I am Caleb Fielding and I have a question for you, do you know how to get the most Joy out of serving God?
The statistics say that over 70% of young people leave church when they graduate high school. We know that there are few single adults going to church, that said one of the things I have seen but haven’t heard talked about is generally when you do have single adults going to church nine times out of ten they are serving. If you are a single adult attending church you are almost certainly serving in some capacity at that church because you have found the joy that comes with serving God, but there is a way to draw out more joy than you already have.
When you are serving God, its even more fun when you get others to serve God with you. When I was in Bible college I preached in the jail and I was always encouraging other guys to come to the jail with me. One year we had a man attend Bible college who was an ex hells angel. One day he is delivering drugs on his motorcycle and the next God convicts him of his sins and saves him. God called him to preach he comes to Bible college and I invited him to the Jail, he came and preached, and I still get a thrill out of that.
One year my pastor put me in charge of vacation Bible school and we had some members who have been in church all their life who had never served, and I got to get them to serve for the first time ever. We had some teenagers who had never led anybody to Christ, who grew up in church, knew the romans road, but they did not know how to take the romans road and show someone how to be saved, I got to show them that.
The Bible puts it this way in Hebrews 10:24
Heb 10:24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
As disobedient as I have been with my relationship to church, the Lord has blessed me in being obedient throughout my adult life in provoking other people to serve God. It has consistently been a source of joy.
Every human has an inbuilt need to work. When God made Adam, God gave Adam the job of gardener, but then God said it wasn’t good for man to be alone, and so God gave Adam, Eve. But God did not just give Adam, Eve, just so that Adam had someone to talk to the Bible says that Eve was to be a help meet for Adam, which shows us that we have a relational need to serve God with other people. This is certainly a thought expounded on in the new testament where it describes the church as a body, where one member is a hand, another a foot, another the eye, and another the ear, when we work together we can do so much more for God. So we have a relational need to work with other people.
It has been said many times that marriage is work. How can it not be when you have two people living together, then children come along that need to be taken care of. Work is going to be a natural part of marriage. Many times when someone says marriage is work they are implying that work is a bad thing. But God made humans to work from the beginning, it’s part of our design. If someone is complaining about the work in their marriage and family they are complaining about a blessing. A part of the blessing is that you have this work to do and in various ways you can provoke each other to get the work done.
As a Christian we have this need to serve God, that generally most Christian singles are already getting met. We have a more specific need to serve God with other Christians, and many times the way we get this need met is through provoking other Christians to love.
Up to this point we have started every lesson with how you are to take the initiative to do something first, but we cannot do that with this lesson because if you are part of a church then your pastor is already serving you, and in most churches the pastor is not the only one serving. So before we deal with your responsibility we are going to talk about how others in the local church are provoking you to good works.
Generally speaking those who serve in church do all they can, the things that they see need doing, but don’t have time to do just don’t get done. The pastor at church is in the number one position to see this.
Talk to a pastor for very long and you will find the church needs Sunday school teachers, nursery workers, someone to mow the lawn or vacuum, among a host of other things. Churches always have a ton of work to be done and never have enough people to get it all done.
Because pastors are the number one servants in the church (Jesus made the point that the chiefest among us is servant of all Mark 10:42-45), Pastors are very aware of what areas need the most help right now, and are in a position to provoke people in church to good works, because they are doing the most good work in the local church.
Honestly who is more likely to provoke you to good works, a pastor who works 60 hours a week in the church asking for help, or that guy at church who complains about every problem but never does anything? Honestly someone who works is much more likely to provoke you to good works than someone who does nothing.
In Acts 6 we find the early church kept growing and growing. During the growing process there were growing pains which caused the Greek widows to be neglected. The apostles neglected the Greek widows because they honestly did not have enough time in the day to meet their needs.
Because the Greek widows were neglected people in the church started complaining, and the apostles told them that they did not have enough time to meet the needs of the widows because they had more important things to do. So what the apostles did was ask for volunteers to meet the widows needs. When they found volunteers that met the requirements they gave them the job and the complaining stopped and the church started growing even more.
I want to point out a few things about this story.
Just because there was a need no one was provoked to good works. Generally when people see a need they think someone else should solve the problem.
Even when people complained about the needs the widows had, no one was provoked to good works. People love to complain and gossip. Generally speaking when a need is not being met in the local church people would rather gossip about the problem than talk to the pastor about it. You would be surprised how often there is a legitimate need in your local church that the pastor doesn’t know about because everyone forgot to tell the pastor.
In acts 6 The people complaining did not even provoke themselves to good works. You would be surprised how often people see a problem but will not be a solution to the problem just because that’s not how its done. In acts 6 these people were convinced it was the apostles jobs to help their widows, so because it was the apostles job they did not step up. So often in our churches we see things as the pastors job so when we see a problem we complain about the pastor instead of stepping up and solving the problem.
But when the Apostles, who were already working, provoked others to good works, people stepped up. In a lot of ways this is a sad story. We had a ton of people see a problem, complain about the problem, get upset about a problem, even though they have done nothing about the problem they had the gall to get together and confront the apostles, who were super busy.
The reality of the situation is there is a very real possibility that this was the first time the apostles heard about the problem. The apostles response to the problem was to provoke others to good works. They could not handle the problem because they were too busy, but because they were already serving they got to provoke others to good works. The reality is that in your local church the only people who are going to provoke you to good works are the people already serving.
It is human nature that when someone who is not serving sees a problem they will complain about the people who are serving, but when the people who are serving sees a problem they will provoke others to good works. When that happens you have two options, you can continue to complain, or you can step up and serve. Will you allow those who serve in your local church provoke you to good works?
Your response to your pastor’s good works should be you going to your pastors and asking him where you can help out. If you see a need in your church your response should be to go to your pastor and ask him how you can fill that need for him. Your pastor may be aware of the need but doesn’t have the time to deal with the problem.
Once you are serving you will find out rather quickly that there is only so much you can do. Jesus Put it this way in Luke 10:2 Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.
Generally what happens is people serve in a couple different areas of their church then absolutely fall in love with a place of service. This is why people teach a Sunday school class, or play the piano, or preach in the jail for 50 years. It isn’t hard to find someone who has served the Lord in the same position for decades. Although these people serve for decades because they love what they do, they always find that there is only so much they can do.
When someone who is serving finds that they need help it puts them in a position to provoke others to good works. Maybe its as simple as a Sunday school teacher asking a child in their class to hand out papers. Maybe someone singing in the choir or playing an instrument gets together with someone and works out a music special. Perhaps the man who preaches in the jail ask someone to help him because he cannot give the gospel to every prisoner because of time constraints.
The reality is that serving puts you in a wonderful place to provoke others to good works. Sometimes you will be in charge of the children or teenagers and have the authority to ask your young people to help you directly. Sometimes you will be doing a good work for Christ and you will need to ask your pastor or other leaders about provoking others in the church to good works, but at the end of the day you cannot ask help for your labor, if you are not laboring.
Are you qualified to provoke someone to good works?
In conclusion are you getting your spiritual need to provoke others to good works met? Are you qualified to get that need met?? We are to follow our pastors example and serve others, and provoke others to serve.
The statistics say that over 70% of young people leave church when they graduate high school. We know that there are few single adults going to church, that said one of the things I have seen but haven’t heard talked about is generally when you do have single adults going to church nine times out of ten they are serving. If you are a single adult attending church you are almost certainly serving in some capacity at that church because you have found the joy that comes with serving God, but there is a way to draw out more joy than you already have.
When you are serving God, its even more fun when you get others to serve God with you. When I was in Bible college I preached in the jail and I was always encouraging other guys to come to the jail with me. One year we had a man attend Bible college who was an ex hells angel. One day he is delivering drugs on his motorcycle and the next God convicts him of his sins and saves him. God called him to preach he comes to Bible college and I invited him to the Jail, he came and preached, and I still get a thrill out of that.
One year my pastor put me in charge of vacation Bible school and we had some members who have been in church all their life who had never served, and I got to get them to serve for the first time ever. We had some teenagers who had never led anybody to Christ, who grew up in church, knew the romans road, but they did not know how to take the romans road and show someone how to be saved, I got to show them that.
The Bible puts it this way in Hebrews 10:24
Heb 10:24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
As disobedient as I have been with my relationship to church, the Lord has blessed me in being obedient throughout my adult life in provoking other people to serve God. It has consistently been a source of joy.
Every human has an inbuilt need to work. When God made Adam, God gave Adam the job of gardener, but then God said it wasn’t good for man to be alone, and so God gave Adam, Eve. But God did not just give Adam, Eve, just so that Adam had someone to talk to the Bible says that Eve was to be a help meet for Adam, which shows us that we have a relational need to serve God with other people. This is certainly a thought expounded on in the new testament where it describes the church as a body, where one member is a hand, another a foot, another the eye, and another the ear, when we work together we can do so much more for God. So we have a relational need to work with other people.
It has been said many times that marriage is work. How can it not be when you have two people living together, then children come along that need to be taken care of. Work is going to be a natural part of marriage. Many times when someone says marriage is work they are implying that work is a bad thing. But God made humans to work from the beginning, it’s part of our design. If someone is complaining about the work in their marriage and family they are complaining about a blessing. A part of the blessing is that you have this work to do and in various ways you can provoke each other to get the work done.
As a Christian we have this need to serve God, that generally most Christian singles are already getting met. We have a more specific need to serve God with other Christians, and many times the way we get this need met is through provoking other Christians to love.
Up to this point we have started every lesson with how you are to take the initiative to do something first, but we cannot do that with this lesson because if you are part of a church then your pastor is already serving you, and in most churches the pastor is not the only one serving. So before we deal with your responsibility we are going to talk about how others in the local church are provoking you to good works.
Generally speaking those who serve in church do all they can, the things that they see need doing, but don’t have time to do just don’t get done. The pastor at church is in the number one position to see this.
Talk to a pastor for very long and you will find the church needs Sunday school teachers, nursery workers, someone to mow the lawn or vacuum, among a host of other things. Churches always have a ton of work to be done and never have enough people to get it all done.
Because pastors are the number one servants in the church (Jesus made the point that the chiefest among us is servant of all Mark 10:42-45), Pastors are very aware of what areas need the most help right now, and are in a position to provoke people in church to good works, because they are doing the most good work in the local church.
Honestly who is more likely to provoke you to good works, a pastor who works 60 hours a week in the church asking for help, or that guy at church who complains about every problem but never does anything? Honestly someone who works is much more likely to provoke you to good works than someone who does nothing.
In Acts 6 we find the early church kept growing and growing. During the growing process there were growing pains which caused the Greek widows to be neglected. The apostles neglected the Greek widows because they honestly did not have enough time in the day to meet their needs.
Because the Greek widows were neglected people in the church started complaining, and the apostles told them that they did not have enough time to meet the needs of the widows because they had more important things to do. So what the apostles did was ask for volunteers to meet the widows needs. When they found volunteers that met the requirements they gave them the job and the complaining stopped and the church started growing even more.
I want to point out a few things about this story.
Just because there was a need no one was provoked to good works. Generally when people see a need they think someone else should solve the problem.
Even when people complained about the needs the widows had, no one was provoked to good works. People love to complain and gossip. Generally speaking when a need is not being met in the local church people would rather gossip about the problem than talk to the pastor about it. You would be surprised how often there is a legitimate need in your local church that the pastor doesn’t know about because everyone forgot to tell the pastor.
In acts 6 The people complaining did not even provoke themselves to good works. You would be surprised how often people see a problem but will not be a solution to the problem just because that’s not how its done. In acts 6 these people were convinced it was the apostles jobs to help their widows, so because it was the apostles job they did not step up. So often in our churches we see things as the pastors job so when we see a problem we complain about the pastor instead of stepping up and solving the problem.
But when the Apostles, who were already working, provoked others to good works, people stepped up. In a lot of ways this is a sad story. We had a ton of people see a problem, complain about the problem, get upset about a problem, even though they have done nothing about the problem they had the gall to get together and confront the apostles, who were super busy.
The reality of the situation is there is a very real possibility that this was the first time the apostles heard about the problem. The apostles response to the problem was to provoke others to good works. They could not handle the problem because they were too busy, but because they were already serving they got to provoke others to good works. The reality is that in your local church the only people who are going to provoke you to good works are the people already serving.
It is human nature that when someone who is not serving sees a problem they will complain about the people who are serving, but when the people who are serving sees a problem they will provoke others to good works. When that happens you have two options, you can continue to complain, or you can step up and serve. Will you allow those who serve in your local church provoke you to good works?
Your response to your pastor’s good works should be you going to your pastors and asking him where you can help out. If you see a need in your church your response should be to go to your pastor and ask him how you can fill that need for him. Your pastor may be aware of the need but doesn’t have the time to deal with the problem.
Once you are serving you will find out rather quickly that there is only so much you can do. Jesus Put it this way in Luke 10:2 Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.
Generally what happens is people serve in a couple different areas of their church then absolutely fall in love with a place of service. This is why people teach a Sunday school class, or play the piano, or preach in the jail for 50 years. It isn’t hard to find someone who has served the Lord in the same position for decades. Although these people serve for decades because they love what they do, they always find that there is only so much they can do.
When someone who is serving finds that they need help it puts them in a position to provoke others to good works. Maybe its as simple as a Sunday school teacher asking a child in their class to hand out papers. Maybe someone singing in the choir or playing an instrument gets together with someone and works out a music special. Perhaps the man who preaches in the jail ask someone to help him because he cannot give the gospel to every prisoner because of time constraints.
The reality is that serving puts you in a wonderful place to provoke others to good works. Sometimes you will be in charge of the children or teenagers and have the authority to ask your young people to help you directly. Sometimes you will be doing a good work for Christ and you will need to ask your pastor or other leaders about provoking others in the church to good works, but at the end of the day you cannot ask help for your labor, if you are not laboring.
Are you qualified to provoke someone to good works?
In conclusion are you getting your spiritual need to provoke others to good works met? Are you qualified to get that need met?? We are to follow our pastors example and serve others, and provoke others to serve.