Vineyard Church of Knox County
Expressing God’s Love by Serving Others
Sermon Audio from Sunday, February 6, 2005 — Danish proverb: What you are is God's gift to you; what you do with yourself is your gift to God.
We're finishing our series on Kingdom New Year's resolutions, resolutions that God honors and actually help us to live more like Christ. We've talked about worship, fellowship, and last week, outreach [Diagram]. We said that most Christians would not think twice when encouraged to worship and grow in fellowship but when we begin talking about getting involved in outreach and ministry, many of us begin to pull back and begin to talk about "calling" and "gifting." We may say that one needs to be especially called and gifted to participate in outreach to the world or ministry in the church. But the truth is we are all called and gifted to participate in all of these things - worship, fellowship, outreach, ministry. In fact, the balanced Christian life is our goal. Last week I used the illustration of a balanced volleyball team comprised of players who understand the need for each person to develop each skill - bumping, setting, and spiking - because they understand that in the course of a game they will be better positioned than others to do one of the skills. So, in practice, every player works on every skill. At the same time, though, we recognize that some players are better than others at a particular skill. Some players just seem to get it quicker than others. Some players just seem to be especially gifted at setting, for example. So, the coach recognizes that and puts them in the best position to help the team. It's the same way in the Christian life. Though we recognize the need for us to be balanced in our faith, we naturally move toward particular expressions of our faith. We just seem to be wired for a particular ministry in the church. Our hearts beat a little faster when we think about particular kinds of ministries in the church. Our personalities direct us to particular positions of ministry in the church. Ministry is simply expressing God's love by serving others, so as we talk about ministry today, I want us to realize that each one of us has a part to play. If you are a Christian, then you have a ministry. So, let's try to find it.
