Church of the Nazarene East Rock
Your Un-Churched Neighbor Part 3: Serving
In many, if not most cases, God provides an opportunity to reach someone by starting with an opportunity to serve someone.
Welcome back to our summer teaching series “Your Unchurched Neighbor”
Through this series we are seeking to be more informed, better equipped, and yes, even challenged to reach the lost and seeking hearts all around us.
As we continue in our series today, we will see that most often our first opportunity to reach someone – if we are truly interested in reaching them– will likely come with an opportunity to serve them.
To serve someone doesn’t mean we agree with them or their lifestyle. It doesn’t mean we approve of or affirm their beliefs or actions.
It just means we are willing to obey God and follow his example where they’re concerned. No questions asked
That’s how Jesus lived, right down to his final hours.
John 13:1-17
It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean. When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
When Jesus said “No servant is greater than his master…” He is saying loud and clear to anyone who would follow him: “You are servants!”
That echoes to us in 2022.
If this scene displays clearly for us the heart of Jesus and his perspective on serving, if this is the example he has left for his followers
-Why is it that 2000 years later the polls and surveys reveal that many people feel the same way about the church, aka you and me, like they would about calling their cable television provider?
Think back to what we learned in part 1 of our series and the need for understanding and ask yourself “what has happened?”
I ask what has happened because I have to believe that If I was loving and serving like Jesus, if you were, if WE were, people couldn’t say that about the church, could they?
I know we are completing the mission, we are loving like Jesus, and we celebrate that.
But I am asking, what would it look like to love like Jesus more? What would it look like if we were more about serving than saying?
How can we lean in to bridging this gap between the church and our communities?
How can we bring the Love of Jesus into the lives of more people in Elkton and beyond?
How can we be so obedient and so compassion that people are shocked by it? The way they were in that room that night.
As we have studied and reflected on this passage and the example that Jesus set, not only here, but throughout his life, I believe there are a few things that must be true of each one of us individually, and true of us as the Church if we are to continue to live our mission like Jesus.
We must have the heart of Jesus
In Jesus, we are shown the power of a servant- In Judas we are shown the opposite of what it means to serve.
To serve like Jesus, we must submit to the way of Jesus
Peter had to submit to the way of Jesus to have a part with Him, and so do we.
Finally, we must have His perspective on serving
The disciples looked at serving and asked “What’s in it for me?”
Jesus looked at serving and asked “What’s in it for them?”
Whose story could you impact with the perspective of Jesus?
We have a choice. We can live out of a “What’s in it for me” attitude
OR
We can live the call of Jesus asking “What’s in it for them?”
The world is watching to see what we will choose.