Becoming A Super-Natural Servant X, The Rewards Of Servanthood

I've changed the course of tonight just a bit, and it's not going to be... If you came to hear what your reward of being a servant is about, you're going to be disappointed. I did announce it on Saturday, but I don't know if I announced it on Sunday, that I was changing directions just a bit for tonight. And I want to talk about something I think is appropriate for the holidays, and that's serving and sharing, how you as a servant can share some things and make an enormous difference in people's lives. And I'm anxious to bring this to you tonight. 2 Corinthians, I just want to start with a single verse, and then we'll have other scriptures that we'll read all together. 12, 15. 2 Corinthians 12? I didn't say that, I guess, huh? Okay, in verse 15. So, Paul writes, I will very gladly spend for you everything I have, and expend myself as well. Quite an amazing statement, isn't it? He's saying to the church at Corinth, I will spend everything that I have on you, and even myself. That's how much he loved them. Now, I really enjoy being your pastor, and I love being here with you. I don't know if I'm at the place where I would say, I want to spend everything I have, and even spend myself. I mean, I don't know if I'm there yet. How about you? Are you there? It's time to put your holy face on, okay? So that I don't know, all right? Are you there? These are incredibly challenging words, aren't they? I may want to. I may want to have a heart of service. I may want to make an impact in people's lives, but I don't know that I can say, I'll pour out everything I have, and even my very self for you. There's only one way that that can happen, that I can see, and that is if God fills you so full that you're almost bursting to overflow. I mean, let's use an illustration here, all right? A pretty meager one, admittedly, but this little cup has a purpose up here. It refreshes my throat from time to time with some water when it's changed. It's fresh, no doubt. I've had some surprises, believe me. This cup is a lot like us. I have, on occasion, rarely to be sure, reached for this cup and found it to be empty. And as much as I wanted to get something out of this cup, and as much as this cup wanted to give me some nice cold water, it had nothing to give. On most occasions, when I reach for it, it's almost full, and it isn't entirely full just because we move this thing around so much. But when this thing is full to the top, I mean, I don't hardly even have to tip it to get some nice cool water. Our lives are like that. If we're dry on the inside, if we have basically exhausted the resources of love in us, we don't have anything to spend when someone comes and asks, or when we see a need, or when we sense that there's some opportunity that's before us. Dear ones, let me begin tonight by saying, you won't even want to hear what I'm going to say unless you're doing something to manage your personal walk with the Lord. One reason why we repeatedly encourage you to be in prayer and to read the Word, use the Victory Bible plans, or find some other vehicle whereby you're in the Word every day, and you're worshiping God, and you're in the Spirit from time to time, being in fellowship, filling up your cup. The reason we're saying that is you'll never begin to enjoy the Christian life until what you're giving out is just the overflow. Didn't Jesus call it a fountain of living water? What does a fountain do? I mean, it brings it up, and it just comes gushing out. That's what the Holy Spirit is like. And so I want to begin tonight by saying, you've got to do that. You've got to manage your schedule and your priorities in your life so that you're overflowing. Don't put your hand up, okay? But how many of you tonight would say, you know, I am full of the love of God. I am just overflowing with love. How many of us? But I want to just leave that question with you and move on tonight and talk just a bit, presuming that we all are, okay? Can we just agree on that tonight, that we all are moving in the fullness of the Spirit? Our cups are overflowing. If they're not, well, you can work that out with the Lord right now and on into the rest of the week. But let's just say tonight, for the purposes of this message, you're close to the Lord, you're in touch with His promises, the Word's been vital. I mean, you're walking in a sense of humility and dependence upon Him, and you're thrilled to be part of what God's doing. All right, let's assume that. What are some very practical ways in which you can share as a servant of the Lord that which you've been given? This is going to be a real practical night, okay? I'm not going to pull any punches. This is real practical. I want to mention that, first off, this whole series of being a servant has been based on the premise that the best thing that we can share with people flows out of our spiritual gifts. And if you have not been part of the process of discovering, developing, and deploying your spiritual gift, you are hurting us. I'm going to say it again. You say the words with me. If you've not been part of discovering, developing, and deploying, discovering, developing, and deploying your spiritual gift, you're holding back from the body. You know? You're an arm that hasn't been developed or a leg that isn't operating much. We need you. We need your gifts. We've been saying that for the last 10 weeks. You say, well, what should I do about it? I'm not. Get into some means of discovering your gift. Use, most importantly, I would say, the network ministry, the Stepping Stones class. It's geared. It has a book, How to Discover Your Spiritual Gift. Or talk to your home group leader. Or come and cry out in front of the offices on Monday morning at 9 o'clock. We'll help you. Whatever you need to do. But find your spiritual gift and begin to develop it. Now, if you're not doing that, then you're holding back. But again, for tonight, I want to talk about other things that we can share, that we all can share. All right? So don't be discouraged. If you don't have your spiritual gift and you've heard it before and you get all guilty, leave it there for now. And let's talk about what we all can share together. First thing that we can share, we have an overhead, please. First thing we can share is your very self. Paul said it right here. I pour out my very self. Share yourself. And let's read together a scripture. In fact, I'm going to step down off the platform and read it with you. It's in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. Can we read the whole thing out loud and together? Here we go. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship. We worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous, and blameless we were among you who believe. For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of God who calls you into his kingdom and glory. Read that up for just a second, would you, Chuck? These are Paul's words. Now, when you read the gospels, you see Jesus as he is, but when you read the epistles, you see Paul as he really is. How many of you have an image of Paul of being like a pretty rough character? How many of you read the epistles? Let me see, let's start with that. How many of you read the epistles? Now, how many of you think that Paul is a pretty rough character? Thank you very much. What was the first response? You know, guess, or nobody? I remember very distinctly as a new Christian reading those epistles and saying, I don't even want to meet this guy in heaven. This guy sounds nasty. You know, he sounds like he's got an attitude. He didn't mess around, and this particular passage helped me to realize that this man had a wonderful heart. Did you see some of the words that he uses here? He says, in fact, I should have picked up verse 7. We were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. Your Bible might say, like a nursing mother feeding her baby. Paul uses imagery of gentleness, and he says, we loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel, but look at it, our lives as well. Folks, I only regret tonight that this is just such a small portion of our congregation, but I want to say something to you. What this church needs more than anything right now is for a revolution of people deciding that they're just not going to give a studied little portion of what they have or who they are, but they're going to be willing to give their very lives to one another. You want to see a revolution of love, you need just to see some people decide that I'm going to pour out my life for those that God sends to me. This is an incredible statement, and one that's challenged me as a pastor, and I know many of our other leaders as well. This means that Paul was willing to say, I am going to give you everything. I'm going to disclose who I am to you. I'm going to be vulnerable and transparent. It's just all part of what it means to be someone who's giving care in the body of Christ. Let me give you some illustrations as to how this might work itself out. You see, servants who impart their lives to others, such as, say, a teacher, a teacher can either give information or impartation. Is that right? I can't tell you how many people have told me over the last several years that when Jean Yannikos teaches, she doesn't just give them data or knowledge. She gives them her very life. She pours her life into them. She tells them her victories and her defeats. She tells them how she fared in one part of the Christian journey and how she did in others. That's one reason I believe the Lord's blessed her teaching ministry. She pours her life into that. Real things happen out there, folks. A true teacher of the Word gives their whole life into that. Not some sterile information. You can be a person who visits in the hospitals. Maybe we have some folks here today that are part of that hospital visitation ministry. You can go in and, you know, you can do what you're supposed to do and pray and talk, or you can go in and literally get inside the hurt of those people. How many of you know the difference? There's a different thing that happens when someone who's giving themselves to you, who gets down underneath the surface and gets down into the, how are you really feeling, Rebel? It's a gift. They absorb some of your pain sometimes. Remember when Jesus looked at Lazarus, was with the people and they were going to see Lazarus and raise him from the dead, and Jesus saw the crowd and they told him what had happened and the Bible says that he wept? When was the other time that Jesus wept? Over Jerusalem. You can read about that in Luke 19, 41. Jesus saw the plight of Jerusalem and he felt so deeply about it, you know, he could have just said, well, I'm going to die for you anyhow, but he felt it to the place where he wept. The Son of God poured out his life in a tangible way. You know, churches can be a place where we just kind of do our duties or churches can be a place where people become family. And I want to submit to you, these verses we just read, that's the issue between whether or not we're going to be just a church. Home groups can be an experience of the love of God or they can be, well, it's every other week and that means it's tonight, Mabel. I know why you're laughing because we've all been there, haven't we? Yeah. I mean, children's ministry. You can go back there and you can be a, you know, you can have your lesson ready or you can be a place where kids are getting loved in Jesus. And you know the difference. It's amazing. You know, churches can be really sterile. They can be like a hotel. Come in, you know, check in the registration, get your input, and go out again or they can be like a home. I'm, over the years, you know, I think North Way's been known to be a home, a place where love was. But how many of you would agree with me that the larger the church gets, the tougher that is? Many people have said to me, I'm looking for another church because this is too big for me. And what they're really saying there is not that they don't like it anymore, but just that they've lost the family feeling. Now, who can make, who can change that? Can I change that? I can help. But who's got to change it? Now, look at your neighbor and tell him you do, all right? Yes, every one of us. We're the only ones who can change that. Look, we're the only ones. Each one of us have to find it in our hearts to see that this church remains a family, and not just a little watering hole in someone's spiritual pilgrimage. You can give love in every dimension in which you serve. There are ushers who, you know, literally transmit a sense of acceptance when they greet people. Their job's to maybe help them find a seat or get things settled, but they transmit love. How many of you have been greeted by someone in the parking lot that you know likes to be there? I've seen it. There's a difference. And believe me, people comment on that kind of stuff. They sense it right from the start. There can be vocalists up here. You know it. Some of whom just radiate. I mean, they're just in this thing with their whole life. And others, you know, who maybe even have a great gift sometimes can stand up and it's just performing, you know? Big difference, isn't it? An elder can be someone who loves without reservation and pours out, and we're blessed with elders who do so. Or an elder can be just someone who fills the slot on a board. Are you getting the drift of what I'm saying? See, these are all ways that we can give our lives and not just express our gifts. And it's the same with me. You know, I can even stand up here and put together sermons and teachings and all that stuff, or hopefully I can pour out my life in these times so that you know exactly what's going on inside of me as well. All right. So that's the first thing that we've got to do. You're saying, well, Jay, if I do that, I mean, isn't it true that I'm going to get kind of spent in a hurry? How many of you are afraid? Don't put your hand up. But you're saying, I like what you're saying, but I've done it before and I get burned out. Because I always find more needy people. I find more problems. What's the solution to that? Only one thing. And that, dear one, is the truth, whether it's here at the church or where you work or wherever you go. Have you ever had someone witness to you? I've had this happen since I've been a Christian. You know, someone targets me as looking like, helping hands, for as long as it worked, worked well. I mean, I could tell you lots of stories of people who had major plumbing problems and a group of guys went in and did the job for them and repaired, you know, big holes in flooring and stuff like that. You know, just did a great job. But something that I'm talking about here needs to be a little bit more spontaneous and just a little more spirit-led, I suppose. I love it when people are on the lookout for ways that they can use their abilities to serve. I love that. It's so God-breathed. I mean, it wasn't too long ago. I guess about four or five years now. In our previous house, one of our toilets started to leak down at the base. And Carol knew well enough to not ask me to fix that. I can look at it. I can change the bulb on the inside, but when it's leaking down at the bottom, you know, that's serious stuff there. So, we were at home group one night, and just kind of sharing what our needs were. I said, pray for my toilet. You know, it's really sick and dying. And someone in my home group, who is really, really good, really handy with stuff, said, hey, I'll come over Saturday and we'll take a look at it. And he came over and, you know, he didn't just come over and take a look at it. All right? He came over and he said, well, yep, there's a little, some kind of thing, wax, right, wax membrane down there. It was all rotted out. Well, in no time flat, you know, he'd taken all the tools out and ripped that thing off and pulled it out of there and went and got the right size thing. And he did in like an hour and a half. It would have taken me three weeks to do. All right? I mean, and I didn't want to go outside for three weeks. So, you know, we got to get that thing fixed. How many of you have had someone do that for you, that kind of thing? I would say we need a lot more of that. You know, again, what goes through your mind right now, what's going through my mind is, yeah, but I have so much of my own stuff to do. Well, just think what might happen if people started taking care of your stuff. You know, there's a cycle that can get going there. You know, it just starts happening more and more. I would just so love for that. Now, I'm not saying, by the way, that every time you hear of a need, that means you have to meet it. I mean that. But let's think. What if we were spirit-led? And we heard someone talk about something we're just good at. Maybe you even make your living doing it. It's a blessing to someone. Every once in a while, if you just say, hey, I know you're really in a difficult position and I want to be a blessing. And can I tell you, this is the key. The key is you need to offer it. Because a lot of people have a hard time asking for it. Isn't that true? You have a hard time. And that's natural. And those of us with, and maybe you don't have a lot of big skills. I don't. If it came down to practical stuff, you know, I'd have a hard time making a big difference in someone's life. I mean, I can do a few things, but you know what I'm saying. Let's look for ways. Let's listen. And the Holy Spirit, He's wonderfully able to connect you with the need. You know, He is. Share your skills. Share your ability. That kind of a thing is something we all could do and make a difference. And imagine how that momentum could grow in the church. Now, again, I want to say, folks, some of you are really great at this already, but a lot of us need to just be, have the nozzle turned up just a bit to see if maybe the Lord would want to use us in that way and be a blessing to someone else along the line. I remember not too long ago, one of our guys who's a mechanic helped a person change the engine, put a whole new engine in their car, found the engine in the junkyard, you know, and took it out of the junkyard, took the old engine out one weekend and put the new one in the next weekend and gave this person basically, you know, a car that was serviceable for another couple of years at very, very little cost, just the cost of the engine part itself. This kind of thing, you know, how can you put a value on that? And I have to say, this only works if you see it and you listen to God. If you say, Lord, this is to you, this is my offering to you. You just put that gift on the altar and say, Lord, now lead me to the person that you want me to bless that way and do it. You say, well, this is really rudimentary kind of stuff, really basic, isn't it? Yes, it is. How many of you know that we lose this sometimes? All right. Thirdly and finally, we can share ourselves, we can share our skills, but I want to say in conclusion, we can also share our resources and our possessions. I'm not sure what it is about money and stuff, but in the culture in which we live, the spirit of mammon has such a chokehold that even the church finds itself in fear. And the greatest fear that keeps any of us from giving of our resources or of our possessions is the fear that we'll have less. It's the only one. I mean, if you knew that the moment you gave your automobile to someone who didn't have one, if you knew the next day you were going to get another one, a better one, how many of you would probably do that? Ah, not me, no, no. I have a pure motive. What we fear is that we'll give ours and we'll walk for the next 10 years because God wants to punish us. And one of the things that I think every servant of the Lord can do is to just, again, be sensitive to the Holy Spirit when he prompts us to share something that we possess or own or to give financially to a specific cause or need. There have been very, very few times in my life when in doing that I haven't seen God return to us in ways that just blew my mind. And I have to say to you, there's something about our culture, there's something about this community, there's something about who we are that makes this probably the toughest thing of all. Some of you say, I can share myself or I can give my skills but my money, my stuff is my money and my stuff. And the truth of the matter is it all belongs to God. Now, how many of you hear me say that just now and know that it's true but in reality it's a tough one to live out. Put my hand up there, that's where I'm living. It's a tough thing to live out and yet we can do it. We can do it. And I have to say when people around us begin to share these kinds of stories, when they begin to demonstrate this, it's amazing to me how God comes through in ways that we never expected. He blows our mind with His ability to be creative and supplying for us things that we never expected from sources that we never expected. And by being givers we're blessed beyond measure. You know, the Lord can find creative ways to give to us. Do you know that? Let me tell you about one. How many of you have been faithfully giving your tithes and offerings here to the church and part of it you knew full well was going to pay for these lights and this electric bill and this air conditioner? You know that's true, don't you? Your tithes and offerings, that's how we do this. Well, I don't know who was praying on the staff but we discovered that there's other ways that the electric company has to bill operations like ours. There's different ways to get the rates set on certain scales and standards and all that kind of stuff. And entirely out of the blue we discovered that we should have been charged one way for our electric usage and not another. And we said, gee, it seems like maybe you should have told us about this and you didn't and said, well, you know. We pushed a little bit. I want to tell you tonight that we have a check for $27,000 or $8,000 coming from the electric company for what they've overcharged us. Where'd that come from? I mean, no one here was smart enough to figure that out for the last five years. But the Lord made a way. And we found out, by the way, that they've never, ever rebated anyone like that before and it was just so, I guess, such a blatant oversight that they felt they had to do that. So I figure if the Lord can do that with the electric company for us, I mean, you name your mountain, okay? I mean, that's it. Very honestly and as I conclude, I don't feel like I ever need to justify or apologize to you for making requests that we do from time to time for special needs. What I find in this church is people are really usually anxious to give. They just need to be told to what and how's it going to be used for their offerings and so. And I don't think it takes a lot of convincing for us to realize that to fulfill the Lord's command to us, we need to continue to prayerfully pursue this expansion around here on the weekends. It's just out of, we're just way overtaxed. And you know that and there's a lot of things that we can't do. Just a little bit ago, our junior hires were dismantling the family room back there, pushing the wall out. They need a place. They need a place to be kids and to do stuff the kids do. There's lots of things like that. And I know that most of you would say, Lord, just show me where. Show me where. I hope that you took time to read the letter that you got from me. How many of you got that letter so I can see? Alright, great. If you didn't, pick one up, the white envelopes. Just some places where you can pray about giving as we end the year together. You say, well, how do I do all this? I mean, that's a lot to give. Give myself, give my abilities and talents, and give my resources? Are you kidding? What's the answer to it? Get your cup full. Let the Holy Spirit fill you. Let the Lord be your supply. Let the Lord be the one that prompts you. I'm not asking you to do anything in the flesh. I'm asking you just to listen to God. Let Him just overflow. Doesn't it say in 2 Corinthians chapter 9 that the Lord is able to overflow unto you everything that you need in every circumstance so you'll have enough to give all the time? That's the kind of God that we serve and love. So, servants of the Lord, let's be open. Maybe you don't know what your gift is yet, but how many of you believe after what you've heard tonight that you can give yourself to another person? How many believe tonight that you can give something that you know how to do to another person? And even you can give, as the Lord leads, something of what He's blessed you with. Amen? Let's stand together, shall we?