Serving One Another

Louis and Philip did not know each other. Had they, they might not have liked each other. They were as different as different could be. Louis lived all of his life in a rural area. Philip was born and reared in a city of several million people. The doctors judged Louis mentally challenged. Philip was considered brilliant. Louis could barely read. Philip had a Ph.D.

Louis spent most of his life as a hired hand on the farms in his community. He had no place to call home, only rooms his employers allowed him to use. Philip had an extended family with inheritance. He owned three properties most people would be glad to call home. Louis lived his life alone. Philip was married to a woman as talented as he. The couple had three children. They made a beautiful family.

Both Louis and Philip were Christians. They attended Baptist churches. Louis’ church was a one-room, white frame building sitting around the bend of a dirt road. The church was founded in the early 1800s. The building had stood for almost a century. Philip attended a Baptist church in the heart of his city. It was several stories tall. The church was about 30 years old and one of the stronger Baptist churches in the area.

Louis loved his church. Every Sunday morning he walked from wherever he lived to the church. He was the first to arrive. Each Sunday Louis unlocked the church. In the summer he opened the windows and turned on the fans. In the winter he built a fire in the stove that still rests near the middle of the building.

Philip attended church every Sunday, too. People frequently asked him to sing. His strong tenor voice could be heard during congregational singing, but Philip refused to sing solos or in small groups. The only time he sang was during congregational songs.

Philip also played the piano and the organ. For a long time church members asked Philip to play for the services. He always declined. Eventually, people stopped asking.

In a way that few understood, Louis knew he was limited. He could not pray in public or teach Sunday School or do any of the other things obviously needed in a church. He could unlock doors, open windows and build fires. What he could do, he did do, and he did them gladly. No matter the weather, Louis’ smiling face was always there to greet people as they arrived for Sunday School.

Philip accepted his musical gift as a blessing for his personal edification. He often sang praises to God during his private devotionals. His family talked of singing hymns as their prayers before meals. Philip played his piano and his organ for hours on end. It was worship for him.

But Philip never played for the church and his fellow believers. His talents and gifts were not for display. They were for personal use only, he plainly said.

Neither Louis nor Philip controlled the gifts God bestowed on them. No one does. What each did control was how the gifts were used.  Gifts can be used in haute ways. They can be used for self-glorification. They can be used for personal development and to call attention to one’s self.

The apostle Peter offers a different way to use one’s gifts. In 1 Peter 4:10 he writes, “As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”

Louis, Philip, all of us are supposed to use our talents and gifts by putting them into service of one another, says the apostle. Gifts are not to be put under a bushel basket so no one can see them.

The emphases of the words are that gifts are not to be left dormant. They are to be put into action. That action is “serving one another.”

One’s gifts will not be like those of another. God gives a variety of gifts. The apostle Paul made that clear when he talked about the church as the “body of Christ.” The church is not all ears, he said. Nor is it all hands or feet. The body needs all of its parts to function properly. The church needs all the gifts God entrusts to the members.

Each Christian is a steward, however. Each one is responsible for the way the gift entrusted to that individual is used. When Christians serve one another, it is service “as unto the Lord.” The end product is that God is glorified. That is the ultimate goal.

Had Philip ever come to Louis’ little one-room church building, he would have appreciated finding the doors unlocked and a warm fire in the belly of the wood stove. Shelter and warmth are  wonderful gifts on a cold, frosty morning. Louis might have appreciated Philip’s lyrical tenor voice had Philip ever agreed to use his gift to build up the church. They could have helped each other.

Isn’t that what the apostle Peter had in mind when he challenged all followers of Christ to “serve one another”?

Perhaps the greatest difference between Louis and Philip was at this point. Louis used his gifts, as meager as some thought them, in service of one another through the church. Philip, with an abundance of gifts, did not.

Every Christian is gifted by God. The question is whether one is willing to use that gift in service to God and fellow Christians. Are you?