Who Is Your Master

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.