Names of Jesus: Holy Servant

Jesus Christ has many names we get to read and learn about all over the Bible. We have studied a great deal of them so far, and today we get to explore one of His numerous names that teaches us an important lesson in holy living. Jesus is the Holy Servant who teaches all of us by His own incredible example how we should live holy lives of service. So many blessings flow from serving God and others, and our Savior lays the ultimate foundation for us to follow.

²⁷ “For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together 
²⁸ to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done. 
²⁹ Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, 
³⁰ by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.”

Acts 4:27-30 NKJV

How did Jesus serve?

In Acts 4 we are reminded that Jesus, the Holy Servant, was anointed by God and that it was by God’s hand and purpose that Jesus was handed over to suffer. Jesus suffered immensely even before He was put to death by crucifixion, and every step was for the sake of holy service to God and to mankind. It was the greatest act of service that could possibly be done, to sacrifice His very life so that all who would believe in Him could have spiritual and eternal life through His sacrifice.

¹³ Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.

John 15:13 NKJV

¹⁶ By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.¹⁶ By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

1 John 3:16 ESV

⁸ But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8 CSB

He served God by doing what only He could do so that mankind could be reconciled to God and saved from the penalty of our sins if we have faith in Him as the Holy Servant. God created us to be in a relationship with Him, but because of His holiness, He cannot be in the presence of sin. The penalty for sin is death, and all of mankind is under the curse of sin. Because of our sin condition, we deserve death but God doesn’t want that for us. He sent Jesus to be our scapegoat, to take the penalty we deserve so that we don’t have to pay the price of eternal separation from God and all that is good.

²⁴ For whoever wants to save his life^[a] will lose it,^[b] but whoever loses his life because of me^[c] will save it.

Luke 9:24 NET

God loves us so much that He sent Jesus to live a sinless human life and die a brutal death carrying the entire weight of all of eternity’s sins upon Him so that those who would believe in Him as the Holy Servant would accept His sacrificial service for our sakes and be forgiven. When we have faith in Him as the Holy Servant, accepting His sacrifice for our sake, we accept Him as our personal Savior, acknowledging He died in our place for what we deserve so that we could be freed of the debt for our sin. He died so we could be forgiven by God of our sins and be restored to a personal relationship with Him, being washed by Jesus’s blood so that when we stand before God Jesus declares “I paid the price for this one, they are free in me”.

For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:1 CSB

Jesus performed the greatest act of service ever known to man in His death by taking our place on the cross. His life was given as a ransom; He paid the price for our lives with His own life. Because of our sin we deserve death, but because He loves us so much He humbled Himself and came down from Heaven to be like us, live a perfect life none of us could ever achieve, and die in our place as a spotless sacrifice in order to pay the blood price for our sins and give us access to God that we could never obtain on our own.

⁴⁵ For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom^[a] for many.”

Mark 10:45 NET

To understand the depth of His service and sacrifice, consider for a moment the worst sin you have ever committed. Now, remember how burdened you felt or maybe even still feel about that sin. Then think about the weight of that burden, and then multiply that by all the sins ever committed in all of existence, beginning to end, past, present, future, all mankind. He bore the full weight of every sin to ever occur in all existence because we cannot pay even the price of our own sins. He knew we couldn’t, and loves us so much that He took that weight upon Himself as only He could do, took it to the cross, and when He died the weight of all of those sins, every single one of them, was forgiven and washed clean by His blood.

¹³ For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, ^[a]sanctifies for the ^[b]purifying of the flesh, 
¹⁴ how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without ^[c]spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Hebrews 9:13-14 NKJV

⁹ Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

Romans 5:9 ESV

This is a weight we were never meant to carry and that He paid the price to save us from. He has already paid the ransom for our forgiveness and redemption as the ultimate act of service because He is the only one who can handle that kind of weight, and He wants us to be able to have a personal relationship with God through our faith in Him as the Holy Servant. When we believe that Jesus is the Holy Servant who served us in this unfathomable way we are given the free gift of salvation and are made right with God. When we are restored to God, we no longer walk in darkness, but in the light of Jesus and with the incomprehensible, undeserved, merciful love and grace of God.

¹¹ And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.

Revelation 12:11 ESV

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not of works, lest anyone should boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9 NKJV

¹⁶ Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 4:16 ESV

Why are we supposed to serve?

By faith in the Holy Servant of God, we are restored to God and are called to live by Jesus’s example. All throughout scripture we are instructed to follow Jesus, which means to do as He does and live as He lived, learn from His instruction, and live by it. His service to us was service to God. To follow Him is to serve Him, and to serve Him is to serve others. Those who are truly followers of Jesus will live it out in how they serve God by serving others for the glory of God.

²⁶ If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

John 12:26 ESV

We are instructed to pick up our cross and follow Him daily, living by His example. This will include suffering along the way as we follow Him in faith, just as He suffered. As we live by the will of God we will face hardships, life will get inconvenient, situations will be difficult, circumstances will not always be comfortable, and life will downright hurt at times. Jesus tells us this is part of the journey, and there will absolutely be times that in faith we will go through suffering for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as Jesus did.

²³ Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to follow after^[a] me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily,^[b] and follow me.

Luke 9:23 CSB

When Jesus picked up the cross and carried it to where He would be hung to die on it, He was serving God. He was serving God even still when He spoke up to Heaven “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?”, and serves God even still at the right hand of the throne of God in Heaven. Jesus suffered immensely in order to serve God by being the way the world could be reconciled to Himself and we are called to serve God by Christ’s example, following Jesus in all things. He gave His whole life in service to the glory of God, even to the point of immense and incomprehensibly painful death.

¹⁰ As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 
¹¹ whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

1 Peter 4:10-11 ESV

Jesus was given a calling for His time on earth, and likewise, all of us are also given a calling from and for God. We are all called to accept the Holy Servant as our personal Savior to be restored to God, and then serve God and others by sharing this beautiful gospel truth with others. Sharing the gospel with others is the greatest act of service we can do because it plants seeds to draw others into the same saving grace we accepted in the Holy Servant. We should be so grateful for and dedicated to the service of the Lord that we cannot help but draw others to the love and light of the Lord as well.

¹² Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

John 8:12 ESV

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How does the Bible teach us to serve?

Not only is Jesus the Holy Servant, but He is our Teacher. We are called to follow Him. He sets the example for us in all things, which absolutely includes service. All throughout His earthly ministry, He served God by serving others in the ways God sent Him to do. God grants each of us all that we have, and all that we have has been granted to us to be used to serve our Holy God by the example and through faith in the Holy Servant Himself.

²⁴ A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. 
²⁵ And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. 
²⁶ But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves.

Luke 22:24-26 ESV

Jesus leads by example as a humble servant and teaches us to lead likewise in the relationships He has given us any level of influence within. Service is not for the underdog, it is for those at every level of our world and culture, every status, and every relationship. To serve humbly is to lead by Christ’s example in all things. In doing this we will serve the Kingdom as we serve others for Him and by His example.

¹² When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? 
¹³ You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 
¹⁴ If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 
¹⁵ For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.

John 13:12-15 ESV

We not only have His example, but His Word provides clear instructions about serving by His example. In Philippians, we read how to “adopt the same attitude as Christ”. Serving with the right intentions is important. Jesus came to earth with the intention to humble Himself, serve God by serving those who could never serve God on our own, and sacrifice Himself in our place. Because of our sin we cannot be in the presence of God, but because of His ultimate act of service, when we accept His sacrifice made on our behalf, we can come to God and learn from Him.

⁵ Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus,
⁶ who, existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God
as something to be exploited.^[a]
7 Instead he emptied himself
by assuming the form of a servant,
taking on the likeness of humanity.
And when he had come as a man,
⁸ he humbled himself by becoming obedient
to the point of death—
even to death on a cross.

Philippians 2:5-8 CSB

His intention was to serve knowing no one would ever be able to repay His service. Jesus lived the life we could never live so that He could die the death we deserve but He didn’t want us to experience. The weight of every sin to ever exist was upon Him on that cross and died with Him there. Knowing every single sin we would ever commit, He bore it all and died to save us from that weight and bondage. We are instructed to have the humility of Jesus and serve others without ever expecting anything in return. Serve others in the ways God teaches us through His Word, through Jesus’s sacrificial life and death, with love and humility, in order to share the love and kindness of God through our service. Let Christ be seen through your actions and the way you love others.

¹³ For you were called to be free, brothers and sisters; only don’t use this freedom as an opportunity^[a] for the flesh, but serve one another through love.

Galatians 5:13 CSB

⁴ Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not ^[a]puffed up; 
⁵ does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, ^[b]thinks no evil; 
⁶ does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 
⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NKJV

Let the freedom you have found in Christ be used to serve others in love and put Christ on display for the world to see. Draw others to the Lord by your acts of service from a heart set on the Lord. Jesus is the Holy Servant and we are called to imitate Him. How can you be imitating the Holy Servant this week?

I appeal to you therefore, brothers,^[a] by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.^[b]2 Do not be conformed to this world,^[c] but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.^[d]

Romans 12:1-2 ESV

¹² And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men^[a] by which we must be saved.”

Acts 4:12 ESV

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Practical examples of serving God by serving others:

• Volunteer at your local church or Christian organization
• Serve at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen
• Help someone carry their items to their car from the store
• Hold the door open for the people behind you
• Let someone go ahead of you in line
• Pay for the person behind you in line
• Tip above and beyond
• Thank those in customer service roles
• Thank military or emergency workers for their service
• Bring baked goods to your military recruitment office, local police, or fire department
• Offer to help someone with yard work, cooking, or cleaning
• Help new parents with housework
• Mow your neighbor’s lawn
• Tell cashiers and servers that you appreciate them
• Keep warm gear, snacks, and drinks in your car for the homeless you pass by on the street
• Make nice cards to give to strangers
• Smile at the people you pass by and wish them well
• Cook for someone in your life who is going through a hard time
• Help an elderly friend run errands
• Take your pastor to lunch
• Ask those around you how you can be praying for them (and then actually pray for them)
• Host a meal for people in your life
• Help someone research for life choices and health changes
• Be an accountability partner
• Lead a Bible study group with people who need fellowship
• Make time for the people in your life
• Invite a friend over for coffee
• Be an honest and active listener and confidant

³⁴ Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: ³⁵ for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; ³⁶ I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’

³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? ³⁸ When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? ³⁹ Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ ⁴⁰ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

Matthew 25:34-40 NKJV

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