Summary: We need to understand that when we are committed to serve we are put in the position of a servant. Some of us may find that hard to do or be, but if we want to grow in the Lord we have to be: 1) a servant, 2) committed to that service.

Growing in the Lord Committed to Serve

Deuteronomy 10:12

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

We need to understand that when we are committed to serve we are put in the position of a servant. Some of us may find that hard to do or be, but if we want to grow in the Lord we have to be: 1) a servant, 2) committed to that service.

A servant is a person who is under submission to another. For Christians, this means submission to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Being in submission, a servant seeks to meet the real needs of or carry out the will of the person he is serving. In the Greek New Testament there are two words for servant, "Doulos" and "Diakonos". Diakonos is where we get the word “Deacon”. Doulos is a term that generally means a servant that is under submission but not in bondage. Doulos referred to a slave who after serving for a period of time as a slave and is given the opportunity to either gain their freedom or choose to remain in service to their master. They were known as bondservants. Believers are called to be the servants (bondservants) of the Lord, and that means that we choose to stay in service to the Lord, for life. Talk about being committed!

Let us consider some characteristics or qualities of a servant of the Lord.

A servant growing in the Lord is one who:

1. Loyal to the Lord

a. “Let your heart therefore be loyal to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes and keep His commandments, as at this day.” 1 Kings 8:61

b. An essential element to Christian service is loyalty to the King, the Lord Jesus Christ.

c. “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.” Matthew 6:24

i. So that we remain clear the word “mammon” refers to earthly riches. As used here in Matthew it is treated as a personification of riches. So then, this scripture looks at our commitment to serve the Lord, or our commitment to serve earthly riches, being viewed as if they were a person.

ii. There is nothing wrong with being rich, but does those riches take a life of their own and have you serving them rather than have the riches serve you? Let that sink in for a moment…are you scrambling to make more money for the sake of earthly pleasures, or are you content with what you have, using it as the Lord intended.

iii. Just prior to the 2006 Christmas season, Larry Stewart, fifty-eight, a successful businessman from Lee's Summit, Missouri, revealed that he was the Secret Santa who has been doling out hundred-dollar bills to the needy every Christmas for the past twenty-six years. Stewart said he decided to go public after it became apparent that a tabloid newspaper was going to reveal his name. Now he hopes to inspire others to become Secret Santa’s.

In the winter of 1971, Stewart was working as a door-to-door salesman, when the company he was working for went out of business. Stewart quickly ran out of money. He hadn't eaten in two days when he went to Dixie Diner and ordered a breakfast he eventually admitted he couldn't pay for. Ted Horn, the restaurant owner, acted like he found a twenty-dollar bill on the floor underneath Stewart's chair. "Son, you must have dropped this," Horn said.

"It was like a fortune to me," Stewart said. His response was to vow, "Lord, if you ever put me in a position to help other people, I will do it."

Over the years, Stewart estimates that he has given away about $1.3 million, for which he has been amply rewarded. "I see looks of hopelessness turn to looks of hope in an instant," he says. "After all, isn't that what we're put here on earth for — to help one another?"

iv. Here we see two persons who were committed to serve the Lord with the monetary gifts the Lord bestowed upon them

d. Jesus demands that our love and our loyalty for Him be greater than any and all other attachment we may have, including our families. Anything that gets between our loyalty to Christ and real obedience to Him is nothing more than idolatry. Our loyalty to Christ must take precedence over anything else. Following Christ must be our highest priority.

e. “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.” Galatians 1:10

f. So in our commitment to serve who are we serving? That is the question that Paul is asking. Are we compromising our faith by trying to work with the changing norms of society and being pleasing to man, which the Bible tells us leads to death? Or do we need to buck the system, remaining committed to our service to the Lord, which the Bible says leads to life?

g. The book of Numbers has this to say about what happens when we choose to ignore the Word of God, following our own desires, and what happens when we stay committed to the Lord.

h. “because all these men who have seen My glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put Me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded My voice, they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected Me see it. But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.” Numbers 14:22-24

i. I am always amazed at how people have seen and been affected by God’s hand in their lives, and are still able to turn around and act as if God has never touched them. Those are who I call foolish people, those who have witnessed God in action and can attribute it to fate, karma, spirituality, or the power of positive thinking. We cannot grow into a moral and ethical people if we do not look to and follow the moral and ethical authority that is God.

j. Norman Geisler, as a child, went to a Vacation Bible School because he was invited by some neighbor children. He went back to the same church for Sunday School classes for 400 Sundays. Each week he was faithfully picked up by a bus driver. Week after week he attended church, but never made a commitment to Christ. Finally, during his senior year in High School, after being picked up for church over 400 times, he did commit his life to Christ. What if that bus driver had given up on Geisler at 395? What if the bus driver had said, "This kid is going nowhere spiritually, why waste any more time on him?"

k. Talk about parents giving up on their kids

l. Another story about pastor who preached to empty room in a lumber camp

m. Just as the bright petals of a flower draw a bee to the sweet nectar inside, so a consistent Christian character will draw others to the Christ who indwells us and enables us to live the Christian life.

n. Thank God for faithful servants who are loyal to Christ and their call to service and didn’t give up. These were people who are growing in the Lord committed to serve.

2. Others Oriented

a. Loyal love is self-denying, self-sacrificing, and others-oriented. It is love that finds its fulfillment, joy and happiness in the service of another.

b. All of the spiritual gifts given to us by God are others oriented, and are to be used for the blessing of the whole church and not for the individual possessor of the gift. They are from God for the common good of God’s people and the glory of God.

i. Everything you have and everything you know how to do is a gift from God and should be used to serve others

c. God wants us others oriented not self-oriented.

3. Virtuous

a. Being virtuous is the act of the following:

i. A virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions.

b. A virtuous life does not mean a sinless life because we are not yet perfected

c. A man wanted to see some perfect apples. He was taken for a walk through the orchard...there were a lot of little green apples on the trees. After returning he said, "You were going to show me some perfect apples?" "Oh, but I did," explained the farmer. "Those little green apples are perfect for their stage of maturity. What you wanted to see was mature apples." We must not confuse perfection and maturity. And we must realize that God wants us to continue to mature and reflect the glory of Christ more each day.

d. Romans 12:2 tells us to be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

e. To be a servant is to be Christ-like. God uses clean vessels. We may get cracked and dirtied, but we are again washed in the blood of Christ.

4. Engaged in Service

a. The highest form of worship is the worship of unselfish Christian service. - Billy Graham

b. The operative word in service is “serve”. Too many Christians have taken Christ’s words in Luke 19:1 “Occupy till I come” to mean to take up space rather than to engage in the Lord’s work until He returns.

c. Too often we see people with a spiritual welfare mentality like that of an individual who wrote the following letter to the editor of Los Angeles Times concerning work: “There has been a lot of criticism of people who do not want to work, especially when they are collecting welfare. Most people prefer to work and that’s fine, but others may prefer to sit in the park, go to the beach, or observe the wonders of nature. Now those who dislike working should not be penalized by depriving them of the benefits of our society. There is plenty for all. Everyone does not feel the same way about working. Some have built-in feelings about it that makes it very unpleasant for them to work, especially when it is required. Now this could be looked upon as a handicap. We don’t punish others with handicaps. Our society provides for them and should do the same for those with a natural dislike for work. Why can’t we live and let live with each to his own style?”

d. “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. And if he should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants.…. And that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.” Luke 12:37-38,47

e. The great violinist, Niccolo Paganini willed his marvelous violin to city of Genoa on condition that it must never be played. The wood of such an instrument, while used and handled, wears only slightly, but set aside, it begins to decay. Paganini’s lovely violin has today become worm-eaten and useless except as a relic. A Christian’s unwillingness to serve may soon destroy his capacity for usefulness.

f. Like the violin that was asked not to be played, we as Christians must grow in the Lord committed to serve so that we too can play the beautify music of the Good News of Christ.

Thanks be to God who has given us someone who is a model of how to grow in Lord committed to serve…and that model is Jesus.