All right, if you're watching online, welcome.
So glad that you've joined us, whatever platform you found us
on. And we invite you to come be
with us in person at 115 E Main Street, right here in Gaylord in
the old downtown area, 115 E Main.
And our service times are at 9:00 and 10:30.
And this is your invitation. We'd love to see you soon.
Those of you in the room, if you would take your Bible, please,
and turn to John, Chapter 13. This morning's message will be a
little shorter than normal since we had communion and the
announcements with Alex and Taylor, but jump in with me very
excited about what God is going to speak to us through the Holy
Spirit this morning. John chapter 13.
If you're new to the Bible, John is in the New Testament,
probably around maybe 85 or 90% through your Bible depending on
how much information you have in the back of your Bible.
The Gospels are the stories of Jesus, his life, and they were
found in the New Testament. So Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
And I'm going to reach you from John chapter 13, and let me just
give you context of where this is.
This is the story of the night that Jesus has betrayed.
We celebrated communion this morning.
So in the context of Jesus showing his disciples and how he
wanted them to remember him, this is the context of the story
that I'm about to read. So, and maybe you forgot that
these two events happened in the same night.
OK, so the night of communion, the night that Jesus is
betrayed, this also happens. I'm going to start reading in
verse 3. Jesus, knowing that the Father
had given all things into his hands and that he had come from
God and was going back to God, rose from supper.
And he laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, he
tied it around his waist. And then he poured water into a
basin. And he began to wash the
disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped
around him. And he came to Simon Peter, who
said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet?
And Jesus answered him, What I'm doing you do not understand now,
but afterward you will understand.
This morning I'm going to talk to you about why we serve.
Why do we serve? What inspires us?
What is the motivation of our serving?
Let me pray for us, God. Thank you for your word and
thank you for this event that gives us so much to emulate and
so much inspiration on what type of people we should be as
followers of Christ. So speak to us greatly as we
look to motivation, reason behind serving.
What is it? What should look like and the
life of a follower of Jesus speak to us.
We pray in Jesus name and everyone said Amen.
We're winding down the summer, which is, you know, it went by
fast. It felt like this year that the
summer came late because of the ice storm.
If you were like us, we were still cleaning up and catching
up from the big ice storm. So summer, but it seemed like it
snuck up on us. But it's been a great summer and
I'm thinking through some of the messages that we've had the
summer. Last week, Tyler and Jasmine
were here and they spoke on relationships.
Again, if you missed that message, you go back and find it
online. But they talked about valuable
relationships in our life, like you need a mentor, you need
someone to train and to lead and, and to inspire you.
You need a mentor, you need peers, you need friends, and
then also you need to be disciplined, someone else.
So that was a great message. I appreciate that.
Then the week before that, I talked about why do we sing?
And singing, of course, is a big part of who we are as a church,
but why do we sing, right? What's the, what's the reason
why what we're commanded in Scripture to sing.
So we, we looked at that subject because this is important to who
we are as a church. And this morning, in the same
fashion, I want to talk about why do we serve kind of
connected to that idea. Again, I will remind you that we
do have a podcast that you could catch now.
Our podcasts are on all platforms and that's a great way
to invite people to the church. By the way, maybe you want to
send them one of the messages. I interestingly enough, went and
looked recently to see what are the most watched podcast that
we've had. And I did a series earlier in
the summer on toxic people. And the first week I talked
about just run in the mill. How do you deal with run in the
mill toxic people? And then I talked about what
about tragically toxic people? What if you've gone through
abuse or something really terrible?
How how do you deal with that? And then the final week, I
talked about what about when you've been toxic?
What about when you've been the one that that has hurt others?
How are we to respond? So I found that those messages
were the most listened to messages that we've had.
So if you want to go back and find those again, you can find
those online. Encourage you to do that.
And again, maybe send it as an invitation.
We will see lots and lots of more people coming back to
church in the fall. People kind of check out often
for the summer months, but then come back in the fall.
So anticipate lots and lots of new people.
That's a great time for you to invite others to church.
Now this morning I'm talking about why do we serve?
And of course, serving is a big part of who we are as a church.
Jace mentioned that, you know, a couple times in this message, I
do want to be very direct and very pointed with you.
And I want to say right from the start, if you are part of our
church family and you attend and you worship and you receive
ministry here, then you should be serving in some way,
somewhere in this church. We were family and being part of
a family means that you contribute, you serve.
If you're at your home, at your house, surely you contribute
there also, right? There are roles and
responsibilities that you have. And it's the same at church.
And if you if you find yourself just coming to church and just
receiving, then I call you out as your pastor in this church to
say, listen, you have you need to be serving.
There needs to be a place inside the church and also outside of
the church. Kirk Swarbrick has done just
such a great job with organizing our outreach teams.
They were out this past week at the food pantry and serving in
other areas around our town. So serving is a big part of who
we are as followers of Jesus. And how do I know this?
I know it because Jesus goes to this great extent to illustrate
how important serving is when he washes the beat of his
disciples. And again, this is the same
night as the same night that Jesus was betrayed when he gives
us the gift of communion. Right now we can remember what
Jesus did for us. It's the same night that Jesus
also gives us other gift. And this is this ultimate act of
humility. Now Jesus, interestingly enough,
it, it, you know, it doesn't really translate into our
culture, the idea of washing someone's feet because it's not
something that we do anymore. But it was a lowly servant's
role in a home to wash the feet of someone who had entered into
the home with dirty feet. And Jesus in this occasion is
putting on display his incredible humility for all to
see. And it bothered Peter.
Peter was like, Jesus, you're going to wash my feet.
It bothered Peter. It seemed below Jesus.
But Jesus wants to present himself as a servant, and seeing
Jesus in this way leads us and inspires us to be like Jesus.
We want to be like him. And if we want to be like Jesus,
well, then you must adopt and welcome the responsibility of
serving. Jesus does this.
And again, he does it right at the end, right before he's about
to be crucified. And they struggled with the,
with the lowliness of it, but Jesus was putting on display the
act of serving and how important it is.
So I have just some really basic, this is a very simple
message, a very simple message. But I want to remind you, why do
we serve? Well, first, we serve to be like
Christ. We serve to be like Jesus as
when you make a decision to follow Jesus, you are becoming
a, a you. The goal is to become like
Christ, to become like Jesus in every facet of your life and
particularly in the area of serving.
So Ephesians 5 encourages us in this.
It says verse one of Ephesians 5.
Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in
love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant
offering and sacrifice to God. As followers of Jesus, we
imitate him. We want to be like Him.
And if you want to be like Jesus, one of the first things
that you want to tackle is becoming a servant and finding
what are seemingly lowly things to do, things that you might
feel are below you. Those are the those are, you
know, it's interesting, I didn't mention this in the first verse,
but years ago I was in a band and we went to was in this band
called Mirror, not the praise band.
And we went to Korea. And it happened on that
particular tour that this guitar player that went was really
renowned, really accomplished guitar player, just an amazing
guitar player. Michael Hodges, his name.
And so we got to Korea and he asked, he said, hey, where's
your guitar? And it's, this might seem like
an odd thing, but he, he, he took my guitar and he changed my
strings for me. Now that might, if you're not a
guitar player, you don't understand, but it's a guitar
player, man. Changing strings.
It's just a pain. It's just a pain.
But here he was doing this. I remember being so impressed
with this simple thing. It was a lowly thing that he did
to present himself as a servant. And guitar players of all things
often do not come across as servants.
So you want to find ways in your life where you can present
yourself serving, find lowly things like Jesus washing the
feet of the disciples. There's a hymn in Philippians,
chapter 2. I did a series on Philippians a
couple years ago and taught through this.
This is the Apostle Paul writing to the Church of Philippi.
And he takes a familiar hymn and he inserts it into his letter.
And the scholars think it wasn't his own writing.
He actually took the song and put it in Philippians.
So I'm going to start in verse verse 1 of chapter 2.
He says so if there is any encouragement in Christ, any
comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any
affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same
mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one
mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition
or conceit, but in humility count others more significant
than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to
his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Have this mind among yourself which is yours in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality
with God a thing to be grasped. But he emptied himself by taking
the form of a servant. Being born in the likeness of
men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by
becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the
cross. Jesus is the ultimate servant
and he does lowly things. Even him presenting his life for
us, for our forgiveness, is an act of serving.
Jesus served. We're called to be like him.
You were called to be a servant, and Jesus put on humility.
Now humility is kind of a hard, hard, hard thing to put your
hand on, right? It's hard to grasp.
It's like mercury, right? If you try to touch it, it
moves. So a couple years ago, I, I find
that a lot of times our attempts at humility can end in pride,
right? So for me, about 5 or 6 years
ago, I found myself having at the time an old phone.
It was a couple years old. And when the original iPhone
came out, I was there in line lined up to get the original
iPhone all those years ago, right?
What was it 1718 years ago or so?
So I got to a point in my life, it was an, it was an attempt at
humility. I got to a point in my life,
it's like I don't need the new iPhone anymore.
I'm past that. I want to be humble and it's an
attempt at humility. I just kept the phone and year
after year went by and finally my phone was like 5 or 6 years
old. And I found, oddly enough, that
people would notice that I had an old phone and they would say,
wow, that's an old phone. And I found that I kind of liked
people noticing how humble I was with my phone, Right.
All of a sudden, initially, it was an attempt at humility, but
I found myself being proud of how humble I was.
So then my phone, not only was it old, then it got to point
where it broke. I broke the screen on it.
So now I had a broken old phone. And people like, wow, man, what
an old phone. And it's broke.
And like, yeah, it's, I don't need the new one, you know?
And so eventually, I was proud of how humble I was.
It initially was an attempt at humility, but it went awry.
And this is what can happen in our lives.
So we were out with the Steve and Cheryl Sheer and like the
Dixon Lake ones. And I had my phone in my pocket.
And I went to get out of this pontoon.
And when I did, my phone went plunk into the water, my broken
old phone. And it was only like 3 or 4 feet
of water. So I, like, scoured the water
and found my phone. I put it in a bag of rice.
And I was so hopeful. Hopeful that this phone would
turn back on eventually. It never did.
And I remember thinking, and again, I'm being facetious, but
I remember thinking, man, I'm going to look so proud now with
the new phone. My humility button is gone, you
know, So The thing is that when you attempt humility, a lot of
times it can end in pride. And that's a challenge for
Christians, right? Because Christians pick up these
disciplines and often again, it's with good motivation from
the beginning. I'm going to serve and I'm going
to do this particular thing as an attempt at humility.
But you have to be careful because eventually we can become
proud of our humility and it messes us up.
Jesus never gets to that place. He walks in humility to the
point of death and the point of washing the disciples feet.
And you and I are called to be imitators of Christ.
So very good. So #1 we want to be like Jesus
#2 why do we serve? We serve to show our love for
Christ. Revelation 2, verse 4.
This is Jesus speaking to John. John has this revelation.
The heavens open up and John is going to see into the heavenlies
and see end times and all kinds of stuff.
But at the beginning John is writing.
Jesus is instructing him to write to seven churches and one
of those churches is the church at Ephesus.
And this is what Jesus says to the church.
He says, but I have this against you that you have abandoned the
love you had it first. You abandoned the love that you
had at first. Interesting enough, some of the
modern translations will say oh you, you forgot your first love.
But I love the way the ESV interprets it.
You abandoned the love that you had at 1st and I look back at my
own life and maybe you will relate to this, is that there
was, I can remember being like 1819 years old and getting my
first like job in a church. I was leading worship for this
little church in Shreveport, LA called Life Tabernacle and I
became the youth director like 19 years old.
It's crazy. I look back now and think, how
was I at that age, man? It was like parents would like
put their kids on a bus and I would drive the bus around.
You know, it's crazy. When I was 19 years old and it
was manual transmission. I remember once I went on a
youth trip and and the the the bus wouldn't start.
So I had someone pull start me with a truck and a chain and his
kids are just jumping the bus after I got a pull started.
So it was just crazy. But I look back at that season
of my life and man, things were so simple.
I made like very, very, very little money.
And the church had this old dilapidated house that they had
Royal Rangers in for some years. Anybody remember Royal Rangers?
It was like Boy Scouts, right? So it was still called the Royal
Ranger Hut, right? And I lived in, it was rat
infested. It was dirty and terrible.
But I just remember it was that love that I had at first for the
Lord. Let me do this serving fervently
with little expectation and the older so often I kind of want
to. I want that love that I had at
first. I want to recapture it and I
don't want to become jaded. I don't want to become cynical
and life can lead you to becoming a cynic, right and
jaded. And it can do that even in our
acts of service. So I look back and the same our
daughter Jasmine. So last week she went to a
school called Christ for the Nations and I went to college or
Bible school there sometime. And when I was there, when we
took Jasmine to go to school there, I remember just pulling
onto the campus and just weeping and remembering.
It's like, OK, that that love that I had at first for the
Lord, You have to have a discipline to recapture it
because the world around you and maybe you've served before,
maybe you've been serving in different areas, but but life
brought challenges and disappointments and struggles
and maybe you've lost the love that you had at first.
If you can get back to it, it will affect the way that you
serve. So we serve to show our love for
Jesus. And in my early ministry days, I
especially look back and remember fondly serving and I
still want to operate and flow from that same heart.
Next, we serve to show our love for others.
So we serve to show our love for Jesus, but we serve also to show
our love for others. Galatians 513 and 14 says for
you were called to freedom. Brothers only.
Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but
through love serve one another, for the whole law is fulfilled.
In one word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Now watch this. The commandment is love your
neighbor as yourself. And how do you show your
neighbor that you love them? According to Galatians, you show
them that you love them by serving them.
You want to show others you love them.
And this is true in our church, it's true in our families, it's
true and and your relationships at work, wherever you are, you
can find opportunities to adopt again, humility and doing things
that seem below you. It will show your love for
others according to Galatians and then forth.
I came up with this Matthew 516. I say that we serve so that and
it's kind of like dot dot dot in Matthew 516.
Jesus is speaking and teaching and he says in the same way, let
your light shine before others so that they may see your good
works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
It is OK to serve. And again, you have to navigate
through this as far as humility, but Jesus is saying the
motivation for you doing good deeds for you, serving for you
doing this is so that God can be glorified.
Your acts, your good deeds, your serving brings honor and glory
to God so that you serve so that God will be exalted, God will be
magnified. These are just simple ideas.
I would also say this is that we serve for the common good.
Why do we serve? We serve for the common good.
This is First Corinthians chapter 12 where the apostle
Paul is writing about spiritual gifts and he mentions when he's
talking about like miraculous spiritual gifts, even he says,
now there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit and
there are varieties of service, but the same Lord and there are
varieties of activities, but in the same God who empowers them
all in everyone, to each is given the manifestation of the
Spirit for the common good. Your gifts and your talents
together are for the common good of your church, of your family,
of those that you have relationship with.
It's for common good. Now let me just unpack a basic
idea when it comes to spiritual gifts.
As a as a follower of Jesus, you receive the Holy Spirit.
At salvation, you receive the Holy Spirit.
Additionally, there are gifts that you receive that come from
the Holy Spirit and those are listed in First Corinthians and
Paul is saying in Romans also. So Paul lists these spiritual
gifts and we believe that those spiritual gifts are still
available to us today. OK, They're still available to
those who follow Jesus. And the point of those spiritual
gifts is for the common good, right?
You flowing in your gift. Now, if you don't know what your
spiritual gift is, maybe you didn't know there was such a
thing. I encourage you, just you can
just do a basic go to YouTube and just find teachings on
spiritual gifts. OK, you learning your spiritual
gift, you can even go online and do an inventory like this.
Google spiritual gifts inventory and you might be surprised to
find out what your spiritual gifts are.
And it's, it's interesting for spiritual gifts because
sometimes we elevate some of them over other gifts, right?
So let's say like mercy is a spiritual gift.
Did you know that mercy is a spiritual gift?
But there are also gifts of healing.
And often we take healing and we, we make it, you know, more
important than mercy. No, they're equally as
important. Sometimes people deal with
spiritual gifts like like like a poker hand or something.
You know, it's like, I've got aces.
Aces are like gifts of healings and tongues or whatever.
And Oh yeah, mercy, it's like a deuce or a three or something,
right? But that's not really the case.
They're all valuable. They're all for the common good
of those who follow the Lord. So we should use our spiritual
gifts to serve. Now, it's important also that
you know that you have talents and you have spiritual gifts.
This comes in play often. Let's say, for example,
musicians. Musicians will often talk of
their music as if it's a gift, but it's not listed in the
spiritual gifts. It's a talent that you have to
work at and develop. So what you should do is you
find out in your life what are your talents and what are your
spiritual gifts and you combine them.
And when you combine them, it makes you even more of an
effective servant for the common good, using your spiritual gifts
and using your talent. But don't over spiritualize your
talents and think them spiritual gifts.
Because let's say that let's say if you think, for example, music
is your spiritual gift, well then if it's not, it's not a
spiritual gift, it's a talent. But if you think of a gift,
you'll never really find out what your true spiritual gift
is. You should know what your
spiritual gifts are, and then you use those for the common
good of those that you love and those that you serve.
So we serve for the common good. Now I love this when I think
about how Jesus will address us, how the Father will address us
when we enter into eternity with him.
There's a picture of it in the parable of the talents.
How will God address us when we stand before him?
This is the story of of of of a master with his servants that
he's given these talents to invest.
But it's a picture of our heavenly Father and look at how
our heavenly Father will address this.
Matthew 2521 his master said to him, well done, good and
faithful servant. You have been faithful over
little and I will set you over much enter into the joy of your
master in the end. I mean, this is the goal, right?
The goal is standing before God someday and him saying to you
and me, well done, faithful good and faithful servant to aspire
to that and to hear God speak that over us will be, I think
meaningful and beautiful. Now I want to just end with some
things to remember about serving.
Hebrews 610 says, For God is not unjust as to overlook your work
and the love you have shown for His name and serving the Saints
as you still do. And we desire each one of you to
show the same earnestness, to have the full assurance of hope
until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators
of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
God is not unrighteous to forget where you serve and how you make
a difference. God remembers, and He will call
us good and faithful servants when we enter into eternity with
them. And then finally, Matthew 23.
This is Jesus speaking and he says the greatest among you
shall be your servant and God's economy in the Kingdom of
heaven. The servants, those who are
serving are the most valuable and the most revered according
to Jesus. Now, let me just give you some
application. Fall is coming and this time of
year what happens at our church in the fall again, lots of
people come back to church or lots of people will be.
You know, there will be more people I'm believing in
September and October. And that being the case, you,
you guys are the Labor Day crowd, right?
You guys are the faithful ones. You're here on a Labor Day
weekend, right? Which is really cool.
OK, so it's, it's kind of like preaching to the choir, right?
If you say, you know the old saying, so you're the Labor Day
crowd, you're the faithful ones, right?
And I'm saying to you, if you are part of this church family
and you have not found a place to serve yet, then you need to
find a place to serve. You should be serving somewhere.
There's needs in the Cafe, There's certainly needs upstairs
with tech, there's music, musical needs.
There are greeters. We need greeters.
And areas of where we really need people to serve are in
children's ministry and in youth ministry.
This summer particularly, we had some events and we didn't quite
have enough youth workers a couple of times.
So if you, I, I'm just challenging you and calling you
to a higher place. If you are part of this church
and you have been here for a while and you're not serving,
now's the time to find a place to serve.
And you can e-mail me my again, my e-mail is
supereasyitsjustkurt@northlifechurch.org, curt@northlifechurch.org.
Find me, e-mail me and let's find a place for you to serve
and to make a difference for the common good for the sake of
God's Kingdom. OK, so I'm challenging you.
I'm challenging you. Jay said that in the first
service, she said a couple times it felt like really direct, like
Ouch. I want you to feel a little Ouch
this morning. I want you to feel a little
Ouch. It's like, OK, if you're if you
receive, let's say you come here and you receive and you're
encouraged and you're inspired. Well then just to come and
receive is not, it's not right. You should be coming and finding
a place to serve. So there are areas that like
even there are things around the church that need to be fixed.
If you're handy, then if you're a Carpenter, you have those
skills, then that would be great.
I have no skills, man. When it comes to like fixing
stuff, I am terrible. I did buy a chainsaw this past
week and I have not started it yet because I'm still afraid of
it. So I talked Matthew Lesl in this
first service. Matthew and his wife were part
of our church. He, he's a force Ranger, right?
He's AI think he's a force Ranger.
And so Matthew says he trains workers for the state on
chainsaws and he offered to help him.
Like that's a really good idea because man, I like my fingers,
I like my face and I don't want to lose them, right?
So, but I had some work around our house that I need to do so,
so, but I all that say I'm not handy, I'm terrible.
But if you're, if you have skills in that area, then
there's things to be done. There are places to serve.
And again, I just reiterate children's ministry, youth
ministry. We have so many kids in our
church. That's such a great thing.
All the kids that we have. That is sign of a church that is
thriving and growing. I'd like to mention the
statistics often is that the average church in America that I
understand, they have one child for six adults.
OK, that's the average. And they say that let's say a
church has 10 adults for one child or 20 adults for one
child. That's sadly evidence of a dying
church when there are no children, right?
It's evidence. But but to the contrary, a
church that has lots and lots and lots of children, our ratios
are sometimes like 4 to one. We have tons of kids, right?
And we need to train and grow our children up in the ways of
the Lord. And you might be part of that.
So I'm challenging you. If you're part of our church
family, find a place to serve. There are good reasons why we do
serve. Let me pray for us, God.
I pray that we are challenged and that God, that you will
bring for the common good a culture to our church.
It's already here. But God, in an even greater way,
bring us a culture where we serve.
We serve. We serve like you Jesus.
We take on even the ideas of like washing feet.
God, whatever, whatever is humility, God lead us into that
place where we find places to serve inside our church and
outside our families at our workplace.
Let us have the mentality of a servant.
So God challenge us, grow us as a church, ready us for the new
people that will be coming to worship with us and to be part
of us. Help us, God, to be hospitable
and to be gracious and to have a culture where everyone,
everyone, everyone who's part of this church family is serving in
one way or another. We pray for it.
Give us insight, God, and we're serving.
We're to best use our spiritual gifts and our talents for your
Kingdom and for your honor so that you will be exalted in our
lives. And Jesus name and everyone
together said, Amen. Let's all stand together.
Thank you so much for being here again on a Labor Day weekend.
I hope that you enjoy. I hope most of you will have the
day off tomorrow. I hope that you enjoy your time.
Before you go, I want to say a blessing over you.
So if you would prepare your heart to receive this blessing
before you go. And now may the Lord bless you
and keep you. And may he make his face to
shine upon you. And may the joy of the Lord that
is unspeakable and full of glory made abound to you.
And may the peace of God that passes all understanding, may it
surprise you in the midst of all of the challenges that life
brings. And then may the mercies of the
Lord, in other words, the forgiveness of God, that's new
every morning. May it be especially new to you
and your mornings to come. And now may the Lord Jesus
Christ guard your heart and your mind.
You are salt and your light. Go now and be salt and light
under the world. You are blessed.
We'll see you soon.