<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Christianity generally is a call to a relationship with Christ that gives us an opportunity to serve in His vineyard.\u00a0 After man was created, God gave him the responsibility to tend the garden.\u00a0 This is service.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Therefore, we who are privileged to be His followers today have no reason to be idle in the vineyard.\u00a0 Like the disciples of old, we have been called to service, and we must get busy with it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This lesson is to remind us of the various avenues of service available in the Lord\u2019s vineyard, the need to identify your own area of service and faithfully serve to the glory of Him who has called us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There are various dictionary definitions of the word service, but one will be most appropriate here.\u00a0 According to the Oxford Advanced Learner\u2019s Dictionary, \u2018service\u2019 is the work that a person does for an organization or a body, etc., especially when it continues for a long time.\u00a0 For the purpose of this study, we will define service as the work we do in the Lord\u2019s vineyard with the view to winning more souls into the kingdom of God while we have the opportunity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There are various services that can be rendered in the Lord\u2019s vineyard such that no one can say he or she has no area to serve. \u00a01 Corinthians 12:28 reads \u201cand 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.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u00a0to the point that people don\u2019t want to go into these seemingly unattractive areas of service.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The success of a pastor may be the result of the prayer of an unknown member.\u00a0 The usher who sweeps and cleans the Church halls and seats for others to use during service, is doing something in the vineyard.\u00a0 Therefore, we should encourage every Christian to be effective in whatever area he or she feels led to serve.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As it is used in the passage above, a minister is not one who Lords over others but one who is there to serve.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The parable in Matthew 25:30 is a clear description of the consequences of not making the utmost use of our God-given ability.\u00a0 We must not make excuses to avoid doing what God has called us to do.\u00a0 He has given us enough resources to actualize His calling upon us.\u00a0 Unproductively in the Lord\u2019s service relegates us to the realm of irrelevance.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Anyone who serves faithfully will receive the Lord\u2019s commendation \u2018well done, thou good and faithful servant\u2019, Matthew 25:21<\/p>\n Our faithfulness in service will be rewarded by the Lord. 1 Corinthians 3:14; Matthew 25:21<\/p>\n Apart from receiving rewards, we shall spend eternity with the Lord. Matthew 25:23, \u2018enter into the joy of your Master.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Even before these, there\u2019s the joy, satisfaction and sense of fulfillment that accompany faithful service.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Our Lord\u2019s 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.\u00a0 We as His disciples today are not exempted from this very important call.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Luke 19:13 \u2013 “And He called His ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, occupy till I come.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Commissioned to Service in God\u2019s 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.\u00a0 After man was created, God gave him the responsibility […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sundayschool"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mzgtiglobal.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mzgtiglobal.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mzgtiglobal.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mzgtiglobal.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mzgtiglobal.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mzgtiglobal.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":419,"href":"https:\/\/mzgtiglobal.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions\/419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mzgtiglobal.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mzgtiglobal.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mzgtiglobal.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}1. What is service?<\/h5>\n
2. What are the various avenues of service in the vineyard? 1 Corinthians 12:28-31; Ephesians 4:11-12<\/h5>\n
3. Who is a minister as in Mark 10:42-45?<\/h5>\n
4. What are the dangers of idleness in the Lord\u2019s vineyard? Matthew 25:30, 8:12; Luke 13:28<\/h5>\n
5. Benefits of serving in the Lord\u2019s vineyard? Matthew 25:21-23, 24:46-47; Luke 12:42-44.<\/h5>\n
a. The Lord\u2019s commendation.<\/h6>\n
b. The Lord\u2019s Reward.<\/h6>\n
c. Eternal Life<\/h6>\n
Daily Living Application<\/h3>\n
Memory verse<\/h3>\n