|
Dallas Burdette |
February 13, 1999 |
Thrust statement: Christians are
to do service to the Lord.
Scripture reading: Ephesians 6:7-8
|
Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving
the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward
everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.[1] |
Paul, in this passage of Scripture, expressly
addresses the slaves in the Roman Empire.
One can imagine the pain and anguish many experienced in their
enslavement. One can almost see the
person—male or female—sitting down and moaning to himself. I can imagine the life style that many had to
endure. One wonders if the slaves that
Paul spoke of here were not pouring their hearts out to God in prayer for a
solution to their predicament. They
wanted their freedom. They wanted a
change in their status. How should they
have served their masters? Should they have served with contempt or with
love? Paul responded by saying, “Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the
Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever
good he does, whether he is slave or free” (Ephesians 6:7-8).
“Serving
the Lord, not men” should be our motto.
To state this motto another way is to say, “doing the will of God.” I am wondering today if this is your motto. Are you serving God? Are you doing the will
of God in your lives? The question is
not, are you serving God? The real question is, are you serving God with your
whole heart? Did not our Lord Jesus
say,
“Love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and
greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as
yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two
commandments (Matthew 22:37-40).
Doing the will of God is, in the words of Jesus, to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself. Christianity is vertical as well as horizontal. Christians cannot neglect the horizontal and at the same time say that he or she loves God with the whole heart. James, our Lord’s brother, reminds God’s people about the interaction of faith and deeds.
What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder (James 2:14-19).
In doing the will of God, one must also remember the words of John.
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If
anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the
cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has
and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away,
but the man who does the will of God lives forever (1 John 2:15-17).
In other words, one cannot serve the world and the Master at the same time. Since Christians are a new creation in Christ Jesus, then they are to present themselves as instruments of righteousness. It is in this vein that Paul calls attention to what it means to be a saint in Christ Jesus.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace (Romans 6:11-14).
For Paul, when one becomes a Christian, then this change calls for a transformation in one’s lifestyle. One can no longer serve sin but righteousness. Paul reminds the Christians at Rome that since there has been a change in venue—from darkness to light—then this transition necessitates a change in devotion. He graphically captures this distinction when he writes:
Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness (Romans 6:16-18).
Again, he exhorts them to present their bodies as living sacrifices to God.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s
mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this
is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of
this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be
able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will
(Romans 12:1-2).
Are you presenting your bodies as living sacrifices to the service of God? Are you renewing your mind daily to bring every thought into captivity to Jesus Christ? Are you meeting with the saints here at Oakwood Hills on Wednesday nights to mediate upon God’s Word? When I ask this question, I am conscious of the fact that many do have to work, but I am not addressing those that are providentially hindered, but rather those that choose not to come. Where are your priorities? We can usually do what we want to do. One reason for getting together is to encourage one another in the faith. Another reason is to help one another grow in grace and knowledge. Where is your delight? Is it in God and His Word? Listen to the words of the Psalmist:
1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night (Psalms 1:1-2).
It
is in this same vein that Paul could say, “in
my inner being I delight in God’s law” (Romans 7: 22).
Do you delight in God’s law? Do
you delight in doing the will of God?
Do you delight in meeting with God’s people? What is your motto? Where
is your devotion? A classic example of
the kind of devotion that Paul speaks of is found in the sister of Martha and
Lazarus. You remember the conversation
that Martha had with Jesus about Mary’s refusal to help her with the
housekeeping chores. Luke preserves
this revealing account of devotion on the part of Mary:
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he
came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat
at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all
the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t
you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help
me!” “Martha,
Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but
only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be
taken away from her” (Luke 10:38-42).
Are you upset about many things? Or have you chosen what is better? Jesus also addresses this dichotomy in His Sermon on the Mount. He cautions His disciples about the dangers of placing their priorities on things that are transient, not eternal.
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money (Matthew 6:19-24).
Are you more concerned about money
than you are about God’s kingdom and His righteousness? Are you more concerned about the cares of
this life than you are things of God?
Do you hunger and thirst after the righteousness of God? Do you hunger and thirst for the Word of
God. What are your priorities in
life. Everyone should remember the
words of Jesus: “Seek first his
kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as
well” (Matthew 6:33).
The
service of Jesus demands our all. This
service is to be performed with “respect
and fear, and with sincerity of heart” (Ephesians 2:5).
One cannot read these words of Paul without recalling the words of the
second Psalm.
Serve the LORD with fear
and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry
and you be destroyed in your way,
for his wrath can flare up in a moment.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him (Psalms 2:11-12).
In
God’s service, every Christian should use great care to accomplish his or her best,
and everyone should feel a deep sense of anxiety to please God in all
things. One’s service should be from
the heart. Paul expresses one’s service to
God this way: “Doing the will of God from your heart” (Ephesians 2:6). I remind each of you to reflect upon Paul’s
advice to Timothy in order to prevent a flickering of the flame for God.
I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day (2 Timothy 1:3-12).
Paul is here encouraging Timothy not to allow
the fire from God in his soul to go out, but rather to fan it into flame. The gift that Timothy received from Paul
through his hands must be fanned into zeal.
The gift is from God, but Timothy must blow it into a blaze. It is in this same vein that Paul wrote to
the Thessalonians: “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire” (2 Thessalonians 5:19). Paul employs in this epistle the same
metaphor that he utilized to Timothy.
One must always be on his or her safe guard to keep fire in one’s life. Jesus, at least on one occasion, applied the
figure of fire to His own ministry: “I have come to
bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Luke 12:49).
Timothy
is to keep his own fire going. I
remember as a young boy, during World War II, that people were singing, “Keep
the Home Fires Burning.” This is what
Timothy is exhorted to do. This is what
I am encouraging each of you to continue to do. Keep the fires burning for the Lord in your souls. Keep the desire burning for the souls of men
and women and boys and girls. Many of
you are here today because of godly parents, godly grandparents, godly uncles,
godly aunts, and so on. Many of you
have a rich heritage in the Christian faith even as Paul the apostle also had a
rich heritage. Paul could write: “What
anyone else dares to boast about—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast
about. Are they Hebrews? So
am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? so am I.” (2 Corinthians
11:21-22).
Paul
also reminded Timothy of his pious heritage: “I have been reminded of your
sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother
Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also” (2 Timothy 1:5). Timothy’s tears for
Paul (1:4)
reminded Paul of the two women who shaped Timothy’s training. Nevertheless, in spite of your Christian
training, every Christian must still remind himself or herself that genuine
faith, such as Timothy had, is a personal matter and not a mere matter of
inheritance. It is in this same vein
that John the Baptist had to remind the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to his
baptism against saying within themselves: “We have Abraham as our father” (Matthew 3:9). There must be personal change within us
all. Every Christian is to produce
fruit within his or her own life. There
must be obedience to the commandments of God in your own life (Matthew 5:18-20; 7:21-27).
My
prayer is that you will seek to capture the passion, the emotion, and the
enthusiasm that Paul writes about in his letter to Rome: “Never be lacking in
zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in
affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need.
Practice hospitality” (Romans 12:11-13). It is also my aspiration not to
allow my enthusiasm to burn low for the Lord’s kingdom. Do you remember Jesus’ letter to the
Christians in Laodicea?
These are the words of the Amen, the
faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that
you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither
hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth (Revelation 3:14-16).
How
many of you remember the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount about seeking
the kingdom? Do you recall how He said
to His disciples: “But seek first his kingdom and his
righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33). Are you seeking the kingdom of God and His
righteousness? Has your conversion
changed your life? Are you grateful for
what God has done for you? Are you
grateful that God has called you into His service? Paul could write Timothy about his salvation in these soul
searching words: “I
thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me
faithful, appointing me to his service” (1 Timothy 1:12).
Have you thanked God for your redemption from condemnation? When Jesus seized Paul on the Damascus Road,
Paul turned his life around:
Not that I have already obtained all this, or
have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which
Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers,
I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do:
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the
prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians
3:12-14).
Conclusion
Have you
turned your life around for God’s service?
In concluding my remarks today, may I remind each of you, as I also
remind myself, of Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians: “Therefore, my dear
brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the
work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain”
(1 Corinthians
15:58). What is your
motto? Is it “doing the will of God”?
Oakwood Hills Church of Christ
DeFuniak Springs, FL
Date: February 13, 1999
Time: 11 a.m. (Sunday)