Will you please turn to Romans 12:1? Romans 12:1.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service.
Which is your intelligent service. Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, we come together before You with our hearts open to You. We pray that Your Spirit will send Your Word, Your truth, into our hearts. Dear Lord, we pray that Your Word will have its rightful place in our lives, that we may be those who truly serve the one and only living God.
We commit this time into Your hands, trusting in Your Holy Spirit. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Last day, we shared on this matter of worship. But you cannot talk about worship without talking also of service, because in the Word of God, worship and service are always together. They can be distinguished, but they cannot be separated.
So this morning, we would like to continue on this matter of worship with service. You remember when God sent Moses to Egypt. He spoke through Moses to Pharaoh, saying, “Let My people go, that they may celebrate My feast in the wilderness.” That is in Exodus 5:1.
But when it comes to Exodus 8:1, you will find Moses told Pharaoh, “God said, ‘Let My people go, that they may serve Me.’” So here you will find that celebrating the feast is worship. Worship and service can never be separated.
When you come to Romans 12, you find the same thing. There you find the apostle Paul exhorts us to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God.
Now, in different versions, this is translated a little differently. In Darby’s version, it says, “which is your intelligent service.” But in some versions, you will find, “which is your spiritual worship,” or, “your spiritual service.” Why is it so? Because in the original, it includes both of these meanings. Worship and service can never be separated.
Once you separate them, you will find both worship and service suffer. You cannot emphasize one more than the other, because worship will lead us to service, and service will bring us back to worship.
Or, to put it more directly: worship is serving God; service is worshipping God. So, brothers and sisters, these things shall never be separated.
But unfortunately, in our mentality, we tend to separate these two things. We think of worship as toward God and service as toward men. We think of worship as something abstract, mystical, emotional; and we think of service as something concrete, active, tangible, and toward man.
But, dear brothers and sisters, if this is our mentality, you will discover that both worship and service suffer. Or, to put it another way, we do not really understand what worship is.
Our Father is seeking true worshippers. Now, what is worship? And our God is seeking true service, true servants. Now, who are these true servants of God?
So, dear brothers and sisters, I think it is time for us to go back to the very fundamentals. We want to ask a few questions. I hope that every one of us here will ask himself or herself these very simple and basic questions, and see whether we really can answer them all.
First of all, who is called to serve?
Man was created to serve. Man was created not only to worship God, but to serve God. You remember when God made the first man, Adam. He told Adam to till, to guard, and to subdue.
In other words, man was given a responsibility. He was to till the ground. But if you read carefully, you will find that in the Garden of Eden God made all trees bearing fruit, and these were food for man. Herbs were given to the animals. Man’s main food was fruit, and yet God commanded man to till the ground, to make it more fruitful. Why?
And God commanded man to guard the garden. Now, why? Because there was an enemy around, and man had a responsibility to serve God by guarding the garden and not allowing the enemy to slip in.
Man was commanded to subdue—that is to say, to bring everything back to the feet of God. So you see that man was created to serve, not to serve his own purpose.
Not until man sinned and was driven out of the garden, and the earth was cursed, did man have to labor and toil for his own livelihood.
So, brothers and sisters, in the very first place we have to remember why we were created. The purpose of life is to serve God and to worship God. That is man’s primary responsibility.
When God delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt, He brought them to Himself at Mount Sinai. There He declared to them why He had delivered them out of Egypt and why He had set them free from slavery.
God desired to make them a nation of priests. In other words, this was to be a nation that served God, because the one and only meaning of priesthood is to serve God.
The whole nation was to be a nation of priests—from the very littlest one to the oldest one, male and female. Everyone in that nation had the responsibility to serve the one and living God, the One who had delivered them out of Egypt and brought them into liberty. That is the very purpose of salvation.
Unfortunately, it was their failure. When Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments on the mountain, the children of Israel worshipped a golden calf. Because of this, they disqualified themselves from what God intended them to be.
Finally, as an emergency, temporary measure, God raised up one family, one tribe, to do the service for the whole nation. But that was not the normal thing; that was an abnormal situation.
But thank God, when our Lord Jesus came into this earth and accomplished the work of redemption, He brought us back to God’s original design.
Today, we who are in the New Testament are not supposed to remain in God’s temporary emergency measure—that is, to leave just a few of the redeemed of the Lord to serve for the rest of the people.
It is the will of God for us today that every redeemed child of God is called to serve. You find that in Revelation 1:5-6: He loves us and has washed us with His blood, that we might be a kingdom of priests unto God.
Again, in Revelation 5:9-10, out of every nation, every tribe, every tongue, and every people, God has redeemed a people unto Himself that they might be priests and kings unto God, to reign forever.
Then in 1 Peter 2, you find the apostle Peter telling us that we are to be a holy priesthood, a royal priesthood. In other words, the universal priesthood of believers is the teaching of the Bible.
This means that every believer is a priest. The moment you are born again from above, you are born as a priest. In Old Testament times, if you were born into the family of Aaron, the moment you were born, you were destined for one and only one purpose in life: to be a priest, to serve God.
So, brothers and sisters, we need to remember that we are all called to serve the One who loves us and gave Himself for us. There is no exception.
You should not wait until you are twenty, or twenty-five, or thirty, and then begin to serve God. No. The moment you are born from above is the time that you begin to serve.
I hope this is evident and clear to every one of us. Unfortunately, we may be clear in our mind, but in our whole life it is not working.
It is as if we had to wait until we are mature; then we begin to serve. But this is not the mind of God. The moment you are saved is the moment you start serving God.
In other words, your whole life from then on has only one purpose: that God may be served in your life. I hope we do not need to labor over this, but simply state a fact—and I hope it will sink into every heart, especially the younger ones.
Not because you are young in the Lord are you unqualified to serve. You are all called to serve. Whether we can serve rightly, that needs to be learned; but still, we need to begin to serve.
Now the second question is: Whom do we serve?
You may think that this need not be asked. Of course, we serve the one true and living God. We serve our Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the One we serve. But is it true?
While we are serving, who is our objective? Do we make man our objective? Or do we even make our work our objective?
Unconsciously, when we are serving, we begin to think only of the work in our hands: how can we make this work successful? So we try to learn all the techniques, all the tricks, trying to make that work workable and successful.
In doing this, we forget whom we serve. We use our own cleverness. We adopt all the ways of the world in order to make our work successful. Now, brothers and sisters, whom do we serve?
Or, in our whole service, do we think only of man and forget God? Dear brothers and sisters, we need again and again to remind ourselves whom we serve.
You remember the apostle Paul in Galatians 1:10. He said, “Do I want to please man, satisfy man, or do I want to please God? If I still want to please man, then I am not a true servant of God.”
Our service is primarily toward God. We serve our God. In other words, when we are serving, we should have God in our view—not just the work in our view, or man in our view—because we are here to please God, to satisfy God’s heart.
If we only know whom we are serving, remember: we serve the God of the universe, the Creator, the Almighty God, the Sovereign of the universe.
If we really remember whom we are serving, I believe we will make a great change in our service. We cannot be careless. We cannot be unfaithful. We have to be faithful unto Him because He is the One whom we serve.
On the other hand, while we are serving, we will have the right attitude. We will begin to see that it is a great privilege and high honor to serve God.
Suppose you are called to serve the president. You would consider it a privilege. You would not look at it merely as an obligation. You would consider it a great honor that you might serve the president.
But how much more is the One whom we serve? We serve God, the Sovereign of the universe. It humbles us to think: who are we, that God should call us to serve Him?
How should we prepare ourselves? How should we humble ourselves before Him? Because it is a great privilege, a great honor, brothers and sisters, that He should allow us, that He should want us, to serve Him.
Never consider it merely as a duty to fulfill, as an obligation. Always consider it as a high honor, a great privilege. No matter in what area you are serving, even in the smallest thing, you are serving the greatest Sovereign of the universe.
Brothers and sisters, we need always to remember whom we serve.
Then the third question we must ask ourselves is: What is service? What do you mean by serving God?
Is it just a religious work? Is the difference between serving God and serving the world merely that one is religious and the other is secular? Or is it something more than that?
If it is just a work—even a religious work—all you need is to learn the techniques. All you aim at is to see that work succeed. Whether it is secular work or religious work, it is just a matter of a different area. That is all.
But, brothers and sisters, in the Word of God, serving God is a work, but that work is a fruit. In other words, the true meaning of service is the outflow of the life of Christ in you.
Service is imparting Christ to other people. It is not just a work to be done. It is releasing the life of Christ in you and supplying it to those whom you serve.
Therefore, it is spiritual; it is not religious at all. It is a giving of life—the life of Christ in you. It may seem as if you are giving your life, but no: you are giving the life of Christ in you to others, to other people.
Then those whom you serve will receive the life of Christ in them. Now, if you can see this, then you really enter the true meaning of service.
You know, 2 Corinthians is the book that reveals to us the meaning of service, or ministry. Ministry and service are the same.
In 2 Corinthians, Paul opens up to us the ministry that God entrusted to him. He shows us the meaning of ministry, the secret of ministry. If you turn to 2 Corinthians 4, we will go through it briefly.
Therefore, having this ministry, as we have had mercy shown us, we faint not.
You know, if you really know what service is, you will faint. Who am I? What do I have that I may be able to be a vessel imparting Christ—the living Christ, not just a teaching, not just a doctrine, but the living Christ—to other people in my service?
Unless the mercy of God is upon us, we will truly faint.
But we have rejected the hidden things of shame, not walking in deceit, nor falsifying the Word of God; but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every conscience of men before God.
Now, is that not tremendous? When you are serving, you are actually commending yourselves to every conscience of men before God. In other words, when you are serving, you are giving yourself to them.
But what can they see in you? What can they receive from you? It is not you in the flesh; it is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
This imparting of Christ has to come through you. When you are pouring yourself out, what people receive is the Christ in you, not you alone. Is that not tremendous? That is service.
You can make a work workable and successful, but if Christ is not there, if Christ is not increased, it is nothing. It is just a religious work. It will not bring into eternity.
It may please man and satisfy man, but God is not satisfied. What a tremendous demand upon ourselves! How we need to be dealt with, to be under the cross, to be broken, and to know the Lord in a living, experiential way in our lives, that we may decrease and Christ may increase.
Brothers and sisters, that is true worship and true service.
But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in those that are lost, in whom the god of this world has blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving, so that the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine forth for them.
For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves your bondmen for Jesus’ sake.
Because it is the God who said, “Out of darkness light shall shine,” who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Now, that is service. But how does it come about? Here you find the secret.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels.
Brothers and sisters, we are earthen vessels. We are nobody. We are nothing. Oftentimes when we are serving, we think we are somebody. Then we are in trouble.
But no, we are but earthen vessels—common vessels. But thank God, we have a treasure in the earthen vessel. That treasure is Christ. That is the difference.
That the surpassingness of the power may be of God, and not from us.
In other words, we are earthen vessels, but we have the treasure in us. It is not the earthen vessel that supplies light and life to other people; it is the treasure, the radiancy of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
It is He who is the light that shines forth out of us and through us, that the radiancy of the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ may shine forth upon people.
Now, how can it be? An earthen vessel with the treasure in it—the treasure full of brilliance, radiancy, power, and light—yet this earthen vessel is opaque and dark. How can the radiancy of the treasure within you shine forth?
You need brokenness. This earthen vessel has to be cracked; it has to be broken in order that the light may shine forth. But, brothers and sisters, we love this earthen vessel. We want to keep ourselves intact. We refuse to let go of ourselves.
Out of darkness we try to shine. Brothers and sisters, it will not give life.
Therefore, true service requires strict discipline. Here you find the apostle Paul saying:
Every way afflicted, but not straitened.
The Spirit of God will arrange our circumstances as if we are surrounded, as if we are straitened. But, strangely, when we are under pressure from every side, we are pressed in, yet there is a power in us that overcomes.
Seeing no apparent issue, but our way not entirely shut up.
Oftentimes God has to bring us to our end. As Phillips says in his translation, “We are brought to our wit’s end.” So far as our wits are concerned, we come to an end. We do not know what to do. But that is not life’s end, because the resurrection life is in us.
Persecuted, but not abandoned; cast down, but not destroyed.
I like Phillips’s translation: “Knocked down, but not knocked out.” Oftentimes we feel we are knocked down, but we are not out. Why? Because there is a resurrection life in us.
It is through this process that we go through brokenness, allowing the radiancy of Christ, the treasure in us, to shine forth. The apostle Paul said he bore in his body the dying of Jesus daily, the death of Jesus daily in his life, that the life of Jesus might be manifested in him and in others. Now, that is service.
But do not be frightened. Do not faint. In ourselves, we cannot do it, but His grace is always sufficient. His mercy will carry us through.
So, dear brothers and sisters, this is the meaning of service. We cannot afford to look at service as merely a work, a religious work. That will not bring us into eternity.
We have to look at service as serving God, as worshipping God, as imparting Christ—the life of Christ—to people. That is the measure of service.
Do not measure service by outward success or failure. Measure your service by how much life you are able to impart and how much life people have received through you. That is the meaning of service. It is not a small thing.
The fourth question we want to ask is: Where do we serve?
If service is imparting Christ to other people, then our service is unlimited. It is not limited by time or space. You can serve God every day, all the time, wherever you are. You do not need, as it were, a special situation or condition in order to serve.
But in the Word of God, you do find that there is a principle. Where did the priests of old serve?
Their service was always related to the temple. Sometimes their actual activities were not in the temple. They might be judges sent out, and yet you find that it was always related to the temple.
You remember one case in Judges 17-18. There was a Levite of Bethlehem-judah, and he was traveling, trying to find a place to serve.
Instead of being satisfied with serving in the tabernacle, he wanted to find somewhere else to serve. Do you know who this man was? This man was none other than the grandson of Moses, Jonathan.
Sure enough, while he was traveling around trying to find a place to serve, he found a place. A man named Micah had an idol there, and he needed a priest. So he became the priest of that family.
Instead of a priest of the nation, he became the priest of a family. Instead of serving the living God in the tabernacle, he was serving that substitute in a private house.
Worse than that, you find a tribe trying to find a place to locate. The spies came to that house. Finally, they took the idol and said to Jonathan, “Think about it: to be a priest of a house, or to be a priest of a tribe—which one will you choose?”
He gladly went with them. The Bible says that as long as the tabernacle was in Shiloh, there was this idol worship. Serious! When a priest is separated from the temple, eventually his service becomes a disservice to God.
When you come to the New Testament, you find the same principle. In Romans 12, when it talks about real service: “Present your bodies a living sacrifice.” This is your intelligent, reasonable, spiritual service.
The very fact that you present your bodies a living sacrifice is service. Why? Because God is able to allow His Son’s life to come out through you.
You commit yourself to Him. Allow Him to work in your life. Allow Him to fill your life with Christ, and allow Him to impart Christ to other people. That is service.
It continues and says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Instead of being conformed to the world, you will be able to prove the good, perfect, and acceptable will of God.
What is that will? You read on, and you find it is the body of Christ. When you present your bodies a living sacrifice and serve God, then God will open your eyes to see where you are going to serve in His body.
You serve in the body of Christ. The same thing you find in 1 Corinthians 12-14. There you find that God gives gifts to men. Where are these spiritual gifts to be exercised? In the body of Christ.
So, brothers and sisters, there is a principle here: our service shall always be related to the house of God, always related to the body of Christ.
It is in the body, it is for the body, it is out of the body, and it always goes back to the body, because that is the eternal purpose of God.
I always remember many years ago, in the 1950s, when Billy Graham had his first crusade in New York. It was a glorious time—six months in Madison Square Garden. I was there part of the time, because part of the time I went to England.
I always remember, before that campaign began, he sent someone to New York and called all the ministers of the Word of God together. I do not know how, but he invited me to go too, so I went there.
There he mentioned to us, “The work of evangelizing New York is the work of the church. It is because the church is not functioning properly that God allows the crusade to come in.” I always remember that. That is true.
Today you have all kinds of organizations doing all kinds of Christian works. Why? It is because of the failure of the church. But that is not God’s original design. God’s original design is that His work is to be done by His church.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, we need to remember this. When our Lord Jesus commanded His disciples to evangelize the world, what did He say? “From Jerusalem, through Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
In other words, begin where you are. Do not think that you can begin at the end of the world if you do not begin at home.
Please, do not change your service. You have to begin from the very beginning. Brothers and sisters, especially young people, we are attracted by the glamour of some works.
But remember, if you do not start at home, it will not do. Begin right here where you are. Start your service right here, and do not worry until you are somewhere else that you will begin to serve. That will not happen.
Finally, where can we be trained to serve? I think this is a very pressing question everywhere, especially among young people who have the desire to serve. Where can you receive the help you need?
What does Scripture say? The religious world may tell you that you can receive help in seminaries and Bible schools. That is what I thought when I was first saved. Well, what does Scripture say?
If service is imparting the life of Christ, if service is the outflow of the life of Christ within, then how are you to be trained?
Number one, there is the private side and the public side. So far as the private side is concerned, you will discover that service is not something that anybody else in the world can train you in.
They can train you to understand the Bible better, but they can also confuse you. Now, who can train your spiritual life? Who is your trainer?
Why does God give us the Holy Spirit? We have a resident Boss in us—the indwelling Holy Spirit, God Himself. Why is He in you and in me, if it is not for training us?
The Holy Spirit is the Trainer. The anointing within you will teach you in all things—great things and small things. Whatever He teaches is true; it is not a lie. If you obey Him, you abide in Christ.
Brothers and sisters, how we neglect this in training and look for outside training! That is the failure of seminaries.
We learn in the school of Christ. He Himself is responsible to train us how to serve.
Then you find it is not an academic thing; it is a spiritual thing. It is not a religious work; it is the imparting of the life of Christ. Now, who can train us? Only the Holy Spirit.
So, brothers and sisters, if in private life we are not in the school of Christ, under the training of the Holy Spirit, then how can we serve God in a living, real way? Impossible.
Get on your knees. Have dealings with God. Allow God to deal with you. Listen to the still, small voice. Be sensitive. Take up your cross and follow Him. Allow Him to break you down.
Brothers and sisters, these are practical, living, spiritual disciplines that we all need. As long as we live, as long as we serve, we are learning. We never come out of being a learner.
That is the private side. Thank God, there is a public side, because serving God is spiritual and practical.
Oftentimes we think of spiritual things as abstract and intangible. No. Spiritual is practical. So you find that God does give us a practical place to be trained.
Where is that place? Right where you are—in the church where God has put you.
Brothers and sisters, oftentimes you find that we are not satisfied. We are not satisfied with where we are. We are looking for something outside, elsewhere. The grass is greener on the other side.
If we take that kind of attitude, we will never learn. God has put you right where you are, among your brothers and sisters—difficult brothers and sisters, stubborn brothers and sisters, just as you are—to break us all down.
That is the best training in the world.
Timothy, our young brother, was trained where he was. Until the brothers in Lystra and Iconium all recommended him, Paul took him and gave him further training.
But, brothers and sisters, his basic training was at home, in the church. If you do not learn to be trained at home, if you do not learn to be trained in the gathering where you are, then if you are put somewhere else, you will find yourself unable to cope with the situation.
No practical training—only theoretical training. So where is the practical training?
So, brothers and sisters, these are the questions we need to face, not evade. I hope every one of us here will ask these questions.
Am I called to serve? Whom do I serve? Am I really serving God, or man, or a work? What is service? Am I doing true service unto God? Where do I serve? Where do I receive the training I need?
God has arranged everything for you, and you are looking somewhere else.
Now, maybe some brothers and sisters will say, “Well, if that is service, then I am out.” No, you are in.
If you think you can serve, you are out. If you think you cannot serve, you are in.
Serve according to the measure of faith that God has given you. Do not overdo it.
Samuel began his service as a little boy. His duty was to open the door of the temple. It may seem as if it was nothing spiritual, but he was faithful.
He served under Eli, a dying, blind, going-out servant. Yet he was so faithful that, at midnight, when God called him, he went to Eli three times and said, “Did you call me?”
He was so faithful in small things that God entrusted him with big things.
It is always a joy to see children and young people doing what they can—even on Saturday, cleaning the place and helping with the chairs.
I often was touched by a young boy. After the meeting, I saw him carrying a chair. He could hardly lift it up, but he was doing it. Brothers and sisters, do that.
Young people, do not be idle. There are so many places where you can serve. There are elderly sisters and brothers who need help. Offer yourself to them. Help clean their houses. Mow their lawn. Love them.
There are many, many things you can do if you have a heart for it. We are not created to be idle. We are created to be busy—busy for the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, I encourage every one of you: be before the Lord. Reconsider this whole matter of service. I hope it may change your life; I hope it may change your idea.
We need to be real. No more doing religious work. God forbid. Let us pray.
Dear Lord, we ask that Your blood will cover these words, and may Your Spirit speak to our hearts. In Your precious name we pray. Amen.