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I have been reading an excellent commentary that deals thoroughly with the subject of slavery in Bible times. There is not a whole lot of difference between slaves and servants in the Bible. Usually "servants" were "house slaves" or slaves that were trusted and had proved their loyalty or who had been born into the family by other loyal slaves and raised from their infancy up in the presence of their masters. When we today in America hear the term slaves, then unfortunately we view it through the eyes of the Confederate slavery and the Civil War. We think of slave traders in big ships bringing Africans over to work tobacco farms and such. And let me say that there were some cruel treatment of slaves in Biblical times, particularly among prisoners of war, but the time of American slavery was by far the worst. It was discrimination and defilement of human beings simply because of the color of their skin. It was racism and bigotry at it's worse, and thank God that the era is over in our history.

I want you to understand that to be a slave in Biblical times had nothing to do with the color of your skin. It had nothing really to do with your education level or smarts. It had to do to your circumstances. And how good a life that you lived, depended upon what level of slave that you were. The worst conditions were for hardened criminals and prisoners of war that would live shortened lives because of the harsh conditions and slave masters that worked them in mines and building projects unmercilessly. This was the type of slavery that the Israelites were freed from in Egypt. Slaves were little more than animals at that level. But then there was the level of the field worker which was viewed as a possession to be bought and sold for a profit or a gain. At that level a slave's worth was dependent upon his loyalty and his ability to work hard. Slaves were traded and sold like stocks and bonds are today. And usually, the chances of either of these two levels of slaves ever being free men and women were very slim.

But then there was the "house slave" most often called a "servant" in scripture. To be a house slave, you either had to prove your loyalty by some great faithfulness such as standing by your master in a time of a slave revolt, or you had to be born into or enter into the household as a small child. These "servants" often went to college and sometimes were more literary able than their masters. A trusted servant was often left an inheritance and sometimes they would fall in love and be permitted to marry a son or a daughter of the master and then they would become legal heirs and freemen. Those cases were rare. Usually if your were a slave or a servant, you would spend your lives serving the whims and the every needs of your master. You laid out his clothes for him in the morning. You cleaned the house. You repaired his sandals. You fixed him a meal and served it to him at every meal time. You slept while another slave was taking care of the master, because while the master slept, you were to guard him and the house and his family and possessions. When the family traveled, you were to pack everything, carry everything, and then go ahead to look out for danger and to scout out a spot to stop and rest for the night. If you did badly, you would be punished. If you were slothful, then you would be beaten and even killed on the whim of the master. If you did good, then you might get a pat on the head ever once in a while. You were a slave, and you were expected to do what you were told.

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Now most of you think that you know where I'm going, but you don't. Where you think I'm going is that throughout the Bible, the people of God are referred to as the "servants of the Lord" or "love slaves" to God. And God is always the Master. We could and probably will preach entire sermons on the special laws of slavery in the Israeli nation and what they teach us about serving God. I want to say this lest anyone misunderstand my message tonight: God is God and we are not. He is the one in charge. He is the master. He is Lord. We are the servants of the Lord. We are His slaves in His kingdom because He has purchased off the auction block of sin! But we've also been born into His kingdom and become as a trusted house servant to Him! And we as the church has also been espoused to marry His dear Son, Jesus Christ, which makes us no longer servants but sons and daughters of Him and heirs to the great inheritance. That's why Paul wrote to the church in Galatia:

Hallelujah! If you have received His Spirit, then you are no longer a slave or a servant but a child of God! I believe that and I live that and I thank God for it!

But in studying slavery in the Bible and in reading this commentary, the authors made a statement that shocked me. I'm not too often shocked by scriptural facts. But when I first read the statement and claim of the book, I laughed and said "that's the dumbest thing that I've ever heard." But when I went back to reading I found out that he had scripture for what he was saying and that the Jews believed what he was saying because of these scriptures. What was so shocking at first was this statement and I quote: "in order to make Israel free and sustain it's freedom, God so humbles himself that he takes the form of a slave." He then went on to say "Jewish teachers ... have made an amazing collection of seemingly unrelated texts of the Hebrew Bible in order to demonstrate that what a slave usually does for his master, this God does for his people." That's a crazy thought. The God of glory acting like a slave to Israel? But listen to some of the scriptures:

God said that He carried and helped the Israelites out of Egypt:

He also traveled in front of them to light their way:

He went out before them three days in advance to find a resting place for them:

He bathed them and played nurse to them and laid out their clothes:

God never sleeps but while Israel slept, God watched and protected them:

And furthermore, God fed them:

It's just a shocking way to think about God, isn't it! That the God of Glory would humble Himself and perform the duties of a common servant or slave to His creation! That the Lord of All would be the servant to his servants. It's a radical thought, and yet it's true.

And it didn't stop with just Jehovah Spirit taking care of the Hebrew people in the Old Testament, but when Jesus Christ, God in flesh, came to earth, we find that He did not come as a self-promoted king of the universe, even though that's exactly what He was. He did not even come to exalt Himself, but rather the Living Word who stepped off the throne of heaven came in the humbled form of a servant. He served humanity. He fed 5,000 men plus women and children one time and then 4,000 men plus women and children another. He fed them. A servant. Jesus spent three and a half years ministering to the needs of the people. He would get tired and yet would often spend 15 and 16 hour days healing people and caring for the sick. He ministered to them. He healed the demoniac from Gadara and we find that he healed his wounds and put clothes on his back. Jesus clothed the man. He performed the heart of a servant. Some one said that "Pilate was into titles but Jesus was into towels."

I also read recently that "you can tell if you have the heart of a servant by how you act when you are treated like one!" How true. I've known people who claimed to be servants of God but wouldn't do everything that they were asked to do by His Word. I've known people who wanted to be known as humble servants, but ask them to clean the church bathrooms or mow the lawn and see what happens! Remember: "you can tell if you have the heart of a servant by how you act when you are treated like one!" And Jesus had the heart of a servant, because when Judas Iscariot sold Him out for thirty pieces of silver, that was the price of a common male slave, and so they were treating Jesus like a slave. What did Jesus do when they began to treat Him that way? He took up a towel. "Pilate was into titles but Jesus was into towels." And so when He was treated as a servant and sold as a slave, Jesus took the time to wash every one of His disciple's feet. When they came to arrest Him, He did not fight as they had expected because He had already been purchased and so He was the faithful servant. When they whipped Him, He did not resist. When they cursed Him and spat on Him, He did not respond. Pilate and Herod marveled at His responses. He didn't fight against the soldiers when they nailed Him to the tree. He didn't put the sign that said "King of the Jews" over His cross. That was placed there by a man who was so impressed with Jesus' actions as a servant, that he couldn't deny His royalty! Jesus had the heart of a servant. He had come to humble Himself as a slave and so when they treated Him like one, it didn't phase Him.

What was really going on was that once again Jehovah God was taking on the part of the slave to His people to get them out of Egypt. Only this time it was the spiritual slavery of sin that He was coming to bear them out of! And so Jesus Christ went three days ahead of everyone else into a tomb, and then became the "first fruits of the resurrection" to show us the way into the rest that He would provide us with! Once again, Jehovah God had entered into a time of slavery and did it for His people to be protected and delivered and clothed with a robe of righteousness and for their wounds to be healed and soothed and for them to be able to be spiritually fed!

And so let me say this: we should truly have the heart of servant! We should gladly serve the Lord our God and minister unto others and in His kingdom without complaint and murmuring. God is not asking of us anything that He, Himself, has not done! But He showed us by example! It is a privilege and a duty to serve God! Does it take sacrifice? Yes, but nearly as much sacrifice as Calvary. Does it take time and heartache? Sometimes, but not nearly as much heartache as the cross! If you think being faithful to God, His house, and His commandments are hard and "too much" you frankly need to get a fresh vision of Calvary! He was our example! I should be able to serve Him in my everyday life knowing that He's fighting for me! It's a privilege to serve Him and do His will! And we'll never truly be like Christ until we have the "heart of a servant!"

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Here's the key, though. God humbled Himself and performed the duties of a slave to Israel. He did it again in the Gospels during His three and a half year earthly ministry among the Jews. The one thing in common in both instances was that God performed the duties of a slave and served ONLY people who were in a covenant relationship with Him. To be more specific, He served only the children and descendants of Abraham.

A covenant is an agreement between two parties. A covenant in scripture is always sealed with a physical sign of the agreement. God made a covenant with Noah that He would not again destroy the earth with water, and the physical sign of that covenant was the rainbow. Noah's dead and gone and God's still keeping that covenant. God is a covenant keeping God.

God made a covenant with Abraham. He told him that he would make a mighty nation of chosen people from his descendants which would be the people whom He would reveal His glory and plan through. He told Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous and as mighty as the sands of the sea. He told him that he would give Abraham's descendants the land of Israel for a possession. In the 1940s the world was shocked when Israel took back over their land and became a nation again. In the 1970s Egypt tried to invade that land and take it back and even though they were outnumbered and outgunned, Israel won a decisive victory. Go back and read some times the news reports of the "seven day war" as it was called some time. You'll find stories of bee swarms attacking Egyptian tank squadrons and equipment mysteriously breaking down. One Egyptian soldier said "it was like God was fighting against us." He was. God promised in a covenant to Abraham a long time ago that Israel would have that land and God keeps His covenants!

Abraham's part of the covenant was that he had to be physically circumcised and worship only One God and leave the many gods of the heathen. The Hebrews in the wilderness after Egypt weren't perfect, but they did manage to fulfill these two requests of the covenant and that's why God humbled Himself and became as a slave or servant to them. The Jewish people of Jesus' time had a lot false teachings and were spiritually dead, but they had two things going for them: they believed and worshipped only the One God of Abraham and all of their males -- free and slaves -- were faithfully circumcised. Therefore God came in flesh and took on the form of a servant. The promise of the servanthood of God was dependent upon their keeping their part of the Abrahamic covenant.

Let me bring it home to you my point. God is still willing to take on the duty of servanthood toward those who will be faithful to the covenant of Abraham. Jesus said:

You are not born a "child of Abraham" by being born into a certain family, but rather by taking part of the covenant that Abraham had with God! That means that we must choose to embrace the most important commandment "Hear Oh, Israel the Lord our God is One Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, soul, and might" (Mark 12:28-30). As Abraham, we must serve only One God! It's not an optional view of God. It's a covenant relationship that comes only to those who know who He is!

And we must be circumcised. But not with a physical circumcision, but through a spiritual circumcision that happens when you are baptized in water in the name of Jesus Christ. Now you know why Paul wrote to the church in Collosse' and said:

We quote that scripture often, but it's very important because it's how we get into this covenant of Abraham! For if we know that in Christ "dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" and that we are "complete in Him." And we also know and obey the "cirumcision made without hands" through the "circumcision of Christ" which we do by being "buried with him in baptism," then we fulfill the Abrahamic Covenant and become sons of Abraham in God's eyes! By believing in One God and being baptized in water in His name, we put ourselves in the group of people to which God has given the promise of His servanthood! We open the door to have God fight for us and take care of us and look after us in the role of a servant! Our stance on who Jesus is and the essentiality of water baptism in His name is more than just a side issue, but it is the core of our being. It is the source of identity that makes us a part of a covenant that God honors and keeps!

But just taking on the mark of the Abrahamic covenant is not enough to bring the blessings of God in itself because there is one other criteria that was given in our other text:

Jesus was talking to Jewish people who were in the Abrahamic Covenant! And so there is an additional step to being blessed by God. You must be faithful even when it seems that your master is far away and doesn't see or hear your cries. He said if you'll be faithful to your master, then when He comes back, the master would gird himself and feed the servants and play the part of the servant to them! There is power in being in the Abrahamic covenant and being faithful to God in truth.

You may think that God is nowhere around, but in those times that you feel deserted or you go through a "lonely time" God is seeing if you will be faithful. If you will be faithful despite the fact that you can't see God working. Faithful despite the fact that you are "waiting on God." But Jesus said that if while you are waiting on God you are found faithful, then God is going to come back and the Master is going to play the role of the servant! I'm preaching to some of you who feel as if you are "waiting on God." Be faithful. It's a test. Because when your time of visitation comes, what you get from God will depend upon whether or not you were faithful while you were waiting. If you've been faithful, you will find that God will enter a time of servanthood again and clothe you and take care of you and feed you and help you!

I'm preaching to us tonight! I've known people who were "waiting on God" and didn't feel like anything was happening in their life and so they went back to sin and they stopped being faithful to the things of God. And then they wondered why God "failed them." God didn't fail them. You failed the test. Anybody can be faithful when you are one fire and you feel as if everything is going your way, but the real test comes when you are praying and fasting and you feel as if you are just waiting on God to come back into your situation. It's a test. If you are faithful, then God will come back and play the role of the servant to you! He will bless you and honor you and take care of you. But if He comes back to find you unfaithful, then you are an unfaithful servant who is worthy of punishment. And who must go through the test again!

The key to be blessed by God in a mighty, mighty way is to enter into the Abrahamic covenant of serving the One God, and being baptized in the name of Jesus, and then being faithful in a time of "waiting on God!" God will bless you! God will come to minister to your needs! It's the promise of the servanthood of God. ________________________________________________________________________

I close with this:

In Genesis chapter 18, we find that God visited Abraham and Sara. Two angels came with Him. This appearance is what is known as a "theophany" in that God a Spirit being appeared in the form of a man so that He could talk one on one to Abraham. He wasn't really flesh and bones but He appeared unto Abraham for the sake of delivering a message. The thing that strikes me first about this story is that Abraham was ready for God. He had been faithful to the covenant and when God showed up Abraham was quick to bring Him in and serve Him and the angels a meal and such. Abraham understood who was Master and who was the servant. They ate together and God announced that the miraculous was going to take place and that Sara was going to have a child even though both she and Abraham were well past the child bearing age. There are a lot of people who are chasing miracles and signs and wonders, but if you really want the miraculous, then you've got to enter into the Abrahamic covenant and be faithful to God and God will come knocking on your tent door with the supernatural and you won't have to look for it!

After the meal was over, God sent the two angels on to Sodom and Gomorrah because He was about to leave Abraham's tent and then go and destroy those sinful cities. You know, just a normal day's work for God: announce a miracle, dine with His friends, toast a few cities . . .

But the scriptures say that God decided to share His plans with Abraham that He was going to destroy those two cities. The scriptures say:

And so God told Abraham His plans. If you want God to speak to you and reveal His plans to you, then enter into the Abrahamic Covenant and be faithful while you are waiting on the Lord!

But the interesting point is that when Abraham heard this, God was about to leave the tent and go on to do the work but the scriptures say that Abraham got involved and "stood yet before the Lord." The Message puts it like this:

And Abraham said "God, are you really going to toast everybody in that city, the good and the bad?" And then began the countdown. Abraham said "if there is 50 righteous, will you spare the cities?" And God says "I'll spare it for 50 righteous." Of course there wasn't 50 and so they went down to 45. The Message records the dialogue as this:

Most of you know the story. There wasn't ten righteous in the entire cities and Abraham stopped there because he knew that his nephew Lot's family numbered 8: he and his wife, his two unmarried daughters and his two married daughters and their husbands. Abraham was realizing that when Lot chose Sodom, he hadn't even won two converts to God and so Abraham didn't want to find out if Lot himself was still righteous. He was, but he had lost his family. And the story ends with the two angels of the Lord literally dragging Lot, his wife and his two daughters out of the city before it was destroyed. And His wife looked back and became as a pillar of salt.

The point that I'm trying to make is that God had definite plans to destroy the city and yet He changed His mind and even delivered Lot when Abraham stood in his way and talked to Him. When God had first come, it was Abraham playing the part of the servant to God. But now it's Abraham talking and God responding. God was playing the part of a servant to Abraham.

If you are in the Abrahamic Covenant with God and you have been faithful, then you have more power with God than you think! There will be people lost unless you pray and intercede for them. There are situations right now in your life that could end up differently if you would get a burden and stand before the Lord and say "wait a minute, God, I know this situation is deserved but what about saving somebody in it!" The supernatural power of God can be unleashed in our lives, if we would get a revelation that we have more power with God than we think! If we have been faithful and we have entered the Abrahamic Covenant, then our prayers and actions do matter. They do change things! What we say and act upon and believe does make a difference in this city and our community!

We should leave here tonight and pray differently. We should live differently. We should think about things differently! Because we have power with God that this area needs. We have an access to the throne room of heaven that we have not been fully using! We should be changed by the fact that we have more power with God than we previously thought! Because we are the children of Abraham and so we have the promise of the servanthood of God. The power of being faithful to God is found in this promise! If you'll be faithful, then when you speak in faith and love for others, God will listen!