Free to Serve! (Galatians 5:13-15)
A pastor in Kansas City, Kansas, was organizing opportunities for people in his church to do small acts of kindness as a demonstration of Christ’s love in the community. He phoned several neighborhood grocery stores and Laundromats for permission to do specific services.
In one call, the employee who answered the phone hesitated, then said, “I’ll need to ask the manager, but first, let me make sure I understand: You want to clean up the parking lot, retrieve shopping carts, hold umbrellas for customers, and you don’t want anything in return.”
“Yes, that’s right,” the pastor replied.
After disappearing for a moment, the employee returned to the phone. “I’m sorry,” he said, “we can’t let you do that because if we let you do it, we’d have to let everyone else do it, too!” (Ann Jeffries, Kansas City, Kansas, “Lite Fare,” Christian Reader; www.PreachingToday.com)
How silly. Why NOT let everyone else do it? Wouldn’t that be wonderful if everyone found ways to serve? It would be a little like heaven on earth.
Do you want to find a little heaven in your home? Do you want to find a little heaven in your work? Do you want to find a little heaven in all your relationships? Then learn to serve. It’s the reason why Christ set us free.
If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Galatians 5, Galatians 5, where we begin to see what our freedom in Christ means to us practically and how it can positively impact all our relationships.
Galatians 5:13 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.
God called us to freedom, so we could love not lust. God called us to freedom, so we could serve one another, not be in bondage to our sinful natures.
So since you are free, DON’T SERVE YOURSELF. DON’T INDULGE YOUR SINFUL NATURE. DON’T GIVE IN TO THE DEMANDS OF YOUR BASER DESIRES. Literally, do not let your freedom become a base of operations (or a beachhead) for the flesh.
In the early morning of June 6, 1944, 5300 ships carrying 153,000 American and Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France. It was D-Day, and the Allied Forces knew that if they could establish a beachhead at Normandy, they would eventually win the war, and that’s exactly what they did. They established that beachhead at Normandy, used it as a base of operations to push the Germans back, and eventually won the war.
That’s the picture we have here in verse 13. God is saying to us, “Don’t let your freedom become a beachhead for selfish indulgence. Instead, let it become a beachhead for selfless service.”
In July of 2005, ESPN reporter, Andrea Kremer, interviewed the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, who at the time was the youngest quarterback ever to win a Super Bowl. One of her questions concerned his decision to ride his motorcycle without a helmet.
It’s not the law in Pennsylvania to wear a helmet, but Andrea Kremer wanted to know, “Why don’t you wear a helmet?”
Roethlisberger simply replied, “Because you don’t have to. It’s not the law. If it was the law, I’d definitely have one on every time I rode. But it’s not the law and I know I don’t have to. You’re just more free when you’re out there with no helmet on.
Unfortunately, less than a year later, in June of 2006, Roethlisberger was involved in a serious motorcycle accident. A 62-year-old woman failed to yield the right-of-way at a Pittsburgh intersection, and Roethlisberger was thrown into the windshield of her Chrysler Town and Country car. His bike was totaled, and emergency surgeons spent over seven hours repairing a broken jaw, a fractured skull, missing teeth, and several other facial injuries.
After being released from the hospital, Roethlisberger apologized to the fans, his family, and his team for risking his health (and life) unnecessarily. In another interview, he was no longer focused on taking advantage of his individual freedom. He told the reporter, “In the past few days, I’ve gained a new perspective on life. By the grace of God, I’m fortunate to be alive.” He also added that, if he ever does ride a motorcycle again, “It will certainly be with a helmet.” (David Slagle, Atlanta, Georgia; source: ESPN.com; www.PreachingToday.com)
You see, God set us free from the law, but we don’t have to be stupid.
We are free from the law, not to serve ourselves, but to SERVE ONE ANOTHER IN LOVE (vs.13 says). God set us free so we could GENUINELY CARE FOR ONE ANOTHER. Lit., so we could BE SLAVES TO ONE ANOTHER THROUGH THE LOVE.
There is a particular kind of love here that sets us free to serve, and that’s the unconditional love of God demonstrated on the Cross of Jesus Christ. There is no way in our own human strength that we would ever subject ourselves to one another, unless we knew first that God loved us and accepted us unconditionally.
But now that we KNOW we don’t have to earn God’s love, now that we KNOW we don’t have to prove ourselves, we are FREE to humble ourselves and become slaves to one another. God set us free from the pressure to perform. God set us free from the Law, so that we could freely and without fear submit ourselves to one another, putting their interests above our own.
Kelvin Crowe, in a recent issue of Christian History, described the life and service of Florence Nightingale, who was born in Florence, Italy, in 1820 to an English family of ample means. She traveled and attended parties with the “chosen of society” on the family estate in Derbyshire. When she was 16, she received a divine call: “On Feb. 7th, 1837,” she wrote, “God spoke to me and called me into his service.”
At first, she didn’t know exactly what God wanted her to do, but she began what she called “cottage visiting.” Over family objections, she began taking food and medicine to poor farmers who lived on the family’s lands. Then she began to think about nursing. Her family was scandalized, because, in the early 1800s, nurses were considered unskilled laborers and had a reputation of drunkenness and promiscuity. Proper ladies kept a fine house, gave parties, and made brilliant conversation.
In 1844, American philanthropists, Samuel and Julia Ward Howe (the author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”), visited the Nightingale home. Florence asked them, “Do you think it would be unsuitable and unbecoming for a young Englishwoman to devote herself to works of charity in hospitals?”
Dr. Howe replied, “It would be unusual, and in England whatever is unusual is thought to be unsuitable. But I say to you, ‘Go forward.’”
After that, she later wrote, “There never was any vagueness in my plans or ideas as to what God’s work was for me.”
That work did not begin for another nine years. Family objections had to be overcome. Meanwhile, she studied nursing, first in books, then by visiting European hospitals, and finally by training at hospitals in Germany, England, and France. She was serving as director of a home for “invalid gentlewomen” when the Crimean War (1854-56) broke out.
When she heard about the deplorable conditions on the front, Nightingale took 38 nurses to see what they could do and found things worse than what they had heard. They witnessed filth, infection, disorganization, and an overwhelming caseload. Shiploads of desperately needed medical supplies sat in the harbor while men died, because some official had not filled out the proper forms. In that environment, 42 percent of the wounded never recovered.
Nightingale ended up organizing the barracks hospital, including a kitchen, laundry, and clean latrines. She opened windows to let in fresh air and provided supplies by cutting administrative red tape or buying them herself. She provided reading and recreation rooms for the patients, wrote home to their loved ones, and provided a safe way to mail their pay home. The soldiers adored her and christened her the “Lady of the Lamp,” after the Turkish lantern she carried on her midnight rounds.
Her efforts brought remarkable results: the death rate dropped from 42 percent to less than 3 percent. (Kelvin D. Crow, “The Lady Of The Lamp,” Christian history, Issue 53, vol. xvi, no. 1, p. 35; www.PreachingToday.com)
Florence Nightingale was free to serve, because God had set her free from the need to impress her family and her friends. And we too have the same freedom! We are free from the law. We are free from the pressure to perform and impress. So now we are free to be slaves to one another.
You see, rather than our liberty being used for lust, the real goal is love. Rather than being in bondage to the Law or to the sinful nature, [we are now free] to be in bondage to one another. So use your liberty in Christ, not to serve yourself, but to serve one another through the Love of God in Christ. Through love, serve one another.
Then, through love, SATISFY THE LAW. Through God’s love at work in you, FULFILL ALL OF GOD’S COMMANDS, and COMPLETE EVERYTHING HE WANTS YOU TO DO.
Galatians 5:14 The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
In other words, if we concentrate on loving others as we love ourselves, then we find ourselves doing all that God has commanded us to do.
Free from the law, oh happy condition. Now we can sin for we have permission? NO! That’s not it at all. We are free from the law, so we can better keep God’s law through God’s love at work in our hearts. You see, God’s love does for us what His law could never do. It motivates us to full, complete, and wholehearted obedience.
Aleida Huissen, 78, of Rotterdam, Netherlands, had been smoking for 50 years. And for 50 years, she tried to give it up, but never could. Nothing she tried was successful – that is until Leo Jansen, 79, came into her life. He proposed marriage, but refused to go through with the wedding until Aleida gave up smoking.
What do you know! After 50 years of trying, she was finally able to give up her cigarettes, cigars, and pipes. How come? This is how she put it: “Will power never was enough to get me off the tobacco habit. Love did it.” (Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations, #3195)
That’s the power of love, my friends. It does what will-power alone cannot do. It does what the law could never do. It motivates us to be all that God wants us to be.
And it’s not so much our love for God that motivate us. More, It’s His love for us, as we respond to His unconditional love. You see, our love is fickle. It’s hot and cold and lukewarm often all in the same day. On the other hand, God’s love never changes. It is always constant, and “we love [only] because He first loved us,” 1 John 4:19 says.
Dear Believer in Christ, Please, KNOW that God loves you unconditionally. Please, UNDERSTAND that God accepts you and affirms you right now just as you are, because God sees Christ in you. He is proud of you. Please believe it! Please, BELIEVE IT that God cannot love you any more or less than He loves you right now no matter what you do.
Accept His love for yourself. Then through the power of that love, serve one another. Through the power of God’s love, satisfy the law.
And finally, through the power of God’s love, STOP FIGHTING ONE ANOTHER. END THE CONFLICT. DISCONTINUE THE CRITICAL REMARKS, which only destroy relationships.
vs.15 If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
Our mouths, like wild animals, can be very destructive. In January, 2006, Australian scientists discovered the cause of a mysterious disease that had killed thousands of Tasmanian Devils on the island state of Tasmania. The scientists initially believed the deaths were caused by a virus, but their research ultimately uncovered a rare, fatal cancer. They named it Devil Facial Tumor Disease, or DFTD.
What is strange, according to one scientist, Anne-Marie Pearse, is that the abnormalities in the chromosomes of the cancer cells were the same in every tumor. That means the disease began in the mouth of a single, sick devil. That individual facilitated the spread of DFTD by biting its neighbors when squabbling for food, which, according to Pearse, is a natural devil behavior: “Devils jaw-wrestle and bite each other a lot, usually in the face and around the mouth, and bits of tumor break off one devil and stick in the wounds of another.”
Over the course of several years, infected devils continued to inflict deadly wounds with their mouths. Consequently, DFTD spread at an alarming rate, ultimately wiping out over 40 percent of the devil population. (Tasmanian-Devil Mouth Cancer Spread by Bites, www.FoxNews.com, 2-6-06)
My friends, that’s what can happen to the church. That’s what can happen to marriages and families. That’s what can happen to whole communities, if its members persist in the devilish behavior of wounding their neighbors with their mouths.
But that doesn’t need to happen here, especially among God’s people. We don’t need to bite and devour each other, because God loves us. And through that love, we can heal relationships rather than hurt them. through God’s love, we can build one another up rather than tear each other down. Through God’s love, we can be developed rather than be destroyed by each other.
That’s the secret to finding a little heaven in all our relationships. Just understand and accept God’s unconditional love for yourself. Then through that love, serve one another, satisfy the law, and stop fighting.
I am loved, I am loved;
I can risk loving you.
For the One who knows me best loves me most
I am loved, you are loved;
Won’t you please take my hand.
We are free to love each other;
We are loved. (William J. Gaither, 1978)
