A message to the servants of Saint Peter and Saint Andrew Church
In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.
May the blessing of the Father who calls us, and His Only Begotten Son who saves us, and the Holy Spirit who sanctifies and transforms us be with us all, that we may hear His word and bear fruit — thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. Amen.
Introduction
My beloved servants, first I want to thank you. Every hour you give, every lesson you prepare, every child you call, every time you come when you could have been somewhere else — God sees it. Nobody forced us to serve. Service is something we offer to God, and that word, offering, is what I want us to think about.
I want to ask one question, and I want it to stay with us from beginning to end: What is God worth to me?
The question is not whether I love God. Of course we will all say yes. It is not whether God is important to me. Again, we will all say yes. The question is deeper: what am I willing to rearrange for Him? What am I willing to give up for Him? What does following Him actually cost me?
Everyone can say, “God is first.” But if God is first, then sometimes something else has to become second.
Before we go further, I want to say clearly that I am not speaking to anyone who is in real crisis. Illness, grief, and exhaustion are real, and there are seasons when a servant must step back. The Church should carry that person, not crush him. I will say more about this near the end. For now, I am speaking about the ordinary week, and about what our schedules say about our priorities.
Three points will guide us:
1. If Christ is first, something else must become second.
2. Offer what you have, and let grace do the rest.
3. Rest with a purpose.
1. If Christ Is First, Something Else Must Become Second
Our Lord says:
“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”
Matthew 6:33
Notice the word first. First does not mean “after I finish everything else.” It does not mean “if nothing else comes up,” or “if I am not tired,” or “if I have no other invitation.” First means first. And if something is first, then by definition something else sometimes has to become second.
This is where Christian service becomes difficult, because the things that compete with God are usually not bad things.
The nets
When Christ called Peter and Andrew, Scripture says:
“They immediately left their nets and followed Him.”
Matthew 4:20
Their nets were not sinful. Their work was not sinful. Fishing was their livelihood, the way they supported themselves and their families. But when Christ called, something good had to become second because Someone greater had come.
There is something especially meaningful in this for us at Saint Peter and Saint Andrew Church. Our patron saints were fishermen. They had nets, work, and responsibilities, and when Christ called them they left their nets and followed Him.
So each of us might ask: What are my nets? What is the thing I hold onto while saying, “Lord, I will follow You, as long as I do not have to put this down”?
Christ is not something we add to an already full schedule. Christ is the One around whom the schedule is built.
We all say it, and I say it too: “I have work.” “I have school.” “My children have activities.” “I have a dinner.” “I had a long week, and I need my weekend.” Each of these may be perfectly legitimate. But if every other part of my life is protected and God always receives whatever is left, I need to ask whether God is truly first, or whether I have simply learned to say that He is.
Think about what we already sacrifice for. A parent will drive hours for a child’s tournament. A student will give up evenings for weeks because an exam is coming. A family will rearrange an entire schedule for a vacation. We understand sacrifice when something matters to us. We do not say, “This is too much.” We say, “This is important.” So why should our relationship with Christ be the only part of our lives that must never inconvenience us?
An offering costs something
King David wanted to offer a sacrifice to God. Araunah offered him the threshing floor, the oxen, and everything necessary, all for free. David refused.
“Nor will I offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God with that which costs me nothing.”
2 Samuel 24:24
David understood something essential about sacrifice. We are not looking for suffering, and Christianity is not about making ourselves miserable. But love that gives itself will eventually cost something. Ask any parent, any husband or wife, anyone who has truly loved another person. If I say, “I love you, but only when it is convenient,” what kind of love is that?
Service is love offered to Christ. So what does my service cost me? Perhaps an hour of sleep. Perhaps a social event, or a Saturday night spent preparing for Sunday. Perhaps it means coming to church when I would rather stay home, or saying no to something good because I have already said yes to God.
The cost is different for each person, and that is why we must never compare servants. Remember the widow who gave two mites. Christ said:
“For they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.”
Mark 12:44
Christ did not look only at the amount. He looked at the offering. One person may have ten free hours and give three. Another may have one free hour and give that one. God knows the difference. He knows our responsibilities, our health, and our families, and He knows what nobody else knows. So this is not a comparison with another servant. It is between me and God, and the question is: What did my service cost me this month?
If the honest answer is “nothing,” I need to ask whether I have really offered God something, or only my leftovers. I am not asking anyone to neglect his family or damage her health. I am asking something simpler: has serving Christ become something I do only from what is left over?
A 168-hour examination
There are 168 hours in every week. Do not answer aloud, and do not show anyone. This is between you and God.
Think about last week. How many hours went to work or school? To sleep? To family? To your phone, to television, to entertainment, to going out? And then: how many to prayer, to church, to preparing for service, to actually serving?
Do not condemn yourself. Just look honestly, because our calendars often tell the truth about our priorities better than our words do. We say, “God is first,” and our calendar may tell a different story. If God shows me something, the response is not guilt. The response is: “Lord, help me change it.”
2. Offer What You Have, and Let Grace Do the Rest
After everything I have said, someone may be thinking: “Abouna, I cannot do everything.” Good. Neither can I. God is not asking us to do everything, to save the Church, to be perfect servants, or to produce results by our own strength. He is asking us to offer what we have.
Paul: “I labored … yet not I”
Saint Paul says something extraordinary:
“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
1 Corinthians 15:10
Look at both sides. Paul says, “I labored,” and not only that, but “more abundantly than they all.” Paul worked, sacrificed, and persevered, and he knew weariness (2 Corinthians 11:27). Then, in the same breath, he says, “yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
This is Christian service. We do not say, “God’s grace will do it, so I do not have to.” And we do not say, “Everything depends on me.” We say: I labor, and God gives grace. I offer, and God multiplies. I do my best, and God fills what is lacking. Grace does not eliminate effort. Grace transforms our effort.
The five loaves
Think of the feeding of the five thousand. The crowd is hungry, and what is available is five barley loaves and two small fish. Humanly speaking, it is ridiculous. And look who speaks:
“One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, ‘There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many?’”
John 6:8–9
That is the very sentence we say to ourselves: What are they among so many? It is not enough. Someone else probably has more. And it is spoken by our own patron saint. Yet notice what Andrew also does. He does not keep the doubt to himself and send the boy away. He brings the little he has found to Christ, as he brought his own brother to Him on the first day: “And he brought him to Jesus” (John 1:42). The boy gave what he had, Andrew carried it to Christ, and once it was in the hands of Christ, Christ did what neither of them could do.
This is service. God is not asking you to feed five thousand people by yourself. He is asking you to bring your five loaves and two fish. Do not say, “My lesson is not perfect, so I will not prepare.” Do not say, “I cannot come every week, so I will not commit.” Do not say, “I do not have enough time, so the little I have does not matter.” Bring your hour. Bring your preparation. Bring your imperfect lesson, your weakness, and your tiredness. Your responsibility is the offering. The multiplication belongs to Christ.
One of the most dangerous sentences in service is “What I can do is not enough.” Maybe it is not. But who told you that you were supposed to make it enough?
Martha and Mary: labor in grace, not in ego
There is another danger. Sometimes servants become exhausted not because they are offering themselves to God, but because they begin to believe everything depends on them. “If I do not do it, nobody will.” “If I do not come, everything will collapse.” “If I do not control everything, it will not be done correctly.” That is no longer sacrifice. It can become ego. Grace says: “I will give God everything He asks of me, but I know that I am not the Savior. Christ is.”
This is why Martha and Mary matter. Martha was serving, and service was not the problem. Christ says to her:
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:41–42
Martha’s problem was not that she worked. It was that she was serving while becoming disconnected from the One she was serving. So before I serve Christ, I need to sit with Christ. Before I teach children to pray, I need to pray. Before I teach them Scripture, I need to read Scripture. Saint Gregory the Theologian says:
“A man must himself be cleansed, before cleansing others: himself become wise, that he may make others wise; become light, and then give light: draw near to God, and so bring others near.”
St. Gregory the Theologian, Oration 2, §71
Our first responsibility as servants is not the lesson, the activity, or the PowerPoint. It is our own relationship with Christ. Then we serve from that relationship.
3. Rest With a Purpose
I want to be very clear here, because this matters. Real exhaustion exists. Burnout exists. Depression exists. Anxiety exists. There are seasons when someone genuinely needs to step back: a family crisis, an illness, circumstances nobody else knows. When that happens, the Church should not crush that person. The Church should carry that person.
Christ Himself told His apostles:
“Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”
Mark 6:31
So rest is biblical. Rest is necessary. Rest can even be obedience.
But not every inconvenience is burnout. Not every difficult week means I should stop. Not every time I do not feel like serving means I need a break. Sometimes I am genuinely unable, and sometimes, if I am truthful with myself, I simply do not want the inconvenience. Those are not the same thing.
So let us learn to tell the difference between “I cannot” and “I would rather not.” Between “I need rest” and “I do not want sacrifice.” Between “This is harming me” and “This is asking something from me.” Healthy boundaries do not mean a life without sacrifice. Mental and spiritual health should help us tell the difference between what truly harms us and what is simply difficult. Sometimes growth requires rest, and sometimes it requires perseverance. Before I say, “I cannot,” I might ask: Have I truly reached my limit, or has service simply begun to cost me something?
If you cannot answer that honestly alone, bring it to your father of confession. Do not decide it by your mood alone.
You do not carry it alone
There will be times when you need rest. Take it. There will be times when you need help. Ask for it. There will be seasons when you cannot carry what you carried before. Tell us.
Moses needed Aaron and Hur to hold up his hands until the sun went down (Exodus 17:12). And Jethro told him:
“Both you and these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves out. For this thing is too much for you; you are not able to perform it by yourself.”
Exodus 18:18
The Church is a Body. No servant should have to carry everything alone. And if a few servants are carrying everything while everyone else watches, then we need to change that too. That part is not on the servants. It is on all of us.
Rest so you can continue
But Christian rest has a purpose. Look at Elijah. He became exhausted, and God allowed him to sleep and fed him. Then the angel said:
“Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.”
1 Kings 19:7
God gave Elijah rest because there was still a journey ahead. Rest was not abandoning the calling. Rest prepared him to continue the calling. So when I need rest, I rest, and when I am restored, I rise again.
What Is My Offering?
I would like each of us to carry three questions out of this meeting:
• What is one thing I am willing to make second, so that Christ can truly be first?
• What will my service actually cost me?
• What are my five loaves and two fish, the things I need to stop making excuses about and simply place in Christ’s hands?
Maybe you cannot serve every Sunday. Fine. What can you faithfully offer? Maybe you cannot give ten hours. Fine. Can you give two faithfully? Maybe you cannot do what another servant does. God did not ask you to. God is not asking me to do everything. He is asking me not to make excuses for what I can do.
Do your best. Prepare. Show up. Sacrifice. Pray. Serve. And then trust God with the shortcomings, because ultimately this service belongs to Him.
What Is God Worth to Me?
Saint Paul tells us:
“And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”
Galatians 6:9
There will always be a reason not to serve. There will always be something easier to do, another invitation, another busy week, another tired Sunday. There will also be times when you truly need rest, and when that happens the Church should stand beside you. But let us not confuse comfort with health. Let us not confuse inconvenience with burnout. And let us not confuse sacrifice with harm. Love sacrifices.
We make time for what we value. We sacrifice for what we love. We labor for what we believe matters. And we serve because Christ served us first.
So when I begin to think, “This is costing me too much,” I need to look at the Cross. And suddenly the question changes. It is no longer only, “What is God worth to me?” I look at the Cross and discover another question: What was I worth to Him?
He did not give me His leftovers. He did not give me what was convenient. He did not love me only when it fit into His schedule. He did not stop when love became painful. He gave me Himself.
I will never be able to repay Him, and that is not why I serve. I serve because I love the One who loved me first. So I bring Him what I have. Maybe it is small. Maybe it is imperfect. Maybe sometimes I am tired, and my best does not feel like enough. Still, I bring Him my five loaves and two fish: my time, my effort, my preparation, my sacrifice, my first and my best. And then I place it all in His hands.
We offer, and He multiplies. We labor, and His grace completes. We do our best, and God fills what is lacking.
So I leave you with the question with which we began: What is God worth to me? He did not give me what remained. He gave me Himself. What will I offer Him?
May the Lord bless us and transform us — that our homes may stand on the Rock, our hands may serve in His harvest, and our hearts may long for Heaven. Through the prayers of our Lady, the Theotokos Saint Mary, and Saint Peter and Saint Andrew. Glory be to God forever. Amen.
Slides
Prepared and presented by Hegumen Fr. Andrew Awad, D.Min.