Christian Service: The Difference Between Good and Godly
Christian service becomes genuinely transformative when it stops being about what you can get and starts being about what you can give. In Acts 9:32-42, the Apostle Peter heals a paralyzed man named Aeneas and raises a woman named Tabitha from the dead; both stories carry the same quiet lesson underneath: servant leadership looks like seeing people when everyone else sees problems. This post unpacks what separates good service from godly service, and why that difference changes everything.
What Does Serving Others Like Jesus Actually Look Like?
Serving others like Jesus is not a personality type. It is not a spiritual gift reserved for the especially patient or naturally generous. It is a posture (a choice to look at the person in front of you instead of looking for what they can offer in return).
In Acts 9:33, Peter arrives in Lydda and finds a man named Aeneas who has been bedridden for eight years. Most people walking past Aeneas would have seen a problem (a burden, an interruption, a need too complicated to address quickly). Peter sees a person. He says, "Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Rise and make your bed." And Aeneas rises. The miracle is not the headline. The posture is the headline. Peter saw someone who had become invisible, and he stopped.
That is what serving others like Jesus looks like in practice. Not a grand program. Not a publicized event with a sign-up sheet. It looks like noticing the person who has been sitting in the same corner for eight years while life moved around them. Serving others like Jesus means you ask what you can give before you ask what you can get. One honest step you can take today: think of one person in your life who has felt invisible to you lately, and do something small and specific for them this week; not because it will benefit you, but because they are a person first.
Is Selfless Service in Church Actually Possible When You Feel Selfish Inside?
Here is something that rarely gets said out loud in a church setting: selfishness is not a character flaw you overcome through willpower. It is something closer to a root system. Will Davis, a pastor at The Grove Church in Titusville and the guest preacher for this message, put it plainly. He said the core of his own struggle (addiction, self-destruction, the years of living for himself) was selfishness. Not bad habits. Not poor choices in isolation. Idolatry of self.
And yet Will also said this: service is a remedy for selfishness. Not a cure in the sense that you take it once and you are healed, but a remedy in the ongoing sense. Selfless service in church is possible not because you first become a less selfish person, but because the act of serving someone who can do nothing for you begins to shift your attention off yourself. That shift is where something changes.
Acts 9:36 describes Tabitha (also called Dorcas) as a disciple who was "full of good works and acts of charity." She served widows. She made garments for people who could not repay her. She did not wait until she felt generous. Will shared a story from his own experience: he once chose to serve a colleague he genuinely disliked, carrying the man's bags and getting his plate during a mission trip to North Carolina. He started that trip with resentment. He finished it with one of the closest friendships of his pastoral life. Selfless service in church did not require him to feel warm toward the other person first. The service created the warmth. Try this today: volunteer for one thing at your church that nobody notices or applauds, and pay attention to how you feel after.
How Overcoming Selfishness Through Serving Points Beyond Yourself
There is a version of service that feels like generosity but is mostly about the person doing the serving. You have seen it. The photo taken at the food pantry before the volunteer actually helps anyone. The announcement about what your group accomplished last weekend. The story you tell more than once about the time you gave something up for someone else. Will called this out without flinching: if you take a selfie with a homeless person at a service project, that was not for God. That was for the dopamine hit when the likes come in.
Overcoming selfishness through serving means your service points toward Jesus, not toward you. And this is where Acts 9:42 lands with weight: "It became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord." Peter healed Aeneas, raised Tabitha, and walked away. He did not build a platform on either miracle. The community noticed, and people turned to the Lord. Great Christian service does not say "look at what I did." It says "look at what he did."
That is what separates good service from godly service. Good service improves someone's experience. Godly service changes someone's eternity. Will made this distinction clearly: coming to church does not make you good, and skipping church does not make you bad. Sin makes you dead. Jesus makes you alive. And a life built around serving others, overcoming selfishness through serving, is a life that produces evidence of that resurrection; in the same way you know a tree by its fruit. The greatest testimony of your life may not be what you said. It may be who you served, and what they were able to see because of it. One step today: ask God to show you one person in your ordinary week who needs to be seen, and then see them.
What Does Acts 9:32-42 Teach Us About the Shape of Godly Service?
Acts 9:36 describes Tabitha in a particular order: she is called a disciple first, then her works are described. Luke, writing as both the Gospel author and the author of Acts, was deliberate about this. You are not defined by your service. You are a disciple first. Your service flows from that identity, not the other way around.
The two-column contrast in this passage runs like this:
|
Good Service |
Godly Service |
|
Sees problems |
Sees people |
|
Asks "what can I get?" |
Asks "what can I give?" |
|
Changes an experience |
Changes a life |
|
Points to the servant |
Points to Jesus |
Both Aeneas and Tabitha were known by name before they were known by their condition or their contribution. Aeneas was not "the paralyzed man in Lydda." He was Aeneas. Tabitha was not "the widow's helper." She was a disciple named Tabitha. This is what genuine Christian service carries into every interaction: the conviction that the person in front of you has a name, and that name matters more than whatever need or label sits alongside it.
Where This Message Lands for Titusville and Brevard County
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that builds up in a person who has been serving from the wrong place for too long. Whether you are in Titusville, Cocoa, or somewhere else in Brevard County, you probably know that feeling. You have given, and given, and given, and somewhere along the way it stopped feeling like anything at all. The message from Acts 9 is not a guilt trip about doing more. It is an invitation to check the root. Godly service that flows from identity in Jesus (not from the need to be needed) is the kind that actually produces life in the people giving it and the people receiving it. Miracle City Collective meets every Sunday at South Lake Elementary School in Titusville, and this is the kind of community we are trying to build: one where people serve not to earn their place, but because they already have one.
The Best Service Leaves Evidence
When Tabitha died, the widows did not gather to talk about her title or her balance sheet. They held up the garments she had made. The evidence of her servant leadership was in their hands. That is what a life of Christian service leaves behind.
If Jesus came not to be served but to serve, then those who follow him do not get to live any other way. Godly service is not an upgrade from good service. It is a completely different orientation, one that begins not with your capacity to give, but with the identity you already have in Christ.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How can I serve others like Jesus did?
A: Serving others like Jesus starts with a posture shift: seeing the person in front of you before you see their need, their problem, or what they can offer you. In Acts 9:33, Peter stopped for Aeneas not because Aeneas could benefit him, but because Aeneas was a person. Practically, this means looking for people who have become invisible in your daily life and doing something small and specific for them, expecting nothing in return.
Q: Why does serving others make me feel alive?
A: Because service is what you were designed for. Will Davis, preaching from Acts 9 at Miracle City Collective, put it this way: selfishness drains the life out of us, and service is the remedy. When you get out of your own head and put your attention on someone else, something shifts. You are not fighting your nature when you serve; you are living in alignment with it.
Q: What is the difference between good and godly service?
A: Good service improves someone's experience. Godly service changes someone's life and points them toward Jesus. Good service can still be self-focused, driven by the need to feel useful, appreciated, or virtuous. Godly service, as seen in both Aeneas's healing and Tabitha's resurrection in Acts 9:32-42, is service that makes people look at Jesus rather than at the person doing the serving.
Q: What does it mean to serve people who can do nothing for you in return?
A: It means the transaction is off the table entirely. Tabitha served widows because they were people, not because they could help her back. Will Davis described this as the line between a job and real service: a job pays you back, but service asks nothing in return. Serving people who cannot repay you is the fastest way to discover whether your service is coming from identity in Christ or from the need to feel valuable.
Q: How do I know if I'm serving for the right reasons?
A: One honest test: ask yourself who gets the credit when the service is done. If you find yourself wanting people to know what you did, notice how you feel when they do not acknowledge it, or lead with your own story of sacrifice, the motivation may be worth examining. The sign of godly Christian service, according to Acts 9:42, is that many believed in the Lord. The servant disappeared into the background, and Jesus became visible.
