- Artist: Pastor Rich Doebler
- Title: 9-23-07 message
- Length: 30:59 minutes (7.09 MB)
- Format: Mono 44kHz 32Kbps (CBR)
September 23, 2007 message byPastor Rich Doebler
We were in Florida in August for my mother-in-law's funeral. After most of the relatives had gone home, we took half a day and went to relax at Kelly County Park. There was a stream of water flowing through the park—absolutely crystal clear! Fresh, drinkable water came pouring out of the side of a hill into a pool which fed this sparkling creek. On a hot, sticky Florida day, it was so refreshing to drift down that stream in inner tubes. Even in the deep spots, you could see all the way to the sandy bottom.
That stream is a picture of a person who has learned to live life to the full. Other people are like stagnant ponds: they receive, but they don't give; they take in, but they don't pour out. And their lives—like a swamp—can become clogged. The less they give—the less the flow goes through—the more they cut off the fresh supply. The water clouds up. It can even become putrid and foul.
But the one who lives to give is the person enjoys the fresh, crystal clear, invigorating life of God!
Giving away our lives—serving—is the only way to really live. When we learn to give away ourselves, that's when we experience God's fullest blessings. Serving others actually enriches ourselves. We become better people. We grow spiritually. We gain a healthier perspective and outlook.
Matthew 16:25-26. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
Luke 9:24-25. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?
Mark 8:35-37. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37 Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
Matthew 20:26. [Jesus said] ...whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.
Some might say the secret of greatness is connections and influence—knowing the right people, getting the right breaks. If you went to Wall Street and asked people there, "What's the secret of greatness?" They'd say financial clout and a big portfolio—money is the ticket! Go to FOX NFL Sunday and ask, "What's the secret of greatness?" They'd say strength, agility, and athletic talent. Go to Washington DC and ask, "What's the secret of greatness?" And they'd say a strong, influential voice—a persuasive, leadership personality—and maybe a little arm-twisting for good measure. Go to Hollywood and ask, "What's the secret of greatness?" They'd say natural beauty, a dramatic flair—and finding the right agent.
But God says none of the world's definitions for greatness really describe true greatness. The world's views of greatness are artificial. Superficial. Temporary. They will not last for the long haul. Tell me who won the Oscar for best actor in 1957 (Yul Brynner, The King and I). Tell me who won the Heisman Trophy in 1968 (O.J. Simpson).
God says, "My definition of greatness is very different." In eternity, you're not going to care about the ones whom the world calls great. God says what's going to last—what really counts, the thing that makes a difference in this world, the thing that impacts the lives of others—is service.
It's not until you give your life away that you discover significance and purpose for your life. It's not until you give your life away that you find what it means to really live.
Bob Buford wrote a book called Halftime: Changing Your Game Plan from Success to Significance. It's for people who face a midlife reality check. They've been successful at what they set out to do, but at the halftime of their lives, they discover they are not really satisfied. Life is slipping away and they feel as though they have not achieved the things they were put on this earth to accomplish. Halftime is when they come to realize that leaving a legacy is more important than success, more important than climbing to the top of their profession.
Buford writes: The clock is running... And while you do not fear the end of the game, you do want to make sure that you finish well, that you leave something behind no one can take away from you. If the first half was a quest for success, the second half is a journey to significance. The game is won or lost in the second half... [p 20]
So what can we do to win at the game of life? God says the secret of a great life is serving. You're never going to be great, until you learn to serve: "...whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant."
The Bible says those two things—greatness and service—go hand in hand. Great teachers serve their students. Great salespeople serve their customers. Great leaders serve their followers. Serving is the key to being great at anything.
Another way to say it: You become great when you humble yourself.
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (James 4:10)
God says the way Up is Down. God exalts the humble. The more you serve, the greater you are.
Mother Teresa influenced world leaders without all the trappings of worldly greatness. She worked among the poor, not the high and mighty. She had no great physical beauty. She had no special athletic gift. She didn't inherit a fortune. She didn't run a Fortune 500 company. She was never elected to office. Yet people recognized her greatness because of her service.
Matthew 20:28. [Jesus said] Your attitude must be like my own, for I...did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give my life as a ransom for many.
This summarizes the Christian life—serving and giving. Unless we learn how to serve others and unless we learn how to give our lives away, we will never have an attitude like Jesus'. We may claim to be Christians; we may know excellent doctrine and theology, but we're not really true believers unless we learn how to serve and how to give.
Bob Dylan once wrote a song: You've Got To Serve Somebody. The question is: Whom are you serving? Yourself or others? Your agenda or God's?
Are you investing in eternity? Giving your life to causes and work outside yourself? Or are you sitting on your hands, doing nothing for the kingdom? Get everything you want—but if you do nothing for others, you've lost your. Those who don't know how to serve are spiritually bankrupt. Impoverished. They have lost their soul.
What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matt 16:26)
But others serve from good motives and a good heart. They've been touched themselves by God's forgiveness and love. They have been changed. They are different. And they are inspired to live a different kind of life. They learn to let go of selfish attitudes. They give themselves over to Christ—and in losing their lives for the Lord's sake, they learn to give themselves away to others.
Do you want a full life? An abundant life? The best kind of life? God has a plan to give meaning and purpose to your life. It's called service. When you give your life away for his sake, then you will truly find life. HERE'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GIVE YOUR LIFE IN SERVICE:
1. You fulfill your destiny.
God made you for a reason. He designed you to fulfill a purpose.
For we are God's workmanship, created in Jesus Christ to do good works [that's called ministry, service] which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)
God designed everything on this earth for a purpose. He made dogs to be dogs. He made cats to chase mice. He made cows to do cowly kind of things. The Bible says you were put on this earth for a reason. Human beings are here to serve. Human beings are here to help each other. Human beings are here to help make the world a better place. And God says, "I created you for ministry, for service."
God didn't just put you on this earth to take up space, to set around, watch TV, eat chips, play video games, plug an I-pod into your ears, have a good old time, and then die. Have you ever thought why, the moment we become Christians, God doesn't just zap us and we go instantly to heaven? Why did God leave you here on earth the moment you became a Christian? Because he has something for you to do—ministry, service.
Did you ever watch one of those body building contests on TV? The contestants oil themselves down, and flex their muscles, and pose so that you can see what they've got. How is that different from, say, an Olympic weight lifting competition? One contest is all for show, but they're doing nothing. The other competition is to see who can actually lift the most weight. Muscles aren't for show—they're for doing something! We are saved not just to look good, not just to put on a show. We are saved for service.
Why do you build spiritual muscle? Why do you come to church? Why do you read the Bible? Why do you go to Bible studies? Why do you pray? Why do you develop spiritual muscle? Is it just to say, "I got it! Look at my Bible biceps! Watch my spiritual show!"
The Bible teaches very clearly that maturity is for ministry. Maturity is never an end in itself. You say, "I want to be a mature Christian." But you'll never be a mature Christian until you start ministering. Maturity is for ministry. Muscles have a reason.
If you want to grow, if you want to be a deeper Christian, if you want to be fed spiritually, it's not the amount of information that you cram into your head that does it. It's the amount of service that flows out from your life that does it.
2. You answer God's call.
We talked about God's call last week. God calls us to something higher. To something better than the things this world has to offer.
Remember Pat Tillman, NFL player, killed in Afghanistan? What would cause someone like Pat Tillman to give up a promising career as an NFL star line-backer to serve his country? He did it because he believed in what he was doing. He felt it was his duty and his honor to serve his country—and he gave the ultimate price. He answered the call.
Serving country is good, but it's small potatoes compared to serving God. When we answer God's call by serving others, we step up to a whole new level of living. Your outlook is transformed from merely getting by and making a living to making a life. Someone has said, it's okay to add years to your life, but it's far better to add life to your years.
When we serve, we answer God's call—and this is not just some kind of special deal for people like missionaries or pastors or nuns.
The fact is, the Bible says every Christian is called. The call to salvation and the call to service are identical. When you said, "I want to have my sins forgiven. I want to go to heaven," at the same moment you also said to the Lord, "I'm willing to serve you for the rest of my life."
I met Wolfgang (Dan) Lunow about 25 years ago. He made a profound impact on me. He was a boy in Nazi Germany during WWII. He joined Hitler's youth movement. He bought into all the ideology and hatred of that movement, and dedicated his life to fulfilling Hitler's ambitions. When Germany was defeated, Dan was devastated, and he made himself a promise: to never again trust himself to anyone other than himself.
In the early 50s he came to Minneapolis to study agriculture at the U of M. Before he left, his atheist father warned him, "Whatever you do, don't get mixed up with any of those Christians." That was the furthest thing from Dan's mind. His host family invited him to church once—but he never went again. He found it boring, insignificant. His host fell asleep and snored through the message. The teens whispered in the back row and passed notes. Dan had been part of a real movement, and it had let him down. He wasn't about to become part of something as ridiculous as this. And he refused to go back with them.
But staying at home on Sunday morning in the 50s didn't give you many options. One Sunday he was reading the paper and listening to the radio, but he could find nothing but religious programs on the air. So he listened half-heartedly to a program coming from First Covenant in Minneapolis. Then something broke through his consciousness, and he started paying attention. Could there be something to this Jesus, after all? And Dan, though he wasn't even sure there was a God, prayed a little prayer. God, if you're real, then this changes everything! If you're real, then I must give you my life. I cannot just be a believer, I must be a follower. I cannot merely be a Christian, I must join your mission.
The announcer on the radio said that First Covenant was having a mission's conference that week, so Dan went to the church the next night. And when the invitation was given, he went forward, not just to receive salvation, not just to be blessed, not just to go to heaven. He was signing up. He was enlisting to serve. He decided he would be a missionary.
When I met Dan in the early 80s, he had been on the mission field some 25 years, serving an unreached people group in Irian Java. He had trained dozens of ministers, translated the NT into the local language, started some 50 churches, begun another 200 "preaching stations," and had seen more than 4,000 people come to Christ. Dan told me that the Nazis had taught him kadavergehorsam (obedience of a corpse: someone who has died has no will of his own). So Dan knew what it meant to lose his life for Christ's sake. And in losing his life, he found it.
If you are a Christian, you are called to ministry.
Galatians 1:15. God, in his grace...called me to serve him. (TEV)
Every Christian is called to serve, to be a minister. Not everybody is a pastor—but everybody is called to be a minister. What's a minister? A servant. What's a servant? Somebody who serves.
Anytime you use your abilities to help other people in the name of Jesus, you're ministering to them—and you're answer God's call.
3. You use your spiritual gifts.
God did not give you your talents just to spend on yourself and retire and die. But He gave you those abilities to help other people.
1 Peter 4:10. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to...
To what? To make a lot of money? achieve fame and fortune? to feather your nest egg? to entertain yourself? No! "Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others.
That's called ministry—service. If you have given your life to Christ, the Bible says God gave you special abilities—spiritual gifts—to help other people.
Did you ever shop for a gift for someone, giving it careful thought and consideration so you would buy just exactly the right thing, only to discover later that that person exchanged that gift...or repackaged that gift for someone else...or (even worse) shoved the gift into the closet where it sits on a shelf unused? All your careful thought gone to naught.
Let me tell you, it's even worse if you're not using the gifts God has given you.
4. You obey God by following Christ's example.
That's good enough reason alone to serve, even if that's the only reason God says we should.
Matthew 20:28. Jesus said, "Your attitude must be like my own, for I did not come to be served, but to serve."
A non-ministering Christian is an oxymoron—a contradiction. To be a Christian means to have the attitude of Christ. He said, "I came to serve."
Human nature does not want to serve others. We want to be served. Human nature says, "I've got to focus on who is going to serve me. Who's going to meet my needs? Who's going to help me?"
But God gives us new instructions; God turns human nature around. The Christian says: "Whose needs can I meet? Who can I help? Who can I serve?"
If you're still in the "Who's going to meet my needs?" stage, you haven't grown up yet. You're spiritually immature—a baby in Christ. The mature Christian says, "Whose needs can I meet?" They realize the more they give their life away, the more God blesses them.
5. You help your church—the family of God.
Romans 7:4. You are part of the body of Christ and you belong to him in order that we might be useful in the service of God.
In the NT church, when they would welcome new members into the body of Christ, they would say, "Welcome, Jesus Christ now has a new pair of eyes to see with... Jesus Christ now has a new pair of ears to listen to the hurts of others... Jesus Christ has a new pair of hands to help others... Jesus Christ now has a new heart to love others with." Because you're part of the body, the body of Christ.
Ministry—not attendance—is evidence that Christ is in you.
The body of Christ needs to serve and to be served in order to function properly.
1 Corinthians 12:27. All of you together are the one body of Christ and each of you is a separate and necessary part of it.
Your service is a necessary part of the body of Christ, which helps it to function properly.
What happens when part of your body stops functioning? You get sick. Maybe you die.
If you're a Christian, that means you're part of the body of Christ. If you're not functioning it makes the rest of us sick. It makes an unhealthy body.
What if one day you got a phone call from your liver? "I don't feel like functioning today. I just want to be fed." You'd say, "What kind of liver are you? Get back to work!" What if your heart called up or your gall bladder or spleen and said, "I need a break. I don't feel like doing anything in the body this year. I just want to be fed." You'd say, "You get back to work!" A nonfunctioning body part is not doing its job, not pulling its weight, not helping the body.
You say, "Well, maybe we don't need that body part." But God says we're all needed, we're all necessary. Each one in the body of Christ is needed. The strength of this church is not the pastors of this church. It's all of you who serve in numerous ministries. That's the heartbeat of this church—
Colossians 3:23. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for me. It's the Lord you're serving.
Jesus said, "Whatever you do for others, you're doing for me. Even a cup of cold water given in my name it's like being done to me." If you're not serving others, you're not serving God.
Jesus said, "If you try to keep your life for yourself, you're going to lose it but if you give up your life for my sake, and for the sake of the good news, you will find true life."
You're going to give your life for something. Some people give their life away for a career and they get a gold watch at the end. Big deal! The question is: Are you going to give your life for the right thing? How much is it going to matter in eternity? How much is it going to matter forever? When you die is it going to matter at all?
It's time to step up to greater service!