Isn’t it great to see what God is doing, church family? We’ve got a great church, and it’s great because of the great ministry that takes place here and the great people who are part of the body here, and it really takes all of us working together to do the things that you saw in that video. And that’s what we’re really going to be talking about today — this topic of serving — and I’m really excited to do that this morning. So let’s pray as we get into the message today. Father, we thank you, Lord. It’s just great to look back on these past couple of months and just see all the things that have taken place here — all the people who have served, all the things that you have done, Lord. You’re at work; you’re moving and working in people’s lives, and you’re doing new things and great things. And Lord, we just want to partner with you in your work. And so, Lord, help us to see the opportunities that we have in front of us to serve you, to work for you, and, Lord, to help build your kingdom here. We ask all this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I want to tell you about one of my friends. I have a friend who lives in the Dominican Republic. She grew up there; she’s part of a little church there, and she felt called to serve as a missionary in the Dominican Republic to her own people. And so she’s working with people in a very poor community, and she had the goal to raise $12,000 a year — that would be her entire income. To us, that may not sound like much, but there, that’s actually a really good income. Yet right now she’s living on $360 a month total. She’s been at that level for several years now, and she continues to serve; she continues to care for those kids. The fact that she only has that much money is not hindering her; there’s no obstacle in that for her to do the work that she feels called to. And why is that? It’s because she has a heart to serve. She has a heart for service. She could literally be here in California and make in three days at minimum wage what she makes in a month, but she’s still willing to do it because she has a heart to serve.

There’s something about serving that is connected to the state of our heart. When our heart is aligned with God’s call on our life and what he has for us and what he wants us to do, all those other obstacles that can be in front of us don’t matter anymore. Those obstacles might be challenges, but it doesn’t matter when we have a heart that’s aligned with what God has for us. There’s great blessing in following after the Lord and doing what he has for us. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today — understanding our purpose and why we’re here.

We’re in a series right now where we’re looking at our five core values. Last week Pastor Joel taught on the core value of worship — first and foremost, that’s why we exist. We were created for God’s glory, to glorify him, to worship him, to bring him praise. But the second thing, the thing we’re looking at this morning, is this core value of serve. God didn’t create us that we would just worship him and then sit down and stay on the bench. God wants us to move into action, to get into the game, to serve him and to do things for him and his kingdom. And that’s what we’re going to be looking at today.

I want to begin with Matthew 22, so if you have your Bibles, let’s turn there together. It’s in this passage where someone asks Jesus a question — Pastor Joel read this last week — and it’s one of the verses that really informs at least two-thirds of our purpose as a church, why we’re here. Matthew 22, starting in verse 34, says this: “But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him: ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’ And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’”

As we look at this passage, we see these two directives — that we are to love God and that we are to love others, to love our neighbors — and this forms the first two-thirds of our mission as a church. We’re here to love God, love people, and make disciples. So we love God through our worship, as we worship him — and it goes beyond just our singing. I loved that last week Pastor Joel talked about how so often we leave church and someone might ask, “How was worship today?” and a lot of times when they ask that question, they’re looking back on how the music was. But the worship is so much more than the music, and it’s more than what happens on the platform. It’s, how was my worship today? How was the state of my heart? Did I engage in worship of God? That’s a great question.

And the second thing is, not only are we to love God, but we are, as Jesus shared with us, to love our neighbors as ourselves. How do we love our neighbor? It’s through service — that’s one of the ways that we can love our neighbor, by serving them. I shared a couple weeks ago that to love our neighbor, we need to be a neighbor to them — we need to be a neighbor to the people that God puts in our life. And I want to share again the little acrostic that we went through. The idea of being a NEIGHBOR is to Notice others — to see the opportunities that God puts in front of you. To Empathize with them — to have compassion, to have understanding for who they are and where they’re at in life. To Intervene in their lives — when you see someone who’s in need, who needs assistance, who needs help, that we would step in and do something. To Give of your prepared resources — to have some forethought and some planning so that you’re ready to help someone when they need help. To Humble yourself — and this is a big part of what we’re going to talk about today, because as we serve others, as we serve the Lord, it all begins with our mindset. We have to be able to humble ourselves, to come to their level, to be where they’re at, and to serve. To Befriend them — that we would build relationships with those we’re serving; it wouldn’t just be a checkbox that we check off and move on, but that we would overflow with love. And last, that we would Re-engage them afterward — so that as we love other people, as we care for them, as we serve them, it wouldn’t end with just helping them and walking away, but we would re-engage them so that when they ask that question, “Why are you helping me? Why are you serving me? Why are you assisting me?” we can share, “It’s because of what Jesus has done for me.” It creates the opportunity — when you are a neighbor, it creates the opportunity to share about the love of Jesus Christ.

So I want you to have that in the back of your mind as we walk through today’s message on serving, because it’s so connected to who God calls us to be — as neighbors, as we love one another, we need to have a heart to help and a heart to serve. Listen to what Jesus said in John 12, verse 26: “If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there my servants will be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.” So to be a follower of Jesus is to follow his example as we serve.

I want to define the word “serve.” There are a couple different words we’re going to look at here in the Greek, in the original text. The first one is the word diakonos — it’s the word that we usually translate as serve. It means to serve or to minister. Depending on the church you grew up in — if you grew up in a church that had people called deacons — it comes from this word. A deacon is simply a person who serves. This is the word used in the New Testament about 38 times. It’s the word described when the angels came and ministered to Jesus after he was in the wilderness for forty days fasting — the angels came and ministered to him; they served him. It’s that same word right there, “to serve.” We see in the Scriptures that there were women who served, who provided for Jesus and his ministry — they helped prepare places for him to stay, they helped with food, they were there with the disciples, serving. It’s that word, “to serve.” And we’re called in Scripture to serve one another, to minister to others. We have a lot of great ministries in our church that are here for the purpose of serving people, because we understand that as we serve people, we are serving the Lord. So that’s that first, primary word for serve. We’re going to look at another one in just a moment.

As we think about serving, the ultimate example of service is Jesus himself. He’s the ultimate servant. In fact, as you look at the book of Isaiah and those prophecies that pointed to Jesus’s coming, he’s often referred to as the suffering servant. And so we’re going to look at Jesus as the servant this morning through three ways — three ways that we can get a glimpse into Jesus’s life as an example for us of how we can serve.

The first one is in the arrival of Jesus. What do I mean by the arrival of Jesus? What I’m saying is that the very first act of Jesus serving started with the fact that he even came to earth — we’re talking about his birth. When Jesus came to earth, he came here to be a servant. This is the starting point. Jesus left the throne room of heaven and came to earth to serve us here. He is the King of kings, the Lord of lords, who could be seated on his throne and command the service of millions — and he left his throne room and came to earth so that he could serve you and me. It’s pretty amazing. Why would he do that? It’s because Jesus had an attitude, and a heart, and a mindset that was for others. And so if we’re going to be like Jesus, if we’re going to serve like Jesus, it begins with having the mind of Christ. It begins with aligning our hearts to his, aligning our minds to his, so that we would see people the way that he sees them, so that we would engage with people the way that he engaged with people, that we would serve them as we serve the Lord.

Philippians 2:5–8 says this: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” This is how Jesus exemplified service — that he came to earth, he took on the form of a servant, he became a man, he came here to serve. We have to follow his example. We have to empty ourselves. We have to lay aside our status, our titles, our awards, our accolades — put it all aside, humble ourselves, so that we can come like Jesus and serve others where they are.

I think one of the challenges that we face is that we live in a culture that says you have to move up and up and up and up, and as we do, we can feel somehow that we’ve gotten to this place of superiority — “I don’t have to do the things I used to do; I don’t have to work as hard as I used to.” But Jesus left the highest of places and came to earth, to the lowest of places — born in a manger. Why? So that he could set an example for us of what it looks like to serve.

Now, when it says here that Jesus took on the form of a servant, this is a different word. There are two really key words for serving in the New Testament. I shared the first one; the second one, the one used here about Jesus, is actually a much stronger word. It’s the word doulos, and doulos is often translated “servant,” but really, it’s “slave.” Jesus became a slave for us. And when we hear that word “slave” in our culture, in our context, sometimes that can rub us the wrong way — but this is the word that’s used. It’s the ultimate form of a servant, because it’s the lowest you can become. It’s completely giving yourself over to whatever your master requires. That’s what Jesus did. This word is used 118 times in the New Testament. Paul, in Romans 1:1, is how he describes himself: “Paul, a servant” — a slave, doulos — “of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.” Paul described himself that way. Timothy described himself that way. Peter, James, Jude — they all referred to themselves as slaves of Christ. Even in the book of Revelation, as it looks back on Moses, he’s described as a slave of God.

Now, does this mean that they felt like they were forced into submission? Not at all. So why did they do that? Why would we do that? Why would we say, “I want to be a slave to Christ”? It’s because if we understand the magnitude of what God has done for us — if we understand the depth of his love, the depth of his sacrifice, what it cost him — then our natural response should be, “Lord, I’m here to serve you. I’m here to be your slave. I want to do whatever you have for me.” That’s very different from being forced into service, forced into submission. No — this is a willing submission that says, “Lord, I’m here to serve you. I understand what you’ve done for me. I want to repay you. I want to give you everything. I want to surrender my life to you.” That’s what God is inviting us to. What a great privilege that we have to follow in the footsteps of other believers who called themselves slaves of Christ. It’s a great privilege. How are you responding to the gift that God has given you?

Let’s consider the gift further. Second Corinthians 8:9 says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” How are we rich because of what Jesus has done? He’s given us the most valuable treasure — it’s not even one that the world can offer. It’s the most valuable thing in the entire universe: eternal life with God. He’s given us that through his poverty — through him becoming human, becoming a servant, and ultimately giving his life. He has given us eternal life. It’s the greatest gift that we can receive. And so, when you consider that, how will you respond to that gift?

So let’s think about some places of application with this. What are some places of status that we have attained where we can lay those down and leave them behind, so that we can descend to the place of service? Nothing was beneath Jesus; he was willing to do anything to serve. So let me give you some very practical examples. The phrase “that’s someone else’s job” should not be in our vocabulary. We should have the heart of service in the workplace, anywhere we are — nothing should be just someone else’s job. We should be willing to do it; be a blessing to them. Think about it in your household: whose turn is it to do the dishes — somebody else in the family? What if you did it anyway? Something very simple, very easy. Who’s supposed to pick up trash at a sporting event? So many times everybody likes to leave their thing of popcorn and nachos on the chair or under the seat. Well, what if we took care of that instead of just relying on the janitorial staff? What if they got to go home five minutes early because a couple people took extra time to take care of their own trash? Very simple — but if we have the heart of service, it’s those types of things that we’re going to do. Who’s supposed to be the person that helps somebody on the side of the road? You just say, “Well, Triple A is going to come; they’ll take care of it.” What if you can do it? What if you know how to change a tire? What if you know how to help somebody in that situation? What if you find yourself growing impatient because somebody else hasn’t done something for you — and you could actually take the opportunity to just go ahead and do it yourself? You see, there are simple ways that we can serve every day. If we have the heart of service, it’s going to change how we do things. Jesus was the King of kings — he is the King of kings. He shouldn’t have to do anything, and yet Jesus came to earth to serve. Everything and everyone in creation should be serving him, and yet he came here to serve us. His arrival, his birth, was an announcement that God was here to serve his people.

So we see Jesus’s example in his arrival. But then we see Jesus’s example in his ministry. As I look to the ministry of Jesus, I see really three aspects to how Jesus served in his ministry.

One was through his teaching. Jesus frequently taught on this topic of service. Jesus tells a story that we call the parable of the talents, where a master entrusts different amounts of money to his servants according to their ability. And to the one who acted wisely, this is what he said — Matthew 25:23: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” God is our Master; we are his servants. These should be the words that we long to hear God say: “Well done, good and faithful servant.” What’s the principle that Jesus was teaching in that parable? The principle is that if you are faithful with what God has given you, then he will entrust you with even more. So what has God given you? We often break it down into three simple words: time, talents, and treasures.

How are you serving God with your time? Think about the 24-hour day. How much of that is set aside to serve the Lord? I’ve often worked with people who wrestle with all the things they have to get done in the day and in the week, and they have this desire to spend time with the Lord, a desire to serve the Lord, but they feel this tension of, “If I do that, then I don’t have time to do all these other things.” I truly believe, church family, that if you set aside that time to be with the Lord, if you set aside that time to serve with the Lord, he’s going to make you more efficient in the rest of your time. It’s going to work out. I don’t know how to explain it other than it’s God’s working in our life when we are just faithful to him. It’s a step of faith; it’s a difficult thing to do, but God will use it. So how are you using your time to serve the Lord?

How are you using your talents? God has given you gifts; he’s given you abilities. If you have a relationship with him, then the Holy Spirit has given you spiritual gifts that you can use to be a blessing to the church family. God designed the church so that everyone would use their gifts and it would all work together to make the body healthy and whole and working for his kingdom and the good of everyone. But if there are people not exercising their gifts, then we’re missing out — we’re missing out. If you’re not using your gifts, we need you; we want you. This is how Jesus designed the family to work together. So how are you using the gifts that God gave you?

How are you using the treasures that God has given you — your finances? There are so many opportunities, so many great ministries, so many ways that we can give to be a blessing to God and his kingdom. Are you using your finances to be a blessing, to serve the Lord? When we get to the end of this life, we want to hear God say, “Well done.” We want to be faithful with what God has given, whether your time, your talents, or your treasures. Jesus clearly taught to use what God has given to serve.

Jesus also taught, saying this in John 13:16: “Truly, truly I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.” To be a servant is to submit to your master. If God is the master of your life, then to serve him means to submit to him in every area — and this is really important. We can’t live a two-lane life. We can’t say, “Well, I’m going to serve; I’m going to sign up to help out in this ministry or do this thing that I really want to do — but in these other areas of my life, I’m going to continue to do it my way.” Because as soon as we choose our own way over God’s way, we’re saying, “No — I’m the master.” But Jesus clearly taught that to be his servant is to be under the leadership of the Master. I’ve had the unfortunate responsibility of telling people they can’t serve on a team because they’re rebelling against God and ignoring the wise counsel of the leaders of the church in some area of their life. We need to be completely submissive and humble as we serve the Lord, as we seek him.

So Jesus taught on service. But Jesus also served through his miracles. As Jesus performed miracles, every miracle that Jesus performed was a signpost and a pointer indicating who he was — that he was from God and that he is God. But don’t miss the fact that the miracles that Jesus did also served people; they met people’s physical needs. When Jesus saw people who were blind and he restored their sight, people who were deaf and he restored their hearing, people who were dead and he brought them back to life — he was serving. He was serving through his miracles.

Let’s look at one of them, in Luke 14, verse 2. It says, “Behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, ‘Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?’ But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, ‘Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?’ And they could not reply to these things.” In this passage we see Jesus healing a man who had dropsy — that’s maybe an older term you might not be familiar with; it means there was a swelling in his body, possibly due to a liver or kidney condition — and Jesus healed the man. Now in healing him, it again points to who Jesus is. In healing him, Jesus has the opportunity to offer correction to the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. But don’t miss the fact that Jesus served that man. Jesus met his needs; he helped him out.

There’s an interesting piece in the teaching part of this story, though. As Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, they had this obstacle in their mind — they thought essentially that if I help someone on the Sabbath, I’m breaking the law, because the goal of the Sabbath was “I’m not supposed to work.” But they were missing the fact that the Sabbath is a day set apart for the Lord, and to serve others is to serve the Lord — it’s the thing that God would desire on the Sabbath. Jesus shows that the Sabbath is not meant to be this completely restrictive thing. In other words, to put it in our context: you can help someone on your day off. You can serve someone even though it’s your day to rest. If you see a need, don’t pass it by — step in, do something, help someone, serve them as you serve the Lord.

So we see Jesus doing this through his miracles — every time he offered help to someone, he was serving. We also see Jesus in his ministry showing incredible humility. Luke 22:27 — Jesus said, “For who is the greater one — the one who reclines at a table, or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table?” Now, if he stopped right there, you’d say, “Yes, of course — the greater person is the one who reclines at the table. They’re the master; the servants all serve them.” But listen to how Jesus describes himself. He says, “But I am among you as the one who serves.” I think that would have been just this mind-blowing moment for the disciples, because they’re probably thinking, “Jesus, you’re here to recline at the table; we’re here to serve you.” And Jesus says, “I’m here to be the servant.” Incredible humility. Jesus, who is the greatest, who has every right to just sit back and relax — he serves. He says, “I’m among you to serve.”

We see this most clearly on the night that Jesus was betrayed, as Jesus gathers his disciples in the upper room, and he knows what’s about to take place. He’s with them, and it says in John 13:4 that “Jesus rose from supper, laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” Jesus washed their feet. Jesus washed their feet. Jesus — the King of kings and Lord of lords — humbled himself, already taking the form of a human, becoming a servant, and now he’s going to take the lowest of the low in terms of position: he’s going to wash their feet.

I don’t know how you feel about feet, but I think the general consensus is they’re pretty gross, right? And we walk around wearing socks and shoes and walking on paved roads — I still don’t really want to wash your feet even in those circumstances. But in Jesus’s time period, people wore sandals, walking down dirt roads. Just imagine — they couldn’t go to Walgreens and pick up some foot spray, right? This would be a pretty gross, pretty humiliating type of situation. And yet Jesus steps in, and he washes feet.

So it comes to Peter, and Peter’s like, “Well, you can’t wash mine.” Peter loves Jesus and looks to Jesus and says, “Jesus, no — you can’t do this. You can’t be this low. You can’t do this for me.” And then Jesus has this incredible conversation with him — I want to encourage you to go back and read that this week — but Jesus essentially says, “Peter, if you want to be my disciple, if you want to have any part in this, this is what I need to do for you.” And Peter’s like, “Well, then wash all of me.” He understands — Peter’s still missing some things, but he understands there’s significance in what Jesus is doing. Because what does Jesus say later in the conversation? In John 13:14 he says, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” So Jesus says: if I can do this, you can do this. I’ve set the example — now you do the same. What a powerful example for us.

We’re called to this kind of service. And it’s a great thing to serve at church; it’s a great thing to be on a team — I’m going to encourage you to do that, and we’re going to share ways that you can do that. But I want you to hear that the heart of Jesus goes far beyond just serving for a couple hours on a weekend or a couple hours during the week. Jesus is calling us to humble ourselves, to empty ourselves, and serve others — even if it’s hard, even if it’s uncomfortable, even if it’s humiliating. We need to be willing to serve, to do things we don’t want to do. There might be things that are relatively simple, even in your own household, that you don’t want to do, that you don’t like to do. I hate doing the dishes — I hate doing the dishes. But if I do the dishes, it’s a simple way that I can serve my family. There are simple things that we can do. I hate the heat — I hate being outside when it’s hot — and I keep going on these mission trips to countries where it’s like 100% humidity. Why do I go? Why do I do it? It’s because I want to serve. And there are opportunities to serve, and there are places to serve, and there are people that need to be served on behalf of Jesus — and I want to go; I want to be there. And we can push through the things that are uncomfortable; we can push through the things that are hard.

Where are you willing to be stretched? Where are you being stretched right now? If you’re not being stretched — if you’re just pretty comfortable with how things are — maybe surrender that to prayer, to the Lord, because there might just be some places where he wants you to take a step of faith, where he wants you to step out and do something that’s going to challenge you and be hard for you. Because there are people that need to be served, and he wants you to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Are you willing to serve like that?

The fact that Jesus came to earth was an incredible act of service. Jesus through his ministry showed what service looks like. But the ultimate example is the most compelling one of all: Jesus demonstrated ultimate service by going to the cross for us. The death of Jesus was his greatest act of service. In Mark 10:45, Jesus gives a purpose statement for why he came. He says, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” You want to know why Jesus came? It was to serve. But what kind of service? To give his life as a ransom for many. This is the ultimate act of service — there’s nothing greater than this. Jesus said that the greatest act of love is to lay down your life for a friend. This is exactly what he modeled; this is exactly what he did. In fact, what does he call his disciples in John 15:15? He says, “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” And so Jesus lays down his life for his friends. But notice — these are men who even later call themselves servants, slaves, of Christ Jesus. Jesus says, “But I don’t call you servants; I call you friends.” Jesus elevates them.

And as you serve others, it’s even a way that you can elevate others where they are. If you have the gift of hospitality and you welcome someone into your home — boy, could you treat them like a king or a queen as they come into your house, to elevate them. As you minister to someone who might be homeless or hurting or whatever broken situation they might find themselves in — could you lift them up, treat them with dignity and respect, and elevate them? To serve them the way that Jesus served his disciples. What a great example for us in Jesus.

Titus 2:14 says Jesus “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness” — and catch this — “to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” Jesus died to give us eternal life — but again, not just so that we could receive that gift and then sit down and be done. He wants a people who are zealous for good works. He wants people who want to serve, who want to serve him, who want to do things for him — because there’s a whole world around us who’s dying and broken, and they need us to go to them with the love of Jesus. This is what we’ve been created for. We are created to worship him; we are created to serve him and serve others. Are you using your gifts? Are you going out and following the example of Jesus? It’s a sacrificial, selfless love — that’s what we’re called to exercise for others. Is that what you want? Do you want to be his slave, his servant? Is Jesus the master of your life?

So we see Jesus serving through his arrival, through his ministry, and through his death. And now we need to see Jesus through the people of Jesus. We need to see service through the people of Jesus — that’s you and I. We are the body of Christ; we need to live like Jesus and serve like Jesus. In 1 Peter 4:10 it says, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s very grace.” We’ve been given gifts, and we’re to use them — to use them to serve in the body, to serve in the world. 1 Peter 2:16 says, “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.” We’re called to live as servants of God — to serve him, to love him, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

So how do we do that? How can we do that today? Today — if you’re not serving anywhere, I want to encourage you: start here. There are great opportunities to serve in your home, in your workplace, in our community. And I want to encourage you with some opportunities that are right here. When this service ends, all throughout the lobby, there are tables set up this morning with opportunities to serve. Let me tell you about some of them.

You’re going to find our student ministries out there. Our student ministries are looking for people who will come alongside youth and help them navigate life and learn to follow Jesus. Our kids ministry is out there — they’re looking for adults who care for kids and want to help with the formation of their thinking and their lifestyle, so that they would follow Jesus and be lifelong servants of Christ. They need help; they need people. You’re going to find our school out there — BBCS. They have an app where you can go on your phone and see countless opportunities to sign up and serve at events and different things happening at our school, to be a blessing to our school community and the people who come, who visit, who don’t know Jesus. Countless opportunities. Our worship and production ministries are out there. Maybe you’ve got gifts of music and you can play an instrument, or you can sing, or you can run a camera, or you can push buttons in the back and do sound and lighting — whatever it is, no matter how big or small, whatever your skill level is: if you’ve got a gift, use it. You’re going to find our care ministries out there. Our care ministries provide food for people in need; they visit people who are in the hospital; they visit people who are stuck at home. They have all these different ways that they can be a blessing to people in our church family. Our Mustard Seeds class for special-needs people — that’s an area where you can serve and come alongside someone who needs help and be a blessing to them. We’ve got a new visitor team — Lisa was telling me that since October we’ve had 170 new people show up to our church. When those people show up to church — and many of them show up late, because one, they might be a little nervous to interact with people, or sometimes they show up late because they don’t know where to go or where to park — we need people to greet them, to meet them, to guide them to a seat, to show them where the bathrooms are, to make them feel welcome, to answer their questions. Lisa’s out there with her team. And lastly, we’ve got our serve table out there — it’s the teams helping serve; they represent, like, 40 teams of volunteers in our church, everything from our parking lot to our security to our offering team. We’ve got so many different things. Some of our teams literally can be activated by a button, and you would never even know that they’re here serving. But there are countless opportunities at our serve table.

Church family, if you’re not serving yet — or maybe you are serving and you want to serve more — take the opportunity to talk to some of our leaders in the lobby to find out how you can get plugged in and use the gifts that God has given you, so you can be a blessing. Because it’s going to help our entire church family; it’s going to help the visitor; it’s going to help the people who come onto our campus who don’t know Jesus yet. You can have a role in leading someone to Christ through using the gifts that God has given you. So would you step out in faith? Would you serve? Would you use your time? Would you use your talents? Would you use your treasure to serve the Lord? When we do that, we present ourselves to the Lord — as Brandon was sharing earlier — as a living sacrifice. We become an offering to the Lord. We say, “Lord, I offer you my time; I offer you my life to serve you.”

So, church family, let’s stand together. I’ve asked Pastor Brandon if he would lead us one more time in a chorus or two of this song of offering, as we seek to serve the Lord. We want to present ourselves as an offering to him this morning.