SERVE 2021

Passage: Acts 19:1-10

When God wills, 19:1.

Early this month we had all our sons and their families home which meant we had six grandkids three and under playing in the house.  Mind you we have tons of toys, more than enough for all of them to play with, but the word we heard most was “mine, mine, mine.”

It reminded me of that scene in the Disney move Finding Nemo where the seagulls are all saying, “mine, mine, mine.”

We live on a strong-willed planet filled with seven billion strong-willed people who are all saying, “Mine, mine, mine.”  “My will be done.”

Someone has said the definition of hell is “my will be done” and the definition of heaven is “thy will be done.”

I spoke last week about building the kingdom by praying “Thy will be done.”  That is an easy prayer to pray, but a hard prayer to wait for an answer to.  How many of us have prayed and prayed for God’s will and waited for a sign, a door to open, an answer to be given?

What is God doing, when will He do it, how will He do it?  So

many questions.  One of the hardest things in the Christian life is waiting and not knowing.

At the beginning of Paul’s second missionary journey he traveled through Phrygia and Galatia.

Acts 16:6 They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.

At the end of Paul’s second missionary journey he made a brief stop in Ephesus and they begged him to stay, but he said he would return if God wills, and he left.

Now at the beginning of Paul’s third missionary journey he retraces his steps through Phrygia and Galatia but it happened that this time God willed for him to go to Asia minor and into Ephesus.

You don’t know what you don’t know.

You don’t know when the fullness of time will come in God’s plan.

You don’t know when in the mysterious counsel of God He wills this way or that.

When we look at all the twist and turns of our lives, all the circumstances and situations, all the differences between our life and someone else’s life, we are called to walk by faith and not by sight, and that means total trust and dependence on God.

Paul is living this important truth.  While Paul was in Ephesus he wrote two letters to the church in Corinth.  We hear how he was applying this truth.

heard the Gospel.

Perspective changes everything.  What are we doing with our lives?  Are we laying brick or are we building a cathedral?

I Corinthians 4:19 But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills.

I Corinthians 16:5 I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits.

II Corinthians 1:9-10 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10 He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.

Being in the center of God’s will does not mean everything will be sweetness and light, or a bed of roses.  Actually it will be more like a garden of roses, flowers and thorns.  Jesus prayed, “Father, not my will but thy will be done” and He ended up on a cross.

So Paul is in Ephesus now according to the will of God.  In the good and the bad God has great purposes for Paul in this great city.  Paul finds three things in Ephesus.

Ignorance which is answered with instruction.

Opposition which is countered with separation.

Opportunity which is seized with great boldness and fruitfulness.

Passage: Acts 18:18-28

What a blessed two weekends of Serve we have had.  Around 80 members of all ages served at about 7 sites over two weekends and accomplished a huge amount of work.  I am proud of First Church and thankful for the Serve Team of Molly, Cal and Laura, Len and Steve.  I am grateful for all the labor, all the effort, all the planning and organizing.  And most importantly, all of the prayer over the last year.  God blessed the weather, the work, the right people in the right places.

When we were out at Telos Camp in Ferndale, Tim Lewis, the former missionary who runs and directs the camp spoke to us before we started our work and he told a story.

A man walked on to a construction site and asked a worker what he was doing and he said he was laying brick.  He saw another man doing the same thing and asked him what he was doing and he said he was building a wall.  There was another man doing the same thing and he asked him what he was doing and he said he was building a cathedral.  Perspective.

Tim said we were not there to pull weeds, and rake, and cut tree limbs, and split wood, and put in a window.  We were there to reach the least reached lost souls on earth with the Gospel and to build the kingdom of God.  How is that?

Tim and his wife Becky are the ones who developed the new focus in missions on Frontier people groups, the most least reached of the least reached people groups.  They are using Telos as a base for reaching these least reached groups of people in the world, representing hundreds of millions of souls who have never heard the Gospel.

Perspective changes everything.  What are we doing with our lives?  Are we laying brick or are we building a cathedral?

Passage: Psalm 16

Last week we considered the theme text for Serve week from Hebrews 12 and our Unshakable Kingdom. This week we take up the text that was Friday’s Serve devotional, Psalm 16 and our Unshakable Faith.

If we say someone has led a sheltered life what are we implying? It is generally understood to be a negative comment. A person who has led a sheltered life is some one who have been pampered, had things handed to them on a silver platter. They have been protected from the harsher realities of life, from unpleasant circumstances. A person with a sheltered life is going to be naïve about the ways of the world.

I am sure most of us would not think of King David as the kind of guy who would be accused of living a sheltered life. He was as manly a man as you could find in the Bible. He killed lions and bears with his own hands, he killed Goliath, he fought battles, he led men into war. He constantly faced all kinds of danger.
Yet he finds no shame in running for shelter from the dangers of life. If you read the Psalms you get the clear idea he led a sheltered life.

Psalm 27:5 He will conceal me under the cover of his tent.
Psalm 61:4 Let me dwell in your tent forever! Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings!
Psalm 91:1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

Psalm 16 is another Psalm of David where he is seeking the sheltered life. In verse one he cries out to God for help, for the providence of God to preserve and protect him. By sheltered life we mean all the things David calls it, coming under the wings of God, taking up dwelling in the tent of the Lord, abiding in the shadow of the Almighty. Being at the right hand of God where he cannot be shaken.

The Psalms teach us we all need to live sheltered lives and it’s not shameful to be dependent on Him for His divine protection in our lives. We are never without need of divine shelter. And this shelter is the source of our unshakable faith and confidence and boldness.

Let’s consider five benefits of a divinely sheltered life as we find them in Psalm 16 and how they are the reason behind a unshakable faith.