Good morning, everyone.
I feel like I need to say Happy New Year as well. We have not been here together in the new year, I do not think.
This is exciting and terrifying all at the same time, but that is a good place to be before the Lord. You will hear me share about the process here.
And if you see me pick this up, it is not coffee, okay? I am nervous, and that is a good thing too.
I will be brief, because I heard Luke has a two-and-a-half-hour exposition on pre- and post-. No, I am just kidding.
I will be as brief as I can be with what the Lord gave me. It really boils down to just a simple word of encouragement.
You are going to hear me talk about service in His house, giving ourselves to the Lord, and, wrapped up in that, loving the saints. These are just some basic things the Lord has been showing me, that I have been experiencing, and that He has been speaking to me.
Some of the catalyst for this is some of the recent things that I have had the privilege to be a part of—the little mini-conference in New Jersey back in the middle of December.
Some of you heard me share, maybe a few Wednesdays ago, that I was really looking forward to that time. I was very, very, very much encouraged while I was there to see this group of really my peers—older than some—but really to see this expression of the body of Christ there, pursuing the Lord and really just given fully to Him.
That is one of the things that has kind of been on my heart from being there. We have talked a lot and had a lot of fellowship here recently about the home groups. What is the Lord speaking to us about that? What is His way? We have been seeking Him: How do we strengthen the body and His testimony through His expression in that way?
Let me back up a little bit and give you a little testimony, because it relates to the whole theme here. This is a little testimony about even being asked to be up here.
A few Wednesdays ago—I think it was the Wednesday before Christmas—I was approached, and Luke was approached as well. As you hear these personal things from my testimony, I want it to be an encouragement to everyone here: the Lord is gracious. The Lord works. The Lord makes the way in these things.
I was amazed, as I looked back even in the hours after I was asked, that there was no fear. There was not that wave of fear. Everybody has experienced that. You know what I am talking about: when you are placed into something that you know is above your head, that you know is beyond you.
But the thought came to me, “If the Lord wants to use me”—and if you interpret this the wrong way, it can sound the wrong way—“if the Lord wants to use me, who am I to stand in the way?”
You will hear this thread woven through the sharing here: it is not about us; it is about Him.
I felt a little bit like Jonah. We all know the story of Jonah. If you boil it down to the simplest things, what happened? The Lord asked him to do something, and he said, “Thank You. No, I am going this way.” He ran in the opposite direction, almost literally.
There really was not so much of that in me, but I am sharing this to encourage you and to be transparent before you.
I felt a little bit like Moses. The Lord had to take him through forty years in the wilderness to break him and put him into the place where he needed to be. When he came back and the Lord asked him, again, just like Jonah, “I want you to go do this thing,” Moses’ response, when you boil it down, was, “I am not worthy. I am not able.”
In seeing these two servants of God, I was reminded that there are so many examples like this in Scripture where the Lord calls people. We have heard it all before. Nothing of what I am saying here today is going to be surprising or new. I just pray the Lord would add His newness to it.
Looking at all the servants of God in the Bible whom He calls, none of them should have been there. None of them should have been the ones chosen, if we use worldly, earthly standards.
But it is such an encouragement. I hope that aspect is also encouraging to every one of us here: He does not expect us to come to a certain level of knowledge or spirituality, or whatever it is. He simply calls us to be obedient. You are going to hear that again, probably multiple times from me.
Every time I wanted to say to the Lord, “I cannot do this. This is not me,” I heard Him, very lovingly, almost stop me in mid-sentence and say, like a loving Father, “This is not about you. You cannot do this.”
When we were at the little mini-conference in New Jersey back in December, that is one thing we heard very clearly. I believe it was our brother Colin who shared it: in service in God’s house, you get in trouble when you start looking inward, when you start looking at yourself.
We are supposed to do the opposite. We are supposed to look outward—meaning, really, that you look off to Him; you look off to Christ.
This is the heart, really, of service and love: service in God’s house and love to His people. It is not about you.
What does this look like? Service, love, service in His house, love to the saints?
Part of the required reading for this little conference back in December was Government and Ministry in the Local Church. This is a book by Brother K. C. I am going to read a little excerpt for you, but you need to bear with me because it is going to sound like a bit of a downer initially—really sobering. You will see what I mean.
This is speaking about eldership, but as I read this, it really caught me because I saw that you could almost substitute the word service wherever you see eldership or that type of word.
Do not think that to be an elder is to receive honor and glory today.
It is true that Peter said you will receive glory one day, but it is not today.
Today, all you get is sufferings.
If you do not have the mind to suffer—this is referencing 1 Peter 4:1—do not aspire to be an elder.
When your brothers and sisters misunderstand you, when they blame you for everything in the church, can you bear it?
Are you able to endure it?
Is your love for the church so much that, no matter how much you are misunderstood, despised, trampled upon, blamed, ignored, not respected, or unnoticed, you are still willing to love and serve?
You are even willing to serve more, just as Paul said, “The less I am loved, the more I love.”
That last reference is 2 Corinthians 12:15.
How sobering is that? That is what service means.
When I saw that passage, it jumped out at me, and I was really convicted. This is really the attitude we need to have, and that is beyond us. It really has to be the Lord capturing us and showing us, again, that it is not about you.
In preparation for this, I came across a few things that I really was not even looking for, but they seemed to fit very perfectly. So I thought I would mention these to you as well.
There is a passage from a song. I had forgotten this song; you probably have never heard it before. It is by a wonderful Christian group out of Ireland, For My Dear Sister.
This is just one of the first verses. My heart is that this would be our prayer:
May I be broken bread;
May I be poured out wine;
May I incarnate Your kindness, Lord—
Your will done Your way.
Spend my life, Jesus, any way You please,
Whether on great things or what seems small—
Your will done Your way.
One of those lines—the second to last there, “whether on great things or what seems small”—really jumped out to me as well.
As we think about serving, being a part of the body of Christ, and taking care of the saints, however that looks, it is very easy—I know for me—to fall into the normal worldly mindset that it has to be visible. It has to be something you can measure. It has to be visible.
But just like that line says, “Whether on great things or what seems small,” it is the opposite of what the world thinks. You simply are obedient to what the Lord calls you to, to what He has brought you into.
I am going to test your knowledge of Christian authors. I am going to read one more excerpt, or quote, and see if anyone recognizes this. This is talking about love. It was another thing I was not looking for, but it jumped out to me as the Lord brought me to it.