Why Church? Serving

That makes me white as snow No other found I know

Nothing but the blood of Jesus

They thank you so much for your blood, your love and your mercy

Father to be able to gather here this morning and to have forgiveness of sin

To have the relief of guilt and shame and Lord to just be able to sing and to pray and read your word

God is such a privilege and none of us deserve it

And God we are just so thankful for the blood of Jesus Christ and for what you did on the cross for our sins

God we just thank you for the amazing privilege it is

To be called your children and even gather in this place with other believers to share in moments like this

And Lord as we gather this morning I pray that you would speak powerfully

Lord that you would remind us over and over again that it's not about what we can get, what we can gain

But God it's all about surrendering

Father you have called us all to surrender to you

And Lord while we may be seeking joy and hope and so many different things in the world

There is only hope and joy in you when we fully surrender our lives to you

To this morning for every man and woman, for every kid that may be here to the oldest adult who is present

Father I pray that we would just cry out to you right now just in our own hearts and say God help me to surrender to you right now

Maybe I didn't surrender to you this week, maybe I didn't do everything I should have this week

But God in this moment right now help me to surrender to you

Help me to be willing to listen to your voice and the leading of your spirit in my life

And we pray together that you would send your Holy Spirit in this place

Send your Holy Spirit in our hearts and God that you would work and move powerfully

Lord as always we pray for our brothers and sisters who aren't able to be with us

But God we also pray for people like Reena Ravon's dad

Who was involved in just a little small accident moving some furniture and Lord he's in the hospital and I know he's hurting

So God we pray for him today and we pray for Reena as she's at the hospital with him

And Lord that you would just be with them, help him to heal

Father we pray for Miss Tammy Scruggs this morning and Lord you know that Lord she's just struggling

And God we pray for the doctors and nurses that they can just kind of figure out what's going on with her

And while she's running this fever and Lord you just touch her body in a very special way right now

God we pray for Miss Faith and her mom as she's recovering from surgery just help her to feel better today

And Lord we lift up Jerusalem Project to you

Lord we pray for every youth, every adult that's going to be participating this week

And we just ask that you would watch over them and give them safety

Lord that you would give them a special blessing to help the people that they're serving

And God that they would minister to them well

And Lord that as they are giving of themselves this week to serve others that God you would in turn pour yourself into them

And give them a blessing

Father in these next few moments speak powerfully and help us to surrender to your will and your ways

Jesus we love you, we thank you and we ask all this in your precious and holy name

All God's people said, you may be seated

We'll be in Mark chapter 9 today, we'll read verses 34-35

Mark 9 · chapter mention

And the passage of scripture that we're going to be reading is Jesus having this conversation with his disciples

About who the greatest in the kingdom is

Now we're talking about why church and today we're talking about serving so let's read together

Says after they arrived at Capernaum and settled in a house Jesus asked his disciples

What were you discussing out on the road?

But they didn't answer because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest

Two signs

The conversation probably shouldn't have been taking place

They were arguing about it

And the second thing was they weren't willing to answer because they were ashamed of what they were arguing over

In verse 35 he sat down and called the twelve disciples over to him and said whoever wants to be first

Must take last place and be the servant of everyone else

Now we're going to skip over to John chapter 13 verses 12 through 17

John 13:12–17

And this is the passage where Jesus washes his disciples feet right before he is betrayed and handed over to his religious leaders

So after washing their feet he put on his robe again and sat down and asked

Do you understand what I was doing?

You call me teacher and Lord and you are right because that's what I am

And since I your Lord and teacher have washed your feet you ought to wash each other's feet

I have given you an example to follow

Do as I have done to you

I tell you the truth

Slaves are not greater than their master nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message

Now that you know these things God will bless you for doing them

So as we talk about why church

Today's focus is talking about the need for us to serve

As Christians we lose this concept especially in our culture in America today

We lose the necessity for us to be servants

We miss this greatly and we shouldn't be surprised by that because if you look at the world that we live in

Everyone is always vying for the opportunity to be served

The attitude of our culture today is is what can you do for me?

Right. I mean that's that if you run a business, you know, it's like you you've got to figure out a way to do something

Political scenes everything is what can you do for me?

So that I'll be willing to support you or speak on your behalf or something like that

We're always looking for the opportunity to be served and when you look at the disciples, they're no different

Which is really interesting. We've said it over and over and over again that when you look at the disciples in the Gospels

They're very different people than what they were from the book of Acts and so forth throughout the rest of the New Testament

And in the Gospels, they're arguing constantly with one another about who's going to be in charge

So they all acknowledge that Jesus was the man Jesus is it we believe in him

We've left everything to follow him we believe

But who's number two?

And so they're always arguing with one another about who's the greatest who's the leader who's going to be the one that the other 11 have to answer to

And Jesus had to deal with these squabbling children for the entirety of his ministry

Have you ever had to do that deal with squabbling children arguing one another? Yeah, it's real fun

Yeah, it's exhausting

And Jesus has to deal with this and to think that

in the culture that we live in that we are going to be prone to desire to be served and

Then that even as a Christian

There's going to be this understanding or this this time in our lives where we have to

Fight this urge to be served and to move to this attitude of wanting to be a servant of other people

Wanting to be a servant of Christ would also be a servant of other people. So

Point number one this morning is

Our sinful nature wants to be served

That's the biggest thing that we have to see as people being served is nice, right? Anybody like to be served

How many of you enjoy going to a restaurant

Where they like bring you your food rather than you having to go order and then you having to go back and get it

And you having to go get your refills. We like to be served, right?

The service industry in our country is like the fastest-growing industry that there is

Because because there's there's a desire for us as people to be served our nature

craves to be served

We we have done I cannot even tell you how many weddings that Hannah and I have done here at the church recently

so we were doing

Pre-marital counseling with a couple a while back and this idea of one of the questionnaires is is

One of the questions on the questionnaire is

What do you see is your role in the marriage and what do you see is your mates role?

And that's always super interesting because you have to answer for one another you answer for yourself and then your mate answers for you

And then we compare the answers and usually that's a pretty good discussion that we get to have with everybody because it brings up the idea

Of chores and responsibilities and so we got to talking about chores. We got to talking about washing clothes

and so I

Remembered vividly this time in my life where I went to college. I had never washed clothes when I went to college and

I had to learn to wash clothes now

I've managed it but my version of washing clothes is not your version of washing clothes. Okay, mine is

You wash it. It doesn't stink. It's good

Right wrinkles don't matter. I'm probably wrinkled up today. I don't care

But for some of you, that's not the case

But I within reason I learned how to wash clothes when I was at college, but I had to move back home

My freshman year and when I came back home, my mom would still do my laundry which I was like

I was totally fine with right? I mean, that's like I didn't have to do it. She did it. It was great

She folded my laundry. She did all this. It was awesome. How many of you would enjoy that, right?

And so I enjoy that enjoyed being served

And I can remember the day that she cut me off like I walked in the door

It's just I'm not washing your clothes anymore. I was like, oh man, come on

It was it was a very

it was that moment where I can remember like you just start having to become an adult and it's like you start absorbing all these

Responsibilities that just take away your time and your energy and your focus from other things that you could be having fun doing

And now you have to be responsible

As long as she was willing to do my laundry

I was willing to let her do it because it was nice because I didn't have to do it

But it didn't

Change the fact of what she was doing and all the responsibilities and all things that she was doing in her life

I was willing to let her take on that for me

Because it it gave me the freedom to have time and focus on other things

If we are not careful as people

What we will end up doing is is we will allow people to serve us because we and we enjoy being served

We want to be served. We don't like the idea of serving others because a lot of times we know

The time and effort and stuff that it takes in order to pour into other people

You understand that as a parent when you do that with your kids

You understand it as if you're a boss of a company or a business

And there are things that you do above and beyond for your employees that they never see they never appreciate

It takes away from your own life in order to do that and many times it's unappreciated

So there's always going to be this desire for us

to want to be served

and we have to be really careful of that because when you look at what Jesus calls us to do as

believers in him

It is to serve Jesus Christ

But the sad reality is is that you can't truly serve Christ

unless

You are willing to serve others

It's a very integral part of your relationship with God

It's necessary. It's essential and

So basically if you claim this morning that you are a believer in Christ, but there is no desire to serve Jesus, which is

That's really kind of hard to comprehend. But let's let's just say like, okay, you won't deserve Jesus

But there's not much of a desire to serve other people

around you

There's an issue there

Because you can't truly be a follower of Christ if you're not serving others because it's exactly what Jesus has called us to do

And the New Testament

Echoes this calling from Matthew to Revelation

When you talk about why church

And you talk about why it's important to be a part of church. The church reminds us of this need to serve and

When we talk about this this morning

like I give kudos to you guys greatly because we have a lot of people when we start going through and

We have staff meetings and Timmy's like I need some youth volunteers

Nina says I need some kids volunteers and we start talking about worship team stuff and things like that

And I start going through my list of people here at church because I got your name on a list whether you know

it or not, and we start looking at how long you've been coming and who all's volunteering in different places and probably 75 to

85% of you are volunteering within some capacity somewhere inside the church, which is pretty awesome

That's huge. And so sometimes it gets thin

So you're volunteering and you're serving in different ways

But when you look at what the New Testament calls us to do

It's not just this willingness or this season to be willing to serve but it's this attitude of of I'm willing

To sacrifice from myself and my desires and my life to serve Christ to serve in the church to serve others

Even outside it's a lifestyle. It is it's a complete change in your attitude in your desires and your focus

And so you read passage of Scripture like Galatians 5 verse 13 when Paul's writing to the church in Galatia

Galatians 5:13

And he talks about having your new freedom in Christ. So we just studied this Wednesday night few weeks view

Well several weeks back. So some of you if you come on Wednesday night, you might know this

It says for you have been called to live in freedom my brothers and sisters

But don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature

as

a Christian

It will be very tempting

to use your freedoms in Christ

your

Personal ability to be able to make decisions and your free will and your time and your choices

It's going to be very tempting for you to use that freedom

To satisfy and serve yourselves, which just happens to be your own

sinful nature

And as long as you are serving yourself you cannot serve Christ

You need to keep that in mind if you are serving yourself

You cannot serve Christ Christ has called us to die to ourselves

So that we may live

he's called us to follow him to take up our cross to

enter into this life of

Denying ourselves from things of the world to focus on his kingdom to serve him and to serve others as we serve him and

Then you finish up verse 13. It says instead

Use your freedom to serve one another in love

So don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature, but use your freedom to serve one another in love and

You got to notice that Paul talks about this need for us

to recognize that we have to refrain from serving ourselves and

It takes something more than just personal desire

You know if you sit here this morning and you say okay like

I see what you're saying pastor. I get it. I see the I see the scripture

I know I've probably been focusing a lot on myself here lately

You know, I look at my hobbies. I look at all this stuff and I realize like I'm not serving

Maybe in the church or maybe other people or whatever. I know I'm not doing exactly what I should be doing for Christ

I'm gonna start doing that and I want to challenge you to understand. That's a very dangerous position to take this morning

because

You may be a very disciplined person

There may be a lot of talents and abilities that you have as an individual where you can serve others and you can do things

And you may be saying I'm willing to change

but here's the deal as

Believers we have to be really careful because anytime we embark on

This journey to follow or serve Christ underneath our own strength or our own determination or our own choices

We're setting ourselves up so many times for failure

Because no matter how disciplined or steadfast you may be in life

There is not enough of you

That is able

To serve and do what Christ is calling you do for the longevity of your life

Does that make sense like like we're gonna we're finite people. We only have so much energy

We only have so much time

We only have so many skills and then there's seasons in life where it's like in this season

You may be set up perfectly to do this thing

But then that fades and things change and so it might be like later on you do something different

We have to be willing to say God I

see

That I need to do more. I need to see that I need to be more faithful

I need to see that I need to step out and and follow you and serve you and not necessarily focus on myself

but Jesus fill me with your Holy Spirit and

Give me the ability and even the desire the desire to do this the desire to be a servant of

other people

Because it's not gonna come natural

Other people

Are not gonna deserve to be served

Right

There's gonna be people that you come across. They're gonna aggravate you to death

You're not gonna want to love them. You're gonna serve them, but you need something more and the more is the Holy Spirit

We talked about it the past two weeks

We read in Acts chapter 2 the disciples that you see in the gospels

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Which is where we read today and they're arguing with one another and they're fighting with one another

Who's the greatest who's the leader who's gonna serve who?

Is very different from the Apostles that you see in the New Testament when the Holy Spirit comes and fills them

Because they're no longer talking about those things

They're no longer arguing over who's the greatest or who's in charge

Very different attitude. The difference is the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit

came upon the disciples and

Completely changed their lives even though they walked with Jesus in person

The Holy Spirit empowered them to be something so much more

After Jesus ascended than what they were when they walked with Jesus in person you and I

Need the Holy Spirit in our lives. We desperately need that

We cannot be who Christ has called us to be without the Holy Spirit point number two

The New Testament constantly challenges all believers to serve

So our natural desire is going to be to be served our sinful desire is going to be we want to be served

But the New Testament challenges us to serve

very different things

So first Peter chapter 4 verses 8 through 10. This is a great verse me if you may be familiar with it

1 Peter 4:8–10

It says most important of all

Continue to show deep love for each other for love covers a multitude of sins

Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay

God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts

Use them well to serve one another and so sitting here this morning

There's a couple things that you need to take into consideration. We just got through talking about the Holy Spirit

Peter says God has given you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts

Some of you may be very talented and gifted

Naturally in some things that's not the same as having a gift that God has really given you and affirmed in your life

Does that make sense?

So one of the things I've seen for instance is

That while someone may be very successful in the world, let's just say from a business perspective

We've kind of ran into this

In the past more than recently, but um, there might be someone who's very successful from a business

Perspective of leading and guiding and having this very productive thing in the world

but then they come into a church setting and

their determination and their skill set and their attitude in the way that they do things is

Very different from the way that things are done within a church and with people who are volunteering and it's it's just a totally different

Animal so while you may be very gifted in this area to have this blessing or this responsibility in life

It doesn't necessarily translate into the kingdom very well

And so as you want to serve Jesus Christ

there needs to be an understanding of the gifts that God has given you to serve in his kingdom and to serve other people from

a spiritual perspective and

If you're filled with the Holy Spirit

You'll receive those things if you're filled with the Holy Spirit God will make clear to you those things if you're filled with

The Holy Spirit he will guide you into those situations and those circumstances to give you the opportunity to do that

So Peter acknowledges that here in chapter 4 verse 10

now as far as

Showing deep love from one another because love covers a multitude of sin. We love that verse, right?

We love that verse show deep love from one another love covers a multitude of sin. We want our sins to be covered

Don't we?

You want your sins to be covered want your sins to be forgotten about want your sins to be overlooked

want people to give you the benefit of the doubt even though we've

Really messed up at times in our life

We want people to do that for us and the great thing is is that love does cover a multitude of sins

I'll give you the most natural example. You can find any of you got kids or ever had kids

There's no greater sinners in the world than your own children

They are as sinful as they come and from the time they are old enough to start presenting their sin nature

Here's like, oh my gosh. They really are just like naturally sinful

everything about a child is

Selfish in nature, right?

They want what they can get

They want to gratify themselves constantly with food and candy and

Entertainment and toys and things and it's never ends. It's like you have 1 million and five hundred thousand toys

Well, they want one more

They had three donuts. They want one more like they have no understanding of

Taking away from themselves for the ability to serve someone else

But as sinful and wretched as children are we love them, right?

We would do anything for them. Love covers a multitude of sin

Thankfully God has given us this natural

Inclination in our life to love our children despite their terribleness

Because children wouldn't exist if he didn't

But the problem is is that most people we come in contact with in the world even adults act like children

We're all selfish by nature

We all try to gratify ourselves by nature. We all try to elevate ourselves above one another by nature and

So as we interact with people in this world, we're gonna have a very difficult time

Truly loving other people truly serving other people. Most people are not going to deserve for you to serve them

There's not gonna be this natural desire for you to give yourself away for someone who's just constantly

Consuming as much as they can they're obviously focusing on themselves

So why should I give myself to serve them when they're just feeding themselves anyway with whatever they're feeding themselves with?

And the truth is is that we need to have

this supernatural

desire and

Calling on our life to love other people to the point where we're willing to serve them

despite their wretchedness

We can do that for our children

So, you know that it's possible

But we need Christ to help us to be willing to do it for others that were not so

connected or intertwined with and so the Holy Spirit to come and

to empower us to do this is essential in your life and

Don't make any mistake about it

Like if you're sitting here this morning and you say I believe in Jesus Christ

I want to go to heaven

I want to serve Christ if you want to serve Christ, there is a calling on your life to be a servant to others

and

Very few people are going to deserve it

I

My wife will be the first one to tell you I do not deserve to be served

Like I'm not perfect I do I say things that are wrong I mean it's like it's

Especially the people you're closest to you see it more than anybody, but you love them because you're invested in them

The same thing goes for the other people in the world as well

And

If you question this morning like man, I

Don't know like I just have this really hard time

I can't fathom like loving other people that I don't really know and

especially people that I don't like

And I can't even imagine being willing to give up my time

my money

Things that I could be doing for myself to better my life from my family or something in order to serve someone else who I

Really don't feel like I deserve it. I just I challenge you guys to just remember

Under our own strength. It's impossible for us to do

We cannot do this. We cannot rationalize

Within ourself to do all the things that Christ called us to do

It's not rash. It's not rational from a worldly perspective

That's why we're called to step out in faith and to believe and to trust and we need the Holy Spirit to speak to us and to show

Us truth so that we will be willing to do the things that Christ has caused you because this does not make sense to the

people of the world

It just doesn't it's not going to there's nothing you can do to explain it to them

And I know there's probably some of you sitting here right now who's saying I believe in Jesus

I want to go to heaven

But this is a little far-fetched. This is kind of hard to understand

It's like do I really need to love everyone?

Do I really need to be willing to serve everyone and I just challenge you

It's not like Jesus wants you to go out here and just

So everything you have and give everything away and you help everybody's you can have but I do believe with all my heart

That there are people that God has brought into your life

That you are very much called to serve and have an impact in their life with

That you're very much

Given this special relationship or this special time and moment in history that you can have a great impact in their life

To speak into them and show them the love of Christ that no one else may have the opportunity to do

That God ordains moments and times and people like that for us to come in contact with

And so I'm not challenging you to be like this radical person to go sell everything and give it all away

Because then somebody's gonna have to help you eventually because you won't have nothing

But to know that there's a calling on our life to serve and to be willing to serve and to be open to saying

God show me what you want me to do

I'm willing to do it. God show me

I'm willing. I'm willing to do this if you'll give me the desire and give me the love and God give me everything

I need to do this. I'm willing to do it. Just show me what you want me to do

And point number three

Jesus set the example by serving first

I don't think we really understand what it is that we're saying if

We claim to be a follower of Christ, but then we say well, I'm not gonna serve I'm not gonna be a servant

I'm not gonna sacrifice

This or that or

Whatever for someone else or for this calling

Because when you look at what Jesus did

Everything he did was for sacrifice and serving

And in March chapter 10 verse 45, this is another moment where the disciples are arguing over who's the greatest

Who's second man on the totem pole

the constant argument that they had during the entirety of Jesus ministry and

Jesus brought them together and in verse 45. He says for even the Son of man

came not to be served but to serve others and give his life as a

Ransom for many

When you look at Jesus Christ God's own son the one that we claim to believe in and follow

The whole reason he came

was to serve and

For us to have this attitude that that we would not be willing to serve

Is one of the most disrespectful and dishonoring things that we can do for the one that we claim died on the cross for our sins

That this great act of love that he gave for us

We're not willing to do for him, even though this is the example that he lived out

So that we could follow

And this is why Paul wrote in Philippians chapter 2 verses 5 through 8

Philippians 2:5–8

He says you must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had

Though he was God

He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to

Instead he gave up his divine privileges

He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being

When he appeared in human form

He humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on a cross

No matter how you look at it

Everything that Jesus did was setting the example for everything that we were supposed to be doing all alone

That we should be humbling ourselves

That we should become servants that we should be willing to die to ourselves

in

order

For the benefit of others. That's exactly what Jesus did and

When you look at Christianity and you look at what it means to claim to have faith in Jesus Christ, that is

part of

the whole thing

We have to be willing we have to be humble we have to be submissive we have to be willing to serve

In closing up today when we just talk about why church it's like there's no better place

Than to start having the understanding of

We have to serve than a church

And

Whether you realize it or not from the moment you walked in this morning you have been served by other people

More than you'll ever realize or understand

To know that this week there were people here cleaning this place so that whenever you came back

It would be clean and ready for you to show up and not gross

Because whether you realize it or not when you leave here on Sunday mornings, it's kind of gross

Ha called you gross this morning

There was somebody here this week prepping the hospitality room

So it would be ready with drinks and snacks and coffee and somebody showed up at like 7 30 8 o'clock this morning to start

Making the coffee and having it ready so that whenever you got here, it would be ready

And there were people who volunteered in the nursery so if you got a kid you can drop the little monster off and

Have a break from them and my poor nursery workers probably had to deal with my kid crying this morning whenever I ran out

Children's shirts same thing safety team same thing

There's so many people who serve and the body of Christ is just

It's an easy way for us to get integrated into this idea in this attitude of serving one another

And here's the thing

Many of you who are here this morning. You need to be served like you're you're in this stage of life right now that

you need someone to pour into you and

It's so essential for other believers and other people to be willing to do that

For your stage of life that you're in right now so that you can benefit from that and receive a word from the Lord or receive

encouragement or receive

this

Whatever it is that you need in this moment from God right now and other people who help facilitate that moment just within the body

of Christ something very simple and

There might be some of you here this morning who's like well

Maybe you've been served long enough and you've been coming here and it's like

Maybe it's time for you to get to the point where it's like, okay

Like I want to I want to serve others. I want to create the opportunity that I got

I've shared this story before

And we got to be really careful about how

You know, I think a lot of times we get lost in our culture about

Wanting to do something that's big or meaningful and if we don't feel like it's that important

We shy away from it

Like we don't want to give up our time or our energy or what we could be doing for something that we feel like it's trivial

And one of the most impactful moments for me

to come to church

when I first got saved

And you've some of you probably heard this story before but you know, I used to come with someone

pretty regularly and

I can remember the first time that they didn't come and so I was faced with this

Am I going to go to church by myself today because I had not done that at the time

And I remember like, okay, like I'm gonna go I need to go

I remember like the Lord had began speaking my heart working in my life. I knew I needed to be there

And I remember how awkward I felt going by myself and not really having anyone to sit with and so I came

Showed up and the person who was greeting was early

He said hey, where's your friend? I said, well

They're gonna visit in some family today. I was like, I just you know wanted to come he's like, oh, that's so great

and he was

He was so encouraging and so affirming

Something so simple that this elderly man

Could see and allow God to use him to do something so simple to encourage me

That made it so much easier for me

to come back

not just when my friend came back, but also

To come back by myself to know that if I ever had to come back by myself that I was welcome

That it was appreciated that it was affirmed and and he saw that

Something so simple and so little

huge in my life of

Even to where I'm at today, like I look back at that as a very powerful moment

Because I was so new in my faith. I

Needed that affirmation. I needed that welcoming from him

And no matter what it is, no matter how small no matter how insignificant you may think or feel that

Serving or doing something for someone is it's so important

Miss Donna said something earlier about kind of being on the later end of life and

You know having that attitude, but it's like

sometimes just showing up and

Just giving God praise

That's enough

Serving Christ is the attitude of your heart and if you truly desire to serve Jesus and

You are willing to humble yourself and submit to him

The desire to serve others will also be there

But it's an attitude of the heart. It's an attitude of God

Am I willing to submit myself to you and allow you to change me?

You think about how much we gratify ourselves every day

From the time that you wake up, what's the first thing you do?

Maybe you go get coffee

Maybe you go fix your breakfast and you have your thing that you do. Maybe you read the paper

Maybe you watch the news maybe

Whatever, but if you sit down and you truly think about your daily routine

So much of what we do every single day is spent on gratifying ourselves

It's what we like. It's what we enjoy our

Natural sinful desire will always be to gratify ourselves

Spend more time on ourselves spend more time on the things we enjoy spend more times on me

But the true joy and hope that comes with Christ is

When we get to the point where we're willing to die to ourselves and sacrifice ourselves in the name of Jesus

To serve him and to serve others

What's really funny is is you look at the people who are the happiest to be at church?

You look at the people who are the happiest to serve the Lord the people who are the most quick to stand up and give God praises

They're the ones who are very much usually willing

to sacrifice from themselves

To be willing to give from others

There's a joy in that and you can't experience that joy

Until you're willing to surrender and die to yourself in order to truly live for Christ. Let's pray

Father God, thank you for the opportunity to be here today

Thank you for your word

Lord, thank you for your mercy in our lives

and God we

Are not servants because we are talented or we have some special abilities, but God we're servants because

We're called to humble ourselves before you

And I pray this morning that you would speak to the hearts and lives of all of us here

Lord that you would help us

To be humble

Lord help us to die to ourselves help us to

Be filled with your Holy Spirit and

To serve you and

Serve others Lord. It is the greatest calling that we have in our life

And so we pray Lord that we would do it and do it. Well, we love you and thank you we ask this in Jesus name