The servant of the Lord can be viewed in two ways. The ultimate servant of the Lord is Jesus, and no one can fully embody the role like Jesus.
There is another sense in which the Hebrew people are God’s servants. Without a doubt, they are vastly inferior to Jesus, but they are God’s servants just the same.
And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
But I said, “I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the Lord,
and my reward with my God.” (Isaiah 49:3-4)
I did an internet search today and found the five dream jobs for 2025:
- AI Solutions Architect
- Climate Tech Product Manager
- Bioinformation Data Scientist
- Immersive Entertainment Specialist
- Zero-Trust Cybersecurity Analyst
What’s funny is that I’m not sure what any of these jobs entail or what the requirements are to do them.
Isaiah suggested a dream job for God’s people. God Himself wants us to serve on His staff to reveal His glory.
Serving God is both good news and bad news. The good news is that anybody can be one of God’s servants. The bad news is that anybody can be one of God’s servants.
No! I didn’t simply repeat the same sentence with one minor change. It is the best news possible that God has dreams for all of us in His organization.
No one is excluded. In fact, Jesus declared, “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first” (Mark 10:31).
For people who are proud of their accomplishments, the fact that anyone can be one of God’s servants may be bad news because of injured pride.
Paul outlined the qualifications for serving in God’s organization. It appears that a willingness to love and serve the Lord is at the top of the list.
Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to abolish things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God (1 Corinthians 1:26-29).
A servant who works for God is called to reveal His character and nature in the world. When we make an effort to show the world a picture of God, rather than our personal abilities, we succeed in the job we’ve been given.
Bad Days on the Dream Job
Even people working their dream job have bad days. I have no idea what a Zero-Trust Cybersecurity Analyst does, but suppose a foreign actor hacks into their secure domain. I expect that would qualify as a bad day.
The person who works for God as His servant has one job. They are called to reveal God’s nature and character to the world. The primary way this is accomplished is by the way we live our lives.
After a particularly bad day of trying to show the world God’s glory, His servant sighed and said, “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity” (Isaiah 49:4).
A contemporary servant of the Lord put his frustrations this way: “Lord, the waves are so big and my boat is so small.”
God’s Opinion About Your Dream Job
The first challenge of being God’s servant is that it injures our pride to know that anyone can work for God. The second issue is that we often see little measurable change in the world through our efforts.
God answers our complaints by outlining the ultimate dream job.
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
Thus says the Lord,
the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations,
the slave of rulers,
“Kings shall see and stand up;
princes, and they shall prostrate themselves,
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.” (Isaiah 49:6-7)
God has called us to be servants, not CEOs. As we incorporate the attitudes and actions of Jesus into our lives, we will shine as lights to those around us.
We may not be able to provide Zero-Trust Cybersecurity, whatever that is, but we can help people experience the love of God.
Like Jesus, our servant’s role on earth may be left unappreciated. However, because of God’s faithfulness, we will be well known in heaven.
Let’s not despair when our service to people around us seems unappreciated. Let’s put aside issues of personal pride and realize that God has dreams for us that are far bigger than we think.
YouTube Discussion
Rudy Ross, Bruce Kirby, and I discussed this passage on YouTube today.
Real Voices 