Church of the Vine Articles

Serve One Another

  • 05/27/09

SERVE ONE ANOTHER

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.

Galatians 5:13 (NIV)

This little verse contains a majestic and marvelous treasure of truth.  In our ongoing series on the ‘one anothers’, we are highlighting in this verse the call to serve one another.  But to understand the importance and meaning of serving one another, we must also take careful note of two other equally important terms in this verse: freedom and love.  It was Jesus who made it clear that everybody serves something.  In His famous Sermon recorded in Matthew 5-7 He said:

No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.  Matthew 6:24).  Later Paul would confirm this in his letter to the Colossians when speaking of miracle of redemption he declared:

For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Before entering the kingdom of Jesus, every person is under the dominion of darkness.  Everybody is a servant of something.  When Paul was converted his servant-hood continued, but in an entirely different way.

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God.  (Romans 1:1) NIV 

Paul understood that being a follower of Jesus was by definition a call to service.  This service replaced the pre-Christian servitude that he had endured as a servant of Satan, the world, and his flesh.  So, when we become people of the Kingdom and followers of Jesus, we are still servants.  But there is crucial difference, and that brings us back to Galatians 5:13. 

Now our service, rather than being a forced and miserable bondage, is a service that we have for the first time in our lives, been freed, rather than forced to enter into.  And added to that, it a service of which the central characteristic is love.  We have been set free to love by the gospel of Jesus Christ.  And this loving freedom is to be used to joyfully and willingly serve God and others rather than Satan and our own flesh.  Understand that only those who have been set free can freely serve.  It is wonderful fact of who we are in Christ. 

So how are we to walk together?  Freely and in love.  How is that freedom and love to be used?  In service to one another.  This is crucial.  I do not serve you or you me because we must, under God’s punishment if we do not.  We serve each other because we have been freed to do so, and have been loved with a love to pass on.  By this perspective, serving one another is indeed, a joyous and miraculous life.  It is a life that all at once, demonstrates our liberty, shows forth love, blesses others, and most important of all, authenticates and reveals the glory of the One who saved us.

For Further Thought:

Looking back, in what ways were you under the dominion of darkness before Jesus freed you?  What involuntary service was involved in your former life without God?  Think about this.

How does it change things in your thinking to consider that serving  one another is something that we are called to choose freely as an act of love?

In what ways might it be possible to freely serve one another in love?

May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with us.