July 31, 2016
Morning Worship
Text: Romans 6:16-18
Subject: Being a Servant of God
Title: Who is Your Master?
Last week we began a series on Servanthood. In our culture today the concept of being a servant is really looked down upon. For one thing, the word “servant” is interpreted from the perspective of our nation’s past with the idea of slavery in mind. So we now have a generation of Americans who have the attitude that “Noboby is going to tell me what to do!”
So children won’t obey parents…
Students don’t listen to teachers…
People have no respect for police officers…
And we wonder how our nation has spiraled to where we are at this time!
But the source of the problem is that people do not want to be submissive to God. To the world today, the word “submit” is repulsive. Very rarely will you hear the word in wedding vows. The concept is outside the normal thinking of society today. But last week we saw that for those who choose to be servants of the Most High God submission is a joy.
Joel 2:28-29 (NIV2011)
28 “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.
29 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
Can you see that the Lord wants to bless those who are submissive to Him? And there are great expectations for those who serve Him. If we serve Him long enough and faithfully enough we get to be like Him.
Matthew 10:25 (NIV2011)
It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters…
Are you ready to be like your master?
Romans 6:16-18 (NIV2011)
16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.
18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
I believe this is God’s word…
I believe it is for me…
I accept it as mine…
I will appropriate it to my life today…
Being a servant is a choice we make… There is a difference between “servanthood” and “slavery”. The Greek word translated as “slave” here refers to a “bond-servant”. A bondservant is one who willing places himself under submission to another. Slaves are forced into their position by another. Bondservants are loyal to their masters because they understand that in this slave/master relationship the Master wants what is best for the servant and the servant for the master. This is nothing like the slavery in our past history when slavery was for the benefit of the owner only and slaves were just property.
Verse 16, Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
No one is forcing it on you. You offer yourself and if you do so you have a responsibility to be obedient. If you chose you can be a servant or a slave to sin, all you want to do is feed your sinful nature. Or you can chose to be a servant to the Most High, wanting nothing more than to just please Him and do His will. In serving there are no expectations of a return. Bond servants just do what is expected of them not because of who they are but because of who their Master is And they know that the Master only wants what is best for them.
Romans 6:16 (MSG)
16 You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do.
The word “offer” or “yield” in the KJV literally is “to stand beside”. If you chose sin it will hold you in bondage because it can never satisfy. Slavery to sin begets more sin. It’s like going on a roller coaster. You ride one and it becomes so ordinary after a while that the thrill is gone and you can’t wait to find one that is just a little more thrilling. And then the next one and the next… and you become a slave to the next thrilling moment you can find.
Oh, but when you place yourself under submission to the LORD it’s all satisfying. There is nothing greater than knowing that you just did something that you know was in the perfect will of God.
Much of the church world wants to have it both ways. They want to serve the Lord with a little bit of the world thrown in. “You don’t want anyone to think you are a radical do you?”
Jesus addressed that very problem in Matthew 6:24 (NKJV),
24 "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Being a servant brings change.
17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.
When you make yourself God’s servant you begin to see yourself in a different light. Your life becomes about Him. Every action you take magnifies Him. You act on behalf of Him. The servant becomes the representative of the Master, to carry on the Master’s business with the same authority as if the Master were here Himself.
When Jesus walked the earth did He come as the Master or the servant? Now you might say, “Well Jesus was the Master. His disciples called Him Master”. And that is true. As the Man/God Jesus fulfilled both aspects of servanthood. But, Mark 10:45 (NKJV)
45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." He was and is God but He did not come to earth as God to be served. He came in obedience to the Father to do His will and to serve humanity and His heavenly Father.
Salvation is the very first step into servanthood. And I wonder nowadays how many of those who take that step actually go through the thought process of understanding the commitment they are making? Because when you claim yourself as a servant of God your allegiance must change. Your life is no longer about you but it becomes about Him.
Galatians 2:20 (NKJV)
20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Oh, you can try to be a Christian without changing, but it’s like living a lie…
you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching… I want you to get this. What pattern of teaching got your attention when you became a Christian? It had to be the teaching about change because Christianity is unlike anything else ever heard of before. Plus, the longer that you are a Christian this pattern of teaching begins to grow in you. The more you cling to this matter of being God’s servant the more you will see the power and authority that comes with the role. Jesus is still the Head and we are still the Body. We are here to serve – not just in the sense that we try to be holy – but that we have made ourselves servants of God’s word, both written and spoken. When the word says, we do. When the Spirit speaks we act.
As Christ’s ambassadors we take on His life, His will, His authority and we communicate who He is to the world.
James 4:6 (NKJV)
"God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble."
If you are not willing to change and be like Christ, well that’s pride. And what does that get you? RESISTED! Oh but if you humble yourself before Him you get grace.
James 4:7 (NKJV)
Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Servanthood has benefits.
18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
In Luke chapter 12 Jesus told a parable about a master who went away to a wedding feast and his return was delayed. Luke 12:36-38 (NKJV)
36 and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately.
37 Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them.
38 And if he should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants.
Luke 12:42-44 (NKJV)
42 And the Lord said, "Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his master will make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season?
43 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.
44 Truly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all that he has.
Slaves to righteousness… Not your own righteousness…
Philippians 3:9 (NKJV)
9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith…
The key here is being “IN HIM”.
Ephesians 1:15-23 (NKJV)
15 Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,
16 do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers:
17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,
18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power
20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,
21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.
22 And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
Servanthood is a choice…
Servanthood brings change…
Servanthood has benefits…
Someone once said, “Most people wish to serve God -- but in an advisory capacity only.”
Unamuno, the Spanish philosopher, tells about the Roman aqueduct at Segovia, in his native Spain. It was built in 109 A.D. For eighteen hundred years, it carried cool water from the mountains to the hot and thirsty city. Nearly sixty generations of men drank from its flow. Then came another generation, a recent one, who said, "This aqueduct is so great a marvel that it ought to be preserved for our children, as a museum piece. We shall relieve it of its centuries-long labor."
They did; they laid modern iron pipes. They gave the ancient bricks and mortar a reverent rest. And the aqueduct began to fall apart. The sun beating on the dry mortar caused it to crumble. The bricks and stone sagged and threatened to fall. What ages of service could not destroy idleness disintegrated.
Resource, Sept./ Oct., 1992, p. 4.
Who is your Master? And what are you willing to do for Him?
