When Ester and I take Felicity down to school or bring her back we are usually just trying to get there, or get home. It is a long drive and we all have so many demands on our time. But on one of our recent trips we were able to travel at a more relaxed pace. We found some really cool places along the way. At one scenic overview we discovered that you could navigate down a bluff by carefully picking your way through a crevice between two cliff faces. At the bottom was a little mini-wonderland of rock and tree and moss and leaf and sky and the whole Shenandoah valley right in front of you. It was so worth the stop.

 

So there are two ways to take a road trip, right? The first is to pick your destination, pack the car, and make the best time you can to get to your destination. The second is to pick your destination but just take it slow, relax and be available to stop and see what you discover along the way. The first approach works fine, but you will never know what wonders you may have missed along the way. I’m taking the second approach to reading through Romans. I’m reading with my sight-seeing attitude active. Whatever catches my attention, I’m stopping to investigate. Who knows what I will discover?

Just now I was stopped in at verse 9 of Romans chapter 1 by a curious statement of Paul’s. He says that he serves God “…in the good news of His Son…”. Now this isn’t the main focus of what he is saying to the Romans. But it is a curious aside. It makes me want to “pull over” and take a closer look at this oddity. Whatever does he mean? How does one serve God in the good news of His Son?

Looking around I see that 3 of the 4 most popular English translations try to make sense of it by adding information. They translate something like “serve God…in preaching the good news…”. Here’s the whole verse in NAS: ” For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the preaching of the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you,”. And here you can see an assortment of translations. http://biblehub.com/romans/1-9.htm

Literally, the sentence reads,”For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the good news of His Son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you”. Here’s what I want to know: what is it to serve in the spirit in the good news of Jesus? Commenters have almost universally applied themselves to the “unceasingly I make mention of you” part of the verse, so we won’t get much guidance from them.

So let’s just stop and look and see what the Holy Spirit wants to share. To start, I think we have to look at the 3 key elements:

  1. Serve
  2. In my spirit
  3. In the good news

 

Serve

The Greek word behind “serve” is used 22 times in the new testament. 19 times it is translated as a form of “serve”. Three times it is translated as “worship”. How can it mean both serve and worship? Because all our service to God is voluntary and is done as an offering. Both service and worship are presented out of our love back to Him, and our declaration of His worthiness of being served. True service to God is true worship (God is seeking “worshippers in spirit and in truth”). Any service that is not in this context isn’t serving God, it is serving something else. Service is worship. Worship is service. As the author of Precept Austin puts it, “His [Paul’s] worship was an act of service, and his service was an act of worship.” (http://www.preceptaustin.org/romans_18-10.htm)

In my spirit

Paul is here addressing the motivation of his worship/service. It is from the heart. It is done from the center of his being. He has been changed and has now only one agenda – to please God. The driving reason for all he did was a response to a revelation of who God is. And that takes us to…

In the good news of His Son

Paul had been completely transformed by the revelation that Jesus is alive and is the Son of God. Everything changed for him. No more service out of duty. No more trying to win his way to holiness. God was newly revealed to Paul as the one who would sacrifice all to win us back to Himself! In response, Paul marched through his world shouting “I have good news! Life has meaning! God loves us! He loves us! Actually loves us! And He has rescued us if we will let Him!”

The good news had become the context of Paul’s life. It was the driver. It filled everything Paul was doing. His life was filled with joy in who God really was and Paul just had to respond by giving all back in living the rest of his life to serve and worship. This is living/serving/worshipping “in the good news”. It fills every niche of life. It should be the same for you and me. This good news of what God has spoken/done toward us through Jesus changes everything if we will let it. Suddenly everything is service/worship from an overflowing heart/spirit in a life changed and infused by the good news of God’s Son! Amen!