Summary
Pastor Safrit continues the sermon series on the church's core values, focusing on Mark 10:45, where Jesus emphasizes the importance of serving others. He discusses who we should serve, highlighting that service fulfills our longing for purpose and is a reflection of Christ's love. The sermon encourages the congregation to actively engage in serving their community, reminding them that true fulfillment comes from giving rather than receiving, and that service will be rewarded both in this life and the next.
Welcome and Housekeeping
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms. Amen. Thank you, choir.
To have your Bibles will be in Mark chapter 9 and 10 today. I'm just going to read one verse of scripture to get started this morning. Thank you for being here.
Thank you, choir, for singing. If you've got a child that would like to go to Children's Church, they can be dismissed at this time. They'll have that taken care of that for them.
But to recap, if you weren't here last week, we're continuing to talk through our core values of the church. And last week we talked about why we serve.
We're talking about going and serving. This week we're talking about who. I did make a mistake when I printed this. It was supposed to be who do we serve, not why do we serve.
So if you want to mark out why and put who, that would be great. But we talked about the duty's sake. We talked about how we serve to deliver the oppressed.
And then we serve to demonstrate who we are and what Christ has done for us. And today as we look through this, again, our opening statement for Go and Serve is, we believe that the church should go into our community and serve others.
The first two core values were us in God and us in one another in our church. Now we're looking at us and outside of the church, us in our community. And so why do we believe this?
We believe that we should go in our community and we should serve others. Mark chapter 10, verse 45. You can remain seated. Most of you have been up and down. I'm just going to read one verse.
It'll be on the screen for you. I'll get my reading today out of the ESV. And it says this, for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. And what did he do? He gave his life a ransom for many.
So today we're going to be looking at going and serving and what this looks like on how and who we should serve. Lord, we thank you for this day. Be with us today as we look at your scripture. We look at your word and we look through your teaching to your disciples.
As us called to be disciples of you, help this impact our lives and work in a mighty way. We love you in your name we pray. Amen.
When I was in college, we ran a bus route. We would go into our community in Hot Springs, Arkansas. It was a very rural community.
Personal Story of Service
It was a small, I say rural, I was a mistake, not rural. It was a inner city, very urban, very poverty stricken area. And the bus route that I had was bus number 10.
And bus number 10 went into what was called the projects. And in the projects, this is low income government funding houses.
And I made some great relationships. I had some of the best cooking that I've ever had in my life. If you've ever had some good old black woman chicken. And I'm just talking some of the best foods you'll ever eat.
And while I was there making relationships and picking up kids, one Sunday, me and one of our guys, his name was Jesse, fully love, was dropping off a girl. And her name was Juju. Juju, that was her real name. That was her God-given name by her parents.
Was very, you could tell there was some poverty, a lot of poverty.
And we dropped her off. And I'd been to her house before. Of course, we were visiting her and her family. We went to drop her off. And she said, James, I wasn't passionate. I was just in college. She said, James, she said, thank you for whatever.
Every week we'd give out some candy or a sucker, a lollipop. We would do pickles. Like everything you can imagine. We would do goldfish Sunday. We just did promotions all the time.
And she said, thank you for whatever it was we gave her that day. She said, thank you because this will be my lunch today.
And it just sort of hit me like a ton of bricks. This is your lunch? Like you came to church and we're giving you a snack and that's what you're going to eat? And I said, Juju, you got to have, I'm sure you have something at your house.
And she said, no, we don't have any food in our house. She said, we just, money didn't come in.
Her mom lived with her sister in what would be considered a shack. It was literally a building, a shed behind the house.
Dropped her off, took her to her house. She was maybe five or six years old. And while we were there, I said, Jesse, I said, we got to do something. I said, man, she's got nothing.
And he said, well, how much money do you have? Remember, I'm a poor college student. I don't have anything. And I looked at my wallet.
I think I had maybe a hundred bucks. And he said, well, I got a hundred bucks. Why don't we go to the grocery store, buy them a bunch of groceries? And back then, $200 in groceries was a ton of food. And so we went and we bought $200 in groceries.
And I'm just an excited college kid. I show up, I knock on the door. I said, Juju, we're from the church and we brought you some food. And she looked at me and she began crying. Her mom began crying. And we unloaded groceries.
They had milk and cereal and things that they could readily have.
I didn't know they were cooking situation. And I gave her a hug. And she gave me a hug and was talking to the mom a little bit. And I said, well, Juju, I said, looking forward to having you again next Sunday. And as I turned and left, she said to her mom, mom,
he reminds me of Jesus. And I said, no, no, Juju, I said, I'm not Jesus, I'm James. You mixed my name up. And she said, no, we learned in church today that Jesus gave. And I see Jesus in you.
This is a five-year-old girl. I see Jesus in you because you were willing to give.
And I walked out from that and I began to just in my mind think, we will never know the amount of impact we have on people's life when we just get to the point of saying, I am here to serve.
I'm not getting anything in return. This five-year-old girl could do nothing in return to me. But I walked away broken.
I walked away humbled that just a couple hundred dollars of groceries would make that much of a difference in her life.
And as I began thinking and pondering through serving and who do we serve, my mind began to come back sort of to three groups of people that are here in this room. And to begin to sort of analyze and evaluate where you're at and who you are in this situation of serving.
The Church as a Serving Community
And the church is made up of people who serve. The first thing that came to my mind was those who are already serving. These are people that are teaching and leading and giving and doing things that are serving in the church. And I thank you for that.
I could not do what I do if it wasn't for people that serve. And I've said that my entire ministry, everywhere I've been at. That I'm able to do what I do because people willingly serve and give of their time and talents and treasures.
There's also people in here that are new and they're still learning. Maybe you just came to Christ. Maybe you just began to learn about Christianity.
And there's time for growth. There's time to learn and understand your place and how we can serve. But then there's a third group of people in here that are not yet serving.
The church functions as a group of people who are brought together for the sake of the gospel to serve other people. The definition for the word serve is to labor so that others may benefit.
We don't serve so that we can benefit on something. We serve so that others can benefit. As parents, we see this.
We see this when we go on vacations and we work all year long. We save money. We plan for that vacation.
And we go and we take our kids to this place. And we get to see the joy on their face by giving them money and allowing us to go and do things. And we see that we're not really getting anything in return other than the joy that's on their face.
The same thing goes as when we serve for the Lord. It's not necessarily us as a benefit.
And we're going to talk about that in the message today. But it's us so that we can serve others and labor others so that they may benefit. Not we ourselves will benefit. That's the glorifying God.
That's the growing together. That's our benefit. But this is where we pour into other people so that they may benefit. The word serve,
which is the term that we get the word servant or slave from, is used 1,255 times in the Bible.
It's a pretty important term for us to serve. And in the verse that we just read, the Son of Man, Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. This is Jesus doing that in a practical way.
And we must understand that we need to regain the concept of serving and what that looks like. And ultimately the question is,
Reasons to Serve Others
are we working for the Master? Or are we working for man's praise and man's glorification?
We talked through today and we'll give three reasons of why we can serve others. We're going to backpedal a little bit and go to Mark chapter 9, just a page back, and begin to see the disciples and where they're at. Because the disciples, I mean, they're human.
They're just like us. I want us to really understand these are fishermen. These are tax collectors. These are everyday people that Jesus said, hey, give up and come follow me.
They were special because Jesus chose them, but we're special because Jesus has chose us to serve him as well. So we must not look at the disciples as something greater or these saints, but they are people that simply serve the Lord and were given of themselves.
And so the first thing, I'll give you the point and we'll read the scripture.
Service can satisfy our heart's longings for fulfillment. Oftentimes people will say, how do I know God's will for my life? How do I know what I'm to do? How am I to do the right thing? One of my simple answers is, how are you serving?
What are you doing? How are you giving back? What are you able to do in your service? And we all can't do everything, but we all can do something. And so Jesus here is traveling with his disciples in Mark chapter 9, and he gets to this point where he's just leading his disciples.
Jesus, as the good teacher, is leading and listening. He's walking, he's letting his disciples just begin to go back and forth. And we get the story here in Mark chapter 9, verse 33 through 35. And they came to Capernaum, and when they were in the house, he asked them, what are you discussing by the way?
But they kept silent, for on the way they argued with one another about who was to be the greatest. And he sat down, and he called the 12, and he said unto them, if any one of you would be first, he must be last of all, and again, the term servant of all.
So the disciples are walking, and they've got this journey. And I can imagine Peter saying, well, guys,
you know, I've seen some big things. I was on the Mount of Transfiguration, and I've seen these miracles, and Jesus always calls me, James, and John. And we go into this private meeting.
I think I'm going to be one of the first that are mentioned in the Bible. I'm going to be one of the first that Jesus calls.
And Peter begins to say these things, and maybe James steps up and says, no, no, no, no.
And Peter, sit down, man. I was a lame. I had a hard leg. And Jesus healed me, and I'm serving. And all of a sudden, John steps up, and John says, hey, Peter and James, no, no, no. I'm the one he loves.
You hear it often, don't you? The beloved one, the loved one. And they're debating, and they're going back and forth just like boys would do. And Jesus says,
hey, we've got to the house, and hey, what are you guys arguing about? Heard a lot of commotion back there. Did Jesus need to ask the question? No, he knew, right?
Just imagine walking with someone who knew everything, and then they're like, man, why'd you have to ask that, Jesus?
And all of a sudden, what does verse 34 say? They kept silent. They didn't say anything because they had argued with one another, which would be the greatest.
Jesus gave this command afterwards, and he says, if any of you would be first, you must be last and servant.
The thing that the disciples didn't want to hear. They wanted to hear who was going to be the greatest. They wanted Jesus to say, yeah, Peter, you're right. You are going to be the greatest of all my disciples.
You are going to stand up, and you're going to preach a message on Pentecost, and 3,000 people are going to get saved. And a couple days later, you're going to get up, you're going to preach again, and 5,000 people are going to get saved. Peter, you're going to be the greatest.
But Jesus didn't say that. Jesus said, no, no, no, disciples, understand.
It's when you become a servant, that's when you become the greatest. When you become the person that is last of all, that's when you become the servant,
that's when you become the one who is the greatest of all. You see, it's our deepest desire to be recognized for our accomplishments. It's ingrained in every single one of us, right? MVP, Super Bowl championship, teacher of the year,
the most improved person on a football team or a basketball team or a softball team. You want to have this recognition because it's deeply ingrained in every single part of us.
And it's not necessarily a bad thing or something that's wrong. It's wrong when it becomes sinful and causes us to have pride in our life.
It's wrong when we begin to walk around and hold that trophy up and that plaque up and say, I was first and you weren't.
How many rings do you have? Oh, I have three Super Bowl rings. You only have two. I'm better than you. Then all of a sudden, we begin to lift up our accomplishments.
That's when it becomes prideful. And Jesus is saying, if you are going to be first in my kingdom, you must be last in this kingdom. You see, they had reached the pinnacle of God's kingdom where they were wanting to be recognized.
And Jesus said, no, you must stoop down and you must serve others. As we look at our life and we look back over our lives,
as I was thinking through this, this thought came to my mind. It's the times that we serve or the times that we spent ourselves or the times that you gave yourselves for a cause that's greater than you is the moments that you will remember for eternity.
Think about that again. The times that you spent yourself, the times that you gave yourself, the time that you gave of everything for someone else, those are the times that you'll remember for eternity.
Those are the things that will satisfy your heart. The time when you walk away and you serve someone that can do nothing for you in return as I opened up with that story about Juju, those are the times that I'll never forget. The times when I was able to, I could give illustration after illustration.
I just don't have time to just sacrifice and say, I'm going to go and pick up this kid on a Sunday morning. I'm going to, oftentimes my wife would say in Idaho,
why are you driving an hour to pick up a kid here to bring him to church? And he's probably not even going to care.
And then I'll get a message five, six, seven years later where he'll say, Pastor James, thank you for investing.
I'm a dad now and I understand the importance of a family. Those are just small illustrations of when we give of the things that we have that satisfy our heart.
It's not going to be the promotion at work. It's not going to be the fancy home. It's not going to be the million dollar ranch that you have. Those are the things that are not going to matter in life.
The things that matter are what make a difference for Christ. We search for that promotion or that new title and we get it and we just sort of feel empty. Because we're not doing those things for the sake of Christ. We're doing it for the sake of self.
Christ is saying here is the only thing that will satisfy this hole in our heart is when we begin to serve and give to others. But then he continues on in Mark chapter 10. Again, this thought continues as he's talking to his disciples in verse 28.
And he said unto them, we'll back up verse 17 here.
Rewards of Serving
Verse 17, it says, and as he was setting out on their journey, a man ran up to him. Service will be rewarded. That's the point here. Service will be rewarded. Okay? And he began to say, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
Man, some of the greatest moments I pray for in life are when people come up to me, a young kid or a teenager, an adult, and says, Pastor James, how can I be saved?
It's like that question. It's like, oh man, you threw that softball up, man. You gave it ready for me. Like, I'm going to knock this out of the park. This man come to Jesus and he asked this question, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
And Jesus, instead of doing what we would do and laid out the plan of salvation, he says,
why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother. And he began to pause.
I almost think this rich young ruler came to Jesus and he said these things and he paused for a moment. And then he began to say, well, Jesus, or teacher, I've kept all these things from my youth.
I haven't stolen. I've honored my mother and father. I haven't bore false witness. And I've done all these things. I haven't committed adultery. I haven't murdered anyone.
I just imagine Jesus sort of pausing here for a moment, looking at him and with those eyes of love, he said, I'm looking at you and I love you. And he said, you lack one thing. Go and sell all that you have.
Give everything to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. And come follow me. That rich young ruler sort of stepped back. Began to count the cost. Began to think about the things that he had accumulated. The things that he had. And listen to the words. Disheartened by the saying,
he went away sorrowful for what he had great possessions.
We just sang the song, I'd rather have Jesus than anything else. Gold or silver or fame. I'd rather have Jesus.
Question, do we have? We sing it. We know it. We've sang it since we were kids. It's a song that we, your parents probably sang and your grandparents probably sang. If they came to this church, we know the song. But are we living that song?
We know every word to it. I can remember I had to do a research project in fifth grade.
And I pulled up this song because in fifth grade I wanted our teachers to hear the gospel in the public school. And so I wrote this poem down as a song.
And I remember standing in the hallway and my teachers going around and saying, have you ever heard words like this? They would give up everything just to have Jesus because the world doesn't matter. And I remember my teachers talking about it in the hallway. But oftentimes we talk about it.
But we don't live that life of I would rather have Jesus than anything else. And then Jesus, this great teacher who knows everything and knows how do we serve.
And he said, I'm going to be a rewarder and I'm going to keep the notes. And I don't have to worry about keeping the notes because Jesus will and he doesn't get it wrong. In verse 23 he said, he looked around and said to his disciples,
how difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. And the disciples were amazed at the words. That Jesus said unto him,
children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God. It is easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. And they were exceedingly astonished.
And he said unto them, then who can be saved? This would have been Peter probably saying this to them. And Jesus looked and said, with man it is impossible, but with God for all things are impossible with God. And then Peter in verse 28 steps up. Being Peter.
Right? You have these kids. You know these kids. This kid is probably coming to your mind right now if you've ever been in school or ever been in education at any moment in time.
You say something and this kid in a sarcastic response will go, Well, teacher, I've already done that. Right? You're impinging this, right? You know this. Well, Peter, Ben Peter says this. Peter began to say, Well, Jesus, see, we have left everything and followed you.
Look at how great I am. Jesus, I sold everything. I left this awesome business of catching fish. And all the disciples are like, Yo, Peter, your business was failing.
It wasn't a good business anyways. Like you tried planning and the planning didn't work. And so you tried fishing and the fishing didn't work. And then Jesus came by and filled a boat up and you were like, Yep, I'm going to follow him. What you were doing wasn't working.
Like you're saying I left everything. And then Jesus in his loving response. I just, I love when Jesus responds because he responds with love, but it like cuts and it hurts so much.
It says, Truly I say unto you, There is no one who left house or brother or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel. Who will not receive or be rewarded a hundredfold now in this time?
Houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecution and in age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last. The last will be first. As I began to study and think about those words, I began to think,
Truly I say unto you, There is no one who leaves brothers or sisters or mothers or fathers, children and lands for the sake of the gospel will not receive or be rewarded a hundredfold now in this time. In this time.
I want you to think about that for a moment because I was thinking, as I was studying through this,
I've got two brothers and two sisters. I've got a mother and a father and a stepmom and a stepdad. I've got three kids. I've got a little bit of land. And thinking, If I left my brother or sister, How am I going to get a hundredfold in return? My mom began to think,
The brothers and sisters in Christ that I have. And if I'll forsake my brothers or sisters or mother or father, the ones even as I was talking to Mim over here and said, Hey mom. And Jade said, She's not your mom. You can't call her that.
And I said, Well Jade, What do you call her? Well, I call her Mim. Well, if she's your grandma, then she's my mom, right? Right?
That's how this thing works. I said, So I've got mothers and I've got fathers and I've got people that pour into my life and I've got brothers and sisters that I can go to.
And then I began to think, What if I were to go home tonight and my house were to burn down? Someone would have come in and destroyed my land and burned my house down.
I think there would be probably a hundred people I could call and say, Hey, do you have a room that me and my family can stay in? And this came to my mind where,
Yes, we're living for Jesus, but now we have this hundredfold in return where people are loving each other and caring for each other because the stuff we get now and the stuff we get in eternity are crazily different.
You see, when we lose everything in this lifetime, jobs and opportunity and friends, we look at what we gain for eternity's sake, the family of God that we inherit.
And we may give up a little bit now, but we receive so much more in the future.
You see, Mark 10 verse 30 says, Not only are you going to give up these things, but you're also going to receive in your life persecution. Look at verse 30. You'll receive a hundredfold now, houses and brothers and sisters with persecution in this age and to come eternal life.
It's a reminder that it's not always easy. It's a reminder that the life that we live for Christ is not always this cherry, great, wonderful, carefree life. No, we're going to have persecution.
There are martyrs all over the country, all over the world that are being killed for the sake of the gospel right now as we speak.
May not be happening right here in Wilkes County or in Clingman, but in other counties and in other countries and in other places all around the world, people have been killed for their faith. You see, people are going to betray us.
Eternal Perspective on Service
We're going to give up mother and father and all of a sudden betrayal happens. And we say, is this even worth it? But then Christ says, there's an age to come of eternal life.
I want you to imagine for a moment this award ceremony in heaven. You can go to Corinthians, you can go to Revelation, and eventually we'll talk about those things.
And we'll talk about them a little bit today, but I want you to think about this one passage in John chapter 12. I don't know if I put that there, but you can write this down. John chapter 12, verse 25 through 26. You ready? Whoever loves his life,
whoever loves his life loses it. Whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternity. And if anyone, get it again, serves me, he must follow me. And where I am, there will be my servant also.
And if anyone serves me, you ready? The father will honor him. We serve Jesus.
God, the creator of the universe that spoke the world into existence, will honor us in return.
I want you to imagine this award ceremony in heaven for a moment. Let's just take just a step back, because again, we're talking about how do we serve? We're talking about who do we serve?
And we're talking about others, but in doing this, the first thing is this, there will be crowns. First Corinthians nine says like this, but do you not know those who run a race? And there's one that receives a prize.
So run that you may obtain it. Everyone who strives for the prize exercises self-control in all things. Now they do this to obtain a corruptible crown, but we will inherit an incorruptible one. You see, we're not doing this just for the sake of doing it.
We're doing this for the sake of Christ and for what he did for us. And Christ says that because we serve him, because we're a servant of him, he's not just going to allow us to lay there. He said, I'm going to have a crown for you.
There's five specific crowns that are mentioned in the Bible.
Crown of a soul winner, the crown of those who suffer persecution, the crown for the pastor. There's these crowns that are given in the Bible, but it says that when we serve the Lord and we run this race, we also will receive a crown.
This wonderful moment where Christ looks at us and he says,
thank you. I want you to imagine that for a moment. Imagine Jesus looking at you and looking at me. We're in heaven. We're worshiping him. He's got his nail pierced hands. His feet are pierced.
His sides pierced. He gave everything for us. And he looks at us and he says, thank you. Thank you for serving. It's like, no, no, Jesus, don't thank me. You're the one that gave it all. I just gave a little bit. And he said, no, no, no. Here's a crown because you served me.
It's like so upside down in our mind because we don't think this way. We don't think that Jesus is going to give us a crown of reward, but yet he says, because you served, because you loved, what is the father going to do? The father will honor you.
That's this award ceremony. Now, this isn't why we do what we do, but it's mind blowing to think that Jesus, the creator of the world, the one that gave everything for us, would turn and thank us, would turn and give us this reward.
But not only will there be crowns, there will also be verbal affirmation.
One of the, the, the pleas of my life, you can sort of say, sort of one of my mottos is Matthew 25, 21. And his master said unto him, well done, good and faithful servant, again, servant.
You have been faithful over little, and so I will set you faithful over much. Enter into the joy of your master. When our life comes to an end,
of course, there's a song out there called well done by the afters, but we want to hear well done. We want our heavenly father to look at us, just like we want our earthly father to look at us and say, son, I'm proud of you. You did good.
My father-in-law recently moved in with us, and we've had some good conversations. We hang out, and we've been, Fridays, I take Friday off.
He has Friday off, so we do some running around. We do some things together. And this, just this past Friday, he looked at me and he said, he said, James, he said, I'm real proud of you. He said, you took care of my daughter. You took care of my grandkids.
You got a little piece of land. You got a nice little place going on over here, but I'm proud of you. What that meant to me was, well done.
And as great as that is here on earth, imagine when we get to heaven, and God looks at us and says, well done.
The old statement is, we'll not hear well done unless we do well. And so in order for us to hear the words well done, we must do well while we're here. Four reasons, sort of talked about this last week, I'm going to give it again.
Barriers to Serving
Four reasons that we give for not serving. The first one is this, I'm just too busy. Pastor James, I've got a lot going on. I'm busy. Like, you don't understand my schedule.
We've said that before. We've said we're too busy, but are we really too busy, or are we just too busy to do the things that we want to do, not the things that God has called us to do? Maybe another reason. It's too hard.
I want to serve because it's too hard. You understand the persecution that comes along with this? The friends that I'm going to maybe make me fun of? The place where I go to eat breakfast, they're going to say things about me? Pastor James, it's just hard.
For many years, as a young person, this was my reason. You ready? There's no thanksgiving in it. No one's going to say thank you to me.
I'm just a kid. Why would I serve? All the adults get the praise. All the adults get the awards. It's a thankless thing. Why would I serve?
But I understand the older I get that it's more important for me to do what I do for the sake of Christ than to do what I do for the praise of the brethren. And then you ready? Here's the one that I hear most likely the most in my ministry. It's too late.
I just don't have enough energy. I don't have enough steam in the tank. And again, as I talked about last week with Moses, it's never too late. As long as we have breath, we must serve.
There are those who need help and there are those who are around us. We're going to have an opportunity today for you to sign up. Many people have come to me and they've said, Pastor James, we want to start back Wednesday night.
We've had our church councils, but our deacons have met. We want to begin some small group stuff on Wednesday.
Well, there's going to be some opportunities for you to serve because we cannot do it if we don't have people to step up and serve.
We don't have the opportunity to reach the next generation unless we have people that says, I want to invest my Wednesday night in a first through fifth grade girls class and I just want to pour eight weeks of
my talent to them and love on those girls or first through fifth grade boys and I just want to love on those boys because it's never too late to serve those who are in need of our grace.
And at the end of the service, if you want to serve in one of those one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven positions,
my wife's going to have a paper for you to come and say, hey, I want to help out in nursery for eight weeks. I just want to come and I want to take care of the babies. We've got Hudson, we've got Maggie, we've got a new Blackburn baby coming.
Like, I just want to pour in those babies and love them. I'll tell you one thing here. When Brody was a kid, had a lady and she's still alive, I think. What's her name, Allie? Marlene Dover. Was it Dover? Marlene something. Van Sickle. Marlene Van Sickle. Brody was a baby.
He was a couple months old and, you know, babies, they just spit up all the time. That's all they do. They roll around, they cry, they poop with their diaper. That's all they do.
And she'd get them ready and about the age of 11, 10, 11 months old, she'd get them up in the high chair and I think I always got a picture of this and there's like three or four babies.
They're all in a high chair and she would go to give them their snack and she'd put their little Gideon New Testament on their table and she'd have them all raise their New Testament and she'd lead them in Jesus loves me. She'd lead them in talking to them about the Bible
and I remember walking through there and saying this is someone who says this is at an age of 10 months old. I care about these babies.
I care about what they love. There's snacks there, but there's the Bible there. She just cared about serving.
She was like 80 something years old. I think she's still alive. I still get updates from her husband on Facebook a little bit. But Marlene, that was just, she said, I may not be able to do this forever, Pastor James, but I'm gonna love these little babies as long as I can.
Maybe it's the three-year-old to kindergarten class that you can just serve and help out in. Maybe it's the first and fifth grade girls or the first and fifth grade boys. We're gonna separate them.
Me and my wife, we're volunteering. We're gonna do the youth for eight weeks and we're gonna teach them and we're gonna love on them and we're gonna get them together and we're gonna sing and worship and have lessons for them and then we're gonna have three adult Bible studies.
They're gonna meet on various places on the property where they can come and you can come and you can learn and I'm just asking for eight weeks to serve. We'll take a break in the summer.
We'll reevaluate what works, what didn't work and then in the fall, we'll come back and we'll reevaluate who's gonna do what.
Maybe you say in the fall, Pastor James, I really helped out the nursery but I wanna sit in on that class
Opportunities to Serve
and have a time to change up a little bit but I'm telling you church, it's never too late to serve. It's never too late to give of our time, talents and treasures as we talk about in a couple of weeks. So after the service, see my wife to sign up.
Last thing, number three, how do we serve? Who do we serve? Why do we serve? Because we want to be like Jesus who modeled service. That's why we worship and glorify God. To magnify his name, not our name.
There's an old song in the hymn book, an old hymn, sort of on this hymn thought in my mind over the last couple of weeks. Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in his goodness and his grace. The earth's gonna fade away, the world's gonna fade away but when we turn our eyes to Jesus, everything else fades away.
Our opening scripture that we read, Mark 10, 45, the words of Jesus. You ready? For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and what did he do? He gave his life a ransom for many.
Eighty times the Son of Man is mentioned. Why is it called the Son of Man? It was a humiliating term for Jesus to come to the earth
and Jesus said, I'm not gonna take it as a sign of humiliation. I'm gonna take it as a sign to come and to serve. I'm gonna take it as a sign to come and to give my life a ransom for many.
And if you are to be like Christ, you will be serving. You will be loving others. You will be doing those things as the clear call that we know to roll up our sleeves and to get involved for the kingdom come.
There's ways we can serve. There's ways we can do things and as Terry comes and begins to close our invitation down, we live in the most selfish generation that we've ever lived in. Our generations are beginning to be more and more self-focused than other focused.
And there was a man by the name of Isaac Watts. Isaac Watts was a minister in England.
He was a minister at what was called the Anglican Church. Some of you may know some Anglican churches. There's some Anglican churches around here in this area. The Anglican Church is what we would consider a dead church or a dying church. Okay, and Isaac Watts, he said,
I don't wanna be a part of a dead church. I wanna be a church of a church that's doing something for the sake of the gospel, doing something for the sake of Christ. And so him and a couple of men began to start a new church.
They went down the street and they started a church. It was a lively church, a church that was doing something for the sake of the gospel. He began to write songs. He began to do things. And then Isaac Watts was beaten.
Isaac Watts was mocked and eventually Isaac Watts was put to death because he left the Anglican Church.
All because of he wanted to serve a living savior, not a dead savior. And he wrote this song before he died. Am I a soldier of the cross? Listen to the words. You probably have never heard it. Am I a soldier of the cross? A follower of the lamb?
And shall I fear to own his cause or blush to speak his name?
Must I be carried to the seas on flowery beds of ease while others fought to win the prize and sail through the bloody seas?
Are there no foes for me to face? Must I not stern the flood? Is this vile world a friend of grace to help me own to God? Verse four, you ready? Sure, I must fight if I would reign. Increase my courage, Lord. I'll bear the toil and endure the pain
supported by thy word. One of the hardest things for me to do is preach a message like this because it's not easy for me to preach and it's not easy for you to hear.
But church, the only way we're gonna do anything for the sake of Christ is by serving others and going out and serving the world. You see, I need you. Our church needs you. More importantly, Christ needs you.
And the only way our community is gonna hear about the gospel and about Jesus is if we take our hands and our feet that Christ has redeemed and go out into the world and tell the world about Jesus.
This is what Christ wants us to do. Christ said, I came to not be served but to serve and to give of my life
as a ransom for many. We hear that but is that our same prayer? Lord, we thank you for this day. We love you. I can't say that enough, Lord.
As you looked at that rich young ruler, you looked at him and you loved him. You looked at me and you loved me and you said, I'm giving my son for you. God, I'll never get over that love. I'll never get over the grace that you've shown to me. Lord, help us today.
So we have this time of invitation to look at you and say, God, what do you want me to do? How do you want me to serve? It's in your name we pray. Amen.
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