Becoming A Servant Of God

My missionary friend and colleague Robb Branch, is now in Melbourne sharing his work with the working class people in Taiwan in various churches here. Robb and his family are World Team missionaries who work closely with OMF in Taiwan. Their ministry focus is amongst the working class Taiwanese, which has less than 1% Christian. Recently many working class Taiwanese men have married foreign brides. Robb and his wife Holly along with some Taiwanese Christians have begun a Chinese class to help the brides learn Chinese along with understand Taiwan culture. They use this as a bridge to know their family to share God’s love. Most the brides are from Vietnam, which the number of Christians in Vietnam are also low.

Last Sunday, Robb preached a sermon based on Jesus' miracles of using five loaves of bread and two fish to feed over 5000 people called "becoming a servant of God", which I was inspired by. Apparently it is the only miracle that is found in all four gospels, thus it must be important!

The followings are the six points that Robb shared about based on this miracle which will help us become faithful servants of God.

1. HAVING A HEART OF MERCY (Luke 9:11)

• Jesus is a person of mercy. Luke 7:13 shows us that Jesus has a heart of compassion/mercy.
• God desires all his children to have hearts of mercy.
• We can cultivate a heart of mercy: 1. Pray, ask God for a heart of mercy. 2. Understand our need of God’s mercy. 3. Everyday look for opportunities to practice mercy (at work, school, family, church,..).

2. UNDERSTAND JESUS HAS GIVEN US ALL AN IMPORTANT ROLE

• In Luke 9:12, the 12 disciples told Jesus to send the people away, but Jesus responded and said “YOU give them something to eat”.
• Today God has called all of us to feed the world.
• As Christians, we have the privilege to represent God and evangelize and make disciples.

3. BE WILLING TO TAKE OUR FISH AND BREAD AND OFFER IT TO GOD AND HIS PURPOSES

• The bread and fish represent our talents, gifts, time, and money, etc.
• The bread and fish in the hands of the disciples are not enough to feed the 5000, but in the hands of Jesus it is enough to feed the 5000.
• Are you willing to give over to God your bread and fish to be used for his purposes.? So often we use our money, time, energy, and talents for our work, school, hobbies and we give God our left over. We need to repent. We need to discovery our gifts that God has given us and use them to God’s glory.

4. WE MUST CONTINUALLY GO TO GOD TO BE REFRESHED

• It is important that first the disciples went to Jesus to receive his fresh bread and fish and then they passed it out to others.
• If we forget to first go to Jesus and receive his fresh food, than we won’t have enough to feed the people and our food will be spoiled.
• God gives us a great promise, if we are willing to draw close to him, he is willing to draw close to us. We can than give away his fresh love and mercy.

5. WE HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO GREATLY IMPACT PEOPLE FOR GOD

• God gave the disciples the opportunity to see their impact on the people they served (they were “full”).
• Sometimes God gives us the opportunity to see the impact we have on people.
• Yet, sometimes we share the gospel and people don’t become a Christian, but God sees it. All we need to do is to be faithful.

6. AS WE SERVE WE WILL BE BLESSED

• There were 12 baskets left over for the 12 disciples. God promises us as we step out and serve He will fill us with his blessings.
• If I were one of the disciples and Jesus told me to feed the 5000, I would have said “who me?”, “who is going to feed me?” or “I am hungry too!”. Yet the Bible says in Acts 20:35 “It is more blessed to give than to receive”.
• Let us pray that we will live a life of giving and not just receiving.