Investment Secrets From Heaven – Part 7
May 30, 2021
Review
- Investment Secret # 1: Invest in people’s lives.
- Matthew 20:28
- An is one who comes to serve.
- A is one who comes to be served.
- The measure of a church’s success is not the quality of a pastor’s sermon, but in the quality of a congregation’s service.
- Service is a source of .
The Practical Benefits of Service
- The pastor’s ability to spiritually nourish you is exponentially increased when you start serving
- When you serve, you receive inside information
- When you serve, you receive practical ministry training.
- Everything you believe about God is tested in your relationships with people
Five Levels of Service
- Contributing an individual talent or skill
- Submission to a collective vision.
- Helping others complete their tasks.
- Creating vision within the vision.
- Producing other leaders.
Reasons Why People Don’t Serve
- Not seeing a call to serve as a call from Jesus Himself
- Seeing the church as a time thief
- Not seeing positive results from your service personally or collectively
- Church hurt
- Authoritarianism
- Unused gifts
The Costs of Discipleship
- The call to service must be evaluated in light of the initial call and cost of .
- Luke 14:25-33
- Jesus is not desperate for .
- Before you commit to Jesus, you need to intelligently evaluate what you are willing to do.
- Jesus asks for .
- To follow Jesus, you must renounce claims to all of your rights and entitlements.
Earthly Bread Vs. Heavenly Bread
John 6:1-6
- Jesus identifies and responds to the felt needs of the crowd.
- He does not feed them to add to his popularity, but because He has compassion on them.
- The Scripture never tells us to stop seeking things altogether; it only tells us to seek the Kingdom first.
John 6:22-27
- Lust vs. True hunger
- The Blessing vs. The Bless-er
- The deception of blessings
- Working for things vs. Receiving what God adds
John 6:35
- The power of seeing Jesus as bread
John 6:52-55
John 6:60
John 6:66
- The absurdity of Jesus’ request by human standards
- Absurd = Wildly unreasonable, illogical or inappropriate
- When Jesus asks for the absurd, will you still follow Him?
- Jesus’ requests are not literally absurd.
- Jesus’ requests are only absurd relative to what we value.
Acts 2:41-47
- God’s addition is always our .
- God adds when we seek His kingdom first.
- Seeking the Kingdom means to serve .
- Serving Jesus means to serve people.
- Service begins at our spiritual .
© Joshua D. Smith, Ph.D., 2021