Turning Kindness into Selfless Love with Randy Bell | Christian Living

Learn to be content in whatever state you're in, whether well-fed or going hungry.

Understand that greed is the focus of constantly trying to get more stuff that you don't need.

Focus on God's kingdom and His righteousness, and He will take care of your needs.

Surrender to God's will and learn to be content, and He will take care of you.

Thank you. Now, also character-wise, to be a true servant and do this lifestyle, it says not to be greedy. Not to be greedy. Now, this is really the idea of greed. Money is secondary to the kingdom of God. If money is over number one in your life compared to God's kingdom, then you have not achieved this yet. Now, to help you understand what I'm saying, again, Paul gives examples in his own life to make you understand what he's saying. Philippians 4.11 says, not that I'm implying that I was in any personal want. Now, he wrote this from prison, first of all. Now, I don't know if you've ever been around a prison in America. It just doesn't help you understand prison. Now, when I went to Guatemala, I can tell you about prison because I went to prisons to see people in prison. Now, and this is how it is in the Middle East still today also. Prison there is basically, you don't get any food. If you want food, you've got to make sure you have a buddy or family to bring you some, or you have basically no hope to have any help for very long. Now, when I went to Guatemala, here's what I found. old, like 300-year-old building that was falling down with bars around it and guys with machine guns. We went inside and our kids played soccer with them and we tried to be a testimony to them and whatever. While we were there, I met this one guy. The way he got enough food was he caught rats. And he took some cement blocks and he made himself a little, and you get wood and little pieces of sticks and you start cooking little ovens. And he would cook these rats and eat them. I mean, basically, they didn't have a lot of stuff to eat. And so they had to scrounge, beg, and trade whatever they could to have a healthy survival here unless you got family. Same as what it was in Paul's day. Understand, this is what he's talking about. Prisons were horrible back then. You pretty well died in there unless you had some breaks. That's what it was like. So he's saying, in prison, he's writing this saying, not that I'm implying that I was in any personal want. Really? He's in prison that doesn't hardly even feed you. For I have learned how to be content. Notice the word content is the opposite of greed. I understand what we're saying. To be content. In other words, satisfied to the point where I am not disturbed or disquieted in whatever state I'm in. I know how to be abased and live humbly in straightened circumstances. And I know also how to enjoy plenty and live in abundance. Now what he calls abundance is not what you're thinking. I've learned in any circumstance the secret of facing every situation, whether well-fed, there's the word, it's only food, well-fed or going hungry, having a sufficiency and enough to spare, or going without and being in want. He's talking about base level. You think in terms of when it says plenty, you're thinking about swimming pools and nice cars. He's only talking about the basics of life to survive here. He's saying, I've learned to go hungry. I've learned how to survive with plenty of food is all he's talking about here, folks. And to give you an example further, in 1 Timothy 6, he says, but if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content, satisfied. His level is down here. Americans are up there for what they're talking about. See what God's trying to get you to see? A true servant lowers their standards down a long ways to trust God and be excited that you have food and clothes. Not that you don't have the greatest car, biggest house, nicest this, extras of that. That's nothing to do with anything here. God wants you to learn contentment is a whole different lifestyle. That's what I'm trying to get you to see. Greed is the focus of constantly trying to get more stuff that you don't need. Because if you focused on His kingdom, Jesus taught us clearly in His Sermon on the Mount, you who seek first the kingdom and His righteousness, all these things shall be added on to you, which are food and clothing, as if you read it. Excuse me. What he's saying is he will break into your life and make sure you're okay if you focus on him. Now, if your focus is constantly chasing after the stuff, those stuff can vanish. But if you keep focusing on his kingdom, he'll make sure you have food in ways you'll never explain it. Remember, I've tried to give you examples of that in my life. As I gave up chasing it, God would break through in my life out of nowhere and give me cars when I desperately needed a car. Gave me food. Gave me clothing. Took care of my kids who Nathan would never remember. He was too little. He didn't know what God did. A day that we lived in our old 100-year-old house, I got a guy come to my door, knock on the door, and give me a stack of pants about this high. He said, do you need pants? Yeah, my wife was just telling me last week that I had holes in my pants and it was a disgrace. I could see my underwear and I didn't have any other pants. But God brought them and delivered them to my door. You know, that kind of thing. And so we were protected and provided for what we needed. Now, did I have a brand new house? No, I had a hundred year old house. It wasn't the greatest, but it was a roof over our heads. It kept us warm when the snow was outside. It wasn't the greatest in the neighborhood, but it sure took care of my family, and it was what God chose to give me. And I learned to be content in whatever I have. Can you? Because why? Instead of letting that divert my attention, I focused on serving my God. And serving your God is far more important. Think of Abraham Remember Abraham and what his wife name Sarah had to give up her house and go live in a tent Remember they were rich people And it says they left a big, if you read the history back then, they left the northern area, which was big cities, big bucks. He was rich and he was a merchant. He made a lot of money. And it says he had to move to a place of Israel, which nothing was there. They had to move into a wilderness and it was just dirt there. And it didn't even have hardly any water. and he had to live in a tent. She had to give up her fancy house for a tent to fulfill God's will. So God doesn't seem to care whether you have a house or a tent, does he? We do. He doesn't. So sometimes you have to learn to surrender. Let God put you where he wants you. Do his will. And if you learn to be content, he'll take care of you. That's an important aspect of being a deacon. Think of Judas Iscariot. He wasn't a very good servant of the king, was he? Why wasn't he a good servant of the king while he was right there with Jesus? What was his problem? He was greedy. So when they got offerings, he stole out of the church's money. And then he put on a front, worried about the poor people. He would complain and yell because they didn't help the poor. Remember that lady put some very expensive perfume on Jesus. And he said, oh, you could have used that money for the poor. And then John even said he wasn't saying that because he was worried about the poor. he was greedy. It says it right out in John. See, you can put on that front. But the key thing here is understanding God loves you. He loves you. If you learn to trust Him, listen, I'm waiting for my mansion. It's up in heaven. Really, it's going to be there. Gold. I can't get better properties out of that, man. The real estate values go up and up and up up there. And so, you got it. In the meantime, be a pilgrim. Help others get there because this is so short. We're just preparing for our real home. Our city is full of gold and jewels and everything else. If you really are concerned about it, it's all there, but it's so worthless. It's your street. You don't need it for anything else, so they use it for your pavement. So just be aware, you know. The value system is a lot different. Now, the next idea of what God's saying for you in this phase of having a character change or lifestyle change is the idea of holding the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. To understand what that even means, we've got to stop for a second and look at a couple scriptures. First of all, the word mystery. The word mystery basically means secret. Secret. Okay? So we're saying holding the secret of the faith with a clear conscience. Well, what does that even mean? What kind of secret are we holding? Well, remember the teachings of Jesus. When he talked about Matthew 13, he said, the disciples came to him and said, why do you keep speaking to these people out here, the general public, in parables? He replied to them and said, to you it's been given to know the secrets and mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. Parables are not given to help you understand the scriptures. They were given to confuse the wicked so they didn't know what God was talking about. We've got this backwards. Literally, the disciples had to go to Jesus and say, What are you talking about? What's that story mean? They didn't know what it meant because it didn't mean anything without explaining it. And because he did it because of one thing, the secret or teachings of Jesus are only for believers. Therefore, he said the one message to the world was repent and believe in my message. Repent and follow me. Remember that's what he said? To those who refused to repent, but they still wanted free food and miracles from them, he taught them parables so they wouldn't understand what he was saying because it was none of their business. Wow. So when he's talking about the secret, it's not that secretive to you if you're in the church. the teachings of Jesus, the principles of his kingdom, the ways of God are all we talk about every week here. But the point is, you take that basic concepts that you hear about from the word, it says, and you hold them. Hold them how? You hold them with great clear conscience. You hold them with great esteem. In other words, the teaching of Christ is for believers, not outside world. Number two, the importance of the servant leader is to understand the need for the preachers and the teachers to concentrate on their teaching so you need to see the importance of what this is. The secret here is that you're holding them up by doing tasks around them that need to be done. The grass needs cutting. The carpet needs to be cleaned. Vacuuming needs to happen. You know, basic things that have to happen because we are still in this world that has to be had. And if you let the preacher do it all, then he is bogged down and he can't do what he's really called to do so you have to hold this mystery with a clear conscience knowing you're called to help does that make sense it gives you the impact of the idea he's trying to to teach servants now the other thing that seems to be bogged down with americans is this idea of saying that the deacon has to be the husband of one wife now the greek word also means a word that everybody ignores and it's the word first See that under the definition in the Greek? First. Change it to first wife. You know, back in Rome and in Israel, they didn't live having multiple wives like they did in the old days, like in Abraham's day, thousands of years before that. Men would have ten wives or a hundred. Well, in this time, by the time of Christ, they didn't do that. They had one wife. So when he says one wife, He's not talking about having one wife instead of having 12. He's actually using the word first wife. What is that significance for a man in the church? In other words, divorce. I don't like you. I divorce. Get another one. I don't like you. Divorce. Get another one. In other words, you keep your first wife. You're not on your third, fourth, or fifth wife here. if you keep divorcing wives, you're not qualified to serve in the church. Why? Because God said one woman and one woman. Okay. A good example would be Romans 7. Romans 7, Paul is teaching a different thing, but he uses an example which is perfect here. He says, for instance, a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. but if her husband dies she's not loosed and discharged from the law concerning I mean she is loosed and discharged from the law concerning her husband accordingly she be held an adulteress if she unites herself to another man while her husband lives That's why the old-fashioned weddings always said, till death do us part, because you're free at that point, obviously. But if you divorce your spouse, it says you're literally, and then you marry somebody else, you're committing adultery with this other person. It doesn't matter that you've got an official divorce from the United States government. God says that's still adultery. As long as that spouse is alive, you have committed adultery. Now, obviously, I don't have time to teach all about marriage and divorce, but there is only one exception. That's if you're the innocent party. If you're abandoned by your spouse, you're faithful, they disobey, and they run off on you, they're guilty. But it says in Scripture, in 1 Corinthians, you are free then to marry only in the faith. You do have the option where you can remarry then, and you are delivered or released from that law also. That's the only choice. But if you're the guilty one, and this is what they're talking about, a guilty one. If you keep divorcing your wives, you're not eligible to be a deacon, a servant. You're dishonoring your one thing because you're committing adultery. Adultery is poisoning the church. Sin. So he says there's no way you can be a member servant here because you would dishonor God in your sin. So that's what they're trying to get you to understand here. So that's why it's saying, but remember, I hate it when they translate the word one. It just confuses. The same Greek word means first. And if you get that way, you understand what he's trying to say. Stick with your wife. I don't care if she's mean. I don't care if she wasn't like you expected. You stay with her. Can you imagine if Adam decided he didn't like Eve? I didn't pick her God. You picked her. I don't like her hair. How tough. You're to love her, and you're going to learn to love her, and she's the only woman you've got here. If you don't do it, mankind ceases at this point. So love your wife. See, God doesn't really care whether you can find... America wants minute little excuses for everything. It doesn't matter. You love your wife. That's not saying, oh, I hear the way that people take today. Oh, well, we fell out of love. Well, there's nothing here to fall out of. God orders you to love, so it's nothing to fall out of. Go do it. It's an active thing you can choose to do. You can choose to love somebody. Now, think about that with teenagers. You have to choose to love your teenagers because they're so mean and nasty, you know. You have to learn to love them because they can give you all this stuff back. and you still love them. So you can choose to love them. I've seen it happen. And so have you, right? Okay, now. On for the next verse. It says, And let them also be tried and investigated and proved first. This is so significant. It says if somebody's actually going to take responsibility in the church, see, we're so starved for help, if somebody volunteers, we say, Thank you! We don't care whether what they're doing or not. and it's just, oh, thank you, we needed your help so badly. I know one time back years ago here, there was a couple that came in, and they played music, and they, bluegrass, and we had them come in. It was after the fires that burned through our neighborhoods. That scared them so much they wanted to start coming to church. So they came in, and then they asked to play. So I had them play. And then after they played that week, I found out they weren't married. I thought they were married. They were only living together. So I said, oh. So I went to them, as nice as I can be, which is not always that nice, but I tried to be nice and said, listen, I appreciate your concern, but I cannot allow you to come up and play any longer. I didn't realize. I thought you were married. And because you're not married, I can't let you come up here. I want you to come to church. I want you to hear the word. But I can't allow you. And I was explaining this kind of thing here. I said, I can't. And if I was smart enough, I would have tried and investigated first. I disobeyed this. Didn't even realize. I was so desperate because we need music so bad. You know, you only got me. So, and I wasn't smart enough. I assumed they were married because they came from the house down the road and all that stuff. And I was wrong in my assumption. So I had to backtrack. Well, then I got people at the church mad at me because I didn't let them keep playing. And I had people complaining to me in our congregation because they were good. They played great music. But they were mad at me because I didn't let them keep playing. and I couldn't get them to understand that I can't dishonor God by letting them do that. I love them and I care for them and I hope they would come to Jesus and follow his ways, but I couldn't let them go up front and be a servant when that would be definitely biblically wrong. See what I'm saying? And I had to suffer the consequence, not then, of congregation people mad at me, along with these people not happy with me. I lost that big deal. But if I was smart enough and would have done this in the first place, that wouldn't have happened. They might have only been mad at me, but at least the congregation wouldn't have known the difference. So this is significant there. We must understand. Yes, God wants you to live out this servanthood. I need, and I probably don't say it enough, I need help here. I know we're little, but we're never going to get big if we don't help each other to get there. We need things to happen. Even if we don't see it happening yet, we need people to help. But ever since I've come to Port St. Lucie, I never have had people willing to help. They've always been in level two or one, immature. Nobody would ever help me. And this is what he's saying, though. You've got to be careful, not be desperate. We have to make sure the helpers are significantly and character able. The women, likewise, must be worthy of respect and serious, not gossipers, but temperate and self-controlled, thoroughly trustworthy in all things. Some versions here put wives. The reason they do that, that Greek word can be used for generally women, or it can be used for wives. Again, some languages are different than ours. They're not specific. Now, if he's talking about women, that would make sense because in the churches we have definite, in Acts, we find women deacons. So it would be fine to say that he's talking about women here that were deacons. The female deacons, likewise, must also be worthy of respect and serious, not gossipers, temperate and so forth. That would be normal. I can see that as a normal thought here, not talking about somebody's wife. Now, then it goes on to say in verse 12, Let deacons be the husbands of one wife and let them manage their children and their own households well. Again, notice what we're saying. It's not book knowledge or head knowledge that's important. God says, if I cannot see you taking care of your own home, how can I trust you to take care of a general group of people you don't know? If you don't have a natural love to the point where you're taking care of your family, of course I can't see where anybody would be that good at taking care of somebody else. They wouldn't have the right motive or the brotherly kindness that's necessary, right? So we have to see this as it's where we measure then is what you're doing in your own house and you're under your own roof first. For those who perform well as deacons acquire a good standing for themselves and also gain much confidence and freedom and boldness in their faith. Now really what we saying here is that they serve well The word basically is talking about the idea of moral morally If you morally serve well as deacons in other words you not just going through the actions of saying cut in the grass or whatever, but morally and spiritually you are so in tune with loving and caring for your brothers that you're sacrificing your time to help the other person out. Now, I went through times where I'd spent my time cutting the grass out here going, man, I'm so sick, nobody will help me and I'll hear by myself, complaining as if it was important instead of saying, I'm serving you, Jesus, thank you for the opportunity to serve you. I was morally wrong out there complaining instead of rejoicing that I was able to be a testimony for the kingdom. I had to repent of wrong attitudes. That's what it's talking about here. Moral serving, in other words, you morally consciously are serving God with gladness and joy because you're his family. Notice in God's Word it says, those deacons who serve well gain an excellent reputation. That's the idea of what it's saying. You have a good reputation of being a man of honor or a woman of honor. You're so good at what you do, you care for other people. That's the very thing God's after. Matthew 23, remember? The greatest is the greatest is the servant of all. Now, finishing a few thoughts as we finish the message, I wanted to give you a reflection from Titus a parallel passage talking about ladies to get you the idea again of this phase of life has to be developed truly by character and action of your good works to show how important it is. So in a parallel passage of Titus we're talking about ladies here it says so that they will wisely train the young women and this is talking about servant ladies to train the younger women to be sane I don't like that word sane and sober of mind. In other words, disciplined is really the idea. A disciplined person who makes sure their family is taken care of. You discipline yourself to get the things accomplished. And to love their husbands and their children. To be self-controlled, chaste, homemakers, good-natured. Notice all these things prove their ability to be servants by what they do at their house. If your husband can't stand you because you're tearing the house down, and you're refusing to take care of things, everything's a mess, then obviously, why would we want you here? Go home and serve your husband until you can prove yourself. Then come in here where you can be helpful. It shows your ability to be a true servant. If you don't serve at home, and that's what service is, obviously you would break down and not be a servant here. Next thing you get here is what you do. Start telling the pastor what to do because you won't be a true servant. If you don't have it in your heart, it's not going to come here by just coming, right? Now, it also says the reason for this is so that the word of God may not be exposed, or in other words, blasphemed or discredited. By seeing your actions being so poor, the world is going to look at you and say, why would the church want a person like that being there? That's terrible. Well, that's exactly what you don't want. In verse 6, in a similar way, urge the younger men to be self-restrained and to behave prudently. In other words, taking life serious. young guys tend to want to go have fun all the time. It's rare to find young men, 20 to 40, we're talking about young men according to Scripture, that truly see life as important, but there are many that are, but there's many that are not, right? And to get to that point is what God's saying. When you're at that phase where you see life's important and serious and take care of your responsibility, then you're at the right spot. Verse 7, And show your own self in all respects to be a pattern. Notice that, an example, a pattern to others and a model of good deeds and works. Right back to the issue. The whole point of phase three is to have good works and deeds so that you are serving God by serving others. The very thing that God's after is spelled out here. Showing gravity, having the strictest regard for truth and purity of motive with dignity and seriousness. Life is serious. People need someone who cares. That doesn't mean you don't have humor. it's talking about people really need a hand and if you really see the seriousness of their needs and try to help them in some way that is what he's after does that make sense with everybody that's the phase that's what we're after so now the key is again asking you to apply it where are you are you in this level yet or you need to get there what changes do you need to make in your mind and thoughts what things do you have to to reevaluate about yourself or are you way back in level two right now. Or maybe you're down to level one. But the point is seeing where you are, because now you know what the will of God is. Here's where he's trying to hedge you. He's trying to get you through the stages and steps so you are truly a solid citizen in his kingdom that is a heart of service to others. As a regular, everyday life. Not just once in a while you kind of get crazy and help somebody and then go back to your normal life with selfishness, but he's trying to phase you up to that level where you're truly there as an everyday basis, you're a servant of God and man. That's where he's at for you. Let's bow our heads and pray for a second. We'll ask God for him to put the word in your heart. Father, I pray that with these teachings, you can now press upon us where, first of all, honesty needs to come out. Where are we truly spiritually? Are we still immature? Or are we starting to hedge across that immature barrier and starting to become what true believers are called to be, servants of all. I pray that you will develop in our minds, first of all, a reality of where we are and where you want us to go, and then teach us to take those steps clearly of how to get there by your desires. Lord, your grace is already pushing us that way, but if we keep resisting and fighting, it takes a lot longer to get where you want us to go or ignorant and not cooperating with your... I pray now that my friends will have this new perspective, perhaps, in their hearts that will teach them and give them the ease and comfort and the sense of faith, knowing that you're already developing in them and desiring in them to have a heart of true service to you. They're already called to be servants. They're already called to be ministers for your namesake. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You love my Lord.

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