Serve One Another

Someone walked in a small family-owned business. Notice that the typically slow-moving clerk was not there that morning. And so, asked the owner's son, where's Eddie today? Is he sick? And the son answered, Eddie ain't working here no more. The customer said, well, that's too bad. Do you have a plan for taking care of that vacancy? And the young man responded, Eddie didn't leave no vacancy. In his broken English, he was trying to make a point. And that was that Eddie really didn't do anything to start with. And so, there was no vacancy there when he left. I just wonder, if you were not here, would there be a vacancy? If you were not at Johnston Chapel, would there be a vacancy? Would there be a vacancy in anyone's life? If you were not there. If you are living out the one and others, there would be a vacancy. You would be missed. In this series of messages on the one and others, we've been looking at what the Bible says, using those words one and other. You may be wondering if you're visiting with us today, what do you mean by all of that? One and others. The Bible uses a number of expressions to describe how we all relate to each other in the body of Christ. Typically, they end with the words one and another. We've looked at seven of them already in this series. The Bible teaches that we are to be members. That we are members of one another. We are in the same body. All of us members of one another. The Bible also teaches that we are to be devoted to one another, like brothers and sisters, with a family kind of love. The Bible teaches that we are to honor one another, that we are to be of the same mind toward one another, that we are to accept one another, that we are to warn one another, and that we are to grief one another warmly as brothers and sisters in Christ. Those are the one and others we've looked at thus far. This morning, we find our way to Galatians chapter 5 and verse 13. The next of the one and others, as it occurs in the New Testament, is this one in Galatians chapter 5 and 13. If you have your place there, you can read along with me silently. Where Paul says, you, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the simple nature. Rather, serve one another in love. Serve one another. In this passage, in this one verse, and the surrounding verses actually, Paul fills this out, but in Galatians chapter 5 and 13, Paul ties serving one another to three important truths. In fact, if you look carefully at the verse, you can see it, and breaks down into three sections. Some verses Paul gives us are fairly easy to outline, and this is one of them. Break down into three very easy sections to look at. You see the first one, you, my brothers, were called to be free. So serving and freedom is the first truth that Paul ties to serving one another, second part of the verse. But do not use your freedom to indulge the simple nature, serving and selfishness, and then the last part of the verse, rather, serve one another in love, serving and love. And so Paul and himself really breaks down the passage in the verse for us, and illustrates and fills out the truth of what it means to serve one another. These three important truths are tied to serving one another. Let's begin with the first one in the first part of the verse, serving and freedom. Now, at first glance, those seem to be polar opposites. Think of it, serving, servanthood, slavery, and freedom. Those two seem to be opposite to each other. And so you may wonder how does serving go with freedom? They are very closely tied together. It is because of our freedom, the kind of freedom that Paul talks about, that we are now obligated to serve one another. So we need to explore how those two relate to each other. We need to explore the kind of freedom that Paul's talking about, and quite frankly, in order to help us understand it, the kind of freedom he's not talking about. When Paul says, you, my brothers, were called to be free. There's some freedom he's talking about. There's a certain kind of freedom he's talking about. There are kinds of freedom he does not mean by that. What are he talking about here? First of all, this is freedom in Christ. The kind of freedom that Paul is talking about is freedom in Christ. If you look back at verse 1, he kind of sets the tone for what he's going to talk about in chapter 5. He says in verse 1, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourself be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. This is freedom that Christ has set us free to enjoy. So what kind of freedom is that? It's the kind of freedom that you obtain that becomes a part of your salvation when you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. It's that kind of freedom that comes with Christ, that Christ makes available when you trust Him as your Savior. When you realize that you are not capable of getting to heaven on your own, that you cannot do enough good works, you cannot do enough to please God or to cancel out your own sin when you realize you can't get to heaven by your own efforts. And when you also realize that Jesus came to this earth to be your Savior, to die, to pay for your sin. When you realize those two things and then you say, ah, that's what it is, I must receive Christ as my Savior. I must trust the work He did on the cross for me to save me, not my own good deeds, not my own works. I have to trust Him. When you do that, the Bible says that sets you free. Christ sets you free. In what way he sets you free from the guilt of sin, you no longer need to feel guilt about your past because all that's been forgiven. All that is under the blood of Christ, it is gone and God's eyes, it no longer exists. All that you were in yourself, in your sin, is now gone. And so there needs to be no guilt, there's a freedom from guilt in Christ. There is also a corresponding freedom from the penalty of sin. The penalty of our sin, what we deserve as a judicial penalty because of our sin, the Bible says, is death, the wages, what we receive, the wages of sin, death, what we receive, what we earn, what we deserve because of sin is death. We have a judicial sentence over us and that sentence is, you are condemned to die. When you trust Christ as your Savior, that sentence is lifted. And you are set free from the condemnation of the law so that the Bible says there is therefore now no condemnation, no eternal judgment, no sentence of death to them that are in Christ Jesus, Romans chapter 8 and verse 1. So you are freed when you come to Christ, you are freed from the penalty of sin. You are also freed from the power of sin. Now you must understand that and accept that and believe that and live in light of that, but potentially God frees you from the very power of sin over you. Romans chapter 6 talks all about that. We'll look at some of that a little bit later. You're freed from the power of sin. But what Paul is really getting at here in the book of Galatians is that you are freed from the stranglehold of the law. From all the efforts to keep the law, from the bondage that you felt of keeping the law in order to be saved. You see there were some who taught in Paul's day that in order to really be saved or to complete your salvation to fill it out, you had to come back into the mosaic law. And you had to keep all the Old Testament law in order to make sure, really sure that you were getting to heaven. So yeah, you might trust Christ as your Savior, but you also had to do something on your own. And it was keeping the law. Paul wrote the whole book of Galatians to refute that. To say, you're no longer under the law. When you're in Christ, you're freed from the stranglehold of the law. The legalism of believing you have to do something to get saved. Hi, friend. If you think you have to do something to get saved, that is a form of bondage. It's a form of slavery. Because you never know if you've done enough. You never know if you've kept enough of God's law to please him, to allow him to let you into heaven. You never know if you've done enough. And so you're always under this fear, this bondage, this slavery of wondering, am I good enough? Have I done enough? Am I living right? At least enough to cancel out the bad so that I can get into heaven? You never know. And so you're always under bondage. What Paul is saying is you are freed from that. In Christ, this is freedom in Christ that sets you free from that bondage, that slavery to the law. But don't misunderstand that freedom. Because this is not freedom to sin. It is not freedom to sin. If you look at the second part of the verse, Paul says in the first part, you've been called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. The freedom Paul is talking about is never a freedom to sin. You see, our sinful nature tends to take the liberty and freedom we have in Christ as an opportunity to mount an all-out warfare, to mount a campaign of sinful indulgence. Our sinful nature says when it learns you're free in Christ, you no longer have to keep the law, then the response of our sinful nature is, well, good, I can do whatever I want. I can live any way I want to. I can just sin to the max. If all my sins are forgiven, if I'm promised in guaranteed heaven, then it doesn't matter how I live, right? No, the Bible never teaches that. The Bible never gives us the freedom or the liberty to sin. In fact, the Bible says a real understanding of the grace of God will lead you to exactly the opposite conclusion. Look at these verses on the screen. Romans chapter 6, verses 1 and 2. After describing that no matter how bad your past is and how bad your sin is, God's grace cancels it out when you get saved. After explaining that, Paul raises this question that he knows will come up in some people's minds. What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning? So that grace may increase, you see, our work sinful nature has a tendency to say, well, if grace cancels out all my sin, then the more I sin, the more grace I get, right? Sounds like fun to me. Paul says, by no means, literally, the eyes perish to the thought. May it never be. We are those who have died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? And Paul says this in Titus chapter 2. This is what the real grace of God teaches us. He says, for the grace of God appears that has appeared, that offers salvation to all people. The same grace now that gives us salvation that saves us. Notice what Paul says that teaches us. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions. And to live self-control, upright, and godly lives in this present age. While we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of our, of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, and here's why he gave himself for us, here's why we're saved, to redeem us from all wickedness. The bias out of that gets out of that. And to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. Anybody who says, now that I'm saved, and I'm eternally saved, and I know I'm going to heaven, I'm just going to sin to the max. Doesn't matter anymore, does it? Anybody who says that doesn't understand the grace of God. Because the grace of God doesn't teach us that. The grace of God doesn't lead anybody to do that. In fact, I would question seriously whether a person with that mindset is really saved, whether they've ever really experienced the grace of God. Because when you deeply experience the grace of God in salvation, that grace motivates you, teaches you to say no to ungodliness, and to say yes to righteous, godly living, and to be a people that are eager to do what is good, eager to follow God and to live for him. That's the evidence of the grace of God. So the freedom Paul's talking about is not freedom to sin, but it is also not freedom from the sin nature. This freedom Paul's talking about is not freedom from the sin nature. And I think that's important to bring up at this point because there are some folks who teach that you can reach a certain level in your Christian life where you have completely eradicated the sin nature. You no longer have that, you no longer have to worry about that, and you live in a perpetual state of victory. Quite frankly, I think those folks are delusional. They're not living real life. They don't understand what real life is all about, because the Bible never teaches that we are rid of our sin nature. The Bible teaches that we battle with it all the time. In fact, look down just a few verses at verse 16. So I say, Paul says, you have to live by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the simple nature. For the simple nature desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the simple nature, they are in conflict with each other so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the spirit, you're not under the law. Paul's talking about the fact that if you're a believer, you have a conflict inside, and the conflict is between what the Holy Spirit is motivating you and pulling you to do, and what your simple nature motivates you and pulls you to do. And because of that simple nature, it's a presence. There is a conflict. It's a very interesting word by the way that Paul uses. It was a term for the warfare of that day, hands a hand battle in the trenches. This is not troops using computers to fire at each other from 50 miles away. That's not the kind of warfare they had in that day. The kind of warfare they had in the Roman world was you rush at each other, you sing the movies, you rush at each other, and you fight hand to hand, sword to sword, spirit to spirit, shield against shield, hand to hand combat, intense combat, the word Paul uses here. The reality of the experience of the believer is that there is a battle. There is a battle. Between what the Holy Spirit in you is seeking to accomplish, making you more like Christ, and between what that simple nature that you still have is pulling you back to, if you let it have the victory. And so there is a battle there. Paul realized that in his own experience. Look at what he said in Romans chapter 7, verse 18, about his own experience in the Christian life. He said, for I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is in my simple nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. Now by the way, that desire to do what is good is an evidence of the fact that Paul was a believer. Paul is talking about his Christian experience in Romans 7. Because he'll go on to say in chapter 8 that the mind that is unsaid is not able to please God, has no desire to please God, doesn't want to do what pleases God, but Paul says here, I have that inner desire. I have the desire to do what God wants me to do. That's an evidence of the fact that you have the Holy Spirit inside. You see, you're saved. He's pulling you toward the Lord. But Paul admitted there was something in him, his simple nature, which pulled him the other direction, and sometimes made him do things. He really knew better than to do. Didn't want to do, but there's still that pull inside that simple nature. And so when Paul says, you're called to freedom. He's not talking about you'll ever be free from the simple nature. There will always be that battle. He is saying there is freedom in Christ, not freedom to sin, not freedom from the simple nature, but freedom in Christ does mean, and this is the fourth kind of freedom he's talking about. This is the freedom to serve Christ and others. And this really is what Paul's getting at here. The fact that we've been freed from the penalty of the law, from penalty of sin, from the guilt of sin, the very fact that we have that freedom in Christ, allows us the freedom now to serve him, not the simple nature, not ourselves, but to serve him, and thus, in carrying that out, to serve others. And so this is a blessed freedom to serve others. It's wonderful to be free in Christ, to know that we don't have to keep the law to get to heaven. But that doesn't mean we're free to live any way we want. We now are placed under a blessed servanthood, to serve Christ and to serve others. Again, Paul says it so well in the book of Romans. Let's just see how he said. In Romans chapter 6, verses 17 and 18, he says, but thanks be to God, that though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from the heart, from your heart, the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. That's the gospel, that's coming to faith in Christ. He says you've come to obey the gospel. Now since that, he says, look at the end of the verse. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. He summarizes that thought in verse 22, a few verses down when he says this, but now that you have been set free from sin and it becomes slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. You see, freedom in Christ means that we are free to be servants again. But this is a blessed servanthood. This is not a servanthood to sin, which drags us down. This is not a slavery to the bondage of the law, where we never know if we've done enough. This is the freedom now to serve out of a heart of gratitude, our Lord who saved us, and to show that the freedom to serve one another. That's what God's made us for. He has made us to be those kind of servants. And you will only be fulfilled and fulfill the purpose God's place to you here on this earth for. If you use the freedom you have in Christ, to place yourself in servitude to Him and others. My father worked for the railroad for 43 years. Started out with the Virginians in the Norfolk Western, Norfolk Southern. Had a career working for the railroad. It was such a delight to my heart when my son-in-law went to work for the railroad. He's been with him about 10 years, and he's an engineer now, but he started out as a conductor. When Matthew started on the railroad, it was early on in his experience that he started out on a train one day, and they hit a piece of track that had become damaged. There was an engineer in the cab, and then Matthew there as the conductor. And when they hit that piece of damaged track, the train left the track, and started off over an embankment, and it was a pretty serious accident. In fact, it had rolled over on its side on the engineer's side, and the engineer was fully covered in dirt and debris when the train came to a stop. Matthew had to dig him out and basically, basically saved his life. But what happened is the train left what it was supposed to do, the confinement, the restraint of those tracks. A train was designed. It has its ultimate freedom when it is restrained to those tracks. If a train says, well, I don't want to be restrained to those. I don't like that bondage to those tracks. I want to do what I want to do, and goes down south and off across the field. That's a recipe for disaster. God has made us to live within certain restraints. We will do what we were meant to do when we live in those restraints of gladly serving God and serving others. Otherwise, we do what we want to do. We do what the simple nature is telling us to do. We're bouncing off across the field, causing all kinds of damage. Freedom means the freedom to serve God, and thus to serve others. Serving and freedom. Put notice Paul goes on to tie serving also to selfishness. Let's look at serving and selfishness, how they're tied together in the middle part of the verse. He says, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. In so doing, Paul talks about the origin of sinfulness or origin of selfishness. Now, you'll not see the word selfish in verse 13. But what you see is the evidence of selfishness, the origin of it, and that is the sinful nature. You see there, verse 13 says, do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. The origin of selfishness is the sinful nature. At the core of our sinful nature is a desire to be selfish, a desire to please ourselves, a desire to do what we want to do, what best fits us. Actually, the word sinful nature is the word flesh, and some of your translations will have that, or you may have it in a footnote. It's really the word flesh. The word that Paul uses is the word flesh. So it's a great debate over what Paul means by the flesh. Certainly, it's talking about the human body, actually. Certainly, Paul is not talking about the ancient Greek idea that the human body is simple, anything physical is simple in and of itself, that originated with playtoe. That's not Paul. That's playtoe. So that's Greek philosophy. Paul is not saying that. Paul does see, however, the body becoming the avenue through which our sinful nature expresses itself. Let me explain it this way. When you're born, you are born with an inclination towards sin. You are born with a nature, if you will, that tends towards sin, that leans towards sin, that is motivated that direction, that inclination, that motivation, that desire to live in that way is what is called the sinful nature. It's not a chunk of substance that inside you. And when you get saved, the new nature is not a chunk of substance that comes inside you. There are not two dogs inside fighting each other. That analogy is so unbiblical. Basically, the word nature in the Bible simply means a complex of attributes, a group of attributes, an inclination, a leaning, a motivation, a tendency towards something. We're all born with a tendency towards sin when we get saved, God places within us, a heart desire, a motivation, a tendency for righteousness, and that's motivated by the presence of the Holy Spirit within us. That's where the battle comes from. It's not a battle between two dogs. It's a battle between two inclinations or motivations or desires or purposes in life. The sinful nature is your motivation, your inclination, your desire to follow that which is evil. You still have that. And at its core, it is selfish. It is motivated by a desire to do what I want to do, to serve myself, to please myself. That is the core of the sinful nature. Everyone is generally dominated by that sinful nature. When we come into the world, we have that tendency, we have that inclination, we have that bent. We're all leaning that direction. When we get saved, God gives us the Holy Spirit to counter that and enable us to have a desire and a motivation to live for Him. But if the core of your sinful nature which you still have is selfishness. That's the heartbeat of the sinful nature is selfishness. The origin of selfishness, your sinful nature. The unleashing of selfishness. Notice how Paul describes this in verse 13. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. It is possible because you still have your sinful nature. It is possible to indulge it. It is possible to unleash it. And how that happens is that you provide sometimes even through your freedom. Oh, I'm free in Christ. I don't have to worry about how I live anymore, right? Oh, bad thinking, wrong thinking. But even your idea of freedom in Christ can sometimes be used by your sinful nature as a platform, as a base of operations from which to wage warfare on your soul and lead you back into sin. It is possible to indulge your sinful nature by giving it a pretext, giving it a starting point, a base of operations, indulging your sinful nature even by the deceptive, satanic thinking. Oh, I'm free in Christ now. I'm going to be in heaven. It doesn't matter how I live. Oh, yes, it does matter how you live. Don't indulge your sinful nature. Don't use even your freedom in Christ as a base of operations for your sinful nature to take off and go its own way. Now, the antidote to that, the antidote to that kind of thinking is serving one another, because that's the opposite of selfishness. It strikes at the very core of your sinful nature to put someone else first, to love them enough to serve them. That's why serving one another is so important, because every time you serve someone else, it deals a blow to your sinful nature which is selfish at its core. Your sinful nature is pulling you toward pleasing yourself, putting yourself first, doing what I want to do. What makes me feel good, and when you serve one another in an act of obedience to the Lord, you're striking back in the power of the Spirit against that selfish, simple nature. The unleashing of selfishness is when you indulge your sinful nature. Notice the evidence of the simpleness. You want to know evidence of selfishness. You want to know what the simple, selfish nature looks like? You want to know what an act is like? Paul describes it. Looked at the verse 19. The acts of the simple nature are obvious, and then he goes through a whole list. This is what the simple nature looks like. And notice how all of them are selfish, self-centered. First of all, I mentioned three kinds of sexual sin. When you're living for yourself, it has a tendency to work itself out in sexual immorality, which is general word for any kind of sexual sin, impurity, which focuses more on the thought life, and debauchery, which is a word that was used in the New Testament time of open public no shame, kind of sexual sin. Does that describe our culture or what? Sexual immorality of all kinds, motivated by impure, ungodly thoughts that just has no shame, publicly. That's what it looks like when self is in control. That's what it looks like when the sin nature is in control. But there's also religious sin, if you want to call it that, verse 20. I adultery and witchcraft. I adultery having to do with anything that you put before God. Isn't that some kind of selfish? Anything that I want in my life that takes the place of God? And then witchcraft, which has to do with dabbling into a cult, babbling in the dark arts, if you will, and also carries kind of an undertone of drug abuse. That word was used that way in the New Testament. A desire to please myself. Okay, religious sin. And then there is sin of personal animosity, the list of bunch of those, verse 20, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy. All those have to do with putting myself first, and so I strike out at other people in anger, fits of rage, party spirit, pulling away from others, doing what I want to do. All of that has its root in the selfish sinful nature. That's the way it looks when you're living according to the sinful nature. And then the final category of sins are sins of lack of self control. Notice in the verse 21, drunkenness, orges, and the light. He kind of lack of self control is an evidence of the sinful nature. When you're living under the control of the sinful nature, that is the way your life's going to end up. That's a description of it right there. It's a pretty sad story. That's the evidence of selfishness. So Paul links serving the selfishness in the sense that they are direct opposites. And serving one another is the antidote to selfishly indulging the sinful nature. But then notice quickly what Paul says about serving and love. At the end of the verse, he pulls it all together. He says, you're called to be free. Servanthood is tied to freedom. Don't use that freedom to indulge a sinful nature. Servanthood is the opposite of the selfish sinful nature. But rather, here it is, rather serve one another in the love. The evidence of serving in love? What does it look like? Well, it has to do with the word love. Serving other people is really described with the word love. The word love means to put the other person first. To put their interests ahead of your own. That's the evidence of serving in love. Is that you think more about the other person than you do about yourself. You put their needs before your own. If you look to meet their needs above your own. That's love in the Bible. That's what the word love means. God so loved the world that He gave. Gave is only begotten son. If you put our needs first and it was willing to give, selflessly, servant, giving to us the perfect example of this kind of love that leads to serving is the Lord Jesus Himself. You know the story. John chapter 13. The night before Jesus will go to the cross, he and the disciples gather in an upper room in Jerusalem to observe the Passover feast. They've come in off the dirty dusty streets of the surrounding roads of the city of Jerusalem. And they walk into that room. It would be typical in that culture because they were sandals on these dusty dirty streets where there would be a basin of water and a towel and a servant at the door. Household servant. Whose job it would be to wash everyone's feet before they proceeded into the house and sat down at the table. Much like we may wash before we come to a meal, they would wash except the main thing to wash was your feet. Because that's what would be so dirty. That was very typical in that day. But as they walk into the room, all the disciples walk right by that basin of water. There is no servant in the room that night. And all of them walk right by it. You know why? Because Luke 22 tells us that that very evening in the upper room, they are still quarreling about who's going to be first in the kingdom. About who's going to be on Jesus' right hand, who's going to be on His left. They're still jockeying for position. They're still worried about themselves. Who's going to be the secretary of state? Who's going to be the secretary of events? Who's going to get this cabinet of position? Who's going to get that cabinet of position? Who's going to be closest to the Lord in His kingdom? That's what they're concerned about. Self. So nobody even thinks about lowering themselves to do the job of slave. So Jesus gets up. While they're arguing about who's going to be first, Jesus walks over to that basin of water, takes off his outer garment, so he'll be more free to bend down and wash their feet, takes that basin and that towel, and begins to do the job of a servant. He put them first. All they're doing is thinking about themselves, selfishness. Jesus puts them first. Their needs first. And he shows what it means to serve in love. The whole reason Jesus came was for that. Philippians 2 says it so clearly. But even though he was equal with God, had the same nature as God, he did not see equality with God. The outward evidence of that in heaven, something that he had to grasp onto and hang onto. And so he became a servant, taking on human likeness, human flesh. When Jesus came to this earth as a babe and Bethlehem, he came as a servant. He came for the express purpose of putting our needs first. Serving us by dying for us on the cross. And so the perfect example of serving in love is Jesus Christ himself. The Paul goes on to talk about the beauty of serving in love. Lig of verse 14, he says, the entire law is summed up in a single command. Love your neighbor as yourself. Everything the Old Testament teaches can be summed up in that one command. Quote from Leviticus 1918, by the way, where the whole Old Testament law is summed up in the serve, serve one another. Love your neighbor as yourself. Paul very clearly portrays that again in the book of Romans and Romans chapter 13, verse 8. Paul says, no debt remain outstanding. In other words, do not fail to pay off your debts. Make sure you don't let any debt remain outstanding. Pay off your debts. Except you said, one debt you should never pay off. Except the continuing debt to love one another. That's one we should never pay off. That that would stay outstanding. Love one another. For whoever loves others has fulfilled the law and then Paul gives some examples of that. The commandments. You should not commit adultery. You should not murder. You should not steal. You should not covet. And whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. Paul quoted four out of the last six commands. You're aware, aren't you? The ten commandments were given in two tablets. First tablet, four commands. All of them have to do their relationship with God. Second tablet, six commands. All of them have to do with our relationship with others. Paul quoted four of those six. And when he said whatever other command there may be, he's probably thinking the other two. Honor your father and mother. And you should bear no false witness against another person, your neighbor. All of those commands will be fulfilled if you love that person. Love is the fulfillment of the law. If you love that person, you won't commit adultery against them. If you love that person, you won't steal their stuff. If you love that person, you won't bear false witness against them. If you love your mother and father, you'll honor them. You see, everything the law expects of us is fulfilled. If we love one another, that's the beauty of this serving in love. Because when we put others in each first, and we love them enough to serve them, we're fulfilling from the heart everything, the Old Testament law stipulated anyway. What a beautiful balance to the book of Galatians. We're not saved by keeping the law. We must feel no obligation to keep the law to save us. But when you get saved, when you put others first, and serve them in love, from your heart, you'll do what the Old Testament law was commanding anyway. A beautiful balance. The beauty of serving in love. The opposite of serving in love, Paul describes very plainly in the surrounding verses. In fact, in verses 15 and 26, there are four other one and others. We're not going to preach on these four. They're all negative. They use the word each other. But notice them, they're all the opposite of serving one another in love. Verse 15, he says, if you keep on biting and devouring each other, now there's a one another for you. This is the law, the jungle. This is going on the offensive. This is attacking each other. This is tearing each other to shreds. This is harming the other person, exploiting the other person, using the other person for your needs, attacking the other person. That's biting and devouring one another. Paul says if you do that, look at what happens. Watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other. There's another one another, destroying one another. The result of biting and devouring each other is that we get torn apart. Churches get torn apart. Families get torn apart. Relationships get torn apart. Lives get torn apart. When we bite into our one another, people get destroyed. And then notice the other two in verse 26, let us not become conceded, provoking and envying each other. Provoking one another. Now I know some of you believe this is one of the one another that is taught in the New Testament, that you should provoke one another. And the writer Hebrus says that we're to stimulate one another, provoke one another, to love and good deeds. But here, Paul is talking about a different kind of provoking. You know what the word literary means? It means to irritate somebody. Some of you have that spiritual gift, I know. It literally means to do or say things purposely to upset a person or to get a reaction of anger from them. You purposely, you know what we call it today, don't you? Pushing their buttons. You know exactly what button to push to get a response out of them, to irritate them, to get them angry. And so you just enjoy doing that. When is that button? Ha! That's provoking one another. And then he says, envying one another. Envy stronger than jealousy. Jealousy is a desire to have or be what the other person is. Envy will go a step further. Envy will go a step to harm that person. Because you're jealous of them. It's very damaging. Those are the opposite of serving one another in love. What Paul is saying is this, when you put other people first, when you genuinely love other people, when you serve them because you put their needs first. It leads to a blessed fellowship and unity and oneness in Christ. That is just beautiful. It's the opposite of the powering, tearing up one another and everything around you. For provoking everybody, the opposite of all that, it brings you together. You know, kind of relationship that is very, very special. I love reading about old preachers and how they used to operate in the old days. And one of those that I've enjoyed reading about as a member of John Fawcett. John Fawcett was a pastor in England in the late 1700s and early 1800s. He had a very hard life. He was orphaned at the age of 12. Had to work 14 hours a day, seven days a week in a sweatshop just to keep his body and soul together. So he had a rough, rough time growing up. He taught himself to read. He studied by candlelight at night and basically educated in the night. He was a pastor of a little Baptist church in Wayne's Gate, England. Very small church, church of less than 100 people. After seven years, he had grown so much as a preacher that he was becoming well known throughout England. And the great Carter's Lane Baptist church, which John Gills, you know, anything about that? He was a great pastor of the church. And the great Carter's Lane Baptist church, which John Gills, you know, anything about the English sheriff and Baptists? John Gill was the first leader of that movement of tremendous theologian who pastored Carter's Lane church for 51 years, had led them through several large building expansions that was a huge church, the most influential church in London. It would later become Metropolitan Tabernacle. And in the late 1800s, it would have another well known pastor named Charles Haddon Spurgeon. It was the leading church in London. And when Gill died, they called John Fawcett, the leader of pastor. 32 years old, relatively unknown, outside of the circles of preaching. And they called him to be their pastor. So he preached his last sermon at Wayne's Gate church, had his always belongings packed up on a cart outside the church, ready to leave for London. The goodbyes were so tearful and so hard. When he walked out of the church, he decided London would have to wait. The unpacked his belongings and decided I got to stay in Wayne's Gate a little bit longer. The people loved him so much, he loved the people so much. They had served one another so much in love. They had developed a unity that just could not be broken. You know what, John Fawcett never made it to London. He was at Wayne's Gate for another 45 years. He went on to become one of the most well known preachers in England. Wrote books, started a college for pastors, but he stayed right there in that little country church the rest of his life. You know why? Possibly it's reflected in a song that he wrote that we still sing today. This is how he expressed his commitment, his love for the people there. Blessed be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love. The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above. You see, he and the people at Wayne's Gate church had learned to serve one another in love. And when that happens, there is a tie, there is a fellowship that is like to that above. No other way to describe it, except it's a little slice of heaven when you put others needs first and serve them in love. Let's bow together in prayer. Father, we thank you for Paul's admonition for us to serve one another in love. Help us Lord to use the freedom that we have in Christ, not to serve us to health, not to indulge our sinful natures. Father, help us to realize how opposite that is to what you intend for us as your people, that we want us to really put others first, serve one another in love. Help us to do that faithfully, kindly, courteously, graciously, lovingly, serve one another. And in the process, Lord, we know that we will deal a blow to our sinful nature which is selfish at the core. May we serve one another in love, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.