Summary
Serve One Another
Life is full of dichotomies—do this, don't do that—and the Ten Commandments can sound like the running commentary a toddler hears all day. Even when we recognize that the commandments contain both prohibitions and positive duties (don't kill, but help your neighbor; don't lie, but speak well of him; don't misuse God's name, but call upon it in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving), the law still presses down as a weight. It is something we must avoid breaking or strain to live up to. That burden is exactly what Paul addresses in Galatians 5:13: "For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters."
Freedom is a beautiful, possibility-filled word. But Christian freedom is not the modern slogan "you do you." That sort of freedom—total autonomy, my truth and your truth, no restraint at all—is antinomianism, a freedom from any law that quickly collapses into self-indulgence. Paul guards against that misunderstanding immediately: "only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence." So what, exactly, are we free from? Galatians 3:13–14 answers: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us." The curse of the law is death—not merely physical death, but eternal separation from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. By His suffering, death, and resurrection, Christ has freed us from that curse forever. We live in eternal freedom from the law's condemnation.
But Christ has not rescued us so we can return to the works of the flesh. Paul lists them plainly in Galatians 5:19–21—fornication, idolatry, strife, jealousy, anger, envy, drunkenness, "and things like these." Notice he calls these works of the flesh rather than simply sins, because "sin" sends us back to the law's measuring rod. Paul is lifting our gaze higher: this is a matter of the heart, of which spirit governs us. Will we walk by the Spirit of God, or by the flesh that actively works against Him?
Paul then tells us precisely how Christian freedom is to be used: "through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." That command was given through Moses in Leviticus, but here it is raised to a new height. The Christian life is not the toddler's tightrope of do and don't—where we will inevitably fail, fall, and give up—but life governed by the law of love. Christ Himself is love made flesh, the Word of God who fills us with His Spirit so that we actually fulfill the law by loving our neighbor. Luther's pattern in the Small Catechism captures this exactly: "We should fear and love God so that…"—the "so that" turns commandments from threats into the shape of a life empowered by the Spirit.
There is one more dichotomy to notice in “Serve One Another” 1-15-23: Paul does not say we are called to be a slave, but slaves to one another. Serving runs in two directions. Most of us know the joy of helping someone—no one ever returns from caring for a neighbor wishing they hadn't. But pride often refuses to be served. If we are to have the privilege of serving, we must also give others the opportunity to serve us. To wave off a brother or sister who offers help is to deny them the very freedom God has given them to love. Receiving service is itself an act of fellowship.
This is what it means to be the Church. Baptized into His Spirit, sealed in His love, called into fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and with one another, the saints are set free—every moment of every day—to serve the Lord by serving each other. It is no longer a matter of have to but of get to. When you see a brother or sister in need, lend a hand. When one comes to you and asks how to help, let them. That is the freedom Christ purchased, and that is the shape love takes among His people.
Video citations
- “Serve One Another” 1-15-23 — If you would please open your Bibles to Galatians, the fifth chapter, will be studying out of Galatians, the fifth chapter. Have any of you spent any extent of time around a toddler? There are days.…