With all due respect allow me to paraphrase the above quote from former President George Bush and say, “Any definition of growing a good relationship should include serving others!” Serving is another behavior that will help us grow a culture of good relationships and knowing the importance of serving will improve our relationships in our marriages, families, places of worship, work place and community.
The master of relationships said it most eloquently Matthew 23:11, “…He that is greatest among you shall be your servant. (Jesus) ” It is the behavior of serving that elevates our standing with others and helps us connect with those with whom we are most intimate.
Serving is a behavior God honors Being a servant it the highest honor God gives to anyone in Scripture, for example God said,
“My servant Moses” Numbers 12:7
“My servant Caleb” Numbers 14:24
“My servant David” II Samuel 3:18
“Naaman my servant” II Kings 5:6
“My servant Job” Job 2:3
“My servant Isaiah” Isaiah 20:3
“My servant Eliakim” Isaiah 22:20
“My servant Jacob” Jeremiah 30:10
“Zerubbabel my servant” Haggai 2:23
Moses was a great leader, a great organizer and was used to write the first five books of the Bible, but God does not commend Moses for his amazing leadership, God commends him for serving, as He did the others listed. We can see that God regards the behavior of serving an important attribute in a relationship with Him and for us in our relationships with one another.
Galatians 5:13-14 helps us put the power and importance of the behavior of service into perspective. For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. (14) For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Although Jesus, Paul and others often stress the importance of being a servant and serving others, Galatians 5:14 is the only place in Scripture where we find the term, “Serve one another.” To profit the most from this behavior principle let’s consider the context of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. The letter is written by the Apostle Paul to believers who had slipped back into old habits and practices. The primary theme of this letter is salvation by faith and not works. In the portions of the letter where Paul makes the statement “by love serve one another” he continues by quoting Jesus in verse fourteen, “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”. Paul is teaching the Christ followers at Galatia to live out Jesus commandment to “Love thy neighbor as thyself” by serving one another.
The word “neighbor” has a broad definition that spans from “one of the human race, to anyone that needs our help, to one who lives near another, to an intimate confidant”. We also have Biblical examples of who our neighbor is, the good Samaritan saw the wounded man on the street as his neighbor, other references are given that a neighbor is one who lives close to us, and as the word neighbor is used in Galatians 5:14 it means one who is close in a relationship such as a friend, family member, child or spouse.
The Bond of Serving
Our relationship with those we are closest to should be our priority and should be the people we seek to serve the best, so I encourage you to think of those to whom you are the most intimate as we continue.
The word serve comes from the Latin word Servio, from the noun servus, meaning a servant or slave. When one first reads this definition they may think of this in a negative way, slavery as we know it is a terrible thing, but the meaning is not the same. The word serve has the idea of being bonded to another and ministering to them, or meeting their needs and I will add sometimes their wants. It is not a matter of you being a servant or slave in that they own you, but that you are bonded to them therefore you serve them or minister to them. In my mind this takes our close relationships to a whole new level. As I evaluate my close intimate relationships I ask myself what is my bond to this person? What is my connection to them? I have a special bond to my wife, another special bond to my children, to my grandchildren, to my siblings, and to my close friends. A pastor has a bond to the people he serves, a doctor has a bond to his patients and we have a bond with the people with whom we work to earn our living. It is beautiful when we see ourselves as bonded to the people we love and when we realize the importance of service in our relationships.
The Behavior of Service
Ken Blanchard said, “I think a great leader is somebody who realizes it’s not about them, it’s about the people that they’re serving, that they’re really other –directed rather than self-directed.”
One of the best human examples of the behavior of service is the example of a good mother. A good mother sacrifices her rest, her health and her own well-being to care for the needs of her children. As well as a good father who will also sacrifice things he needs for the needs and wants of his children. Growing a culture of good relationships is a matter of being unselfish; it is putting the needs and even the wants of the other person above our own. My wife and I saw the behavior of service first hand in the lives of her grandparents Joe and Marcie Lux. Joe lived to be ninety-two and Marcie lived to be eighty-seven. In their later years they served each other in their bond of love, we saw them live out the wedding vows they made to each other some sixty years earlier. One time when Joe was in the hospital we went to visit him and there was Marcie, ever the devoted wife, shaving Joe, and caring for his every need. And later on when Marcie had a severe stroke that left her unable to walk, talk or feed her-self; we went to visit several times at the assisted living home where they resided to find Joe in the dining hall, feeding Marcie with a spoon and pushing her along the hall in a wheel chair. They were a living example of the behavior on being bond-servants to one another. They were bound by their love and they expressed that love through the behavior of service.
A good word to include with the behavior of service is the word minister and to look to Jesus as our best example, He initiated reaching out to others to minister to their physical, emotional and spiritual needs and He did this through His behavior toward them.
Jesus fed a hungry multitude; He restored sight to the blind, He healed the cripple man at the Pool of Bethesda, He went out of his way to have a conversation with an outcast woman at a well where her life was transformed because Jesus ministered to her. He enjoyed the company of His friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus. He touched a leper and healed him. He ministered to the man in the tombs who had been abandoned by society and cast the demons out of him and loved him and gave him hope. He ate with sinners and publicans. When He was with His disciples He washed their feet and when He was alone He prayed for them. The bond Jesus had with all of mankind is love. He came to serve and did so sacrificially. And we all desire to hear Him say to us on that day, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
We conclude then that serving one another is a behavior whereby we express love and if we understand that God deems serving a wounded stranger lying on the street as a behavior of being a good neighbor, then we can also conclude that God deems those people in our lives with whom we have a closer more intimate relationship even more important.
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