Disciplined for Service

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As we go through our spiritual disciplines that we’ve been studying over the last several weeks, it’s important that we come to today’s topic, which is ministry, service. Sometimes those words get used interchangeably. And it’s important that we talk about it because the importance of service and the importance of ministry, they’re easy to talk about, but sometimes they are hard to live up to.

Like I can teach you all day about how important it is to serve, And sometimes it’s just difficult to practice what I preach. And I don’t think there’s any time that that’s more true than at mealtime when I’m in charge. And there have been a few times this week that Charla has been gone working on a school fundraiser and dad has been in charge of getting dinner on the table.

And it just has not gone well. Apparently, there are people in my house who will die if there’s anything with butter on their plate. And holler it, they’re just picky.

Butter cannot be present. or you didn’t make the grilled cheese right. I didn’t know there was a wrong way to make grilled cheese other than burnt cheese, but apparently there is.

That’s not the right, oh my goodness, a 10-minute meltdown last night, that’s not the right sauce for the pasta. You don’t make it like Mama does. I don’t know how to make it like Mama does.

Mama doesn’t know how to make it like I do either. And I tell you what, there are children in my house who would rather have a Pop-Tart than a biscuit. And I don’t understand that because I’ll take the biscuit and I’ll slice it in half and put butter on it, turn it upside down on a hot pan and crisp it up like they do at Waffle House.

And that’s a meal right there. And they’d rather have a Pop-Tart. I’m going to need to see a DNA test on that one because I’m not.

No, they’re mine. They’re mine. But dealing with them at mealtime, and I tell Charla all the time, you should not have to be a short order cook.

Give them the two options my mom gave us. Take it or leave it. That should be.

But I tell you what, sometimes you don’t want to fight with them. but they just don’t want to not fight. And you get through mealtime and you think, I’m done with y’all.

I’m not doing this anymore. And you kind of get a bad, or I kind of get a bad attitude about trying to put out food for them. Get to the point of being upset with them like my grandfather would get upset with people and say, rain on them.

That was his praise for I’m done with you. And there were times this week I had to check my heart about its condition while I was outwardly doing the things I was supposed to be doing. My mother-in-law was there for some of this see it.

But I would have to check my heart about where I was with my children, where I was with the Lord as I was serving. Because there are times you just don’t want to serve. There are times that the people you’re serving don’t deserve to be served.

There are times that you go ahead and serve anyway, but your heart’s not in it. But we as Christians are called not only to serve, but to serve in a Christ-like way, as difficult as that is. And that’s what we’re going to talk about this morning.

So understand that as much as I’m preaching to you, I’m probably preaching to me twice as much. And we’re going to be in 1 Peter chapter 4 this morning. And look at what the Lord said to Peter for us about how we’re supposed to serve.

1 Peter chapter 4. And once you find it, if you’d stand with me as we read together from God’s Word. If you can’t find it, that’s all right.

It’ll be on the screen behind you. It should be on your bulletin as well. We’re going to look at five verses here in the middle of chapter 4.

Here’s what the Holy Spirit said speaking through Peter. Whoever speaks is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God. Whoever speaks is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen. And you may be seated. Just like with each of these disciplines, there are numerous passages I could have chosen to deal with these topics, but as I was looking again this week, still wrestling with what passage are we going to use for this topic, what speaks to this, this is the one that really caught my attention.

Because it doesn’t deal so much with the fact that we serve as it does with how we serve. And the first thing I notice in this passage is that Christians must discipline ourselves to serve others, even in difficult times. You notice he starts out verse 7 by saying the end of all things is near.

Now, phrasing like that gets used a lot in Scripture, and it becomes very clear to us that when God says soon and near, those words mean something different to God than they do to us. Because this was written nearly 2,000 years ago, and we think, well, the end of all things? In God’s timetable, we don’t know when that end of all things is coming.

But he does say that they’re drawing near.

and keep in mind too that he’s keep in mind who’s writing and who he’s writing to Peter is the one writing this we know the Holy Spirit is inspiring it Peter is the one who’s writing it Peter is somebody who did ministry throughout his life from the time that he encountered Jesus until the time that he died and throughout that entire time Peter was beaten Peter was arrested Peter was persecuted Peter was ostracized Peter was driven into exile and that moment of Peter’s death that I mentioned that came about because of martyrdom Peter didn’t have the luxury of dying of natural causes they hounded Peter to death and then killed him history tells us that he was crucified now there are different legends maybe he was crucified upside down we don’t know that for sure but all available historical evidence points to him being crucified for the sake of his faith Peter had a difficult life and yet in the midst of his difficult circumstances constantly being on the run constantly being hunted Peter was serving he was serving Christ and he was serving the church by extension and then you look at who Peter was writing to you go back to the early pages of 1st Peter and you see that he’s writing to people who were scattered he’s writing to believers who were scattered and what that means is they were scattered by persecution when people like the man who later became the Apostle Paul came through with arrest warrants to arrest all the Christians they could find and round them up and put some of them to death.

When these people would come through, the church would scatter. They’d run for their lives. And there were people that were living on the run.

And these are the people that Peter is talking to about serving. This man who endured incredible trials and difficulties is writing to other people who are in the midst of incredible trials and difficulties and encouraging them to serve. He’s not talking to them about how to hide out, how to evade capture, how to hunker down and wait for better times.

He’s encouraging them to serve and with a sense of urgency that we’ll talk about in a moment because he says the end is drawing near. Now the end is nearer than it was. And for some of them, the end was very near.

But in the midst of that, he’s talking to them about serving. And I think it’s important for us to recognize that background to this text because it’s so easy for us to find reasons and excuses not to serve. I’ll take that in even closer.

It’s easy for me to find reasons not to do things that I know I’m supposed to do. I really don’t want to mess with that. I’ve had a hard week.

You know what? They’re all hard. Jesus never promised us an easy week.

Jesus never promised us an easy life. He said in this world, you will have trials. Lord, I’ll do that and you can fill in the blanks.

I’ll do that when I’m older. I’ll da that when I have more time. I’ll da that when the kids are grown.

I’ll da that when I have more money. And you know what? It was easy to find excuses in my teen years.

It was easy to find excuses in my 20s. It’s now easy to find excuses in my 30s. And in a year or two, it’ll be easy to find excuses in my 40s.

There will b e excuses from now until He comes back or He comes back for me. The excuses may be different, but I recognize how flimsy my excuses are and how flimsy my reasons why not or my reasons for waiting. I realize how flimsy all of those things are when I put them in contrast to these early believers, Peter writing it, the scattered churches reading it, everything they were going through that I can never imagine.

Thank the Lord I have not had to experience that nobody really has had to experience in this country, and yet they were focused on serving. Serving is a discipline. Now, for some people, it comes more naturally than others.

There are people in this church that you just mentioned you’re thinking about something that needs to be done, and it’s done before you turn around. It’s amazing. And there are areas where I might be like that.

Yeah, happy to help. You know, we’re all inclined to serve in some ways in some areas, But I think for each of us, there comes a point where it’s maybe not second nature to do that particular thing that we’re asked to do or that particular ministry that God’s called us to do. Saying yes is not is not the natural thing.

And that’s where it becomes a discipline. All of these things that we’ve talked about that are spiritual disciplines are things that we grow in that become more and more natural as we go along through the work of the Holy Spirit. But there are things that fight against our fleshly inclinations, our human nature.

and sometimes the call to serve goes against my human nature. Like when I need to go fix a pop tart when I want to throw a biscuit at them. We have to discipline ourselves to serve even when times are difficult for us.

They were instructed to serve even though they had way better excuses than we had not to do so. And then we look at the meat of this section, really everything from verses 7 through 11. He’s dealing with the heart.

He’s dealing with the condition within us. Now, there are places in Scripture where it talks about the outward of how we’re supposed to serve. But this passage focuses almost exclusively on the inward.

When we serve, the inward matters even more than the outward. And you know, that’s a recurring theme throughout God’s Word. That as important as outward things are, it is important that we do the right things outwardly.

That we have practices and behaviors that honor God. But even more important than that is that it’s backed up by what’s on the inside, honoring God. Because this out here, just doing the right practices and behaviors, it’s not enough if inwardly we’re not right with God.

And inwardly our hearts are not right with God. It’s got to be both. And over and over and over we’re taught in Scripture that God focuses on the condition of the heart.

And so Peter is writing here about ministry, and he’s writing about serving. And again, we use those words interchangeably. I typically prefer the word ministry because ministry means we’re doing it in obedience to Jesus.

It means we’re doing it for the sake of the gospel. Lots of people in our world serve and never move anybody closer to Jesus Christ. They do good things, but there’s not that spiritual dimension behind it. Ministry is service with that spiritual dimension behind it.

The only problem with the word ministry is we think it’s just for people who are in ministry. But ministry is for all of us. but he’s writing here about ministry and Peter really doesn’t focus on what they do but he has several instructions for how they do it and that’s what we’re going to talk about over the next few minutes I’ve already mentioned that verse 7 tells us we’re so we’re supposed to serve with a sense of urgency we’re called to serve with a sense of urgency not putting things off forever there are things that God has told me to do that I waited and waited and waited to do because I had my reasons.

And then I look back and wish I had started it when God told me to do it the first time, because the days do draw short. He tells us the end of all things is near. Therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.

He’s telling us there is an end to all these things. There’s, there’s an end. Jesus talks about working while it’s day for there’s night coming when no man can work.

We have a limited amount of time to accomplish God’s purposes, the things that God wants to accomplish through us. We have a limited amount of time to accomplish those things. And so he tells us to recognize that that end is coming, and for that reason, be of sound judgment.

You know, be in your right mind. Be in a sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. Take spiritual things seriously, because we don’t have forever.

Now, as believers, we have forever with Him, but we don’t have forever for Him to accomplish things for Him here on this earth. We don’t have forever to serve Him here and make an impact for the kingdom here on earth. So we’re called to serve with a sense of urgency.

And that’s a reminder to me that there’s a day when He’s going to take me home. And I hope it’s a good long while. I mean, I want to see heaven, but I also want to see my grandkids.

That’s the Lord’s business. I don’t know when that day is going to be. And because I don’t know when that’s going to be, it ought to compel me to not wait until tomorrow or next week or when the kids are older to be obedient to the things that He’s called me to do.

Instead, be urgent about it. When I see opportunities for service, for ministry, when you see opportunities for ministry, when God lays those things in our hearts, we need to take them up with a sense of urgency, knowing that there’s an expiration date on all of us and all of our opportunities. Verse 8 tells us we’re called to serve out of genuine love.

He says, keep fervent in your love for one another. And I’ve just kind of drawn a blank, but if memory serves, I believe I read this week that that word fervent indicates the intensity of an athlete training. If you’ve seen any of the Olympics, I know it does not make you a bad Christian if you watch some of the Olympics.

I’ve seen people say, well, because of the opening ceremonies, we should boycott the Olympics. You’re welcome to do that. But there were some Christian athletes I was really excited to watch compete and cheer for.

But if you’ve seen any clips of the Olympics, they can do incredible things. And the amount of training and the amount of work that they’ve put into going there and doing that. I’ve told Charla, we ought to try to qualify for the for the 2026 winter olympics because we like curling and it doesn’t look like you have to be super athletic to do curling I said we could start now and maybe at least make it to be there probably not win but for most of this and I’m not okay if anybody’s watching from the national curling association not trying to put you down I’m sure you do work hard at it too but for most of these things the work they have to put into it is is constant it’s all day every day.

Running and throwing the javelin and some of the skating and gymnastics that make me dizzy to watch. They train hard. There’s an intensity behind that.

There’s a ferocity behind that. You watch some of their faces when they’re competing. They look mean, some of them.

I’m not saying they are mean. I’m just saying they’re intense. We are supposed to love one another intensely.

And we may have to work at it a little bit, kind of like these Olympians. We may have to it. But he tells us to love one another fervently.

Keep fervent in your love for one another. And love will help you continue to serve despite all the other reasons. Love will help you.

It will motivate you to serve when you don’t feel like it. I went ahead and fed my kids, even though they were ungrateful, because I love them and because it’s the law. But mainly because I love them.

Love will be the motivation when there’s too many other excuses pulling us away from ministry. And it also says love covers a multitude of sins. There’s a lot of ways that phrase could be interpreted.

There are a lot of ways that phrase could be interpreted in keeping with the biblical context. But I think of God’s example when it says He has chosen to remember our sins no more. Our sins have been covered by the blood of Jesus Christ because God loved us enough to send His only begotten Son to take responsibility for our sins and pay for them and die in our place.

God knows that we’re still sinners. God knows what our nature is and what’s in our hearts, and yet He looks at us and because of His love, He chooses to see the righteousness of Christ. That is an example of love covering a multitude of sins. Probably the ultimate example of love covering a multitude of sins.

Verse 9 teaches us that we are supposed to serve without complaint. That’s pretty straightforward. I mean, it actually says the words without complaint.

Well, with some complaining, no, without complaint. Oh, but it’s not complaining, it’s just venting. I’m talking to myself, without complaint.

What if I don’t say it out loud? Are you complaining? Sometimes I complain to the Lord.

sometimes I complain to myself sometimes I complain in French so my kids don’t know what I’m talking about he says without complaint and there’s probably a practical reason I mean there’s the spiritual reason that our love should keep us from seeing the reasons to complain but there’s also the practical purpose behind it that the more I complain the more I dwell on how undeserving the person is that I’m serving or how unappreciated I am. When I don’t complain about it, I let those things go and they’re forgotten. But complaining keeps them at the forefront of my mind.

And so we’re told to serve, serve the Lord and serve one another without complaint, as challenging as that may be. Verse 10, he says, as each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. We’re called to serve as God has gifted and graced us.

When God calls you to do something, God will give you the gifts that are necessary to accomplish it. Not only that, God will give you the grace to accomplish it. Starting this week, school starts back.

And if you’re up here in the building during the week, you will see classes of little children being led one hither and yon through the building. I don’t know how all those pre-K teachers do their job. I love my little pre-K child.

Still have one in pre-K. That is not my spiritual gift. I’m not sure how it’s any human spiritual gift to put up with a room of 20 pre-K students because they magnify and they feed off of each other.

But you know what? Those ladies love it. God has to have gifted them for that ministry.

And on top of that, God has to have given them the grace for that ministry. I enjoy working with the middle school students when I get the opportunity and there are other people that say I don’t know why you like that group of kids God has gifted me with that not all the time but he’s gifted me just enough for what I have the opportunity to do and given just enough grace so we’re told to serve as we’ve received special gifts and we’re supposed to take those gifts and employ them in serving one another as good stewards of the grace of God if God has called you to serve in an area, He’ll give you the gifts to do it. He’ll give you the grace to do it.

If you look at it and think, well, I can’t do that, you may be absolutely right. From a human standpoint, you may be absolutely right that you cannot do that ministry. But if God has called you to do it, He will supernaturally give you what you need to accomplish that.

I’ve mentioned to you before many times. I am a terrible introvert. I am a shy person and grew up with an awful speech impediment.

People were telling me, we think that kid’s going to be in ministry. We think that kid’s going to be a pastor. Not me.

The only reason I’m here doing what I’m doing right now is because of the gifts and grace of God. And I’m telling you, if He’s called you to do it, He’ll give you the gifts and grace for you to carry it out. And then we come to verse 11.

Whoever speaks is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God. He’s talking about somebody in the context of the church teaching, I believe. Speak as though you’re speaking on God’s behalf.

It’s a reminder that it’s an awesome responsibility to get up and teach. So don’t just get up and say your opinion. Speak as God would have you to speak.

And whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies. As you serve, as you get out there and you work with your hands, get your hands dirty, do it recognizing that it’s God who supplies the strength. Both of these things, these are just two examples.

These are not the only two things that are going on in the church, but these are two examples. And the point is here that whatever we do in ministry, whatever you do in ministry, we’re called to recognize that it’s God working through us. And that should reassure us that God’s got this and He’s going to equip me like we just talked about with the gifts and the grace, but it also ought to give us a sobriety about it.

It ought to. . .

We ought to be in awe of the responsibility that we’re serving on God’s behalf. And we do all of this ultimately, he says in the end of verse 11, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. We serve others to glorify and obey our Lord.

How is He glorified when we serve? One of the most important ways I think He’s glorified when we serve is because it puts His transforming work on full display for the world to see. When the world looks at us and sees who we start out as, and we all start out separated from God.

Some people have more colorful pasts than others, but we all start out separated from God. And then through Jesus Christ, this transformation happens, where we go from being what the Bible calls strangers and aliens from God, meaning that God is separate, God is foreign to us, God is more than an arm’s length from us, to suddenly we’re not just servants in His household, we’re His sons and daughters. There’s this spiritual transformation that takes place in us, because Jesus Christ has paid for our sins, and we’ve been adopted into the family through Him.

That change is on full display and that change is amplified when the world sees that we’ve not only gone from sinners, worldly, to having fellowship with God, and now He’s doing something in us and making us useful in His service and in His kingdom. When we serve, especially when we serve with the recognition that it’s not me, it’s Him working through me. That He gets the glory.

We’re able to reflect back that glory. People say, oh, you did a great job. It was Him.

Oh, that was a great sermon. That was a great song. That was a great job you did on that project.

Whatever it was, it was Him. Thank you. But ultimately, it was Him.

We serve so that we can be obedient to Him and so that He can be glorified in that. Because He’s worthy, as we talked about last week. He’s worthy.

He’s worthy of all the obedience we could ever show Him. He’s worthy of all the glory we could ever give Him. And that’s a pretty good motivator too.

Lord, today I don’t feel like serving. Lord, today I’m tired. Lord, I don’t want to do whatever it is today.

I’ll tell you what, I didn’t sleep well last night. I told my wife if Rodney wasn’t at Locust Grove, the thought had crossed my mind, asking him to preach and I’ll sit there and listen. There are going to be days that we don’t feel like serving.

It’s a pretty good motivator to think about even on our bad days, He’s still worthy. He is still worthy. Because we serve a God who looked at us in our sin and could have written us off as you ungrateful, rebellious little people.

I’m done with you. I want nothing further to do with you. And we could have remained separated from Him not only in this life, but in eternity to come.

But we serve a God who looked at us and loved us in spite of ourselves enough that He would send Jesus Christ to come willingly to take responsibility for all of those sins and be punished for all of those sins and shed His blood and die so that our slate could be wiped clean and rose again to prove it so that you and I could be forgiven so that we could have a relationship with God so that we could walk with Him and serve Him and fulfill the purpose that He created us for. If He never did anything else, that right there makes Him worthy of all the obedience we could ever show and all the glory we could ever give.