This is the third sermon in the 3 part series:
WE ARE CREATED TO SERVE
We were created by a loving God for friendship and fellowship, with Him and with one another. That was the plan, so many years ago, when he first breathed into Adam in the Garden of Eden. And at the foundation of those relationships is service, one to another, and service to God.
The Father serves. He served mankind by creating a beautiful and useful world, one that provided everything needed. Air to breathe, food to eat, animals for friends and helpers, and companionship and help between man and woman. He serves by listening to and answering prayer. Jesus came to earth and he served. He came as a servant and not as a King or a Prince to be served. He willingly came to give his life because we had lost our way, which was the greatest service that anyone can give to another.
We were created to serve. The sin that came to us from the knowledge of good and evil was to reject the good and love for each other along with love and service for God, and to promote a life of self instead. Instead of living for others, sin leads one to live for itself. Sin is self over others, in one form or another.
So this was the choice: to serve or to live for self. Service leads to happiness and fulfillment, for we were created to live in this manner. Self leaves to unhappiness and emptiness because we were never created for such a narrow, inward, existence.
The lack of understanding over this basic truth has caused unfathomable depths of sorrow and suffering. An alternate world has been offered to mankind, to each individual, to the demons who fell, to all creation. The alternate world is one that revolves around oneself, and not around others, and around our Creator, who is the center of all things, the Beginning and the End, and the source of love and joy and true and abiding happiness.
The first sermon of this series touched on the fact that the beginning of our relationship with God is the realization that as you speak to Jesus (our prayers), he will speak to you. He is alive and speaks and can be known, and in fact, we must know him. We cannot be his Jesus’ bride if we do not know him, as Abraham, Moses, Job, Adam, Paul, and so many others knew God and are his friends. Seek him and listen to his responses, and get to know him.
The second asked the question, who do you say Jesus is? The answer is that he is the way to the Father; he is God Almighty, Savior, the One who created you, who loves you, and the One to whom you are accountable.
This sermon culminates the thread by exploring the foundation and truth of the Creator’s intention; we were created to serve. Since you can know Jesus, and God our Father, and since you are accountable to him as the Supreme Judge and Savior and One who loves us above all others, then you are accountable to serve.
With this realization your life should change, your prayers should change, your relationship with him and others and the world around you should change. The will of God is that you serve. He serves, Jesus serves, and you were created to do so as well. Open your eyes to the kingdom of God and hear the King, and follow his leading and his words to you, and begin to live and serve him and others as you were created to do.
Fulfillment and abiding contentment and eternal joy will follow. The response from the Father, from your Creator, will be deep and rich and real and he will begin to seek you out. Friendship with him will grow, and he will begin to share his heart with you, and his burdens with you, even as he carries yours. Your prayers will begin to have power, as you pray for others and for help in serving and following the will of God as he shows it to you. The reason you were created will come into play and you will delight the heart of the Father.
Unfortunately, I must mention, the way will be opposed. It will be opposed by the first one to fall, the first one to put self above others, the one who was called “a murderer and a liar from the beginning”. He will do everything he can to stop you from entering into such a relationship with God. Then the choice will be yours, is God worth it? He gives you the freedom to make that choice. He gives you the freedom to come and serve with him, to look to the good of the world and eternity and the kingdom of God, and all things on his heart.
You do not need to spring into action to “save the world”. He will lead you. He will show you what to do every day, and for all your life. He has a plan for this world, for mankind, for eternity, and he will draw you into it. He alone knows what to do. He can be trusted to show you what to do, as your friendship and relationship with him deepens, so will your understanding of his plans. Always talk to him about everything and ask his opinion, his help, what to do. He will answer.
