At Your Service – Week 1

At Your Service
Serve Christ
April 27, 2025

Ever have a sense that you were created for more?
Why are you here?

Genesis 2:5-8; 15
Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth[a] and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work (avad) the ground, ⁶ but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. ⁷ Then the Lord God formed a man[c] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. ⁸ Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.
…The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work (avad) it and take care of it.

avad: to work, to serve, to worship.
God didn’t just create us to be busy—
He created us to avad Him.

• Numbers 3:7 – do the avad of the tabernacle
• Deuteronomy 6:13 – fear God and avad Him only
• Exodus 8:1 – Let my people go… may avad me

Avad can feel like freedom and flourishing or like slavery.

Exodus 14:10-12
As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. ¹¹ They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? ¹² Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us avad the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to avad the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

Who or what you avad?

Joshua 24:14-24
“Now fear the Lord and avad him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors avad beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and avad the Lord. ¹⁵ But if avad the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will avad, whether the gods your ancestors avad beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will avad the Lord.”
¹⁶ Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to avad other gods! ¹⁷ It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. ¹⁸ And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will avad the Lord, because he is our God.” ¹⁹ Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to avad the Lord. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. ²⁰ If you forsake the Lord and avad foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.”
²¹ But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will avad the Lord.” ²² Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to avad the Lord.” “Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied. ²³ “Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.” ²⁴ And the people said to Joshua, “We will avad the Lord our God and obey him.”

Sometimes it’s good and glorious.
Sometimes it’s hard and heavy.

Exodus 3:12 – “You will avad me on this mountain.”

“Now fear the Lord and avad Him with all faithfulness.” “As for me and my house, we will avad the Lord.”
Let your avad be a response to His grace.