Whose Service is Perfect Freedom

Whose Service is Perfect Freedom
EXODUS 5:1- 6:1

Tomorrow I shall preside at a “service” in church. In what sense do we “serve” God by singing hymns and so on? Indeed, is it God that we are serving? Yesterday, one of my colleagues on the seminary’s chapel committee asked me what was my evaluation of the chapel worship over the past year. Maybe I should have replied, “Well, you had better ask God for an evaluation, not me!” It is easy to assume that the criterion for evaluating worship is whether we feel good afterward. But “service” is one of the Old Testament’s most common words for “worship.” Servants do not serve their master for their own sake. (Well, actually, they do, but they have to forget this while they are involved in their service. Only if they focus on serving their masters will they benefit from it themselves.)...