A Word With You - The Surprising Simplicity of Serving Christ - #9953

I wonder if someday I'm going to be banned from restaurants. I've been known to give the help a hard time. Now, believe me, that's not what I'm trying to do. And if you're a waiter or a waitress, don't write a nasty letter to me. I just figure that it can get pretty boring to be a server at a restaurant. I mean sometimes people just start to treat them like they're part of the menu or like a vending machine. I decide that I think they're people and I think we can have fun.

So, I've been known to go out to lunch with somebody and I'll tell them, "Oh by the way, he just moved her from another country and doesn't speak English." And so we have a lot of fun! Of course they start ordering in English.

I love to tell the waitress or the waiter, "Hey, you're a great cook!" And they look at me and say, "uh, I...I didn't cook it." In fact I literally have been told, "I didn't cook it, I just serve it." Yeah, I knew that.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Surprising Simplicity of Serving Christ."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 1 Corinthians 3:5. Here's what Paul says about himself and another great Christian leader of that time, Apollos. "What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe - as the Lord has assigned to each his task." Now, I'm sure there were people who would have said, "Oh, Paul got me to Christ." "Apollos got me to Christ." Paul said, "No, I didn't. It wasn't from me. It was through me." That's the power of prepositions. "We are only servants through whom, not by whom, not from whom. Only through whom you came to believe."

What is it that qualifies me to visit with you daily by radio like this? These thoughts don't come from me; they come through me. That's all. It's like that server in the restaurant. It's not her recipe, it's not her effort. She just delivers what someone else has worked on; something that someone else has made possible.

That's what Jesus was saying when He said, "I am the vine. You are the branches." The branch doesn't produce the fruit. It looks like it's producing the fruit, but it comes from the vine through the branches. You know what that means to you? There are things that you can risk doing for your Lord that you thought you could not do, that were too much for you.

You can dare to open your mouth about Jesus. You can dare to step up to that leadership role He's calling you to. You could dare to start that Christian group or Bible study, or prayer fellowship. You could dare to say "yes" to an assignment for the Lord that you've been saying "no" to. Why? Because the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5:24, "The One who calls you will do it." And then Philippians 2:13 - "It is God who works in you, both to will and to do His good pleasure." God will give y