Serving the Lord and preaching the gospel are related. Once a person is saved, he should preach the gospel and serve the Lord. Every normal Christian preaches the gospel and serves the Lord. Furthermore, the more a Christian receives grace, the more he will receive the Lord’s leading and dealing and the more he will be able to serve the Lord in a proper way.
1. “I love my master;...I will not go out free” (Exo. 21:5).
Believers do not serve the Lord because of outward encouragement or pressure from man. We serve the Lord out of the inward motivation of our love for the Lord. Our love for the Lord inwardly compels us to serve the Lord. It urges us to serve Him. Our love for the Lord makes us unable not to serve the Lord. We love the Lord, so we must serve the Lord. This is typified in the Old Testament by the slave who loved his master. Although the slave could have been free and did not need to continue to serve as a slave, he did not want to go out free because of his love for his master. He willingly remained as a slave to serve the master whom he loved. This is our motive in serving the Lord. We become His servants and serve Him willingly because of our love for Him. Our service to the Lord comes out of our love for Him.
2. “I exhort you therefore, brothers, through the compassions of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice...which is your reasonable service” (Rom. 12:1).
We love the Lord because He loves us. The Lord’s love moves us and encourages us to love Him. The Lord’s love for us produces our love for Him, making it impossible for us not to love Him. Therefore, the Lord’s love causes us to love Him and serve Him. For this reason Paul exhorted the believers through the compassions of God to present their bodies a living sacrifice in service to Him. The compassions of God, the love of God, encourage us to love Him and serve Him. We serve Him because His love encourages us and stirs up a love within us for Him. This deep love is our motivation to serve Him, and it makes it impossible for us not to serve Him.
1. “Enslaved to God”; “Christ’s slave” (Rom. 6:22; 1 Cor. 7:22).
To serve the Lord is to be the Lord’s slave. The word slave is not a very pleasant expression when it is applied to unbelievers in the world, because it often denotes an inferior status. However, the word slave is a felicitous and glorious expression when it is applied to believers because we are serving the Lord. To be a slave of the Lord is a glorious matter! To be a slave is the status of those who serve the Lord and the meaning of serving the Lord. Serving the Lord is not about doing a great work before men; it is about being a slave before the Lord.
2. “Live to the Lord” (Rom. 14:8).
Since serving the Lord is a matter of being a slave, it is also a matter of living to the Lord. The entire being of one who truly serves the Lord is to the Lord. His whole living, his entire life, is to the Lord. Therefore, service is a matter of one’s entire living. The call to serve the Lord is not limited to full-time workers and preachers. With the Lord’s leading, it is possible to serve the Lord by maintaining respectable works in any career (Titus 3:8, 14). Colossians 3:22-24 shows that actual slaves were serving the Lord when they served according to the Lord’s will. No matter what our career or job may be, we can serve the Lord as long as it is according to the Lord’s will. It is not the Lord’s intention that every Christian would leave his job or career to be a full-time preacher. The Lord’s will is for every one of us to serve Him, but serving Him does not necessarily mean we must become a preacher. It only means that we live to Him in everything. There are many preachers today who do not necessarily live to the Lord. Similarly, there are many believers who love the Lord and truly live to Him, even though they have a career or job. They may not be preachers, but they are truly serving the Lord by living to the Lord.
According to the Bible, we are not called to make a profession out of preaching; rather, we are called to serve the Lord. This is our career. Any career or job that we have is a secondary matter. Our principal occupation is to serve the Lord; serving the Lord comes first. Our goal for living on the earth is to serve the Lord. We should make serving the Lord the center and goal of our lives. The only reason that we have a career or a job is to make a living and to supply the needs of the Lord’s work. We also can contact people through our careers and jobs to preach the gospel to them. No career or job is more important than serving the Lord and preaching the gospel. We should consider our occupation only as something that we do on the side. Our focus should be on serving the Lord and preaching the gospel. Regardless of whether we are doctors, teachers, businessmen, or laborers, our career or job should be for serving the Lord and preaching the gospel. Doctors should serve the Lord and preach the gospel while practicing medicine. Teachers should serve the Lord and preach the gospel while teaching. Whatever our profession, we should serve the Lord and preach the gospel. Each of us should consider serving the Lord and preaching the gospel as our primary occupation and our careers and jobs as secondary occupations. This is the living of a normal Christian. This is the only way to live to the Lord and to serve Him.