You are called to view every task, from serving coffee to wiping baby butts, as an act of worship to Jesus Himself. Instead of relying on your own strength, invite the Holy Spirit to empower your hands and feet to reflect God's love to the world. When you serve with excellence, you become the reaching arms of God that others can see and feel.
As he said, my name is Mariah. My husband and I, we've been a part of Real Church for 4 and a half years about. And, we are elders here, and we're both on the speaking team. So 1 of the joys of real church is that we do have a speaking team and it's it's a great time. So I really appreciate it.
I don't take it lightly at all. I do wanna thank pastor David and pastor Courtney for allowing me to do this and to to grow in this way and to share with you what God has been talking to me about. We've been in the series well done. It's based off of what we all want to hear from the Lord when we go to heaven. "Well done", my good and faithful servant.
It's a it's a book that everyone that has spoken in this series, it's a book that we've all read. And it's a book written by doctor Leon Van Royen. Now my first interaction with doctor Leon, my husband and I, we went to Zambia, Africa in 2019. And we were going to be with a missionary family. And other than that, we didn't really know why God was having us go there.
And we show up, to do do And do And families, traveling with their children, and and we got there and we felt all of this joy and excitement in this area and and my husband and I, we were asking the Lord, is this why you had us come here? Like, we supposed to stay? Are we supposed to be missionaries? And that was a big question. A lot of people that we met while we were there were also asking us that question.
Why are you guys here? We're like, we don't know. And and we got to meet Doctor Leon before he was gonna speak in the evening. It was in between worship and his message and someone had introduced us and you know, a meeting like that is usually pretty quick like, hi, nice to meet you. Alright, go, you know, go preach.
Nice. But instead, it was such a powerful moment. You know, he had said to us, hey, why are you guys here? And we got to share with him, hey, you know, we've been praying about this and Gabe and I on that very day had heard from the Lord, you're supposed to go back to The States and it's your calling to "raise finances" for the kingdom. And we're like, a little bummed by that.
You know, we're like, oh man, like these people, they're just giving it all. I wanna give it all. And the Lord has spoke had spoken to us. What makes you think it's not gonna cost you everything? Mhmm.
Yep. And so we had this word in us while being around all these people that were so passionate for the Lord and Doctor Leon, he gave us this word that was so powerful in a moment. I can't tell you how served I felt in that moment. And I don't know but about you but okay, so when I speak, I get a little nervous. I'll be okay.
I get a little nervous but if you're gonna have a big old conversation with me right as I'm about to speak, I'm gonna be like, I'm a little distracted right now. Like, I'm not, I'm I'm a little nervous, you know? But this man stopped before giving the just an amazing message and just spoke to us and encouraged us in our calling to raise finances for the kingdom. And he gave us biblical references and such a word that touched our spirit and it has led us to what we're doing today, to the life that we're building today. And so when I read this book, well done, I could read it in his voice and with his passion and the fact that he himself is a servant.
He served me the second I met him and everything about what he has done with his life has been servanthood. There's been 3 other messages in this series. Pastor David, he spoke about living as a servant is really living. That is really living. To be a servant is the only way to really truly live.
Chevy, he talked about the attitude of a servant. Daniel, he spoke on the anointing and the motives of a servant. Yeah. And I get to talk about the *greatness* of a servant. The greatness and the sacrifice of a servant.
This series has been really wonderfully challenging for me. I hope it has for you as well. There's a verse in Psalms-23:4. It talks about his rod and his staff. They comfort me.
Yeah. I love that verse. Let me explain what that means to you if you don't know. The Lord talks about us being his sheep and he is the shepherd. And when sheep run together, they they move in a pack and they're guided just by each other.
They just go and go. So if sheep are running towards a cliff, they will all run off of the cliff because they just go. They just follow whatever the group is doing. And so the shepherd will come around with a stick, a rod, a staff, something to whack at the ankles of the sheep to get them going in the direction that they need to go, keep them safe, to to tell them where to go. Hey, there's food that way.
I'm gonna whack at the ankles of the sheep that are on the outside. And when the sheep turn, they all turn together. Now, I haven't had a whole lot of experiences of having my ankles whacked by a stick. Maybe you haven't either. But I have ridden a razor scooter as a kid.
And those things when when you step off of them and they start getting they they just get your ankles like mad. Think about that when I read this verse. Just getting whacked in the ankles like, ah. It's just so good. But it's his rod and his staff that comforts.
Now, doesn't sound comforting to get whacked in the ankles but it's actually comforting to know that if I'm running towards a cliff, the lord will direct me. He will say, hey, that's the wrong way. Go the other way. Hey, there's food this way. Hey, you gotta stay with me.
We're going this direction. So, it's comforting to get whacked in the ankles every once in a while. Amen. And so, I hope today, through this message, you feel comforted. Even if it's a whack in the ankles.
Alright. *1 Timothy-3:1*. It says, here is a trustworthy saying, whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. See, it's a good thing to desire leadership. We're gonna talk about that a little bit.
And if you're somebody that says, you know, I'm not really a leader type. If you're a Christian, if you have Jesus inside of you, you are a leader. Whether you know it or not. People are watching you. They're saying, hey, they call themselves a Christian.
Let's just see what they do. Yeah. Let's see how they act and how they behave. People are watching you. You are automatically a leader if you have Jesus inside of you.
If you have Jesus inside of you, you have the ability to give the gift of eternal life, to point them in the direction of freedom. The greatest leadership move you can ever make in your life is to give the gift of salvation and say, this is who Jesus is and this is the way to go. So, if you have Jesus within you, you have the ability to lead people to the gospel and to truth. So, everyone in here, if you're a believer, you're a leader. Amen.
So, let's look at some characteristics of some leaders. I'm gonna read 3 verses pretty quickly here. *Philippians-2:3* says, leaders should be humble. Think of others as better than themselves, not be selfish, or try to impress others. Alright.
So there's humility, selfishness. *James-4:10, people should be humble themselves before the Lord* and he will lift them up. So now we're talking about promotion. You're a leader, now you're promoted through your humility. *Matthew-20:26* through 27 says, those who want to be great should be *servants* And those who want to be first should be slaves.
God sees greatness as servanthood.
*Amen*.
Everyone say, god sees greatness as servanthood. God sees greatness as servanthood. And Jesus is the greatest of all time. He's the greatest servant of all time and also the greatest of all time. And so we have this image of the cross, right?
Jesus on the cross. It's a very aggressive image. It is the most powerful moment in all of history. Is Jesus on the cross saying, it is finished. Breaking the curse, allowing us to have a relationship with God.
It is also the most powerful image of servanthood to lay down his perfect life. And that's what god calls us to do. *Mark-10:45* says, for even the son of man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many. *John-20:21* says, as the father has sent me, I also send you. So you are sent not to be served but to serve, to lay your life down as a ransom for many.
To point them to truth, to point them to Jesus. And we all know John-3:16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son. Do we also know 1 John-3:16? By this we know love because he laid down his life for us and we also ought to lay down our *lives* for the brethren, for 1 another. Motivation comes from the love that we receive from God.
Jesus, he ran his ministry in 4 ways. The first was that he was anointed, which Daniel talked about. He was motivated by love. He was a *servant* and he laid down his life. We also are motivated by love.
It's the only way to do this. Alright. I gotta read you 1 of my favorite quotes from this book. Doctor. Leanne Van Ryan.
He says, if we have no interest in attempting great things for God, such as winning souls or touching lives, we are backslidden and need help. Oh, I hope that rod and step comforted you. I hope it did. Why do you think he can say that? We have no interest in winning souls, reaching out, caring for people.
We are backslidden. Not just like, oh, you gotta work on that. You might be backslidden and need help if you don't have interest in participating in the life that God is building. Now, Gabe and I, we've been married about 7 years. And and every morning, he woke up and he sang to me, oh, Mariah, I love you.
You're so beautiful. You smell so nice. But he like never built a life with me. Like, he didn't go to work or help with the kids. I'd be like, what are you singing about?
Get off your bum. What are you doing? And same with me. Right? We have pretty traditional roles in our house.
And if I just say to him, okay. Oh, I love you and your bald heads. You're you're my favorite person. I love you. But I like never did the laundry or cooked a meal.
He'd be like, stop singing. What are you doing? Right? And we do that in church. We come to the lord and because we've been so loved by him, we tell him, oh lord, thank you for *salvation* and sometimes we even sing, we worship.
Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus for salvation. Thank you, Jesus for the cross. Oh, I love you. Oh, and we just say today, Jesus, I love you.
Oh, how I love you. But then, if we never partner with the lord and we never build a life with him. There comes a time when when he we question, do you really love him? You might be backslidden and need help. If you sing to him, but then you don't participate in obedience.
You don't you don't build a life that he has for you. You know, the Lord has callings for you. He has plans for you. He has a future for you. And sometimes it feels a little scary.
But in that obedience and you step out, you actually get to participate in that love that you've received. It is good to **attempt great things* for God*. And to believe that god can do a great thing through you. Anyone can be great in god's kingdom but who will take the responsibility seriously enough to do what is necessary. You should want nothing less than to be what god wants you to be.
You should desire to advance the kingdom and get as close as possible to the throne. You should desire to do the works of god, to be mighty in faith, to be strong and anointing. You should desire intensity in your passion, in your love for god. If you want to be great, serve. First Amen.
*Corinthians-3:13* through 15. But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person's work has any value. If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will **suffer great loss**.
The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames. Let's talk about that a little bit. I think we often think about judgment day as well as the day that's that is decided, am I going to hell or am I going to heaven? But really this is a judgment that that we're talking about for believers. So if you're a believer, you will have a moment before the Lord, will you give an account for every work that you've done and everything that you have said?
Yeah. And the things that you do out of your own ideas, own strength, your own plans of greatness, which are not really great without the Lord. Those will be burnt up and you will barely escape. But if you partner with what the Lord has for you, with the greatness of the Lord, there is a reward. Jesus, he gave his life so now we give our lives.
We give our time, our energy, not for salvation, but because we highly value his sacrifice. We're not pursuing leadership but rather we're pursuing the privilege to serve. And then as we do this, there will come a time where God will give authority, leadership, and power. Do you know who serves the most in this whole church? Pastor David and pastor Courtney.
I was just laughing with Courtney the other day. I was like, girl, you feed so many people. You, I mean, she drops things to help people all the time. She's so available to people and and pastor David is the same way. You know, they're always serving since the day I showed up here.
They have been the greatest servants in the room at all times. It's like hard to keep up with them. They serve so much. Isn't it funny that the people that are pastoring this church that have the authority of the house are the greatest servants.
*Amen*.
It's how **promotion works** through servanthood. We love because he first loved us. We serve because he first served us. So our motives, they're actually coming from the throne of grace and then as Daniel preached last time, was talking about that when you love others, you're actually "loving Jesus". Yeah.
So, it's flowing right back to the lord. If you love someone with *God's love*, you actually cannot be taken advantage of. I think there are people who have, you know, you go to work, maybe it's a new job. You're like, oh, I got to know the boss and I just really like them and I really love their vision and I just wanna love them well. I'm gonna show up early, I'm gonna stay late.
You know, I don't even always clock in when I when I should when I'm working just because it's, you know, I just wanna help them. And then maybe a moment of offense happens where they just rubbed you the wrong way or maybe you were acting like a servant and then they treated you like a servant. And you're like, oh, you know what? I used to show up early. They've just been taking advantage of me this whole time.
You've actually removed love from your motives. But if you love someone with *God's love*, love doesn't give up. It keeps no record of wrong. And when I'm loving someone else to love Jesus, I'm actually not trying to get filled back up by them. Right.
I get filled up by the Lord. Right. That's where my love comes from. That's where it flows out of. Yeah.
I don't need to get refilled by my boss or my neighbor. Right. You know, I'm I'm pro boundaries. I'm I think some of you are gonna hear that and be oh, great. Now I gotta go be a martyr.
You know, if you wanna try to keep up with Jesus, he is our example. And I'm not telling you to go treat people in a way that that makes them bad people. You know? It's not great to allow people to to be rude and mean and then say, oh, I'm loving them well by letting them treat me poorly. That's that's not what I'm saying.
But Jesus was on the cross and he said, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. Being a servant, it is it is practical, but it is always always spiritual. Serving is not considered a burden or a chore. It demands no thanks or acknowledgments because it is done to the *Lord* spontaneously, generously. And we should not wait for an invitation to choose to do it.
There's this social experiment that where they had people come in and they said, oh, we want you to do some product reviews. So there's a group of people and and a man, he starts he gets out a tent, like, for camping, and you're gonna review these products. So he starts setting up the tent, and he's struggling a little bit. Well, the real experiment, which the group did not know, was how long will it take for someone to help the man building the tent? And they did this experiment 2 different ways.
They did it with a group of people and then they did it with 1 person. And when there was a group of people, it took a really long time for someone to help. And when they did it with 1 person, it was almost immediate. Isn't that so funny that the Lord calls the sheep? Just like I talked about before, see sheep, they kinda stick together.
Know, there are people with really good intentions. I love to serve but then I looked around and none of the other sheep were serving. I didn't know if I should.
Yep.
Because they, you know, the person next to me, they weren't serving. But our shepherd is the servant of all and we follow him.
*Amen*.
So he is our example. You know, good intentions, it says that good intentions are the pathway to hell. If you have good intentions but then you don't serve, you'll miss out on your full potential that God has for you. And in that group, with the tent, the first person that steps up that says, oh, I'll help you. They immediately become a leader.
The first 1 that steps up is the first 1 to say, hey, we should all help with this tent thing. And the rest of them are like, oh, yeah. Now that I see a sheep do it, I'll do it too. I'll follow my sheep.
Yeah. Yeah. So true.
If you want to be a good leader, if you want to do do great things, just be the first to serve.
Right.
If you're looking for that promotion, it's that direct line. The direct line, if you want, if you're looking around, you say, man, nobody sees my potential. This church, my work, my whatever, this this board on, nobody sees my potential. If you wanna show your potential, just be the first to serve. And then nobody even really has to promote you.
You've just promoted yourself. I'm the guy that cleans the toilets now. I'm the girl that that picks up the trash when I see it. I've been promoted. I've been given a new job.
That's how servanthood works. *Servants*, they don't ask. They they don't wait to be asked to serve. Quick. They're quick to take initiative and do what needs to be done spontaneously.
So I urge you to dive into that. Promote yourself. *Servants*, they're moved by compassion and do what is needed to be done when it is needed to be done. And love makes you a servant. Grace makes you a servant.
The spirit makes you a servant. And the law cannot make you a servant. The law makes you a victim of judgment because your works cannot save you. We are not saved by serving, we serve because we are saved. It is a result, it is a byproduct of salvation, it is a byproduct of being saved.
I remember I remember when god started breaking my heart for the people around me. Just his lost children. And when I started, it felt like I was just interacting with strangers. I felt convicted to evangelize more. I felt like I should be doing this.
I used to do this more. I need to just get better at this. And I started thinking about how can I get into the best conversations with people and, you know, and I analyzed that and just tried to do a good job and it felt like a lot of work? And I just started praying, Lord, I need breakthrough in this. I need your heart and I need to do this the way you would do this.
And so I I was just going about my day, you know, going to the grocery store with my 2 kids in tow. And and I would see people and it was like the Lord opened my eyes and I saw that people were lost. That there was depression and anxiety and just a lack of Jesus. And I would start weeping. Walking around Walmart, going into Target, I just start weeping and I was so choked up.
I really still couldn't talk to anybody. Like, I didn't get better at it in that moment, but I'd just be crying, pushing my 2 kids in the grocery cart weeping. And fast forward from that time and I was in the mall not too long ago and I just felt this burning like the Lord had implanted in me like, hey, somebody in this mall is ready to hear the gospel. And I felt that burning in me and so I'm looking around and I'm even a little nervous but I'm like, I gotta tell somebody the gospel. Somebody here is ready and this woman comes up to me and she says, hey, I can't find that body.
Do you know where it is? And so I'm like, let me see and so I pull out my phone. I figure out where it is. I say, let me walk you there. And so as I'm walking her there, I I kinda grab her and I say, hey, do you know that god loves you?
And she bursts into tears. Yeah. You know, it's it's not all that fancy. Sometimes it's just having the love of God come out of you. Do you know that God loves you?
And she had had a relationship with the lord but had gone through some struggles and so I got to share the true gospel with her and I talked to her on the phone regularly now. It's an honor to be a part of the things that will last through the fire. Yeah. That's 1 of those moments. She's 1 of those people.
That is the greatness of servanthood. And you might think, oh, you know, servanthood was when you just offered to walk her to a bath and body. You know, servanthood is It's like this, okay? So, Jesus, he gave the example of "washing the disciple's feet", right? And that's different now.
Like, we can't really do that. It's not the same. We don't wash each other's feet in the same way because they would walk through streets that had animal poop all over, you know, donkeys and horses and they're stepping in in dirt and muck and and then they're sitting on the floor to eat. They would sit really low and their stinky, smelly feet are right next the food where they're eating. And so he took his hands, the most clean, pure thing, the thing that you use to feed yourself and touch yourself, like the thing you want the most clean.
He bends down and he washes the poop off their feet. And and what is that equivalent to today? You know, it is real. It is real servanthood. It is really practical.
It's also very spiritual in that we have the *everlasting cleansing power of Jesus Christ* within us. And then we'll come opportunities where people will reveal their dirtiest part to you. And you can decide, well am I gonna just not look at it? Like maybe honoring it is not looking at it. You know, so I'll just pretend I don't see that yucky part.
You know that sin, that struggle. Or I can put my hands on it and I can speak the life of the gospel to it. Amen. Just put my hands right on it and say, I'm here with you in this and I'm gonna wash you with the cleansing of the word, the cleansing of the spirit, the cleansing of Jesus Christ who cleansed us with his blood that I carry within me, that you carry within you if you have Jesus Christ as your Lord* and *Savior. And that's what it looks like to really wash someone's feet.
It is practical. It is sometimes just walking them to the store. It is saying how was your day? It's also saying, hey, you've been made righteous. Don't live like that anymore.
Jesus forgives you. You've been given everlasting life. God has not given you a spirit of fear. Until every child of God becomes a dedicated member of the ministry team of the body of Christ, our potential to "reveal the glory" of God to our generation will remain dormant. Every person.
It's time for spectators to break out of their comfort zones and join the team. That outcome will depend on our full participation. And reaching our generation with the gospel will require nothing less than every Christian taking his or her place in devotion to service. You know, we need a revival. And not just of miracles and salvation, but of mobilization, of everyone putting their hands to work.
Can you imagine the extraordinary momentum if every single person starts acting like god has a plan for their life and they wanna do it? Pastor David, when he gave his message in this series, he talked about how roughly about 70% of our church body had come regularly served. And he said, you know, that's comparison to other churches. That's a pretty good number. Other churches have about 20% of service.
And so he he was like, I'm proud of you and also I wanna encourage you forward. And I just wanna add on to that a little bit. If I woke up 1 morning and 30% of my body was not working, I would go to the doctor. I would get prayer. I would be incredibly intentional.
You know, maybe there's like a muscle group that doesn't work and I'm gonna start building up that muscle with just small movements. Whatever it takes so that I can "walk again". Whatever it takes so that I can move freely. That's what I would do if 30% of my body didn't work. And and sometimes it takes that physical therapy of small muscle movements.
You know, I did physical therapy. I'm I'm still in it and I my first session, let me tell you. She had me sit on my bottom and my my leg foot was back behind me and she had me lift up my foot up off the ground and I'm thinking, alright, how many of these are we gonna do? You're gonna have to wait? Like, what's what's going on?
I kid you not, I did 1. I did 1. It like barely up off the ground and I had the biggest cramp in my hip that I could ever imagine. Mhmm. And I'm like, do I do?
And she said, stick your leg up. That's why I was thinking my leg up. Take a deep breath. She's like, are you ready to do more? I'm like, never again in my life.
Oh my goodness. And maybe you think that I'd be embarrassed by that story. Let me tell you, I can do like 7 now in a row that I need a break against. But maybe you I'm I'm really embarrassed by that. You know, that's an embarrassing story.
Man, she don't have muscles. You know, I I've kept it a secret for as long as I could. Now, you know my secret. I got some weak hips. But this is a church where we grow.
Yeah. It takes vulnerability. It's what it takes. It's part of it. And if you know anybody that has come to this church for any amount of time, you will know, man, they are not who they were when they showed up.
They've changed a lot. I used to listen to this podcast when when we were first married and it was therapy sessions for married couples. And the therapist would work with people who were struggling with, you know, even things like infidelity affairs, people were cheating on each other and all sorts of drama and she she said, you know, the number 1 reason for infidelity in marriages is not because somebody wants to be with someone else. This is just the number 1 reason not overall. It's usually because they want to be someone else.
And where that comes from is a removal of vulnerability within the marriage. And sometimes that happens because the partner has made them feel a certain way or sometimes it happens because they have made themselves feel a certain way. Like, can't try something new because if I fail, they'll see it. And I have to keep this image. And so the need for vulnerability in a marriage or in a partnership is extremely necessary.
Necessary. It's important that you "fall down" in front of people sometimes. It makes you real and it makes you have the confidence to fall down again. It's actually really needed just for yourself. That's how it works in this church also.
If you fall down, we will gladly pick you up. We will gladly even correct you. You know, the rod and the staff, not that way, this way. Point you to truth. We will allow you to try and fail at things.
Communication communicate transparently. It's a it's a core value here at Real Church. It's just part of it. This is how we do life together. And it's why we have a speaking team.
You know, I'm not up here because I'm a better preacher than pastor David or pastor Courtney. That's not why I'm here. It's because they've allowed me the opportunity to grow. It's amazing. And I've fallen up here sometimes.
Sometimes physically. Tripping over cords. Sometimes, you know, in other ways. But but this is a good place to fall because it's a good place to grow. It's part of it.
Servanthood also takes sacrifice. So doctor Leon, he came to speak a while back in March or so. Well, that day, I was hosting. And at the end of service, I felt the need to have an altar call, allow people to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord* and *Savior. And so I did that.
And 2 people raised their hands. And I had them come forward, but only 1 person came up. And I I felt the spirit of the Lord on it. I felt his boldness. And I looked back there, and there was a hand in the way back over there.
It's bright up here so I couldn't really see him. But I looked and into the mic I said, if you don't come up here, I will chase you down. Maybe you were there for it. Maybe And I said, in luck, I'll chase you down. And so she came up to about here, and I I went and I grabbed her and pulled her the rest of the way.
And that day, Rebecca gave her life to the Lord. And so Rebecca started coming to Belong on Tuesday nights, and so I met with her there. If you don't know, Belong is our outreach. We do evangelism, but it also has discipleship. So people will go out and evangelize, and then those who are new in their faith or growing in their faith will come and be disciple.
We go through a really small book, which is just Christian foundations, you know. Like, who is Jesus? Who is the holy spirit? Who is God? What's all this about?
And so we met and this girl, man, she come with some questions. She bring the good questions, the hard questions, and she challenge herself weekly and it's been an honor to walk with her, to know her. And, you know, meeting with her, you know, I can say, you know, it took some sacrifice. Right? I got a plan with my husband.
Okay? You can't go because you have to stay with the kids and I'm gonna go. And it's not really about me. It's not really like, let me do this thing for my benefit. It's to be a part of the greatness of what God is doing.
Yeah. It's to be a part of the greatness that God is doing through Rebecca. It takes sacrifice. About a year and a half ago, the Lord challenged me. He said, do you see what Jerry is doing?
Jerry is a he's an elder here with his wife, Heidi, and and he was meeting with men regularly. And he said, I want you to start being intentional like that. And you need to start being intentional with women. And so I just had a conversation with Jerry and was just encouraged to start doing that. And so for about a year and a half, I've just been collecting friends.
Talking about Jesus. Doing discipleship. And my schedule got fuller and bigger and fuller. And I have 2 boys and they got a little more needy, just normal. And I'm like, God, what's the plan with my schedule?
Like, what's the plan with what's going on? This this isn't really working as great as it used to. And if you don't know me, I mean, I was homeschooled and I have desired to homeschool my children. It's a strong desire that I have. And, you know, before I cared who I married and like the other things I knew, I'm gonna be a mom and I'm gonna homeschool.
That was like the deepest thing in me and the lord really challenged me on that this year. He said, you know, you you just you might not homeschool every year. And I heard it and I, you know, I heard it from a podcast. You know, he he kinda tell me in all these different ways from my husband and these different areas and I'm like, alright. I'll look into it just to honor that I heard it.
But I'm still like fully pursuing homeschooling my son. And then I'm like, I really feel like the Lord is telling me to send my oldest to school. And so we are. We're sending my oldest to school. And, you know, it's an honor to sacrifice for the Lord.
It's an honor that he would call me to something that would take up my time. And if you feel busy, you're like, I'm too busy to serve the Lord. You know, the Lord doesn't normally call lazy people. He calls busy people. And that thing of homeschooling my son this year, you know, I held on to it really tight.
I didn't even realize it wasn't on the altar. I just thought, you know, God gave this desire to me and I'm gonna do it. And when he asked for it, it was in that moment that I realized it wasn't even up there. And when he asked for it and now that it's there, you know, sometimes you put things on the altar and he doesn't take it, but sometimes you put things on the altar and then he takes it. And that was 1 of those things for me.
And you know, it it might sound kinda simple if you don't, you know, understand the passion that I have about this and I'm not worried about my son in school. He's gonna be great. You know, the lord makes all things work together for the good of those who love him. So, it's not like mama gets to benefit from ministry and my son is gonna sacrifice that too. There is sacrifice in being separate from each other but the lord is gonna bless him in this season of being in school.
But it is a sacrifice. It is a decision that the Lord had me make. Alright. That 1, when I practice this the first time I cried for a little while, it took me a minute to recover because that that just got me. You know?
It's okay. Thank you. So we've talked about servanthood as like an identity. We've talked about that all throughout the series. The identity of servanthood is something that we have in our workplace, our neighborhood, in our church, everywhere.
And I do wanna talk about serving the church specifically. Maybe you're sitting there quaking like, oh, she's gonna ask me to serve kids. Oh, are you quaking? Wipe your brow. Get nervous.
But here's the thing. The church is God's master plan for the redemption of the earth.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm gonna say that again. The church is God's master plan for the redemption of the earth. The church is known as the body of Christ. We are the reaching arms of God. That's what we're made to do.
And it's small minded to think that you can't help an organization. Alright? And when you serve others through the church, right? And you think like maybe you serve in the cafe team. If you think that all you're doing is serving coffee, then maybe it is a small thing.
But remember you're serving Jesus. Mhmm. And you're serving his children. And the level of excellence goes up when you realize that you're serving Jesus. And you know, people when they walk in and they see a church, they associate everything that happens to god.
Yeah, they do. Yeah. That's right.
Because we're the arms of god and we should. It's why people get church hurt and then they walk away from God. Yeah.
Right.
Right? Well, when we're serving people unto God to serve God and they look at us and they see the level of excellence and they say, wow, God, really, I mean, he's really here. Wow. These people really love god. Did you see everybody that serves here is just happy?
Wow. People notice that because they're looking for god when they walk in the doors. It's also "no small thing" to go to Uganda, lay your hands on someone, and see them healed. It's no small thing to go to belong and see someone "move from hell to heaven" and see their life forever change.
Yeah. Amen.
It's no small thing to open the door and greet someone when they walk in and tell them, hey, god loves you. What a good day to be in church. It's no small thing to wipe butts in the back for the babies. That's no small thing to serve the children and the mothers and fathers in here. Maybe you're done being nervous.
Maybe you're not. But gonna have everybody stand up. Alright. So, we've talked about a lot of things. Something that I really want you to receive is the love of god.
The love of god is going be what empowers you to serve. The holy spirit coming out of you is going be what empowers you to serve. Alright, I don't want you to come at this and just say, I'm just going to work harder and sleep less. I want you to say, god, I receive your love and I want it to come out of me. Just just raise your hands like this if you want to receive that.
And I'm gonna pray over you. Heavenly father, Lord, thank you for this body that you've given us. Thank you for our hands and our fingers and our knees and our toes. Thank you for every bit of the body that you've given us and the body of Christ** that we have here in the room. I pray, Lord, that you would empower us, that you would convict us, that you would hold us and love us, and that your love would pour out of us like like we've never known it could.
I pray that you would open our eyes to the potential that we have to love you. Open our eyes to the potential that that we have that you've planned for us. I pray that nobody here would feel like an "untapped potential". That everyone would feel fully empowered to do and to be the love of God. Lord, we worship you and we love you.
We love you with our voices and we also love you with our actions. I pray that we are the "hands and feet" of God. I pray that we see miracles through our hands. That we love people and that we wash the feet of those around us. I pray that we would not be scared to touch the dirtiest part of people.
Lord, we worship you and we "give you our lives". Amen. Amen.