Crisis-04 Crisis of Activity — Stephen Olford

The Priority and Unity of Christian Service

I'm going to ask you to stand just for a moment. I don't need to ask you to turn to the Word of God, because it's such a familiar passage, and you'd have to sit down to pick up your Bible anyway. But in reverence to the Word of God, I want you to be standing as I read just a few verses from the twelfth chapter of Romans.

The twelfth chapter of Romans. And perfect will of God. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil. Cling to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love in honor of preferring one another.

Not lagging in diligence. Servant in spirit. Serving the Lord. May God add His blessing to the reading of His own Word. Shall we be seated? The epistle to the Romans has been described, as I said the other night, as the cathedral of the Christian faith.

And while there are much more intimate and intricate analyses that I could give you on this great epistle, the major sweep of the epistle is, as you know, chapters one through eight, is the salvation of God, or God's salvation.

Chapters nine, ten and eleven, the sovereignty of God. God's sovereignty in relation especially to His ancient people, the Jews. Then chapters twelve to the end, in general, the service of God. The service of God.

And here in this wonderful passage I have just read, we have the priority of service in those opening verses. We've got to bring our lives, as we heard so beautifully in my favorite, favorite song on service, that Ron Owens anywhere or anytime ever sings, and that is surrender.

Surrender. I beseech you therefore, Brah, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, or your spiritual worship.

And service and worship are indistinguishable in many ways in Scripture, for worship is service, and service is worship in God's view. That's the priority. Not only the dedication of our lives, the transformation of our lives, but the realization of our lives in His good and acceptable and perfect will.

Then you get what is called the unity of service, where you see a whole church, the whole membership spoken of, being united there in these verses. And then flowing from that priority and unity, you have what I call the ministry of service, and the listing of those gifts which are a study in and of themselves.

Saved to Serve and the Crisis of Activity

But tonight, in the light of that great music tonight, and the testimony and challenge we heard just now, I want to just pick up those words with which I concluded the reading, and bring them to you from my heart as the closing message, the crisis of activity.

In the New King James Version it reads, Don't let your diligence lag, or don't lag in your diligence. Notice the word diligence. Then, fervent in spirit. Then, serving the Lord. Lord. Three clauses. Don't lag in diligence, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.

If I were to give my message another title, it would be Saved to Serve. Have you ever asked yourself the question, why on earth didn't God take you to heaven the moment you were saved? It would relieve you of a lot of anxiety and problems and trials, wouldn't it?

I get saved, born again, and right away, raptured to heaven. Why has he left you down here? Why has he left you here on planet earth? Answer, to serve. To serve. In all the embrace of sense of that word, to serve.

Maybe to serve as a housewife, and a mother, as a businessman, as an educator, as a barrister at law. It may be at home or abroad, in foreign missions, in translating, in building, in medical work, or in planting churches, but we have been saved to serve, all with a view to evangelize the world and hasten the coming of the Lord Jesus.

For when the last soul is saved, whether it be in this auditorium tonight, or in Thailand, or in the oppression of China tonight, when that last soul is saved, and those whom God has purposed to be the church has been completed, there will be the shout, the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God, and there will be operation lift off.

We're saved to serve. Saved to serve. Now in the simplest fashion, I want to zero in on this text, and take those three clauses, and speak on three aspects of what is our theme tonight, the crisis of activity.

Faithful Service in the Midst of Opposition

Number one, I want you to notice that it is faithful service. Faithful service that God wants from you tonight. Faithful service. Not lagging in diligence. Not lagging in diligence. I cannot underscore that word faithful enough.

We live in the day of celebrity. We live in the day of so-called success. Some are so caught up in the success syndrome that they don't even see the Savior. But when the bottom line has been written, and when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, if we have served faithfully, that's going to bring the smile on our Savior's face.

He won't say, enter into the joy of your Lord, successful servant, but rather, enter into the joy of the Lord, you faithful servant. You have been faithful. Now, I welcome you with joy. Faithfulness. Faithfulness.

Faithfulness in the midst of opposition, hostility. Faithful when you're on the mountaintop. Faithful when you're in the valley. Faithful when you've got a group around you, really supporting you. Faithful when you stand absolutely alone and have to say with the Apostle Paul, everybody has left me.

Everybody has left me. And he's writing to Timothy. Everybody has left me. Notwithstanding this, the Lord stood by me. Faithful. Faithful. It's got your Bible right there. I want you to flip right back quickly to chapter twenty-one of Exodus.

The Hebrew Servant and Lifelong Devotion

Chapter twenty-one of Exodus. Just for a moment. Just for a moment. Many scholars believe that when Paul uses that phrase, serving the Lord, like so many passages in Romans, he was thinking of the Old Testament.

And in chapter twenty-one, we learn of service. Faithful service. In verse two we read, if you buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free. Go out free. And then a beautiful touch is introduced.

If he come in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he was married, his wife shall go out with him. If this master hath given him a wife, and she hath borne him sons and daughters, the wife and her children, and that which was his master's, shall go out by himself.

Now then, verse five. If the servant shall plainly say, I love my master. I love my master. I love my wife and my children. I will not go out free. Then his master shall bring him unto the judges, and shall bring him to the door, even unto the doorpost.

And his master shall bore his ear through with an oar, and he shall serve him forever. I think that's one of the most beautiful pictures. Beautiful picture. Here we have the picture of faithful servant.

Here's a man who can go out free. He has served six years. The seventh is the year of jubilee. He can go out free, take his wife and children. But a bond, a bond, has been formed between master and servant.

And the servant says, no, I don't want to go out free. I don't want to go out free. And three things characterize faithful servant here. First of all, he shall plainly say, the judges are gathered, the people of God stand around, and before the judges he plainly says, I'm alive.

I am speaking. These are my eyes. This is my brain. These are my lips. These are my hands with which I want to serve my master. I want it plainly to be understood that I am my master. Living servant. And then he says, I'm not going to go out free.

I love my master. I will not go out free. And at that point, a little ritual, a ceremony was performed where the slave or servant was brought to the doorpost of his master's house. And an instrument was used called an awl, and the earlobe of the servant was punctured and, listen, literally nailed to the doorpost with an awl.

And as the blood burst, and as that scar remained, it was known by everybody that he was a servant of his master in love forever. Forever. Forever. Living servant. Faithful. Loving servant. Faithful. And lasting servant.

For it says right in the passage, he shall serve forever. Forever. Faithful. Do you know that's what your master did? Your divine master? He said, No, I come in the volume of the book it is written of me to do your will, O my God.

Thy will is within my heart. And it wasn't his ear that was pierced, though that is mentioned in Psalm 22. But his hands were pierced. His feet were pierced. His side was pierced. His brow was pierced.

He served faithfully until he could cry, Finished. Finished. In a day of laziness and shallowness and superficiality of service, O for this faithful servant. Faithful servant. And after a week of ministry such as we've had, I want you to make a resolve here tonight that Lord above everything, I want to be found faithful.

I want to be found faithful as a living, loving and lasting servant. Doing your good and acceptable and perfect will. You're saved to serve. And what we're talking about tonight is faithful service. But I want you to notice, secondly, and especially in the light of what I had to say last night, it is fervent service.

Fervent Service and the Fullness of the Spirit

I don't want any, any dual looking faces here tonight. I want you to be able to go out, serve the Lord with gladness. And even as I'm speaking now, I want to see a break of light on your faces. Because what he wants is not only faithful servant, but fervent servant.

Because it says, not lagging in diligence, that's faithfulness, fervent in spirit. Fervent in spirit. Our word for that, we'll exegete it in a moment from Scripture, our word for that is the word enthusiasm.

Many of you have said that I am pretty enthusiastic preaching. In fact, a lot of people have been holding their breath in case I drop dead sometime during preaching here. Well, that's how it's got to be until the end.

I remember when I went to Mayo Clinic, when I had some heart condition that precipitated by leaving Calvary Baptist Church, and that's the only reason I ever left that church, otherwise I'd be there today.

But I had to leave because of this condition. They graciously made me minister emeritus for life, but nevertheless, I went to my cardiologist there at Mayo, and I said, well, what's the news? He said, you've got to leave.

I said, leave what? Calvary. I said, not in your life. All right, he said, what do you want, a coffin or a pulpit? I said, like that? He said, yes. You've got to leave. It takes seven months to normalize, in any case.

But he said, I want to tell you something. I want to tell you something. We can never change your style of preaching because the moment we change that style, we have destroyed your personality and what God wants for you through you.

You are a virile, vigorous preacher, that's how you're going to be all the way through. And in any case, we live in a day of such dry and dusty kind of preaching, it's by time we had some enthusiasm. That word, that word has been borrowed by the world and they don't deserve it.

Why? Because you know what that word means? It comes from two Greek words. Entheos. Entheos. It means to be full of God, to be possessed of God. Enthusiasm is being full of God. There may be some people who have been a little bit annoyed and irritated at the way I preach and all the rest of it and they've left and felt, goodness me, what has he got so worked up about?

I want to remind those people whether they're here tonight or didn't, come back again. I hope they're hearing what I'm saying where they are. You can go to a baseball game and shout your voice hoarse and nobody criticizes that.

And that's a stupid game. And I'm a sportsman and I love all games, but it's a stupid game. Cracking that little ball, never getting the ball back and wasting taxpayers' money and all the rest of it. I mean, you can go to a football game and watch these guys with body contact break their backs and skulls and everything else and scream and say, listen, isn't that terrific?

Listen, what's terrific about chasing a bit of pigskin? I play golf and I love golf. It's the only biblical game there is. But like a little German girl who said between Alan Redpath and I at breakfast time in his home she'd come over to learn English and was in their home and Al and I were excitedly talking about a baseball game.

No, a golfing game we were about to play. She said, I think it is completely stupid. You take wee ball, big luggage on your back, you walk through the middle, you hit ball, lose it, look for it all day.

I think it's completely stupid. Beloved, enthusiasm. When I get up here and preach, you watch Leonard Bernstein. Watch him conduct an orchestra at Carnegie Hall as I did many times with Van Cliburn, member of our church at the great piano.

And there wasn't a hair in place. I mean, his tie was crooked, sweating tight, breaking his arms around as if he was fighting with himself. Nobody quarreled about that. But when we talk about eternal things, lift up the Lord Jesus Christ and preach our eternal truth, people say it's emotionalism.

That makes me mad. We're to be faithful in service. We're to be fervent in service. The word actually means boiling. Just the simple kitchen word, boiling, boiling. It was used of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He was the most enthusiastic man that ever came to planet Earth. And when he drove those people out of the temple with a whip and said, listen, get out of here, don't make my Father's house a den of thieves, the disciples stood back and couldn't get over the anger and enthusiasm and zeal that he showed.

He said to them, haven't you ever read your Bibles? The zeal of God's house has eaten me up. That's our word right here in the text. Same word. And Titus, Titus, the epistle of Paul to Titus tells us that we are redeemed and cleansed from all iniquity that we might be unto God as zealous people full of good works.

Same word. Same word. And within this fervency, our true concept, we have in the New Testament, we were really talking about last night. Only the Holy Spirit can do this. What creates steam? What makes a kettle boil?

Well, obviously, fire. And H02, water. In a wonderful sense, the Holy Spirit represents both. He is the fire and He is the fullness. He is the fire and He is the fullness. John said, I baptize you with water, but there comes one after me whose shoes I am not worthy to bear.

He shall baptize you with fire. And the Holy Spirit, and although we know that there is a projection of prophecy concerning that beyond our time, I remember that on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon those disciples, He came in the semblance of fire.

Fire. And incidentally, fire like tongues. And they went out with enthusiasm and spoke the wonderful works of God. Nobody could shut them up. In fact, they stood back and said, These people are crazy.

They are dead drunk. Peter said, You're crazy. The pubs aren't open yet. This is, this is the Holy Spirit. It's only the ninth hour. Was it dear Moody who said, Set the pulpit on fire. People come to watch it burn.

Have you fired in your stomach? Have you fired in your bones? Have you fired in your tongue? Have you fired in your service? Are you fired up? Fired up. And I want to talk to a lot of older people here.

There's no age, there's no age that you can reach where you cannot be fervent in spirit serving the Lord. It's not the age to calm down. It's the age to fire up. The fire of the Spirit. But where the fire of the Spirit, there's the fullness of the Spirit.

And we needn't say any more than to remind you that that's what I was talking about last night. Be filled and go on being filled with the Spirit. That, fervency in service. So we're saved to serve. And our service is to be faithful.

I've made my point there. It's to be fervent. I've made my point there. But my burden tonight in these closing moments is the third aspect of our subject. Service is to be faithful. Service is to be fervent.

Focused Service: Christ’s Person and Purpose

But thirdly, service is to be focused. Focused. Will you notice the third clause? Not lagging in zeal. Not lagging in diligence. Fervent in spirit. Serving what? The Lord. Serving the Lord. And here is where I want you to follow me very closely.

We close this service and in the light of the statistics we heard just now and the desperate need, I want us to look at this very carefully. What is the focus of service? All service. All service, if you're a believer.

All service. Number one, the person of Christ. The person of Christ. Serving the Lord. Serving the Lord. Writing to the Colossians and addressing slaves, if you please, slaves who are sometimes, sometimes subject to the greatest possible cruelty from their masters.

Paul says, without qualifying it at all, he says this, whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and then he adds, for you serve the Lord Christ. And as you leave this place tonight, don't forget the text you've watched all week.

For me to live is Christ. But I also want you to see it in a little different way. For me to serve is Christ. For me to serve is Christ. Whatever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord, for it is the Lord Christ whom you serve.

His person. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing in the kitchen, in the shop, or if the Lord sends you from these shores to other lands, as I trust He will after tonight, it's the Lord. It's the Lord.

It's the Lord that I serve. Here is a slave being beaten because of vindictiveness. But he is to rise from those lashes and serve his Master as unto the Lord. All he sees is the Lord. The Lord. Focused service.

The person of Christ. But secondly, I want you to notice focused service, the purpose of Christ. The purpose of Christ. You say to me, what is the purpose of all life? Well, the Catechism puts it perfectly.

Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. I want to change that just for tonight. Man's chief end is to glorify God and to serve Him forever. I want to read some verses to you for the sake of time.

I won't ask you even to turn to them. Listen to this. Whatsoever ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, now then, say it all with me, do all to the glory of God. Do all to the glory of God. And then Paul adds two verses of great significance.

He says, don't give any offense to Jews, to Greeks, to the Church of God, which is sheer universality. Gentiles and Greeks represent one section. Jews, the other section. The Church, the other section.

Nothing is more comprehensive in all of Scripture than that statement. And he says, don't give any offense. And then he says, even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they might be saved.

You say to me, Stephen Alford, what is life's greatest purpose? I'll tell you what it is. To glorify God. To glorify God. To glorify God. And Paul tells us how we glorify God. It's very simple. By living holy lives.

Giving no offense. Living a life that's transparent and holy. Giving no offense. Putting no stumbling block in anybody's way or life. Holy living. And secondly, helpful living. He says, I live not even to please myself or to profit myself.

I only live for others that they might be saved. Holy living, helpful living. Holy living, helpful living. That is living to the glory of God. So I serve His person. Focused service. I serve His purpose.

The Great Commission as the Program of Christian Service

Holy and helpful living. That's the purpose. But I want to say something much more important. Focused service is not serving only His person. That is basic, and we all know that. Not only His purpose for the glory of God.

Holy and helpful living. But serving His program. And God has only one program in Jesus Christ until He comes back again. A program that's never been rescinded. You'll read about it at the end of Matthew.

You'll read about it at the end of John. You'll read about it at the end of Mark. You'll read about it at the end of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And you'll read about it at the very beginning of Acts.

It's what we call the commission. And perhaps the fullest statement of it is that 28th of Matthew where Jesus said, All authority has been given unto Me in heaven and in earth as you go. Literally the Greek is as you go.

As you actually go. Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

And lo, I am with you always even unto the consummation of the age. What is focused service? Faithfulness. To His person. To His purpose. For the glory of God. To His program. What is that program? To put it very simply.

Every Believer’s Role in Evangelism and Mission

First, to bring men and women to Christ. To bring men and women to Christ. As you go, make disciples of all nations. And I want anybody to rise from this congregation and tell me from the Scriptures that that's only relegated to the few.

That is to say, to those who are pastors or evangelists. No way. No way. This is a commission to the entire church. And I care not if you're a housewife with three kids or six kids. I don't care if you're a businessman.

I don't care where you are or what you do. You must be part and parcel of that program of bringing people to Christ. It may involve raising money to support the missionary that you ought to be. But since you can't go, you're sending somebody else in your stead.

And you're going to undergird them. You know that our brother, our brother who spoke tonight, belongs to CAM International. And they have right now forty couples, forty couples who've come forward in meetings like this, who've surrendered their lives, who've done language study, who've prepared to go to the mission field, and they're sold out to God to go, and not one of them can go out.

Why? Because there's no support. We're living in the meanest hour of American giving now, right now, in this hour. And by 1992, it's going to be worse and less. The younger generation know how to give.

Do you know who's the peak giver in this country today? Seventy-one years of age. All youngsters, yuppies, are buying their cars, they're buying their boats, they're buying their holiday homes, they're getting swanky clothes.

They are spending it on themselves. Ninety-nine percent of all Christian spending is on self. Only one percent for God. That is David Barrett's recent statistic out of his studies. Ninety-nine percent of all Christian, all Christian earnings spent on oneself.

Only one percent for God. I'm talking about making disciples, bringing, bringing men and women to Christ. You're part of it. That's the program. That's the program. What else? Baptizing them in Christ.

Baptizing them in Christ. My heart lifts the other morning when Dr. Fletcher spoke about some of the evangelism, superficial evangelism of today. When we go and knock on doors and make a person nod three times, say a little prayer after you, and then write him down as a convert.

No way, no way. Not in the early church, not in true evangelism. You haven't done your job until that person you have led to Christ has been brought into the fellowship of the church. Baptism is the outward expression of inclusion into the church in a union of death, burial, and resurrection with Christ.

Oneness, oneness, oneness in the purity of the church. Oneness in the ministry of the church. Oneness in that wonderful sense of liberty in the church. It means more than just a ritual of baptism. But it means not only bringing men and women to Christ, not only baptizing men and women in Christ, but listen, building men and women in Christ, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age. I am thrilled, absolutely thrilled, when I meet lay people, lay people, who tell me that they've not only led people to Christ, not only introduced them to their church, but are actually spending time discipling in their own homes.

I said it the other day, and many of you never heard me say it, because you weren't at this service. A representative from the Philippines, where Lausanne too has just concluded, has written a report, which I have in my files, right there in the motel room right now, in the Lodge right now.

Do you know what it says? That 80 of all people who are led to Christ are led to Christ by laymen. All people who are led to Christ all around the world, especially here in America, and it's probably higher in America, 80 is done by laymen.

5 only of evangelical pastors have ever led a soul to Christ one-on-one. They've given invitations, they've seen people come forward, but we're talking about one-on-one evangelism, the way the church grew in the early church.

There was no Billy Graham. The big rally on Pentecost was succeeded by one or two more, and then we don't read of any big concourses of people, no big stadium. How did the church grow so fast so that in 33 years the whole of the then known world was evangelized?

How? One-on-one. Each one, reach one. Each one, reach one. Every member evangelist. So there's nobody here who can say, Ah, but I am not included in this. Oh, yes you are. You may be a sower, you may be a reaper, but you need sowing to reap.

All of us are witnesses. A .T. Robertson puts it, A .T. Pearson puts it, witnessing is the whole work of the whole church for the whole age. We're saved to serve. It's faithful service. It is fervent service.

The Global Scope of the Gospel Commission

It is focused service. Why? It's serving the Lord, His person, His purpose, His program. Priority program. Far more important than any legislation that's going to take place this day or until Jesus comes in Washington, London, Peking, Moscow.

The most important program on God's planet Earth and in the universe is the completion of the commission that Jesus gave. Bringing men and women to Christ, yes. Baptizing men and women to Christ, yes.

Building men and women in Christ. And you are needed. You are called. And your prayer should be any way, anywhere, anytime, Lord. I surrender to your call. And I just add in closing that that commission has to do with every culture, every culture making disciples of all cultures, that's what the word is, all nations.

It means every creature, every individual going into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. It means every country, every country, for Acts 1, 8 says, he shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you and he shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and what's the rest of the earth, and unto the uttermost what?

Many said part. You were wrong. Part. Until the last inch of earth has been reached. Every part, every country, every country, every country. And if your response to Jesus Christ is real, then you're going to say, Lord, anywhere, anywhere, any way, any time, Lord, I surrender to your call.

Not lagging in diligence, faithful. Serving in spirit, serving. Serving the Lord, focused. Focused on Him personally, as persons. Focused on His purpose, to do everything to the glory of God, holy and helpful living.

And most of all tonight, focused on His program to bring that tithe and build men and women in Jesus Christ. Every culture, every creature, every country. Three ways in which you can be involved. Prayer.

Prayerful and Financial Support for Missionary Work

Prayer. To be praying for these beloved missionaries here and the burden they have about those forty couples who can't go out. You can be praying for that training center there in Washington. Capitol Seminary.

You can be praying for our own work here. Our challenging preachers to get into mission from the pulpit. You can be praying for the colony here. And Keswick, which is a platform like no other I know, for the message of full salvation and mission.

And for doing business with God. And not just fooling around and giving people a vacation. Tonight you're going to respond. And you're going to say, Lord, you've spoken to my heart all through this week.

The Crisis of Activity and the Call to Respond

But you know, if the flow of truth, if the flow of truth is like the Jordan River that spills into the Dead Sea, you know why it's the Dead Sea? Because there's no outlet. No outlet. Nothing lives in that body of water.

It's dead. Dead. Why? Because there's inflow and no outflow. The river of truth has been flowing all through this week. Now if there's no outflow, do you know what's going to happen? All you've heard will go dead.

Dead. That's the crisis of activity. Faithful, fervent, focused service. When you look up into a space and say, Lord, anywhere, anytime, I surrender to your call. Now, let's bow together in prayer. A few moments of quiet reflection.

We've used all through this week. And I want you to step out from your seat and come forward saying, I know God has called me to a ministry of prayer I've never, never experienced before. For the ministry not only mentioned this week, but for missionaries that I know about.

I don't know when I last prayed for a missionary. And I'm going to give myself to a ministry of prayer. For a mission. I want you to step out and say, I'm going to look at my budget and I'm going to see that it's just not that one percent.

I'm going to give, and I'm going to give liberally to the undergirding of mystery work and some of the causes mentioned here tonight. But my biggest concern, though that's absolutely basic to what I've said, are those who are going to say, Lord, I'm coming forward and I really mean, anywhere, anyway.

I may go to Rip Valley Academy right there in East Africa to be a caretaker, to be a house mother, to type letters, to release perhaps evangelists. But I want to be in service for Jesus Christ. And whether it's language translation, whether it's nursing, whether it's medicine, whether it's using the computer today, or whether it's church planting, I'm going out there in order that some might be saved.

And I want Him to have me all. And there's no age limit on this. Not just young people today. Some places that you can speak English, it doesn't matter what age, as long as you're fit and well to go. And sometimes it's those older people who are freed from all ties and they can spend the rest of their time gloriously serving with faithfulness, yes, and fervency and focused attention to His person, to His purpose and His program.

And if that's the response of your heart tonight, I want you to leave where you are. And we're going to have a great active dedication of the conclusion of this service. And I want you to come and take your stand here.

Let us rise together. Three to eight. Let's sing it from our hearts and make that your hymn of response. Step right out, right from the very first verse.