Lord, we thank You that we have such a great High Priest. Lord, as we even started this day reflecting on Your very character and nature there in Philippians 2, it does bring us immediately into a spirit of worship and adoration.
And we want to continue in that spirit of being at Your feet, of adoring You, as we break the bread of life. Lord, we remembered Your broken body, but we thank You now that You, as the Bread of Life, are One that we can come and feed upon and feast, O Lord.
We present ourselves to You, that, Lord, You would keep us in a place of rest, that we could hear Your voice and not be distracted by the things of this world, the things of life. We set aside this time. We say that we are on holy ground, and we give ourselves to You, Lord, in Your precious name. Amen.
I’d like for us to turn again this morning to 1 John 3. These were the verses that we considered together last week.
Last week, as we looked at this, we just wanted the Lord to continue to teach us how we might truly learn to love, not only in word, but in deed. To help us with that, we read these verses out of 1 John 3, starting in verse 16:
We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
But whoever has the world’s goods, and beholds his brother in need, and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?
Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.
Let us not love in word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. We considered this matter last week together.
We also said last week that there was a corresponding verse encouraging us in our individual lives and in our lives together. It was over in Hebrews 10.
This whole passage is a very precious passage, but we are just taking one verse out of that for our fellowship this morning. In Hebrews 10, because we have such a great High Priest and He has made such a way for us, we can look at verse 24:
Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.
As we are all aware, and as John has announced, starting next Sunday, we have the conference. Maybe it would be appropriate this morning if we had a time together to prepare us in our service for the conference. Well, that might be appropriate, but that is not what is upon my heart.
What is upon my heart is that we would be prepared for service in our Lord’s presence every day. We are very thankful that we have a conference. We sit here in the riches and blessing of all that we have received over the many years through the conference.
One aspect of the conference is that it serves almost as a checkpoint, an opportunity for us each year to really allow that Great Physician to give us a spiritual examination of our hearts in regard to this matter of service.
You know, each year, when you get older, you go to the doctor and get your annual physical. You think you are doing okay, but then the doctor puts you through all these tests and everything, and you walk out with five prescriptions in your hands. You thought you were doing fine.
But our Great Physician, in the same way, would really like to be doing this with us every day. Yet, in the hecticness of life, we get caught up in things. So it is good when we have opportunities to stop and reflect.
Because we have this conference, which we are very thankful for, this can give us a checkpoint, a time to stop as we consider this matter of service and allow the Lord to search our hearts. We can allow Him to teach us more and more of His real heart in this matter of service.
It allows us to ask the questions: Who am I serving? Why am I serving? What is my motivation for service? What is the source of my service? Am I serving man? Am I serving God? Am I looking to get the accolades and praise of man, or the praise of God?
It is really an opportunity we have to present ourselves to Him and allow Him, in His wonderful, loving way, to do a great searching of our hearts.
Because we really do not know our hearts. We think we do. We kid ourselves at times. I know I do, all the time. I think I know my heart, and then all of a sudden the Word of God and the Holy Spirit come in and shine upon it, and boom, we see how wicked our hearts are.
But praise God, it is His love that shines upon us. It is His love and desire to set us free from the tyranny of our own self, that we could enter into the goodness of our Lord and Savior.
I would like to ask another question. Because we have to ask ourselves, as we are in this school of Christ and as we are serving: in school, sometimes you can take certain classes and get more credit for them.
Do you get more credit for serving at the conference than you do in everyday life? Before the Lord, do we get more credit for our service at the conference than we do tomorrow morning at work or this afternoon in our home?
In the Lord’s eyes, does He say, “Wow, this or that?” No, we do not. What is the Lord looking for? He is looking for faithfulness every day with what He puts in our hands.
Next week, we have the conference in our hands. This afternoon, we have our home life in our hands. During the week, we have work in our hands. What He is looking for is for us to be faithful with what He has put in our hands.
Really, we should be having the same spirit of service within our lives—not just one week a year, but actually 365 days a year. That is what He is looking for.
But our conscience—sometimes, I know I am speaking a lot out of, as I said last week, personal testimony—sometimes one week of service can go a long way in easing our conscience. That old barometer we have for measuring how much we have served can leave us satisfied and content.
I have been greatly convicted of the Lord changing my whole perspective on this matter of service—how He is wanting us really to be in that same spirit. Yes, are we faithful at the conference? But really, would we display that same faithfulness every day of the year in His life?
I was reading from Brother C. H. McIntosh, and he was telling about the servants of the king. He said that those who are truly serving the king have such a desire to satisfy their master’s heart that it does not matter whether they are driving his chariot or polishing his boots. They are doing what the master has asked them to do.
Sometimes we would love to drive the king’s chariot, but are we willing to polish the boots? The loyal king looks at it as the same. He is looking for us to be faithful with what He puts in our hands.
If we can allow that very character and nature of Christ to work within us, our Lord will be satisfied not only at the conference, which we are really desiring, but also far beyond that.
As we are talking about this matter of service, we are using the conference as a checkpoint. But really, what we are talking about is serving the Lord, considering how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds every day of our life, not just in an isolated time.
Would the Lord really help us? As we look at this verse in Hebrews 10:24, it says, “Consider.” This word, consider, is almost the same word as we looked at last week in 1 John 3 when we said, “Behold”—there is one who beholds his brother.
This word consider means to look upon one, to see one, to look intently, to look upon one and understand where they are, understand what they are going through, and ask how the Lord can come in. How can we bring the Lord into that specific situation to really encourage and stimulate them in the way?
Even as we think of this matter of considering how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, we have to stop and ask the question: Why? Why are we about this matter of service? Why are we about this matter of loving one another?
It is because the Lord has a burning desire that the reality of His life be lived out and realized within each one of us. He desires that the reality of the heavenly vision that we considered last year at the conference become realized in our life.
It is not just knowing about it, but allowing, through the working of the cross and His love constraining us, an entering into the reality. That is what it is all about. That is the end. Why are we serving? It is a work of preparation.
We are serving one another. We are serving the Lord in all of this so that we can be prepared, that we would be those who would be used to hasten His return. It talks about how the bride would make herself ready, that this heavenly vision would be lived out in a very real way within our lives.
Some of us had fellowship together last night, and one of the prayers of my heart is this: We talk a lot about being built together, but I have a prayer of knowing, in our daily life, what the reality of being built together means and how it gets expressed.
How does the practicality of serving one another, how does the practicality of really being built together, get worked out and manifested within our lives? What is the evidence? What is the fruit? What is the manifestation of that?
Oh, that the Lord would show us and bring us into that, that we could be that living testimony that He is calling us to be in this hour.
Paul was captured by this. Paul saw this, and it captured him. That is where we have the theme verses for the conference in Philippians 3. Paul was captured, and it brought him to a place of humility.
He saw who the Lord was. He saw who Paul was. He saw there was so much more, and he determined that he was pressing on, that he could really gain that for which he had been laid hold of.
There was something that totally changed and revolutionized Paul’s life, in a way that Paul counted everything else as loss for the value of knowing his Lord.
I find those verses encouraging, and also very condemning when you think of yourself. I look at that verse and say, “There is no chance.” There is no chance as long as I am looking at Mac.
But praise God, Paul did not look at Saul. He saw God. He saw the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is what held him, and that is what kept him going. I want my eyes to be upon the King.
Brother Sparks has a little booklet called Men Whose Eyes Have Seen the King. When your eyes have seen the King, we are changed, and we are going on, and our lives are revolutionized.
We are not even conscious of our service. We are not even conscious of this or that. There is only a consciousness of Him. Could we be brought into that and let His life really be realized within us?
A few other preliminary questions: As we are thinking about the conference, we can ask the question, “Why are you going to the conference?” Why, within our hearts, are we going to the conference?
Am I going to the conference to serve? Am I going to the conference for fellowship with the brothers and sisters? Am I going to the conference to hear the good teaching? Now, all of these are good, but none of these are the primary reason.
The primary reason we are going to the conference is to behold the King, to see the King, to come and sit at His feet.
Even our brothers who are sharing in the morning and evening, what we categorize as the main ministries—Stephen, Lance, and Dana—their primary reason in going to the conference is not to speak.
Their primary reason in going to the conference is to behold, to hear, and to be in the presence of the Lord. Would we have that right perspective as we go? Because when we see Him, it all falls into place.
That is how we are able to keep our hearts in a right way. Once the eyes of our hearts are on one another, on other things, or on our service, what happens? As soon as our eyes get upon our service, we get pretty proud of our service: “Look what I am doing.”
Or then we start to get insulted. We get offended by the brethren: “They do not appreciate my service. Look at all I did for them.”
Oh, but if our eyes are upon the King, we are not occupied with this other stuff. We are occupied with beholding Him and allowing Him to meet us in a wonderful way.
As we consider this verse this morning of stimulating one another to love and good deeds, one of the things that verse spoke to me about was relationship. It spoke about being close, because how do we encourage one another? We are together.
It is hard to encourage those on the far side of the earth, way out in California or somewhere else. But if we are together, we can see each other, we can allow the Spirit to speak to us, and we can encourage one another.
There is a built-in understanding there of relationships—being interrelated and caring for one another. We have such a wonderful Lord who wants to work in us to encourage one another.
In this matter of encouragement, we all get encouraged in different ways. It says, “Learn how to provoke”—some translations say, “Provoke one another”; others say, “Stimulate one another.” We all get motivated in different ways.
That really is the characteristic, to use a sports illustration, of the great coaches in history. They knew they could look at a player, consider these individuals, and know exactly how to speak to certain ones.
There are certain ones you could chew out in front of the whole team, and it would strengthen them. They would say, “I am never going to let that happen.” That would motivate them.
You chew somebody else out in front of the whole team, and they are lost for the whole year. They are of no value. You speak to that one one-on-one.
Sometimes you go in and, in a negative way, really chew them out, and for some it strengthens them up. But for others, they know they did it wrong, and what they need is, “You did it wrong, yes, but go on. You can do it right next time.”
There are different ways. We are all motivated, stimulated, and encouraged in different ways. This is what our wonderful Holy Spirit within us wants to teach us: how, as we are related with one another, do we really know how to stimulate and provoke one another in this matter of serving our precious Lord?
There is a wonderful story. We actually sang the song this morning, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” and it was written by Isaac Watts.
There is a precious testimony in Isaac Watts’s life of how his father was one who considered his son and knew exactly how to encourage him. His father was a pastor who suffered many years under the crown in England and was quite often in prison.
One time he was with his son, and back then they used to just sing what they called the psalm tunes. They just sang these groaning, gruesome things.
Watts came to his father one day when he was about nineteen or twenty, and he said, “Dad, this music just sounds like people singing with marbles in their mouth. There is no joy, and there is no spontaneity unto the Lord.”
His father was a wise man. He could have said, “Son, that is the way it is in our church, and you just suck it up and go on with it.” But he saw that there was something in his son’s heart. There was a concern.
So he said, “Well, son, why do not you write some music?” That afternoon, Isaac went into his room and wrote his first hymn. They sang it at the evening service, and the ones loved it.
From then on, he started penning hymns and writing hymns. We are able to enjoy the benefit of Isaac Watts’s service because his father stopped for a moment to consider how to stimulate his son to love and good deeds.
Praise God for those who take that moment, that opportunity, to come in. Would that we have the Holy Spirit within us working in such a way that we could learn how to do that with one another for His glory and for His honor.
One of the greatest ways that we are encouraged and stimulated is through examples. I would like to use one example this morning from the New Testament.
Paul, in his second letter to those in Corinth—2 Corinthians—uses an example. Let us turn this morning over to 2 Corinthians 8.
The setting for this story is that the ones within Macedonia, within Greece, were gathering together a gift, and Paul and some of his coworkers were going to carry that gift back to the saints in Jerusalem because they were in need.
We can remember at times how the ones in Jerusalem, and the ones Paul testified of in Rome, helped one another in various times of need. Now these dear ones in Macedonia had an opportunity to share with the ones in Jerusalem.
If we look at 2 Corinthians 8:1-5, the practical expression of what this passage is dealing with is giving. But really, what is giving? Giving is a service.
We want to look at these verses this morning in regard to this whole matter of the spirit of service, and how these ones were encouraged to really enter in and press beyond all that they had to show forth the glory of God, that we could be encouraged in the same way.
2 Corinthians 8:1:
Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia,
that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality.
For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord,
begging us with much entreaty for the favor of participation in the support of the saints,
and this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God.
As we said, the setting here is that they were getting ready to send this gift to Jerusalem. These dear ones in Macedonia—we do not have time to go into all their background—were in a very impoverished area.
They were under the rule of the Roman government. Rome had come in and seized many of the assets they had had before, and through heavy taxation, Rome was taking most of the profits that used to flow to the individuals.
But as Paul is trying to encourage them in this whole matter, it is a spiritual ministry. The focus in this chapter is on financial giving, but we want to look at it from the heart of service.
They had a heart to serve the Lord. It practically manifested itself in giving, which, as we desire to serve the Lord, will be a practical manifestation of giving. But giving is just another aspect of our service unto Him.
As we said last week, remember what Paul said to those in Thessalonica: “I was with you in word. We declared the gospel, but I also gave my life.” They gave their lives in service unto these dear ones.
As we look through these couple of chapters, there are many treasures, many golden nuggets. We actually read one this morning in verse 9:
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that through His poverty you might become rich.
What a testimony. Through His poverty, we might become rich. These ones in Macedonia, in themselves, did not have a lot, but they had what was important. They had the Lord.
As we are looking at this matter of service this morning, I would like us to look at three aspects of it in these first five verses: the source of our service, the spirit of our service, and then the secret of our service.
As we look at the source of our service, there in verse 1, it is the grace of God. All of our service flows from the grace of God.
Paul was not commending the Macedonians because they had something. It was not as if they had come in because of their superior quality, character, and nature. Paul was commending them because they had not taken the grace of God in vain.
As the grace of God has been poured out to each one of us and we are recipients of that grace, are we those who respond to that grace and do not receive the grace of God in vain?
These dear ones in Macedonia did that. Their circumstances were horrible. There were terrible situations, not only physical and emotional situations, but they did not allow their circumstances to hinder them from being about the Master’s business, from being about what the Lord had called them to.
Oh, how often we actually limit the grace of God by the circumstances we find ourselves in. But praise God, the grace of God is not limited by good or bad circumstances.
We shared a few months back at home about the life of Joseph. Joseph is a precious testimony of one who served the Lord regardless of his circumstances—whether he was in his father’s house, Potiphar’s house, prison, or the palace.
Regardless of good, adverse, or bad circumstances, Joseph faithfully served the Lord in whatever circumstances.
How often there is something natural within us that wants to say, “I will wait until my circumstances get a little better. I will wait until I feel better. I will wait for this or that.”
No, the grace of God is there for each and every one of us. Praise God, these dear ones in Macedonia received that grace.
What was the effect upon them of receiving that grace? Look at verse 2. The effect of the grace of God brought forth a joy in their service. There is a tremendous joy there.
It says, “In a great ordeal of affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality.” What a double paradox.
In their great ordeal of affliction, because of the grace of God, what did it bring? An abundance of joy. Wow, in that ordeal of affliction, they found the Lord in such a marvelous way that it brought forth an abundance of joy.
In their deep poverty, what was the fruit of their deep poverty? Liberality. Because they knew whom they had believed in and knew He was able to keep them in that hour of trial. Praise God.
So often in our great ordeals of affliction, we turn in on ourselves. We become so self-centered. We get worried about ourselves. But the afflictions of those in Macedonia brought out the life of Christ in a marvelous, wonderful way, because the life of Christ cares for others.
We can simply remember the words of our Lord in Gethsemane: “Not My will, but Your will be done.” That is His life. That is His character. In spite of the afflictions, there was a joy that He found.
The same thing was true with Joseph. Even in spite of being wrongfully imprisoned, Joseph served the other two. He noticed those other prisoners were hurting. He saw their countenance upon their faces.
There was not that self-centeredness. So often, when we go through various trials and afflictions and get overwhelmed, we totally become self-absorbed. May the Lord help us in that.
He knows that is so natural, but thank God, it is the grace of God that has been poured out for us, that we can receive that grace and enter into all the joy of our Master.
In their deep poverty, it overflowed to such a rich liberality. Sometimes ones will say that in such poverty and such a situation, they cannot afford to give. Actually, they cannot afford not to give at that time.
When words come to our mind that we cannot give, would the Holy Spirit remind us at that point that we cannot afford not to give? I am not even necessarily speaking financially, but I am thinking about ourselves.
“I am going through so much. I cannot do this.” Oh, but how the Lord, in the richness of all that He went through, poured out His life in such a wonderful way.
This was Paul’s testimony, even there in 2 Corinthians 6. Paul talks about how, being poor, yet he was rich. He possessed nothing, but he had all things because he had Christ.
These dear ones in Macedonia had found the life of Christ to be all-sufficient in the midst of their circumstances. As we prepare, not only for this week ahead but for our daily lives and what lies ahead of us, would we know the all-sufficiency of the grace of God?
The daily sufficiency of His very life within us can strengthen us and equip us in such a marvelous way.
As they found this grace of God, what did it show forth? What did it work within their life? It brought forth their spirit of service.
We look in verses 3 and 4. In verse 3, we see the spirit of service. What was that spirit of service? It was a freewill offering. It was a life laid down. They completely gave of themselves.
“For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord.” They had such a desire. They gave so freely. They poured themselves out as they were stimulated by the love of Christ.
Of their own accord, they responded and poured themselves out. Really, if we look at building the house of God and being built together, all through the Scriptures, how was the material for the house of God, the tabernacle, obtained? It was through freewill offerings.
It was a freewill offering. The Lord touched the people, and they were brought in in such a way that their offerings were so much that the Lord even had to say, “Stop. You have brought enough.”
Would that not be wonderful today? Somehow, I would love to experience that—not for the experience’s sake, but for the sake of the joy of the Lord, how ones would do so much that our Master said, “Ah, that is enough.”
I wonder if that will ever occur this side of glory. But we can still hope for it, and we can press on to satisfy Him. Oh, what a joy it would be. What a joy.
This verse says how they even gave beyond what they could, beyond their ability. They thought they could only do so much, but they gave beyond their ability.
Have you ever found yourself in such a situation where you just said, “This is impossible”? But as you gave yourself to the Lord and allowed His grace to come in upon you, you look back and marvel: “How did that ever get done?”
As ones go through various things, I can think, as I look around this room, of the various mothers who are in this room. There are times when they have been with their children, and their children are sick or going through something, and they have had to say, “This is beyond my ability.”
But it was not beyond His ability. It is a precious testimony when mothers and fathers, when brothers and sisters, allow that grace of God to come in.
One of our greatest problems is not our lack of ability, but our thinking that we have ability. We need to come to the place of realizing—I know I do—that I do not have that ability.
I have a lot of natural effort, but that is not what He is looking for. He is looking for His life to get realized and worked out within us.
It is a challenge even when you do repetitive things. We go to the conference next week, and we have had thirty-some conferences. In many natural ways, we could say, “We have an ability to pull off a good conference. We know how this should work.”
Would the Lord guard each and every one of our hearts? It does not matter if you have been caring for babies in the nursery for thirty years, if you have been teaching a class for twenty-five years, or whatever aspect we have been doing for so many years. Would we be kept from relying upon our ability?
Praise God, we can learn from our past experiences, and He uses that to teach us and strengthen us, but we do not rely upon that. We look at His ability and His life to lead us on into the fullness of what He would have.
Would we be students within the school of Christ—not only at the conference, but really every day of our life? Every day of our life, would we be learning from Him?
As we see these ones giving with this freewill offering, again, what does it do? It manifests within these ones in Macedonia a desire to give. There was a desire to serve.
Look at verse 4. I love verse 4, because it says, “Begging us.” The ones in Macedonia were begging Paul, with much entreaty, for the favor of participation in the support of the saints.
They did not even want to be asked to serve. They were begging before the request was even made known. They begged. They were crying out, “I want to do it. I want to enter into this.”
Why were they doing this? The reason they were doing this is that they saw beyond. They saw that this was far beyond just a physical ministry of meeting practical needs in Jerusalem.
They saw the very spiritual nature of their service. They saw that God had a purpose in this as a testimony of the oneness of the body of Christ—how ones over here can help ones there.
They saw beyond the physical to the spiritual service. I read in the New American Standard, “favor,” “participation,” and “support.” Those Greek words are charis, koinonia, and diakonia: grace, fellowship, and spiritual service.
The Darby translation says, “Begging us with much entreaty to give effect to the grace and fellowship of the service which would be rendered to the saints.”
What a spirit of serving the brethren. What a spirit of serving the Lord. This grace is not just for taking, not for the collection, not for the gift. It is the grace of entering in, the grace of serving the brethren, the blessing of it.
Oh, how precious it is. Would the Lord open our eyes to see this? Because if we can see the true nature of this spiritual service, what the Lord is then able to do is bring us beyond our own selves to see the reality.
We see the reality of the Lord building His church. We see the reality of this heavenly vision being made flesh and blood among brothers and sisters. It gets it out of the theoretical and brings it down.
The Word is tabernacling amongst us, and we behold His glory. Just as it testifies of the Lord in John 1, He desires for the testimony of that to be expressed in His body today.
Oh, that the Word would come and tabernacle amongst us, that we could behold the Lord in one another. That is the expression of the heavenly vision. That is the expression of the testimony of Jesus in this hour.
Not up here, but here throughout the heart, being expressed one with another. When it talks of the bride making herself ready, these are very practical things, very day-to-day issues within our life.
But they are all a product. They are all a response to not taking the grace of God in vain, allowing the cross to work within us in such a way that His life comes forth, that He is our Master, and that we are serving Him.
How were these dear ones in Macedonia able to do this? What was the very secret of their service? Look in verse 5.
They had a heart secret as to how they could enter into this: they first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to one another.
They first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to one another. This is really true as a principle within our whole Christian life. We first give ourselves to the Lord, and then to one another.
It comes back to this matter of consecration. It comes back to allowing Him to live within us—not doing something for Him, but presenting ourselves unto Him, that He can live through us.
So often we see needs, and even with very good intentions, we can give ourselves to one another before we have given ourselves to the Lord.
Really, I find—again, personal testimony—I find that difficult at a conference. It takes a little extra discipline to get up each morning and have a quiet time, a time personally with you and the Lord, before we get caught up in the day of the conference.
We can substitute togetherness at a conference for even our personal devotion to the Lord. We need to start each day, each one of us, giving ourselves to the Lord. Then we can go to prayer meeting.
We do not do it at the prayer meeting. First, when we come, it is not necessarily a lengthy period of time; it is a heart issue. It is first giving ourselves to the Lord, settling the issue of what we are about for that day.
Then, as we do that, we can enter into all that He would have for us.
If you reflect upon these verses, they really sound a lot like Romans 12:1. It says they served by the grace of God, and Romans 12:1 says, “Therefore, by the mercies of God.”
We talked about this being a freewill offering. In Romans 12:1, it talks about a living and holy sacrifice. We talked about how they first gave themselves to the Lord. Romans 12:1 says, “Present yourselves to God.”
Paul had one message in all that he wrote: giving ourselves unto the Lord. This is not necessarily first in time, but first in priority and importance.
How critical this is within our lives, that we would allow Him to have the priority and importance within our lives. We all get pressed in so many different ways.
But there is one thing that we all—I know that I have—I always have time to do what I want to do. It does not matter how busy I am. I always have time to do what I want to do.
Let us say I have a doctor’s appointment one day. I might not necessarily want to do that, but someone calls me up and says, “Hey, can we get together? Have a cup of coffee? Have lunch?”
Maybe I do not really want to be with that brother. I do not like that person. I say, “No, I have a doctor’s appointment.” That eases our conscience, and we say, “Okay, we will try.” We are glad we had a doctor’s appointment and did not have to be with that one.
Someone else calls up, maybe somebody we really like, somebody we want to impress, somebody we want to be on good terms with, somebody we think a lot of. They say, “Hey, how about we get together for a cup of coffee?”
“Sure, no problem.” We hang up, call the doctor’s office, reschedule, and rework our whole calendar.
You know, who are we serving? Not in a prejudicial way, but giving ourselves to the Lord and then serving whom He puts in front of us—serving and handling things in a way that allows His life to be manifested.
I have to confess, within the conference, one of the things we have been working with for a few years is the bookstore. Whenever you are serving the Lord, He has a wonderful way of finding out your heart.
There are some people who come into the bookstore, and they are just a real pest. I am just being transparent. They say, “Would you order that? Would you get this?” And you do not want to do anything for them. They turn you off.
But then it never fails. The Lord brings somebody else in, maybe a nice, quiet little older sister, and she says, “Could you do this?” I say, “Oh yeah, I will do that. I will order all these books for you.”
But we find our heart. It is very convenient, if in our service we keep our hearts before the Lord, for Him to touch those areas where we need to go through this refining process.
Are we honest enough in our daily lives to allow Him to touch us? Or do we say, “I am a Christian. I am not supposed to call people pests. They are not supposed to bother me.” We end up living in denial.
Would we really allow the honesty of the Lord to search our hearts in a way that we can come into all that He has for us, enjoying the liberality and joy of our Master?
That is where these ones in Macedonia are such an example to us. We can be encouraged by their example because they were given to the Lord. They were surrendered to Him for His will to be done through them.
We see the fruit of their labor, how they served beyond what they had. But they gave of Who they had. As we allow the Who living within us to come out, the Lord will be glorified, and He will be doing a marvelous work in the hour in which we are living.
As we think about our service, the final question is this: What is the Lord looking for? Is the Lord looking for perfection in our service?
No. What our Lord is looking for is simply faithfulness. Whatever He puts in our hands, He is simply asking us to be faithful unto that.
If He asks us one day to polish the king’s boots, we do that to the glory of God. If He asks us to drive the king’s chariot, we do that to the glory of God.
Whatever we do in word or deed, we do to the glory of God, because He is the One directing us. Our eyes are not upon ourselves, but our eyes are upon Him.
May the Lord help us take this time and use the opportunity of the conference and our service there for the Holy Spirit to search us: “Lord, why do I want to serve here?”
Praise God, this is an encouragement to service, but we can learn from it. “Why, Lord?” If there is any impure motive, as David prayed in Psalm 139, “Lord, set me free of it. Set me free. Search me, Lord, and try my heart. See if there is any evil way within me.”
As we consider our motive for service, we consider the why. Also, may we be examples of considering how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.
Would the Lord really be teaching us how to encourage and stimulate one another? We are a great diverse lot here, and we all get stimulated and encouraged in different ways.
Would we be open to have the eyes of our hearts open and our ears to hear, to really know how we can encourage and stimulate one another?
Remember, why are we doing this? That the bride would make herself ready, and that we would be those who would hasten the Lord’s return.
As we have been considering this matter of service, last night some brothers and sisters shared a meal and some fellowship. There was a poem shared during that time, and I would like us to close today as I read this poem.
It is by our brother Watchman Nee, and it is found in Volume One of The Finest of the Wheat. The article following it says that this poem more typifies our brother’s life.
Would that we could be encouraged by him in this matter of service, as we think ahead specifically of the conference and of everyday life.
Let me love and not be respected.
Let me serve and not be rewarded.
Let me labor and not be remembered.
Let me suffer and not be regarded.'Tis the pouring, not the drinking;
‘Tis the breaking, not the keeping;
A life suffering to seek others’ blessing,
A life loving and true comfort giving.Not expecting pity and concern,
Not accepting solace and applause;
Even lonely, even forgotten,
Even wordless, even forsaken.Tears and blood, my price for the righteous crown shall be;
Losing all, my cost for a faithful pilgrim’s life.'Tis the life, O Lord, that You chose to live
In those days when on earth You walked,
Gladly suffering all injuries and loss
So that all might draw near and repose.I cannot see how much further I shall go;
Still, I press on, knowing there is no return.
Let me follow Your pattern, so perfect and true,
Bearing ingratitudes without complaint.In this time of trial, O Lord, I pray
That You will wipe all my hidden tears away.
Let me learn, O Lord, You are my reward.
Let me be others’ blessing all my days.
Amen.