ROMANS 1:8-15: God brings response from his Servants
A ragged homeless boy with a violin
under his arm once roamed the streets of
On the
evening of his first performance He played so well that after each number the
applause was deafening. But for some reason the boy paid no attention to the
ovation. He kept his eyes turned upward and played on and on. The audience was
puzzled at his strange behavior.
Finally a
man said, “I don’t understand why he’s insensitive to this thunderous
applause. He keeps looking up. I’m going to find out what’s attracting his
attention!” The man moved about the concert hall and found the answer.
There in the top balcony was the old music master looking down toward his young
pupil, and nodding his head as if to say, “Well done, my boy. Play on.”
The boy played on, seemingly unconcerned whether the audience liked it or not.
He was playing to please his master only.[1]
As you serve
God, do you sometimes get caught up in the thunderous applause or do you
respond to your master in God-honoring ways? As God’s children, God
brings forth God-honoring responses from our lives. The responses are: Appreciation,
Articulation and Action. Are you a
“AAA” servant?
We show Appreciation
for God’s work in our lives when we direct our gratitude to God alone.
Winston Pierce tells of his high
school class reunion. A group of the old classmates were reminiscing about
things and persons they were grateful for. One man mentioned that he was particularly
thankful for Mrs. Wendel. After the reunion, the man wrote a letter of appreciation
to Mrs. Wendel and addressed it to the high school. The note eventually found
the old teacher. About a month later the man received a response. It was
written in a feeble longhand and read as follows: "My dear Willie, I can't tell you how much your letter meant to me. I am
now in my nineties, living alone in a small room, cooking my own meals, lonely,
and like the last leaf of fall lingering behind. You will be interested to know
that I taught school for forty years and yours is the first letter of
appreciation I ever received. It came on a blue, cold morning and it cheered me
as nothing has for years. Willie, you have made my day."[2]
We send
letters of appreciation to God every time we attribute our success as servants to
God rather than to our own education or wisdom; when we credit God rather than tradition
or Christian ancestry for the blessings of life.
In other
words, we direct appreciation to God when we ascribe power, honor and glory to
God alone. We appreciate God when our service is God-centered rather than
self-centered. Appreciative service reveals that we understand who God is, what
God is doing, and how utterly ineffectual our service is without God’s help.
One way we
fail to appreciate God is when we seek to access God through means other than Jesus Christ.
Today, across the world, 1.3 billion
people have access to less than one dollar a day; 3 billion have access to less
than two dollars a day; 1.3 billion have no access to clean water; 3 billion
have no access to sanitation; 2 billion have no access to electricity.[3] Since
there are 6.6 billion people in the world and only 2.1 billion Christians, the
most horrifying statistic I can share with you is that over 4 billion[4] people
do not have access to God.
For, Jesus says in John 14, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”[5] Life is about
God’s initiative to give access to himself through the life and works of
Jesus Christ. To ascribe that access to any other person or thing denies God
the gratitude he deserves and is idolatrous.
As it relates to service, we are dependent
upon God for even the desire to carry the gospel to others. And we depend on
God to make the gospel effective when we do. Without God’s help our words and
works are void of any power to accomplish God’s purposes. Servants of God Appreciate God through faith in Jesus Christ
alone.
But, to be appreciative to God inwardly alone is not the complete response God
desires. God also desires
that we Articulate or express our appreciation.
Kyle had a very devoted wife who
sacrificed everything for his sake, but he never gave her a single expression
of appreciation, which her heart yearned. She became the most miserable woman
in
Outward expression
of inner appreciation flows from passion. Verse 9 says, “… I serve with my spirit in the
gospel of his Son…”[7] “I serve
in my spirit” can be translated “from the bottom of my heart.” [8] Service to
God, real meaningful God-glorifying service can be conducted no other way than passionately,
from the bottom of one’s heart. It means to give our best to God.
A farmer felt the earth quake beneath
his feet. Then, from his hilltop farm, he saw the ocean withdraw from the shore,
a sign of an imminent tidal wave. In the valley below, he saw his neighbors
working fields and knew if something wasn’t done they would all die. He set
fire to his own barns and soon the fire bell started ringing. His neighbors saw
the smoke and rushed to help him. Then, they safely watched as the tidal wave
washed over the fields they had just left. They knew not only who had saved
them, but what their salvation had cost their benefactor. Out of gratitude they
erected a monument in his honor bearing the motto, "He gave us all he had, and gave gladly."[9]
Many who
claim faith in Christ express gratitude with less than their best. It happens
in preaching. Some preachers give God their leftovers: leftover time, left-over
preparations, half-hearted effort. I am sure that I have been guilty of it.
A
well-known preacher once said to a great English actor: "Explain
something to me. What is the reason for the difference between you and
me? You appear before crowds night after night with fiction, and the crowds
come wherever you go. I preach the unchangeable truth, and I am not getting any
crowd at all." The actor answered, "That’s quite simple.
The difference is that I present my fiction as though it were truth; you present
your truth as though it were fiction."[10]
Are you
serving God with your whole heart or are you giving God your leftovers? The
true servant of God is the one who passionately expresses his appreciation. God
elicits Appreciation from his servants;
appreciation that is passionately Articulated.
However, the response that God desires is not yet complete.
God desires our appreciation to be
passionately Articulated, not in word alone, but through action: action that edifies others,
comforts ourselves and honors God.
Paul says, “For I am longing to see you so that I may
share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you”[11]
True service to God, true
people changing, God glorifying service does not occur by remaining in our
comfort zones. It happens as we step out into the deep water and engage the
people whom we are called to serve. It happens as our passion for God and God’s
people overwhelm our selfish sinful desires.
So,
what action distinguishes God’s service from mere humanitarian services? What action
distinguishes the work of the church from the Lion’s Club or the
On the surface, it might appear that God looks after those
being served, but neglects the needs of the servant. But, that is not true.
For, God never fails to meet the needs of all his children: not only those
being served but also the servant. Verse 12, “...that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours
and mine.”[13]
As we express our appreciation to
God through active service we, too, are encouraged and comforted. It is humbling,
yet gratifying for one to know that she have been a servant through whom God
has touched a life for eternity.
Furthermore, when, by the power of the Spirit, God
brings to our realization the magnitude and the eternal nature of the work to
which we are called, we recognize ourselves as debtors.
Paul says, “... I am a
debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish 15
—hence my eagerness to proclaim the gospel to you also who are in
That is when we know that our service honors God. For, God’s honor is the goal of our service and the purpose for our existence. God calls us to Articulate our Appreciation for God through Action, which edifies others and honors God.
In conclusion:
Anthony
Evans, President of The Urban Alternative
in
The
antidote for the illness that Evans describes is the “AAA” servant. As more of
us become “AAA” servants, the
[1] Leslie
B. Flynn, Come Alive with Illustrations – How to Find, Use, and File Good
Stories for Sermons and Speeches, (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing House,
1987) p.204
[2]
Attributed to Winston Pierce’s book "A Window on the Mountain," at
eSermons.com
[3] Attributed to “Anup Shah, ‘Poverty Facts and Stats,’,
Global Issues Web Site, April 28, 2004, Globalissues.org.” at
Homileticsonline.com
[4] Estimated by subtracting the number of Christians in
the world (6.6 Billion – 2.1 Billion Christians) obtained from “http://www.adherents.com/Reli
gions_By_Adherents.html” from the world’s population obtained from
above
[5]The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Jn 14:6).
[6] Attributed to “Dr. Charles F. Asked, Homemade,
Vol. 11, No. 7” at eSermons.com. Name changed.
[7] Romans 1:9 - The Holy Bible : English standard
version. 2001 . Good News Publishers:
[8] The meaning of “whom I serve with my spirit in the
gospel of his Son “ in verse 9 from Keener, C. S., & InterVarsity
Press. 1993. The IVP Bible background commentary : New Testament .
InterVarsity Press:
[9] Obtained
from http://elbourne.org/sermons/index.mv?illustration+589
on January 11, 2008.
[10] Illustration on whole-hearted service from G.
Campbell Morgan, Preaching, p. 36.
[11]The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ro
1:10-11.
[12] Romans 16:25 - The New American Standard Bible,
(
[13]The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ro 1:12.
[14]The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ro
1:12-15.
[15]
Attributed to “Anthony T. Evans,