We’ve been having some great lessons, so I just really appreciate everybody who has been preaching and just sharing. And as we talk about being equipped today, I’m going to take it a little deeper. Take us to another place. In a place where you have to identify with in your walk with God. I just want to say this. Why be equipped? Why do all this? Why get so intense about growing? Well, I believe it’s because everyone is created to do God’s good work on Earth. Okay. I believe that everyone has a responsibility in this room to find out what God wants you to do and who God wants you to be.
And that’s not an easy thing to find out and to do. So that’s why I really wanted to spend some time on the works of service today. And you’ll hear me interchangeably use the do and the be. When I’m saying do I mean, that’s what you need to be. So we’re going to take a deeper dive into what your role is and what your gift is. What your work of service? What did God give you? Now, I’m not talking about the general things of being a disciple.
Like, we all need to read our Bibles. Amen. You’ve been reading your Bible? Amen. All right. Amen. Amen. The children are reading the Bibles. I love that. We need to pray, pray every day. Amen. Evangelize every day. Amen went down a little. That’s okay. We evangelize every day. But, you know, it’s not like someone has the gift of evangelism. I don’t. hey, John Procacci, you got the gift. Evangelize for me tomorrow, can you? No, it doesn’t work that way. We all need to do that.
We all need to share our faith. We all need to worship. We all need to serve the needy. Amen, we need to meet together. And it’s great to be together. Zoom people out there aint it great to be together. I heard them. Did you hear him? And when we’re together, we need to build up God’s Church. That’s what we all do. So I’m not talking about the general thing. Today, I want to get even more specific of what is your good work that God gave you to do.
He imparted on you. So you’ll be motivated to be equipped. Now, what if I was really supposed to be a firefighter instead of a preacher? You know, when it comes to equipped? I mean, it says, of course, that we need to equip those who work with service. But let’s say that God came down. Angel came down and said you’re a firefighter. Didn’t you know that? You need a report to the fire station next week and do what you created to do? What are you doing? I don’t know anything about firefighting.
So the first thing I do is look it up on YouTube. First thing you guys do, look it up, find out what you gotta do, right? What’s that all about? If I only had a week, and I gotta get to a get to a fire station. I better get trained, right? And then also I better get in to some situations where I’m used to getting into the fire or fighting the fire. I mean, I got a lot of equipping to do, but I’d be motivated if that’s where I was going next week.
So I’m saying the same thing to us. Once we find out what God wants us to specifically do, even if it’s something okay, I haven’t done that. You got to be equipped. You got to go after it. And that’s why the scripture our theme Scripture for equipped equipping God’s people is this Ephesians four verse eleven. So Christ himself gave Apostles and prophets, the evangelist, the pastors and teachers to equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
So we understand that. But what I feel sometimes we don’t know is what’s my work of service. Now it says here that God’s people are going to be doing the works of service. And what’s the goal or whatever work or service you have is to build up his Church. Now, if God in Christ wants us to build up the Church, you can best believe Satan wants us to tear it down. And we got to be careful that we’re not tearing down the Church with some of our gifts.
I had a preacher friend who told me that his gift was critique. I said, How’s that work? I’m really good at it. I can see what’s wrong. I can point it out. I can tell you what to do. He’s telling a joke. Of course. I think some of us can kind of have that, too. You can sit back in. It easy to see all that went wrong already today. But let’s don’t tear down the Church. Let’s use that. Why don’t you see what’s wrong and then get your worker service and help Amen.
It’s okay to critique the Church, but don’t just critique it and not do anything about it. Build up the Church. Don’t all tear it down. So God says, okay, I want you to. I want you to do something. So you got to pick up a work order. You got to figure out what that is. And make sure God is going to give you the tools that you need to be able to reach that goal. And that goal is for us to become mature, attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Will we ever be done with that? That’s gonna go on for a while, isn’t it? But at least he gives us a goal of how long we have to work and where we’re going. So we can understand why we need to give our work of service to build up the Church amen. So what does it come down to? This is quite a question. What’s your purpose? You know, we got to know our purpose. And the next one there. Why am I here? And that starts at a young age.
Even kids out there as you get a little older, don’t you try to figure out life and saying, Why am I here? What am I doing on this planet? Why was I created. God, what is my role? What is going on? And those are healthy questions because we cannot live a life without purpose. I like this quote, the greatest tragedy in life is not death, but a life without a purpose. Isn’t that true? Here’s another one I like. A life without purpose can be lived, but it will never be to its full potential.
You know, the last thing I want to do is get to the day I go before God, and he says, alright, you did alright. But I wanted you to do so much more. You see, we got to make sure that if you’re not a disciple, you’re not even in the game. You’re using your purpose for something else. You’re not a Christian. You might be using your purpose in your job or in different things. But yet are you using it for God to do even more? So you got to ask yourself this question, how you living a life without purpose?
You know, before I became a disciple and studied the Bible and realized what my purpose is, and God told me what my purpose is, I remember my life. I had everything at that time. I was in College, I was working, I was coaching basketball, I was in a band. I was busy. I was living the life. And if anyone would look at my life, they would think wow, you’re doing everything alright. You’re in College. You’re doing great. Keep it up. You’re doing great. But when I was all alone, I was so empty.
There was an empty void. Can you relate? I realized what I was doing. I was so busy that I didn’t have to think about how empty my life is. And then that’s a formula. Sometimes instead of finding what God wants you to do, what you could do is just pile on things just so that you don’t have to let things stop. And you really think about what God wants you to do. I don’t know if you ever been there, but it was so good to be able to find my purpose.
So wherever you’re at in this room right now, if you’re young and you might be thinking or even if you’re old, you might think, well, I’ll do that when I get older because it’s amazing how young you are even as you get older. You know what I’m talking about? I even feel young. Isn’t it amazing how young just keeps moving up behind you. Isn’t it wonderful thing? You know, those young, 40 year olds, they act like they’re so old. Y’all are young. But we can’t be saying, I’m gonna get my life together some other day. When I’m older, I’ll be that’s when I’m no, you need to get on your purpose right now and live up to your potential.
You gotta make sure that you’re not diving into different purposes to where that they’re just consuming your life, your career. Or it could be just raising children. So many married people raise their kids and their kids become the purpose. And then when the kids leave the house, they don’t love one another any longer. You see, they got a mixed up purpose, mixed up order of what God wants you to do. But God has given you eternity and set in your heart Ecclesiatstes 3:11. It says he made everything beautiful in its time.
He also set Eternity in the human heart. Yet no one can fathom what God has done from the beginning. You see God placed something in you that has eternal reference that makes you say, wow, what do you want me to do? God, what is it? That makes you search and seek? And that’s where you find your work of service. That’s where it comes together. That’s where you and God got to work that out. And that’s an eternal work. So I need to talk a little bit about work, okay?
Because once you say work, you say, thank God, it’s Friday. I don’t want to work. Why does Church have to have work involved? I work all week. I mean, why do I go to work? Can’t we just rest? But guess what? Work is a good thing. There’s two different categories, though. So right here, I’m going to read a scripture before the curse. Okay? Because the curse has something to do with this. But before the curse, there was work. And right here, this is before they sinned it says in Genesis 3:15, the Lord took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
Now, I believe that what Adam was doing was exactly what God created him to do. And it wasn’t that hard. But it still felt like work. You got to name all the animals. He got to do a bunch of different things. There were things that he had to do that kept him busy. And that’s a good work. That’s an eternal work. But then the curse came. They sinned. And part of Adam’s curse was about work, wasn’t it? Says here in Genesis 317, cursed is the ground because of you through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you. And you will eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food. And now that’s the kind of work that we know, right? Isn’t that how we do by the sweat of your brow, you will eat. How was sweating last week? Was there someone telling you, did you sweat? Maybe you didn’t sweat. You were an AC. But it felt like sweat n your brow, didn’t it? You get paid enough for the sweat of your brow.
Let’s not go there. This is Church. Let’s not go there. I wasn’t in my notes. I shouldn’t say that. But you know what? When we think of work, whatever it is, it is nine to five. And then what we try to do is find something that we love to do if we can get paid to do what we love, don’t you all do that? Isn’t it great that everybody in this room has found the exact piece of work that you don’t even feel like you go into work?
Matter of fat tomorrow, you say, thank God is Monday. Can I get an Amen? That was a sorry Amen. But any rate, that’s fine. You know why? Because that’s part of life. You gotta work. But the work of service of God does not have that characteristic of saying, oh, my gosh, this is too hard. So that’s why you gotta find the eternal work that God has for you here on Earth. And you know, we have to realize that it’s a good work. All my life, I wanted to be a pro basketball player.
As you can see, I did not make it, but I wouldn’t think of that as being work. But yet, pro basketball players, work. I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to be an accountant. Sorry, Debbie.You know, an accountant is in your office. You don’t talk to many people at times. You know, your numbers, you love numbers and you do all that, you know, some of you are like, yeah, keep people away. That’s fine. I’ll be doing that. I’d go crazy. But, you know, the work of service of God is more like what’s aligned with how you created and has nothing to do with what it is compared to how other people feel about it.
Debbie loves her job. She does real good at her job, all right? And she probably could have been a pro basketball player too. But that’s a whole nother thing. But you know what, though? God wants you to find that work of service, and it’s good. It’s not like the sweat of your brow. It’s good work, and you’ll know it. And that’s what we’re looking for. Let’s keep going on our journey here. Let’s look in Ephesians two eight what does it say? For it’s by Grace, you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourself.
It is a gift of God, not by work, so that no one can boast for we are God’s handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for you to do. Isn’t this a great scripture? Paul makes it clear that it’s not by your work, not by the sweat of your brow. You can get into heaven, not by you getting your will power up and doing things that you can make it into being saved. It’s a gift. Not only is it a gift, it is a gift that God created.
We are God’s handiwork. I mean, God put you in his hands and created you to do something that he thought about way before you were even born. That’s deep thought, isn’t it? So what does that mean? What does that mean? When God held Sandy rose in his hand? Sandy, raise your hand. Because I don’t know if anyone knows you. He said, you are going to be my daughter, and he made you beautiful. Amen. Amen. You beautiful girl. And you know what? All of us are beautiful.
Why? Where God’s handiwork? Anyone tells you you ugly. Say, take it up with God. I’m beautiful. God, don’t mess things up. You say God handy works, not beautiful. You need to. We need to. I need to study the Bible with you. But anyway, he grabbed that. He grabbed Sandy and said, You’re gonna be a dancer. You’re gonna have these talents. You’re gonna have these gifts. You’re gonna be able to do this with people. You’re gonna be able to work in this. And he puts you together perfectly to do a very specific work that he created in advance for you to do.
Doesn’t that feel good, sis, let’s go to the Zoom. Who’s the fourth one on the Zoom square there. You have a name? Bev King. Wow. That was a shot in the dark. But you hear the response. God took Beth King, and she’s amazing. And she’s leading away as an older woman. I mean, she was on with us on Wednesday with Tyrone, and we were in the group together, and we were just so convicted. She was sharing about I’m gonna share more with the people where I live with.
I want to make sure they know I’m so glad I picked you Bev. I’m gonna make sure that they know that I’m with God. He created her, and he’s gonna give her Joe and all the things that is in his life. It’s amazing. Isn’t it amazing that’s God’s handiwork there’s something every single one of us should feel that we are perfectly created and ready to do God’s work. God has his hands on you. That puts the pressure, doesn’t it? It was prepared in advance. So you should be doing it.
But if you’re not, that needs a really strike home or what am I supposed to do? We need to find that good work. Well, how do we go after this? Where do we find it? When you got to go back to the blueprint, you got to go back to the beginning. You got to go back to the source and ask God. You got to be able to go to where the project manager, Jesus puts you together and everything in the words. And you’re going to have to say, well, he prayed in advance for you to do exactly what you were created for.
And here’s where we know that we were from the time. And I’m talking about advance. We’re talking the beginning of time. I believe we’re going to the garden. I think we’re also going when Jesus was on Earth and he prayed for us right here in John 17. He prayed in advance for you to even be here today to do something for him. It says right here in verse 20. My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.
May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. So we get at the core right here that Jesus prayed in advance and not only just prayed in advance, but he wanted the world to know and understand this connection at the source because he’s with the Father and fathers with him. And Jesus says I want to invite them into this so they can be with us. What was it for? So the world may believe that I’m your son and that you sent me to this Earth.
So we know that at the source in that oneness that we were created. I get that answer of who we are now, how does it work with works of service? In Matthew five I think in the sermon a on the mount Jesus makes it clear when he talks about us being the light of the world says here in verse 14, you are the light of the world. A city set on a Hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket but on a stand. And it gives light to all in the house.
In the same way let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to you about how awesome you are, that you can do great things. Is that would it says? No, it didn’t say that. It says so that they may see your good works and give glory to the Father who is in heaven. You see our good works, our good works that are the works of service reveal God, and that’s when it shines. How does it do that? Because when they see what you did, they can only say only God could do that.
God’s working through you. I see His light through you because I know other people and they don’t love like that. They don’t serve like that. They don’t go to those rough places that no one wants to go and do that. There must be a God and you even say the same thing. It’s kind of like remember our food drive we do every year we collect food with the second harvest here in this Church if you’re visiting? And we collect food from our neighbors. And is it amazing?
Every year we blow out, we got tons of food. Last year, we had so much food. Even after the truck was filled, they had to give food to the neighborhood right around the Church at Golden Rod. And I mean, we had so much food and anyone that was serving and doing that had a part of that. You know what you know what you say when you see all that? That’s God, that’s not us. To God be the glory. That is part of a work of service.
Why? Because the source gets the glory. So the first step is you got to go to the source and realize that whatever I’m gonna do for a work of service must come from the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And I’ve got to be United with them and find out what was prepared in advance. And I’ve got to ask, God, what do you want me to do?God what do you want me to do? What’s my role? What’s my work of service? Where can I stand and your glory go through me?
What can I do? What lines up with my gifts. And that’s where you start at the source Amen. And that’s your prayer time. Well, there’s another step. It says right here. So by the Grace given me, this is Paul. I say to every one of you don’t think of yourself more highly than you are, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. Let’s think about that scripture a little bit. This is according to your faith that God give you not according to your faith that you have in God.
God gave you a gift of faith. I think sometimes I only think of what my faith is like. Well, I don’t feel very faithful right now, or I just don’t feel close to God right now. I don’t know whatever. That doesn’t matter. God gave me some faith just to fill what I need to do. This is like the parable of the talents of the money bag. You know, he gave one, you know, five, the other 1211. And according to their gift. So we all got something from God to be able to carry out whatever he wants us to do, whatever his gift is.
So you can’t say I didn’t have enough of whatever. It’s kind of like when you don’t want to go somewhere and you say, I don’t really have the money to go. But the real deal is you really don’t want to go. There was something you really like to do. It’s amazing how you find money. It’s amazing how you borrow money. But here’s, God given us no excuse to not go and do a work of service. You know, I gave you enough faith to do what you need to do.
Now, please just go and do it. We can’t say that. And Paul clears that up. So he supplies us with the resources, not only the resources, the gifts, Romans twelve, four, six. For just as each of us has one body with many members, these members do not all have the same function. So in Christ, we though many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts according to the Grace given to each of us. So we get faith. We get Grace.
And boy, we need Grace, don’t we? You know why? Because when you’re doing your work of service, guess what? You gonna mess up. You’re not going to be that good at it. If I was going to be a firefighter next week, I’ll be tripping over the hose. Probably wouldn’t be dressed right. The hat would be on a little sideways, but there’s Grace. So you got faith. You got Grace. You got everything. A perfect amount of those two things to do, whatever God wants you to do.
So guess what? You have no excuse. Are you with me? Can I get an Amen? I know that’s a hard, hard one. So we give the source is the love of God. And then He’s given us the power which is our faith to do what? Distribute that faith and Grace in a work of service. So we have one more stop. Paul. Let’s look at Paul. He just illustrates doing his work of service as an Apostle right here in first Corinthians 15, for I am the least of the Apostles and do not even deserve to be called in apostle because I persecuted the Church of God, but by the Grace of God, I am what I am.
And His Grace to me was not without effect. No I worked harder than all of them. Yet not I. But the Grace of God that was with me. Doesn’t he get it? He totally gets it. He realizes that he’s not worthy of the work of service, that he should not even be called an apostle. But yet he did it. And what did it do? It had an effect. He worked hard. Are you working hard? Having an effect of what God has given you? With all the faith that He’s given you and all the talents that he is giving you. That’s convicting, isn’t it?
So what’s the next step? We have the love plus faith, love being the source, the power being faith. And then you got to find the perfect fit to complete the work of service. Now this is where we get hung up. What is my work of service? Isn’t this in the toughest part of this lesson right here. All right. Okay. You said you’re gonna tell us about works of service, but what is mine and what’s out there and what should I do? I’m gonna get to it.
First you got to recognize your gift. You got to acknowledge that God wants you to do something. And then you got to go and find the work. How do we find the work? Good question. Well, I believe that we find it in God’s purpose, and we find it in his body. The body of Christ, the Church. How do you find it? We all should have something that we can do. And I think that’s the best place to start. If you’re not a disciple, the first thing you got to do is get the gift of the Holy Spirit.
You need to be saved. You need to study the Bible, you need to get baptized so you can have the the forgiveness of sins and the gift so that you can understand that whole gift thing. That’s the first step. If you’re in the Church and you are a disciple, you are a Christian, then you’ve got to get on and find what’s my role in the Church. What does God want me to do? And the first place that you can go is the things that we have within the Church to find out.
And I couldn’t fit them all in a little house. But we have Kingdom kids. You can even be an usher. You can help set up in the morning. I mean, we got a lot of roles just to get to this point right here. And I appreciate everyone that does it all the way from Tim and Terry Brown, who drives a van and then Jerry organizing getting it all out, and everybody else that’s here. I can’t name everybody and even even new people that have come on as help because of Zoom.
We have a Zoom table right here, and it’s great. And Wendy’s right there. Look at her. She noticed she’s doing the headphones on. I mean, all kinds of different things. There’s works of service or or it could be an admin or board or it could be working in the worship team. And now now I really do got to put a little thing on here. Now I you got to know your gift. Just because you want to be something doesn’t mean it was what God gave you.
Not everyone can sing. Some of you need the just sing in the shower. But that doesn’t mean you don’t sing in Church because you need a sing in Church because God adjusts joyful noises into beautiful melodies. So if someone tells you, bro, you’re singing too loud, I suggest you sing louder so God can adjust that person’s ear beside you. Okay, because you can sing. But guess what? You probably shouldn’t be singing into the mic. That’s not your gift. And it’s not hard to find out. Just have someone who knows what singing is about and they’ll be honest with you.
Talk to Brian Levine. You know, you can talk to Winnie or Roxanne and they’ll listen to you sing, and they can tell you maybe you should usher. There’s other options, and we have to take just because we like being up front and we want our name mentioned sometimes the greater ways of serving in the Church are the ones that are behind the scenes. And then the next thing is, we don’t even have all the works of service because we got some new ones that come up and that we don’t even know.
But yet God will lead you to that. That’s your gift. And that’s what you may need to do. And so we start after Church. But that doesn’t limit. But you got to try different things. This is a shoe store. Well, how does that make you feel? I heard the sisters. One said, ooh. Women, most women, and some men too because there’s some men that won’t reveal like to try on shoes. They like shoes, all kinds of style, but mostly women, I believe, at least in my house, the racks are a lot different, Michelles to mine, a lot different.
But you know what? You just don’t. It’s hard buying shoes online, even though I know, Jeff, you buy shoes all the time because you just got to find it online, right? That’s a whole nother thing. But if you don’t until you try that shoe on, no matter how expensive it is, how good it is, your feet tell you whether or not it’s good. As you get older, you spend more money on shoes because you don’t play. When you’re young, you can wear whatever you want. You get older.
He have a few things. I have few things happen to my feet, all kinds of if I’m serious, how does that feel? I bought these last time. The exact same shoe. This pair is not it. Do the same thing with your gifts. What area are you serving in Church? What area haven’t you serve? Maybe there’s a new area. Maybe. You know, you need to go there because you got to try it on and you got to make sure it fits. But that doesn’t limit the gfts.
There are other works of service outside the Church as well that you can give to. You don’t have to just do everything within the Church. There’s things you could do for the poor. You can do things for the orphan the widow. You can. You can whatever God puts on your heart. I think we don’t have a prison Ministry where we visiting people in prison, though the Lord says to do that. You know, maybe that might be some something that you want to do. Don’t wait for it to organize.
I want it to be organized. So you do it. If God tells you to do it. Because it’s the Holy Spirit, and he’ll give you whatever you need to be able to make it. So we understand that we got to find it, and we got to help each other to it. Here’s the part that I want you to hear. If there’s one part of the message today, I want you to hear it’s this one right here. It’s time for us to allow God to direct us. And to trust God. Says here in James four very convicting scripture. So now listen you who say today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money. Why? You don’t even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. We don’t have much time here. We don’t know when our last day will be. So we’ve got to get on about the business of God. But yet the scripture tells us we’re so busy doing what we want to do.
We can miss what God wants us to do. We can be so protective of our lives, our time, our vision, our dreams and all the things that we must do. That Church becomes secondary and God even becomes secondary. And we miss the eternal work that God wants us to do. He says, don’t do that. Instead, you ought to say, if it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that as it is you boast in your arrogance schemes. All such boasting is evil.
If anyone then knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. Now, I believe that good that he’s talking about right here. Now, there’s a lot of good that we should be doing. But the works of service are good. It’s how God reveals his light and how God reveals his spirit and the glory is given to God. I believe that that we can say right here that we got to then if we don’t do the good we ought to do, then it’s sin for them.
This is a personal relationship. Why does this scripture make me tremble? Because this is where at the source, God knows how much talent and faith he gave me. Let’s say that I’m a five talent guy, but I Act like a one talent one. If I act like a one talent one, you all could say, Well, he’s doing fine. You know what God and with me, he said, I gave you more to do than that. And that’s a personal relationship. This is not about someone comes in you and saying, I can tell you’re not using all your gifts.
No, that’s not it. That’s not what we’re doing here. What this is is you and God. And we all have had things in our lives where the Spirit has put something on your heart to do. And you are around a place where someone else heard about it. They told you accountable for it. And you said, I’m not going to say that, because if I say that, I’m gonna have to do it, are you with me? The spirit saying do it. But you don’t want to do the good you ought to do.
And there’s many reasons why you may not want to. You know, it may be that you feel like, Well, I’ve tried it one time, and it really hurt. I remember when I did that, and I tried to lead that or I tried to go there and do that. And I failed. And I said to myself that day, I will never do it again. And you know what God says? I gave you Grace. I gave you faith. I’ll give you the love. And guess what? You need to do it if you don’t do it just between you and God, it’s sin.
I remember studying the Bible, and I was just wanted to join a Church. I wanted to be religious. I didn’t want to do all that God really want to do. I remember when it got real, and he said give up everything. You have to do this. And I started costing me the things I love. The group I was in, I was in a gospel band. I told you I was in a gospel, and I started getting into my schedule, and I’m like, wait a minute.
I don’t want all that. I just want a nice Church. Now, then once I knew the good the truth, I had to respond and do it, or else it would be sin. We don’t talk enough about sins of omission, do we? You know why? Because it has to come totally from you. Anybody else? We can see the sins of Commission. Hey, stop doing that. But the omission is between you and God, and we’ve got to follow God. Let me just come in for a landing here, John Ten.
Every time Jesus says I’m the Son of God, he’s about to get stoned. Okay, right here. They’re about to stone him again. So you can’t say you’re the Son of God. That blasphemy. And they’re going on, and I’m not gonna read all of it. But then Jesus tries to take the focus. Okay, so you guys, you want to take me out because I’m saying I’m sent from God and that I am the Son of God, which is true. But you don’t believe that. Look what Jesus says here in John 37.
Do not believe me unless I do the works of my father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father. That’s an amazing passage right there. Jesus saying, okay, you don’t believe I’m the son of God that’s fine. But what about the miracle? What about Lazareth? What about the widow who got her son back? What about the blind that can see? Okay, just focus on that for now, because my works can be able to lead you to a faith.
My works can be out front. And I believe that that’s what our works need to be for the world. We need to do the things that God calls us to do. And our works may be the first thing that people see that make them say, wow, you’re of something. They did not say, God, but you are something because that’s most people don’t love like that. Usually the lines between the Democrats and Republicans and the whites and the blacks you know I could go on and on are so high.
What I see is God. Wow, you love that much that your allegiance is just to him. Why? You’re willing to go and serve and do that? That’s the lowest of jobs. You see how it works. Jesus was willing to say, okay, don’t believe at least look at the works. So when we don’t do our works of service, we miss doing something that could go beyond our lives, our little mist. Isnt it amazing that we do remember the good needs of people and what they’ve done, no matter who they are, whether they’re in Church or not.
Remember the amazing things they did for God. They’ll go down in history. And here’s Jesus saying the same thing. Well, at least start with the works. Satan doesn’t want to get this message, doesn’t want us to respond. The amazing part is when we’re doing the work. Think about when you are doing something that you know you’re created to do. Let’s say it was serving. Let’s take an easy one. Let’s say we’re going to serve at the consulate, health care, where we go, you know, doesn’t it feel good?
It’s amazing how everything tries to stop you from going, oh, I got this going on. I got that going on. I don’t know if I should go. And then finally the spirit says, Go. He said, okay, I’ll go. And then you go and you come out and you feel guilty. You ever been that I’ve done that? He’s like, oh, why did I even struggle? What am I doing? That was what I was supposed to do. That’s the sweet spot on life. And I believe that it’s not just on Earth, but it’s going to be what we’re going to do in heaven as well.
Guess what? They’ll be work there. Eternal work. Not that work. That’s about the curse, the work. That’s about what Adam was doing at first in heaven. And I think I hope that I can still do that same work. I hope God, you have a nice guitar for me up there. I’ll take a harp, give Frank some drums. He’s so happy when he plays percussion and drum. That’s my boy. Well, you know, whatever it is, I think God will see that. I think God gave it to you now, but we’re gonna use it for eternity.
So you gotta figure out what an eternity that you need to use here on Earth so that we can be with God. Amen. Let’s take Communion now and think about Jesus greatest work on the cross. John 1223. Jesus replied the hours come for the son of man to be glorified. Very truly. I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. I believe he was talking about the cross. I believe he’s talking about when his work was finished, it is finished.
His work on Earth was finished.
At that time, he knew that the cross would be the focus that would help people to be saved when they would see that God raised them and he conquered death.
That work would last 2000 and thousands of years after and produce more workers. More people who are willing to lay down their life and die to be able to see God glorified in their work of service. So I hope today, as we take Communion that you have set your arrow on figuring out. Talk to someone about the message. Talk to those around you to ask about your gifts. It’s good to talk to, but it’s the best place that you can find. It is God. Do you want me to do this?
But the best place to start is that the cross. So at this time, let’s pray for what Jesus did for us on the cross. And then let’s take the communion.