-Transcript-
00:24 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:28 Welcome to the cafe. Pastor Clark Covington here with Heartland Community Baptist Church out of Kings Mountain, North Carolina. I’m so glad you joined me today.
00:35 Praise the Lord that he’s given us another day. Went for a walk with my kids a little while ago. We saw the neighbor and said, how are you doing? He said, I woke up this morning and the sun’s shining.
00:44 I said, amen. So look, you woke up this morning, maybe the sun’s shining. Praise God.
00:50 I’m so glad you’re here today. Today we are looking at the rich privilege of serving with the Lord. You know, it is a privilege to serve God.
00:55 When I come up to record these messages in my office and I get ready and all the cares of life are swirling around in my head and there’s all a to-do list a mile long, sometimes I will just pray this prayer to God, Lord, thank you for the privilege of allowing me to serve you.
01:15 Thank you for the privilege. You understand? It is a great privilege.
01:22 I watched an interview with a coach last night, professional coach that no longer is coaching. And he said, I’m thankful for the privilege, the opportunity to coach at this level, professional level. Okay.
01:36 Well, he’s thankful because he knows that that’s a rare thing, that that is something that most would love to do and never get to do. Well, how much more so should we thank God that he allows us to be in service to him?
01:48 You know, outsiders, they look at those enlisted in the Christian service as crazy, as nuts, as poor, or they resent them because now they think they’re better than me. They want nothing to do with them.
02:01 It reminds me of that verse, you know, the light shined in the darkness, right? And the darkness comprehended it not. And is that not what it’s like when lost people look at Christians that are serving in the ministry, right?
02:18 John 1:5, I had to look it up and the light shineth in darkness, the darkness comprehended it, comprehended it not. Man, I was close on that paraphrase.
02:25 John 1:5, you know, that dark, that dark person. And by the way, they’re not dark because they choose to be dark. We are all born into sin.
02:34 They’re simply not regenerated. They’re not born again. And so a sinner will sin.
02:41 That’s just who they are. And they’re just going to look at us and say, you’re, you know, us being saved Christians that are serving God. You’re crazy.
02:50 You’re nuts. Why would you do that? You know, what are you getting out of that? Right. Christians look on others, even saved Christians, they look on others and they say, oh man, they’re serving God.
02:56 Oh, they must be missing out. Oh, they’re on a six month mission trip or they’re on a two year mission trip or, oh, they must be missing out on, and by the way, what are they missing out on?
03:06 You know, whatever the world says will please you and give you peace, does it? And here is the big exclamation point. Does it long term? You know, the Bible says there’s pleasure in sin for a season.
03:20 Amen. Uh, as someone that was in all manner of sin, I can testify to that, but all, you know, Hey, you, you have a bunch to drink and you’re feeling on cloud nine for a few hours and then you’re feeling on cloud zero. You’re feeling like dirt for a few days.
03:35 Amen. Is that not true? It is. And so longterm, these things, the world thinks we’re missing out on, or even Christians think we’re missing out on.
03:44 We’re not missing out on. If you’re, if you’re a Christian, if you’ve been saved, you’ve been washed in the blood and you say, oh, that, that Christian, they can’t go to movie night with, with the office or with the school kids.
03:56 Well, if movie night is some wicked movie, that’s going to make you feel guilty, make you feel like you’re betraying God.
04:01 I mean, sometimes I’ll be watching something and someone out of nowhere will, will cuss or something like that. And I’ll be apologizing to God because I don’t like it. You know it’s like sandpaper on my ears.
04:11 And so are we really missing out? We’re not. But even those that serve the Lord, they can look at themselves as trodden down and defeated. You can say, oh, this is hard.
04:20 You know, maybe you serve God in your, your local church and maybe to get to church as a real production, you have to get up super early. You know, maybe you’re involved in the bus route and you’re getting up really early on Sunday morning after you’ve worked five or six days
04:32 and you’re tired and you’re going to get these kids and you’re there very late. You know, um, I read a testimony of a missionary.
04:39 I think his missionary from Africa, his church was, I think, 15 miles away. And so he’d get up and essentially walk 15 miles. I mean, imagine that would take you all day.
04:48 Uh, but that’s what he did. That’s what, as I understood it, it was either 15 miles or five miles. It was a long way away.
04:54 And so look, in serving God, we can even get down and defeated. But today I want you to rejoice in knowing that it is truly a rich privilege to serve the living God. Proverbs 16:8-9
05:07 Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right.A man’s heart deviseth his ways way, but the Lord directeth his steps.
05:18 Proverbs 16:8-9, who wrote that Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, the son of King David, and is writing this great, rich wisdom that number one, it is better to have little, okay, materially little with righteousness than great revenues without right.
05:35 Think of how that is viewed in the world today. Can you imagine someone that lives in a shack that doesn’t have a car that doesn’t have, but one pair of clothes that doesn’t have hardly any food in their house, but they love the Lord, their Bible looks like they’ve read it a million times. Cause they have, they pray morning, noon, and night.
05:54 They serve God in every capacity they can, even giving when they can, even though they have so little. Now, the world would look at that individual and say that they are not that valuable, that they don’t have any kind of status, that they can’t do anything for those in the world, that their material wealth is so small. They have no retirement.
06:13 They have no luxury car. They don’t have any connections. What good are they to a materialistic world? You know, very little.
06:21 But to God, they’re full of righteousness. They are rich with heavenly reward. You see? And so that individual, let’s say they purpose to serve God a little more and do a little more for the Lord.
06:31 Oh, how he can use that individual because that individual has the right frame of mind, has the, has, and again, I’m not telling anyone to take a vow of poverty. I certainly haven’t. Amen.
06:43 Uh, I work for a living the best I can. And I like a good meal like anyone else, or, you know, a decent car. I have allergies.
06:51 You can put me in an old car, I’ll be sneezing, coughing, all kinds of stuff. Amen. You don’t want to hear it.
06:56 Uh, I don’t, you know, again, I’m not telling anyone to take a vow of poverty. What I’m saying is, uh, the Bible tells us where your heart is there, your treasure will be also.
07:03 And so we have to guard our hearts and realize that even if we don’t have a lot of revenue, whether it be material capital, whether it be social status or whatever it is, as long as we realize our need for him, he can use us.
07:14 And secondly, God’s ultimately in control of our destiny and our path for better or worse. So we have a sovereign God. This is what’s such a mystery about God.
07:23 He’s completely sovereign. He has full control, but he gives us free will. And so he has full control, but he gives us free will.
07:30 And you can see why, because that would allow us to show we love him. When we say, God, we love you. And then we sleep through church and we don’t read our Bible and we live for the world.
07:39 We’re saying one thing and doing another, but when we say, God, we love you and we are praising God in church and we are serving him as best we can.
07:48 And we are reading his word and we’re seeking him and all that we do. We’re showing him through our actions.
08:03 We love him. And those actions are ones that we have done. You know, we, it, God says I’m sending rain that day or snow, and we still go to spend time with him, however that would look right.
08:05 And everyone else says, no, it’s raining. I’m not going to go out the door. We’re showing through our actions that we love him.
08:09 Not saying that, you know, put yourself in danger, but you get the idea. It’s free will. And so we have free will, but God ultimately is in control of our destiny and our path.
08:17 So God says, okay, you show me your cards. And this is just the preacher talking here, but you show me your cards. You show me what you’re thinking.
08:24 You show me where your heart’s at, and then I’m going to direct your path in one way or another. I mean, I guess that’s how it works. We’ll have to ask God one day.
08:37 I’m sure he’ll explain it on the day of judgment, but I believe that. I believe God said, okay, where’s your heart at? Okay. Where are you purposing towards? Okay.
08:40 Now I’m going to direct that path. And that’s biblical. I mean, all the Bible word here would be recompense, right? Recompense needs to repay.
08:48 Okay. And so God will recompense evil for evil and good for good. Right? I think that that’s crystal clear.
08:53 I won’t harp on it too much, but God is ultimately in control of our destiny and our path. And so those two things inform us here that it’s a rich privilege that we have the opportunity to serve God. Understanding that God has all power.
09:07 He doesn’t need us, but he’s given us an opportunity to serve him, to earn heavenly rewards, to be fruitful and to win others to him.
09:16 And in the last episode, I went through Matthew 5:3-12, the Beatitudes, where Jesus identifies who’s blessed, and I think that Jesus identifying who’s blessed could also give us a good kind of persona or information about who would be likely to serve him.
09:33 And that is those that are poor in spirit, that are mourning for their own condition, that are meek, that are hungering and thirsting after righteousness, that are merciful, that are pure in heart, that are peacemakers.
09:45 You know, if you kind of try to sum it up and it’s hard to, but you know, someone that is really trying to get right with God, you know in church, one church I went to years ago, the preacher would say, yeah, their heart is hard or their heart is not soft.
09:59 Okay. Speaking of, you know, why it might be hard to win someone to the Lord or whatever it is.
10:04 And that idea of that soft heart, you know, you have, you have a, you have a heart for the ways of God. You have a heart in your heart. Who hardened their heart in the Bible? Pharaoh.
10:11 He hardened his heart. Amen. He wouldn’t let the Israelites go.
10:15 He wouldn’t let God’s people go. He didn’t fear God. Even after all of these plagues and so forth, he didn’t fear God.
10:20 And what did God do? God said, you have a hard heart. I’ll repay you with more heart of a heart. Right? The same way in the new Testament, I believe Paul writes about those giving over to a reprobate mind.
10:31 The idea that, okay, you’re already living in sin. You already want, you desire sin. I’m going to repay you with what, what you desire.
10:38 And so we see here that that is the persona of someone that can serve God, someone with a soft heart. And here is the crazy thing. We are privileged to serve the Lord here.
10:47 Okay. We’re so privileged to serve him here. And we are also privileged to serve him in heaven.
10:53 Revelation 22:1-5. Yes, we can serve the Lord in heaven. And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal proceeding out of the throne of God and of the lamb in the midst of the street of it and on either side of the river was there the tree of life, which bear 12 manner of fruits and yielded her fruit every month.
11:15 And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations and there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the lamb shall be in it and his servants shall serve him and they shall see his face and his name shall be in their foreheads and there should be no night there and they need no candle, neither light of the sun for the Lord. God giveth them light and they shall reign forever and ever. Okay.
11:36 So what’s this talking about? Obviously heaven, right? And we see here, this picture of heaven, pure water of life. There is a tree of life, 12 manner of fruits for everyone for every month. And I guess there’s months in heaven.
11:50 Amen. Leaves of the tree were for healing of the nations and there’s no more curse. What curse? The sin curse.
11:55 It’s gone. And the throne of God and the lamb shall be in it. There’s going to be a throne there of God and the lamb.
12:02 That’s God, the father and the lamb. Amen. That’s Jesus Christ, the son.
12:13 And his servants shall serve him. So we see here in Revelation 22:1-5, that we’re going to serve him in heaven. The servants of the Lord will serve him in heaven.
12:18 You know, we’re not going to be on a cloud with a harp. We’re not going to be laying in a bed and be like, Oh, we’re just at rest. We’re going to serve God.
12:25 I believe we’ll be very busy for God. We’re going to see his face. His name will be in our foreheads.
12:29 We’ll be clearly identified as his servant. And I love this. There’ll be no night there.
12:34 No need for candle. Neither light of the sun for the Lord. God giveth them light and they shall reign forever and ever.
12:39 I love the light. I don’t like darkness. Amen.
12:43 I lived in the Midwest for a season. It was always in the winter, dark and cloudy. I couldn’t stand it.
12:47 I was getting depressed. I like the light. I love the going to the beach.
12:50 One reason why I love going to the beach is you got the sun out. You don’t have any buildings blocking the sun. If you’re at the beach, you know, at the water area, and then you got the water reflecting the sun.
12:59 It’s just beautiful. I love the light. And guess what? In heaven, it’s even better than the beach, which is hard to imagine.
13:03 In heaven, there is no night. Amen. There is, he is the light.
13:07 He he’s lighting that place up. We are serving him and we’re serving him without the curse. Now that’s a big deal because here we’re serving him with the curse here.
13:18 We’re serving him despite of sin. We’re serving him in warfare, spiritual warfare against sin and death and the devil and all in heaven. We’re serving him purely.
13:27 We have that resurrected body. We won’t be tired. Amen.
13:31 We won’t have to question whether what we’re doing is right or wrong of God or not, or if this person is going to abandon us or not, or what other snare trap we’re going to get into, but we’re going to serve him purely and wholly, and that is a privilege guys.
13:43 That is a privilege. Can you imagine being in eternity and serving God? What higher place could there be? I can’t think of any.
13:50 I cannot think of any in heaven. Everyone will praise God. And I believe some will serve him.
13:54 Maybe not all. I don’t know how it all works, but we will serve him. Those that are serving him here on earth.
14:02 I believe you will graduate to a level of service in heaven that you can’t fathom. And I believe that’s part of the reward. God’s going to say, okay, you’re governor of so-and-so city or whatever.
14:11 You served me on earth. You were faithful over a few things and turned to your reward. And now you have the resurrected body.
14:18 You’re serving God. I could go on and on. We’re running out of time, but what a blessing, what a privilege it is to serve God.
14:23 It is a privilege. It’s an honor to serve God. Thank him for that today.
14:26 Thank you for that today. Tune in next time for the third part of this series.
14:29 Thank you so much. God bless and amen.