WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SERVE OUR GOD AND FATHER YEHOVAH?

All throughout the Scriptures, we are told to ‘serve Yehovah.’ In Psalm 100:2, it says to: ‘serve Yehovah with gladness.’ Deuteronomy 10:12 says: ‘Serve Yehovah your Elohim - God with all your heart and with all your soul.’ Joshua says: ‘As for me and my house, we will serve Yehovah’ (Joshua 24:15). And Paul in Romans 12:11 also tells us to: ‘serve the Lord - Yehovah.’ But then, in Mark 10:45, Jesus says: ‘The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve,' as we who follow in his steps should do! Disciples of the lord Jesus throw around the phrase ‘serve the Lord - Yehovah’ often, but do they know what that phrase means.

Let’s clarify what ‘serve the lord’ – Yehovah means.

I think this is one of the most important questions a disciples can ask about living the life of a disciple in a way that glorifies God - Yehovah and loves and treats his/her neighbor as himself/herself. It gets at the utterly crucial issue of a right way of serving God - Yehovah that honors Him and loves our neighbors as we are commanded to do, or a wrong way of serving God - Yehovah that dishonors Him and does not love our neighbors as ourselves. This is not a marginal issue. We’re talking about what it means to be a disciple of the lord Messiah Jesus moment by moment in real life.

Let’s make it crystal clear that the Scriptures teach almost everywhere that human beings are to serve the only true God – Yehovah. In the Old Testament, Joshua says: “As for me and my house, we will serve Yehovah” (Joshua 24:15). And then Paul celebrates the Thessalonian converts because “you turned to God – Yehovah from idols to serve the living and true God - Yehovah” (1 Thessalonians 1:9).

Over and over again, Paul calls himself and he calls disciples of the lord Jesus “servants”; literally, “slaves” of the Messiah Jesus and of God (Romans 1:1; Ephesians 6:6). Peter does the same in 1 Peter 2:16 and 2 Peter 1:1. It is unmistakable. One biblical way of speaking rightly about the relationship to God – Yehovah that we have, is to call ourselves servants/slaves of God and of the Messiah who purchased us his shed blood when he offered himself up as a sin-offering sacrifice before His God and Father Yehovah allowing Him to reconcile humanity to Himself.

Warning Lights

Now, as soon as we say that, we must ask pointedly what’s involved in serving God - Yehovah and what’s not involved in serving God - Yehovah. If we start serving God -Yehovah as though we could earn wages from Him, or as though we could meet His needs, or as though we could put Him in our debt and make Him our beneficiary, red spiritual lights start flashing very brightly. For example, in John 15:15, Jesus says to his disciples: “No longer do I call you servants [or slaves], for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” And yet in John 15:14, the preceding verse, he says: “You are my friends IF you do what I command you”.

So, the meaning of “slave” or “servant” is qualified. And the meaning of “friend” is qualified. We can’t just assume that what we mean by servant or friend is what Jesus means by servant or friend. We have to listen.

Or here’s another bright, flashing spiritual red light: “[God - Yehovah is not] served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). So yes, serve him, but not as though He needs our service.

“Serve God, but not by presuming to meet His need. He owns everything. He doesn’t need your supply.”

Or here’s another spiritual red flashing light. God – Yehovah says, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. . . . [You] call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me” (Psalm 50:12, 15). Yes, serve God, but not by presuming to meet His need. He owns everything. He doesn’t need your supply. We call on Him in need, not the other way around.

Here’s another spiritual red flashing light: “The Son of Man came not to be served” — that’s a pretty clear warning — “but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). He saves us; we don’t save him. He meets our need; we don’t meet his need.

Here’s one more spiritual flashing red light of warning about serving God - Yehovah in any old way that we think might be right. In Romans 4:4–5; you can’t get much more basic than this; the apostle Paul describes how life of a disciple begins. Are we justified and put right with God by working for God – Yehovah; earning a wage; or by trusting Him to work for us in our utter helplessness? Here’s the quote: “To the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness [as Abrham's faith was counted as righteous].”

So, with all those spiritual red warning lights flashing in our face, we better not serve God as though we could earn wages, as though we could meet His needs, as though we could put Him in our debt or make Him our beneficiary.

Well, how should we serve Him? What is right way to serve the only true God - Yehovah?

Every Step a Gift of Grace

The deepest and clearest answer is found in 1 Peter 4:11. This is a go-to verse: “Whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God - Yehovah supplies; in order that in everything God – Yehovah may be glorified through Jesus the Messiah. To Him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.”

So, every effort expended in the service of God is a God-enabled effort. That may be the most important sentence. Let me say it again: Every effort expended in the service of God - Yehovah, the right service of God, is a God-enabling effort. Whatever God – Yehovah requires us to do, He always proved the enabling power of His spirit to accomplish it. That’s what must absolutely sink into our entire being.

All God – Yehovah pleasing service is done in the moment-by-moment reliance upon God’s – Yehovah’s service-enabling power. Or to say it another way, the only service of God - Yehovah that pleases Him is done through the glad acceptance of His undeserved service toward us and in us. We see this in 1 Corinthians 15:10: “By the grace of God - Yehovah I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked” [‘I served’] “harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God - Yehovah that is with me.”

“All God-pleasing service is done in the moment-by-moment reliance upon God’s service-enabling power.”

So yes, we work; yes, we serve. We have a master; we obey. But every baby step we take in obedience to our Master is a gift of grace from Him to us. Therefore, we should never think of our service to God - Yehovah as a way to repay him in gratitude for his goodness to us, because every step we take in that so-called payback is another gift from Him, and it takes us deeper into debt to grace, which is a glorious place to be forever and ever and ever. We will never not be debtors to God’s – Yehovah’s grace. For all eternity, with every act of glad obedience, we will go deeper and happier into debt to the praise of the glory of his grace.

Life Under the Waterfall

Here’s one last picture of this peculiar kind of service to God. Jesus said: “No one can serve two masters, for 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 God - Yehovah and money” (Matthew 6:24). So, the question is, How do you serve money? That would be a clue. Serving money doesn’t mean doing things to meet money’s need. You serve money by calculating all your plans, your efforts, to benefit from what money promises you. You calculate your whole life to benefit from what money promises you. Your life revolves around trying to put yourself in the position to gain wealth.

That’s also what it means to serve God. You serve God by calculating all your plans and all your efforts to benefit from all that God promises to be for you. Your life revolves around striving with the enabling power of God’s – Yehovah’s spirit to put yourself under the waterfall of His greatest blessing, positioning yourself for the greatest benefit He has to give namely life as a glorified immortal man/woman in the New Age.

Conclusion

God - Yehovah enlists us into His service, which means He calls us to have a part in accomplishing His purposes. He accomplishes His purposes precisely by supplying the grace and power for us to do our work in serving Him, because the giver gets the glory; the servant gets the joy. That’s God’s – Yehovah’s purpose for His sons and daughters: His glory and the joy of His people in Him.