Called To Be A Bondservant Series

I love bumper sticker theology. It may not always be the most sound theological statements, but they generally at least have the ability to make you think. The one in particular that I am thinking about said, "God is my Co-pilot." Do you remember the sticker? It took a great deal of heat. Perhaps that heat is what made a new saying come out. It has been seen more on church signs. Church sign theology is also kind of fun. This one says, "If God is your Co-Pilot, change seat

Text: Exodus 21:6 - This was a choice made by the a freed bond servant.

Proposition: When we become Christians we clothe ourselves with Christ and become His bond servants.

Galatians 3:27, “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Servants always wore their master’s livery.

Romans 6:16-18 --- Once were slaves to sin but we now serve righteousness.

Definition: Bond servant/ Slave doulos: to serve as a slave/ the subjection of your will to another.

Diakonos: one whose attention is focused solely on meeting the needs of others.

Body:

1 We Cannot Adequately Serve God Until He Owns Us.

a Matthew 22:37,38 “Love The Lord your God.........”

b Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13 “No servant can serve two masters: for he will hate the one and love the other, or.......”

c Romans 12:1 - we need to be a willing sacrifice for God. Isaac would have offered up his own son.

1 One Cannot Adequately Serve God Until One Knows the Word Proclaimed By His Son

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3 Let’s play ‘Let’s Pretend’. Let’s pretend that you work for me. In fact, you are my executive assistant in a company that is growing rapidly. I’m the owner and I’m interested in expanding overseas. To pull this off, I make plans to travel abroad and stay there until a new branch office gets established. I make all the arrangements to take my family and move to Europe for six to eight months. And I leave you in charge of the busy stateside organization. I tell you that I will write you regularly and give you directions and instructions. I leave and you stay.Months pass. A flow of letters are mailed from Europe and received by you at the national headquarters. I spell out all my expectations.

Finally, I return. Soon after my arrival, I drive down to the office and I am stunned. Grass and weeds have grown up high. A few windows along the street are broken. I walk into the Receptionist’s room. She is doing her nails, chewing gum and listening to her favorite disco station. I look around and notice the wastebaskets are overflowing. The carpet hasn’t been vacuumed for weeks, and nobody seems concerned that the owner has returned. I asked about your whereabouts and someone in the crowded lounge area points down the hall and yells, "I think he’s down there." Disturbed, I move in that direction and bump into you as you are finishing a chess game with our sales manager. I ask you to step into my office, which has been temporarily turned into a television room for watching afternoon soap operas."What in the world is going on, man?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, look at this place! Didn’t you get any of my letters?""Letters? Oh yes! Sure! I got every one of them. As a matter of fact, we have had a letter study every Friday since you left. We have even divided the personnel into small groups to discuss many of the things you wrote. Some of the things were really interesting. You will be pleased to know that a few of us have actually committed to memory some of your sentences and paragraphs. One or two memorized an entire letter or two - Great stuff in those letters."

"OK. You got my letters. You studied them and meditated on them; discussed and even memorized them. But what did you do about them?"

"Do? We didn’t do anything about them." (Improving Your Serve, Chuck Swindoll)

a 2 Timothy 2:15 – Study is needed to be an effective servant

b Romans 12:2 - There are some servants in the Church today that haven’t had their minds renewed in 20,30,40, or even 50 years.

c The toil of the average Christian would not exhaust a butterfly

d Mark 7:6-9 - Let us be wary of becoming as the Pharisees and forgoing the commandments of God to teach the commandments of men. Only constant study in the Word of God and prevent this from happening. The new doctrines and commandments we see cropping up in the churches today are because of the ignorance of man kind. “Professing themselves to be wise they become fools.” They spring from the desire of man to be the king and have control of every situation. Constant study and practice of the Word of God can keep this from happening. What happened to the statement, “where the Bible speaks, we speak, and where the Bible is silent, we are silent” ?