Thursday, September 19, 2013

On Service and Fellowship - When Two Good Things Clash

Passage from Luke 13:10-17


Christ has saved us according to His perfect grace, and appointed us unto service. Service unto others, both within the church and without. This service, God calls charity, God calls love. Serving others shows Christ's love through us, and in that He works tremendous works beyond our capabilities. In serving others, we are serving God.

In our passage in Luke 13, we see Christ healing a woman bound with an infirmity on the Sabbath. The ruler of the synagogue was indignant, Scripture states, as he said that people have six other days to come to be healed, that no healing should take place on the Sabbath, for that service he equated to work. Our Lord righteously rebuked him in comparing his healing to their tending to livestock on the Sabbath day, loosing them from their captivity and leading them to drink.

Life Application:

Now, we know that we have been released from the bondage of the old testament law of Moses. We know it was but a shadow of the substance found in Christ and while Moses was good, Christ is better. As Matthew Henry stated so eloquently, who would worship a shadow when the substance has come? We are no longer bound to the Sabbath observation, for we know that Christ is the Sabbath Rest for the people of God (born again Christians) and even those who observed the physical Sabbath rest of the old testament never were able to enter into the True Sabbath that the physical law was only a shadow of. Our Sunday church fellowship is not a replacement of the Sabbath, or an attempt to change the Sabbath, it is as new as the New Covenant itself. The early church met on the first day of the week, the Apostles as well, for this was the day of the week that Christ was found risen, and the day of the week that the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost to institute and finalize the New Covenant.

Yet, often much confusion surrounds the subject. Church fellowship is good, absolutely, and necessary, as are tithes, offerings, and much more. Howbeit, while presence and participation in corporate worship is much needed, we are still called unto service and love, both to those within and those without. What good does presence do if the willingness to have and act upon a heart for service to our fellow men as unto God is absent? How can one so boldly say "I'm here, Lord! Here to serve you!" if they are also so saltless as to say that mere presence is of the utmost and highest degree of spirituality?

Jesus rebuked the ruler of the synagogue with a stinging and righteous "Thou hypocrite." God forbid that we show ourselves as hypocrites as well. I stand to reason that in many churches today, if a man ran inside during a Sunday service shouting "My home is on fire, please help me!" that, unfortunately, most pastors and members would be more than a bit irritated at the interruption, and would perhaps call 911 for the man so that they can get back to their fellowship and worship rather than answer a call to help and to serve another human being as unto the Lord. Then there are those church food pantries, or "ministries," that are only open on certain days, and when a family in need comes to them on another day they they are turned away with a coarse "Come back on the day that our ministry is open," to stew and fret over, while shedding tears and crying out to God to please help them feed their children since the church is so unwilling! Or, if a family stranded half a continent away from home comes for help, they are told to find someone else to help because they are not church members and not even worthy of an appeal and love offering.

Thou hypocrite!

Ironically, in my experience, in those cases it is often those who have the least that give the most, as unto the Lord.

When will the people of God realize that service is the highest act of worship that man can attain here on this earth? That we are called to shun highmindedness and to look to the things of others as in Philippians 2? The mind of Christ Jesus in us. Would Jesus interrupt a church service to serve someone in need? I would venture to answer with a resounding "YES" given that He would interrupt a synagogue service, which He was teaching, to heal a woman, knowing that the ruler would detest His action. If someone calls you on a Sunday and says, "Hey, I'm about 50 miles from home and my tire is flat and I don't have the money for a tow," would you, if it was within your abilities, go and serve him, help him, though it meant missing Sunday morning service? Or would you tell him to wait, or find someone else because it would be 'un-Christian' for you to miss church?

The mark of God's People is love and in that, service. We are told that whatsoever we do for the least of our fellow men, so do we unto Christ. We ought not to be so outwardly focused that we miss the service of the heart that is manifested by Christ through hands of grace and mercy. The tugging of grace always leads to selfless service and sacrifice, without a second glance. Grace, and the service of grace, always leads to gratitude and praise that glorifies God.

Should, then, grace stand as a scapegoat to assembly or giving? God forbid. However, it is the purpose of Christ, the purpose of Grace, to serve more than in word alone, but in deed as well, along with truth, and if the tongue boasts of service but the hands are willingly withdrawn according to the calendar or clock, then it is nothing but lip service and is an affront to Christ, and an affront to the grace that has loosed our shackles and called us out of the miry pit in that we were found. And to cut down and shame those who would so serve, it is even worse. Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

Again, is this an excuse to neglect the other good things of God? Absolutely not! Christ calls us to church attendance and participation just as well as He does to giving. However, do not let legalism quench the Spirit when we are called to physically serve others first when it is within our capabilities. For the congregation or for the lost, broken, and downtrodden: it is one and the same when done for the Lord. It's absolutely a good thing to be at church meetings whenever we are able, however, I think it's about time that we remember what 'church service' really means.

~*~

I am thankful for my church home.