Worship & Servant Leadership
Jim Clements · Tidal Church Moncton · February 23, 2025 · Hope Is Rising series
Jim Clements explores two of Tidal Church's core commitments, centred on Romans 12:1 and Philippians 2:3. Worship is a whole life offered to God, not just singing, and servant leadership follows Jesus' humble example of serving others.
More from Jim Clements · The Hope Is Rising series
Topics: Purpose, Discipleship, Worship
Transcript
[0:00] Well, here we are again. Another Sunday. It is so good to be with you and to do two weeks in a row. So I'm excited about that. But one of the things I'd love to share with you, as Pat was even sharing about our offering and giving, is we had an incredible moment, a week, I think, of just a week or so ago, and through your giving towards the mortgage, we've talked about that, about retiring the mortgage. We're not all the way there goal-wise. So if you still wanna be part of that, you can. But we made a one-time in the mortgage way set up without penalty. We could make a 25% payment on the principal. And so we made a $331,000 payment on that principal this past week.
[0:47] So we're chasing after it, and we need everybody in. If you're not in, please, please pray and see what God tells you and jump in on board and you can be part of what's happening. Well, last week we started, and we've been going through our statements as a church and our core commitments, and last week we started off with our position statement, which is we are Wesleyan, an intentional holiness movement and faith-based or biblical social justice evangelism and transformative faith in Jesus. Then we shared what our mission statement was, which is going the distance to bring people closer to God. And of course, our vision is one, so that the Maritimes may believe, one, so that Moncton may believe, one, that Shediac may believe, one that the Miramichi may believe, one, that wherever we are may believe, and we covered our core commitment, discipleship, which is growing in Christ and reflecting the person and work of Jesus.
[1:54] Today, we'll continue with two more of our core commitments that we'll do. But first I want to tell you that as these core commitments unfold, there's a hero in my life, and there's a lot of times that people will say, well, you shouldn't have certain heroes and look to people because they'll always let you down. But there's a hero in my life that displays the two core commitments that we're gonna go through, which are worship and servant leadership, and this person displays worship when we're doing worship, as we'll get into, is more than just singing and being in our service like this. But when I watch this individual, they're just lost in worship. When I watch this individual love other people and care for other people, and it doesn't matter what their day's going like or what their struggle may be or how their health is, they're always living out the way that God would have them to live. When it comes to these core commitments, the huge benefit for me is I get to watch this person every day, and it's humbling every day to watch as she lives out her life in Christ.
[3:14] And that person is my wife, Gisèle, and God has just partnered us together for that cause. So I didn't ask her permission to share that. And in our family, anytime you share a story without getting permission ahead of time, it costs you five bucks. So I'm five bucks light now, but she is my true hero when I watch the display that Christ has in someone's life. So our next core commitment, our next core commitment is worship, worshiping God through prayer, singing, Scripture reading, giving, and fostering a deeper relationship with Jesus. Colossians 3:16 says this, "Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs of the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts."
[4:13] A lot of times when we think of worship, we tend to think of what we just did, and that is a part of worship. And then we get into conversations about style of worship. Well, I don't like that song or I don't like that style. I'm a country fan. I don't like it when they rock it out. I like it to be more reverent. We talk about the environment, whether the seats are the way the seats should be in some of our campuses or the way they shouldn't be, or I don't like sitting behind this person or I don't like sitting in this section. It becomes about the songs. I really don't like that song. I really like this song. I've actually had people come up to me before services started, not here, thankfully, and go, "Hey, could we sing this song today?"
[4:59] as if we've just picked out the songs. Worship is not about our personal choice, it's about what we're gonna do to glorify God in the songs that we do sing. See, it's more than just music. It's more than the experience of the songs that you like. Because I'll tell you, every conversation that I've had with everybody that says something about worship usually likes the music at the point in time of when they gave their life to Christ and when that moment happened, whatever the music style was or the songs they picked, that was the songs that they continue to like. And there's nothing wrong with that.
[5:45] But worship isn't about the style of music, it's about the condition of your heart when it comes to worship. Christianity is not a hobby. It's not a personal interest that you pick up. It's not just part of your life. It is the wholeness of your life. Christ is life. Romans 12:1 says, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship." Worship isn't limited to the songs we sing. It is the life that we live, the way you live.
[6:33] Let that be worship, the entirety of it. Offer your lives as holy and ensure that they're pleasing to God. What he said is this, he said, to make sure that you are true and proper in your worship, in view of who God is, in view of who and what He has done for you. Your only reasonable response to Him, with your life being of worship, is to offer a living sacrifice. And you're going, "Wait, now, wait a minute, like living sacrifice, like offer living sacrifice? I thought that was Old Testament stuff. I thought Old Testament was living sacrifice.
[7:18] Now you're telling me to offer living sacrifice." I'm talking about yourself, I'm talking about you. And there you go. "What? Like how? How do I offer myself a living sacrifice?" It's making sure that every thought, every ambition, your body, your flesh, your desires, the things that you chase after, your ambitions, are all given to God by laying them before Him and saying, "God, this is who I am, and I surrender and give it all to You. I submit, I worship Your lordship by surrendering all this." See, every day you should desire to worship God.
[8:07] "I worship You by living a life that glorifies You. When my job is good, I worship You with my life. When my job is not a job I like, I worship You with my life. When I have plenty, I worship You with my life." When I don't have everything that I need, I worship You with my life. When I'm healthy, I worship You with my life. When I'm suffering from sickness or some disease, I worship You. When I'm alone and I worship You with my life. When I'm with others, our lives are meant to be a complete and whole worship given to God and His glory and everything that we do every day.
[8:52] Because worship isn't about songs, it's about the life that we live that glorifies Him. Worship is not about the music that comes from your mouth. And if you could hear me saying, you know, that there'd be pretty bad worship, then if that was the case, worship is born out of your heart every single day of worship. Luke 9 says this, "Then He said to them all, 'Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me.'" To be a Christian is to die to self. To be a Christian is to be Christ-centered in every aspect of your life while living in a self-centered society.
[9:46] We are to be Christ-centered. To worship is to be Christ-centered in all things. But we all know that the truth is the world is a self-centered society and it wouldn't have us focus our centering on Christ. But we also know then as we share who we are and we show our life of worship to others, that worship is also in community with the world, with a world of isolation, because hope is rising and people need to know that through a worship of a life that you live and the example that you show, it is for community as well.
[10:32] For us to be Christ-centered, Galatians 6 says, "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ." See, there's no such thing as a lone wolf Christian. We are meant to be together. We are meant to be one body. We are meant to celebrate. We are meant to glorify God. We are meant to live life in unity and worship our lives and worship in community. If you look at the lone wolves that happen in nature, they get shunned from their groups, they're outcasts, and they struggle and they have challenges. And most of the time they end up dying. There is no such thing as a lone wolf Christian.
[11:19] We need to be part of the family together. Scripture even tells us where one or two or three or however many of us are gathered there. God is also, we are not meant to do this alone. We are the church and hope is rising. Our next core commitment that we have is servant leadership, leading with vision, compassion, and effective action, addressing the needs within the church and the broader community. 1 Peter 5 says, "Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, watching over them, not because you must, but because you're willing, as God wants you to be, not pursuing dishonest gains but eager to serve, not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being an example to the flock."
[12:16] 1 Peter 4, "Each of you should use whatever gifts you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in various forms." Servant leadership for us, to use the gifts that God has instilled in us. The gifts that you discover, that Pat a few weeks ago talked about and had us do the gifts test to see where that fits in inside the church you serve, but also in the communities you serve. Where is your servant leadership position? What is your gifts and how are you using them for God? The CEO of Popeyes, uh, Louisiana Chicken, if you like that product.
[13:01] I won't push it one way or the other. She says that she came across a calendar. You've all had those calendars or had scriptures on it, and she flips through, well, her calendar sits on this one scripture from Philippians 2:3 that you all know, and she was asked, well, why don't you turn it to the next one? And she said, because I haven't found a statement that's more paramount in my life personally and in my corporation that I lead than this. And it says this, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourself." That's servant leadership. See, because inside of every one of us, if we were to admit it and think about it, we are pretty selfish individuals inside of every one of us.
[13:52] There's that 2-year-old that we were in age at one point that is still alive and living well. And when we don't get our way or we don't like a certain thing, a certain flavor, certain foods, certain, I want that chocolate bar, I want, I want, I want inside. We're like kicking and screaming like we're on the floor, but we've learned to fake it. Well, right? So we can stand up and go, "I'm okay." But on the inside, we're still that 2-year-old and we're still screaming and pushing and faking it, but that's not servant leadership. She says, "I find the biblical perspective really challenging in everyday aspect, as most of us would find that very challenging.
[14:42] How I spend my time and how I make my decisions and how I form my relationships are all built on this scripture." Under her leadership at that organization, the stock more than quadrupled and had 10 years of success in the organization, growing it in size and also in profitability. See, Jesus modeled servant leadership. He showed us what it should be, what it should look like, and He shares that with us. In Matthew 20, Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the world lord over their people and officials flaunt their authority over those under them, but among you, it will be different.
[15:29] Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve others and to give His life as a ransom." Okay? Leadership is not about getting your name known. Leadership is not about people recognizing you with celebrityism. It's about God's name being known. It's about serving others first, both inside the church and outside the church. If I was to go to your place of business or where you work or to friends that you hang out with and say, "Tell me one thing that you are successful in doing and why are they successful in doing it?"
[16:26] Would they glorify you in the success or would they glorify and say, "Oh, they, make no doubt about it, that God is the one who gives them the success and honors everything that they've done." Servant leadership looks like serving and glorifying God because that's what He's called us to do. There's certain, I'm sure there's many characteristics we can think of. We sat down for a while about what is a servant leader, but I've come up with a few. The first one, not ranked in any order of priority for Type A personalities that are out there, is integrity. It says in Proverbs, "To do righteous and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice."
[17:19] As servant leaders, The most important thing we have is integrity. You own your integrity. Nobody can take your integrity away from you. You have to give it up, and you, and only you, control whether you give up your integrity. Your integrity calls you to a higher level. In servant leadership, we're reminded that God calls us to walk in the way of righteousness, and our actions should reflect our faith that we have in Him. Integrity is not a lifestyle other side. Integrity is not a lifestyle.
[18:04] It's reflecting our overall life track record that shows the longevity of honesty and the good work that we do for the Master. Another thing for servant leadership is humility. One of the most difficult things for anybody to admit is you don't know it all. I don't know it all. None of us know it all. Colossians 3, since God chose you to be holy people, He loves holy people. He loves, you must clothe yourself with tenderness, mercy, kindness, humility, and gentleness and patience.
[18:51] A servant leader is somebody who builds space in their life to learn and to grow from the experiences that God takes you into. The opportunities that He has apply gives you opportunities for to learn, to sit and talk with others or to sit and listen to Him. Should be more times in our life when we're curious more than judgmental, and the world today is very judgmental, and when we sit down a lot of times and we're listening to people, we're not listening to learn. We're not listening to hear their story. In a lot of cases, we're listening to respond.
[19:36] I've had to learn in my life, God really checked my heart a few years ago, and it still happens. I don't always get it right, but the one-up thing, I've had a lot of life experiences. When someone's sharing his story, there's a lot of times I go, oh, well, I had... and I've stopped. As much as God prompts me, I've stopped because He has something for me to learn from their story in that moment. So a servant leader stops and listens to learn, not to respond, and we're also willing to admit where our shortcomings are, and we're willing to admit that, not only family, not only the close friends, but also the coworkers.
[20:23] It'd be amazing at times when you're sitting and you're listening to learn and somebody shares a story with you, and all of a sudden you go, you know what? I really struggled with that too. I don't, I didn't know how to do it, but I went, I saw God and I prayed and He revealed this to me. We've gotta listen and be willing to approach people with humility. When we don't know, we don't need to fake it and be that 2-year-old. The next characteristic I would list would be reliant on God. Philippians 4: I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little, for I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me.
[21:22] Don't miss the part: through Christ. A lot of people glaze over that fairly quickly. You can accomplish nothing without Christ. You can only accomplish what you accomplish through Christ. Servant leadership practices flexibility. We're easy to adapt to our surroundings and situations because we lean into God when life throws us an unexpected situation or challenge. That's our first thought, that's our first place. For me, when I get a tough challenge, the first thing that I do is I pause and then I go, okay, God, what are You gonna do with this?
[22:10] And I leave space for Him to speak to me. And I spend time in prayer. This is nothing new. If you've heard me share before, out of a hundred things that come up to keep our math easy, He takes care of about 75% of 'em with me having to do very little. And I've gotta handle 25% of it, and I'll take those ratios any day. But if we don't pause as servant leaders to allow Him to work, then we won't recognize Him at work because we're too busy trying to fix it ourselves. Does the journey that you're on display reflect the glory to God or to yourself? Instead of worrying about the unexpected things that come up and the panic that sets in?
[23:07] Just pause, go to prayer and give it to God. Because as servant leaders, we recognize that no matter the situation that we're in, God is right there. Also, we're never alone. We're not by ourselves when we've committed to follow Him and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. The willingness for us to first recognize He is right there. I would also add, to be empathetic is a characteristic of a servant leader being happy. In Romans 12, it says, be happy with those who are happy and weep with those who weep. Be happy with those who are happy and weep with those who weep.
[23:59] How many times have you sat with a friend, a family member, a coworker, a student in the school that you attend with when they're hurting and to just be with them? When was the last time that you sat and you knew that somebody could benefit from an encouraging note and you wrote them something to send to them old-fashioned way through the mail, or even email, whatever way you wanted to do it that made it more personal to make a difference in their life? For me, this is a box I keep in my office, it's getting overfull, as you can see, but this box represents 30 years of ministry.
[24:51] It's filled with cards from everywhere I've been, notes that have been written to me, all encouraging. And if you don't have one of these special boxes or file or place, I would encourage you to start because it's in the times when I'm not getting these and I'm getting the other kind that I sit and I read these because these are servant leaders who took the time to encourage, to support and to uplift me, and I trust A servant leader steps into the middle of a struggle when people are going through it.
[25:45] How different would our communities and families and workplaces and churches be if we acted like servant leaders and let it live out in our lives through the experience of worship and servant leadership? What if it isn't just something you hear today, but it's something that you start doing today when it comes to serving others as a church? We believe that these are the commitments for us to be core in who we are as Tidal Church, which is an old saying, we want to be the hands and feet of Jesus behind me.
[26:37] There's been mirrors on the stage the whole morning, and they've been moved behind me because I want you to know that the only person that really knows if you embody the core commitments of our church or whether you're even a committed follower of Christ is you. And of course, God. But it doesn't matter how you move and you go through life, You are reflecting something: good, bad, lukewarm, cold, hot. And even when you don't think people are watching you, you're still reflecting something.
[27:28] If you wanna live a life of worship, if you wanna live a life of servant leadership, you've gotta ask yourself, what does my reflection show when I'm out in the community? What does my reflection show when I'm here at church? What does my reflection show when I'm by myself? Because the reflections can change. If I move, it'll change and look in a different way on the camera as I move. It'll change if I put something in front of it. But the goal is that our reflection is a reflection of God in everything we do. It's not about Jim, it's not about you.
[28:15] It can't be all about you. When you look in the mirror each day, when you get up and you see your earthly reflection, ask yourself if you're happy with your godly reflection that you're about to take outside. We're always reflecting something. Are we reflecting the freedom, the hope that we experience as followers of Christ?
[29:04] Are we reflecting our own hope for what we want to be? God's called us to be His followers. Jesus is calling us to accept Him as our Lord and Savior. I would challenge you as you go through each day to think of what that reflection may be and what changes you need to make in it. Lemme read this to you from Colossians, for the people you should be. We should be. Since then, you have been raised with Christ.
[29:50] Set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will appear with Him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurities, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways in the life you once lived, but now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free.
[30:56] But Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other. Forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom. And as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God, and whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
[31:54] That's who we're called to be. Father, we thank You for Your love. We thank You for all that You give us. We thank You for all that You pour out into us. Father, to live a life of worship is not an easy thing. To have a life as a servant leader is difficult. But Father, whatever our reflection is, if it needs to be changed, may we know that and seek that and chase after You to show us how to change that. Father, if our reflection is kind of sour and turning people away, we wanna reflect Your glory in all things.
[32:42] We want You to be honored. We want You to be glorified. We wanna surrender ourselves to You and, Father, as servant leaders. We want to serve in the places that You call us to be. For, Father, we all fail, but we know that You are a good and gracious God. So for everyone that is here, search us. Challenge us. In Jesus' name, we ask this. Amen. As you sit, I would just ask to take the time and reflect on your reflection.
[33:32] Are you reflecting what God wants you to reflect? Is it honoring to Him and is it honoring to others that also follow Him?