How Can We Serve One Another in Love?

　　Christian love is a hallmark of the faith. A genuine Christ-follower will demonstrate a kind of love towards others that stands out from anything else you will see in the secular world.

　　Christian love is more than a feeling; it is expressed through service. Through his life and ministry, Christ demonstrated how we can serve one another in love.

　　

Freedom to Serve

Several times in his letters, Paul referred to himself as “doulos,” which is Greek for “servant, slave.” God calls us to become his servants, but not in a demeaning way.

　　When we think of servants, perhaps a butler or maid comes to mind; someone who is barely visible to the master, and certainly not his heir.

　　Conversely, those who submit to the Lord are his children, and “if children, then heirs — heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:17).

　　Heirs also inherit the responsibility to serve. Jesus paved the way for all people to choose freedom from sin in order to serve a better master by glorifying God’s name and looking after his people.

　　In Galatians 3, Paul “warns the Galatians not to use their freedom in Christ as an opportunity to selfishly serve the flesh by only doing what feels good. Instead, they should selflessly serve each other in love.”

　　John Piper asked why Christian love can only be demonstrated through service. “When Paul says, ‘Don't use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh,’ he means that if you try, you lose your freedom.” You become enslaved to sin once more. “Love is motivated by the joy of sharing our fullness, but the works of the flesh are motivated by the desire to fill our emptiness.”

　　Nothing ever fills the hole. Looking outward in love is a choice to no longer let sin be the demeaning and isolating master it is, and to lead others to our better, loving Master.

　　Christ is our fullness, the master who went before his followers to demonstrate what he means by “service.” The disciples were sent out to do what their Master had shown them.

　　He “gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal” (Luke 9:1-2).

　　They served their Lord by serving people in need just as their Lord had done before them. They served by giving their lives to share the gospel of life.

　　

Love and the Law

Can a Christian serve others who do not obey God? John Piper argued that “there is no contradiction between saying God brings about love in our hearts and saying that one of the ways he does it is to remind us of love's importance with commands” (Ibid.).

　　Exhorting and commanding, are evidence of his love. When we love him, our response is to obey and serve as we were commanded and as we were shown.

　　“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). These were the bedrocks of God’s law (v. 39).

　　After all, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

　　“When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (Matthew 2:16).

　　We can and must serve people who do not know the Lord and who disobey the law so that they are curious enough to ask, “Why would you serve me?”

　　“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). Imagine those who heard this and thought they were fine, in no need of help: Christ would not have served them.

　　The Centurion of Matthew 8 is a great example of one who knew that his earthly power was not enough in his moment of need.

　　A Centurion beseeched Jesus: “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” Christ would have come to the man’s home to heal him, but the Centurion responded, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word and my servant will be healed” (Matthew 8:8).

　　This powerful Gentile knew where the real power lay — only Jesus could save his servant. Was Christ right to help him, even though the man was not a Jew?

　　Recommended

　　9 Ways the Bible Defines True Manliness

　　Jesus was obeying the law by turning it upside down as far as the world knew it then, and even as the world understands it today. His example was so compelling that even a master looked up to the Master.

　　

Turning Love Upside Down

When we love someone in the secular or romantic sense, devotion is directed at a person. But Christ calls on his people to love him first and with a love that is not romantic but sacrificial.

　　“For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves” (Luke 22:27).

　　Service is not love in its own right. 1 Corinthians 13:3 says, “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

　　Even though the greatest kind of love is sacrificial, sacrifice without love is unacceptable. Scripture is saying that works do not automatically demonstrate a loving posture; we must love in and through Christ and for his glory.

　　And there is that famous passage about responding to wrath with kindness. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).

　　This is unbelievable, a kind of love that destroys pride and relies on Christ. Without Jesus, how can we even consider making this kind of sacrifice?

　　

Loving Fellow Servants

While the notion of living to serve others might not appeal, Galatians 5:13 implies that fellowship does yield practical advantages. Christians are exhorted to serve one another.

　　When you make an offering of your time, talents, and money to support your church as an act of genuine worship to the Lord, you are part of the “one another” — service will benefit you also.

　　It would be a mistake to approach this as a transaction, as though promoting something like karma — what goes around comes around.

　　On the contrary, this kind of servant-hearted love is a responsibility. “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness” (Galatians 6:1).

　　James says something similar in his letter: “My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:19-20).

　　Fellowship is risky. The hearer might reject you. You might be the object of such correction. Yet, this service demonstrates love for another person’s spiritual health, which is his or her relationship with Jesus. This kind of love gets us out of our own heads and distracts us from self-involvement.

　　Moreover, in order to love like this, we need the Lord. Loving him leads us to serve others and helps us to live in him. Christ serves us by meeting us with His Spirit in the midst of our challenges.

　　

Trust the Lord of Love

“If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him” (John 12:26). Christ on the cross gives us the ultimate demonstration of sacrificial love, one he offered freely.

　　When we live in Christ, we also die to self but are born to new life. We want to give this Good News to others, and serving provides an opportunity.

　　Jesus assured his disciples that when they gave food and water to people in need, “As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).

　　For further reading:

　　Why Are We Told, ‘Choose This Day Who You Will Serve’?

　　Why Does the Bible Say the Son of Man Came to Serve?

　　What’s Love Got to Do with Christianity?