July 29, 2025 • 26 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
You want to do something meaningful for the Lord before
he comes back, but you've been putting it off. What
if you knew his return was imminent. Today, on turning Point,
Doctor David Jeremiah addresses the question what can you do
right now, in the time you have remaining in this
life to make a difference for Christ? Listen as David
(00:26):
introduces today's compelling message, what can I do?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
You know, that's a very important question for us to ask.
Every one of us has gifts and talents that God
has given to us. Have you ever stopped to ask
this question? How can I take what I know how
to do and use it to help people get to Heaven.
It's an amazing question, and it will cause you to
think deeply about your life. I pretty much know what
(00:53):
God has called me to do, and I try to
do it with all my heart every day. But periodically,
as I go along, I find out other For instance,
I was reading a magazine recently that said that forty
six percent of the people who read Christian literature only
read fiction, and I realized that I've been writing all
(01:14):
these books all these years, and I've never tried to
tap into that group. I have no idea. Whether I've
been successful or not, but I wanted to give it
a try for people who read fiction not to be
left out of the preaching and teaching of the Scripture
in a very different kind of way. So we learn
how to do that. Joined up with a team member
(01:34):
and published this book called Vanished. And by the way,
you can get a copy of that book with a
gift of any size during the month of July, which
is almost gone, by the way, so make sure you
get your request in today. In the meantime, here's the
question we're answering in these next two days. What can
I do? Let's find out what the Bible has to say.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I came across this story told by New Testament scholar D. A.
Carson in his new book Scandalous The Cross and Resurrection
of Jesus. In the book, he asked this question, did
you see the film Titanic. The great ship is full
of the richest people of the world, and according to
the film, as the ship sinks, the rich men start
(02:22):
to scramble for the few and inadequate lifeboats, shoving aside
the women and children in their desperate desire to live.
British sailors draw handguns and fire in the air, crying,
stand back, stand back, women and children first. The problem
with all of that is that in reality, nothing like
(02:44):
that ever happened aboard the Titanic. The universal testimony of
the witnesses who survived that disaster is that men hung
back and urged the women and the children into the lifeboats.
John Jacob Astor was there at the time, the richest
man on earth the Bill Gates of nineteen twelve. He
(03:06):
dragged his wife to a boat, shoved her on the boat,
and stepped back.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Someone urged him.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
To get into the boat himself, based upon who he was,
and he refused. He said the boats are too few
and must be for the women and children first. So
he stepped back and he drowned. There is not a
single report a one rich man displacing women and children
in the mad rush for survival. When the film was
(03:36):
reviewed by The New York Times, the reviewer asked why
the producer and director of the film had distorted history
so flagrantly in this regard, Why this wilful distortion of history?
And then the reviewer answered his own question. If the
producer and director had told the truth, he said, no
(03:57):
one would have believed them. One hundred years ago, there
remained in our culture enough residue of the Christian virtue
of self sacrifice for the sake of others that Christians
and non Christians alike thought it noble, if unremarkable, to
(04:18):
choose death.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
For the sake of others.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Just one century later, such a course is judged so
unbelievable that the history has to be distorted to make
a popular movie. Today, our question is what can I do.
I believe Jesus is coming back, what can I do?
(04:45):
And the answer is simply this. You can serve others.
You can put others first. You can live out the
spirit of Jesus in a world that more and more
has less and less of an idea. What the term
service is all about. Servanthood was the key to the
(05:05):
life of our Savior, the Lord Jesus, and it has
been the key to the lives of all great leaders
from that time until this. But service is not just
a characteristic of leaders. Service is the core value of Christianity.
If you open your Bibles to study the subject, you
(05:26):
will discover that the word serving is found over three
hundred times in the New Testament, one hundred and thirty
times in the Gospels, one hundred and seventy times in
the Epistles. The Lord did not save us to be sensations.
He saved us to be servants. In Ephesians chapter two,
(05:50):
in the NIV translation, we read these words, for we
are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good work,
works which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Calvin Miller, in his book Into the Depths of God wrote,
(06:10):
I have no way to prove this, but I have
a feeling that they live the longest who know why
they are alive In the first place, We not only
find out who we are, but we find out what
God has for us to do. And then, glory of glories,
he wrote, we discover they are one and the same,
(06:34):
that what God has for us to do is who
we are. It is better to live a decade and
know why we are here, he wrote, than to live
a century without any clue.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
What a statement.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Better to live a decade and know why you are
here than to live for one hundred years and not
have a clue why you're here. Did you know that
a lot of people don't know.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Why they're here.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Fortunately, there are many people who believe there is no
way to know why you're here, that there is no plan,
that there is no direction, there is no purpose in
life at all. Life is not without design. Life is
with a purpose. And I'm here to tell you, men
and women that for every one of you, for each
and every one of you here, God has a purpose
for your life. He has a design for your life.
(07:21):
He's given each of you a gift of service. He's
called you to himself, not just so you can be saved,
but so that you can serve.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
He wants you to know the joy that can come.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Only from being actively and fully and completely and joyfully
employed in the service.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
Of Almighty God.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
I don't know what the exact specific purpose of your
life might be, but I do know that we have
all been saved to serve one Peter four ten says,
as each one has received a gift, minister it to
one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
(08:05):
What an intriguing thought that we have been called to serve,
just as our Lord and Savior was called to serve.
The Bible tells us in Matthew twenty eight that as
the Son of Man did not come to be served,
but to serve and give his life a ransom for many.
(08:27):
Think of that for a moment. The Lord Jesus is
not asking us to do anything he does not do.
He came from heaven. He could have been served. He
could have called the host of the angels and all
of humanity to do everything for him. But he came
rather as a servant. And now he says to us,
(08:51):
as I have been sent into the world, so I
send you into the world. I want you to follow
me as I have become a servant. I want you
to be a sir. It in the psawmist put it
this way. Serve the Lord with gladness, and enter into
his presence with singing. I keep a little notebook where
I write down important things, and they're important to me.
(09:14):
They might not be important to anybody else. And if
you got the notebook, it probably would't make any sense
to you, but it makes a lot of sense to me.
And I know where everything is in this little notebook.
And here's one of the things I wrote down. Somebody
gave me this little statement. Impression without expression leads to depression.
And what that means is this, If you're always taking
(09:34):
in and never giving out. Pretty soon you will be
giving up. God has wired us men and women in
such a way that we are built to reach out
and to serve one another, not to absorb it all
like the dead sea, but to constantly flowing out to
(09:57):
other people, making a difference in their lives as they are.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Doing the same for us.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
So I want to give you quickly a little outline
I have created call the seven Secrets of serving. And
you almost have to say that carefully because that's a
hard thing to say. Say it with me, the seven
Secrets of serving. Here's the first one, the secret of availability.
My father was a pastor. He wasn't into a lot
of this modern stuff. We used to have all these
(10:26):
gifts seminars when I was growing up.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
It was a kind of a big thing.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Everybody was into spiritual gifts, and my dad he wasn't
too sure about all the spiritual gift stuff. You know,
just preach the Bible, don't get off in all these sidetracks.
Then one day I heard him say this in front
of the whole congregation. He said, the only gift I
really worry too much about is the gift of availability.
Are you available if you're available. God will take care
of the rest of it. The Bible tells us that
(10:52):
if we're going to serve God, we have to make
ourselves available to God. God isn't going to shanghai you
in the service. He's not going to grab you by
the scruff of the neck and push you in some direction.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
He's waiting for a willing heart.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
That is so demonstrable in the stories of the Bible.
For instance, in the life of Isaiah, we read I
heard the voice of the Lord say, whom shall I send?
Who will go for us? And Isaiah said, here I am, Lord,
send me. I'm available. It's illustrated in the life of Mary,
the mother of our Lord. After she had received the revelation,
(11:28):
Mary said, behold, the maid servant of the Lord, let
it be to me according.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
To your word.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
It's in the life of Paul the Apostle, who was
saved on the road to Damascus, and in the same
chapter recording his salvation, we read that he was trembling
and astonished, and he said he just came to Christ.
He said, Lord, what would you have me to do?
And the Lord said to him, arise, go into the city,
(11:57):
and you will be told what you must do. The
thing about all four of these people and others in
the Bible I could have chosen was this. They weren't
fighting the Lord. They were available to the Lord. They
were just saying, Lord, what is it you want me
to do? God is looking for willing hearts and hands.
(12:18):
If we are to serve we must make ourselves available
to him. Now, one of the things that gets in
the way of our serving the Lord is that somewhere
along the way we discover that serving the Lord involves
serving other people. Did you know you can't serve the
Lord if you won't serve other people. How do you
(12:40):
serve God without serving people? While I just serve him? Wow?
Well I just sort of, pastor, I don't know, I
just serve him. No, let me tell you something I've discovered.
Serving God is serving people. The Bible teaches that. Calvin
Miller writes, Unfortunately, the serving people is the only way
(13:01):
by which we can serve God, and serving people means
that we are going to get.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
Hurt in the process.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
If we are not careful, the pain involved in our
service can cause us ultimately to despise those we once
felt called to love. Charlie Brown is right. We all
want to serve God, but it can be terribly degrading
to serve people.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
In order to do it.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
That's true, isn't it. Have you ever prayed this prayer?
My friends? Here's where this whole bit of serving the
Lord begins. Here's where it starts.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Lord.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I don't know what you might have for me to
do in your kingdom, but I want you to know
that I am willing and available.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
To do it.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Usually, our willingness and our availability come first, and the
assignment comes second. Here's how it works. Here's the blank
sheet of paper. Sign your name at the bottom. Say Lord,
you fill into details. I'm ready, I've signed the contract.
You fill in the provisions. That sounds easy, but it's
(14:07):
where the struggle is for most people.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
I remember when I was coming up.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
In the faith and going to all these youth meetings
and being called to, you know, commit your life to
the Lord. I heard Romans twelve one and two about
fifty times when I was growing up. I beseech you, therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies
a living sacrifice to God. And I wanted to serve God.
There's one thing that got in the way. I was
(14:32):
absolutely convinced that if I gave my life to Christ,
he would send me to Africa. Man, I didn't want
to go to Africa. I didn't know anything about Africa,
but it didn't sound like the place I wanted to go.
And you know that a lot of people that grow
up like that, they think, if I give God absolute
permission to take control of my life, he will give
me something to do that I don't want to do.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
But you're missing at friends.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
He knows better than anyone what makes you tick, what
is going to wire you with joy and excitement and adventure.
And if you'll let him have control of your life,
he will give you the desires of your heart. I
don't say that carelessly. The Bible says, commit your way
unto the Lord. What's the rest of it, and he
(15:18):
will give you the desires of your heart. Do you
know what I'm doing today? I'm doing what I love
to do with all my heart, what I would do
if I could choose what to do. But I didn't
know that at the beginning. God called me to do
(15:39):
what I love to do. The gift of availability. Notice secondly,
the secret of authority. Everyone who is serving is under
the authority to someone else. You don't serve out of
(15:59):
your your own heart. You serve others under the direction.
And that's the characteristic of the scripture. Listen to the
word of God. Jesus came and spoke to them Matthew
twenty eight, saying, all authority has been given to me
in heaven and on earth. I have all authority. Now
here's my command. Go into all the world and preach
the Gospel. When you serve, you serve under the authority
(16:23):
of someone. When Jesus was at the first miracle that
he performed in John two, Jesus' mother said to the servants,
whatever he says to you.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Do it. That's a perfect illustration.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Matthew seven twenty one says, not everyone who says to me, Lord,
Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven, but he
who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven.
And Luke six forty six says, why do you call
me lord? And do not the things that I say.
If you're going to be a servant, you're going to
serve someone, You're going to be under the authority of someone.
(17:01):
And I want to ask you, is that an issue
for you? There are a lot of folks today. He
don't want to be under the authority to anyone. They
don't want to answer to anyone. My friend, if you're
going to serve the Lord, you will be under his authority.
You will do what he says. Now, you don't have
to fear that he will not call you to do
what you do not want to do. There's a wonderful
(17:24):
story about missionary David Livingstone.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Who was called to Africa. By the way.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
He was a British missionary who was deployed to Africa
in the nineteenth century. When he died from malaria and dysentery,
the African tribe in which he had lived refused to
hand his body over to the British authorities for a
proper burial. Eventually they relented, but not before they cut
(17:50):
out his heart and put a note on his body
that said, you can have his body, but his heart
belongs to Africa. Livingstone's life extraordinary, was filled with missionary
good works and the exploration of the Gospel. And above all,
he knew that where he was was where God wanted
(18:11):
him to be, and he was under the authority of
the one who had called him there.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
He wrote one time.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
In one of his writings these words, he says, people
talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so
much of my life in Africa. Is that a sacrifice
which brings its best reward in healthful activity, the consciousness
of doing good, peace of mind, a bright hope of
a glorious destiny hereafter. By the way parentheses, there are
(18:39):
a lot of people caught up in the American dream
who would give anything just to have those three things.
Just have peace of mind, just have the sense that
they're doing something worthwhile. He found it in a place
God put him where most of us would dread to
even think about going. He wrote, away with the word
in such a view, Away with the word of sacacrifice,
(19:01):
Away with such a thought. It is emphatically no sacrifice,
say red, is a privilege, anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger.
Now and then, sometimes the foregoing of common conveniences may
make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and
the soul to sink. But let this only be for
(19:22):
a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the
glory which shall be revealed in and for us. Then,
he wrote, and I underlined it, I never made a sacrifice.
To serve under the authority of the Living God is
not a sacrifice, it's a privilege. The most of the
(19:45):
people I know who are doing that are joyful, happy,
fulfilled individuals, and we see it often when they come
home from the mission field to do their little furlough.
When you talk to them, all they talk about is
they can't wait to get back. Coming home is a
real irritation to most of them. They want to go
back and serve the Lord who has called them into service.
(20:09):
The secret of availability and authority. Then let me talk
with you for a moment about the secret of humility.
Jesus taught us how to serve. And I don't want
to read this passage because it's rather extended.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
And you know the story.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
It's the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.
The Bible tells us that on an occasion listen to this,
when his disciples were arguing with themselves over who was
the greatest in the kingdom, Jesus walked in and without
saying a word, took off his outer garment, wrapped himself
with a towel, got down on his knees, and watched
(20:45):
all of their stinking filthy feet one after the other.
Wouldn't you like to have been there for that moment?
I mean, just to see the contrast between these arrogant
disciples arguing over the place of prominence, and then the
one who had called him to serve bowing before them,
(21:06):
taking the place of a servant and washing their feet.
When he got all done, he said, as I have
done this, you should do it. Also, what was Jesus
telling them? He's telling them a servant serves. Jesus came
into this world to serve. The problem with being a
(21:27):
servant is that some of it is not easy. Serving
isn't always a walk in the park. Going to Africa
has its issues. I couldn't help but wonder what the
lack of conveniences was he was talking about. In his
little paragraph, Ray Deedmond writes, loving people is about the
(21:50):
most difficult thing that some.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Of us ever do.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
We could be patient with people, and even be just
and charitable, but how are we supposed to conjure up
in our hearts that warm, evercent sentiment of goodwill which
the New Testament calls love. Some people are so miserably unlovable.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
We all know what that means. Don't we.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
You say, well, i'll serve God as long as it's
in a nice place with nice people and no issues,
don't sign up. There is no such place. Every place
has its own issues. I mean you may say, well,
look what you do, pastor, or look what you do.
Oh yes, I have a lot of wonderful things that
(22:35):
God has done for me, but I have my issues.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
It's like you do. Serving God has its issues.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
And if you're going to serve God, you've got to
have a spirit of humility. That's such an interesting word,
isn't it. Humility. Nobody wants to talk about it because
as soon as you talk about it, people think you
have it, and then you're not humble anymore. You know,
you heard about the book I wrote, Humility and how
I achieved it. You know, I don't think so. True
(23:08):
humility is not thinking less of yourself, but it's thinking
of yourself less. C. S. Lewis wrote, do not imagine
that if you meet a really humble man, he will
be what most people call humble nowadays. He will not
be a sort of greasy, swarmy person who's always telling
you that of course he is nobody. Probably all you
(23:29):
will think about him is that he seemed like a cheerful,
intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you
said to him. If you do dislike him, it will
be because you feel a little envious at anyone who
seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be
thinking about humility, He will not be thinking about himself
at all. He will just be who he is, loving
people and being himself. The secret of humility.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Loving people, and being yourself. What a great formula for
making a difference in the lives of others. You know,
I can't always do this, but I've gotten pretty good
at it. I can often tell when I'm in the
presence of a Christian before they ever say anything. It's
true in restaurants a lot. In fact, I'll even ask
people when they're working with us, or dealing with us,
(24:15):
or waiting on us, can I ask you a question? Yeah,
are you a Christian? And oftentimes the smile comes across
their face, Yes, I am. We can show Christ in
our lives and friends. That's the least we can do
as we wait for the Lord to come back. And
oftentimes when we do that, that's an opportunity for us
to share our faith in a meaningful way, and the
(24:37):
Bible tells us we're to be ready to do that.
So what can I do? There's a few suggestions. We'll
have some more of them tomorrow on the next edition
of Turning Point, and I hope you'll join us then.
I'm David Jeremiah. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
For more information on today's special message from doctor Jeremiah,
please visit our website, where we also offer two free
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(25:18):
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(25:39):
website David Jeremiah dot org, slash Radio That's David Jeremiah
dot org. Slash Radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join
us tomorrow as we continue this special message from doctor
David Jeremiah here on turning Point
You want to do something meaningful for the Lord before
he comes back, but you've been putting it off. What
if you knew his return was imminent. Today, on turning Point,
Doctor David Jeremiah addresses the question what can you do
right now, in the time you have remaining in this
life to make a difference for Christ? Listen as David
(00:26):
introduces today's compelling message, what can I do?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
You know, that's a very important question for us to ask.
Every one of us has gifts and talents that God
has given to us. Have you ever stopped to ask
this question? How can I take what I know how
to do and use it to help people get to Heaven.
It's an amazing question, and it will cause you to
think deeply about your life. I pretty much know what
(00:53):
God has called me to do, and I try to
do it with all my heart every day. But periodically,
as I go along, I find out other For instance,
I was reading a magazine recently that said that forty
six percent of the people who read Christian literature only
read fiction, and I realized that I've been writing all
(01:14):
these books all these years, and I've never tried to
tap into that group. I have no idea. Whether I've
been successful or not, but I wanted to give it
a try for people who read fiction not to be
left out of the preaching and teaching of the Scripture
in a very different kind of way. So we learn
how to do that. Joined up with a team member
(01:34):
and published this book called Vanished. And by the way,
you can get a copy of that book with a
gift of any size during the month of July, which
is almost gone, by the way, so make sure you
get your request in today. In the meantime, here's the
question we're answering in these next two days. What can
I do? Let's find out what the Bible has to say.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I came across this story told by New Testament scholar D. A.
Carson in his new book Scandalous The Cross and Resurrection
of Jesus. In the book, he asked this question, did
you see the film Titanic. The great ship is full
of the richest people of the world, and according to
the film, as the ship sinks, the rich men start
(02:22):
to scramble for the few and inadequate lifeboats, shoving aside
the women and children in their desperate desire to live.
British sailors draw handguns and fire in the air, crying,
stand back, stand back, women and children first. The problem
with all of that is that in reality, nothing like
(02:44):
that ever happened aboard the Titanic. The universal testimony of
the witnesses who survived that disaster is that men hung
back and urged the women and the children into the lifeboats.
John Jacob Astor was there at the time, the richest
man on earth the Bill Gates of nineteen twelve. He
(03:06):
dragged his wife to a boat, shoved her on the boat,
and stepped back.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Someone urged him.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
To get into the boat himself, based upon who he was,
and he refused. He said the boats are too few
and must be for the women and children first. So
he stepped back and he drowned. There is not a
single report a one rich man displacing women and children
in the mad rush for survival. When the film was
(03:36):
reviewed by The New York Times, the reviewer asked why
the producer and director of the film had distorted history
so flagrantly in this regard, Why this wilful distortion of history?
And then the reviewer answered his own question. If the
producer and director had told the truth, he said, no
(03:57):
one would have believed them. One hundred years ago, there
remained in our culture enough residue of the Christian virtue
of self sacrifice for the sake of others that Christians
and non Christians alike thought it noble, if unremarkable, to
(04:18):
choose death.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
For the sake of others.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Just one century later, such a course is judged so
unbelievable that the history has to be distorted to make
a popular movie. Today, our question is what can I do.
I believe Jesus is coming back, what can I do?
(04:45):
And the answer is simply this. You can serve others.
You can put others first. You can live out the
spirit of Jesus in a world that more and more
has less and less of an idea. What the term
service is all about. Servanthood was the key to the
(05:05):
life of our Savior, the Lord Jesus, and it has
been the key to the lives of all great leaders
from that time until this. But service is not just
a characteristic of leaders. Service is the core value of Christianity.
If you open your Bibles to study the subject, you
(05:26):
will discover that the word serving is found over three
hundred times in the New Testament, one hundred and thirty
times in the Gospels, one hundred and seventy times in
the Epistles. The Lord did not save us to be sensations.
He saved us to be servants. In Ephesians chapter two,
(05:50):
in the NIV translation, we read these words, for we
are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good work,
works which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Calvin Miller, in his book Into the Depths of God wrote,
(06:10):
I have no way to prove this, but I have
a feeling that they live the longest who know why
they are alive In the first place, We not only
find out who we are, but we find out what
God has for us to do. And then, glory of glories,
he wrote, we discover they are one and the same,
(06:34):
that what God has for us to do is who
we are. It is better to live a decade and
know why we are here, he wrote, than to live
a century without any clue.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
What a statement.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Better to live a decade and know why you are
here than to live for one hundred years and not
have a clue why you're here. Did you know that
a lot of people don't know.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Why they're here.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Fortunately, there are many people who believe there is no
way to know why you're here, that there is no plan,
that there is no direction, there is no purpose in
life at all. Life is not without design. Life is
with a purpose. And I'm here to tell you, men
and women that for every one of you, for each
and every one of you here, God has a purpose
for your life. He has a design for your life.
(07:21):
He's given each of you a gift of service. He's
called you to himself, not just so you can be saved,
but so that you can serve.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
He wants you to know the joy that can come.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Only from being actively and fully and completely and joyfully
employed in the service.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
Of Almighty God.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
I don't know what the exact specific purpose of your
life might be, but I do know that we have
all been saved to serve one Peter four ten says,
as each one has received a gift, minister it to
one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
(08:05):
What an intriguing thought that we have been called to serve,
just as our Lord and Savior was called to serve.
The Bible tells us in Matthew twenty eight that as
the Son of Man did not come to be served,
but to serve and give his life a ransom for many.
(08:27):
Think of that for a moment. The Lord Jesus is
not asking us to do anything he does not do.
He came from heaven. He could have been served. He
could have called the host of the angels and all
of humanity to do everything for him. But he came
rather as a servant. And now he says to us,
(08:51):
as I have been sent into the world, so I
send you into the world. I want you to follow
me as I have become a servant. I want you
to be a sir. It in the psawmist put it
this way. Serve the Lord with gladness, and enter into
his presence with singing. I keep a little notebook where
I write down important things, and they're important to me.
(09:14):
They might not be important to anybody else. And if
you got the notebook, it probably would't make any sense
to you, but it makes a lot of sense to me.
And I know where everything is in this little notebook.
And here's one of the things I wrote down. Somebody
gave me this little statement. Impression without expression leads to depression.
And what that means is this, If you're always taking
(09:34):
in and never giving out. Pretty soon you will be
giving up. God has wired us men and women in
such a way that we are built to reach out
and to serve one another, not to absorb it all
like the dead sea, but to constantly flowing out to
(09:57):
other people, making a difference in their lives as they are.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Doing the same for us.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
So I want to give you quickly a little outline
I have created call the seven Secrets of serving. And
you almost have to say that carefully because that's a
hard thing to say. Say it with me, the seven
Secrets of serving. Here's the first one, the secret of availability.
My father was a pastor. He wasn't into a lot
of this modern stuff. We used to have all these
(10:26):
gifts seminars when I was growing up.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
It was a kind of a big thing.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Everybody was into spiritual gifts, and my dad he wasn't
too sure about all the spiritual gift stuff. You know,
just preach the Bible, don't get off in all these sidetracks.
Then one day I heard him say this in front
of the whole congregation. He said, the only gift I
really worry too much about is the gift of availability.
Are you available if you're available. God will take care
of the rest of it. The Bible tells us that
(10:52):
if we're going to serve God, we have to make
ourselves available to God. God isn't going to shanghai you
in the service. He's not going to grab you by
the scruff of the neck and push you in some direction.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
He's waiting for a willing heart.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
That is so demonstrable in the stories of the Bible.
For instance, in the life of Isaiah, we read I
heard the voice of the Lord say, whom shall I send?
Who will go for us? And Isaiah said, here I am, Lord,
send me. I'm available. It's illustrated in the life of Mary,
the mother of our Lord. After she had received the revelation,
(11:28):
Mary said, behold, the maid servant of the Lord, let
it be to me according.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
To your word.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
It's in the life of Paul the Apostle, who was
saved on the road to Damascus, and in the same
chapter recording his salvation, we read that he was trembling
and astonished, and he said he just came to Christ.
He said, Lord, what would you have me to do?
And the Lord said to him, arise, go into the city,
(11:57):
and you will be told what you must do. The
thing about all four of these people and others in
the Bible I could have chosen was this. They weren't
fighting the Lord. They were available to the Lord. They
were just saying, Lord, what is it you want me
to do? God is looking for willing hearts and hands.
(12:18):
If we are to serve we must make ourselves available
to him. Now, one of the things that gets in
the way of our serving the Lord is that somewhere
along the way we discover that serving the Lord involves
serving other people. Did you know you can't serve the
Lord if you won't serve other people. How do you
(12:40):
serve God without serving people? While I just serve him? Wow?
Well I just sort of, pastor, I don't know, I
just serve him. No, let me tell you something I've discovered.
Serving God is serving people. The Bible teaches that. Calvin
Miller writes, Unfortunately, the serving people is the only way
(13:01):
by which we can serve God, and serving people means
that we are going to get.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
Hurt in the process.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
If we are not careful, the pain involved in our
service can cause us ultimately to despise those we once
felt called to love. Charlie Brown is right. We all
want to serve God, but it can be terribly degrading
to serve people.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
In order to do it.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
That's true, isn't it. Have you ever prayed this prayer?
My friends? Here's where this whole bit of serving the
Lord begins. Here's where it starts.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Lord.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I don't know what you might have for me to
do in your kingdom, but I want you to know
that I am willing and available.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
To do it.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Usually, our willingness and our availability come first, and the
assignment comes second. Here's how it works. Here's the blank
sheet of paper. Sign your name at the bottom. Say Lord,
you fill into details. I'm ready, I've signed the contract.
You fill in the provisions. That sounds easy, but it's
(14:07):
where the struggle is for most people.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
I remember when I was coming up.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
In the faith and going to all these youth meetings
and being called to, you know, commit your life to
the Lord. I heard Romans twelve one and two about
fifty times when I was growing up. I beseech you, therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies
a living sacrifice to God. And I wanted to serve God.
There's one thing that got in the way. I was
(14:32):
absolutely convinced that if I gave my life to Christ,
he would send me to Africa. Man, I didn't want
to go to Africa. I didn't know anything about Africa,
but it didn't sound like the place I wanted to go.
And you know that a lot of people that grow
up like that, they think, if I give God absolute
permission to take control of my life, he will give
me something to do that I don't want to do.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
But you're missing at friends.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
He knows better than anyone what makes you tick, what
is going to wire you with joy and excitement and adventure.
And if you'll let him have control of your life,
he will give you the desires of your heart. I
don't say that carelessly. The Bible says, commit your way
unto the Lord. What's the rest of it, and he
(15:18):
will give you the desires of your heart. Do you
know what I'm doing today? I'm doing what I love
to do with all my heart, what I would do
if I could choose what to do. But I didn't
know that at the beginning. God called me to do
(15:39):
what I love to do. The gift of availability. Notice secondly,
the secret of authority. Everyone who is serving is under
the authority to someone else. You don't serve out of
(15:59):
your your own heart. You serve others under the direction.
And that's the characteristic of the scripture. Listen to the
word of God. Jesus came and spoke to them Matthew
twenty eight, saying, all authority has been given to me
in heaven and on earth. I have all authority. Now
here's my command. Go into all the world and preach
the Gospel. When you serve, you serve under the authority
(16:23):
of someone. When Jesus was at the first miracle that
he performed in John two, Jesus' mother said to the servants,
whatever he says to you.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Do it. That's a perfect illustration.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Matthew seven twenty one says, not everyone who says to me, Lord,
Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven, but he
who does the will of my Father, who is in heaven.
And Luke six forty six says, why do you call
me lord? And do not the things that I say.
If you're going to be a servant, you're going to
serve someone, You're going to be under the authority of someone.
(17:01):
And I want to ask you, is that an issue
for you? There are a lot of folks today. He
don't want to be under the authority to anyone. They
don't want to answer to anyone. My friend, if you're
going to serve the Lord, you will be under his authority.
You will do what he says. Now, you don't have
to fear that he will not call you to do
what you do not want to do. There's a wonderful
(17:24):
story about missionary David Livingstone.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Who was called to Africa. By the way.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
He was a British missionary who was deployed to Africa
in the nineteenth century. When he died from malaria and dysentery,
the African tribe in which he had lived refused to
hand his body over to the British authorities for a
proper burial. Eventually they relented, but not before they cut
(17:50):
out his heart and put a note on his body
that said, you can have his body, but his heart
belongs to Africa. Livingstone's life extraordinary, was filled with missionary
good works and the exploration of the Gospel. And above all,
he knew that where he was was where God wanted
(18:11):
him to be, and he was under the authority of
the one who had called him there.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
He wrote one time.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
In one of his writings these words, he says, people
talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so
much of my life in Africa. Is that a sacrifice
which brings its best reward in healthful activity, the consciousness
of doing good, peace of mind, a bright hope of
a glorious destiny hereafter. By the way parentheses, there are
(18:39):
a lot of people caught up in the American dream
who would give anything just to have those three things.
Just have peace of mind, just have the sense that
they're doing something worthwhile. He found it in a place
God put him where most of us would dread to
even think about going. He wrote, away with the word
in such a view, Away with the word of sacacrifice,
(19:01):
Away with such a thought. It is emphatically no sacrifice,
say red, is a privilege, anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger.
Now and then, sometimes the foregoing of common conveniences may
make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and
the soul to sink. But let this only be for
(19:22):
a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the
glory which shall be revealed in and for us. Then,
he wrote, and I underlined it, I never made a sacrifice.
To serve under the authority of the Living God is
not a sacrifice, it's a privilege. The most of the
(19:45):
people I know who are doing that are joyful, happy,
fulfilled individuals, and we see it often when they come
home from the mission field to do their little furlough.
When you talk to them, all they talk about is
they can't wait to get back. Coming home is a
real irritation to most of them. They want to go
back and serve the Lord who has called them into service.
(20:09):
The secret of availability and authority. Then let me talk
with you for a moment about the secret of humility.
Jesus taught us how to serve. And I don't want
to read this passage because it's rather extended.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
And you know the story.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
It's the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.
The Bible tells us that on an occasion listen to this,
when his disciples were arguing with themselves over who was
the greatest in the kingdom, Jesus walked in and without
saying a word, took off his outer garment, wrapped himself
with a towel, got down on his knees, and watched
(20:45):
all of their stinking filthy feet one after the other.
Wouldn't you like to have been there for that moment?
I mean, just to see the contrast between these arrogant
disciples arguing over the place of prominence, and then the
one who had called him to serve bowing before them,
(21:06):
taking the place of a servant and washing their feet.
When he got all done, he said, as I have
done this, you should do it. Also, what was Jesus
telling them? He's telling them a servant serves. Jesus came
into this world to serve. The problem with being a
(21:27):
servant is that some of it is not easy. Serving
isn't always a walk in the park. Going to Africa
has its issues. I couldn't help but wonder what the
lack of conveniences was he was talking about. In his
little paragraph, Ray Deedmond writes, loving people is about the
(21:50):
most difficult thing that some.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Of us ever do.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
We could be patient with people, and even be just
and charitable, but how are we supposed to conjure up
in our hearts that warm, evercent sentiment of goodwill which
the New Testament calls love. Some people are so miserably unlovable.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
We all know what that means. Don't we.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
You say, well, i'll serve God as long as it's
in a nice place with nice people and no issues,
don't sign up. There is no such place. Every place
has its own issues. I mean you may say, well,
look what you do, pastor, or look what you do.
Oh yes, I have a lot of wonderful things that
(22:35):
God has done for me, but I have my issues.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
It's like you do. Serving God has its issues.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
And if you're going to serve God, you've got to
have a spirit of humility. That's such an interesting word,
isn't it. Humility. Nobody wants to talk about it because
as soon as you talk about it, people think you
have it, and then you're not humble anymore. You know,
you heard about the book I wrote, Humility and how
I achieved it. You know, I don't think so. True
(23:08):
humility is not thinking less of yourself, but it's thinking
of yourself less. C. S. Lewis wrote, do not imagine
that if you meet a really humble man, he will
be what most people call humble nowadays. He will not
be a sort of greasy, swarmy person who's always telling
you that of course he is nobody. Probably all you
(23:29):
will think about him is that he seemed like a cheerful,
intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you
said to him. If you do dislike him, it will
be because you feel a little envious at anyone who
seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be
thinking about humility, He will not be thinking about himself
at all. He will just be who he is, loving
people and being himself. The secret of humility.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Loving people, and being yourself. What a great formula for
making a difference in the lives of others. You know,
I can't always do this, but I've gotten pretty good
at it. I can often tell when I'm in the
presence of a Christian before they ever say anything. It's
true in restaurants a lot. In fact, I'll even ask
people when they're working with us, or dealing with us,
(24:15):
or waiting on us, can I ask you a question? Yeah,
are you a Christian? And oftentimes the smile comes across
their face, Yes, I am. We can show Christ in
our lives and friends. That's the least we can do
as we wait for the Lord to come back. And
oftentimes when we do that, that's an opportunity for us
to share our faith in a meaningful way, and the
(24:37):
Bible tells us we're to be ready to do that.
So what can I do? There's a few suggestions. We'll
have some more of them tomorrow on the next edition
of Turning Point, and I hope you'll join us then.
I'm David Jeremiah. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
For more information on today's special message from doctor Jeremiah,
please visit our website, where we also offer two free
ways to help you stay connected, our monthly Turning Points
magazine and our daily email devotional Sign up today at
Davidjeremiah dot org, slash radio That's Davidjeremiah dot org. Slash Radio,
or call us at eight hundred ninety four seven nineteen
(25:18):
ninety three ask for your copy of David's exciting new
novels Set in the End Times Vanished. It's yours for
a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the
Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International and
New King James versions, available in several handsome and resilient
cover options. Get all the details when you visit our
(25:39):
website David Jeremiah dot org, slash Radio That's David Jeremiah
dot org. Slash Radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join
us tomorrow as we continue this special message from doctor
David Jeremiah here on turning Point
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