Serve One Another

Carrying someone’s groceries. Preparing someone else’s meal.  Working to buy someone else’s things.  Watching someone else’s children.  Cleaning up someone else’s mess.  Washing someone else’s dishes.  Doing someone else’s laundry.  Picking up someone else’s toys.  Mowing someone else’s lawn.  Raking someone else’s leaves.  Helping with someone else’s homework.  Washing someone else’s car.  Shoveling someone else’s snow.  All of us have tasks that we are responsible for.  Most of us are willing to do the tasks we are responsible for, but very rarely are we willing to do someone else’s responsibilities.  When we get asked to do something for someone else our first attitude is probably something like, “why do I have to do that?”, “that’s not my responsibility?”, or “why don’t they do that for themselves?”  Sound familiar?

What many of us don’t realize is that by performing these tasks we are living out Godly Relational Characteristic #7: SERVE one another!  A servant is someone who, “does the work OF or FOR another”.  A servant is someone who does the jobs that others do not want to do.  A servant is someone who performs tasks at the request of another.  No one wants to be a servant.  Servanthood is not something that most of us wake up in the morning and look forward to doing.  And yet, servanthood is a godly relational quality that is prescribed by God for us to live out among others in our lives. What does it mean to serve others?  We are going to look at two passages of Scripture that help us understand what it means to be a servant . . .

READ:  Galatians 5:1, 13-15

Servanthood is ENSLAVING ourselves to LOVING others (Gal. 5:13) – A slave has no rights.  A slave does not make their own choices.  A slave is obligated to do their master’s will.  In the context of Paul explaining that a believer in Christ is free from the law and is not to, “submit again to a yoke of slavery” he tells the Galatians to use their new found freedom for the purpose of slavery.  What?  Where does he say that?  The word translated “serve” in Gal. 5:13 comes from the greek word δουλος, used in Gal. 5:1, which means “slave”.  Sounds like an oxymoron, but the Galatians were to use their freedom in Christ to “serve (enslave themselves to) one another” through love.  We who are free in Christ serve others by willingly enslaving ourselves to love them.  Ironically, through this paradox of being set free from the law and by serving others with love the, “whole law is fulfilled” (Lev. 19:18; Mt. 22:36-40; Lk. 6:27-36; Rom. 13:8-10; Jms. 2:8).  Choosing to enslave ourselves to the unconditional love of others is only possible for those who have experienced being set free from the law, sin and death by faith in Jesus Christ!

READ:  1 Peter 4:7-11

Servanthood is using our God given GIFTS for the BLESSING and BENEFIT of others (1 Pet. 4:10) – Whether we realize it or not, we all have spiritual gifts, talents, and abilities given to us by God (Rom. 12:5-8; 1 Cor. 12:4-11).  These gifts are not to be used selfishly to benefit ourselves, but to “serve one another”.  The word translated “serve” here comes from the greek word “διακονος” which means to, “serve”, “help”, or “attend to the needs of others”.  This same word is used to describe the role of deacon in a local church (1 Tim. 3:8-13).  Whatever gift we have, whether speaking, serving, teaching, exhortation, contributing, leading, mercy, etc, we are to use it to bless others and benefit them that God may be glorified!  When it comes right down to it, our lives are to be used for the purpose of blessing and benefiting others.

CONCLUSION
In helping His disciples understand what it means to be great, Jesus said in Matthew 20:26-28, “whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”  According to Jesus’ words and example, greatness is achieved through servanthood.  We can choose greatness by enslaving ourselves to love and by using our gifts to bless and for the benefit of others . . . just like Jesus did!