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Selflessness or Selfishness

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pikeville Church is preparing for a bold program change beginning first Sunday of October. There are good reasons for the change. The mission from God is clear to make and mature disciples. Good stewardship requires that we are focused on God's call. Since we can't do everything, we must be selective in what we do to assure that we fulfill God's call.

 

A group of 30 - 40 leaders has worked for months to prayerfully understand how we can best accomplish disciple-making. Their work was progressively presented to the congregation over the last three years in the State of the Church address.

 

Pikeville Church is being organized under four key headings. Worship overarches and feeds into everything else we do. Learning what God says, knowing biblical content and pure doctrine and how to serve are key to spiritual growth. Obeying is acting on what we have learned and putting it into practice. Going into the harvest field as His witness as required of every Christian.

 

We must understand the difference in what the Bible teaches and we have done in the past. The Apostle James puts the stethoscope to the heart of the first-century church and discovers it was suffering from selfishness. Their interest was in the one that could serve them, not the church serving others.   

It takes incredibly unselfish people to grow a church. We are our brother’s keeper, we have responsibility to hurting people and must learn  to reach them. The central question are you and this church selfish or selfless?

 

 

 

 

SELFLESSNESS OR SELFISHNESS
James 2:1 - 4

I. Command - Do Not To Show Favoritism.

 

My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. James 2:1 NIV

 

Does it shock you that the early church was not a perfect church? There is no perfect church.

 

James says two men come to church and are treated different based on the perceived ability to give.

 

Do not judge based on the external.

 

II. Contrast - Our Values Are Not Like God's Values

 

Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? James 2:5 NIV

 

God does not discriminate against people on the basis of the external.

 

What a horrible position to be in, rejecting someone whom Jesus Christ has received!

 

III. Condemnation - Favoritism Defies the Royal Law of Love

 

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. James 2:8-9 NIV

 

The Royal Law is “He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind']; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself. Luke 10:27

 

The nature of your relationship with God determines the nature of your relationship with other people.

 

Only when Jesus liberates can we be free from personal favoritism.

 

IV. Discrimination Is Overcome By Servant Leadership

 

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. John 13:3 – 5 NIV

 

Jesus had no identity crisis He knew who he was, where he had come from, why he was here and where he was going.

 

The disciples concern was who was going to be the big-time operators in the coming kingdom.

 

Jesus Christ is only hero in God’s Kingdom, at best we are servants.

 

Are you sensitive about all the people that God brings into your sphere of influence?

 

Are you SELFLESS or SELFISH?