Serve One Another

A sermon on Galatians 5:13 preached on 18th September, 2022, by Pastor Enoch Awuku Anti

 

 

Yesterday, I went to the barbering salon in the evening and decided to shave off all my beard. Then I got home and my wife says  I should have informed  her I was going to shave off my beard. Look at me. I have lost all my freedoms. I can’t even choose what I do with my own beard. Freedom is a very precious commodity.  So in the history of the world, we have read of  many freedom struggles. And in our present age, freedom has become a buzzword. Every now and then there is a freedom march somewhere. Everyone wants freedom to be themselves. Many want freedom to please themselves. But biblical freedom is different. Biblical freedom is not self-pleasing. 

Paul says 

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another (Galatians 5:13).

I guess I pleased myself by going to shave off my beard without consulting the one to whom my looks matter.  Today, for our title, I want us to consider the last phrase of the text Serve One Another.

One of the clearest pictures the bible paints about the church is that of a community. It’s a gathering of believers. In many places, in Scripture, this imagery is clearly drawn. The church is described as the body of Christ made up of many parts—the parts being individual Christians becoming a whole. Now in every community, certain things are expected of the community members. In the corporate world, there is something called organisational culture. One business entity has defined organisational culture as this.

An organisational culture defines how its employees should behave and interact with one another within the company. It is a widely shared set of beliefs and goals that influences all facets of the organisation — from how it functions to how workers feel about the company and its reputation with customers. 

In the organisation I work with for example, there are a defined set of conducts we are all to abide by. Should I leave that organisation to another organisation, I will have to be taken through an orientation to imbibe the new organisation’s culture. This is equally true of the church. The church of Christ as a community has its own culture. There are certain things that are to be true of members of the church. How we behave, how we relate with one another etc. In many places in the Scripture, how this new community of believers relate towards one another is clearly spelt out. Conrad Mbewe in his book God’s Design for the church calls this  “The “One Another” Commands. And today, we have one of these “One Another” Commands right in front of us: Serve One Another. Note that this is not a suggestion from Paul. It is a command we must keep: “For the whole law is fulfilled in word, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” 

When Paul said Serve One Another, what was he saying? There are a number of things we can pay attention to here. 

Selflessness

When you look at the text closely, you will see Paul making a certain contrast between two behaviours that  may be exhibited among believers. One negative, the other positive.

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

The phrase “opportunity for the flesh” is contrasted with the phrase “serve one another.” That word “but” is drawing a contrast between the two sentences. “Opportunity for the flesh”, if we compare it to it’s contrast “Serve One Another” clearly means a differentiation  between Selfishness and Selflessness. Where “Opportunity for the flesh” is selfishness and “serve one another” is selflessness. 

The Bible uses flesh in a number of different ways. Sometimes it refers to all human beings. In other times it refers to animals. Other times it refers to meat—flesh of animals. And it is also used in the New Testament often to refer to our carnal nature. What Paul calls the works of the flesh in verse 19. So when Paul speaks of “opportunity for the flesh” he is referring to a life to please our carnal self. Freedom in Christ is not licentious living. It is not a licence to sin. This is always a raging divide. Those who will have no regard for the law or Christian conduct and those who will make the law or conduct the basis of justification.  In contrast, a  call to Serve One Another is a call to Selflessness. It is a call to love one another. See how Paul says it: “through love serve one another” Then he says in verse 14: “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Jesus called this the greatest command: Love God. Love your neighbour. Love for one another then becomes a standard for loving God:

Love One Another

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.  In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. (1 John 4:7-12)

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot[a] love God whom he has not seen (v.21).

In John 17, also, our second Scripture reading, we see how Jesus prayed that all believers must be one and love one another. We can serve one another only through love. We can be selfless towards one another only when we love them. And God has given use the capacity to love because his Spirit lives in us. To be selfless is to not be selfish: serving yourself rather than serving one another.  The point of this verse then  is to point out to the Galatians that freedom in Christ is not self-pleasing or selfishness.

Perhaps, because they have been told they are no longer under the law, they may throw away every teachings of the law.  Dear brethren,, when you become a Christian, you have been placed into a community and in that community, you don’t live for yourself. You don’t live a selfish life with no interest in one another’s life. This call is replete in the Scriptures

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves (Philippians 2:3).

Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor (1 Corinthians 10:24).

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:4-6)

What we see clearly in these Scriptures is that selflessness has the welfare and good of other people in mind. When one suffers, we suffer with them. We care for the welfare of each other. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together (1 Corinthians 12:26).

Let’s make it a point to care for ourselves and love one another. And there are many ways we can care for one another. A call, a visit,a whatsapp mesage, find out how you can pray for someone, consciously find a way by which you can care for one another. We also share with the needy amongst us. We pray with them. We encourage them. 

Encourage One Another

In many places in Scripture, this is a common call. A common call to encourage one another. “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,  not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:24-25). Let’s us consider how…In other words, let us think about ways by which we can encourage one another. There is not a prescribed way, but we are to consider. It means that we must ponder over it and come with ways by which we can encourage one another. This is serving one another.

Jesus left us with the best example of serving one another in John 13:12-15

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? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.

 This feet washing is an example of humility. Does it mean we should literally be washing feet? Some churches do. But the message here is humility. No matter our status in life, before Christ, we are all to count ourselves as equal and serve one another. So serving one another can be viewed also as humility towards one another. 

No arrogance. No pride. Not considering ourselves as better than others. We must never get to a point in our Christian life where we think we are superior to another. At that point we have lost what it means to be a Christian.

Serve With Our Spiritual Gifts

Finally, all of us have gifts that we can use in the church to serve one another. Listen to the apostle Peter. 1 Peter 4:8-11

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.  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.

If we are not serving one another as Christians, then our fellowship will be characterised by selfishness, unkindness, gossips, jealousy, envy and the likes. That’s the point of v.15 I think.

But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

Churches  can generate into conflicts and Christians destroy one another with their words. However, we must strive to live at peace at all times by serving one another through love.

 

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