SERVE

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have GRACE, by which we may SERVE God acceptably with reverence and godly fear – Hebrews 12:28

We are saved to SERVE (1The.1:9). There is a Grace-dimension that enables us to “serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Heb.12:28a). Serving Grace ensures acceptable Service and worthy worship; it is grace for “proving what is acceptable to the Lord” (Eph.5:10). It has also been described as: the outworking of God's eternal plan in which He calls undeserving people to the privilege of His service, and then directs, empowers, and blesses their work. Paul testified to the eternal quality of: “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with flesh and blood…” (Gal.1:15-16). Serving Grace supplies empowerment to serve God effectively: “As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1Pet.4:10). Grace provides us with specialty to serve God.

God wants to begin fresh works through us as He did with Paul: “According to the GRACE of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation…” (1Cor.3:10). He wrote to the Ephesians: “of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power” (Eph.3:7). God is interested in raising generations of believers who through the revelation of grace are so passionate about Christ that they take up every available opportunity to train, grow, and serve; indeed, they are prepared to lose all in order to gain Him! We are enjoined to “serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Rom.7:6b). We must avoid unacceptable service: serving the flesh, the belly or the enemy. We are warned to avoid those who “do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple” (Rom.16:18).

Serving God is an honor that can only be enjoyed by true lovers of God; the rest is dead, dull, legalistic religion. Serving God and humanity is a privilege of grace rather than of merit or right; one that must be responded to with an attitude of gratitude. Paul also alluded to this: “For I am the least of the apostles, who am also not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the GRACE of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1Cor.15:9-10a). Rightly understood, grace never produces lazy, fleshly Christians but workers, sold out for Jesus. Grace trains and shapes our lives to be like Christ. Outside of grace, labor becomes toiling, and service turns into servitude.

Followers of Jesus dwell in God's unique Kingdom: “For our citizenship is in heaven…” (Phil.3:20a). Now we are in “a kingdom that cannot be shaken” (Heb.12:28). In order to serve the Lord acceptably, we must learn to serve in a unique, heavenly manner. When we received the King as our Lord and Savior, the full resources of His kingdom became our portion. God “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Eph.1:3). Yet, in a profound sense, we are still receiving His kingdom - “a kingdom which cannot be shaken.” This process of receiving involves the daily appropriation of His kingdom provisions, by faith. The provision of grace is especially strategic, since this is how we serve God acceptably. We are called to serve our King; and that cannot be by merely maintaining mediocrity. We need to have grace as our empowering resource. Desiring to minister by grace allows our service to flow forth acceptably as worship unto the Lord.