Keys: Service

Keys: Service

1 Peter 4: 10, Gal 5: 13, Mark 10: 45

Matt 25: 41 – 46, Is 58: 10

November 23, 2026

When I was a child, I used to read the Bible – mostly the Old Testament – because there were so many great, even heroic stories. Moses and the Pharoah, the tumbling walls of Jericho, David and Goliath – these were just great stories!

There are also beautiful tales of wisdom and obedience, psalms of poetry, sermons of instruction, even accounts of prophets like Elijah talking trash to the false prophets of Ba’al. I find that text hilarious, at least at the beginning.

But then there are those texts that troubled my soul. There are those texts that challenge one’s notion of what it means to be truly faithful, living a life that reflects a deep abiding relationship between the one professing to believe and God.

In western Christianity we have overwhelmingly privatized faith. What are the two topics we are never to discuss in public settings? Faith and politics! At our Thanksgiving tables this week we usually will try to honor those instructions.

But what happens when God’s word transcends the boundaries that we have tried to place around it? What happens when Scripture calls for more than simple intellectual assent? What happens when Scripture highlights, emphasizes, even calls for public action that expresses one’s faith convictions?

To keep the two separate – faith and action – is to seriously bring into question the viability of one’s faith. James 2:19 says: “You believe that there is one God? Good! Even the demons believe….. and tremble!” Intellectual assent is not enough. Faith calls for relationship and obedience.

But friends, the flip side is equally dangerous and perhaps even more prevalent – at least in American Christianity. The flip side of a private faith with no public expression is the idea that it is by our works that we are saved. Now, I know no one who is crass enough to actually say that, but their lives give testimony to that belief by their constant worry about having done enough good deeds to get into heaven. There is, in this way of thinking, a divine set of scales that must tilt in their favor when good is measured against bad. They will sing Amazing Grace, but that same grace has no functional role in their lives.

There must be a way to find a faithful path through these two unfaithful extremes. I believe there is.

Let’s start at the beginning, where Scripture starts, with God. As we talked about a few weeks ago, let’s remind ourselves of the Biblical testimony that while we were separated from God by a sinfulness that would not let us go, God’s love for his created was so great that he moved to us first, across the boundaries of pride, over the walls of self-centeredness and rose up in us an overwhelming desire to reconcile with our God.

This first action of God, this drawing us to himself, Ephesians 2 tells us is a gift, an undeserved act of grace centered in God’s love. We don’t deserve it. We can’t demand it. There is no number of good deeds that can put God in the place of needing to grant it. Neither is there an intellectual level of conviction that can warrant such grace.

We are justified, we are saved, we are brought back into a relationship with God purely and solely through God’s grace. We are saved through God’s grace, by faith alone. But that saving faith doesn’t ever leave us alone.

That saving faith results in the presence of the Holy Spirit who abides with us bringing strength and conviction, that abiding sense that God is with us. If it is God who has created, and Jesus who has made reconciliation possible, it is the presence of the Holy Spirit that reminds us of our renewed relationship.

But the story goes on. Yes, we are saved by grace, through faith as a gift from God, but Ephesians 2 reminds us that we are God’s workmanship created for good works that God has designed for us before the beginning of time.

You see, intellectual assent is not enough – it has not traveled from the head to the heart resulting in relationship. Neither are works by themselves enough. They are driven by the cynical, manipulative conviction that we can somehow place God in our debt.

But true faith – as a gift from God – connects the brain and the heart, our will and our love. Faith generates a desire to know more. Faith generates a desire to understand this God with whom we are in relationship. Faith gives birth to a desire to live a life that reflects that relationship. Faith without spiritual growth is simply the attempt to place a holy veneer on our existing broken preferences and convictions.   

I don’t have many memories of my father. He was killed when I was only 10 and he had been gone on deployment to Viet Nam for almost 8 months before that. But I do have some, and I cherish them deeply. Before he left, he took my older brother and I aside and began to teach us some life skills that might be needed while he was gone.

He taught us how to change the car oil, fix a flat tire on that same car, and how to check the radiator for adequate levels of water. We learned how to use a pair of jumper cables in case the battery died. Most importantly, he talked to us about what it meant to be a Szeyller man. There was nothing heroic in his expectations, they were grounded in an immigrant family’s experience of coming to this country dirt poor and somehow making it.

He valued education. He believed strongly that someone may not be as gifted as others but could still succeed by hard work and an ethic that strove for excellence. He believed that your word was your bond and a handshake was as binding as a contract. He believed that great joy could be found in life and relationships that were about more than simple material goods.  

I could go on, but you get the point. He wanted us to know what it meant to be in our family – in relationship with one another. Our name meant something, and he wanted us to know about what it meant.

When you are in relationship with someone you learn what makes their heart tick. You learn what is important to them. When that relationship is a loving one you try to live your life in a way that brings joy to the other. Relationships move us to actions that reflect that committed relationship.

A saving faith moves us to learn about the expectations of our Creator. Part of those expectations are that we live a life, we engage in certain behaviors, certain actions, certain works that reflect God’s expectations for members of his family.  

Good works may not save us, but they inevitably flow out of that reconciled relationship. We are not saved by works, but we are….. saved for works. That is to say, faith is not an end in itself—it is the beginning of a new life:

·      New desires,

·      New obedience,

·      New love for God and neighbor,

·      New fruit from the new root of Christ in us.

Faith that results in good works isn’t about doing everything—it’s about doing something in obedience to God. And friends, THAT is the difference between a sermon that is a morality guilt trip, between a sermon that is partisan political talking points and a sermon grounded in God’s word.

Friends, we have been talking about faith, about a church that is alive and vital. We have been talking about those keys – about behaviors – that reflect God at work. We read texts like Matthew 25 and a faith that is only head knowledge, a faith that is only works salvation reads these as political options, as ways to tip the salvations scales in your favor.

No! Care and compassion are attributes of God’s family. Service not only lessens the suffering of others who bear the image of God in their souls, it brings a smile to the Creator we share.

Feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, satisfying the needs of the afflicted, using the gifts given to us by God are not the province of a particular political party. Indeed, they are not politics at all. Serving others is simply obedience to God. Serving others makes God’s heart smile. It is also meaning and purpose for us as well.

Service comes in many forms, and our contributions are not all the same. Sometimes service is simply a smile to someone who gets frowns all day long. Sometimes service is a kind word for someone who gets nothing but grief all day long. Sometimes service results in spectacular actions of sacrifice and commitment, but in an increasingly polarized culture, sometimes service is a simple act of kindness.  

We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. But saving faith is never alone. It is always accompanied by a transformed heart, a renewed mind, and a life that bears witness to the One who saved us.

May we be a people whose faith is not only spoken but seen. Not only professed but practiced. May our neighbors, families, coworkers, and communities experience Jesus—not just in our words, but in our actions. May service be a key, an attribute of this church family. Amen.