How to host my own Minecraft server?

Alright, so a friend and I want to host a simple minecraft server. We really just want it to be completely Vanilla, and only a few commands (/tpa [username] and /back) and the admins to be able to go from creative mode to survival and such. The problem is, we don't understand much of how the whole hosting works. What do we have to do for a server like this, and what place would you suggest us to buy a server if this is what it used for? Sorry if this is really noob-ish, but I really don't understand this stuff!

Take a look at Minecraft Realms, which is supposedly the simplest way, though it costs around $13 a month. It's an official thing created by Mojang, so it's not a scam. It allows you to host a server without all the hassle. I've never done it myself, but my friends have hosted servers and it just worked perfectly.