Serving God by Serving Others: Comforting Waste Places

Paul’s doxology lifts up the bigness and awesomeness and glory of God: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.” The words are almost too big to be called a description, because God cannot be wrapped up by human understanding. God is not fully understood, but God is truly known. This God is the one who walks with his people, gives himself to his people, and calls his people into his work.

Paul moves from the glory of God into the call to present bodies as a living sacrifice. The call to serve God becomes, very plainly, a call to serve other people. God does not need anything from human hands. No gift can put God in debt. Yet the creative way of God’s redemption is that service given to other people is service given to God.

The call to serve other people requires an attitude adjustment. God often seems easier to deal with than the people he places nearby. Paul calls that change “the renewal of the mind,” because God chooses to be dealt with in the neighbor, the family member, the church member, and the person in need. God places specific people in specific places because those people need him, and his people bring Jesus into daily interactions.

Isaiah’s promise gives the deep shape of this work: the Lord comforts Zion, makes waste places like Eden, and turns deserts into the garden of the Lord. Christ’s life, death, and resurrection have done that great reversal. Waste places are not ignored by God. Wilderness and desert become the very places where comforted people are sent to bring comfort.

The needy servant becomes the cheerful servant. The image of a hungry child crying for food shows what neediness before the Father looks like. God is not annoyed by that neediness. God gives what is needed, and cheerfulness does not mean sunshine and rainbows and unicorns. Cheerfulness means serving wholeheartedly, with mind, body, and soul, trusting that God is present in uncomfortable places.

Paul’s language of a “measure of faith” and gifts according to grace does not mean some get tablespoons of faith and others get three cups. Faith is the same trust in God, and grace is the same undeserved mercy of God. The body has different members and different jobs, like a household cleaning day, but the same God gives the same faith and grace for the same purpose: service in the body of Christ.

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Key Takeaways

• 1. God is known, not mastered. Paul’s doxology refuses to shrink God into something manageable. God’s judgments remain unsearchable, yet that mystery does not make God distant or unknowable. Faith lives in the tension between not understanding all of God and still knowing him as the God who walks with his people. [35:52]
• 2. Service to God meets neighbors. God has no lack that human hands can fill, and no gift can make God a debtor. Yet God has chosen the neighbor as the place where service to him becomes visible and real. The difficult person nearby may be the very place where devotion stops being an idea and becomes sacrifice. [38:46]
• 3. Neediness becomes holy cheerfulness. The hungry child becomes a sharp picture of prayerful dependence. The Father is not annoyed when his children come needy, crying out for what only he can give. Cheerful service begins there, not in pretending life is easy, but in receiving enough from God to be fully present in hard places. [45:55]
• 4. Same grace, different hands. Paul’s “measure of faith” does not divide believers into spiritual portions. The same faith and the same grace are given by the same God, but those gifts move through different people in different ways. The body of Christ does not need identical servants, but members who trust the same Lord for the work placed before them.
  
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Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [34:49] - The Depth of God’s Riches
• [35:33] - Knowing God Without Understanding Him
• [37:00] - Living Sacrifice and Service
• [38:14] - God Needs Nothing From His People
• [39:35] - The Needed Attitude Adjustment
• [41:03] - Waste Places Made Like Eden
• [42:18] - Sent Where Comfort Is Needed
• [43:37] - Needy Servants, Cheerful Servants
• [46:46] - Cheerfulness Means Wholehearted Service
• [48:12] - Faith, Grace, and Different Gifts
• [50:13] - One Body With Many Jobs
• [51:54] - From Him, Through Him, To Him

Bible Reading

Romans 11:33-12:1
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” [51:54]

Isaiah 51:3
“For the LORD comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.” [41:03]

Romans 12:3-8
“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.” [48:17]

Observation questions

1. In Romans 11:33-12:1, what words or phrases show both the greatness of God and the shift into a call for believers to offer themselves in service? [37:05]
2. According to Romans 12:3-8, what different images does Paul use to describe the church and the way believers serve within it?
3. In Isaiah 51:3, what kinds of places are being changed, and what do they become?
4. What repeated words or ideas connect service to God with service to other people? [37:49]

Interpretation questions

1. If no one can give God a gift that puts him in their debt, why does Paul move so quickly from praising God’s greatness to calling believers to be living sacrifices? [38:14]
2. Paul speaks about the “renewal of the mind” in the context of serving others. What kind of inner change seems necessary if ordinary, difficult, or needy people are the place where service to God becomes real? [39:44]
3. Isaiah says the Lord comforts waste places and turns wilderness into Eden. How does that promise shape the way believers think about painful, empty, or overlooked places in daily life? [42:23]
4. Paul says believers have a “measure of faith” and gifts according to grace. Why is it important to hear that as the same faith and the same grace working through different people, rather than as unequal spiritual portions? [49:50]

Application questions

1. God is truly known even when he is not fully understood. Where is there a place in life right now where there is a desire for full explanations from God, and what would it look like to trust him there anyway? [36:23]
2. Service to God often shows up in service to the people placed nearby. Who is one specific person that feels hard to serve right now—at home, at church, at work, or in the neighborhood—and why might that relationship be an important place for obedience? [39:35]
3. The Father is not annoyed by needy children who come to him for help. What need has been kept too quiet before God lately, and what would more honest prayer sound like this week? [45:55]
4. Cheerfulness does not always mean feeling light or upbeat; it can mean serving wholeheartedly in a hard place. Where is wholehearted service needed right now, even if the situation is uncomfortable or heavy? [47:25]
5. God sends comforted people into waste places, wildernesses, and deserts. What “waste place” can be seen in the life of a family member, friend, coworker, or neighbor, and what small act of comfort or presence might be possible there? [42:18]
6. The church is one body with many jobs. What kind of service fits the way God has made and placed each person in the group right now, and what might be getting in the way of stepping into it? [50:13]
7. The same faith and the same grace are given by the same God, even though they are used in different ways. Is there a temptation to compare gifts with someone else, or to downplay one’s own place in the body? What would sober, thankful thinking look like instead? [48:47]