Deeper // Deeper with Serving

Amen, amen, amen.

Hey, family, so great to see you guys.

We're gonna be in Mark, chapter two, and we are in a series entitled Deeper.

And here's what we're doing.

We're just looking at five simple rhythms that if you will incorporate into your life, no matter who you are, no matter what your background is, you will grow deeper in your faith.

And I want us to review a little bit, and we're gonna do this by asking a quiz question.

Are and I want us to review a little bit, and we're going to do this by asking a quiz question Are you guys ready to have a quiz at the 10 am service on a cold, rainy morning?

If you're ready, say amen, yeah, mic's raised.

Okay, we've talked about two rhythms.

Somebody tell me what are one of the two rhythms we've talked about over the last two weeks.

Community, that's right.

She's looking at her notes.

I love it.

Let's go, so you're.

Community, yeah, the importance of having community within the church and having relationships.

That was something we talked about last week.

Does anybody have a great, great memory better than me and talk about the first rhythm from two weeks ago?

Anybody remember that?

One Scripture, that's right.

That's exactly right.

Meditating on scripture and the importance of the rhythm of meditating on scripture.

Now, today, we're going to talk about the third rhythm, and we're going to go to a passage of scripture that actually shaped me nearly 20 years ago.

It was 2008.

Can you believe that 2008 was nearly 20 years ago?

I was in college and I went to college at a church in Southern California In fact, I think we have a picture up of my pastor in case you're wondering.

That's how a pastor is supposed to dress and at the church I went to, we had church Sunday morning, sunday night, wednesday night, sunday morning, sunday night, wednesday night.

So I went to church Sunday morning, sunday night, wednesday night.

Can I just say I loved it.

How many of y'all would say that's a lot of church, though?

It's a lot of church, right, a lot of church.

And so over the course of my three and a half years in college, he's my pastor.

The whole time I heard literally like hundreds and hundreds of messages from my pastor, but there was one message that stood out to me more than any other message I heard from him in all my time in college, and it was a message from the text that we're going to be in Mark, chapter 2, because this message really opened up my eyes to the heart of what it means to serve others.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

To the heart of what it means to serve others.

And in Mark, chapter 2, we see this beautiful picture of it.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

And the third rhythm in this series of growing deeper is the rhythm of serving others.

Can we all say that together, that word on the phrase on the screen, ready the rhythm of serving others.

And if we're going to grow deeper in our faith, we have to have the rhythm of serving others.

Now, how many of you would be honest enough to say sometimes it's hard to serve others, oh, my goodness.

How many also would say it's possible that you can do the right thing, but you can do it for the wrong reason?

How many would say it's just us here?

How many would say there's been a time, maybe one time, when you were having a really, really bad day, years and years ago, where you did the right thing but you did it for the wrong reason?

Has that ever happened to you before?

All right, okay, come on, we all have right.

We've done the right thing for the wrong reason.

And what we're going to see in the text today is we're going to see how we can serve, which is the right thing to do, and we can have the right heart in our serving.

Because, because, because, because, if I serve, just so somebody else will serve me, or I serve, so I'll be celebrated, I'll be recognized.

Really, what that is is it's selfishness masqueraded as service, and there are four people in Mark 2 that changed somebody's life because they served from the right place.

Now I got to give you the picture and the setting of Mark, chapter 2.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

It happened in a small little fishing village on a beautiful lake.

The lake was called Galilee.

Everybody say Galilee.

The lake was called Galilee.

Everybody say Galilee.

This is what it looks like today.

The sight lines would have been very similar 2,000 years ago, but the rolling hills was beautiful.

If you've been in church for a while, if you read the New Testament, you probably know this is the place, the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus did a lot of things.

He did some really cool things on this lake.

Does anybody know what's something that Jesus did on the Sea of Galilee?

Anybody know?

He walked on the water.

It's right here.

It happened there.

And on the northern part of this lake there's a little city.

It's a fishing town.

It's called Capernaum.

It's called Capernaum.

In fact you can go to Capernaum today and you can see some of the ruins.

And in Capernaum there is a house.

It was packed full of people, people everywhere, not because they were having a Super Bowl party either.

It was packed full of people elbow to elbow, because Jesus was in the house and he wasn't feeding anybody, he wasn't doing any miracles, he was doing what he often did, he was teaching and everybody wanted to come and hear Jesus.

And then what happened next changed one person's life forever.

Because four people four, not a thousand, but four, not a thousand, but four made this decision to serve others.

And I want you to see it.

It says in Mark, chapter two, verse number one.

It says then he this is Jesus.

He entered.

There's the name of that city, there's the name of that sleepy little fishing village, it's Capernaum.

Let's all say that word together it's the city of Capernaum.

He entered it again after some days.

It was reported that he was at home.

So many people had gathered together that there was, there was.

What are those words?

There was no more.

You can't fit nobody else in there.

I mean, they're packed in there like sardines.

There's no room for anybody, not even in the doorway.

That's a lot of people, not even in the doorway, that's a lot of people.

I can't even get in the doorway.

And he this is Jesus.

What was he doing?

He was speaking the word to them, he was teaching, and then it happened in verse number three.

They came to him, jesus, bringing a paralytic carried by four of them.

There's a person that's paralyzed.

So the man had to obviously be carried, because if he's paralyzed, what can he not do?

He cannot walk.

But there's a question how are they going to get this man to Jesus, because the room is full of people?

Are the four people?

Are they going to like call in, like some buff security people, or just going to like throw people out of the house, like, get out the way.

Bro Got a paralyzed guy here.

He needs to get to Jesus.

Little kid to leave.

No, that's what they do.

Verse number four Look at the creative way.

This is so creative, the creative, out-of-the-box way that they got this man to Jesus.

Since they were not able to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd the house was full they removed the roof above him.

Maybe I'm not very spiritual, but I read that and I'm like what would the homeowner be thinking here?

And after digging through it, they're digging through it.

They lowered the mat on which the paralytic was lying.

This is some kind of scene here.

Y'all Jesus teaching rooms filled with people.

All of a sudden, a hole starts appearing in the wall, in the ceiling, and a man starts being lowered down.

Oh, that is crazy.

And what we see?

Number one we're going to skip a picture of media booth.

What we see, number one, about these guys and we see something about servants is they look for opportunities to serve.

Did you see this here?

What these four guys could have said is they could have said we'll serve if, like Jesus commands us to serve.

Jesus never commanded them to serve.

These guys were not a part of the growing deeper spiritual growth campaign and they didn't have the weekly spiritual growth assignment of join the get the paralytic to Jesus serve team.

It wasn't on there.

This is what they did.

They saw a need and they just took the lead.

And you know what servants do?

Servants see the need and take the lead.

These guys saw these people saw that this man needed help and they chose to serve him.

What they could have done is they could have been like well, man, I mean I hope somebody helps him.

I want to go hear what Jesus is teaching about.

What they could have done is they could have been like well, man, I mean hope somebody helps him.

I want to go hear what Jesus is teaching about.

They could have said man, I'm like in such a hurry right now.

The 12 apostles, they can serve him.

And you know, they're like special because they're like the 12 apostles.

They probably do a better job than we can Like.

We don't have time for that.

They didn't do that.

They saw somebody in need and they served him.

They saw a need and they took a lead and Jesus actually blessed their service.

Look what happened because they had this heart to serve others.

Seeing their faith verse 5,.

Jesus told the paralytic to serve others.

Seeing their faith verse five.

Jesus told the paralytic son, your sins are what's that last word?

Your sins are.

I don't know about y'all, but I find it absolutely fascinating that initially Jesus did not heal this man of his physical condition.

He's paralyzed.

Here's the scene Hole in the ceiling, man comes down, obviously paralyzed.

He's on a mat.

Everybody is looking up in the ceiling like what's happening?

They see the thing.

Jesus doesn't say rise up and walk.

He says your sins are forgiven.

You know why.

You know why because humans and humanity's greatest need is not physical, it's spiritual.

Humanity's greatest need is not physical, it's spiritual.

Now I have to say this is hard for some of us to realize or understand, because all we we see is the physical right.

That's what we see.

We feel aching body parts, we see things around us, but that is not our greatest need.

Our greatest need is spiritual.

You realize that Jesus did not come just to do good things.

He did not come just to feed the poor.

He did not come just to heal people, although he did those things.

He came to this earth to die on the cross for your sin and for my sin.

So we would have the forgiveness of sin.

And the feeding and the healing was all meant to do one thing to show people that he was who he said he was and he is the way that we can experience the forgiveness of sin.

This is why Jesus came, as Jesus was there, healing or forgiving this man's sin.

Verse 6 tells us that Jesus had some haters.

You ever have some haters.

Jesus has some haters.

Some of the scribes, these are the religious people, these are kind of the uptight churchy people.

You know what I'm saying.

You ever met an uptight churchy person before?

You know what I'm saying.

So this is an uptight churchy people.

You know what I'm saying.

You ever met an uptight churchy person before?

You know what I'm saying?

So this is an uptight churchy person.

Right, the scribes are sitting there and questioning in their hearts.

They were having some things going on in their hearts.

Why does he speak like this?

He's blaspheming.

Who can forgive sins but God alone, and they're exactly right.

Who can forgive sins but God alone, and they're exactly right.

Who can forgive sins but God alone?

And Jesus could forgive sin because Jesus was God.

He wasn't just a good dude, he wasn't just a prophet, he wasn't just a humanitarian.

Jesus was God in the flesh.

That's who Jesus was, and the next verse shows us that he was God verse 8.

Right away, jesus perceived in his spirit that they were thinking like this within themselves Translation.

He read their minds like this within themselves Translation.

He read their minds Better than any mom can read their kid's mind.

He read their minds specifically and said to them why are you thinking these things in your hearts?

Which, if I'm those guys, I'm like I'm not thinking anything.

I don't know what you're talking about, jesus.

But Jesus knows, because he could read their mind, because he was God.

Why are you thinking of these things in your heart?

Which is easier?

Verse number nine he says to say to the paralytic your sins are forgiven.

Or to say get up, take your mat and walk.

And it's an obvious question.

It's a very obvious question.

It's way easier for me to say your sins are forgiven, because you can't necessarily see that, but it would be easier.

That's easier to say that than to say get up here, take up your mat and walk, because it's like, yeah, like that would be a physical healing.

So, verse number 10, but so many of you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.

He told the paralytic.

I tell you verse 11, I tell you and I wanna stop here for a second, verse 10, he says says so you will know that I have the power to forgive sin.

So you will know that I'm the Messiah, that I'm the son of God.

I'm going to do something.

In other words, what I'm going to do Is going to show you my authority.

What I'm going to do is going to show you that I can forgive sin.

What I'm going to do is going to show you that I can forgive sin.

What I'm going to do is not an end of itself, although it's about to be a really good thing.

It's to show you who I am.

I tell you get up your mat.

Get up, take your mat and go home.

And immediately he this is the paralytic he got up, took the mat, went out and went out in front of everyone and had a dance party.

I added that sorry, I don't know if that happened.

As a result, they were all astonished and gave glory to God, saying we have never seen anything like this.

Jesus did a miracle.

So these people would see the identity and trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior Say this is who I am.

Listen, some of you, in your life, god has done things in your life.

God has revealed himself to you in times and you look back and you're like man I'm so thankful for that happened Like.

And then we just go on living our life like we always have.

Listen, some of us, god has done things in your life to show you your need of God, to show you that he's the answer, to show you that he's the way to show you that he's the truth.

Some of you, god has been working in very clear ways and opening your eyes and drawing you to him, and it's not just so you can live life how you want, but so you can see that Jesus is the one that we need.

And you see, in this story what happened is this man was healed.

We see, the identity of Jesus was revealed.

Why?

Because four people served.

Four people served.

Here's the thing we don't know these guys' names.

We don't know the four people's names.

We don't know what they did for a living.

We don't know anything about the four people.

They were unnamed but they served.

And something we see about servants is that servants don't need and don't demand recognition.

They don't demand recognition.

In the text you don't see and don't demand recognition.

They don't demand recognition.

In the text you don't see at the end that the four people are like hey, if any of you guys want a photo op with us, we're going to be down by the Sea of Galilee and we're available to take some pictures, and we're also going to be doing a Q&A at the best way to open up a roof and get somebody down there, because we're experts on it.

By the way, if you post the picture on social media, make sure you tag us.

Here's our handle.

They weren't like in the process of lowering the map.

They weren't like hey, somebody, make sure you record a video of this, because this one's going to go viral, I guarantee it.

They didn't demand recognition, and if we're ever going to be people that truly serve, we're first going to have to understand that our significance is not found in being known.

Our significance is not found in being celebrated, but our significance and our identity is found in Christ.

That's where it's found.

You see, in the kingdom of this world, the way you find significance and identity is completely different than the way you find significance and identity in God's kingdom.

In the kingdom of this world, your significance is based on your possessions and your position and your accomplishments.

So you are only as significant as how much you have or as what you can accomplish, or as your position in your life.

So if we have this mentality of I find significance based on all these external things, then what we're doing is we're letting the world define how we view significance.

But in God's kingdom, in the kingdom of God, you're significant because you're God's child.

That's why we're significant and as long as we define significance the way the world defines it, it's going to be really hard to serve others because we're going to want recognition, we're going to want to be seen, we're going to want to be celebrated, want to be seen, we're going to want to be celebrated.

But if we'll have God's view of significance and God's view of greatness, it's going to change how we view all this stuff about serving.

We're not going to demand people serving us.

We're going to want to serve other people because in the kingdom of God, greatness is not measured by being served but by serving others, measured by being served but by serving others.

It's interesting when Jesus talked to people about serving and greatness, he didn't say it's bad to want to be great, don't be great.

No, he didn't do that.

This is what he did.

He just redefined what it means to be great to serve others.

And can I just say so many of you in this room, in our church, you inspire me genuinely by your heart to serve others.

I look around and I'm just really overwhelmed at how selfless our church is.

It's so ironic.

I literally was working on this message on Monday and I heard some in this building and I heard some noise upstairs and I was like I'm going to go upstairs and see what's going on.

Two guys Monday morning they come on Mondays.

They were upstairs cleaning the building.

It was Shane and Doug, and I'm thinking Doug Monday's his day off.

His days off are Sunday and Monday.

Sunday he was here at 845 service and right over there Monday tomorrow, right here cleaning the building.

I'm like, oh my goodness, like this is serving, like he gets it.

We have a team that just started called the Admin Assistant Care Team and they come every other Wednesday afternoon and every other Wednesday evening, kind of separated there a little bit as far as just to give people some breaks and things, and they just come and help with a bunch of like administrative tasks around here and do all kinds of different things and, as more things are needed, I'm like they get it.

Like they're not seen by people, like they just want to serve others.

A couple of weeks ago there was somebody.

One of the trashes were filled up with coffee cups because around here we really love coffee.

You know what I'm saying.

Can I get a witness in the room right, and it was super full after 10 o'clock service and I saw somebody and they were just taking out the trash and I was like, hey, I don't even think they're scheduled today to serve anywhere.

They're on the facilities team.

You're not on the facilities team, You're not allowed to take out the trash trash.

This is what they saw right.

They saw a need and they took the lead.

They didn't need recognition, they just wanted to be a part of something.

And here's the reality about what all these people recognize, about what these four people in the text recognize, is that servants understand they're a part of something bigger than themselves.

They understand that it's not about them and while it's not about them, god wants to use them.

You think in the story about these four people, you have a mat, you have a bed.

Think about how many corners are on the bed One, two, three and four.

Imagine what would happen if two of those people in Mark 2 said we don't really want to serve this paralytic man because we're kind of busy, we got to go home, we got to catch up on our Netflix series because we're a couple episodes behind and so we can't really do it.

Then it would have been like two people trying to carry this man up top of the roof.

It'd have been a lot more.

Can you imagine if only one person tried to do that?

You got to take the paralytic man.

He's like all right, you ready, I'm going to flip you over my shoulder.

Here we go.

One, two, three, oh wait, now I got to get up to the top of the roof.

Two, three, oh wait, now I got to get up to the top of the roof.

It wouldn't have happened.

But it took four people saying God, I want you to use me.

And they allowed God to use them.

I was.

I shared last week that there was somebody that came to me after the I think it was 845 service last week and they came to me and they said, pastor Nate, like literally with a tear in their eye, on the corner of their eye, and said this church has changed my life.

I've been coming for about six months or so and I'm like I'm so thankful for how God has used our church to change your life.

And this week I was thinking about all the people that impacted that person.

Think about this guys they pulled up in the parking lot, whether it was their first day, whether it was a rainy day like today or a nice day, and there was people out in the parking lot greeting them.

They walked up.

There were people at the tent, people at the front doors just waving at them, making them feel welcomed.

They came in, got some coffee because God knows we need coffee on a Sunday morning.

You know what I'm saying.

Somebody was here making coffee nice and early.

They went, dropped their kid off in Kingdom Kids, got a grandkid dropped their kid off in there and there was loving, caring workers that received their kid.

Can you imagine if all the Kingdom Kids workers just showed up late on that day and there was nobody to receive it?

They came in here and they had a worship team that was pointing their hearts to God.

How many of you understand?

The worship team spends hours and hours preparing for Sunday morning.

This doesn't just like happen on Sunday because they, you know, they came in media people doing their thing and this is what happened.

This is what happened.

All these different people had a part in helping this person re-engage with the faith that they had years ago.

And in a few weeks from now, at our next Celebration, sunday, this person's gonna publicly express their faith in Christ through baptism and people are gonna get to watch it.

And here's the deal.

So many of you had a part in that and some people thought, man, you know what?

I'm just waving outside in the parking lot, I'm just cleaning the toilet on a Saturday afternoon, I'm just doing this, I don't really matter.

But what you do does matter, because people are experiencing Jesus because of you.

It's powerful and you have a part in this.

So here's what I want to ask you to do this morning.

We were going to show a video, but we don't have time.

Ask you to do this morning.

We were going to show a video, but we don't have time.

But I'm going to ask you this morning to do just a couple things.

One would you redefine your view of significance and greatness?

Maybe you're here and your view of greatness and your view of significance is how much can I have and how can my name be known and all these external things?

Can today be the day where you're like I am not?

I am not gonna view greatness that way anymore.

Today I'm gonna get a God-centered view of greatness.

Today is the day it's gonna change.

I've spent my life and my years letting social media and the news define what greatness is Today, no more.

And would you say I'm going to redefine my view of greatness.

Greatness is about serving others, and then, for some of you, would you be willing to join a serve team?

We want to have a heart to serve others outside the church building, inside the church building, inside the body, outside the body, wherever we can.

We want to have a lifestyle of that and, as we within the body say, I just want to have a heart to serve others.

There will be more stories like that person I was talking about just a minute ago.

There will be more stories like that person I was talking about just a minute ago.

There will be more stories of people that are finding hope where they didn't have hope before.

There's going to be more stories of people learning scripture that didn't even know the Bible was a thing.

There's going to be more people praying and experiencing things in their life, and it's going to happen because of your serving Now.

Next week, we're going to learn the fourth rhythm of what we need to have in our life to grow deeper.

And the fourth rhythm is going to be something that has personally impacted me, not because of the rhythm in my life, but because the rhythm in somebody else's life that changed me, and I'm going to share that next week and it's going to be great.

But today I want to end with this question, this very important question for you to go home with and for you to wrestle with, and this can be a game changer in your life.

Here's the question how and who can you serve?

How and who can you serve?

Is it a serve team?

Is it somebody else?

I don't know, but answer that question and let God use your life in great and mighty ways.

Let's all bow our heads and close our eyes.