The Five Love Languages: Acts of Service
Loving through Serving
But as you watch you’ll see another elephant come along. A much larger elephant. Notice what happens. She gets down into the pit with the other elephant & pushes her out.
This is what people who speak the love language of Acts of Service do… they’re not afraid to get down into the pit with you & do whatever it takes to help you OUT!
Do you know people like this?
For some of you, this is a natural love language & you speak it well. But this is important for all of us.
What is the single greatest barrier to us serving each other?
I think we could all agree that we live in a pretty me-centric, self centered world. We have to constantly resist & push back against our culture that says you’re entitled, you deserve it, you should get what you want when you want it. This is by far the dominant voice in our American culture.
Self sacrifice, when it happens, is honored & revered but it is not the dominant cultural value.
What’s scary is that this mentality has crept into the church. So we have people in churches all across the country who have a me-centric, self centered view of church. It all comes down to their certain set of preferences & if the church they’re at doesn’t meet the majority of their specific likes & dislikes they will leave that church, no matter how relationally invested they are, because of it.
It’s been said before that the gravitational pull of the local church is always towards the inside. If that’s true, then what that points to is that the gravitational pull of the church, the local expression of the body of Christ, is always towards itself.
But the gravitational pull of Christ was & is always towards others!
[Tweet “The gravitational pull of Christ was & is always towards others! #Serve #Jesus”]Jesus
There’s no greater example for us to look at than Jesus when we think about what it means to love someone through serving them.
And maybe the greatest place to hear exactly what this kind of love looks like is found in Philippians 2.1-11.
Here we read the words of a man by the name of Paul who at one time put his thoughts ahead of everyone else’s. At one time, it was his way or the highway. At one time, Paul was rapidly ascending the corporate ladder… but then he met Jesus & Jesus changed everything for Paul.
Paul wrote a letter to a church in the city of Philippi & listen to what he tells them…
1 Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? 2 Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly (being of the same mind) with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.
Two times here Paul uses the same word to try to communicate to this group of Jesus followers how they are supposed to live. He says that they should be of the same MIND. Literally, the same disposition.
It sounds like a crazy notion, that ALL of us could agree on any one thing. But Paul says, as followers of Jesus, we should be of ONE MIND, be of the SAME DISPOSITION, in this very important & very specific way…
3 Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. 4 Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.
WHY? Paul says that this should be true of us. This should be true of those of us who follow Jesus at home, at our church, at our work, in every relationship. WHY? Here’s Paul’s BIG WHY for those of us who claim to follow Christ.
5 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.
6 Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
8 he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
9 Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor
and gave him the name above all other names,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Put Yourself Second
One way I can love you the way Christ loves you it to serve you. We do this because Christ serves us! He served us on the cross & he serves us still!
[Tweet “One way I can love you the way Christ loves you it to serve you. #Serve #Jesus”]Did you know Christ is still looking for ways to serve you now. If He wasn’t, why would you pray? Of course he is. He’s not done serving you, loving you through acts of service.
He put your needs so far ahead of his own that he came from heaven to earth, he went from the earth to the cross, then to the grave & then rose up from the grave. And He’s still, in grand humility, serving you.
So, if Christ who literally gave up everything to serve you, to serve me, who loved you at great cost to himself, shouldn’t we love each other in the same way?
And what if we did? What if we really did? Wouldn’t it change everything?
To put your needs ahead of my own even when it cost me something, especially when it cost me everything… this is love.
Here’s what I believe is true: As long as you are first, you can’t really love another.
[Tweet “As long as you are first, you can’t really love another. #Serve #Jesus”]On HELPING others. To really love another is to put yourself second.
[Tweet “To really love another is to put yourself second. #Serve #Jesus”]This is what Jesus did for us. He loved us so much that He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. And because of His ultimate act of love & service, because of the cross, we can stand before a Holy God.
And when our sin is counted against us, Jesus will stand in the gap for us. He’ll get down into that pit with us & He will raise us up from the pit & lift us into eternal life!
