You’re Gonna Have to Serve Somebody

ZChurch Message for August 24, 2024 (Full service at:    • You’re Gonna Have to Serve Somebody  )

Elder Robert Peck shares the message “You’re Gonna Have to Serve Somebody” In his song, “Gotta Serve Somebody,” Bob Dylan told us no matter who you are, rich or poor, great or small, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody.” That’s more than a one-time choice between heaven and hell, the devil or the Lord. It’s an ongoing choice we make every day and hour. In everything we know, see, think, speak, or do, we make ourselves the servant of the one who is the source of those ways. Everything contrary to God’s ways leads to death, but obedience to His ways produces a right state of being and brings a harvest of divine life.

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In his song, “Gotta Serve Somebody,” Bob Dylan told us no matter who you are, rich or poor, great or small, “you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” That’s more than a one-time choice between heaven and hell, the devil or the Lord. It’s an ongoing choice we make every day and hour. In everything we know, see, think, speak, or do we make ourselves the servant of the one who is the source of those ways. Everything contrary to God’s ways leads to death, but obedience to His ways produces a right state of being and brings a harvest of divine life.

Key Scripture

Romans 6:16  Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?

Review This is part 6 in the Truth About Sin series and the third message on why not to sin.

Part 1 – We learned that Jesus offered one sacrifice for all sin forever (Hebrews 10:12). That is why there can never again be any condemnation to anyone who is in him. No matter what we do or don’t do, it’s been paid for.

Romans 8:1 NKJV There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

Part 2 – We learned that the old covenant law system has been abolished. Keeping the law is no longer how we approach God and violating it does not keep us from Him. Our right standing with God is now based on Christ alone apart from the works of the law. Colossians 2:14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.

Part 3 – We discovered a new definition of sin. Sin is no longer an infraction of a system of do’s and don’ts. That system has been abolished. For the New Testament believer, sin means to “miss the mark.” The mark is conformity to the image of Christ.

Romans 8:29  For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 

A practical application of conformity to the image of Christ is to know what God knows, see what He sees, think what He thinks, speak what He speaks, and do what He does.

Hebrews 1:3 Tells us Jesus is the express image of the Father and he did the same thing.

John 5:19  Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.

John 12:49  For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.

Sin, i.e. missing the mark, is the act of knowing anything other than what God knows, seeing things any way other than how He sees, thinking any way other than how He thinks, speaking anything other than what He speaks, or doing anything other than what He does or designed us for doing.

Sin is missing the mark but under the new covenant, there’s no law against missing the mark.

1 Corinthians 6:12  All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. 

Satan: the Author of Sin

It sounds extreme to say every knowing, seeing, thinking, speaking, or doing not authored by God is authored by Satan. We’re tempted to think our thoughts are our own and while not always perfect, yet not all that bad.

Satan is not only the author of every lying knowledge, false illumination, and wrong thought, he invented the concept of knowing something other than what God knows, of seeing a way other than how God sees, and of thinking with a wisdom other than God’s wisdom all of which results in speaking other than what God speaks and doing other than what God does. By obeying that concept, you become the slave of the author of the concept.

Ezekiel 28:15-17

15  You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you.

16  “By the abundance of your trading You became filled with violence within, And you sinned; Therefore I cast you as a profane thing Out of the mountain of God; And I destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the fiery stones.

17  “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings, That they might gaze at you.

How Sin Got Into the World

Romans 5:12  Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—

Through Adam’s obedience to Satan, the state of knowing, seeing, thinking, speaking, and doing other than, against, and contrary to God got into this world. This is the key difference between heaven and earth and the reason God kicked Satan out of heaven to spare it this influence.

Through this, Satan gained access to the spiritual atmosphere of this planet to become what Ephesians 2:2 calls “the prince of the power of the air,” ministering his corrupted spiritual merchandise to the minds of men through principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this age, and spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12). 

Thus, sin – the act of missing the mark by knowing, seeing, thinking, speaking, or doing other than what God does – got into the world.

No Middle Ground

Matthew 12:30  He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad. 

Whether you directly accept the twisted wisdom of Satan’s principalities and powers or not, you either know, see, think, speak, and do what God does or you are obeying Satan’s twisted, corrupt, anti-God system and are thereby serving him as your master.

The Lesson of Two Masters

Matthew 6:19-23

19  “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal;

20  but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

21  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

22  “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.

23  But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

24  No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

Points

• There is a false source of wisdom or illumination.
• What you invest in you become devoted to.
• You cannot serve two masters.

You’re Gonna Have to Serve Somebody

With every knowledge that we know, with every illumination that we see things with, with every thought that we think, with every word that we speak, with every deed that we do, we are serving sin unto death or obedience that leads to a right state of life.

Romans 6:16  Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?

Galatians 6:8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.