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What Does It Mean to Serve God? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Welcome back to the podcast. Today, we have a trio of interesting emails
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  to work through the next three weeks, Pastor John, as I look ahead
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  on the calendar of questions on what's on the table to come. What does
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  it mean to serve God? That's today? What does it mean to serve
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  God? Next week? As we serve God? What do we give him?
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  Are we giving him anything that he doesn't already have? Does he need
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  us? That's APJA nineteen fifty six. And then a week after that,
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  what does it mean to be spiritual? Spirituality of course as a squishy concept
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  in the world today, and we're going to work towards a definition in APJA
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  nineteen sixty interesting trio of topics all at the foundations of what it means to
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  be a successful Christian living out the Christian life over the next three weeks,
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  some important questions ahead. So today, what does it mean to serve God?
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  The question is from a listener named Amy. Pastor John, Hello,
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  I was discussing the phrase serve the Lord with a fellow believer the other day,
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  and I was wondering if you could clarify something for us. All over
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  scripture we are told to serve the Lord, and Psalm one hundred, verse
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  two it says to serve the Lord with gladness. The Ateronomy ten twelve says
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  serve the Lord with all your heart and all your soul. Joshua says,
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  as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. That's Joshua
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  fifteen, and Paul in Romans twelve eleven also tells us to serve the Lord.
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  But then in Mark ten forty five, Jesus says, the Son of
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  Man came not to be served, but to serve. Christians throw around the
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  phrase serve the Lord so often, but I'm not sure I know what that
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  phrase means. Can you clarify this for me? I think this is one
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  of the most important questions a Christian can ask about living the Christian life in
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  a way that glorifies God and does good to other people. It gets at
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  the utterly crucial issue of a right way of serving God that honors him and
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  blesses people, and a wrong way of serving God that dishonors Him and doesn't
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  help people. This is not a marginal issue. We're talking about what it
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  means to be a Christian moment by moment in real life. So Let's make
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  it crystal clear that Amy is right. That the Bible teaches almost everywhere that
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  human beings are to serve God, and when the Son of God comes into
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  the world, we are to serve him Old Testament. As for me and
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  my house, we will serve the Lord Joshua twenty fifteen. And then Paul
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  celebrates the Thessalonian converts because quote, you turn from idols to serve the living
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  and true God. So over and over again, Paul calls himself. He
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  calls Christians servants or literally slaves of Christ and of God Romans one one.
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  If he's in sixty six. Peter does the same for Peter two sixteen second
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  Peter one one. It is unmistakable one biblical way of speaking rightly about the
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  relationship to God that we have is to call ourselves servants or slaves of God
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  and of Christ. That's right. She's drawing attention to that, and she
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  should. Now as soon as we say that, we must ask really pointedly
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  what's involved in serving God and what's not involved in serving God. If we
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  start serving God as though we could earn wages from him, or as though
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  we could meet his needs, or as though we could put him in our
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  debt and make him our beneficiary. Red biblical light start flashing very brightly.
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  For example, in John fifteen fifteen, Jesus says to his disciples, no
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  longer do I call you servants or slaves, for the servant does not know
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  what his master's doing. But I have called you friends, for all that
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  I have heard from my father I have made known to you. And yet
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  in verse fourteen, so the preceding verse, he says, you are my
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  friends if you do what I command you. Whoa what kind of a friend
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  is there? So the meaning of slave or servant is qualified, and the
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  meaning of friend is qualified. We can't just assume that what we mean by
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  servant or friend is what Jesus means by servant or friend. We have to
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  listen. Or here's another bright flashing red light. Acts Chapter seventeen, verse
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  fifteen. God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything,
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  for he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything. So yes,
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  serve him, but not that way, not that way, not as
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  though he needed your service. Or here's another red flashing light saw him.
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  Fifty verse twelve, God says, if I were hungry. I would not
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  tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. You call upon
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  me in the day of trouble, I'll deliver you, and you will glorify
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  me. That that was sort of Surgeon's favorite verses. He called it Robinson
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  Crusoe's text because that's that's what he quotes in the book. Yes, serve
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  God, Yes, but not by presuming to meet his need. He owns
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  everything, he doesn't need your supply. We call on him in need,
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  not the other way around. Here's another red flashing light, and she quoted
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  Amy quoted it Mark ten forty five. The Son of Man came not to
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  be served. That's pretty clear warning, not to be served, but to
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  serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. So he saves
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  us. We don't say him he meets our need, We don't meet his
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  need. Here's one more flashing red light of warning about serving God in any
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  old way that we think might be right. Romans four four can't get much
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  more basic than this. Paul describes how the Christian life begins. Are we
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  justified and put right with God by working for God earning a wage, or
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  by trusting him to work for us? In our utter helplessness. So here's
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  the quote. To the one who works, his wages are not counted as
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  a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not
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  work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
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  So we did not get right with God in the beginning of our Christian
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  life by serving him for a wage of salvation. He worked for us,
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  He served us, not us him. He did the humanly impossible on the
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  cross. So with all those red warning lights flashing in our face, we
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  better not serve God that way, as though we could earn wages, as
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  though we could meet his needs, as though we could put him in our
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  debt, make him our beneficiary. So here's here's what we need to ask.
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  Well, wow, should we serve him? You keep telling us what's
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  all the bad ways? What is right service? And maybe the deepest and
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  clearest answer is first Peter four eleven. This gets prayed over me every time
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  I preach it at Bethlehem for years and years. This was our go to
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  verse, just before walking upstairs to preach. Let him who serves serve in
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  the strength that God supplies, so that in everything God may get the glory
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  through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the dominion forever. So every effort expended
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  in the service of God is a God given effort. That may be the
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  most important sentence. Let me say it again, Every effort expended in the
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  service of God, the right service of God, is a God given effort.
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  That's what must absolutely sink into our souls. Otherwise we will always think
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  of ourselves as bringing to God things that he doesn't have, as though we
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  could his needs, which he doesn't have any He's not served as though he
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  needed anything. The conception of service that dishonors God and will not help people
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  because it points them away from God's all supplying grace toward our own supposed self
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  produced moral efforts is serving without relying upon Him to serve us. In our
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  serving, all god pleasing service is done in the moment by moment reliance upon
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  God's service enabling power. Or to say it another way, the only service
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  of God that pleases God is done through the glad acceptance of His undeserved service
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  toward us and in us. And we see this in sec in Chrinthians fifteen
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  ten. By the grace of God I am what I am, and his
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  grace towards me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked there.
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  You could say I served more zealously than any of them. And then
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  he adds, though it was not I but the grace of God that was
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  with me. So yes, we work, yes we serve. We have
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  a master, we obey, But every baby step we take in obedience to
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  our master is a gift of grace from him to us. Therefore, we
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  should never think of our service to God as a way to repay him ingratitude
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  or for his goodness to us, because every step we take in that so
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  called payback is another gift from Him, and it takes us deeper into debt
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  to grace, which is a glorious place to be forever and ever and ever.
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  We will never not be debtors to God's grace for all eternity. With
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  every act of obedience glad obedience to the end of eternity, and it has
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  no end, we will go deeper and happier into debt to the praise of
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  the glory of His grace. So here's one last picture of this peculiar kind
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  of service to God. Jesus said, no one can serve two masters.
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  Serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other,
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  or he'll be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot
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  serve God and money, So the question is how do you serve money?
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  That would be a clue. Serving money doesn't mean doing things to meet money's
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  need. You serve money by calculating all your plans your efforts to benefit from
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  what money promises you. Calculate your whole life to benefit from what money promises
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  you. Your life revolves around trying to put yourself in the position of the
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  greatest benefit from money. That's also what it means to serve God. You
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  serve God by calculating all your plans and all your efforts to benefit from all
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  that God promises to be for you. Your life revolves around trying to put
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  yourself under the waterfall of God's greatest blessing, positioning yourself for the greatest benefit
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  God has to give, namely himself. So I conclude, yes, God
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  enlists us into his service, which means he calls us to have a part
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  in accomplishing his purposes, not meeting his needs, and he accomplishes his purposes
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  precisely by supplying the grace to our work to do our work. Because the
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  giver gets the glory, the servant gets the joy. And that's God's purpose
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  for his world, his glory and the joy of his people in him.
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  Amen. Yeah, every effort expended in the service of God is a God
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  given effort, and we're not meeting his needs, thank you, pastor John.
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  But we do give God things. We give him. We give him
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  things like praise, we give him thanks, we give him glory, we
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  give him power, Give power to God. That's Psalm sixty eight thirty four,
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  give power to God. So how do we give God power? What
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  do we give to God if we meet none of his needs? Is an
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  interesting question to follow, this one, and it comes up from a listener
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  named Jeff. Next time, I'm your host, Tony Rankie. We'll pick
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  it up here on Monday. See then,