What Does It Mean to Be Slaves of God? Part 3

Hello, everyone! If I seem a little bit disjointed up here, it's because I have some water buildup or wax buildup in my ear here, so I can't hear out of my left ear today. So if I've looked at you kind of strange when you talk to me this morning, that's why. It's also a little bit disconcerting because I can't really hear my feedback as I'm talking here, so it's a little bit odd situation there. So hopefully that won't keep me too discombobulated here. I'll make sense, at least as much sense as usual here. But good to see all of you again. Kaerosundalos. Kaerosundalos.

I thought I'd start off today with a brief Greek lesson. Kaerosundalos. That means greetings, fellow slaves. And that's what we are. We are fellow slaves, as we've talked about in our last two sermons in this series. And I thought this would be an appropriate starting point as we continue and hopefully conclude today the series of sermons on how we are slaves to God.

In my last two sermons, we covered a lot about what it means to be slaves of God. And as we saw in those two sermons, a number of key points that are very important for us in our lives as Christians. And I'd like to briefly recap some of the key points. We covered a lot of ground, but some of the important points that I want us to remember, going back to the first sermon, are, first of all, that God refers to his people as slaves more than any other term in the Bible.

He refers to his people as slaves more than any other term in the Bible, more often than Christians, more often than Church of God, more often than any other term. And we went through some of the many, many references to that in the Bible. And we saw that many of those references to slaves and slavery are misunderstood or obscured because the Greek word for slave was mistranslated in our English versions of the Bibles as servant. But the word doulos does mean slave, not servant. And because of that, again, many of these references and many of the lessons we should learn are obscured there. And we covered how basically every time the word servant is found or used in the New Testament, it actually means slave. It's the word doulos. It's used more than 120 times in the New Testament, most of which refer to church members individually or as a whole. And because of that mistranslation, we miss out on a number of important spiritual lessons that God has inspired to be written down for us in his word.

Again, we also covered, I won't review this now, but covered some of the distinct differences between a servant and a slave. A servant has the option of choosing his own master, his working conditions, who he will work for, what he will do. A slave does not have that option. A slave is owned by someone. A slave is obligated to do exactly what his master tells him to do. That's one of the key differences there. We covered a number of others in that series of sermons, though. But these here, the four bulleted points, are four key takeaways that I want you to remember from this series. And again, why are these important? Well, because from this time forward, whenever you come across the word servant in your Bible, just automatically substitute the word slave in there, and you'll be right more than 90% of the time. And this is important if we are to get a right picture of what God is trying to teach us by referring to us as his slaves so often.

Last time, we talked about a number of those spiritual lessons that we are to learn from parallels with slavery as it was practiced in the Roman Empire in the first century. And as I covered in those two sermons, slavery as practiced in the Roman Empire was very, very different from the type of slavery that we have in our minds from our nation's history of slavery. It was something very, very different in the Roman Empire. We spent a lot of time covering those differences there.

And there's a lot of very important lessons that we draw from that. And one of the most important is that it's a story about God's love for us through the different analogies of slavery there.

I'll condense it a bit. Last time, I covered seven different points, but I've condensed that down to four points. I'd like to recap briefly here. And that story of God's love can be summarized like this in these four points. First, we started off being slaves to the worst, most cruel, and oppressive master imaginable, which is sin and Satan the devil, the ultimate instigator, initiator of sin. So that's where we started off when God called us. We started off in all of mankind today as enslaved to Satan the devil and sin, except for those few that God has called and is working with. So we were in that hopeless situation, and God rescued us.

Interestingly, one of the shades of meaning of the word savior is rescuer. In Hebrew, it has both meanings. God our savior, God our rescuer. So God rescued us by buying us from that evil and cruel master to serve him. Slaves are bought and sold, and the only way out for a slave who was stuck with a cruel and oppressive master in the first century, the time of Paul's writings and the gospels, was to be bought by another master. And that is exactly what God did. He stepped in and bought us from our cruel and evil master to rescue us to make us his slaves. And the third point is that as his slaves, we then have the opportunity to become part of our new master's household.

And he provides the way for us to gain true freedom and citizenship. So progressing in this picture of God's love for us, from a state of slavery to being bought by a new master, a new master who gives us the opportunity to become a part of his household, ultimately a part of his family, to be adopted as his children, and to gain freedom and citizenship. Our citizenship is where our citizenship is in heaven. We talked quite a bit about Roman citizenship and the benefits that conveyed over the previous two sermons. But our citizenship is even greater than that. Our citizenship is in heaven. And then finally, as part of this story of God's love for us and his rescue from slavery to Satan the devil to make us his own slaves, ultimately he adopts us as his very own children and promises us the greatest inheritance imaginable in the kingdom that he has prepared for us. So again, this just very briefly summarizes the seven points that I covered about this last time. And this is truly an amazing story of God's love and his grace toward us.

What is grace? To briefly summarize, it is everything good that God does for us because he is a good God, because he is a loving God, and because he is a God who wants only the best for us. And so, in this recap, we started off as slaves to the worst, most cruel and evil master imaginable. We were in a hopeless situation with no way out. And in his love for us, God rescued us from that hopeless situation. And he did this by buying us, by purchasing us with a very high price, the blood of his only son, to buy us from that evil master, so we could then become slaves to serve him. And then, just as the Romans provided a way for slaves to attain their freedom, and ultimately, even Roman citizenship, God provides us a way to attain freedom and the citizenship in heaven through faithfully serving him. And he also makes it possible, as we talked about in depth last time, to become part of his household and his family, and to be adopted as his children, and eventually receive that incredible inheritance of his kingdom that he's prepared for us. And it is truly a wonderful and inspiring picture of God's great love for us, and the price paid for us by the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who paid that price so that we can be bought by and serve our new master and owner and no longer serve as slaves to sin. So with these key points here that we've recapped here briefly, let's continue and conclude this series today by covering where the rubber meets the road, where this has practical application in our lives as slaves of God.

Practical application in terms of how we live, how we act, what our obligations are as slaves to this new master. I've touched on some of those points briefly in the two previous sermons, but today I want to dig deeper into this part of the subject and what it means for us. So today, for a title of this sermon, it is, How Can We Be Faithful Slaves of God? How can we be faithful slaves of God? What does that mean to be a faithful slave of God? How can we do that? What are the attributes of a faithful slave? That's primarily what we'll be focusing on today. What are the attributes of a faithful slave? What does God expect of us in our transition from being a slave to sin to being a slave to God, an heir of God, and ultimately one of his own children?

Well, today we'll go through and look at answers to those questions from the Scriptures.

So what we'll do in the sermon time today is cover five attributes that reflect what it means to be a faithful slave. There's certainly more than five. I actually had as many as 14 before I started whittling it down to these five here. But I want to focus just on these five that are key to what God wants and expects from us. But before we get into those five, I'd like us to turn over to Philippians 2 and beginning in verse five because when we are called upon to to show certain attributes or actions or perspectives in our lives, it's always helpful to have a role model. It's always helpful to have a personal example to look to to see what those attributes, what those attitudes, what those actions look like in real life. It's helpful to emulate someone, to have someone as an example to follow. So where do we look to find an example of what it means to be a slave to God in the way that God wants to see that reflected in our attitudes in our lives?

As I covered in the first sermon, many of the apostles referred to themselves as slaves.

The apostle Paul did. The apostle John did. Peter did. Jude did. James did. All of them referred to themselves as slaves of God. So we have their examples. We have a lot of examples from the life of Paul, much more so than the other apostles. So we do have them as examples, but we also have a greater example than that, and that is the example of Jesus Christ himself as a slave. Let's notice this in Philippians 2 beginning in verse 5. We'll read verses 5 through 8. And notice what Paul tells the members of the church there in Philippi, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God. And this word, robbery, means basically something to be held onto or tightly grasped as someone who robbed someone and is clutching his loot as he's running away. That's why it's translated robbery, something to be tightly held onto, tightly grasped. There's the meaning of that word. So the meaning of this is that Jesus did not consider his position as God with the Father, with all of that power, that glory, that splendor, that majesty to be something that he had to hold onto or tightly grasped.

So for our sakes, Paul continues here, for our sakes, he made himself of no reputation taking the form of a bondservant. This word, bondservant, is mistranslated. It's the word, slave, again.

Dulo, slave, the same word we've talked about so much in this series. And coming in the likeness of men. Now I want to draw your attention to a contrast here. We'll cover several different contrasts today, but notice Paul says here, let this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider that something to be tightly grasped, but took the form of a bondservant. He's taking this contrast, making this contrast, between the greatest form—and this word is hard to translate into English. It's actually the root of our word, morph, in Greek, meaning in this case the form or the appearance. That's why it's translated both ways. He appeared, he was in the form of God with great glory and power and splendor and majesty as the one who spoke and the earth and the universe came into existence. He had that form, but he didn't consider that something to be tightly grasped or held onto. And for our sakes, took the form of what? Took the form of a slave, of a doulos, of a slave. It's what that word means and the way it's translated there. Took that form, not just a human being, not a Lord or a King or something as an earthly human being, but a tiny, helpless infant, one of us. So he could be one of us, so he could experience what we go through in this life, so he could be tempted in every way as we are in this life, so he could be our righteous judge.

He did that for our sakes and became as a slave, not as royalty, not as a king, not as a nobleman, but as a slave, someone who would be a servant to everyone, someone who would live his life as an example of service to everyone, someone who would literally pour out his very life in serving and in giving to others through his entire life, not just at the time of his death. So Paul is drawing this contrast here between the form Jesus had before he became a physical human being and the form that he took for our sakes from the highest form imaginable to the lowest, most lowly and humble form as a slave, as a servant. And then verse 8, "...and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross." So the point Paul is making here is that Jesus Christ, although being fully God, gave that up entirely to become again one of us, to the point of becoming a human being and not just a human being but a slave, humbling himself to serve mankind and humbling himself to the point that he would be tortured and beaten and executed in the most painful and disgusting way for our sakes as part of God's plan. So Paul says that getting back to the point of a slave's attitude, a slave's actions, Paul says that this is our role model.

This is our ultimate role model. That's why he says at the beginning, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus and then talks about his example of humility and service and becoming a slave for the sake of all humanity here. He's saying we should have that mind of Jesus Christ who was willing to do this for our sakes.

And if Jesus Christ is willing to do that even though he was God and became God in the flesh, how much more should we have that kind of humble and serving attitude of a slave? So if we do want a role model and what it means to live the attributes of the kind of slave that God wants us to be, we have a perfect example and model of that in Jesus Christ.

And again, as we've been going through in our series on the Gospels, which we will be getting back to now that we're finishing up this series, we have that perfect example and going through the Gospels, we're seeing that on many levels, what that means to be like him in every way. As the Apostle Paul also said, I didn't write down the reference, but he said, follow me or imitate me as I follow Christ. Paul knew who his role model was and he tried to follow that example in everything. Paul was trained as a rabbi, but Paul was also a Talmid of a rabbi.

Paul's rabbi was Jesus of Nazareth. As I've talked about a number of times in our studies on the Gospels, a Talmid wants to do what? He wants to not just know what the rabbi knows, but to become like his rabbi in every way. That's what Paul is saying when he says, follow me as I follow Christ. He says, follow me, become like me as your rabbi as I follow my rabbi, Jesus Christ.

We'll talk about that a little bit more as we go further into that. This is an introduction to, again, these five attributes of a faithful slave that we'll discuss today. And this leads us into the first point, which is that a faithful slave must have a serving attitude. A faithful slave must have a serving attitude. If we are Christians, we cannot escape the fact that we are also slaves. As we just read, Jesus Christ came as a slave, and if we are to follow him, we have to be slaves, too. He made this point to his disciples, his Talmidim, over in Matthew 20, verses 25 through 28.

Let's turn over there. And to set the stage for this, this is a famous passage where they had been arguing about who was going to be in charge over what in the kingdom. And Jesus Christ had to step in and teach them a lesson. He had to show them how they were entirely missing the point of what this way of life as Christians is all about. So, let's notice this. Now, bring out some interesting things I learned in here as we go through this. So, Jesus called them, the apostles, the 12, to himself and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and those who are a great exercise authority over them.

And I must say, on this Italy trip that I did several months ago, a large part of that was focusing on the Roman leadership, the Roman emperors. And I have to tell you, the level of corruption and ego and abuse that existed among the Roman emperors and leadership was just mind-blowing.

I can't even begin to repeat how disgusting and degrading the lifestyles. There's the famous phrasing, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And this was very true of the emperors, and it was practiced. It went down from them through the various levels of governance in the Roman Empire. And this is what Jesus is talking about here. You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them. They abused their authority. In other words, they mistreat people, and those who are great among them exercise and abuse this authority over those who are under them.

And he says, yet it shall not be so among you. We are to practice a very different model. It's going to be very different for his followers, not like the Gentile leadership of the Romans. He says instead, whoever desires to become great among you shall let him be your servant, and whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom, as a payment for many.

Now, let's back up a little bit in the story. What prompted Jesus to call the Twelve, the Apostles, together to tell them this? Well, if you back up a little bit, I don't have this on screen, but in verse 21, what prompts this incident and this discussion here, this teaching here, is that in verse 21, the mother of James and John, now who's the mother of James and John? Well, she's actually the sister of Jesus' mother, Mary. She's Jesus' aunt.

James and John are Jesus' cousins. You can see this documented in our book about Jesus Christ, the real story. But what did she do? She came to her nephew, Jesus, and said, let's make a deal. I would like for you to allow your cousins, my sons, James and John, to sit on your right hand and your left hand in your kingdom to be number one and number two in authority after you. And an interesting thing I learned in researching this, one source I read, said that those positions on the right hand and the left hand were called the first position and the great position. There, keep that in mind. So what did Jesus tell those who wanted to be in those first and great positions there? He said, do you want to be in the great position, the number two position? Well, if so, then you need to be a servant. The word, the Greek word here, is diaconos, from where we get the word dikin. It means literally one who waits on tables.

It says you want to be great. You want to be number two in the kingdom. Well, learn how to wait on tables. Be a servant. Be a servant. And you want to be in the first position at my right hand, and guess what? You need to be a slave.

Again, here's one of those contrasts like we talked about with form, the form of God and the form of a slave. A minute ago, Jesus Christ draws a contrast here.

He says, you want to be first after me in my kingdom? You want to sit on my right hand?

Then become a slave. You want to be great? You want to sit on my left hand as a number two position?

Learn what it means to be a servant. You're not going to be like the Romans. You're not going to be like the governors. You're not going to be abusing people like that. You're going to be a servant to people. You're going to be a slave to people. So he turns their reality totally upside down, their expectations. He said, if you want to be first, then you need to put yourself in the very lowest position, that of a slave, someone who serves everyone. And this was totally again, again, totally unlike the Romans, the Roman mindset. Their lifestyle was again utterly, utterly corrupt, utterly degenerate in the way they abused people here.

God's people are to be the exact opposite. And we are to follow our role model, Jesus Christ, who, as it says here, did not come to be served, but to serve. And to give his life as a ransom for many. And as we talked about, he paid the price for us to be freed from the slavery to our cruel and evil master, Satan, to become slaves of a great and loving master, God the Father.

So we see here again a direct connection between being a serve, being a slave, and serving.

As Christians, we are to have a serving attitude. We are all called to be slaves, as we covered earlier in this sermon series. And to do that, we have to learn certain things about what it means to be a slave. This is a bit of a digression, but it's an important point. And it's one of the reasons why I started the sermon today with Cairo's Sundelos. Cairo's Sundelos. Greetings, fellow slaves. I was unsure where to work this into the sermon, and I thought this would be as good a point as any here, because again, we are all called to be slaves. And to do that, we have to learn certain things. But there is a lesson in this, greetings, fellow slaves. There's a lesson in that because I'm going to digress here for a bit. So if you want to put a sidebar in your notes, that's what this digression is. As the Apostle Paul traveled around through various cities of the Roman Empire, primarily in Asia Minor, but also in Greece, Corinth, Athens, Philippi, Thessalonica, places like that, he traveled around, he raised up churches. What kind of people were called in that church? You know, they're in the Gospels. Everyone, the Apostles, most of them stay right around Jerusalem and stay in that immediate area. And they're getting people from a common background. They're basically getting Jewish converts. The church is entirely Jewish there in its early days. But not so with the Apostle Paul. As Paul starts traveling out into other areas of the Roman Empire, what kind of people does Paul call into the church that Paul then has to be dealing with? Well, we know from his writings that it's a cross-section of different people, a cross-section of contrasts. And we see that reflected again and again in his writings. There were rich people, there were poor people, there were men, there were women, there were Jews, there were Gentiles, there were slaves, there were free people.

And Roman society was very, very class-conscious. We talked about this a little bit earlier.

And if you were upper class, if you were the Roman citizens, if you were the wealthy people, you didn't really associate with those of lower classes there. You didn't have them over for dinner or banquets in your house there. If you were a male, you didn't necessarily associate with females. At least those not part of your immediate family, your immediate household there.

If you were Jewish, we see this reflected a number of times in the book of Acts and in the Gospels, if you were Jewish, you didn't typically associate with Gentiles because they were the rabble, the ones that God had rejected. And on the other hand, if you were Gentile, you didn't necessarily associate with Jews because they were stuck up know-it-alls who thought they had everything, that they were the only ones right with God. And if you were a freed man, you didn't necessarily associate with slaves unless they were your own slaves or slaves you had to interact with there. So Paul comes along and what does he have? As he starts up churches, he has all these different types of contrasting people whom God is calling into the church here, all these people who don't normally associate with one another. So what does he say? How does he deal with this problem? Well, what does he say? You'll find this reflected several times in his writings, but he says, in God's kingdom and in God's church, there is no Jew or Gentile.

There is no rich, no poor, no freed, no slave, no male, no female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ.

You are all one in Jesus Christ. And what were they? What were they all one? What label does Paul put on them? All these people who are very class-conscious and divided and not getting along with or associating with one other. What does he call them?

He calls them the same label that he puts on himself, slaves of God. Do you get the picture? To have all of these people coming out of this class-conscious Roman society, he says we are all slaves. We're all the lowest common denominator.

There's not wealthy, there's not poor, there's not rich or poor, rather. There's not slave or free, there's not Jew, there's not Gentile. We are all slaves. We're all slaves serving a common master.

So don't think that you're too good to associate with anybody else.

Here in this congregation, you are all slaves. We are all sundulos, sun meaning with, dulos, slaves. We are co-slaves. We are fellow slaves.

Together, and that's a term Paul uses several times in his writings.

It's translated as fellow servants. It means fellow slaves. That's what we are. We are fellow slaves in the church and the household of God. That was an issue Paul had to deal with to overcome divisions and classifications and strata within the early church. It's one some places we have to deal with in the church today, but we are all fellow slaves. That's what we are, sundulos.

And if you're a slave, what do you do as a slave? You serve others.

Turning back to Philippians 2, we'll back up a few verses from what we read just a little bit earlier about the mind of Jesus Christ. Notice what Paul says here. This is from the NIV, the New International Version. Paul says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interest, but also to the interests of others. And then he goes on to illustrate how we do that with the passage we read earlier. Let this mind be in you. Let this attitude be in you, which was in Jesus Christ.

This is how we have that kind of serving attitude, that kind of giving attitude, that kind of humble attitude that Jesus Christ had. We get that attitude, we get that mindset, we become like our master Jesus Christ through serving, through giving to others, through giving of ourselves. And again, that's why Jesus Christ said he came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many, because we become like Jesus Christ by becoming the kind of slave that he was. And as we saw, he too was a slave. And that leads us into the next characteristic of a faithful slave, or attribute of a faithful slave, and that is that a faithful slave goes above and beyond. A faithful slave goes above and beyond.

Is just having a serving attitude enough? If we are like a slave, just doing exactly what we are told to do, when we are told to do it, is that enough? Let's turn over and find the answer from Jesus Christ himself in Luke 17, verses 7 through 10. This is from Green's literal translation. I'll quote from it several times today, because again, it's the one that most often translates servant correctly as slave, this word, doulos. But notice what Jesus Christ says here, about if we just do what is required of us, if that is enough. He says something here about serving, this is very important. He says, But which of you, having a slave, plowing or feeding, plowing in the field, or feeding the animals, taking care of them, will say at once to him, coming out of the field, come and recline? What he's saying is, if a master has a slave who has been out working in the field, and he's finished his work and comes in, is the master going to say, hey, come here, lay down on the sofa here for a while, take it easy. But will he, will the master not say to his slave, prepare something that I may eat, and having girded yourself, having changed clothes, in other words, serve me until I eat and drink, and after these things, then you can eat and drink, and you can have your lunch or your dinner after you've changed clothes and served me, then you can eat. Does the master have thanks to that slave because he did the things commanded of him? I think not. The point he's making here is that is the slave's job. The slave goes and does his work out in the field, and then he comes in and serves his master his meal, his food, and his drink. And the slave shouldn't expect thanks for that, for because that is his job. That is his lot in life. That is his role. The slave is doing exactly what is expected of him, in that circumstance. It is his duty to work out in the fields, and then continuing that with his duty to feed his master. And the slave shouldn't expect thanks or a reward for that because he's just doing what his job is. He's just doing what he's been told to do. So Jesus' point here is, where does that get us if we are only doing what we are told to do, or only doing what we have to do?

Well, the answer we find in verse 10. And again, this is from Jesus Christ's own mouth.

So also, when you have done all things commanded you, say, you say, we are unprofitable slaves, for we have done what we ought to do. Or, in other words, we have only done our duty. We have done only what we were told to do. So the bottom line here is, you are a slave. I am a slave. All of us are slaves. But if we do only what we are told, if we do only what we are told, when we are told to do it according to Jesus Christ, we have only done our duty. We have only done the minimum. We did what we were told, but that is it. And that kind of slave by Jesus Christ's own definition here is an unprofitable slave. An unprofitable slave is one who only does his or her duty, only what was required.

To give you an example of this, I am reminded a lot this time of the year of mowing the lawn.

And believe me, I am reminded a lot of mowing the lawn right now because of my leg problem. I haven't mowed the lawn in the last two months. Somebody else in the household who shall remain unnamed has been mowing the lawn and has been reminding me of that. But you might think back to when you were a kid, if that was your job to mow the lawn, you probably, especially in summertime, didn't like work, especially in summer because that interfered with your playtime, with your fun time. And if your parents told you to do something, you probably did just that and nothing more. I know that was the case with me. If they said, mow the front yard, that's as far as I'd go and no more. I wouldn't mow an inch outside our property line onto our neighbor's property and so on. And probably many of us were like that as children. And as we grow up, maybe we still continue that mindset of just doing exactly what we're told when we're told to do it and never going beyond that. We say, this is what I was told to do and I'm not going to do anything more than that. And if we do it right up to that point and not beyond, the point of Jesus Christ's words here is that we are unprofitable slaves. We are not profitable slaves. You might remember, talking about it quite a bit last time, the parable of the talents, where the master went away and he gave his property, gave money to his slaves while he went away on a long journey and expected a return. We talked about how that was one way a slave could earn money to buy his freedom. It was by working for his master, by his master investing in him. That's what the parable of the talents or parable of the pounds and the minas is all about. This process by which an owner would invest in his slave and allow his slave to set up his own business to eventually earn money to buy his freedom from his master and generate a profit both for himself to earn money toward buying his freedom but also generate a profit for his master. And if you don't understand that background of the parable of the towns, talents, or pounds, or minas, you totally miss the point and wonder why in the world is this master going away on a long trip and leaving his money with his slaves? What could possibly go wrong? But that was done in the Roman Empire. We saw some examples of that. We showed a picture of that from from Herculaneum where an owner had set up shops for his slaves to set up their own businesses to generate money. It's the same thing Christ is talking about in these parables here.

So again, the point of that is he expects his slaves to generate a profit.

And in the parables, two of the prophets do generate a profit for him. And another unprofitable slave goes and hides his master's money in the dirt. And what happens? The slave is cast into outer darkness at the end. And that parable, who's the master? Jesus Christ. Who are the slaves? It's us. What happens to us if we don't generate a profit for our master?

Our fate is to be cast into outer darkness.

It's not a pretty picture. Let's continue on here a little bit. Didn't mean to get off on that digression, but it's a very important point. And Jesus Christ talks about that principle in other places. Let's notice over in Matthew 5, verses 41 and 44 through 48.

This is in the Sermon on the Mount, and there's a common thread that runs through that message. And that common thread is that we have to do more than just the minimum.

And notice what he says here. He says, whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him too.

Now, what's that talking about? Well, Judea, the province of Judea at that time, was under Roman rule. And the common people were compelled from time to time to do things and perform physical labor for the Romans. In this particular case, Jesus is talking about something that was allowable for Roman soldiers to do with civilians in an area that Rome controlled. And that was, the soldiers typically carried what we would call a backpack on them. It was their equipment pack. It would carry several days of rations. It would carry their blanket. It would carry work tools, things like that. And it could weigh typically 50 to 70 pounds. And a Roman soldier was entitled by Roman law to, if he'd met a civilian along the road, to conscript that civilian to carry his pack for him for a mile. No further, just a mile. So that was as far as a soldier could make a person carry it. And as you might guess, among the Jewish civilian population of Judea and Galilee, same law applied in Galilee, the Jewish civilians didn't like that one bit. Because you get to take this heavy pack for a mile, which takes you, what, 45 minutes or so out of your way. And then you got to turn around and walk back to where you were. So if you not only had to carry that pack, you've lost an hour and a half or so out of your day there. So they didn't like that one bit. But what does Jesus say here? He says, whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him too. Go double what is required. Go beyond what is asked of you. Go beyond what is required of you. Do more than just what is required. Now think about that for a minute. With that background, I've just explained what effect would that have had on a Roman soldier if he conscripts this Jewish farmer who's walking along the road, has the misfortune to encounter him. And the Romans says, hey, you carry my pack for a mile. And the Jewish farmer carries it too.

We know the impact that's going to have on the Jewish farmer. He's not going to like it one bit. But what effect is that going to have on a Roman? For a Jew and relations between the Jews and the Romans were not good, especially with a Roman soldier. What impact does that have on the Roman soldier to have this Jew carry his pack twice the legally required distance? He's going to think, huh, maybe these Jews aren't so bad after all. Maybe their crazy religion isn't all that bad after all. It's going to totally change the mind of a Roman soldier. And that's the whole point why Jesus says something like this. It's going to change the mind and the attitude of anybody we encounter if we go double what is required of us. It's really going to make a big impression when we encounter other people and routinely go above and beyond what is required. Skipping down to verse 44 here, but I say to you, love your enemies. There's going that extra mile again to love your enemies. Bless those who curse you going above and beyond again. Do good to those who hate you going above and beyond again. And pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you again, going above and beyond. In each of these examples, so he's telling us clearly we've got to go above and beyond. Do more than the minimum. And why? Why do we do that? Next verse, that you may be sons and daughters of your Father in heaven. So this is what makes us different. This is what makes us different. This kind of attitude and approach to serving is what allows us to be sons and daughters of God, to both ultimately receive that inheritance, not of a slave but as a member of the household and the family of God, as one of his own children. Continuing, for he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust. Now, why does Jesus throw this in?

Well, his point is that God gives and God provides for all mankind, all human beings, evil and good alike. Why does he do that? Because he's a good God. Because he's a good God, he doesn't differentiate in everything he does between the righteous and the unrighteous. It doesn't work that way. So if God is willing to provide rain on the just and the unjust, to provide for people who are most good and evil, why shouldn't we? Do we think we're better than God?

He makes it clear in the next verse. Verse 46, for if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Don't even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even tax collectors do so? He's saying that anybody can love people who love them. There's nothing special at all in that. That's the minimum. But we have to go beyond that. That's the point Christ keeps making here over and over and over again in the Sermon on the Mount. And the purpose of going above and beyond the minimum is in the next verse, verse 48, therefore you shall be or become perfect.

You shall become perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

That is the purpose of our going above and beyond, as Jesus Christ says again and again. This is the end result of going above and beyond what is required, that we might be perfected by God working within us through His Spirit, and that we might in the resurrection attain the ultimate perfection, the permanent perfection, as an immortal son or daughter of God in His family.

This leads us into our third point now, which is that a faithful slave lives to serve his master. A faithful slave lives to serve his master. And as I covered in the previous two sermons, what is a slave's in the first century Roman Empire, what was a slave's foremost thought?

On his mind every day, as soon as he woke up, his foremost thought was, what does my master want, and how can I please him? What does my master want, and how can I please him? So again, a faithful slave lives to serve his master by continually saying, what does my master want, and how can I please him? Let's notice what Paul wrote over in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 15.

He says here in he, referring to Jesus, died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again. Question for us here. Who do we live for? Who do we live for? For ourselves or for the one who died for us and lives again? I guess the last question, the question last time, in discussing the incredibly high price God paid to buy us from our previous slave owners, say the devil, to buy us back and make us his slaves, for that high price that God paid and that Jesus Christ paid with his life, what return are we giving him on his investment?

What return are we giving God on his investment in us? No slave owner bought a slave in that time without expecting a return on his investment. That was the whole point. Slaves were expensive, cost a lot of money to buy, cost a lot of money to clothe, to feed, to house, all of that. Slaves were expensive. We were expensive. Again, consider the price God paid, the price of his only son.

Consider the price his son paid, his very life. Are we worth that investment or are we a wasted investment? Should God have just left us alone with our previous owner, Satan the devil?

He chose not to. He chose to make us his slaves because he knows that we can make it.

He knows that we can gain our freedom, become a part of his household, become a part of his family, that we can attain that incredible inheritance that he has for us. That's why he chose us now to be his slaves, because he knows that we can make it. That's a very positive thing. This isn't negative. I'm not trying to say this in a negative way. We have the greatest power in the universe on our side. If God is for us, who can be against us? But it all boils down to this. Who are we living for? The point Paul makes here. Who are we living for? Do we live for ourselves, or do we live for the one who gave his life for us and became our master?

And this leads right into a related question, because if we are a slave and we are, then who is our master? Paul wrote something very similar to what he wrote here in 2 Corinthians in Romans 14 and verse 8. He says here, for if we live, we live to the Lord. And if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lords. We are his. Who do we belong to? As Paul says here, we are the Lords. We live to the Lord. Whether we live or die, we are the Lords.

There's another side bar for us here. This word, Lord, is quite interesting. Just as the term slave is applied to Christians more than a hundred times in the Bible, more than any other term, this word, Lord, is applied to Jesus Christ more than any other term in the Gospels and in the writings of the apostles. The word is the Greek word koryos. Koryos. And it means owner or master or Lord. Again, it is the word most often applied to Jesus Christ. It's used 667 times of Jesus Christ or God the Father. Now, in the Greek language of that time, it was a title that meant Lord or master. It was very commonly used, not just in the Bible, but in writings of the Roman period there, on inscriptions, all of this. It was commonly used of the relationships between slaves and masters. In Greek, that was doulos and koryos, doulos, slave, koryos, master, or Lord. There are two sides of the same coin. You can't have a slave without a Lord, without a master, without a koryos. And by implication, you can't have a koryos, a master, a Lord, an owner, without doulos, without slaves. Two sides of the same coin. Masters and lords there.

But it's interesting how the language of the apostles changed over time, because as we've been going through in the gospels, what term, actually two of them, they use for Jesus more than any other terms. Well, what are those two terms? What are they regularly calling Jesus in the gospels? Anybody? Two terms. They're his talmadeem, and he's their rabbi. What do they continually call him in the gospels? Two terms, rabbi and teacher. They mean essentially the same thing. Two roles, they are his students, he is their rabbi, their teacher. But their language changes. Something happened. That was their relationship. They were his talmadeem, he was their rabbi, their teacher. So they start off calling him their rabbi and their teacher, because that's what he was to them, their rabbi. They were his students. That was their relationship that we see in the gospels again and again by those terms. But then something happens.

What happens? Their rabbi is captured and crucified. And he's in the grave for three days and three nights. And he rises, and he lives again, and he comes, and he meets with them, and he allows them to touch him, and he teaches them.

And he stays with them, teaching them. And then they all, the Mount of Olives, see him ascend up into the sky to return to his Father in heaven. What do they call him then?

They never call him rabbi or teacher after that. Their terminology changes.

They now call him Kurios. Lord, what has changed? Now they know that he is the divine Son of God.

Their relationship has changed. He's no longer their rabbi, their teacher.

Now he is their Lord, their master. And they are slaves of God.

It's reflected in their terminology there. Their relationship has changed. They no longer serve him as disciples of the rabbi, but as slaves of a master whom they know now is God, is divine.

So now their title for him is Lord, and that's what we see for him throughout the book of Acts, throughout Paul's writings, throughout the other epistles of John and James and Peter and Jude.

So now Paul writes, as we see here in verse 8, For if we live, we live to the Lord, to the master, to the Kurios.

If we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.

He owns us. We are his property. We are his slaves. And if we live, we are his slaves.

His property. If we die, we are still his slaves, his property. We are in his hands, and there are no better hands for us to be in. And as his slaves, we live to serve him in all that we do. And that leads us to our fourth point, which is that a faithful slave will serve his master wholeheartedly.

A faithful slave will serve his master wholeheartedly.

Now, why was this so important for a slave in the first century?

Well, because, as we covered last time, this was the way to improve your lot in life.

That was the way you cease to be just an average, run-of-the-mill slave, a nobody. That's how you begin to be appreciated.

That's how you begin to be valued by your master. That's how you begin to be recognized as a valued part of the household. And that's ultimately how you might be rewarded with your freedom by serving your master wholeheartedly. That's how you might ultimately attain the gift of Roman citizenship. That was, bottom line, that was your ticket out of slavery to serve your master wholeheartedly, with your whole heart and core in every fiber of your being there. That's how you might eventually be adopted into the family by your master. That's how you might ultimately receive your inheritance as a part of that family. Ecclesiastes 9 and verse 10, a very familiar passage, but it tells us, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going. What's this telling us?

It's telling us we're not here in this life for a very long time. There's a lot for us to do in this life and not all that long for us to do it in. So we need to make the most of the time that we have. That's the point in what Solomon wrote for us here. We need to do what we have with all of our not might. We need to be the best we can be at what we're doing. If you have opportunities to serve in the church, how are you doing it that? Are you doing it to the absolute best of your ability? Are you doing it with your might? If you're a song leader, are you leading songs with all your might, being the best song leader you can? If you're the person doing the snacks for after services, are you doing that to the best of your ability? Are you faithful in that responsibility?

If you're giving somebody a ride, and we have people who do that regularly, and that is a very valuable service, to give a ride to people who might otherwise not be able to come to services, are you doing that to the best of your ability? If you're a greeter, they're at the front door.

Are you doing that to the best of the ability? If you're vacuuming up the hall, vacuuming up the crumbs, little pieces of paper, and so on after services, are you doing that to the best of your ability? Whatever you're doing, are you doing it with your might? We all need to be looking at ways to do things better and to do them to the best of our ability. And that doesn't matter whether it's our roles here within the church or outside of services, in our jobs, in our families.

There are other ways to serve. Are we being the best husband we can be? Are we being the best wife we can be? Are we being the best parent, the best teenager, the best child? Whatever our role or responsibility, we need to do it with all of our might. That applies to every one of us here all the time. Let's notice what Paul wrote over in Colossians 2. And this is one of the passages. Excuse me, Colossians 3, verse 22. And this is one of the passages where, again, we see there are slaves in the church, in this case at the church in Colossae. And he gives instructions to slave owners and to slaves. And notice what he says here. And think about how this applies to us, because again, we are all slaves serving our Lord, our Master, Jesus Christ.

Here, so notice what he says here to these members who were slaves here in Colossae. This is from the NIV. Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything. And do it not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.

Not reverence for the Master, but reference for our ultimate Master, Jesus Christ. Whatever you do, do it with all your heart as working for the Lord. Not for men, not for your physical master, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord.

As a reward, it is the Lord Christ you are serving. Now, it's interesting that Paul here mentions an inheritance, because as we talked about last time, some slaves were so wholehearted, so productive, in their service to their Master that they, at times, would receive their freedom as a gift for their diligence and service. Beyond that, they could be adopted into their family. Beyond that, they could be given citizenship as Roman citizens in the Empire, and ultimately receive an inheritance as part of the family there. If they were working for their physical masters, as though they were working for Jesus Christ, as Paul tells them here, that greatly improved their odds of that happening, of gaining that freedom, gaining that citizenship, gaining that adoption, gaining that inheritance there. But Paul says, ultimately, if you're working as though you're working for the Lord and everything, you're going to get an inheritance much greater than a physical inheritance of money or property or wealth. You're going to get the ultimate inheritance, God's inheritance in the family of God. That is the greatest inheritance you can receive. And that is the kind of slaves that God is trying to teach us to become, slaves who do serve their master or masters wholeheartedly. That's the kind of slave that Jesus Christ was, is our example. And that's the kind of slave Paul was. God isn't working with the great or the powerful of this world. He's taking a bunch of lumps of clay and molding and shaping them to do a great work in us. That's what we're called to. We're called to be slaves, to have the attitude of a slave, to cheerfully serve others and our ultimate master, our masters Jesus Christ and God the Father. That leads us to our fifth point, our fifth attribute of a faithful slave. And that is that a faithful slave will be about his master's business. A faithful slave will be about his master's business. What are your priorities in life? Kind of gets back to who are you serving, yourself or others, or God. But what are our priorities and how much are they in line with God's priorities for us? Let's notice an illustration of this over in Matthew 24.

And this is, we recognize from this chapter title, Matthew 24, that's one we probably all know, this is the Olivet prophecy that describes the events that lead up to the return of Jesus Christ.

And he goes through in the first part of this chapter the various trends, the events, the chaos, the suffering, the false religion, the war, the famines, the epidemics, the earthquakes, the heavenly signs, and so on that are going to lead up to his return. And then he starts give some very pointed messages to his followers, to the church, to those people who will be alive at that time leading up to Jesus Christ's return. He gives a very direct message to his church, to you and to me, and this is part of that message. After all of these things that he goes through and outlines, he says, verse 44, therefore you also be ready. Why does he tell us to be ready?

Because obviously some are not going to be ready, as this parable shows. And he goes on to explain, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Who then is a faithful and wise servant, this word is slave, dulos, whom his master, kurios, made ruler over his household to give them food and do season? Blessed is that slave, whom his master, kurios, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. He will make him part of his household. He will adopt him into his family. He will give him an inheritance.

So we see here that that is what happens with those slaves who are faithfully being about their master's business, the job he gave them to do. They are rewarded. They receive all his master's goods. They receive an inheritance, in other words, the great inheritance that God promises to his children. On the other hand, what happens to the other slaves? The other slaves who aren't being about their master's business, who aren't doing the work, the job that their master gave him to do. Verse 48, But if that evil slave says in his heart, My master, my kurios, is delaying his coming, and begins to beat his fellow servants, his fellow slaves, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that slave will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. So we see here what happens to slaves who take their minds off their master's business. They lose the sight of the fact that they will be called, as the parable of the talents, the pounds, the minas say, they'll be called into account for what our master has given us, and the job that he's given us to do.

These slaves lose their sense of urgency. They put off thinking about the master's return.

They get distracted. They begin to focus on the physical things of this life, including physical pleasures, and we see what happens here to the slaves who choose to ignore or get distracted from the job that our master has given us to do. As it says here, verse 50 again, the master of that slave will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour that he's not aware of. He's not aware of it because he's lost sight of it. He's lost his sense of urgency, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites, and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, as its slave is cast into outer darkness.

It's interesting, the Gospel of Mark, this is why it's so good to have a harmony of the Gospels and read the accounts side by side because the Gospel of Mark gives a parallel account of this, a very abbreviated version of it, but Mark also gives a different emphasis to it. He emphasizes that we as slaves must be alert to our spiritual condition. Let's notice this over in Mark 13 verses 32 through 37, and I'm reading here from the New American Standard Bible. Again, Mark gives an abbreviated version, but he ends on a different note where Jesus gives a very sobering warning to his slaves.

It says in verse 33, Most Bible versions say something like, watch, or keep awake instead of be on the alert. The Greek word here basically just means to wake up, to be alert, to give strict attention to something, to pay attention. In other words, it's a much more active word than just watch. Watch can imply you're just sitting back passively watching. That's not the connotation. The connotation is to actively be alert, to actively be watching as these things start to come to pass, but not just be alert to them, but more importantly, to be alert to our spiritual condition as these things that he has described in the Olivet prophecy begin to shape up and come to pass. So the basic point is we need to keep watch on ourselves so that we don't go to sleep spiritually and begin to drift off as the unprofitable slaves in the Sermon. So we are not caught unawares at our Master's return. That is the real danger that Jesus Christ is explicitly warning us about here. That's why he tells us not once, not twice, but three times, be alert.

Take heed. Keep on the alert. Therefore, be on the alert. What I say to you, I say to all, be on the alert. Do you think he's trying to tell us something? Be on the alert.

Watch your spiritual condition before my return. Why? Because some are not going to be on the alert. Some are not going to be prepared. Some are not going to be about their Father's business. And I'm going to come and they're going to be cut in two. And there's going to be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The bottom line is that we cannot afford to lose sight of our Master's business, of what he's given and the job that he's given us to do as his slaves.

In conclusion, what have we seen? What are we seeing today? We've seen more than anything that God has clear expectations of us as his slaves. Those five points again. A faithful slave must have a serving attitude. A faithful slave goes above and beyond. A faithful slave lives to serve his Master. A faithful slave will serve his Master wholeheartedly. A faithful slave must be about his Father's business. Again, we've seen that God's word calls us slaves more than any other term. We've seen that he has called us out of slavery to a cruel and evil Master.

A slavery that leads to sin and suffering and death and misery. To a slavery that leads to becoming part of his household. That leads to our ultimate inheritance in his kingdom and his family.

But again, he has clear expectations for us.

In the end, for us, what words do we most want to hear our Master say to us?

We should have this memorized. Matthew 25, verse 21. Not much further on from what we were reading from Green's literal translation. The words we want to hear are well done, good, and faithful slave. You're faithful over a few things. I will set you over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord.