Hebrews 6:10
“For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.”
In our Spiritual Disciplines to grow in holiness and be like Jesus, we must strive to serve others, especially those within the body of Christ, the church. Scripture, as our instruction and motivation, says in Matthew 20:28 and Mark 10:45, “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Serving others flows from the core of who we really are in Christ Jesus. In Christ, we are united with Him in love, by faith, and for fellowship. As the three persons in the Trinity enjoy their fellowship through unity within the Godhead, even so, we as believers in Christ, are now one with Christ; we are to enjoy the unity of our fellowship; with Christ and with each other.
The study in the second chapter of Ephesians clearly tells us about the multi-ethnic church of Ephesus and the problems of hostility that separated the Jewish Christians from the Gentile Christians. Jewish Christians, on the one hand, sat by themselves and did not talk to the Gentile Christians because they were not of Jewish descent, nor were they circumcised in the flesh. The Gentile Christians, on the other hand, felt like they were removed from the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant, so they were shamed and considered themselves not as insignificant in their faith in Christ as others. However, that all changed after believing and tasting the love of Christ by faith. Christ has reconciled them all to God and to each other by removing the hostility, that is, the barrier that blocked them from fellowship. Now they are one in Christ. Ephesians 2:19-22 beautifully declares God’s purpose for the unity of believers, when it said, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by[e] the Spirit.”
Our unity in fellowship as believers, which is grounded and rooted in love, gives us our reason for serving others within the body of Christ; and that is because I love my brothers and sisters in Christ. Loving others is our motivation to serve. Loving others allows us to encourage them to grow in Christ. And loving others is crucial to our witness to the lost world who does not know Christ.
Loving others is our motivation to serve. However, the instruction for service is one of humility and not selfish pride. The idea, when serving others, is not to flatter or inflate your prideful self, but in humility put others before yourself. Scripture, in one sense of serving God, says we are instructed to let our good works shine before others so they may see our good works and glorify our heavenly Father (Matthew 5:16). Notice the purpose is not to glorify the one doing good, but to glorify God. To counterbalance this, Scripture also says in Matthew 6:3 that we are not to let the right hand know what the left hand is giving to help others. To make some sense and clarify matters is not that difficult. In regards to letting our good works shine before others, notice that its context is before others and has nothing to do with yourself. And in opposition to this, we are instructed to not let our right hand know what the left hand is doing. In this passage, the focus is on self; there is no mention of others. So, in essence, both passages are equally true, allowing others to glorify God is not prideful, but doing good, even in secret needs to be closely checked to ensure we do serve others so we feel good about ourselves. That is wrong. In all things, “whether we eat, drink, or whatever we do, do all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Loving others is also essential as we encourage and teach them to grow in Christ. Paul describes the church as a body with many parts. And each part is to function to help the others mature and grow so they also become equipped into service and maturity in Christ Jesus. In particular, the Apostle Paul also instructed the church at Thessalonica, when he said in 1 Thessalonians 5:11-14, “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.” This act of encouraging and helping others within the church is for each other as well as for those who minister and serve over us, be it pastors or other church leaders. Notice that the instruction is not to flatter others in their service, but to encourage them and to build them up; and at times when needed, admonish them by providing helpful instruction. Consider a child who is acting out or misbehaving because he has no parental attention or discipline. How sad because the misbehavior is the parent’s fault, not the child’s. Consider another example when our church had its first Missionary Conference this year. This was a week-long, intensive instruction on world missions. In the aftermath, many young men and women announced their call to full-time ministry or their interest in being career missionaries. Now in this situation our church is currently providing love, encouragement, and support. But for illustration purposes only, just suppose another church in the same situation, does not want to inflate the egos of these young Christians desiring full-time ministry service, so they do not give any encouragement or instruction. Suppose this hypothetical church sees that encouragement may instill a false sense of self-pride. However, according to the Apostle Paul to the church in Thessalonica, they were to encourage one another and build one another up. Scripture in other passages says the Holy Spirit is our teacher and our guide. He convicts those in Christ of sin and the heaven Father disciplines those who are His own. The church, along with being an encouragement, needs to also admonish others with instruction on how to live maturely in Christlikeness, so they do not become prideful, pretentious, and grandiose. Withholding encouragement or instruction would be wrong in this hypothetical situation because what is supported by Scripture, the purpose of our Spiritual Discipline is to fully encourage and equip others in their God-given opportunity of service.
Lastly, loving others in our service to them is a witness to the lost world outside the church. Within the church, we are brothers and sisters in Christ having the love for each other that Christ our Lord commanded. The outside world views this as something strange or bizarre. We love one another. We serve one another. We encourage one another. We admonish and instruct one another in love. But the outside world sees our unity of love in faith and fellowship to our Lord Jesus Christ as something that is comical, and so we suffer ridicule. In the first century, Christians were condemned because of the language that the outside pagan world did not understand. They blasphemed and said Christians were incestual because married people if they were both believers, would call each other brother or sister (in Christ). The fellowship meals and the Lord’s Supper in some countries were called ‘Love Feasts’ so the pagans said the Christians were engaged in shameful orgies. Additionally, because of the resentment of Christians during this time, it was easy for Nero, the emperor at the time, to blame the fire that nearly destroyed Rome on the Christians. Eusebius, the author of Ecclesiastical History, describes Nero as one with great wickedness. He even murdered his own mother and wife along with many other near relatives. Nero proclaimed himself as the chief enemy of God, which “led on in his fury to slaughter the apostles” (Book 2, p. 62-63). Nevertheless, that was the enemy’s attempt to destroy the Christian witness, which obviously failed. And, as a testimony to the truthful witness of Christians by unbelievers during persecution, the testimony of the ungodly can itself be a powerful and praiseworthy description of the awesomeness of God. For example, Josephus, a Jewish historian who had no support for the Christian faith, did report in judgment, that,
“This James was of so shining a character among the people, on account of his righteousness, that Flavius Josephus, when, in his twentieth book of the Jewish Antiquities, he had a mind to set down what the cause, why the people suffered such miseries, till the very holy house was demolished, he said, that these things befell them by the anger of God, on account of what they had dared to do to James, the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ; a that James was so righteous and wonderful it is, that while he did not receive Jesus for Christ, he did nevertheless bear witness that James was so righteous a man. He says further, that the people thought they had suffered these things for the sake of James” (Works of Josephus, Appendix 1, p. 815).
In summary, our Spiritual Discipline of serving others within the body of Christ is essential for believers. We serve others in love, for encouragement as we build others up in the faith and equip them for service under the direction and leadership of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to maintain our victorious and triumphant witness to the lost and dying world. First John 5:4 says, “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” This effort to serve and help others within the body of Christ takes practice and is part of our daily Spiritual Disciplines.
May each of us find God’s door of opportunity wide open, so we may serve Him by serving and loving others. The fourth stanza of this beautiful Christian hymn is most significant and important to today’s lesson on serving others. As beautifully expressed in this hymn, we desire not the praises of others, but because we desire to be obedient to our Lord Jesus Christ. That stanza is:
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.
BE THOU MY VISION
- Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art;
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light. - Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one. - Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tow’r:
Raise Thou me heav’nward, O Pow’r of my pow’r. - Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art. - High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heav’n’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.