Why is serving God important?

Their Service to God was another effect of the gospel; they "turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God." The love of God constrained them to serve Him; for, according to the Saviour's words, "to whom much is forgiven the same loveth much." They loved God because He had first loved them. A feeling of gratitude for such unfathomable mercy made His service unspeakably happy. The knowledge of the Saviour's kindness made His yoke easy, and His burden light. A sense of deliverance from the wrath to come, through the death and resurrection of Christ, is the main-spring of true service. This service is happy liberty — perfect freedom; it is the way of faith which works by love. How many mistake here. They serve in order to be saved, instead of because they have received forgiveness of sins and eternal life; and the mistake is fatal. To expect salvation in any measure by works of the flesh is a fearful delusion; to work in obedience to God, because of being pardoned and accepted in Christ, is the blessed path of the Spirit. The Saviour's words are, "If ye love me, keep my commandments, and love one another as I have loved you," etc. It is of the utmost importance to be clear on this point. It is plain that the Thessalonian converts were on right ground; for Paul addressed them as those who were (not would be, but already) delivered from the wrath to come. They knew that they served the living God. Long had they served dumb idols; but now they obeyed the living God. Persons do not believe that "God is," that His eye beholds them, His ear is open to their cry, His face set against evil-doers, that His heart loves, His arm brought salvation, and that His hand is open to satisfy the desire of every living thing. People do not think this; they do not believe that He is the living God. The language of many a heart is, "No God;" hence it is that the creature is so often set up and worshipped more than the Creator, and that so many live without God and without hope in the world, so that God is not in all their thoughts. Not so, however, were these Thessalonians; their faith and hope were in the living God, and they served Him, sought to please Him, obey Him, honour and glorify Him, who had redeemed them with nothing less than the precious blood of His own Son. They also knew Him as the true God. This was happier still. They knew He had always been true to His word, and that He would be true to His promises, true in hearing and answering prayer, true to all who put their trust in Him, true to accept their service, true to sustain them in time of trial, true to bring them through every difficulty, and true to present them faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Oh, if people believed that God was true, how would sinners fly to Jesus to escape the wrath to come! and how quiet would believers be in time of trouble, how submissive in affliction, patient in waiting upon God, and cheerful in the darkest dispensations! The true God has given us His own word to guide us and hope in, until wilderness experiences are past, and we shall be able, when in the glory, to look back and declare that not one jot or tittle has failed. Thus we see that the Thessalonian believers were a working people; they served the living and true God, and were well known for their works of faith and labours of love. We may be assured that turning to God through Jesus must ever be connected with loving service.

Converted to God our lives are to be now spent in His service. Has it ever occurred to you what an extraordinary favour it is, and what a tribute to the power of the Gospel, that we should be permitted to serve Him at all? An earnest worker in a slum district notices very definite signs of repentance in one of the worst occupants of a thieves' kitchen one Sunday evening. He very greatly rejoices, though with trembling. Yes, but how would he feel if early on Monday morning the poor thing arrived on his doorstep and with many tears avowed her thankfulness for the blessing received and announced her desire to express her gratitude by entering his service — cooking his meals and dusting his house? Stamped upon her he sees disease, dirt, degradation and, until yesterday, drink. What would he say? What would you say?

From these Scriptures we may rightly gather that serving the Lord is a vital essential of the Christian life and one which every believer is called to in some measure or another. To live for the Lord and to serve Him should be the main business and vocation of the Christian. We are not saved merely to be safe for heaven and at peace down here. The Lord has saved us and left us here in this world to work and to occupy for Himself and to be His witnesses, lights and representatives in this scene where He was cast out and crucified.

Think of it, as life's aim! To serve the living and true God! Is it not, from one point of view, as simple as A B C, doing the will of God, doing daily what He would have us do? And yet, although it is so simple, it is an idea that has not occurred to a great many persons; even some who are piously inclined fail to grasp the fact that the living and true God has a service for each one of us to do. There is a pathway through this world for you and me (for I am now addressing those who are converted) — there is a pathway through this world marked out for every one of us. We have our something to do. We have our words to speak. We have our works to perform. They are such that no one else can do for us. They are such that, if they are not done, the world, our companions, those around us, will be the worse because we fail to do them. God works through His servants, and His servants are men and women who have been saved from the wrath to come. They are those into whom He puts a new nature and His Holy Spirit, and places them here in this world for His praise and glory.

There must be a genuine conversion to God. This is a divine work from first to last. And what has the converted man got to do? He certainly has not to work for life, because he has it, even life eternal, as God's free gift, through Jesus Christ our Lord. He has not to work for salvation, because he is saved already — "saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation." What, then, is he called to do? "To serve the living and true God." How? When? Where? In everything; at all times, and in all places. The converted man has nothing else to do but to serve God. If he does anything else, he is positively untrue, unfaithful to that blessed Lord and Master who, ere ever He called him to serve, endowed him with the life, and the grace, and the power, whereby alone the service can be rendered.

Yes, the Christian is called to serve. Let us never forget this. He is privileged to "present his body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is his reasonable [his intelligent] service." This settles the whole question. It removes all difficulties; it silences all objections; it puts everything in its right place. It is not a question of what I am doing, but how I do it — not where I am, but how I conduct myself. Christianity as displayed in the New Testament is the outcome of the life of Christ in the believer; it is Christ reproduced in the Christian's daily life, by the power of the Holy Ghost. Everything the Christian touches, everything he does, everything he says, his whole practical life, from Lord's day morning till Saturday night, should bear the impress and breathe the spirit of that great practical clause on which we have been dwelling — "serving the living and true God." May it be so more and more! May all the Lord's beloved people, everywhere, be really stirred up to seek more earnest, out-and-out, whole-hearted devotedness to Christ and His precious service!

We are now called to consider a deeply practical point in our subject. It is contained in the clause, "To serve the living and true God." This is full of interest to every truly converted soul, every true Christian. We are called "to serve." Our whole life, from the moment of our conversion to the close of our earthly career, should be characterised by a spirit of true, earnest, intelligent service. This is our high privilege, not to say our hallowed duty. It matters not what our sphere of action may be, what our line of life, or what our calling; when we are converted, we have just got one thing to do, namely, to serve God. If there be anything in our calling which is contrary to the revealed will of God — contrary to the direct teaching of His Word — then we must at once abandon it, cost what it may. The very first step of an obedient servant is to step out of a false position.

1 Thess.1: 9-state that:"ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God" Conversion comes first, for the natural man cannot serve God (Rom.3: 10-12), but service for God follows. It is not conversion then, which is God's purpose for man, but conversion is the indespensable means for reaching that purpose, namely,"to serve the living and true God"

But my point more particularly is that which is to fill up the interim. Our life is to be one of serving and waiting. The serving of something or somebody characterizes everybody. The men of the world mainly serve their own lusts and passions, and in so doing they are really serving the great adversary himself. We are called to serve the living and true God, and there are ways in great variety in which we may do so. If we are devoted to God, and His will is supreme with us, we shall be led by Him into the service that he pleases, while we tread our way to glory. The world and its lust pass away, and it is he that does the will of God who abides forever. We serve the living God, who notes every item of service rendered to Him, and will ultimately reward it.

This is the life's business of every saved person; it cannot be rightly undertaken apart from the knowledge of Christ as Saviour, for without this we were still captives, needing deliverance, and so not free to serve Him; moreover, the one motive for service, His love to us, were also lacking if He were not known as Saviour. It is when we think of what He has done to save us, and of the strength of the love that moved Him to do it, that we are constrained, by this same love, to live unto Him.

There must be an answer on our part to these wonderful things which the love of God has brought us into; redemption, righteousness, life, deliverance, peace, and above all, the gift of the Holy Spirit. These speak of the compassions of God, for in His love He has provided them all for us and we may say in the light of this, "If God has done all this for me, what else can I do but yield myself to Him for His service?" Hence the motive of this service is the love of God, while the power is the Spirit of God. This decision which may be quite unobserved by anyone else but God, must precede any active service.