For the love of God: a servant’s heart

Deuteronomy 10: 12

1 Samuel 12:19-25

Romans 12: 1

Galatians 5: 13

Luke 17: 7-10

Galatians 5: 6

1 Samuel 17:41-47

Hebrews 11: 13-16

Luke 17:20-21

Colossians 1: 13-14

Matthew 6: 10

Luke 23: 43

2 Corinthians 5: 8

1 Samuel 17

John 16: 8-11

1.    A servant, by definition requires a master:

–          To serve God is to desire God.

Deuteronomy 10: 12

Circumcise Your Heart

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, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good?

–          Remember what great things he has done for you. Give thanks continually.

1 Samuel 12:19-25

19 And all the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king.” 20 And Samuel said to the people, “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. 21 And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty. 22 For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself. 23 Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way. 24 Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you. 25 But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king.”

–          A servant must be a living sacrifice and be willing to sacrifice.

Romans 12: 1

A Living Sacrifice

12 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Galatians 5: 13

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

–          A servant doesn’t seek accolades, he performs his duty.

Luke 17: 7-10

Unworthy Servants

7 “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.”

2.    Faith-relationship and obedience:

Galatians 5: 6

6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

–          Faith is speaking openly and boldly, reminding by proclaiming during the circumstances.

–          Faith is confidence in the knowledge of God’s love for you, expecting his actions and promises without doubt.

–          It is not that he can, but that he is doing it for you and why he does it.

–          Artificial intelligence states that the definition of faith is “loving others”. This is an incomplete definition because loving others is the result of faith not the definition. Religion focuses on results, but faith is a combination of having full confidence in God’s love for you as an individual son or daughter of the living God and obediently doing what God leads you to do.

–          Faith always results in God being glorified.

–          David proclaimed before Goliath, all twelve of Israel’s tribes and the philistine army, what God was about to do, why, and who God was.

1 Samuel 17:41-47

41 And the Philistine moved forward and came near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him. 42 And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. 43 And the Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.” 45 Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47 and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord‘s, and he will give you into our hand.”

–          What God has done (our perspective), Is what he is actively doing now (God’s perspective). There is no “then and now” with God. There is only “already and not yet”. Now, and fulfillment.

–          We, the children of God are in the same story, and the same line as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Jesus and the apostles.

–          Faith is being Kingdom focused not result focused.

Hebrews 11: 13-16

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

3.    The devices of the enemy:

–          The enemy will attack in the physical realm if fear does not work. He always attacks our hearts first, with fear and doubt. Unfortunately, most Christians never surpass this level of attack.

–          He will use our sins (unbelief in Jesus), in areas of our lives to attack.

–          If this doesn’t work, he uses the corruption of this world as a weapon to attack us physically.

–          His goal is to create a divide between us and God. The less hope, the greater the divide.

–          He uses temptation, lies, guilt, pride, sickness, death, trauma, insult, relationships, lack and fear.

4.    We are the Kingdom on earth:

Luke 17:20-21

The Coming of the Kingdom

20  Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, 21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

–          God’s presence is by his spirit, to the world.

Colossians 1: 13-14

13  He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

–          We are not just to love, but to fight by and with the love of God and for him, as David did.

Matthew 6: 10

10  Your kingdom come, your will be done,[a] on earth as it is in heaven.

 –          Jesus, speaking in Aramaic, told the repentant thief on the cross “today you will be with me in paradise”. The word “paradise” was created by English translators from the Greek word “paradeisos”. John and Mary were present at the crucifixion and heard Jesus’s Galilean Aramaic word “Kipa”, and Luke later recounted their testimony in Luke 23: 43. The Greek translation from Aramaic was “garden”.

–          Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5: 8, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord”. We, the children of God and joint heirs with Christ, will be with him in the garden when this body dies and until he brings us back to earth. We will be resurrected with sanctified with new bodies like the resurrected Jesus had, when this happens and rule over the new heaven and new earth with him. It is God’s intention to restore the original Eden on earth with us, as it was in the beginning!

Conclusion:

Thinking back to 1 Samuel 17, the goliaths of our time, do the same things today that he did back then. Our challenges of faith are not just in a private place, that are only about self-preservation and our needs. Our challenges are out in the open on the battlefield. They openly defy our God and his people. They deny Jesus and the word of God. They are on the world stage, threatening anyone who dares speak the truth as they stand on the necks of humanity. Jesus calls each of us to resist and proclaim, knowing the depths of his love for us, the victory with which we step forward through him, and the foreknowledge of the defeat of our enemy.

John 16: 8-11

8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

1.     Believe in the atonement of Christ to overcome anything, because he loves you!
2.     Believe in Jesus’s righteousness because he rose from the grave and then rose further to the right hand of our father.
3.     Believe that the ruler of this world has been judged and defeated.

Our faith and our lives should reflect these beliefs. I pray for each one of us, that our faith will abound in the knowledge of God’s love for us!