The Heart of a Servant: Embracing Your Gift for God

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,

where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

In this podcast series, we're going to be looking into biblical

words that have great significance to our faith.

The name of this series is called the Word of the Week, where

once a week we will dive deeper into these words that we are

familiar with in Scripture.

So come along with me.

Let's study the Word of the week.

Pastor Josh here.

The word of the week is gift.

We're continuing on in our series looking at the spiritual gifts

listed in Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

And we started last week looking at the very first gift listed

here in Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

And that was the gift of prophecy, the gift of proclaiming

the truth of God to those around us.

So the Bible spoke there of those individuals that are supernaturally

gifted to proclaim or to preach the truth of God.

That doesn't mean that everyone that preaches has this gift,

but we know that certainly some individuals are gifted by God

through the Holy Spirit to effectively proclaim the truth boldly

in faith.

And so the Bible goes on to tell us there in that verse In Romans

Romans 12 · chapter mention

chapter 12, verse number seven, about the next gift.

And that is in the King James Ministry or service.

The word their ministry literally means to serve, to do things

for other people in the name of God.

And so the Bible says here Romans chapter 12 or Ministry, let

Romans 12 · chapter mention

us wait on our ministering.

So basically, what it's saying here is if we're serving, focus on

our service and be patient in that service for the Lord to do it

for the right reasons.

There are many passages of Scripture that speak of this idea

of service.

We go back to our original passage that we started with in 1st

Peter, chapter 4.

1 Peter, chapter 4, verse 10, says, as every man hath received

1 Peter 4:10

the gift, even so minister or even so serve the same one to another.

And so the Bible commands us to serve one another as God has gifted

us.

And so this individual that has been gifted in the area of service

is going to naturally have a heart for serving others, naturally

putting themselves behind other people.

This takes a level of humility.

And so it says, even so minister the same one to another

as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God.

That would speak more to the gift of prophecy or the gift of teaching.

But then it says, let him do it as.

As God has given him the ability.

But then it says, really there in, in that passage, those that are

going to minister.

And so there's going to be people that are going to be proclaiming

the truth of God.

And there's going to be people serving possibly behind the scenes

and not getting noticed, maybe not even getting credit.

And so the Bible says it takes a level of humility to be a servant.

And Jesus gives us that greatest example of the servant in,

in many passages of scripture.

But one that really stands out to me is John 13, when he washed

the disciples feet there right before he would go to the cross,

knowing in in his deity that one fellow there would deny him and

another fellow would betray him.

But yet he still washed their feet and showed that servant heart.

And he even let them know that that was an example for them to follow.

We know that other passages of scripture, like Philippians chapter

two tell us that we should have the same mind as Christ did.

That it says let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ

Jesus, who being in the form of God, found that robbery to be

equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and took

upon him the form of a servant.

So Jesus took the form of the servant.

So therefore as believers we are called to do the same.

And may I remind you that these gifts of the Spirit are not

just for us to look at and say, well, you know what, I have

this gift, so I don't need to think about another gift.

No, even if you're not naturally or supernaturally gifted

in the area of service, all of us are called to look to not only

serve God, but to serve others.

I think of another passage of scripture that really highlights

this truth and that's in the book of Ephesians.

You know, a lot of times in our lives we are willing to serve

those that are easy to serve, or maybe we're even willing to serve

those that love us, which is a great thing, that's a natural thing.

But the Bible tells us to not only serve those that are easy to

serve, not not only to serve those that love us, that care for

us, but we are also to serve people that might be difficult.

We are to serve people that maybe have even wronged us.

And at the end of Ephesians, chapter 4, we see a very interesting

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

passage.

It's a passage dealing with the idea of putting off the old man

and putting on the new.

So, so getting rid of bad things in our life, getting rid of

the sin in our life, and then replacing that with godliness and

so putting off the old, putting on the new.

Well how do we do that?

Well, we allow the Spirit to take control.

It's not our hard work, it's not effort that allows us to sin

less in our life and to do more godly works.

It's the power of God working through us.

And so it's yielding to the Spirit, it's dying to the flesh.

And so to be a servant, to effectively serve, we must die to

ourselves, to our own desires, to our own wants, and even sometimes

to our own needs.

And so the Bible talks there in Ephesians chapter four about doing

good things in the place of evil.

And he gets to the very end there, Paul does in Ephesians chapter

four.

And he says, and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving

one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

And so there's this idea of being tender hearted, being forgiving.

And we know that as the Lord has laid out for us, that we are

to love our enemies, we are to show kindness to them, we are to

forgive, we are to forbear, we are to not necessarily overlook wrongs,

but we are to be willing to serve others that might not be easy

to serve.

And so that's the element of service.

That's the gift of service.

Someone being able to serve even when there's no praise, someone

being able to serve even when there isn't a earthly reward.

We know the Bible tells us that there is a heavenly reward for

that service.

And we know that as we serve, there might even be elements of praise

and there might even be elements of people noticing what

we're doing.

But ultimately we don't do that for people to notice us.

We do that for God to notice.

And ultimately we do that because we are servants of the King.

And so we do that because we love him.

So the way that I would word it is this.

The gift of service is a gift given to us to love love others as

Christ has told us to love others, to serve others as the Lord

has called us to serve others.

And we do that.

We, we love others because we love God.

We serve others because we love God.

And so the service to others is service to God.

And so we go back to Romans chapter 12 and we look at that passage

Romans 12 · chapter mention

of Scripture and we see that one of those spiritual gifts is the

gift of service.

And so I would encourage you to think about and to pray about

what areas of service that you can display for the Lord, but also

to others around you.

Remember, the spiritual gifts are not there just for our own sakes,

but actually they're there to edify others, to build up others,

to bring glory to God.

So when we think about service from that perspective, it helps us

out immensely when it comes to those times where we're tempted not

to serve.

And so for those people that are gifted in that area of service,

hey, you know what?

You're.

You're not going to be as challenged as much as maybe some

other people are.

You're going to see the bigger picture.

You're going to understand that it's not about you.

You're going to understand that you don't need the praise.

You're going to be willing to say, hey, whatever I can do, I'm

going to do it.

How can I help you?

How can I lift?

How can I lift someone up?

The word, their service, literally in the Greek, is the word

that we get deacon from.

So, so we have the office of a deacon within the church, and that

that office is there to display service.

And so all of us are called to that area of service in our life,

whether we're gifted in that area or not, Whether we're in the

office of a deacon or not, we are all called to serve.

And so serve God and to serve others.

And so I would encourage you to think about that, pray about that,

and allow yourself to be willing to be challenged by God to

say, you know what, Laura?

Where would you have me to serve you?

Where would you have me to serve within the church?

Where would you have me to serve in my community?

Where would you have me to serve in my family?

Sometimes that's an area that we overlook.

But we.

We think about these areas of service, and then once God recognize,

or once we recognize what God has for us in the area of service,

we then need to be willing to follow.

We then need to be willing to commit and to put ourselves in a

place where we can submit to the Spirit.

Because all of these gifts are manifested by an obedience to the

Spirit, by a yielding to the Spirit.

If we are in our flesh, if we are acting in our flesh and responding

in our flesh, we're not going to be doing the things that honor

God.

We're going to be doing things that honor ourselves.

And so we can have the gift of service, but we serve so that we

can receive, or we serve for ulterior motives.

But when we're acting in the flesh, we are able to serve with

that agape love.

We're able to serve with humility.

We're able to serve with sacrifice.

And that's the exact way that Jesus gave us the example of service

in.

In the word of God.

And so I'm thankful for his service, and I'M thankful for my

opportunities to serve and I hope that you are as well.

Well, next week we're going to come back and we are going to look

at the gift of teaching and I hope that that will be an opportunity

for you to learn more about these gifts and hopefully discern

what gift or gifts that God has blessed you with in your faith.

And so thank you for listening here this week.

I hope that you have a wonderful Christmas and I hope that

you are able to celebrate that wonderful time of the year with family.

And let us celebrate the coming of our Savior, but let us

look forward to his coming again.

Well, we know that God loves us and we're thankful for that love

and I hope that you can rest in that here today.

Well, we'll look toward talking to you next week.

God bless you.

Take care.

We'll see you soon.

Hey, I really appreciate that you listen to the Word of the Week

podcast.

If you have any questions about the podcast or or about our

church, Middletown Baptist Church, you can find more information

about us on Facebook or YouTube or you can find the podcast

on NBCPodcast.org you can contact me directly at Josh Massaro

at middletownbaptistchurch.org stay tuned for future Word of the

Week episodes where we dive deeper into words that impact our

life according to scripture.

Thank you so much.

God bless.

We'll talk to you soon.