We continue our celebration of the Resurrection of the Lord on this Fifth Sunday in the Season of Easter. And we’re in the fifth week of our message series for the Easter season which we are calling “Love Lives.” During this series we’ve seen how Jesus was love in action. Of course, as we all know, loving others does not always guarantee a loving response. Jesus acted with perfect love and what was the result? His enemies put him to death. It looked liked love had failed, because love died that day on the cross. But then something happened that no one expected. Jesus didn’t stay dead. Jesus conquered death. Easter is the celebration that love lives. God is love and he lives. Through a relationship with Jesus Christ, we can access the power to love the people around us the way we really want to love them. Our efforts to love others based on only our good intentions often disappoint. Loving them through the power that comes from the love of God in our hearts is a very different approach. Easter says we can access that love. And that’s what this series is all about. To love as God loves we talked about seeing other people as God sees them. We looked at what love looks like when it comes to disagreements and divisions. Last week we looked at two aspects of love that seem to be oppositional, but actually go hand in hand. They form a kind of double-edged sword to love. To really love others, we must bring grace and truth to the relationship; we love people as they are, but we want to love them enough to help them grow. This week we are once again looking at love as expressed in action and service. The purpose of this message is twofold. First, it is to make the argument that love must be put into action. If you are going to grow in love, it requires service on other people’s behalf. Second, I am going to try and convince you that one of your best opportunities for serving and putting love in action is right here in our parish. In fact, it is a goal for every member of the parish to be a minister. A minister is kind of like a volunteer in that they freely give up some of their time to serve without pay, on behalf of some good cause. However, we use the word minister because it is a biblical word. In the Old Testament those who served in the Temple, and in the New Testament those who served in the Church were called ministers, and their service was called ministry.Interestingly, in the Bible, the service of the angels in heaven is also called ministry. We find some insight into serving in the First Letter of John, “Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth” (1 John 3:18). St. John is underscoring that for love to be real and true it must be practical and helpful. Then he outlines the benefits of putting love into action through service, “Now this is how we shall know that we belong to the truth and reassure our hearts” (1 John 3:19-20). It is through service of others that we know we belong to the truth that is God. Does service make us sons and daughters of God? Do we perform acts of service to earn God’s favor? No. God already loves us and there is nothing we can do to get God to love us anymore or any less. So why serve? While God loves us, service makes us more aware of God’s love for us. St. John continues with another benefit of service, “Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence in God and receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him” (1 John 3:21-22). Every one of the people described in the Scriptures as having a close relationship with God, worked for him. They weren’t all perfect people, or mystics and prophets: some of them weren’t even very good at prayer. But all the heroes of the Bible had one thing in common: they were willing to work for the Lord. It was through their service that they grew in intimacy with God. Did you ever notice that when you work alongside someone for the same mission, for the same purpose, your connection grows? This is what happens with us and God. The second benefit of service is that your faith and confidence in God grows. St. John continues, “And his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us” (1 John 3:23). This is the third benefit of service – it is helping us become who in our heart of hearts we truly want to be and who Christ wants us to be. We serve because in our heart of hearts we want to be loving people. We want to be people who add value to the lives of others. In today’s Gospel Jesus teaches that, “I am the true vine” (John 15:1). And he compares us to the branches of that vine, branches that must bear fruit. Fruit is the service he’s looking for from you. God has created each of us to do him some definite service. He has committed some work to us which he has not, he will not commit to another which will go undone if we don’t do it. Don’t just go to church. Be the church.