Bonded to God:  What it means to be a bond servant of God

1. Just look around in a "Christian" bookstore and you will see books on everything except how to become a bond slave of Christ.  There are books on prayer, faith, love, church growth, and every other subject, but not the one subject that was at the very heart of Christ and of earliest Christianity.  How often have you heard a sermon on becoming a bond slave of righteousness - a bond servant to God?  Yet this is the core of what it means to be a Christian.

2.  Our generation is too worried about getting noticed.  Most of what we have to say has very little kingdom value at all, and is not worth hearing.  We are self serving and self exalting.

3.  We need a paradigm shift.  I hope that what you read here will change your view of what it means to be a Christian.

4.  In the ancient land of Israel a Hebrew could become a slave in one of three ways.

5.  HOWEVER:  In Hebrew society all slaves were to be set free after seven years.  That's why the seventh year was called the year of Jubilee.

6.  BUT sometimes there were slaves who chose to stay with their masters.  This was a choice they made.  Their continued service was voluntary.  If they chose to remain as slaves there was a very interesting ceremony to mark their decision.  After the ceremony that slave would be known as a bond slave, or bond servant, meaning he was bonded to his master. 

Then his master shall bring him unto the judges, and shall bring him to the door, or unto the door-post, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever. 
Exodus 21:6 

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this thing today, "And if it happens that he says to you, "I will not go away from you," then you shall take an awl and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever."  Deuteronomy 15:215-17 

7.  This ceremony was full of meaning.  Piercing the ear probably meant opening the ear to an even more attentive obedience to his master's voice.  There would be some bleeding of course, and by this blood a covenant was being made.  The slave was becoming a permanent member of the household.  Fixing the ear to the door of the house made the servant a son.   As a son he would have inheritance.  Greater status and privilege also meant greater responsibility.  As a son, he would also be a watchman.  He would be the keeper of the gate, or doorway, always watching for any harm that might threaten the family. 

8.  Prophetically there are some significant things to notice.  The placement of these Scriptures is instructive.  Right away, in Exodus 19, after the people of Israel had been delivered from the slavery of Egypt, God brought them to Mount Sinai to make a covenant with them.  Then, in Exodus 20, God gave the ten commandments.  Following that there are some verses regarding the right way to approach God.  Then, immediately, we jump into Exodus chapter 21 dealing with the procedures for making a slave a bond servant.  That was prophetic.  Israel's response to her new freedom should have been to become bond slaves to her God.    Just so, Christians, having been set free from sin, are meant to become the willing bond servants of Christ and His righteousness. 

9.  The picture of a bond servant was fulfilled in Christ.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus;  Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:  But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant (bond slave), and was made in the likeness of men:  And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.  Philippians 2:2-8

10.  Jesus took upon Himself the form of a bond servant to His Heavenly Father.  His ear was attentive only to the voice of God, not to the voice of anyone else around Him.  His ear was nailed to that listening post.  He said, "I always do the will of my Father." 

11.  What a difference it would make to the Church today, if we all followed Jesus' example.  The will and the work of the Father would be accomplished! 

12.  As a bond slave to Jesus and His words, how shall we than live?  Would we not have mercy?  Would we not invite the poor, and the halt, and the lame, and the blind to our house, and prepare a feast?  (Luke 14:130  Would we not show hospitality to strangers?  Wash one another's feet?  Lay down our lives for the brethren?

13.  It is the bond servants of Christ who stand in the presence of God serving Him in heaven.  (see Revelations 22:3)  And it is upon His bond servants that God will pour His Spirit in the last days. 

And it shall come to pas in the last days, says God,  That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh;  Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; Your young men shall see visions; Your old men shall dream dreams, And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy.  Acts  2:17-18 

14.  In the early New Testament Church every Christian was expected to be a bond servant of Jesus, the Christ! 

15.   By His grace Jesus elevates the status of His bond servants.  He says,

This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.  You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 

No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. 

These things I command you, that you love one another.  John 15:15-17 


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