Weekly Meditations: Joy in Serving

I think its safe to say that you, the reader, have at some point in your life, served someone else.  Whether you did some community service, baked someone something, held a door or gave a compliment, I’m sure that you have at some point in your life served someone.  I think it is also safe to say that afterwards, you probably felt good.  I know anytime I do a good deed for someone else I get that nice “warm, fuzzy” feeling inside.  However, as we look at chapter 2 of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, I think Paul is getting at something more than a mere feeling, and I certainly think that Paul is encouraging us to serve more than a monthly event or a situational good deed and to serve for a cause other than our own self-gratification.  I think Paul breaks down service into two categories: serving others, and serving God.  Let’s begin by looking at how we can serve others.

In the first 11 verses of chapter 2, Paul encourages the Philippians to serve one another.  Now at face value this seems like an easy task.  Say hello to a couple people, smile at someone, maybe take somebody out to lunch and check it off the weekly list.  No!  That is not at all what Paul means when he says in verse 4: each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Our service should not be something we do because we have to, or even because we want to.  It also doesn’t have a quota of X amount of good deeds to do this week.  Service should be our lifestyle as Christians because of the new heart we have in Christ.  Verse 1-3 reads: If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  Essentially what Paul is saying is, if you are a Christian, then act in humility and consider others better or before yourself.  In short, being a Christian means you put others before yourself.  This is also known as love, and Christ commanded us to love God and love our neighbors.  As Christians, we need to look for ways to serve, or love, everyone (a side note, just in case: when I use love here I do not mean chick-flick-I-just-met-you-yesterday-but-now-I-love-you “love”, but rather the love Christ has for the church, a self-sacrificing love we see in verses 6-11.).  This is a very hard thing to do.  Loving everyone means loving our family, our friends, people on the street, people who despise us, our enemies, everyone.  While this is a hard task, we are nonetheless commanded to love everyone because by our love for others, our crazy love for even those who hate us, we show Christ’s infinite, eternal, majestic love.  So continue serving at monthly functions and keep trying to do those daily good deeds, but remember that service is something we can do at all times of the day, for everyone we encounter.  

In verses 12-30 Paul continues by talking about serving God.  While there is lots of content in this passage, I want to focus mostly on verse 17.  But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.  This verse evokes the image of Paul’s life as a sacrifice, being poured out, to God.  If we look at Paul’s life we can attest to this truth that his life was in fact very sacrificial, all for God’s glory.  So how then can we serve God?  Well I first want to say that nothing we do, no way that we serve God, can ever atone for our sins, and earn us salvation or eternal life.  Rather, Jesus’ death on the cross after living a perfect life was an atoning sacrifice for our sin. By putting your faith in this work, in Jesus literally taking your place and the punishment that you and I deserve, is what gains salvation for sins.  That said, I do think that we can serve God and we do this by being obedient to him.  Jesus served God; he followed the command to love God by being obedient to God the Father and dying on the cross.  We too can serve God in many ways by being obedient to his commands.  We are called to love others, are you loving others?  We are called to be baptized as a proclamation of our faith, if you are a Christian and have put your faith in Christ and are living for him, have you been baptized?  We are called to share the gospel, are you?  We are commanded to deny ourselves and take up our cross, are you living for today, for this world, or are you living with your eyes focused on Christ, for eternal things? 

There are many ways to serve God by being obedient, most sources I looked at had 49 commands of Christ, and following these is one way to serve God.  I think another big and life-changing way is to serve God through missions.  We can do this in many ways including taking the gospel where it has yet to go, taking the gospel to another country, taking the gospel to those in your area and supporting missionaries and missions agencies.  Our lives are not of this earth and everything we have will not follow us into eternity, so I challenge you to think about a missions vision in your life.  It might not be moving to a remote country, and that is ok! But you could give us comfort by sharing the gospel with family, friends or coworkers that don’t know Jesus. 

I titled this “Joy in Serving” but I haven’t talked much about joy yet.  Honestly, I believe that if you are serving others and serving God, you are truly following Jesus, and this will bring you great joy!  You may be poor, you may be sick, you may be broken, cold, and hungry, you may suffer, and you may be persecuted.  But if you are following Jesus, you will never be short of the joy that comes from the Savior.