Here's Pastor Alan Wright with today's blessing—a biblical, faith-filled vision for your life. God gave Adam and Eve His blessing to be fruitful, to multiply, to rule, and to name the animals. Sinless humanity had authentic discernment to call an elephant an elephant. To see what something is in its essence, when we don't know another's essence, we label them wrongly. But when we see with redeemed eyes, we know who someone is.
So I bless you, redeemed child of God, to see into the truth of things, to know another's God-given identity, to walk not by fleshly sight, but by faith-filled heart eyes, and to name your world. Accurately, pastor, author, and Bible teacher Allen Wright. There also is in our serving a freedom that comes from the beauty of self-forgiveness. I mean, I think this is part of why it's so great to have a regular discipline of serving in our lives. Because when you serve, really authentically serve, you get to have a vacation from your own mind.
That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt. Excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series "Gateways to Grace" as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now, which can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries.
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Here is Allen Wright. We can kind of become this thing like, oh yeah, everybody's got to serve, but it's misunderstood. And I want I want to clarify that serving. Is something that's altogether different than what service is different than what I would call subservience. This is a whole new motivation that Jesus is talking about.
So let me give you a definition. My definition of serving is to graciously, voluntarily, intentionally. Helping another or a group for their good and the good of others—it's—it's—it's motivated by grace. It's utterly voluntary. It is intentional, and you are helping somebody.
That's what it is. But the the close cousin to this that can be confusing to us—well, maybe I'll call it subservience. Is complying with others' wishes or demands because one feels inwardly obligated, outwardly coerced, or stuck in an inferior position. In other words, if you feel like you have to do it or else, well, whatever you're doing, it's not really the biblical view of servanthood. And Jesus Himself modeled this because He He took on the form of a servant.
This is what it. What Paul says in Philippians chapter two, verse five: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality God with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
So, the incarnation of Jesus, the God of the universe becoming flesh. Was an emptying of self while maintaining his godness.
So what we're learning from that is that Jesus served not because he was forced to serve. And when the scripture says he did not think of his equality, his standing as God, a thing to be grasped like I have to have this. Instead, he remained Jesus. Fully God, but was fully human, and so even in Jesus Himself, what you see is not someone who gave anything because it was taken from him, but he gave it. Even when they thought they were crucifying him, he had come by God's own set purpose to give his life up as a ransom for many.
So, let's really be clear about the difference between service and subservience. Service is rooted in a deep sense of self-worth. But subservience is rooted in a false sense of low worth, and it's a really important distinction. And it and it has this all has to do with what's going on in someone's heart. I was so touched one evening we were having a vision gathering about our for the good campaign, and as we were talking about our dreams and the vision of what we could do for the kingdom of God, and we said, you know, five million dollar goals is a high goal, and I just said, as I did so often with you.
I said, you know, to reach that, it's going to take a lot of people participating, and it's also going to take some special gifts. And that's the way we talk. Like we're not going to talk about anybody's.
Well, here's what you ought to do, or make somebody feel bad they don't do it, or manipulate or anything. Just talk like that. And afterwards, a woman came up to me, and it just touched me so much. The way she said it, she said, "While you were speaking, I just think it was from the Holy Spirit." She said, "I just had this thought. I'd like to be able to make one of those special gifts." And and she she she has, but you hear that?
I'd like to do that. I'd like to do that. This is this is a this is a way servant heart feels.
So, if you don't have a sense that I have a gift to give, then there's some other motivation that's going on inside of you. But service feels like there's there's something of worth in me that can be given. Subservience is like I feel inferior in value, and I am having to prove something or or get the guilt off of me. That's not the biblical view of service. The other thing, this is difference: is service is motivated by grace, whereas subservience is motivated by shame.
So, service is saying, "I'd like to help." That's that's what grace is, and I have a gift to bring. Subservience says, "I feel like I have to, or else." I won't feel as good about myself. Also, service—I would say—similarly is fueled by faith. Subservience is fueled by fear.
So, service is saying. If I can give of my time or energy, I believe I can make a difference for good. See, that's what faith look. Faith is looking with a vision of what can be and believes that it can be. And I have something to give towards that.
I can help. I can help make that happen. Whereas subservience is is fueled by a kind of fear that. Maybe fears a deflated ego or rejection or something else if I don't serve, and and one more distinction: serving is self-humbling, but subservience is self-abasing, and and by this I mean that we're going to talk a little bit more about this. But Jesus is saying, here's one of the giant secrets: is the self-humbling is opening up a gateway of grace to you.
But self-abasing isn't humbling; it's humiliating oneself. It is, it is, it is abasing oneself for the as if you deserve to be, to be abased or punished, as if you're not worth much.
So keep in mind those distinctions at all times, because you know it just life is coming at us, and and at times you know we can lose that lose the distinction, and God's just saying. Greatness is in serving, but it's not a kind of codependent "I better or else" kind of thing. Subservience.
So, what what is so great about serving?
Well, in the first place, this is Jesus giving a whole new paradigm for success in the broadest sense of of what it means to prosper in this world to be. Fruitful in this world, to have success in this world—a whole new paradigm—is what he's given here. I'm so thankful that very early in ministry, I got introduced to the servant leadership model. The servant leadership model essentially turns upside down the traditional pyramid that we think of. The traditional hierarchical pyramid.
If you're talking about a company, always it always had the president at the top, and then that president is served by vice presidents, and the vice presidents are served by managers, and the managers are served by employees, and then somewhere they're connecting with the customers, and it's almost like the customer serves us by giving us their money. But but but this this in the servant leadership model is inverted.
So that now you see at the bottom of this inverted pyramid, the president is there serving vice presidents who serve managers who serve employees, because the whole mission is to serve as many customers as you can. And that's an entirely different way of thinking about about your life and about work. And I am so glad I got introduced to this early on because it really is my model.
So technically, I've got the title of lead pastor and head of staff, or whatever. But I do, and I always have thought my role is I'm serving. How can I? How can I help? How can I help these pastors and these elders?
How can I help them so that then they they can help? Other staff and other key volunteers who then can serve and and help the body of Christ discover their gifts and then use them so that together we can serve a whole congregation and then there's a whole congregation we can serve these communities with the good news of Jesus Christ and so and so that's the way that's the way I view it right. And it is real. I mean, this, no matter what it is that you are called to, I think this is the model. And Jesus is very practical about this.
He says, "Whoever is servant is the greatest." And so, put this in the most practical terms: if if you are if you are a salesperson, the more people that you get to serve, the more successful you are. If you are leading a company, then. The more that you can serve, so that you can eventually serve more customers, the more successful you are. Whoever gets to serve the most is the greatest. Jesus says.
So there's a really practical sense to it, but it also has to do with the spirit of which every single thing we do, because we all have different kinds of callings and different things the Lord's calling us to do. And it really doesn't matter what it is, whether it's whether it's something that is behind the scenes or something that's up front. And and it really kind of works this way. I get so tickled sometimes. I'm like, sometimes in my work, I have to stop and go, "Wait a minute, who's the boss around here?" Because the fact of the matter is, it's like Laura, my assistant.
She's like, "You need to call so and so." Okay, thank you for that. And then you know later, say, "Did you call so and so?" I had not yet. I will.
Okay, get on it. Crystal, guys, she's our director of strategic initiatives and programs around here, and so she's got me signed up on on a program called Asana, and it's how you assign tasks and all this stuff. And so I'll get it, I'll get, I get Asana tasks from her. Here's stuff for you to do. I'm like, wait a minute, I'm supposed to be the boss.
I'm supposed to tell other people what to do, but that's not the way it works.
So one of the greatest gifts I get is Crystal Austin. She'll give me stuff at the beginning of the week. Boss, here's what I need. These, these, these. And I was like, wait, I thought I was the boss, but you see the whole point of it.
I tell everybody, "You're serving me if you tell me what I was getting ready to forget to do, and I need to do it, or if you help me know what the priorities are, so that I can help you do the ministry. You're serving me, do you see? And I just just tell me how I can best serve. It's a huge, huge difference, right, between a preacher preparing a sermon and then." Hoping that you know it's delivered well and that people will say that was a great sermon, versus a preacher who's like a cook, a chef who fixes a meal, and you good cooks, you know what it feels like where you spend all afternoon in the kitchen, and then you get to nourish somebody. It is the fact that you got to nourish them that brought you the joy.
I just want to help somebody. Our whole healing ministry is built on this. I just want to help people. The whole the whole reason that I want all of you to discover and use your spiritual gifts. I just want you to be able to help people.
It's it's that's what we do. It's completely countercultural and a whole new definition of greatness, isn't it? And I'm just saying, take Jesus at His word. He really meant it. He really said it, and He's the Savior of the world.
And He knows what He's talking about. This is what greatness is. This is what greatness is. Here's another thing that's so great about serving: is in our serving, there is a fellowship with Christ, who is the ultimate servant.
So, in this act of self-humbling, in our Humbling. We are connected with God. He is our source, and there's something about the humility of serving, where we are not in it for any other purpose than helping somebody and helping them have greater well-being. When we are in that, and we're doing that. Whether it's pulling weeds in the gardens at Mineral Springs Elementary or packing up ten thousand meals for the poor, whether it's you running your company this week or a preacher preaching a sermon, whatever it might be, if we are humbling ourselves, where it is about the other, it is not about us.
It really is right now about the other. In that humbling, there is something to be cherished because we realize we're in fellowship with Jesus, and we are experiencing love from God that is not dependent on any exalted status that we have.
So, it's a fellowship with Christ. And there also is in our serving the freedom that comes from the beauty of self-forgiveness. I mean, I think this is part of why it's so great to have a regular discipline of serving in our lives. Because when you serve, really authentically serve, you get to have a vacation from your own mind. It makes me think of the guy who wrote the book.
It was called "I Was Always on My Mind." And there's a tyranny to always being on your own mind, isn't there? Am I doing good enough? What do people think of me? Am I getting enough? Have I gotten an award lately?
Have I done this? What about me, me, me, me, me? And it's it's, and if you get anything in your life that gets you off your own mind, you start feeling liberty. To have to think about yourself all the time is not freedom; it is slavery. But to be able to think about someone else, to be able to just do that and to serve, there is a gift of self-forgetfulness in that, and it's probably why when Scott Peck told a patient, "Go down to the nursing home and read to some elderly," that she felt a little better about that.
For at least those two hours, she was able to put her thoughts somewhere else, towards somebody else, and it's freeing. I'm talking about a new definition of greatness. This is why Jesus said, "This is great." If you want to be great, you want to have a great life, then then then be a servant. Richard Foster said, "The discipline of service there's liberty because service enables us to say no to the world's games of promotion and authority." And then finally, finally, it's great to serve because it's more blessed to give. Jesus said, and when you're serving, you're tapping into one of the greatest, most powerful promises that Jesus ever made.
He's talking about a pathway to blessedness. He's talking about a reality of blessedness. He's talking about a mystery of blessedness that in the act of giving, in it there is blessedness. It's just when we've talked about this in the past, but it's just even in our own physiology, when a mother nurses her baby. Her own body is releasing the kind of hormones that make her happier and more content.
When you give yourself in service, there is in the giving a blessedness. It's not just a pathway to some blessedness. It's just it's in the giving of it. In his book *Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being*, the University of Pennsylvania Professor Martin Seligman has said. Scientists have found that doing a kindness produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well-being of any exercise we have tested.
That's a big statement. I'll read it again: doing a kindness, just doing a single kind thing. Scientists have found produces the single most reliable momentary increase in well being of any exercise we've tested.
So if you're if you're even just a little bit down, then just go serve somebody, just go do something kind. Wow. Pastor Alan Wright, our good news message. What's so great about serving? It's from the series Gateways of Grace.
Please stay with us. Pastor Alan is back, joining me in the studio, sharing his parting good news thought for the day. Here in just a moment. What if growing closer to God isn't about trying harder?
So often, we approach spiritual growth with a list of things we need to do. Pray more, read more, be better, but what if the secret to spiritual transformation isn't found in greater effort, but in experiencing more of God's grace? In his book *The Gateways of Grace*, Pastor Alan Wright invites you to discover a fresh perspective on spiritual growth through timeless practices like Scripture, prayer, meditation, wonder, and rest. You'll discover how to create space for the Holy Spirit to work in your life. These spiritual disciplines aren't obligations that earn God's favor; they're gateways that open our hearts to experience more of God's goodness, peace, and transforming grace.
When you give to Allenwright Ministries, you help share the gospel with listeners around the world. And when you give today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's book, The Gateways of Grace, as our thanks to discover these aren't just disciplines; they're gateways. Step through them and discover the grace that's been waiting for you. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.
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Back here now in the studio with Pastor Alan, and what's so great about serving, Pastor Alan? What's what's our closing thought today? When you are serving, you are. In the rhythm of the way that Jesus lived his life, the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve. And to me, that's a that's revolutionary.
That's radical. That so Jesus, the greatest person who's ever been on this earth, yeah, and he saw himself as a servant. And whatever you're doing, if instead of Resenting, why do I have to do this? You adopt the mentality of Jesus. It brings energy, it brings joy, and it draws you closer to Jesus.
That's why it's a service. Is a spiritual discipline. It's a gateway of grace. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at pastorallen.org or call eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty.
That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching, delivered right to your email inbox, free. Find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen dot org. That's pastorallen dot o r g. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.
