Freed for Slavery

What does it mean to be free? In our minds, or at least in my mind, we tend to hang onto the idea that if we decide not to be a slave to righteousness, we’ve actually made the right call, we’ve freed ourselves to do what we want in every way. But this isn’t the case. Throughout the gospels, Jesus raises the truth about our slavery: we are always a slave to something or someone. We’re either a slave to God, or a slave to ‘sin, the world, and the devil’. The Bible makes it clear: it’s not a choice between slavery and freedom; it’s a choice between freeing slavery and condemning slavery.

This idea of inevitable slavery, which drives chapters 12 and 13 of Serving Without Sinking, is summed up most simply as we are taken to Matthew 6:24, in which Jesus proclaims “You cannot serve both God and Money.” There’s no implication of being free from slavery entirely, but that one will always master you.

You could be feeling weighed down by all of this slavery talk, but slavery to Jesus is in no way to be seen as a burdensome alternative to a freedom that we’ll never reach. Remember those identity factors from last week’s chapters? Being served by Jesus, as well as a friend, son and bride are the lenses through which we see our service.

The character of our master makes a world of difference to our experience of serving him. Have you ever had a great boss at work? Someone who showed kindness and generosity to their workers? God’s character as the master who himself sacrifices and serves means that serving needn’t be burdensome. We don’t have a harsh master who cares for his own gains only, but a gentle one who cares so much for our good that He made the world’s greatest sacrifice for us.

As I read these chapters I was led to consider just what a gift it is to be freed from the toxic mastery that our idols leverage over us. As Hindley points out, “If we’re all slaves, how can we be free? Only by being slaves to a master who offers us freedom.” No beauty, wealth, popularity, perfection or achievement that I am tempted to chase after will really hold any genuine or lasting satisfaction. It is Jesus who holds out living water that liberates us from the grip of slavery to meaningless idols.

But perhaps as you read these chapters, you recognised that actually, in some areas of service you are really sinking. What will you do about this? Perhaps it's worth a conversation with your pastor, or training someone to take on one of your roles, all in the name of preserving the joy that can be found in serving. 

Going forward in light of these chapters, I’m hoping to go to God with two different issues. First, I’ve seen that I need to turn from idols. Which is inevitably not going to be a one-time thing. I pray that when I slip, God will enable me to turn back to him, treating idols as the dangerous unit that they are, choosing to be mastered by God and nothing else.

The second consequence of all this, means I hope God continually enables me to be honest with myself about my attitude to serving and what kind of servant I am living as. Hindley helpfully challenges us in this by the poetic comparison he draws to the prodigal son and his elder brother. The author imagines up the scene that follows Jesus’ parable. The younger brother, knowing his need for redemption and his rightful place under the loving rule of his father, goes about serving with a smile, joyful to be the recipient of such generosity. But we’re not sure that the elder brother sees himself in the same light. The elder brother is marked by entitlement to everything the father gives him, so does he smile in his service? Is he joyful, or a harbour of resentment? We need to be honest with ourselves and refocus our understanding of Jesus if we think we might be the type of servant more like the elder brother.

At the end of the day, we are encouraged that Christian service is to be an easy yoke, a joy that brings a smile to our face, because of the huge gift it is to serve God, the Father who has been more generous than I could ever fathom.

The best gift...really?

When Michelle first raved to me about cronuts, I was sceptical. She talked them up so much it left me wondering if any pastry could really be that amazing. The way she spoke about them, it was as though they had genuinely left a profound impact on her life. Would it- could it- ever be that amazing when I tried it? I mentally prepared myself to expect less than the rave reviews promised. But the crispiness of the croissant-like pastry, combined with the doughy, cinnamon-y goodness of a doughnut did not at all disappoint. Somehow, it actually managed to exceed the expectations I had. Seriously, do yourself a favour and track down some cronuts.

Sometimes, we are promised things that just don’t deliver. They might be talked up and raved about, but they turn out much less than what we’d anticipated, like the disappointing short straw. But when we read about Jesus’ gift of the Spirit to us and the other gifts that flow on from this, it becomes clear that walking alongside Jesus in our service is itself a tremendous gift, the best one of all.

As history moves on, after the life of Jesus, He continues to serve us. He has poured out such generous love on us, and yet He continues to serve us by actually dwelling in us through the Spirit. These next chapters in Serving Without Sinking go on to show how great a gift we are given in being able to serve. How unimaginable is it that God has been so generous and loving to us, and yet He continues to do so with opportunities to love and be loved in the context of Christian community?

The gifts we are given may appear to us as being the short straw. We see ourselves as being burdened by the gift that helps us only to carry out thankless jobs, while we look around at others whose gifts are bringing them success and praise from others. Looking at the spiritual lot we have been dealt, it can be easy to covet the gifts others have. It can also be tempting to think we know what areas of service in which it would be better for us to be gifted. But how much more than us does the Spirit know our gifts and how best they should be used?

In Chapter 10, “The Gift of Serving”, Hindley draws our attention to the purpose of the gifts that we are given by the greatest gift of all, the Spirit. After making reference to 1 Corinthians 12 and the body of Christ, the question is raised, “Did you notice that these gifts are things we use to serve? … being able to serve in the ways that you do is a good gift from your father. What we sometimes think of as chores to be done, the Father thinks of as gifts to be unwrapped.” So our gifts are not given for our glory or success, but for the serving and building up of His people. Serving is our privilege. Jesus goes on serving us, and we are privileged with the gift of walking alongside Jesus in life and serving.

Have you ever thought, seriously thought, about what your gifts are in serving Christ’s body? Now could be the time for you to think about what service you are gifted in and look for opportunities to use them. There is welcoming to be done by those of us who love meeting new people. There are meals to be hosted by those of us who are inclined towards hospitality (and gifted as cooks!). And the avid disciplers among us will never be short of people to meet with and read the Bible. Whatever your gift, whatever your Spirit-led inclination, there will always be opportunities to serve Jesus as the Spirit works in us. Let’s look for opportunities to use our gifts for the good of the Kingdom, knowing that they are a gift to us in being able to love the church and be loved by His people.

The Complex Servant

Chef. Artist. Band-aid distributor. Tutor. Employee. Employer. Friend. Daughter. Wife. Mother. Servant.

The lives of women are complex at best, and more often, verge on the chaotic. The umbrella of our identity shelters a range of roles and facets. We can be pulled in a million different directions.

As I read on in Serving Without Sinking this week, I saw the complexity of Jesus’ identity as both our master and our servant. Jesus’ nuanced identity means that ours as his servant has more complexity to it than we might have first imagined. Being in Christ and served by Him doesn’t reduce the complexity of our lives. You might wish I could tell you that serving Jesus would make life simpler, but in truth, our complex identity in Christ as His servants enriches our lives and approach to service for the better.

These next four chapters present us with four attitude-altering identities that have been won for those of us who are in Christ. Jesus’ service plants those of us who follow Him into four identity categories. Through adoption into God’s family, we are one of His sons. Through His sacrificial life-giving love, we’re made into Jesus’ bride. In accordance with Jesus’ words in John 15, Hindley proposes that because “Jesus has taken the secret things that belonged to the Lord and shared them with His disciples” we serve as Jesus’ friend. All of these are informed by the fact that we are people who Jesus serves. After all, “Jesus’ greatness is not that He can command the service of millions; it is that He serves millions”.

What has really changed my thinking as I read these chapters was the realisation that though I am just a lowly servant, serving is not the obligation of the lowly follower, but our privilege and delight. It is crazy really, to think that I, this selfish, covetous, slanderous and jealous woman, can be given the identity I have been given in Christ.

Perhaps what struck a chord for you though was the assertion that there should be an absence of obligation in our approach to serving. Do you feel over-worked, only abiding by an obligation? Perhaps you struggle to see the joy in serving? We can easily feel enslaved by service, while everyone around us seems free to do what they want with their down time. Slogging it out in the ministry field, we really just long to be liberated. But the reality is sobering. If we traded in our slavery to God, our return would be no gain at all, but slavery to worthless idols. Our service is in light of the liberated identity handed to us in Jesus.

So how do we go forward with our service after reading these chapters? Refining our image of the complex master and servant is going to change the way we serve. Jesus is a master we can serve as a friend, as a husband and as a father, but ultimately, as the one who serves us more infinitely that we could ever imagine or carry out ourselves. 

So there might be a need for us to dive deeply into the scriptures to understand these truths about Jesus with a richness that seeps out into our approach to serving.

Again and again we need to come back to Jesus to understand the identity He’s given us, and the great gift this is. We love the Servant, serve the Servant and are built up by the Servant.

The Tragedy of Lost Joy

It is a tragedy when a Christian begins to lose their joy. It is a tragic path on which to set off, living a life that calls us to serve God, but having no joy in the gifts that He secured for us so long ago.

Calling the loss of joy a tragedy might strike you as melodramatic. You might be reading this thinking I could benefit from a lesson in the ways of this big, bad world and the true tragedies it holds. But when a pattern emerges, exposing how we rob ourselves of a once zealous joy by bearing a burdensome view of service, we might be taking a tentative step towards the tragedy of unbelief.

Have you, like me, gone through the odd day when serving feels less joyful and more like hard work? Thankfully such days don’t see us bound to the problematic path towards unbelief. Our book for March, Serving Without Sinking by John Hindley bears the tagline “How to serve Christ and keep your joy”. My prayer is that as we dive into it together, we might come to a rebalanced view of God, service and ourselves in the scheme of God’s mission.  

Early on in the second chapter, ‘Serving Can Be Joyful’, we are taken to Matthew 11 and Jesus’ declaration that he offers rest and a yoke to take upon ourselves that is easy and light.

Have you ever read those few verses, only to be left wondering how taking up a yoke and rest go together? But what stands out in this chapter is that both of what Jesus offers here live in tandem in the Christian experience, rather than being at odds with each other. Jesus offers His people rest. He offers us a yoke, a job to take up in the work of His kingdom and plan.

As we dig deeper with the writer, it seems obvious that the yoke would quickly become hard and weighty without the rest that comes from security in Christ. Likewise the rest would be fruitless without the pursuit of what pleases the God who grants it to us. It is when there is an imbalance that our service swings in the joyless direction.

The third chapter continues on to expose our easily adopted wrong views of God, ourselves, and service: a problem of the heart. Reading on I recognised the wrong views I have held at one time or another, views which meant I robbed myself of the joy that comes from service. Don’t we all, now and again, view service not as a privilege, but a burden, not as a response but a requirement, not a contribution but the lynchpin.

It’s at this point that I want to commend the author’s genuine, humble and real approach to this struggle we all face. Hindley is not afraid to use the very personal pronoun ‘I’ and to put himself forward as the prime example of every misguided attitude to service. As I read through and feel challenged about what’s going on in my own heart, Hindley has already relieved me from the burden of feeling like the world’s one and only sinner.

These first few chapters of Serving Without Sinking have so far brought me to understand the views and attitudes that can lead to my resentment of serving. Hindley paints pictures of a range of people we might be like in our attitude to serving. Did you recognise yourself in any (or all) of them? I have been the person who serves because I think God needs that from me. I have been the person who serves only because I know it will be seen and admired. I have been the person who serves to try and stay in God’s good books. But God is the one who has graciously outstretched a saving arm to fallen people like me. We should take a step back in amazement at the thought that this God just as graciously allows us to be included in making this message known.

About our contributor: I’ve been a Sydney girl all twenty-three years of my life and have just moved from the leafy 'burbs of Northern Sydney to the narrow streets and terraces of Newtown.

I grew up being taught about Jesus from a young age, and while I always thought there was a God and that the God of the Bible seemed to be Him, it was in my early years of high school that I truly understood the Gospel and put my trust in Jesus.

In early February I started studying at Moore Theological College, in the hope of completing the Bachelor of Divinity. So far it has been thoroughly stretching my understanding of God, His Word, and how to bring it to bear on people’s lives.

I’ve had a long-standing affinity for reading, writing and the English language, and I was able to indulge this for three years studying media and writing at Macquarie Uni before I started an MTS apprenticeship at Crossway Anglican Church, Carlingford. It’s a great gift to have access to the Bible and know God through it, and I love poring over it to soak up what it reveals about God and His plan for us in Jesus Christ. I also love reading novels and quirky short stories, and in recent times particularly I’ve come to really appreciate the availability of good Christian books and their value in helping us understand the scriptures.

As well as this I love baking, watching The Office (US, of course!), sewing, and going out to see live bands, all with a cup of good coffee or tea in hand.