SERVING THE LORD WITH GLADNESS
Make a joyful
noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
Serve the
Lord with gladness....
Psalm
100:1-2a
.....serve the
Lord with gladness .... one of the most practical commands in all scripture,
because no one will serve the Lord very long, or with any effectiveness, if
they're not glad to do it.
When the angel Gabriel told Mary, "You will
conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus,"
Mary's answer was, "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord! Let it be to
me according to your word."...."Here I am, I am your servant.
I am glad to be your servant!" This pregnancy was baffling, fraught with
problems. It might threaten her marriage and her reputation ... but she was
glad to serve God.
My soul doth
magnify the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
Listen to this catalogue of trials the apostle Paul
went through.
Are they servants of Christ? I am a
better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more
imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I have
been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times
I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on
frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my
own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness,
danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a
sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and
exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure upon me of
my anxiety for all the churches. II Corinthians 11:23-28
Is he complaining? Is he saying, "How much more
is God going to dump on me?" ... No. He was glad to do it ... he'd do it
all again. It was this gladness that kept the man going and made him fruitful.
Our Lord went to the cross ... Did this depress him?
....looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who
for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and
is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:2
....who for the joy that was set before him. Even in the face
of the cross
... even with the prospect of walking
into total darkness, sinking into death under the weight of our sins, Jesus
still rejoiced. He served his Father with gladness.
The disciples
came back to the well with food for Jesus
and saw him talking to a woman. When she left her water jar and hurried back to
town, the disciples said, "Rabbi, eat." Jesus said, "I have food
to eat of which you do not know."
"Did someone bring him food? Did that lady bring
you a lunch?"
My
food is to do the will of him who sent me
and
to accomplish his work.
John
4:34
It's my joy to serve the Father ... my meat and
drink.
The Church of Jesus Christ is a prophetic church ... meaning,
- we're all prophets,
- we are servants of God.
As soon as our sins are forgiven.
As soon as we're washed in the blood of the Lamb,
- we're sent into the vineyard to get
to work.
The problem
is that many of us find ourselves getting weary...
-
"the sun's too hot,
-
the grapes are hard to pick,
-
nobody seems to appreciate how much we're putting into this....besides, quite a few of our comrades have fainted from
exhaustion or given up in despair."
The word of the Lord to us today is,
"If it's hard it's because you're
making it hard for yourself."
He has ordained that we should serve him with
gladness...
- that his joy should be our strength,
- that we should really like being his
servants, enjoy it, find our meat and drink in serving him.
But instead of gladness driving us on as prophets of
God, even through crosses and trials and persecutions
and hard days, we find ourselves driven by three things that will never take us
to the end of the journey....
- guilt,
- fear,
- the "Christian itch."
1. We try to
serve God out of guilt.
"I don't really want to do this thing but I know
that if I don't I'm going to feel guilty.... so I guess I will."
Whether it's daily prayers, gathering with the saints,
sharing our money with people in need, or speaking a word of encouragement to
that person on the job who's really down ...
If we do it out of guilt or obligation we'll do it for
a while, but in time we'll get so tired, so weary, we'll say, "I've had enough!
I'm leaving the vineyard! Who can live like this?" ...and we'll be gone.
2. We try to serve God out of fear.
Of course we live in an age where people are less inclined
to fear the consequences of their action.... from God, from the law, and from
friends and neighbors.
Yet, there is still a fear in most of us that keeps us
from going too far. And it's a good thing that fear is there .... it may keep
you from stealing, from slander, from murder, from adultery.
But that fear will not drive you into the presence of
God day after day to pray, or gather you with the saints, or move you to show
mercy.
Whoever
fears has not reached perfection in love.
1 John 4:18b
- He who fears is not made perfect in
love.
- He who fears cannot serve the Lord
with gladness.
3. We try to serve God out of the
"Christian itch."
We have this itch and we're looking for something to
scratch it....
some new experience,
some new doctrine,
some better method of worship ... or church life.
If I've received the fullness of the Holy Spirit what
more do I need?
But this itch has me grabbing hold of
the "doctrine of the latter rain" ... then that's not enough.
Now I have to be one of the
"manifested sons of God."
Then I want holy oil to appear on my
hands every time I pray ... it goes on and on and on.
Most church growth among American Evangelicals is not
bringing people from the world into the Kingdom. It's just moving them from one
church to another as they try to ease this itch.
"Ah! I've found it! I've found the
truth! I've found the real way to serve God!"
Three years later the itch returns and the search
resumes.
And it will continue until we learn what it means to
serve the Lord with gladness.
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all
ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness.
God has made it possible for us to serve him with gladness
...that's why Jesus came ... that's why he died on the cross, to purge our
troubled conscience from the dead works of…
- guilt,
- fear,
- the Christian itch
—
to serve him with gladness.
… He entered once for all into the
Hebrews
9:12-14
Jesus' blood washes away the guilt, the fear, the
itch, so that we can really serve God and have a wonderful time doing it.
There are three places where we are called as his
prophets to serve God.
And in each of these three places we need to get off
the treadmill of dead works so that we can serve him with gladness.
1. We need to serve the Lord with
gladness before his throne in worship.
2. We need to serve the Lord with
gladness in the Body where he has placed us to wash feet and strengthen the
brethren.
3. We need to serve the Lord with
gladness in the real everyday world here he has made us his prophets.
1. We need
to serve the Lord with gladness before his throne in worship.
Our prayer life can be dead works ... heavy, gloomy,
full of righteous self-pity.
"Oh, that there were more who
prayed like me! Oh, that there were others who knew how to intercede like me!
It's such a burden!"
It's such a burden because it's dead weight, dead
works, coming from a dead heart. Take your prayer life to the cross ... let the
blood of the Lamb wash it.
For if the sprinkling of defiled persons
with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for
the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who
through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your
conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Jesus cleared the way for
you. He took your sins and your guilt and all the burdens. Follow him now into
the presence of the Father ... stand before the mercy seat, lift up your hands
and rejoice!
- Worship the Lord with gladness.
- Praise him with joy.
- Lay your needs before him with
confidence.
- Intercede for the saints with
thanksgiving.
- Pray for the nations and the rulers
of nations...
…knowing that
the Spirit of God is moving through your prayers to bring healing to the earth
as a sign of the coming Kingdom.
2. We need
to serve the Lord with gladness in this Body where He has placed us to wash
feet and strengthen the brethren.
Our Body life can become dead works ... heavy, gloomy.
"Here it is another Sunday and
I know I should be with the saints, so I'll be there but I'm sure getting tired
of this routine! What good is it doing? It's such a burden?"
We need to take our Body life to the cross and let the
blood of the Lamb wash it.
For if the sprinkling of defiled persons
with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for
the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who
through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your
conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
....Washed in the blood, our assembly can be a living service to
God, glad service, flooded with his life, so that we become a sacrament to each
other, an encouragement, a strength to each other. The Lord himself stands in
our midst and floods us with power because we are one.
- We're washing each other’s feet.
- We're bearing each other’s burdens.
Then joy
floods our assembly...gladness overflows our hearts ... and we go forth with
that gladness to reap the harvest which we and others have sowed with tears.
3. We need
to serve the Lord with gladness in the real everyday world where he has made us
his prophets.
The reason we have such a hard time out there
witnessing, being the light he ordained us to be, is that we have often allowed
our witnessing to be a dead chore, dead works ... there's no joy in it....
little hope.
"It's never any fun. It's my
somber duty to proclaim the truth,"
and the words fall from our lips like stones, and our
deeds have a synthetic hard look about them. We need to take our prophetic life
to the cross ... get a bath in the Lamb's blood.
For if the sprinkling of defiled persons
with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for
the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who
through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your
conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
And now we go
out with joy as prophets of the living God with the only real word of hope
there is,
- the only freedom,
- the only healing,
- the only genuine peace there is.
How can we bring healing to the sick, sight to the
blind, life to the dead, and not have joy?
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all
ye lands!
Serve the Lord with gladness!
May the Lord himself wash away our guilt, our fear,
our itch, in his own blood and send us forth this day to serve him with
unspeakable joy.