Serving Without Selfies
What Real Christian Ministry Should Look Like
Video can’t be displayed
This video is not available.
Sermon Transcript
Auto-generated by YouTube
good morning c3 church my name is tony i am a volunteer here at c3 church pastor gene and his family uh allowed me the honor to speak today they are on vacation they are enjoying themselves which i believe every pastor should get the opportunity to do so he asked me to come and speak so this morning we're going to pick off kind of pick up right where we left off last week with service pastor gene talked about selfless service the motivation and attitude towards serving so we're gonna kind of pick up right what that is and service is something that i'm very passionate about i believe everybody in church should be serving i believe it's not only healthy for the church it's healthy for you as the individual christian to be serving in church so what can service be service can be rewarding one of the best stories in ministry that i can think back to we went to our first youth camp as a student pastor i took a group of 41 students we went to what we called the 12 conference it was 3 500 students crammed into this huge auditorium and by the third night they're doing worship and they're singing here is in heaven and they shut down the band shuts down the music stops and 3 500 students continue singing and as leaders of our group we stopped and we stood in awe as we listened to these students worship god and i thought to myself what god must be hearing right now it was like a peak behind the curtain so service can be rewarding service can require sacrifice my wife who was the children's pastor uh had a uh had a volunteer whose name was martine martine was an amazing volunteer martine was a overnight nurse at the local hospital she would work 12 hours saturday night go home take a shower get to the 8 30 service where she would serve in children's ministry and then attend the 10 pm service or 10 am service before she would go home and actually sleep before going to work the following sunday night so service can require sacrifice serving can also be humbling while i was up in tampa pastoring my first time speaking from stage our pastor was on a vacation for the entire month of july and i got the last week in july i got to speak from stage all four services it was great i thought i did a great job at a lot of people patting me on the back and saying what a great job you did it's so good to have a student pastor that can preach and then the following sunday i was standing in the lobby greeting people as they entered and a small elderly lady from our church walks up to me with the sweetest smile on face and she goes is pastor brad back and i said yes ma'am he is and she's like good because those other speakers just weren't that good and it left me dumbfounded because i didn't know if she knew this but i had just spoken last week so serving can be humbling it's all in how you approach it it's all in your attitude serving is also setting example how and why you serve matters pastor gene spoke last week on serving selflessly and the motives of attitude we should approach serving with serving is a way we demonstrate our christ's likeness it is the way we demonstrate our love for god and each other today we're going to look at the other side of the coin serving with the wrong heart and attitude can have lasting impacts not only on you but on the people that you serve around so we're going to look at the other side of the coin we talked about serving selflessly today we're going to look at what it looks like to serve and live selfishly the opposite direction we're going to open our bibles to philippians 2 19-23 paul gives us two great examples of men who served the for the right reasons and the right way timothy and epaphroditus but for time's sake we're just going to look at timothy today and he says in 19-23 if the lord jesus is willing i hope to send timothy to you soon for a visit then he can cheer me up by telling me how you are getting along i have no one else like timothy who genuinely cares about your welfare all the others care only for themselves and not what matters for jesus christ but you know how timothy has proved himself like a son with his father he has served with served with me in preaching the good news i hope to send him to you just as soon as i find out what is going to happen to me here and i have confidence from the lord that i myself will come see you soon paul is giving us an example of what the previous chat of what would previous verses in this chapter about timothy genuinely loved people he's selfless but paul does something here he does something a little interesting because he gives one great line about timothy and what he is and then he goes in to say some characteristics that timothy doesn't possess the first thing is he says others care only for themselves notice here when we serve and live selfishly we have an attitude that only concerns us we are only concerned about what's going on in our life and if you look around the world today that is exactly what the world is doing people only care about what matters to them things are said on facebook instagram snapchat whatever social media they're said on media they're said in person things are said that are meant to hurt other people because they said something bad about them we're selfish in our words we're selfish in our desires we're selfish interactions and paul says timothy is the exact opposite of this he also says timothy is not like anybody else who do who does not care what matters to christ the big step to not being only selfish but actively showing others that you do not care what matters to god see how we serve and how we live matters and paul points us out in the beginning right here in 17 through 20 19 through 23 paul points out exactly the kind of person the kind of man that should you should be the rest of chapter two talks about epaphroditus we're not gonna get into that and then chapter three goes uh paul goes off and i like to picture this like uh pastor gene talks about where paul is sitting there like probably dictating this letter some man is writing this and then he goes off on these tangents and paul gets off course and he wants to talk about stuff so chapter three he talks about a lot of things he talks about legalistic jews he calls them dogs the same words jews use for gentiles when talking about them in contempt he talks about circumcision nobody wants to talk about that on sunday morning paul gives reasons why they should have why he should have confidence in the flesh he's done so much this is why i should have confidence and then the very next verse he calls it garbage he says it's garbage he talks about his gains in christ and then he goes on to talk about his personal relationship and then he comes to the verses where we're going to fall today philippians 3 17 and 18. philippians 3 17 and 18. and in these two small verses we are going to understand what paul thinks about those who serve selfishly those who serve with the wrong motives the wrong desire and the wrong attitude and we're gonna see what paul thinks and how much it actually impacts the church just by paul's writing so in philippians 3 17-18 he says this dear brothers and sisters pattern your life after mine and learn from those who follow our example for i have told you before and i say it again with tears in my eyes that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of christ they're headed for destruction their god is their appetite and they brag about shameful things they think only about the life that is here on earth so what do we know what do we need to know here what do we need to know about these scriptures the first thing is through serving we set an example it's not the reason we serve but it is a natural byproduct of serving when you serve you are put in a place where people are gonna look to you and you are gonna impact somebody's life you're not doing it for that reason but it's just gonna naturally happen people are gonna look to you and say wow what are they about what are they really about and here's the thing you may in your capacity of serving become a leader you may gain influence and then guess what you do you impact that person's life you can impact whether or not they return to church you can impact whether or not they grow as a christian these are impacts that you can make based on how you approach serving so let's look at it paul again points to himself and others who follow the correct walk listen it's the opposite of the mentality do as i say not as i do all right do ups yeah do as i say not as i do have you ever been told that have you ever been told that as a child when your parents say something you're like um uh i mom i kind of i kind of saw you do that the other day and you got told hey listen you're a child do as i say not as i do i'm probably guilty of saying it myself but paul here says no that's not the mentality do as i do we want to set the example serving sets an example paul again tells us what serving incorrectly looks like what serving with the wrong heart with a selfish mentality with a selfish mindset can do not only to the church but to you listen these again he shows us the first thing he says is they conduct themselves as enemies of the cross their conduct shows their enemies of the cross these were people who thought salvation comes without repentance without conversion they were a complete contradiction to the very gospel that paul preached they lived how they wanted to now what i can tell you is this your life outside of church outside of serving matters especially now right back in when i was growing up and that doesn't seem like that long ago but back when i was growing up we didn't have social media we didn't have cell phones until i really got to college is when they really became popular text messaging i actually sold the first like package with text messaging that's how old i am in college over the phone that's one of the ways i paid to go to college and here's the thing we didn't have all the social media all the constant updates or anything like that and so really people came to church and unless you knew that individual on a personal level you really didn't know what they were really about but in today's world that's not how that works so you may come to church and you may be the ultimate christian you serve on the welcome team you welcome somebody in with a smile you shake their hand you talk about how great god is you sit in these seats and you worship and then when you leave the doors of the church you leave all that behind and you live as if somebody who doesn't need repentance and who doesn't have conversion see salvation according to romans 6 12-16 says this do not let sin control the way you live you do not give in to sinful desires do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin instead give yourselves completely to god for you were dead but now you have new life so use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of god sin is no longer your master for you no longer live under the requirements of the law instead you live under the freedom of god's grace well then since god's grace has set me free from the law does that not mean we can go on sinning of course not don't you realize that you become a slave of whatever you choose to obey you can be a slave to sin which leads to death or you can choose to obey god which leads to righteous living there is not both notice it doesn't say there's a fine line in the middle that you can walk you can titrate walk it it doesn't work so you can come to church you can be the spiritual christian you can be the great leader and then you can go home and live like you want to that's not what it says paul goes off against those who are enemies of the cross that's not my verbiage that's god's word if you are sitting here today and you're trying to live a double life the bible tells us we are an enemy of the cross what else does he say he said they're headed for destruction them and their works it's referring to the ultimate destruction it's referring to our eternal destruction it's referring to hell galatians 6 7-10 says don't be misled you cannot mock the justice of god you always harvest what you plant those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature but those who live to please the spirit will harvest everlasting life from the spirit so let's not get tired of doing what is good at just the right time we'll reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up therefore wherever we have the opportunity we should do good to everyone especially to those in the family of faith now that really narrows it down right there it really tells you about it look at it here it says listen those who live only to satisfy their sinful nature will harvest decay and death paul just said they're headed for destruction that's exactly what this verse is reiterating if you are serving from a selfish nature if you are serving with a selfish motive you are only going to harvest decay and death we are to serve from a selfless nature and if you do not believe this is happening then look around at churches today look at those that are led by this selfish nature look at what they are harvesting you don't have to look very far you don't have to look very hard we've talked about it before and i drill it continually it's a terrible statistic 66 percent attrition rate when it comes to church today 66 why because those who are leading our churches are leading with a selfish desire a selfish motive and they're harvesting decay there's no harvest because of the way they're operating but it can't the bible then says hey listen this is how you do it so let's not get tired of doing what is good why would you get tired of something i'll give you a reason i do work out i know it doesn't look like it but i do and so like i'm running trying to get in shape and let me get let me tell you i get tired we did some crazy exercise the other day where we did some insane burpee ladder and i was done 10 minutes in i was so tired and so pressed i wanted to quit and my buddy's like no no we gotta finish if you want the results you gotta put in the work doing what is good is not always doing what is easy and so it can get tiring and look what it says at just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up don't give up look the reason why we're in the situation we are is because somewhere along the line some of our churches gave up on doing what is good because we needed to fill seats we needed to bring money we needed to confirm our legacy as a mega church pastor we needed to be a tv pastor let's take it down to another level i need to be the best children's pastor i need to decide what's going on in the children's ministry maybe you're a volunteer you're you you're serving from a level that an attitude that may be selfish it doesn't work you're only going to harvest decay and let me tell you if you serve from that level and you're only harvesting decay you will give up you will because you will never it will never feel or be the way it's supposed to be when you're not in god's will you will know you will know and so it says here at just the right moment so here's the thing i got to experience some of the blessings of serving it doesn't mean i got to see all of the blessings of serving it doesn't mean that i got to see the entire impact of my ministry or my wife's ministry you may not get to there are missionaries that toil in foreign countries for years and do not see the impact and the impact is not actually until after they're no longer with us are we here for the right reasons are we willing to put in the work and not see the impact are we willing to put in the work and not see the harvest reaped because it says that just the right time it doesn't guarantee in your time it's god's time at just the right time which is god's time you'll reap a harvest of blessing move forward paul says what else about people that serve selfishly and within with the wrong motive their god is their appetite their god is their appetite ironic because they're in church but their god is their appetite no not for food but for their what they serve is only what they desire it's only what they desire where i found this impacts the most is this i've sat down and across the table from lots of volunteers and when you begin to serve for how it impacts you how it makes you feel phrases like it makes me feel good to serve because you know these students loving on me makes me feel good that's why i serve you know these little babies loving on me makes me feel good that's why i serve the pastor noticing what i'm doing and give me that pat on the back that's why i serve you're not serving for god's desires you're serving for your own desires you're serving because of what you gain out of it and what the bible tells us about that is simple their god is their appetite romans 13 13-14 because we belong to the day we must live decent lives for all to see don't participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness or in sexual prosperity and immoral living or in quarreling and jealousy instead clothe yourself with the presence of the lord jesus christ and don't let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires serving selfishly is an evil desire and the bible tells us not to think about ways to indulge your evil desires to stay away from those things listen we are not serving to boost our self-esteem that's not why we're serving we're not serving to make ourselves feel better we're not serving to outweigh all the sin we've done this week no those are selfish things we're supposed to serve selfishly because we are serving christ we move forward what else what else is the thing paul mentions he mentions boastful about shameful things i.e the things that don't matter to god's kingdom when we approach serving with selfish attitude we are often boastful about the wrong things it says matthew 6 1-4 says watch out don't do your good deeds publicly to be admired by others for you will lose the reward from your father in heaven when you give to someone in need don't do as hypocrites do blowing trumpets in the synagogue and streets to call attention to their acts of charity i tell you the truth they have received all the reward they will ever get but when they when you give to someone in need don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing give your gifts in private and your father who sees everything will reward you we're not to be boastful and it is shameful what we boast about it is shameful i mean i've been caught up in it myself i can remember the first time listen when we started out with students we started out with five students in this huge auditorium we had like uh five rows of five chairs set up i mean an auditorium a little bit bigger than this we had five rows of five set up right here and i literally spoke to these students and then i remember the first time that we hit over a hundred students i remember that very first time and i remember thinking to myself i'm like this is amazing this is awesome and then somebody pulled me aside and like hey man this is great you're doing great things god's blessing your ministry and he said something i'll never forget he said but it's not you he's like so when the instagram post goes up or when the facebook post goes up or when you talk to your friends it's not you we're not boasting on what you did we're boasting on what god did see we often boast about things when we're the we want to make it about us our ministry did this my ministry did that let me take it a step further are we so boastful and prideful about our ministry that if the pastor comes to us and tells us it's time to shut it down this doesn't align with what our church follows or what i what i believe is biblical are we so boastful and prideful about those things that we're willing to leave the church that we're willing to take people with us away from god's ministry is that what it's become about measure that i want you to think about that if you're in a ministry today and the pastor came to you tomorrow and says hey this is the deal we're going to change this up we're no longer going to go in this direction here's the biblical reason that i have here's what god told me this is the direction we're going are you willing to let it go because here's the thing it was never your ministry to boast about it was always god's ministry and when god's man decides that that time has come and gone if it's really god's ministry we should be willing to let that go or is it something that we hold on to because i can boast about it i can brag about it this is what i am this is what i do these are things we should consider when we are serving why are we serving why are we doing what we do matthew 6 19-21 listen we're focused on the temporary paul says they're focused on earthly things they don't have a heavenly mindset they're focused on their legacy they're focused on how it makes them feel they're focused on what's uh what serving brings me now they're not focused on on the eternal things they're focused on now numbers oh i've told you before that holidays became very very difficult because it was always how many how much how many volunteers was it gonna take to run how many people where were they all gonna sit how are we gonna how are we gonna get them all into the building what we're going to do to get them there and it became very stressful and it came very focused on the now on the earthly things on a piece of paper that says my church has this many in attendance or my building is so big or my auditorium has the most led screens across the back or i have the best lighting system and we are so focused on the temporary things that we lose track of the heavenly things matthew 6 19-21 says don't store up treasures here on earth where moth eats them and rust destroys them and where thieves break in and steal store your treasures in heaven where moss and rust cannot destroy and thieves do not break in and steal wherever your treasure is there the desires of your heart will be also are we thinking when we serve with an earthly mindset or a heavenly mindset i have a great story about that we had club four five which was fourth and fifth graders and it went along uh every service club45 met so we had them at uh the 8 30 service the 10 o'clock service and 11 30 service so we had three times that club four five met and it was our fourth and fifth graders and i can remember walking into an 8 30 service and my 8 30 uh uh volunteer had just called me at eight o'clock and said they weren't going to make it so they weren't going to be able to do club 4-5 so i knew i was teaching club 4-5 so i was already a little bit flustered a little bit you know annoyed and so we're going into club 4-5 and there is one child that shows up at 8 30 in the morning her name was skyler we called her skye there is one child i looked around the room again club 45 met in a reasonably sized auditorium i looked around the room i have one child one it's this little girl this little fourth grade girl and i thought to myself at first i'm like oh no way dude we are not putting in the effort for one person that's ridiculous i'm gonna get up there and teach a lesson for one person but you know what something told me to do it something told me to get up hey we're gonna teach to one person johnson you've made it you've made a promise you're gonna teach the one person as if you would teach to hundreds which is what i used to tell myself when student ministry first begin i'm gonna teach and do things to one person like i would do for 300 people because that's what god wants he wants our full effort no matter who's in the auditorium and so reminding myself of that promise we did a full club 4-5 with one person i'm talking we had worship we did a game and then i got up and gave him a lesson and i can't remember what the lesson was but she sat there attentively in one chair while i up on stage spoke to just her and after it was over i do what i always do talk about salvation and what it means to truly accept christ how it means repentance and conversion and what your life how it changes how you're going one direction then you totally turn around you go a different direction and i i kid you not that little girl walked up to my wife later and said she wanted to accept jesus christ as her savior and i was humbled greatly because i was so focused on the temporary things on the things here there wasn't enough people in the room it shouldn't matter we shouldn't do this it's a big investment of time it's effort why would i might i i shouldn't be speaking to one person and that one person accepted jesus christ our savior and then two weeks later i got to baptize her in the lobby and it was it was the most humbling greatest thing i've ever seen leave it up to god to totally put you in your place listen why do we need to know these things we should understand the consequences of serving from a so selfish motive had i decided now listen god's will would have been done but had i decided that i was not going to get out there and speak that i was going to i'm too big to speak to one person that's ridiculous had i decided that that little girl would not have heard the gospel message that morning had i decided that some things might have been different in her life we should be able to identify what our motives are we should be able to put them to the litmus test am i doing the good things that i should am i selflessly serving that what pastor gene mentioned last week am i selflessly serving or am i serving from a selfish motivation that paul is talking about right here listen this is how important this is to paul i want you to understand paul in his lifetime was imprisoned stoned shipwrecked bitten by a snake which is really painful and more and yet the bible never mentions paul in tears and a matter of fact most instances paul is praising god in his affliction but if you look at what this verse says and you go back to verse 17 it tells you this it says this it says for i have told you often before and i say it again with tears in my eyes paul here is in tears because he understands the devastating effect that selfish motivation can cause on a church he's speaking to a church he loves he adores who he feels is on the right track and he's worried he's concerned as a father as a founding apostle of this church he's concerned and so with tears in his eyes he's telling them what a selfish motivated person looks like so what do we do about it well paul gives us the formula right he tells us first of all follow those who do it right follow those who do it right so look around who's doing it right now this person is not going to like the fact that i'm about to call them out but i am they're probably going to get mad at me and talk to me about it later but that's okay i'll take the heat for that i drive this individual nuts every sunday that i'm up here doing announcements do you know why because i cannot get the order of the slides right but do you know it's not my responsibility to make the slides do you know i don't do these slides do you know in my message he's right now frantically pushing buttons trying to figure out where i'm at in my message so he can get the right slide up next to me you know he does all the slides i just email him my mass of notes and he makes them look all pretty for you guys to see he's also a member on the board of the church his name is robert he stands behind the wall you see him every day every sunday he wears flip-flops looks relaxed and you'd never know he was on the board why because he's doing it the right way he's doing it the right way so how do i find people like robert well that's easy find a ministry to serve in you'll find them all over the place listen look at our kitchen staff there's so many of them you probably don't know who they are but they are responsible for making sure so importantly that we eat after service but they don't parade themselves around being like hi i'm the kitchen staff hi i made that they don't come up to your table be like so look good yeah yeah i put that plate out with that food on it yeah i did that i did that no they allow us the opportunity to come up grab food go sit at a table and talk and they are only there to serve and make sure that it happens find a ministry why do it to be more christ-like to be more christ-like listen here's the thing i'm going to close with this passage of scripture i'm not going to go into explanation because i don't think it needs it because i think jesus teaches it personally there's perfectly there's nothing i can add to it so i'm going to close with this john 13 1-17 before the passover celebration jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and returned to his father he had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth and now he loved them to the very end it was time for supper and the devil had already prompted judas son of simon iscariot to betray jesus jesus knew that the father had given him authority over everything and that he could come from god and would return to god so he got up from the table took off his robe wrapped a towel around his waist and poured water into a basin then he began to wash the disciples feet drying them with the towel he had around him when jesus came to simon peter peter said to him lord are you going to wash my feet and jesus replied you don't understand now what i'm doing but someday you will no peter protested you will never wash my feet jesus replied unless i wash you you don't belong to me simon peter explained then wash my hands and my head as well lord not just my feet jesus replied a person who is bathed all over does not need to wash except for the feet to be entirely clean and you disciples are clean but not all of you for jesus knew one would betray him that is what he meant when he said not all of you are clean after washing their feet he put on his robe again and sat down and asked do you understand what i was doing you call me teacher and lord and you are right because that's what i am and since i your lord and teacher have washed your feet you ought to wash each other's feet i have given you an example to follow do as i have done to you i tell you the truth slaves are not greater than their master nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message now that you know these things god will bless you from doing them thank you very much you