Why We Serve (John 13) | 08/31/25

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

John 13 · chapter mention

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.

John 13 · chapter mention

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

John 13 · chapter mention

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,

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

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.

Revelation 2:4

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

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

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

[email protected], [email protected].

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.