SS Outline 5.31.2026

Spiritual Disciplines Week 6
Title: Serving as a Means of Grace
To show that Christian service is a Spirit-enabled response to union with Christ, functioning as an ordinary means through which God sanctifies both the one serving and the one served.

Christological Foundation

• Text: Mark 10:45
• Christ’s service is substitutionary and exemplary
• We do not replicate His atonement, yet we participate in His pattern
• Service flows from redemption, not toward it.
• Service is the fruit, never the ground, of acceptance with God.

Union with Christ and Service

• Text: Galatians 5:13
• Freedom is not autonomy; it is reorientation toward others
• Union with Christ → New Identity → Spirit-enabled Love → Service
• Participatory ethics grounded in being “in Christ.”

Service in the Body

• Text: 1 Peter 4:10–11

1. What is the source of gifts?
2. What is the purpose of gifts?
3. What is the goal of service?

Diagnosing Distortions

• Performance-Driven Service: “I serve so God will be pleased with me.”
• Consumer Christianity: “I attend but do not engage.”
• Burnout without Theology: “I serve constantly but feel empty.”
• What is the theological error in each?
• Corrective Framework:
  • Justification corrects performance
  • Ecclesiology corrects consumerism
  • Means of grace corrects burnout

Practical Pathways

• One current area of service
• One potential area of neglected gifting
• Categories:
  • Formal (teaching, music, leadership)
  • Informal (hospitality, encouragement, mercy)
• The body metaphor (1 Cor. 12) implies the necessity of every part.

Summary

• Grounded in Christ
• Empowered by the Spirit
• Directed toward the church
• Aimed at the glory of God