Our “Come to the Water” worship focus this fall is designed to help us experience the full and abundant life that God intends for each one of us and for our church. Water is a symbol of life, cleansing, and renewal.
Over the past few weeks, we have been thinking a lot about what it means for us to “Come to the Water.” And we have seen that it involves offering ourselves in making a commitment in prayer, in participating in worship, and in offering our financial gifts in support of Christ and his church. Today, we’re going to focus on another important way that we come to the water and that is through serving and sharing our faith with others.
A long time ago, the church was separated into clergy and laity. That chasm was bridged by the Protestant Reformation where Martin Luther made the point that we are all priests. We are all called to share in ministry.
The biblical take on the ministry of the church is that the church is the ministry of the laos, the people of God, the laity. So today’s focus is critical because it’s designed to help both laypersons and clergy live out our Christian faith in significant and meaningful ways.
I’d like us to think about three important questions from a biblical perspective: Why we are called to serve and share our faith? Who God calls to serve and share their faith? And how are we to serve and share our faith?
First thing, why should we serve? Serving is an essential dimension of the Christian life. It’s not meant to be optional. It’s what we’re called to do. I love being part of our worship services on Sunday mornings. And we talked about the importance of worship a couple of Sundays ago when we focused on the importance of jumping in with both feet. We emphasized how worship and offering our physical presence here on Sunday mornings or by worshiping online is an important part of experiencing the full and abundant life that God wants us to have. But it’s also important to remember that the purpose of worship, the purpose of praying, and the purpose of the church is not so that we can simply sit and soak. We are to become stirred to action—to go out and serve and share our faith.
Serving and witnessing are such important dimensions of the Christian faith. First of all, it’s part of our Christian faith because God serves us. Jesus came to be a servant. He said, “For even I, the Son of Man, came here not to be served but to serve others, and to give my life as a ransom for many” Jesus serves us, and invites us to serve in his name.
Jesus also said, “You know that in this world kings and tyrants, and officials lord it over the people beneath them. But among you it should be quite different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be the slave of all.”
The expectation that Jesus has for the church is that we are to serve and be a blessing to others.
Now here’s an interesting sidelight to that: when we serve in the name of Christ and reach out to others, it gives us credibility in our community. If we are to become effective sowers of the message of Christ, one of the best ways to fertilize the soil in which that seed can be planted is to serve. Paul said in First Corinthians, “I have become a servant of everyone so that I can bring them to Christ” When we serve others, we open the door of opportunity for the good news of our faith to be shared.
Peter pointed out, “Your godly lives will speak to them better than any words. They will be won over by watching your pure, godly behavior” The best sermons aren’t preached in sanctuaries. The best sermons are the sidewalk sermons preached by God’s people when we leave the sanctuary and go out into the world, where we reach out and serve those we meet. What we do often times speaks much more loudly than anything we actually say.
Here’s another positive outcome when all of us are serving and sharing our faith with others: It brings us together as church. The New Testament concept of the church is that we are the body of Christ, the community of faith that gathers together and serves together. As different as we are, we all have a common mission, to serve and to witness.
The love that church members have for one another binds us together and frees us from ourselves and our selfishness. One of the best witnesses a church can give to its community is exhibiting unity in how it reaches out to the needs of others.
The Apostle Paul says in I Corinthians 3, “We work together as partners who belong to God” and in Ephesians chapter 4, he says, “Under his direction, the whole body is fitted together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts to grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love”
Our serving and witnessing give us credibility and it also brings us together as a team. And teams can get a lot more accomplished than individuals.
The second question this morning is who should serve? And the answer is that everyone is to serve and witness. There is a place for every person in the life of the church to use his or her God-given gifts to make a difference in our community and world. Here are just a few suggestions of how to determine where we should serve.
First, we should serve where we can use the gifts and abilities that God has given us.
This past May, Don Shula, probably one of the best coaches in the history of the NFL passed away. We might remember him the most for when he led the Miami Dolphins in 1972 to an undefeated season and Super Bowl victory.
Another year that I remember him for is eleven years later in 1983 when he coached the the Miami Dolphins and they played the Washington Redskins in the Super Bowl. That year, Don Shula was credited with a great deal of the Dolphins’ success because he evaluated the talents of his players and built his system around those talents. That was different from other coaches, who usually built a system and tried to make the players’ talents fit the system.
I like Coach Shula’s approach. I believe we as a church can be successful when each one of us uses the gifts and talents God has given us for the one common vision of sharing the love of Christ with our community.
Part of the church’s task is to help people discover what gifts they possess and then provide an opportunity for those gifts and abilities to be used. In his letter to the Christians who were in Rome, the Apostle Paul said:
“God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well. . . . If your gift is that of serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, do a good job of teaching. If your gift is to encourage others, do it! If you have money, share it generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.”
God has gifted each of us in some way.
It’s still exciting for me as a pastor to see people discover what their gifts are. If you’re not sure what your gifts are, there are resources such as spiritual gift inventories that can be used to help you discover them.
In addition to using our gifts to serve and witness, God can also use our past experiences. All of us have been through some tough trials, and coming through them has given us a unique faith story to share with others. We’re advised in Galatians: “Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that”
Second Corinthians says something similar, “He comforts us all in our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”
I’ve noticed that the people who are most effective at serving in the life of the church are those who have experienced Christ’s guiding hand through some difficult times in their lives. Coming through those adversities has taught them how to serve others who might be walking through similar situations.
Another reason that we are called to serve is so that we can meet particular needs.
If you look at the example of the church in the book of Acts, in the second chapter, that powerful passage of Scripture which begins with verse 45, it says that the people pooled their resources, found needs, and then began to fill them.
So who should serve? Every single person in the life of the church. Why? Because God has gifted each one of us. God can use our unique experiences. And because God can use each one of us to meet particular needs.
One last question: How should we serve? First of all, we should serve enthusiastically: “Never be lazy in your work, but serve the Lord enthusiastically,” we find in Paul’s letter to the Romans.
When people are enthusiastic about what they do in the life of the church, it becomes an invitation for others to come. Those who are the most enthusiastic about sharing their faith are also the most enthusiastic about serving.
Have you heard of the Pareto (Pah-Ray-Toe) Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule? This rule says that in most cases, only 20% of the people will end up doing 80% of the work. If you do the math with a worship attendance of around 150 people, that means only 30 people in our church would be involved and actively serving and witnessing through the life of our congregation.
But can you imagine what it would be like if 80% or 120 people in our church would be actively using their gifts to serve and share their faith through the life of our church? What a difference that would make!
By the way, here’s a side benefit when the majority of people are serving and sharing their faith: There’s a positive spirit and attitude. As the old saying goes, people rowing the boat rarely have time to rock the boat. When people are enthusiastically serving, they don’t look for things that are wrong, they look for the things that are right.
In addition to serving enthusiastically, we are also to serve unselfishly where we are more concerned with the people we are seeking to bless than we are with the focus being on us. We are to serve unselfishly.
A third way that we are called to serve is with humility. We serve as Jesus served. In I Peter, we read, “All of you serve each other in humility for ‘God sets himself against the proud, but he shows favor to the humble’” The most beautiful mental picture I have of Jesus is of him kneeling to wash his disciples’ feet. In the church we’re not to look for the top, we’re to look for a towel—a place where we can serve in humility.
And the fourth way that we are called to serve is with the intention of seeking to please God alone. The point of serving in the life of God’s church is not to please people or to draw attention to ourselves. The Apostle Paul says that we are to “serve God whether people honor us or despise us, whether they slander us or whether they praise us . . . ”
Serving is at the very heart of how we express our Christian faith, opening doors through which we can be messengers of Christ.
Serving others is offering a drink of the water of life to others. Jesus said, “If anyone gives even a cup of cold water . . . because he is my disciple . . . will certainly not lose his reward.” (Matt. 10:42).
Notice that serving in the name of Christ can be as simple as offering someone a cold drink. Several years ago, I was on a mission trip to Guatemala. During the trip, we helped to dig a water line trench to help provide clean water for a small and impoverished community.
I got sick from working in the soil and ended up missing two days of work because I became so dehydrated. One of the members of the mission team came back early from the work day and knocked on the door of my room and said, "Robert, I have an orange popsicle. Would you like it?"
That sounded so good and I yelled back, "Yes! Thank you!" He might has well asked me, "Robert, do you want a million dollars?" because that popsicle was just what I needed! Not only did it lift my spirits, but he felt good to know that I appreciated it so much.
I think this is Jesus point about when we offer something as simple as a cup of cold water to someone. When it’s given and received at just the right time, that simple gesture can mean so much.
Serving and sharing our faith are essential parts of what it means to live transformed lives.
[This sermon is based on the resource, Treasures of the Transformed Life, Abingdon Press, 2006.]
O God, as we prepare to come to the water to be renewed and to receive the abundant life you so want us to have, we know that involves commitment on our part. Bless all the commitments that are about to be made next week as we think ahead to a new year of ministry.
Thank you for these past several weeks where we have been priming the pump to allow your living water to not only fill our lives but to also overflow through our church and into our community and world. We can’t wait to see what you will be able to do in and through us!
In the name of Jesus who offers us living water, we pray. Amen.
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