Word of Salvation – Vol.44 No.46 – December 1999

 

Are You A Servant Of God?

 

Sermon by Rev. R. Noppers on Titus 1:1

Scripture Readings: Titus 1

Suggested Hymns: (after Sermon) Rej 441; 551; 132

 

Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Titles play an important part in our society.  The queen is known as ‘Her Royal Highness’, the pope as ‘His Holiness’, and in an official capacity, no one would walk up to our Prime Minister and say, “Hey, Johnny!”  At the very least, Parliamentarians are called ‘The honourable member for …’ whatever the name of the electorate is – despite what they may get called at other times!

In many churches the further you get up the ecclesiastical ladder the more heavenly the titles sound: archbishops are called ‘His Reverence’ or ‘Your Grace’; important ministers are given the title of ‘The Most Reverend’, and in every committee we have chairpersons, secretaries, treasurers and other important designations!

Even ordinary people like the sense of importance a title brings.  ‘Mr Jones’ sounds much more respectful than ‘hey, Jonesy!’  And the bloke in Endeavour Hills who won a share of the lottery recently is no longer just some unemployed bloke, but now carries the title of ‘millionaire’!  So it comes as no surprise that Paul refers to himself in the opening words of this letter as an apostle of Jesus Christ, for an apostle was a worthy title.  It meant that Jesus set him aside for the special task of bringing the gospel, and in Paul’s case, especially to the Gentiles!  It meant he was given a special authority to present the message of God.  His message came with the full authority of God!  Paul was special agent 007 to the gentiles!  Licensed to bring the gospel of life!

But Paul also refers to himself as ‘a servant of God.’  And it is this title that I would like to consider this morning.  Because the word used here for servant actually describes a bond-slave, a person who is bound for service for the rest of his life and who cannot expect freedom, choice, or any wages in return!  Just a life of complete submission to his master!  And Paul is a bond-slave of God.  So what Paul is saying right at the start of his letter, in the opening words, is that he acknowledges his complete ownership by God!  Not only that, he is completely dependent on God for everything, even his life!

How easy would it be for you to make a confession such as this?  Easy, or difficult?  How would you feel about belonging body and soul to someone where you have no say in the matter?  Where you are expected to do what you are told, no matter what?  And where your every meal and your every breath depends on the grace of your master?  Recently, the Channel Two program ‘Compass’ had a feature about slavery in the Sudan, where women and children are bought and sold, body and soul, as pieces of furniture!  Money changed hands, and ownership was declared based on the price paid!  Are you a bond-slave of God?  If you say yes to this question, then you are the undisputed possession of God!

God paid the price for you and me by pouring out the precious blood of Jesus Christ on the cross!  He paid for you and me by having nails driven through His hands and feet into an instrument of torture!  God paid the price of justice and love for you and me and now owns us, lock, stock and barrel.  A price paid and ownership declared!

Are you a bond-slave of God?  If so, then there is no dispute as to whom you belong to, no argument that some of your life still belongs to you, and no discussion as to how much you can still do for yourself.  There is great humility in declaring that you are a bond-slave of God.  For by that confession you need to admit that there is nothing you can do in and of yourself that is any good, that even the fact that you live and breathe is dependent upon the one who holds the mortgage on your life!

And on top of that, there is no part of your life, your thoughts, your work, your play, your conversation and your habits, which do not belong to Him.  He has complete possession over all your time, whether at home or at work, in rest or relaxation, on your own or with your friends, with your hobbies and your sports!  As bond-slaves of God we are to be completely submitted to God!  And there is no part of your life that does not need to be given over to Him!

All this means is that God is to have complete control over you!  The portion of your life you are happy to give to Him, the portion you struggle to give to Him and the portion you would rather keep yourself!  It all belongs to God!

As a bond-slave of God, your life is to be one of service to Him!  And as Jesus said, you cannot serve both God and money!  You cannot sit on a metaphorical fence and decide that while the money is good it is OK to work for yourself on a Sunday when God calls you to worship Him!  You cannot argue to yourself, I know that God has something to say about what I am doing but I think just once to do it my way will be okay!  For a bond-slave does not have a will of his or her own.  Even your thought processes belong to your Saviour and Lord!

You are not even permitted to move one foot in front of the other without first checking to make sure that you are moving in God’s direction for your life.  And all your priorities must be carefully weighed with the Word of God to ensure that you are not fighting against Him in your life!  For as a bond-slave God has set your priorities.  Your directions have been determined and He has declared them in His Word!

There is to be no argument with God!  A servant is not permitted to talk back to his master or give him lip when he is told something he doesn’t like!  Are you willing to listen to God?  To humbly submit to His will even though you may not always like what you are told?  For when God says to keep the Sunday holy, He means it.  They are not just a few words of advice that we can take or leave as we see fit!

When God describes our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit, then He is not suggesting that we can do to it whatever takes our fancy and destroy this temple with cigarettes and excessive alcohol.  And taking meaningless risks on the roads is not something left to our discretion!  And when Jesus our sacrifice holds Himself up as the supreme example of how to forgive, then we are not given the option of holding on to some of our hurts and refuse to forgive certain people just because we can’t stand them or what they have done to us!

Now I am not suggesting that you all just blindly accept anything you hear from the pulpit, or for that matter anything that people reckon is biblical.  But neither should you just rely on your gut reaction to what you hear.  Don’t just discard what you disagree with, go back and check it in the Word of God!  Remember you belong to God and He has the final say on what should or should not happen in your life!

For such a life does take supernatural humility!  But being a bond-slave of God is all about being humble by the supernatural power of the transforming Holy Spirit!  As the well-known words of the apostle James remind us: Christian faith never stands on its own.  Works either accompanies faith, or it is dead!

In this short letter Paul stresses the idea that sound doctrine goes hand in hand with a life that is truly sanctified, a life of doing good things for God!  The very first sentence mentions godliness.  I draw your attention to that just in case some of you were thinking the last few examples were just me drawing a rabbit out of my theological hat!

Faith is a heart-response to the truth of the Gospel but it must also change your mind!  And as it takes over your mind, it also determines all your actions!

As we read earlier in 2 Peter: “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.  For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Truth is not merely theoretical but intensely practical.  It leads to godliness!  An attitude that wants to do everything that is pleasing to God!  An intimate connection between possessing the truth and being genuinely godly!

The church on Crete needed to learn this.  Do we still need to learn this lesson too?  Paul’s mission in Crete was to promote the Christian faith!

His apostleship and his servanthood were both exercised to help God’s people grow in knowledge and understanding of the glorious gospel they had received.  He was to point them back again and again to trust and reliance upon the God who made this salvation possible, so that they could and would gladly recognise and confess the redemptive truth that is centred in Jesus Christ our Lord!

When Paul talks about God’s elect in this verse, he is not waffling on about some theological concept, but he is giving a sincerely practical encouragement!  To know that God chooses to save is of great benefit!  When we get down in the dumps about our faith and we find it consistently beyond our strength to meet God’s demands in our life, our election reminds us even then that our salvation is from God from beginning to end!

Our salvation never depends on the godliness of our life.  Yet we are reminded of the need for the truth of the Word and the way we live to blend as one.  All those who call themselves Christians are challenged to evaluate their lives by the fact that Jesus Christ has sacrificed Himself for them!

Mind you, there is also pride and privilege in being able to say that I am a bond-slave of God!  For by doing so you stand in a proud heritage!  You stand alongside such greats of redemptive history like Moses, who was called a servant of God [Joshua 1:2]!

The prophets of the Old Testament were the servants of God and Jesus made it clear that He came to do the will of the Father: “I have not come to be served, but to serve!” [Mk.10:45].  He is the Servant-King!  And what a sacrificial service He gave to ensure that God’s will of salvation was completed!

There is a sense of pride in saying: God, use me as you will!  For are we not proud when we can show our gratitude in a real and concrete way to someone who has loved us so much?  It is a privilege to serve Jesus because of what He has done for us!  For that calling to serve is simply made by the One who saves us, the One to whom we say: You are our master and our Lord!

From that it follows that we bring the words of God to our friends, our children, our families!  The calling to serve is there as we teach and encourage and instruct one another in the faith, as we visit and pray with each other, every time we speak of Jesus Christ and each one of us proudly takes up the title ‘servant of God’!

Are you not proud to be the agent of God Himself, to speak His message of peace and love and forgiveness to a hurting world that needs this message more than anything else?  God passed His message of judgment and hope on to the prophets and they passed it on to the people.  Paul received the gospel of salvation and passed it on.  Is this not what you and I can do as well?  Is it not the basic service we may apply in response to the demand to love God and my neighbour?

Yes, it is a privilege and not an obligation to do that!  More often than not we see any suggestion to talk about our faith as a burden.  It’s okay for the so-called ‘professional Christians’, like pastors, but much too stressful for ordinary Christians!  We find it so much easier to keep our mouth shut or just talk about the weather instead of uttering the name of our Lord in praise and thanksgiving!

And yet, if we really think about it, it is just so awesome that our God would ask us to declare His wonderful salvation.  That He would allow us to bask in His reflected glory of being known as bringers of life and hope!  To be asked to share in such a wonderful task could never be a burden, certainly not if we have already had those showers of blessings rain down upon ourselves!

The greatest story ever told is the story of Jesus, and the most wonderful gift we can ever bring is to lead someone to a living, loving relationship with Him!  And we have the privilege to share this good news!  The need to be a servant of God, owned and directed by Him, is always there.  We will need to grow in humility, to put others first, and to forget about judging the people according to our standards but instead applying God’s standards of grace!

We will need to constantly remind ourselves that we are not here to please ourselves or to fashion our own little church kingdom according to our likes and dislikes.  Rather, we exist only to bring glory to God, only to obey His commands, only to declare His Word of justice and mercy to everyone who will listen!

Are you willing to serve Jesus Christ unconditionally, anywhere, any time, at any cost?  Are you willing and proud to take up the title ‘servant of God’?  Then step out in faith!  For the servant of God always has the resources of God at his fingertips!  And those resources are always enough, and more than enough!

Jesus promised to be with you always, to the very end of the age.  And since all power in heaven and on earth was given to Him, there is nothing in all creation that we as His servants do not have the power to overcome!  He has promised to supply all our needs according to His riches in glory, and those riches are beyond our calculation and beyond our comprehension!  As Peter also declares: “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness…!” [2Pet.1:3].

People can give each other many worthwhile titles, something to be proud of!  God may also decide to give us titles, as He did with David, ‘a man after His own heart’, and Job who was known as ‘a righteous man’.  But there is no title greater than that of ‘servant of God’!  It was the title Jesus was humbly proud to take upon Himself and we should be no less humble and also proud to take it upon ourselves!

Amen.