Commissioned to Service in God’s Vineyard
Central Thought: No service for God goes unrewarded.
Text: Genesis 24:15-20; 1 Samuel 16:6-12; Matthew 25:14-24; Luke 19:12-13
Christianity generally is a call to a relationship with Christ that gives us an opportunity to serve in His vineyard. After man was created, God gave him the responsibility to tend the garden. This is service. All through His earthly ministry, our Lord Jesus gave Himself to service and before His departure from the earth, He commissioned His disciples to continue from where He stopped. Therefore, we who are privileged to be His followers today have no reason to be idle in the vineyard. Like the disciples of old, we have been called to service, and we must get busy with it.
This lesson is to remind us of the various avenues of service available in the Lord’s vineyard, the need to identify your own area of service and faithfully serve to the glory of Him who has called us.
1. What is service?
There are various dictionary definitions of the word service, but one will be most appropriate here. According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, ‘service’ is the work that a person does for an organization or a body, etc., especially when it continues for a long time. For the purpose of this study, we will define service as the work we do in the Lord’s vineyard with the view to winning more souls into the kingdom of God while we have the opportunity.
2. What are the various avenues of service in the vineyard? 1 Corinthians 12:28-31; Ephesians 4:11-12
There are various services that can be rendered in the Lord’s vineyard such that no one can say he or she has no area to serve. 1 Corinthians 12:28 reads “and God has set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.” This verse like many others in the Bible clearly shows that there is no room for idleness in the vineyard as every Christian has been endowed with one ability or the other to serve in the vineyard.
One major problem we have today is that we have tried to give more attention to some services above many others and this is making people look at some services as inferior to others to the point that people don’t want to go into these seemingly unattractive areas of service. Everybody may not have the opportunity to handle the mic to preach on Sunday or during other service days, but can pray behind the scene without anybody knowing about it. The success of a pastor may be the result of the prayer of an unknown member. The usher who sweeps and cleans the Church halls and seats for others to use during service, is doing something in the vineyard. Therefore, we should encourage every Christian to be effective in whatever area he or she feels led to serve.
3. Who is a minister as in Mark 10:42-45?
As it is used in the passage above, a minister is not one who Lords over others but one who is there to serve. Jesus Christ our Lord, our perfect example, graciously placed Himself at the service of humanity throughout His earthly sojourn, and left us with the task to minister to others, John 13:13-15. It is His desire that rather than seek to have our needs met, e.g. to wait to be ministered to, we should look for ways to meet the needs of other people by ministering or serving them in whatever way we can.
4. What are the dangers of idleness in the Lord’s vineyard? Matthew 25:30, 8:12; Luke 13:28
The parable in Matthew 25:30 is a clear description of the consequences of not making the utmost use of our God-given ability. We must not make excuses to avoid doing what God has called us to do. He has given us enough resources to actualize His calling upon us. Unproductively in the Lord’s service relegates us to the realm of irrelevance.
5. Benefits of serving in the Lord’s vineyard? Matthew 25:21-23, 24:46-47; Luke 12:42-44.
a. The Lord’s commendation.
Anyone who serves faithfully will receive the Lord’s commendation ‘well done, thou good and faithful servant’, Matthew 25:21
b. The Lord’s Reward.
Our faithfulness in service will be rewarded by the Lord. 1 Corinthians 3:14; Matthew 25:21
c. Eternal Life
Apart from receiving rewards, we shall spend eternity with the Lord. Matthew 25:23, ‘enter into the joy of your Master.’
Even before these, there’s the joy, satisfaction and sense of fulfillment that accompany faithful service.
Daily Living Application
Our Lord’s parting words to His disciples as recorded in the gospels can be summed up to be the call to service and His promise to be with them as they obey the command. We as His disciples today are not exempted from this very important call. If Jesus Christ is truly the King of our lives and we claim to worship Him then we must live in the absolute obedience to Him by being actively and faithfully serving in His vineyard.
Memory verse
Luke 19:13 – “And He called His ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, occupy till I come.”