Blessed Obligation: The Joy of Serving in the Local Church

“In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”— Acts 20:35

In a recent recent post, we discussed the necessity of church membership and how this covenantal relationship should apply to our modern institutional paradigms. Once that step has been taken, there comes next what we will call “blessed obligations.”

Obligation

I’ll start with the last word of the phrase since obligation may seem like the colder of the two words. Paul, in his many letters to the churches, instructs believers that they are to serve one another. Think specifically of the book of Galatians: Paul spends the first three chapters telling believers that the gospel is not about law; it’s not about one’s own works; it’s about grace and faith. But then, in chapter five, Paul takes what may seem like a hard turn and begins to discuss what all believers are to do. He also does this in Ephesians chapter four, where, after he spends chapter two talking about salvation not being of works but of grace through faith (Eph. 2:4-10), he then says to “walk in a manner worthy of your calling” (Eph. 4:1), to “no longer walk as the Gentiles do” (Eph. 4:17), and gives a host of other imperatives.

But in Galatians 5, Paul says something unexpected:

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”— Galatians 5:13–14

Paul says we are free, but that this freedom comes with an obligation: to serve one another. To peel back a layer here, the word Paul uses for serve is not the word from which we get deacon (διάκονος/διακονέω), but rather the word from which we get slave or bondservant (δοῦλος/δουλεύω). Paul is intentionally drawing a paradox between our freedom through the salvation of Christ and our being bound to serve each other in love.

And let’s face it, from a purely pragmatic standpoint, the average local church is too small to pay many staff members. The church depends upon volunteers to do the things that will help keep the doors open. She needs nursery workers, people to fix and clean things, people to hand out bulletins and greet attendees and guests as they gather together to worship their Triune God, and so on. These responsibilities cannot all be laid at the feet of the diaconate. These things, no matter how insignificant they may seem, are all labors of hospitality and love.

The shift in Paul’s emphasis in Galatians from grace and faith to works is not really a hard turn at all. Christian charity follows Christian faith; or, put another way, Christian works follow from true faith. This emphasis on Christian work and service becomes overwhelming only if we have lost our understanding of the gospel. Yes, if we are attempting to live out the Christian faith apart from the work of the Spirit indwelling us, we will eventually crash and burn, and serving each other will become a burden, but it isn’t designed to be a burden. It’s designed to be a blessing.

Blessed

I say blessed because it truly is a gift from God that we are called to participate in the work of his church. And this is true of all of God’s commands. He is our Creator; he knows what makes us grow and what fulfills us, and he shares that information with us through the divine revelation of Scripture. Time and time again in the Bible we see how the covenant community is supposed to interact with each other: how they are to love and serve each other, and how they are to serve God together.

At the end of our new members class, I present ways that they can get involved in the ministry of the church: how they can take what they have learned about covenant membership and apply it, and how these opportunities for service are actually for their own spiritual fulfillment.

From the pulpit, I have said on occasion that if Sunday morning is the only time you are participating in the life of the church, you are cutting yourself off at the knees when it comes to your own growth and feeding.

We often think that “feeding” comes only from the worship service, and indeed we are fed during corporate worship. This is a primary responsibility of believers: to honor the Fourth Commandment and corporately come together to worship their God, bringing their sacrifices of praise. During this time, the grace of God is poured out upon his people through Word and Sacrament.

But even the longest of services rarely crest two hours. What is that two hours in relation to the entire week? Even if one is a committed Sabbatarian, what are your sixteen waking hours on Sunday compared to the rest of your week if you disregard Christian service and fellowship?

Our spiritual lives are like most every other part of us—how much we invest in them will either facilitate or hinder our growth, just like physical exercise.

This is also where the words of Paul, quoting Jesus (though we do not have an explicit place in the Gospel accounts where Jesus said this), come into play: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20.35) Paul says this in the context of exhorting the Ephesian elders to care for the church as he himself has: with his whole life. He says this as he is about to go down to Jerusalem, knowing he will be imprisoned. But he also says this not merely from an intellectually theological position, but also from an experiential one. Paul knows that one of the paradoxes of the Christian life is that we are more blessed when we are serving the church rather than merely sitting and listening to the sermon before leaving as soon as the postlude plays. God has designed us and his work to function this way in the life of the believer.

Conclusion

Christ says in Matthew 11:28-30:

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”— Matthew 11:28–30

That isn’t to say that the physical and emotional activities involved in Christian work are no trouble at all or that they aren’t exerting or strenuous. Christ isn’t calling us to the easy-chair life of health, wealth, and prosperity. But he is telling us that labors done by those united to him are not in vain. They are also not dependent upon the person doing the work.

This is the relief point—the success of the work of the Triune God in his church and in the world does not depend on us. We can serve him freely, knowing that he is the one at work and will bring it to completion.

Christ does not need us. In fact, if anything, we are often a hindrance to the work of the gospel due to our laziness, selfishness, and pride.

Calvin says of Acts 20:35:

“Yet they must not do this with an haughty heart, as if it were a miserable thing for them to be in any man’s danger; either through ambition, that they may bind other men to them; but only that they may exercise themselves willingly in the duties of love, and by this means make known the grace of their adoption.”— John Calvin, Commentary on Acts 20:35

The grace of our adoption is made known to us (and to others) as we serve. God has chosen to call us to serve his bride, and that work (not only a blessing to others as a labor of love) is also a gift for our own spiritual blessing. Our blessed obligation is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor, especially our Christian local-church neighbor, as ourselves.

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”— Galatians 6:2