point is that these are very simple things.

But we say, well, how can I serve this way? Oh, but I was hoping to become the chairman of a committee. Actually, that's easy in this church. Nobody wants to be chairman of a committee, so you can do that. But we think, well, that's how I serve. That's how I define my service.

Okay, that's an action. That's a good way to serve. But committee chairs come and go, and they change.

Service is an attitude. Biblical, scriptural, Christian service is an attitude.

It's not just the action. The fourth point is Matthew 20.

This is a great example of service. It's a great example of leadership, too. Matthew 20, verse 29.

Talk about Jesus Christ again.

Now, as they went out of Jericho, a great multitude followed Him. And behold, two blind men sitting by the road, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David. The multitude warned them that they should be quiet, but they cried out all the more, saying, Having mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David. You know, people were sort of ashamed, sort of embarrassed. You know, here He is coming out. There's whole communities out there. All the townspeople around are out there. And there's these two blind men sitting off yelling at Him. Here's Jesus. Here's the great rabbi. Here's the man that some people say is the Christ, the Messiah. And here, there's these two guys that are sort of embarrassed by Him. You know, they keep yelling out, Hey, please, Son of David, which is, by the way, a Messianic title. Say, Son of David, please come over here. Please, please. And all the people are very embarrassed. And they say, Be quiet. Come on.

You're trying to embarrass all of us. We should be giving Him honor. We should be giving Him praise. Now, should they have been giving Him honor and praise? Yes.

Should they have recognized who He was? His power, His authority? Yes.

The important thing here is what Jesus does. Because look what He does in verse 32.

So Jesus, remember, He's walking down the road. He's walking through this crowd. He stands still and called out to them and said, What do you want me to do for you? Now, we go on and read. They said, We want to be healed. So we healed them while healing them. You know, Christ did a lot of healings. I find what's interesting about this story is He stops two people, faces two people who everybody else is telling to be quiet or embarrassing us, and He says, What can I do for you? And there is the essence of service.

It's somebody you don't know, someone who can't give you anything, a situation that no one will ever know. Of course, they do in this case. But, you know, maybe a situation where no one will ever know what you did. And why did you do it?

Because you simply asked, What can I do for you? What can I do for you? There's the essence of service.

Think about if you walked into a store and think about what it means when someone who's getting paid to be a servant, right, they're being paid to be a servant, and they walk up to you and say, How can I help you? Instead of, Right? How can I help you? And suddenly you're asking, you know, well, we took my mother to buy her some new clothes when she was here.

So pretty soon, we had half of the workers there standing outside. You know, mom would come out, would say, What do you think of that? You know, and so we had them help us pick out this clothing for you. They were so helpful. Pretty soon, we're asking their opinion. We're taking their advice, and it was amazing. What can I do for you? There is the essence of service.

How many times would your marriage be better if the husband or wife simply walked up to the other one who's doing something or struggling and said, Hey, can I help you? What can I do for you?

Is there anything any way I can help? Even if the person says, No, they're happy that you asked.

What can I do to help?

One of the ways that you and I can fight discouragement, and one way we can fight selfishness, and I'm not saying discouragement and selfishness are the same thing. They're not. They're two different things, two different problems, but is to spend time every day looking for that little opportunity. See, service is about just going through life with opportunities.

That opportunity with someone trying to walk, holding two big bags or holding a box, and you open the door for them. I know this is as I get whiter hair, people open the door for me more.

At first, I was a little insulted by it, and now I say, Thank you.

You never want to take away someone's blessing of serving. You never want to take someone's blessing. Sometimes when people say, Oh, no, I can't let you serve me, that's pride.

We all serve, and we all have to be served. If none of us will be served, there's no one to serve.

We have to also gracefully be served at times. That's not easy. Oh, don't do that. And yet there's times you have to just say, No, wait a minute. Thank you. Thank you for your service.

What can I do for you? Ephesians 6. This idea of service breaks down into so many areas of life.

Ephesians 6.

Verse 5.

Verse 6.

All that service. Now let's just put the word in there, employees.

Okay?

Employees. How many here are an employee?

Well, some of you don't. Some of you own your own businesses, and some of you are too young, and some of you are too old.

About half of us are employees. Okay.

Employees. Be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh.

What?

Be obedient to them. Now, we all know that you never follow any authority that's against God, but what he's saying here is, I'm telling you this is one of the great secrets of success.

One of the great secrets of success is that when you go to work for your boss, even if he is the worst boss in the world, you give him everything you have.

You are a servant to the worst boss in the world. Now, you might be looking for another job, but you say, why would I do that? I tell you what, if you go to work every day and you're not working hard, you're miserable at your job, aren't you?

There's no worse job in the world than it's eight hours of grinding out, hating it, and hating it when your boss comes in, not liking the people you work with. And I guarantee you, if there's customers, they know you don't like being there.

So he says, the obedient to your masters according to flesh, with fear and trembling and sincerity of heart as to Christ.

What? Yeah. Verse 6, not with eye service as men pleasers. He says, don't do this just because you're trying to get something from your boss.

You know, just not just because you're trying to get something from your boss.

If that's what you're trying to do, you're just playing off as politics.

He's saying, you give everything you have for this reason, that as bond service of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with good will doing service as to the Lord is not to men.

Knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.

Give it all you've got, and you'll come home liking your job, even though your boss is a rotten guy to work for. You'll come home having produced something, even though maybe your fellow employees are discouraged and mad and griped and complain.

Have you ever had to work in an environment where everybody was negative?

You hate going to work.

There's only one way to weather that.

You go to work, and you give it all you have.

Why? Because today you're working for God.

You work for God today.

You work as His representative to those people.

When you show up and everybody's mad at you because you're in a good mood, which is what happens.

Everybody's mad at you because you're in a good mood. At least you're in a good mood.

At least you go home, and you don't go home and kick the cat.

Or yell at your spouse.

Why? Because you gave all you had. Because if not, you're just wasting life. All we have is time. That's it!

This is a preparation for eternity, but in this life, what do we have? Some time. That's what this life is made of.

And if you spend your time miserable because you don't like where you work, and you don't like your boss, and you don't like the people you work with— well, first of all, get another job—but while you're there, work for God and be a servant.

You know, I've watched people do this, and they're always surprised when they go on to another job, and the boss says, I'm going to hate to see you leave.

You've been my best employee. Just like the person that, if she didn't treat me so bad, I wouldn't be leaving.

Why did you treat me so bad all the time?

Can I give you more money? Would you stay?

Well, no. You don't say that, but no, I wouldn't stay. He's working for you.

But, you know, some people are just bad managers, right? They don't know how to manage people.

So even this attitude of service breaks down to, serve who you work for, and just keep in mind, I'm serving God today. I've made an example of what a Christian should be like today, and give everything you have to it. Six points. There's seven points. Six points is Exodus 17. I like it when a plan comes together. We get seven points. Exodus 17.

Verse 8.

Israel's facing its first real test of battle here after they come out of Egypt.

Amalek. Now, Amalek came and fought with Israel and Rephidim. And Moses said to Joshua, Choose us, submit, and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand at the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand. Now, remember, he stood there with the rod of God, and we did this, and the Red Sea opened. So the whole point is, okay, these people come to fight against us. Joshua, who was the commander of the army, you pick a good, solid group of army, go out there to fight. And I'm going to stand up at the hill, so when I hold up that rod, God is going to help us. So don't worry about it. We're going to be okay. God's there. And tell the men, they'll know God's there, because I'll be standing with the rod. Seems like a simple plan, right?

Verse 10. So Joshua did as Moses said to him, and fought with Amalek, and Moses and Aaron and her went to the top of the hill. And so at once, Womelzus held up his hand, that Israel prevailed. Oh, great! God's with us. Look! Yes, the Amalekites charge, and Israelis stop the charge. They're driving them back. They're slaying them. They're winning the battle. And this goes on, and sometimes goes on, and sometimes goes on. Moses is a young man here. He's over 80 years old at this point, and he's standing there, and that rod gets sort of heavy. She says, oh, good, but when there's a battle, he puts his arms down.

Last part of verse 11, And when he had led down his hand, Amalek prevailed. Oh, I meant, okay, God's not with me. Wait a minute. You told him, I'm going to be standing there with the rod. God says, well, I'm not going to hold the rod up. I'm not going to help you. And now the Israeli soldiers are starting to get killed. Now they're starting to get pushed back, and it's like, oh, God, so where are they starting to panic a little bit? Verse 12, But Moses' hands became heavy, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat down. So now, remember, he's an old man. He sits down.

Okay, now I can sit down. He's holding the rod up. And Herod and Er supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other side. And his hands were studied until the going down of the sun. So Joshua defeated Amalek and his people at the edge of the sword. The battle here depended on God. That was the point he was trying to teach them. But there's another lesson here. Moses had to do something. Everybody here had their service they had to do. Joshua had to lead the army, and the men had to go out and fight.

And Moses had to stand there with the rod up. So, and Moses got tired, and Moses couldn't do it anymore. And that's why Aaron and her in this story are what? They act as servants. Aaron and her aren't fighting. They aren't leading. What are they doing? They're holding somebody's arms up. They're holding his arms up. And as long as they hold his arms up, God gives them the victory. It's a very important lesson here. Sometimes we serve by upholding the arms of others who are serving. Sometimes we uphold the arms of others who are serving.

Moses and Joshua get all the credit here, but Aaron and her did a remarkable service. They upheld his arms. You know, you think, well, why didn't Aaron and her get swords and go down and get into the fight?

When they started to get pushed back, you think they'd have run down there and fought. Two more men wouldn't have made any difference. Only God could make the difference. Serving God was what they had to do. And in this case, they had to serve Moses in order to serve God.

Sometimes service means helping others to achieve what God wants them to achieve. You know, I find it interesting when you see teachers talk to teachers. There are teachers that are disillusioned with teaching all the time because they really don't like teaching. There are people who are, of course, disillusioned with teaching today in the public schools because the children are such a mess.

But you find teachers that really have a niche, they're in a school or in a situation they love. And maybe you had a teacher that was like this. They have one goal, and that is to get their students to succeed. They want their students to achieve more than they did.

I think I told you the story about how six or eight months ago I called a teacher I hadn't seen since 1978 that I had in high school. I said, do you remember me? He said, I sure do. And he talked to me for a while, told me all about his life. I asked him some questions. He asked if I was still writing because that was my goal. I was going to be a famous writer. I said, well, I write for a magazine. I write television scripts. I thought he'd say, that's good. He said, no, I'm asking you, what are you writing for yourself?

Well, I published a book, but did you write it for yourself? And he's lecturing me. And then pretty soon he said, did you ever finish Ulysses by...oh, who wrote that? Not Hobers, the other one. Not Ulysses. James Joyce. I've never met anybody that's ever actually read it. I tried and tried. He remembered! Have you read it? No. I'll be 60 years old in a year and a half. And this guy's concerned about my success. Have you written the novel you wanted?

No, I haven't done it yet. What's about time? It's interesting. As a teacher, why did I call him after all these years? Because of the impact he had on my life as a teacher. Sometimes serving is serving others to achieve more than you will ever achieve. Sometimes serving is serving leaders so that they can do their job. That's what Aaron heard in here. They were serving a leader so he could do his job. And Moses gets the credit. Well, God gets the credit, but Moses is the one that saved us here.

So sometimes we have to realize that service is upholding the arms of other people. And then our last point is in Luke 6. This is why when I go through here we have to see that service is more than simply doing some good deeds. You know, what we could do is we could set up a good deed day in the church once a month. We all do a good deed. And it would be good, it would be bad for us to do that.

What I'm saying is we could do that and then pretend that we're servants. No, we didn't act as servants, but we're not servants. A servant is a person who serves all the time. Not just occasionally. Luke 6.32. Jesus says, But if you love those who love you, what credit is that of you? Or even sinners love those who love them. Yeah, but man, you're telling me I have to love somebody who doesn't love me? He says, yeah. Come on! Even people who don't know God do that. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?

Even sinners do that. You'll find lots of Hindus who do lots of good things to their neighbors. They might treat you badly. Let's make this even harder. Your neighbor might be a Muslim, and they might treat other Muslims fine, but they might treat you badly. And you can say, well, good, I don't have to treat them good, because they're sinners.

And if you led to those to whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners led to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good, and land hoping for nothing in return. Now, I'm going to stop there. We can obviously talk about there are times you don't do good to evil, but we're talking about the attitude. Remember, there's a difference between the attitude and the application. The application takes wisdom. In other words, he's not saying, go to your neighbor's house, who is a drug dealer and a murderer, and go over there and fix a nice meal for him and the rest of the gang before they go out and kill somebody.

He's not saying, do that. What he's saying is, is have an approach and an attitude towards life, that when these opportunities arise and someone has done you wrong, you still do good. You still do good. Now, we see where Jesus stood up the people. He stood up against evil. He wasn't afraid to call out evil people or people when they were doing something wrong. That's not what we're talking about.

We're talking about an approach to life that says, my first response to any situation is to do good. That's my first response. Sometimes you have to step back and say, yeah, I shouldn't do anything here. Because the Bible talks about situations you were not supposed to. But that's supposed to be our first response. Even to someone who is unkind to us. Even to someone who doesn't like us. Our first response should always be, I want to do good for the person.

And then notice what it says here, the second part of verse 35. And your reward will be great. First of all, God says, I'll reward you for that. You will be sons of the Most High. You will be God's children. Why? Because we'll be acting like Him, look at the last part of the verse.

For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. God is very kind to people who treat Him terribly. Now, does God punish evil? You bet. Does God stand up against evil? You bet. But what is God's first response to anything? It has to be to do good, because if it wasn't, He wiped us all off the face of the earth thousands of years ago.

Why does God keep putting up with humanity? His first response is always to do good. That's to be our first response. That's our attitude. Now, we use wisdom from there. But many times, what's our first response? You did something bad to me, I'm going to do something bad to you. Our first response is a negative emotion.

Our first response is, I'll get you because you got me. Our first response should be, I will try to do good for you. Can I help you? Imagine someone treats you bad, you say, can I help you? I remember one time, a man was just railing on and on and on about something, and I looked at him, this was many years ago, and I said, why are you so angry against God?

Because you're angry about everything. He changed the whole direction of the conversation. Because he was. He was angry against God. He wasn't angry against me. Verse 36, Therefore, be merciful, just as your father also is merciful. Judge naught, you shall not be judged. Condemned naught, you shall not be condemned. Forgiven, you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you good measure.

Pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you. He says, look, just do good, and I will reward you for it. I'll take care of it. I will give you happiness. I will give you joy, even if the other person doesn't get good from what you're doing. Just do good. That's the first response. That's our attitude. That's our approach to life.

You've probably heard of the Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Clinic, of course, is famous as a hospital that has a reputation for being very serving for the people who go there. People come from all over the world to Rochester, Minnesota. Is it Rochester, Minnesota? To the Mayo Clinic. And they're just famous for this attitude of service. And that goes back to the two doctors, the Mayo brothers, who started it. That was their attitude, and they wanted to infuse that into this clinic. And there's a story of Charles Mayo that I think is fascinating. And I've checked to see if this is true. I always, like Mr. Lockhart, said, you've got to check to see if the story's true. And so far, every source I've looked up has said this is a true story, that his family has passed down to him. He had some very rich people from England come over, I guess, to tour his clinic and so forth, and they were staying in his house. And he noticed that when they went to bed and shut the door, they set the man put his shoes out, because back in England, his servants would come shine to his shoes every night. So he put his shoes out. Well, Dr. Mayo didn't have any service, so he shined his shoes. So he had guests come out the next day and put his shoes on, and they didn't get anything about it. I guess the servants shined my shoes, because that's what happened. But who shined his shoes was the head of the clinic. That is an attitude of service. Most people would have said, how dare you? How dare you? We fought two wars to get a few bricks out of here. I'm sorry, Mrs. Fox. I know she's listening up in curvil. We don't have slavery and servants in our country. Instead, he simply went and shined his shoes. Didn't think anything about it. As far as I know, the man who was there never knew who shined his shoes. Didn't matter. He shined his shoes. It took him a few minutes. That's an attitude of service. You and I have been given two great commitments. To love God with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our mind, to love our neighbors herself. The best way to deal with all the complexities of anxieties of life that you and I face all the time is to simply do those two commitments. Serve God. Serve God with all of your heart, your motivations, your emotions, all of your heart, all of your mind, all that you think about, all of your soul, all of the power and energy you have. Serve God. And then simply love your neighbor. And your neighbor is whoever you run in contact with during the day. You know, you start with your family and the household of God, and then you serve whoever you come in contact with. Simply find the simple ways to do what Jesus did. And that is, as you come in contact with people and you see a need, simply ask, What can I do?