A Passion to Serve Him - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, December 13th. Believers in Jesus know they should be serving God. But how much thought do you give to why you serve Him?

Today we can learn how to have a passion to serve Him. Which brings you the most sense of satisfaction? Serving other people or being served?

All of us fall into one of those two categories. Some of us here love to be served. Some of us here love to serve other people.

That is, we get our greatest joy in being a servant to someone else or we get our greatest joy in having someone serve us or wait on us. What was the attitude of the Lord Jesus? Jesus said, I have not come to be served but to serve and to give my life a ransom for many. That is, He said, my service is limited only even unto the giving of my life for other people. Then you recall what He said in John chapter 12, verse 26. He said, those who serve Me, the Father will honor them.

Listen to that. He says the Father honors those who serve Him. Then you recall that Paul put it this way. He said, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Then he describes Christ's attitude. He says, Jesus did not grasp His position as the Son of God. But rather He laid down His glory and took upon Himself the form of a bondservant. That's the lowest slave in the household.

The one who would unsandal the guests and wash their dusty, dirty feet and dry them with a towel. Then Paul put it another way. He said, for we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus under good works or under service which He hath before ordained that you and I should walk in them. That is, God has foreordained that every single believer be a servant. So there's no such thing as those servants who serve in the church and those of us who are outside. My friend, nowhere in the Bible does it place us on two levels. In the eyes of God, all of us are servants.

When you trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you became a servant of the living God. The Bible says we're all His servants. That's why I continually remind you of what He says in Ephesians chapter 2 when He says, we are His workmanship, persons of notable excellence. He says, we are His workmanship. That is God's masterpieces.

That doesn't mean He's finished, but He's still working on us. Every single one of us who has been saved is a servant of the living God. The only difference is we have different roles. Can you identify anything specifically in your life which you could say is an act of service for God? And notice what Paul says. He says, we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus under good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Which is His way of saying it is to be our lifestyle. Serving God is a natural, normal aspect and activity in the life of every single believer.

Well, one of the most beautiful descriptions of a passion to serve God is found in 2 Corinthians chapter 11. I want you to turn that if you will. Verse 22, are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I speak as if insane.

I am more so. And then he says, in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death, five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day have I spent in the deep, I have been on frequent journeys, now listen to this, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren, those who are false teachers. I have been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And then he says, apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure upon me of concern for all the churches. Paul says, here is the way that I have lived my life. This is the way I have given myself to Jesus Christ. And the reason Paul gives this is simply to defend himself against those who were criticizing him.

He wasn't taking any pride in all this. What motivated him to suffer all these things? One thing, this man had a passion to serve Christ. Now I want to talk about two aspects of that passion to serve him. And first of all, the motivation for serving the Lord Jesus Christ, and I mean by that for having a passion to serve him. Now remember we said that a passion is a strong, intense, overwhelming, emotional desire for something. It can be for someone or for something.

It can be used in the wrong way. It can be used in a spiritual fashion, which we're talking about here. What is it that should motivate you and me to have a strong, intense desire to serve the Lord God? Well, first of all, we should be motivated by gratitude to God for his pardon of our sins. How could you and I ever thank God enough for forgiving us of our sins? The Lord Jesus Christ came into this world and died on the cross, not for worthy sinners, not for people who promised to do good, not because he found in us anything worthy of saving, but he died for your sins in mind and saved us from wrecking and ruining and destroying our lives ultimately and eternally, simply because he loved us. Can you tell me any other reason needed to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and the fact of pure gratitude for what he's done for us?

You could already be in torment, suffering already for rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ had he not saved you. And the only reason we're here today and the only reason you're listening is the grace of God, his patience with us, his grace toward us, his goodness and love toward us. Do you and I need any other motivation for serving him than just saying, thank you, Lord, for doing for me what I could never have done for myself, nor could anyone else have done it for me. Do you ever stop and thank him for saving you? You know, he didn't have to. He chose to save you and to forgive you of your sin.

Let me ask you a question. How can any of us justify refusing to serve the Lord God when he has saved you and me from eternal torment? How can I ever justify that? So one of the primary motivations for serving him and having a passion to serve him, an intense, strong, overwhelming desire is the fact that he saved me and that he loved me and that he sent his Holy Spirit to live in you and me and to enable us to do anything and everything he requires of us. And to know that living on the inside of us is the inexhaustible resource of the living Christ, who is always there to meet every single need we have. Do you need any more motivation than that to serve him? There's a second motivation for serving him, and that is a conviction of his call. Now, let me distinguish between what I mean by serving him and a call. Many people have the idea that the only folks ought to be serving God are people who've had some definite Damascus road, lightning shock where God suddenly says, thou shall go and serve me. Well, I didn't have one of those. In fact, I doubt if many of you did or if any of you did. In fact, when somebody says, well, tell me about your call to the ministry.

Here's what I have to tell them. I was saved when I was 12 years of age. I didn't know a whole lot about the Bible, and I didn't have anybody to give me much instruction. But very soon after that, I began to feel that God was speaking to my heart about my life. I'd never heard the phrase the will of God.

I'd never heard that. I'd never heard the phrase that of God's call. I just know that something began to happen in my life. And two years later or less, I knew that the only thing that I could really ever do in life is to preach the gospel. Inferior, scared to death, didn't know how in the world I'd ever get to college, didn't have any money and thought about how much it would cost and how little I had and where in the world I was going to make it.

Had a thousand reasons for not doing it. But by the age of 14, I knew there was only one thing I'd ever be able to do and be obedient to God. Nothing shocked me.

Nothing knocked me down. I didn't see any visions, no dreams. And God didn't come to me and say, Charles Stanley, I call you to preach.

Rather, it was the growing impression of the Holy Spirit. So that's one way God calls. On the other hand, there are those people who have the experience that is very dramatic and God calls them a certain way. And sometimes many people wait till God says something very definite. Well, I can tell you, if you're waiting for him to speak audibly, more than likely, you're going to have a long wait because, you see, God has already spoken. And here's what he said. Very clearly, written to every single one of us, your name and my name is on this verse.

You are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of serving him, which he ordained beforehand that you and I would have a lifestyle of serving the living God. Now, I'm here to tell you, I don't need anything else other than that. I don't need any bolts of lightning. I don't need to hear anything.

That's already it. Now, God does call some people in different ways, more dramatic than others. Sometimes a person gets saved and God immediately begins to work in their heart about their call. On the other hand, there's some folks who call themselves to preach.

It doesn't take very long to figure that out. But they call themselves. Sometimes, listen, sometimes mother calls them. And, you know, I've heard mother say, oh, this is my little preacher. Poor kid can't even speak yet. And mother has already called him and so he grows up and he hears his mother say to their friends, well, I want his mother, they got four other children now, here's my little preacher. And so she's already exercising prejudice, which she should not do. Already singling him out, already putting pressure on this kid to do something that God may never call him to do.

I'm not talking about that kind of call. I'm talking about the Spirit of God having claimed every single one of us is his servants. All of us know that we're the servants of God.

We only have different roles, that's all. He's called every single one of us to serve him. God has never created anybody who couldn't serve him in some fashion. Even those who have physical deformities. Sometimes with very difficult deformities that you say, well, how can a person like that serve God? It's amazing how God can glorify himself in those kind of situations. So he's commanded us all to serve him. Let me ask you a question.

When we make an appeal in this place or when your pastor makes an appeal to you, wherever you may go to church, what is your first response? Let me tell you what it is for many people. Well, they must be talking to somebody else because you say, I'm not, I can't do that. Secondly, you know, my schedule won't fit that. You just don't know time for that. Thirdly, I don't know how to do that.

And fourthly, after all, I'm just a layman, but I'm not going to get too involved in this thing. Do you know what you're doing when you say that? You're committing the sin of idolatry because you're playing God. When you tell God what you're not going to do, you commit the sin of idolatry. You are worshiping yourself and you bow down to yourself and say to yourself, yes, I'm going to do what self says rather than what God says, that's idolatry. Now, if somebody walked up to you and said you are idolatry to you, you'd want to haul off and pop them one if you weren't careful. But what I want you to see is this, according to God's word, if I play God in my life as to what I will and will not do, what am I doing?

I'm committing idolatry. Listen, if I have a passion to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, I am motivated by conviction that God has called me as a servant like he's called you as a servant to serve him. In some fashion, in some capacity, you can serve the Lord God. There is no excuse acceptable in the eyes of God.

And I want to show you why in just a moment. So first of all, motivated by gratitude toward him. Secondly, motivated by the fact that God does call every single one of us to be a servant. And we have a conviction about that. And thirdly, one of the primary reasons that you and I should be motivated to serve him and we should have a passion and we will have a passion to serve him.

When we have a vision for God's great purpose. Listen, most people live their lives just like this. The big I is God in their life. Everything in the world revolves around I. What satisfies I makes I happy, prospers I. I, I, I, I, I. But you know what the Bible says? Christ must be the center.

And not only the center, but listen, the diameter and the circumference. He is our very life. The world doesn't revolve around you and me. The world revolves around Christ. And when Christ within me, when my relationship to him is such that I begin to understand that my whole life revolves around the person of Jesus Christ who is within me, then things begin to fit in their proper fashion.

I begin to see things the way God sees them. You see, God doesn't exist for me. He doesn't exist for you.

He doesn't need any of us. We are the servants of the living God who are to get a glimpse of God's great purpose. What is God's great purpose? His ultimate purpose is that you and I in the lifestyle that we live would glorify the living God. His purpose is that the world may know that Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone is God's only begotten Son, the Savior of the world, the Lord of life and God's choice of man's life.

He is the only entrance into heaven. God's purpose for the world is that those who believe the Lord Jesus Christ and receive him as their personal Savior are discipled, are trained, are taught. He says, go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the things that I've commanded you and lo, I'm with you all the way even at the end of this age. Our responsibility is to evangelize the world beginning at home in our business, among our friends to the uttermost parts of the earth of instructing and teaching those people.

The third part of that is that you and I reach out to those around us who are needy. Remember what Jesus is going to say in the judgment? He says, I was hungered and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me the drink, sick and you visited me, imprisoned and you came to me, naked and you clothed me.

They said, well, when did all that happen? He said, when you did it to these, who am I brethren? You see, God's great purpose in this life is not ease, comfort, pleasure, prosperity, security and wealth.

God's great purpose for every single one of us is that is, listen, as submissive, obedient servants of the living Christ by whom we've been saved, his hands, his eyes, his feet, his love, love through us, every single one of us has been commissioned to be a servant of the living God. It has nothing to do with my education. It has nothing to do with my background. It has to do with only one event in my life. As a 12 year old boy, trusting Jesus Christ as my personal savior, that settled who I was to live for all the days of my life. And where in the world we got this idea that it's up to us to do the choosing, I'm here to tell you, it is not a scriptural idea whatsoever. I have no right to choose what I will do with my life. Does he not say, we have been bought with a price and what was that price?

The blood of Jesus Christ. Purchased, you and I are God's purchased possessions to be living our lives to the glory of God and surely out of gratitude and thanksgiving to him. God has a purpose that you and I to fit into. You see, we can't fit God into our purpose. We fit into God's purpose. That's why we seek his will for our life.

Lord, what do you want to do with my life? And sometimes we are unlike little Samuel. Little Samuel said, speak Lord, thy servant listens. And sometimes we say, listen Lord, thy servant speaketh. Because you know what we've done?

We're the center of our life. And we expect God to hop and run and jump and provide and heal, do everything he's supposed to do because the problem is we've got it all mixed up as to who is God and what God is up to. God isn't up to making me happy. God is up to accomplishing his great sovereign purpose for mankind and that is to bring men and women to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and as he says, so that one of these days every knee shall bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

That's his great purpose. Thank you for listening to A Passion to Serve Him. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.