The Son who Serve

…. Let my son go, that he may serve me……
(Exo 4:23)

This was the message to Pharaoh which Moses brought. No other complications, just to be set free from our sinful past and bondage to the devil to serve the Father. The danger for Christians is to think that there is a need to serve people because that is the ‘natural’ response to meeting the needs of people around us. Here we see our primary call to fulfill God’s need to serve Him as a son, which is ‘to the Lord, and not unto men ‘(Col 3:23). He saved us that we might serve Him in love and in deep gratitude for our salvation. If the intent is responding purely to human needs than we are in danger of missing the point for our salvation and because in our human weakness people may see the servant clearer than the Father, if people are in the light of our well doing they will glorify our Father in Heaven (Matt 5:16). There is a fine line between serving Father and serving men. Our service has to be light to others not mere fulfilling human needs. Not able to see is the absence of light, there is only one seeing, that seeing is toward the Father.

Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
(Exo 19:4-6)

The Israelites were saved from their bondage from one king to the King of kings thus living in the Kingdom of God. Our service to our King is basically two fold. Firstly is to obey and secondly in our ‘being’. As the Israelites were saved than given the laws, so we are saved by grace (Rom 3:20, 24) to able to fulfill the spirit of the law because we live not by the flesh but by the Spirit (Rom 8:4). The sequence of the Israelites salvation by grace and the giving of the law to live in the Kingdom is the same, save first then presented with the law. Jesus went further to give the spirit of the law in Matt 5 (‘ye have heard that it was said by them of old time…..’), so the Old and the New Covenants don’t contradict each other.

Secondly, our being is seated with Christ (Eph 2:6), our spiritual position. Our spiritual being is heavenly but our purpose on earth is salt and light (Matt 5:13-16). We can’t afford just to be heavenly but of no earthly use. The call of Israel to serve the Father is to be a declaration not isolation. Peter adds to ‘show forth the praises of Him’ who called us (1 Pet 2:9). Declaring the virtues and excellencies of His glory. If we don’t live in obedience to the laws of the Kingdom, how then can we be citizens thereof? What rights have we to declare God’s praises if the vessels don’t reflect the call to be a holy nation.

And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: …….
(Luke 15:29)

In our call to serve the Father we must continually take heed that we serve with meekness and love for the Father. We have nothing to boast about in our service (‘these many years do I serve thee’), but we in the cross of Christ (Gal 6:14), that the life we live, we live by ‘the’ faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us (Gal 2:20), the redemption that led to our calling to serve the Father. May we long to wait for our Savior’s welcome into His Heavenly Kingdom after our task on earth is done…. ‘Well done my good and faithful servant’.