- Well, hey everybody, man, I wanna welcome you to Highland today. So glad you're here. This is an exciting series for us. We call it Love One. It's where we challenge all of you, even those of you that watch on TV, and you're watching online today, at all of our other locations in Bluefield, Marion, and Bristol. Hey, I just wanna challenge you right outta the gate today to the love one, okay? We're getting ready for Love Week, it kicks off next Sunday. I'm praying that the Holy Spirit speaks to your heart about who God is calling you to love and to be a kindness and encouragement to in the next several days. Just go out and love people in the name of Jesus. It's so exciting. It's so fun to do that right? As Christians that's what we need to do, and it's what we wanna do. You know, in the Church, we talk a lot about this particular word, volunteer. I've been doing this a long time, you know, and I hear all the time we need volunteers. We need volunteers. Well I just sort of begin to think about that word, and I realized, that's not even a Biblical word. Did you know, volunteer is not in the Bible at all? And so I wanna try to challenge you to think a little bit outside the box of volunteering at church or volunteering for Love Week, and I want us to look at how Jesus describes how He wants us to go out into our communities and how He wants us to serve and love others. Let's look at a Scripture that Paul gives us to the Ephesians church here, in Ephesian chapter 2:10, for me, passage of scripture, and this is what he says, "For, we are His workmanship, "we've been created in Christ Jesus for good works." And notice how Paul says this, "Which God prepared beforehand, "that we should walk in them." I remember back in my New Testament days, I had an incredible New Testament professor, I took New Testament several different semesters and different times I was pursuing different degrees, and I had three different guys who taught me stories outta the New Testament, one we learned about Paul's writings, one we just did an overview of the New Testament, but just incredible classes. And the thing that I learned about this particular text that Paul gives us, is that truly what Paul was actually saying here is that before we were born, all right? Try to imagine the God that we serve, just the enormity of our God, that He knew before we were born, that our God knew, and He actually planned the time that we would live, okay? And God knew the places where we would dwell. It's pretty interesting about God. So our God knew that in 2022, okay? We would be in Southwest Virginia of all places, upper East Tennessee, and He has planned even before the first day of this Planet, what God wants us to accomplish. And when I think about the enormity of what this verse contains, and it helps me to see such a larger picture of the God that we serve, that loves us and cares for us, that before He created the Planet, He knew that today you would be here, He knew the works and the calling and the career path He wants you to have, and He knew what he created you to do. Now, our hope here at Highlands is to help you fulfill that, right? I mean, that's my job. That's my role is to help you get in touch with God, so that you can experience life with Jesus, and you can do what He created you to do, because when you do that, man, life is gonna be amazing. Now I think that we all have a calling, and some of you may disagree with me here, I understand that completely, and maybe in your job, you're actually able to not only make money to care and feed for your family, but you're actually able to fulfill your calling. But what we know is in a lot of places in our culture today our calling and our career are completely two different things, because you don't even have the Liberty to talk much about if you're a follower of Jesus, talk much about Jesus in the secular world. So I wanna talk to you a little bit about a calling that I think God's placed on our life that is different than your career. And the Bible says, in order to fulfill our calling, there is a Biblical word, it's not volunteer, it's the word servant. And I wanna talk to you today about this idea of being a servant. You know, when I got the opportunity to start preparing for the message today, and this series of Love One, I realized there's a great difference between a volunteer, a secular word, and what a servant is of Jesus Christ. Just a huge difference. It takes a servant's heart to fulfill what God has created you for. And when you serve, here's what you know, you know it's not about you, but you know, when you serve, it's about loving others, it's about putting others first. When you serve, it's about adding value to other people, serving in the Kingdom of Jesus actually is a high calling, where we give and we sacrifice, and we go out to serve, knowing that there is a heavenly reward. If we never get noticed by anybody in our service here, and now, if nobody ever sees what we do, okay? Still God sees it. And He's the one who's gonna reward us. So when you study about this Word in the Bible about being a servant, the Apostle Paul often refers to himself as a bond servant. He adds that word bond, Simon Peter described himself as a bond servant of Jesus, and the other disciples, many of them likened themselves to this idea of bond servant. Well, I think for us to understand what they mean by saying they're a bond servant of Jesus, let me tell you how this word developed, 'cause it's really important for us to understand, in Bible times when you would see passages about slavery, the Jewish tradition would look at slavery extremely different than how we would look at it in our modern day explanations of slavery. So you have to have that in the context of understanding what a bond servant is. Slavery in Biblical times, specifically in the Old Testament was often linked to somebody who would run up a large debt, and they would continue to go in debt, and finally the debt would reach a place, there's no way they could ever pay it. I mean, it was so large, there was no way they could pay it back. Well, in those days, of course there was no option of bankruptcy like we have in our culture today, so what would happen is that when your debt got so high, then you would end up being thrown in prison, because they didn't want you to continue to go in debt, and the only way for you to get outta prison, the only way was for someone to come along, and pay that debt off for you. It's pretty neat sort of story, when you look at how God enriches us in this idea of serving Him, and if there was somebody out there that was wealthy enough to pay off your debt, what they would actually be doing is they would be buying you out of prison. And now your responsibility based on the law in those particular times would be that you would now work for them, you would agree to work for them to pay off the debt that they paid for you, that you could not pay for seven years. That was the law. And the law was after seven years, no matter how large your debt was, you could be free. You could go free, no more obligation, you worked seven years, your debt's paid, you got a fresh start. And this happened fairly regular in the times of the Scripture, and every now and then, there would be someone who would recognize that the debt that they had been, you know, was able to be paid off on their behalf, that the debt was so great that this person paid to free them, that they knew they could work the rest of their life, seven years would pale in comparison to actually paying off that debt. It wasn't gonna come close to paying off that debt. Even though they knew they could go free, they chose to actually stay, and continue to serve the master that had been so gracious to them. And if they did this, they would take a nail, and they would actually pierce the ear lobe, and that piercing of the earlobe with the nail in their earlobe, would signify, would mark that person as a bond servant, a bond servant. So a bond servant was not someone required to serve, but a bond servant was someone who willingly wanted to serve because of the gratitude they had for the compassion that their master had showed them. Now, I think it's important that we understand that this is what God is calling us to be, you may have never thought about this, but as a follower of Jesus, he talks much about denying yourself. And truthfully, I think God wants us to understand that we need to be a willing bond servant, and thankfully He doesn't ask us to put a nail through our ear, but that's the language that Paul and Simon Peter used to describe their heart to serve Jesus, whom they loved. That's how they wanted to be known. It's how they wanted to be perceived by others, a bond servant, a willing servant of the God they loved. And by the way, I believe that's the least we can do, because of Jesus, who is our chief servant, He didn't take a nail and put it through His ear to pay a debt that we couldn't pay, but we know He took nails and He put Him through His hands and His feet and He died on a horrible blood soaked cross for you and for me. To me, it's the least we can do, and that was often the way the disciples describe themselves, willing bond servants of Jesus Christ, whom they loved and whom they served. Have you ever thought about it in your life? Have you ever thought of describing your following Jesus as, hey, I'm a bond servant for Jesus, I'm a willing servant for His Kingdom, because of all Jesus has done for me. Well, you know, when I think about this, when I begin to study, this was so much of a higher calling on our life than just volunteering, right? Because when you sort of dumb it down to be a volunteer, you lose so much of the significance of the story of what Jesus wants us to understand. So I just thought, how can I help us grasp that? I wanna give you a few differences in my own mind on how I've thought when I've volunteered, and when I've served. And these are just some ideas and you have some, as well, I'm sure, but let me give you a few. I want you to see the difference, 'cause we're gearing up for Love Week, we're gonna go out and I don't want you to think about volunteering for your community, I want us to go out as folks who love the Church and love Jesus as servants of Jesus to serve the communities in which we love. So what's the difference? Well, here's a few things. I think volunteering is something that you do, serving, the only way I knew how to describe it is something that you heart, okay? It's something that you heart. When you volunteer, it's observable from the outside, but you know what guys, when you serve, it's an invisible attitude of our heart. A servant recognizes that maybe no one will ever see what I do, but I know the one who judges the thoughts and intents of the heart is aware. And that's all that matters. A servant is someone who comes in peace. A servant is someone who doesn't have any hidden agendas. A servant is someone who is willing to serve without a self-serving interest at all. A servant says, "I'm here to serve. "Tell me what I can do to help. "How can I use the gifts that Jesus has given me, "the talents that I have, my resources, "so that I can show in the community in which I live "the love of Jesus to others "in hopes they might receive the same love "that He has shown me." So the goal is not, "I wanna volunteer.", most of us start out that way, it's much deeper to what Jesus is asking us to do. Basically we wanna be a servant. The goal is to be a servant of Jesus. Here's the second difference, I think. Volunteers focus on what they give, servants focus on what Jesus gave. A volunteer says, "Oh my goodness, "I've given so much, so much energy it's taken. "I've given so much of my time, "I have put so much effort into this." But a servant says, "I serve others because of how much Jesus has given me." And when you think of how much He has given, anything we give pales in comparison to what He would want us to give, and that we could ever give on His behalf. You know, when I was thinking about the message, I love reading about great moves of God in the past, you know, I'm convinced there's still an upcoming great revival, a great move of God, I know revival's an old term today, but somehow an outpouring of God's Spirit. I think our nation, our world is just ripe for this next movement of God, this outpouring of God. So for years, I've studied these awesome revivals. And one of the great revivals in our history is the Moravian revival, maybe you've studied that. If not, I would encourage you to read about it, it's one of the greatest revivals in all of Church history. The Moravians have always been known since this episode of God showing up, and changing people's hearts, they've been known as the denomination, if you will, the agency, the movement to send more missionaries around the world per capita than any other religious group by far. Now, how did that movement start? Well, the Moravian movement began back in the 14th century and here's the deal. There were two young Moravian guys, and they came in the midst of this great move of God, this revival, and later they decided that God was calling them to go to an island in the West Indies, not even know how they knew about this island in the West Indies, but they had found that there were 3,000 slaves on this island and none of them had ever heard the Gospel of Jesus. So these two young men wanted to go, and they wanted to be missionaries, they wanted to be sent out as missionaries to these slaves. So they set out to find a way to get there, but here's the deal. The owner of the island was a British atheist, and this British atheist who owned the island had actually made a vow that he would never allow a missionary on the island. So these two young guys begin to think, well, you know, how in the world can we fulfill what we know God has called us to do that's deep down in our heart, God's given us a love for these 3,000 prisoners, these slaves, how are we gonna be able to do this? And they sort of began almost to give up, until someone told them, "There is a way, you can actually "sell yourself into slavery, "however, if you do that, just understand, "it's a lifetime commitment. "It's a commitment for a lifetime. "You'll go to the island and you'll die there." So these two young men prayed about it. They didn't realize the commitment was as great as what they found out, but you know what? After praying, they decided God was calling them to do it. That He was calling them to reach this group of people, and they made a decision to sell themselves into slavery in order to reach these 3,000 slaves. And you know, as you read this story, I mean, it's powerful as they got ready to leave for the island, you can imagine they're on the ship, and their family is gathered there, their friends are gathered around them, their pastors are there, these Moravian elders are there, and they're praying for them, everybody's crying as they begin to send them out, realizing we're never gonna see these two young guys again. And as they head out to sea believing that they were fulfilling what God had called them to do, they shouted back from the ship to those that were gathered on the pier this say, and I want you to look at it on the screen, "May the Lamb that was slain "receive the reward of His suffering." And that saying became the call. It was actually the tipping point that actually launched the Moravian Mission Movement where hundreds and hundreds of Moravians have been called into mission work, and have gone into places all over the world. Throughout history, the Moravian Mission Movement feels called to reach the poorest, and the most despised people on Earth. But notice what inspired that movement. It was two young guys who everyone was focused on the sacrifice they were making, but their goal was to tell all those that were watching, "Hey, don't wait for us. "Don't look at the sacrifice we're making. "Instead may the Lamb, that's Jesus, that was slain, "may He be the one who receives the reward "for His suffering." They weren't focused on what they were giving. They were focused on what Jesus gave. Here's third thing. The difference, volunteers keep score, servants make sacrifices. Volunteers have a way, when we volunteer, we sort of keep track, and over time, volunteers, if that's our heart is just a volunteer, we often get frustrated. We get disappointed. We get discouraged. And in volunteering, we often feel like this is costing us way more than we thought it would. And sometimes volunteers get discouraged, because they don't feel valued like they felt like they should be valued. They didn't get the encouragement and the praise for their volunteering. But a servant says, "That's not what I'm here for. "I'm here to sacrifice. "It's supposed to cost me. "I know what Jesus said. "I'm supposed to deny myself and take up my cross. "I'm not always supposed to like it, enjoy it, "I'm not always supposed to have that desire to serve, "I mean, even Jesus said, 'Let this cup pass for me.'" Right? I mean, I may not always be appreciated, that's okay. Because as a servant, I do not need the applause of men. I can do the unrecognized and the unappreciated, because I'm His servant, and I do everything to the best of my ability to honor Him who gave the ultimate sacrifice for me, a servant says, "I'll do the inconvenient things, "and I'll do it at inconvenient times." I mean, a servant knows he's serving not for himself, right? Not for a person, but we're serving the one we love and who loves us. My focus as a servant is not on me. It's on His sacrifice. My focus is on serving God. You know, volunteer might have the attitude. eventually it says, "Oh, you need me, all right? "You better take care of me. "I'm volunteering for you. "You need me. "If I don't do this, "you realize what kind of trouble you're gonna be in? "Don't you realize this is good because of me? "Don't you see what I'm doing on your behalf? "Don't you see how I'm helping "move the organization forward? "Don't you see that it's about me?" Now, I know this could be harsh, but just listen to me, just for a second. It takes me back to Isaiah 14. It takes me back to where Lucifer, you remember Lucifer and he's the devil of course, do you remember how he became the devil? God had given Lucifer an amazing voice, right? Probably the best voice ever given by God and his role in heaven, he was the supreme worship leader. And so he gathered who knows all the angels of heaven, and all those that were there, and Lucifer was able somehow to be able to praise and lift up God, right? And then all of a sudden Lucifer, the Scripture says, began to look around and he decides, "Now, wait a minute, "why am I doing all this for Him? "I'm the guy who's making this happen. "I'm the one who has the ability. "I'm the guy that has the voice." He starts going through all his accomplishments, and all his abilities, and he didn't feel like God's given him the credit he deserves because Lucifer's focus is on I, I, I. Me, me, and that I spirit, and that me mentality will always bring division to anything that God wants to do. Here's the fourth thing. Volunteers are time-sensitive. Servants are need-sensitive. Volunteer says, "I can only do this much, because I'm busy. "I've only got this much time." Where a servant says, "What's the need," "I'm here to meet it. "Hey, God's blessed me, "I'm willing to rearrange my schedule, "because it's a joy for me to serve the God who I love, "and I wanna meet that need on His behalf." You know, Jesus talked about this as well, extensively, and one story that all of us know that He reiterates this point is the story of what we've come to know as the good Samaritan, right? It's this guy who has been beaten and robbed, left half dead side of the road in a ditch, and Jesus, as He tells his story, He says the religious people, the priest and the Levite, they walked by and they look over and they see this guy, they see the need, but they include, "Mm, you know, that's a little too dangerous. "I think this could be a setup. "If I get involved in that and I go down there, and I help, "well, these same people that did that to him, "they could do that to me. "I'm out.", you know, sort of like shark tank. I'm out, that doesn't look like a good deal for me, so I'm out. And then, you know, the priest comes by and he's got all his schedule, it's so busy, I mean, he's the priest, you know, he's got people to talk to. He's got people that like hearing him, and he's got places he's gotta get to. He is able to meet the need, right? He slows down, he notices, he sees it, he's got the ability to meet it, it's just inconvenient for him. It interrupts his schedule too much. Maybe he thinks, "I'm sure somebody else will take care of that "that's not as busy as me, that's not as important as me." And so Jesus gives us this idea, the religious folks who really should have ran to take care of the need, actually, they move on to take care of their own needs. And then Jesus says the good Samaritan steps up. And this guy says, "I don't really care about my schedule." I mean, he was on his way somewhere too. He had appointments. "I don't care about my appointments, "how this is gonna inconvenience me, "how it's even gonna cost me my time, "it's gonna cost me my resources, "but I'll do what it takes for this person "who is broken and hurt to get what he needs." And at the end of that story, Jesus looks out to all those who are teaching that day, and this is what He says. "You go and do likewise. "You be a servant like this guy." It's pretty powerful story, isn't it? Well, let me give you one last thing. I think volunteers want themselves to look good, and yet servants desire to make God look good. You know, serving is not about how I look, serving is about through what I can do so that God can be seen, and how through what I can do, how I can make God look good. It's not about me being noticed, it's about God being noticed. That's what a servant's heart's all about. Notice the scripture in Matthew five. Notice what Jesus says here in verse 14, "You are the light of the world. "A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. "Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. "Instead they put it on its stand, "and it gives light to everyone in the house, "in the same way, let your light shine before others, "that they may see your good deeds "and glorify your Father in Heaven." You know, there's just something about the way you serve, that brings attention, not to you, but your service actually should bring attention to Jesus. Now we don't have to be out there with a megaphone, telling people all the negative things, you know, we go in love. We go with no hidden agenda. We go with a heart to help, we go with a heart to serve. So as I wrap up my portion today, I wonder if you might spend some time this week, if you've not already signed up for something, some way to serve our community, and you're still undecided, you're still sitting in the chair, I just wonder if you might spend a little time praying where you might serve during Love Week, you, I'm talking to every one of you. Do you have a place, a designated person, some group that you're gonna serve with, all of you, have you gotten there yet? If not, I promise you this. Do you want God to answer a prayer for you? If you pray that you wanna serve, He's gonna answer it. He will. So you don't have to worry about God answering that prayer. He'll answer it every time. Starts next Sunday, goes all week through June 11th, we've got incredible opportunities where you can serve the communities in which you live in, and if we don't have something that floats your boat, hey, you can come up with something, we're all for that. And just go out and begin to love, and to serve with the heart of Jesus in your community. And here's what we know, when we serve others, we are never more like Jesus, than when we're serving others. When we serve others, it humbles us. Many of you know Johnny Green, Johnny is, he's at several of our locations, but he's based on Tuesday night at our Bristol location. He oversees celebrate recovery, and he and our Bristol team have done incredible job serving their community. I just want you to see this video, and then I'll come back and wrap up our time together, of what Love Week actually looks like from Johnny's perspective. So watch this quick video. One of my favorite things about Love Week and is been able to go from person to person, to find out more about those individuals, being able to throw a water balloon at one minute and be able to hit a seven-year-old, and then being able to turn around and talk to their parents about what's going on in their life, cannot just make a difference in my life, you can make a difference in theirs, as well. I think as Christians, and as Christ followers, a lot of us take for granted the blessings that we are given on a daily basis, and at times we're unsure what we can do to be able to help. Highlands Fellowship has came along to be able to show us what we can do to help others. And we do that through Love Week. Love Week is a time where we could take time away from ourselves to be able to give to others. If we look at the life of Jesus, He did exactly that, Jesus spent the majority of His life going from town to town, serving, healing, and making a difference in the lives of others. And that's what we should be doing, as Christ followers, we should do the same. And that's the main thing we look at, and Love Week is making a difference. Doesn't matter if it's putting mulch down for communities, or if it is blowing inflatables up, and letting kids jump around while we paint faces to water balloons, or been able just talk to individuals. This is showing the love of Christ that we have been shown. We are able to come stand beside men and women all across our communities that we're doing life with, that we see in the grocery stores, that we are actually building up and encouraging. And we are just planting seeds. We may not see the finished product, but some of these individuals may be sitting in the same spot as we are 10, 15 years down the road. Love Week, just imagine what the Church would look like if we had 90%, 50%, no, let's go back 90, let's go 90% of the Church serving the communities who are around us. What would the Church look like if we didn't lean on the 10% and we leaned on the 90%? What would it look like for us to be able to serve as a whole church, 100% of our church? What would it look like when we're making a difference in the lives of those in our community? Looking at Love Week, I think it's really easy to be able to look at the people we're serving as this is our main focus. Our main focus is to become more Christlike. My hope for you is for you to step outside your comfort zone, put someone else in front of our wants and needs, as Jesus did, and then take that step in your faith to grow, to become more like Him. Because when we truly put others in front of ourselves, we can grow in our understanding and our relationship with Jesus Christ, because He came first to serve us, and now I'm gonna challenge you to serve others.
- Man, Johnny, I love that guy. You know, he and Jess, they're just incredible family in our Church, I thought he was gonna preach right there, didn't you? Here's what Johnny found out. When you serve others, you're more like Jesus, it does something for you. Hey, I wanna just say, don't miss an opportunity. Many of you say, "Well, I wanna know the Bible, "Preacher, teach me to go deeper." You wanna go deeper? Tell you how to go deeper. Go serve, go serve. That is a deeper commitment and relationship to Jesus. That's what it's all about, friends, when we serve others. So what about you? Where and who will you serve? I encourage to sign up today. You're gonna find those opportunities all around, go to our website, those of you that watch you online on TV, and you can sign up to serve. And if you don't sign up on anything, we do, hey, let us know where you're serving in your community so we can celebrate with you, all right? It's gonna be incredible week, I'm excited for it. Let's pray together, Father, I thank you today for all that you're doing in the hearts of our people, God, how you're calling us not to be volunteers, that's a word from the world. That's a secular word. And God you've called us, as your followers, to be servants. And God, when we serve, that helps us to get our focus off ourselves, and our own needs, and on to the people in which we're serving. And God, that's what you did for us. You served us in an incredible sacrifice by giving Jesus Christ and He paid a debt we could never pay. And Lord, if there's one here today or watching on TV at one of our in-person locations that's never trusted in receiving the gift of Jesus Christ, a Savior and Lord of your life, what are you waiting on? Why, why would you reject the person who loves you more than anybody? So I just want you to pray this prayer with me right now. This is for you. Just ask Jesus to come into your heart, and forgive you of your sins, and trust Him today as your Lord and Savior, and allow Jesus for what He did on the cross to pay your sin debt, a debt you could never pay. And then when you trust Him, as a follower, may we be His bond servants. May we willingly serve others, because He has sacrificed so much for us. Hey, if you're online and you just prayed to receive Jesus, just click that little raised hand button, so we can get you some information, if you're in one of our in-person locations, grab a staff person or volunteer on your way out, and let us know you decided to join the family of God. I thank you for our Church, I thank you for what you're doing, help us God to be transformed, as we move outside the walls, and serve our towns, and our communities, we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen.