Jesus
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Heb. 11:26 says that Moses “thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to his great reward.”
Moses had a choice, and it is the same choice we have. We can keep solidly to God’s path or we can lower our standards and walk in the praise and prestige of the world. Moses knew it was better to suffer for His God than own the treasures of Egypt. I believe the standards of Moses were firmly set in him by his parents who raised him until he was old enough to go back to Pharaoh’s daughter.
It never occurred to Moses that he could widen the instructions of God because he felt them to be to narrow. He knew that sharing in the oppression of God’s people meant that he would never be accepted in Pharaoh’s presence, and that was okay. He never says to God, “I see what You’re asking me to do, but I’d like a little lenience. Can I be accepted by my true family and not make Pharaoh mad?”
The fact is there are certain things that never change, because changing those things would invite chaos. If an athlete chooses to run the mile for his track team, it is the same mile if it is run in Kansas or in England. If I go to the high school and shoot a basketball, I’ll be trying to get that ball into an eighteen inch hoop. And if I go to Madison Square Gardens the diameter will be the same. If a kid grows up pitching a baseball, he knows that home plate will be seventeen inches wide in Little League and seventeen inches wide in college and seventeen inches wide if he makes it to the majors.
There isn’t a coach in the world who will say to his athlete, “Oh, is a mile too far for you to run? Then we’ll only make you run three-quarters of a mile and you can still be on the team.” If you can’t compete in the mile you don’t run on the team, right? Have you ever heard of a ref that says, “You mean you can’t make that basket? Then we’ll make that hoop twenty-three inches for you.” It never occurred to anyone to say to a pitcher, “What? You can’t get that baseball to stay within those seventeen inches? Then we’ll just make it twenty-five for you. It is more important that you feel better about yourself than it is to stick with the long-held standards of the game.” If a major-league pitcher can’t hit the plate, then he’s sent to the minors or to a different position. The seventeen inch standard of home plate is here to stay.
As Christians we have a standard to live by, and that unchanging standard is the Word of God. Heb. 13:8-9 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So do not be attracted by strange, new ideas.” Nowhere in God’s Word is it acceptable to change the standards of God’s law to meet our opinions, desires or lack of discipline. There are some strange, new ideas floating around regarding what it means to be a Christian and which practices are acceptable, but if these practices are opposed to the Word of God, then no amount of debate or justification will make them okay. Being a disciple of Christ is the same for everyone. It means Jesus is your Lord and your feelings, hopes, dreams and ambitions take second place to the purposes of God in your life. You can’t stay in Egypt and cross the Red Sea at the same time. You can’t say, “I know God’s Word calls this lifestyle a sin, but God made me this way and you have to accept me and give me a job in your church and not discriminate against me.” No, I do not and will not. The standard of God’s Word remains. It isn’t my rule. If you don’t like it, take it up with the Rule Maker. I just want everyone here to know that in this church, as long as I am the pastor, the standard of God’s Word will be the standard for everything we do.
Take a moment and think about some things that scare you – things all you need to do is just half-way consider thinking about and you become fearful and terrified. This is the direction my mind went when I read how Governor Felix responded to Paul in Acts 24.
In this chapter, Paul has been accused of stirring up riots all over the world, of being a ringleader of a cult of Nazarenes and desecrating the Temple. Felix and his wife Drusilla want to hear from Paul, and verse 25 says, “As he reasoned with them about righteousness and self-control and the coming day of judgment, Felix became frightened.”
And he should be frightened, for that is what happens when people are faced with the truth they know they are not living. But that isn’t the part that is frightening. What Felix says next should cause us all to pause and be a little scared. Felix says, “Go away. When it is more convenient, I’ll call for you again.”
Those five words — “When it is more convenient” — may be some of the most terrifying words in all of Scripture. Why? Because putting God first in our life is never convenient. What we mean when we say “When it is more convenient” is we’ll fit God into our schedule when it suits us, not when it suits Him. The Voice translation of verse 25 says, “When I have time, I will send for you again.” I cannot help but wonder how many times and in how many different way we’ve all said to God, “When I have time, I will send for you again.”
We may say we are a Christian, a follower of Christ because He died for our sins and saved us from the penalty of death. We may say He is our Lord and we’ll do as He commands, but in reality there are many times we use God at our convenience and fit Him into our schedule when it suits us. We may have to find time for God because He’s not really our God—He’s an idol we put on the shelf, give a nod to as we pass through the room where we keep Him, and every once in a while make a big deal of bringing Him out and showing Him to our friends, like on Christmas and Easter or when the kids are in a church musical. Or worse. Once a week on Sundays….
But I don’t want to be like Felix and say to God, “Go away for now. And when it is more convenient and I have the time, I’ll call for you again.” For the frightening fact is this: I don’t really know if I’ll even have another “again.” I have no guarantee of any more tomorrows, much less a more convenient time to sincerely make God my true Lord and Savior. I want NOW to be the time for God to be the true Lord of my life. And I pray you do, too.
“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus” – Phil. 2:5
How often have you tried to talk your kid into eating something that they were convinced they wouldn’t like, even though they have never tasted it? You humor them, cajole them, make a game of it and finally threaten violence or grounding to get them to try it. So they put a microscopic amount of this foreign food on the end of their fork, screw their eyes shut and with a motion slower than grass growing in January, they bring the fork to their mouth and just barely touch the end of their tongue, at which point they drop the fork, grasp their throat as if they’ve been poisoned and proceed to drink an entire glass of milk to wash the offending flavor from their mouth.
You have just witnessed the fact that it is easier to change someone’s behavior than it is to change their mind. You got them to taste it, but you couldn’t make them like it. Besides, since they already told you they wouldn’t like it, they weren’t about to lose face and admit they were wrong. Do any of you have kids who would rather go to bed hungry than admit you were right and the food you forced down their throat while pinning them to the floor with your knee was actually pretty good?
As Christians we are often like kids who avoid certain foods. We want to pick and choose what areas of Christianity we want to consume. We want a say over what we’ll obey, what we’ll do with what we know, how we will represent Christ and what areas of Christ’s mind and life we will make our own. And when Jesus tells us we must eat humility or obedience (Phil 2:8), we object in a way that resembles our children trying a new food: slowly, with apprehension, already convinced we won’t like it and God is trying to ruin our lives.
There is a tremendous difference between knowing the mind of Christ and wanting the mind of Christ. We often hear people ask, “What would Jesus do?” That is a great question. Let’s think about it. Well, in this situation or in that instance, I remember Jesus forgiving or stooping to serve those who opposed Him or didn’t understand Him. That is what Jesus would do.
So we think about that for a while, come to the conclusion that is it hard to do and then, hoping for a different answer we ask, “Okay, what else might He do?”
One of the places we will have the most troubles in life as a Christian is in our minds. We will always struggle to think like Christ, or even WANT to think like Christ. We would much rather pray that God changes the other person who is making our life miserable than to pray that we see them as God sees them and then love them as Christ has loved us. We want to pray that God helps difficult people see the error of their ways, when God is saying, “Why don’t we just start with the error of your ways?” It is always good for us to remember Jesus’ teaching about the splinter and the plank.
As I was studying Phil. 2:5-8 for a sermon, I started to see there was a tremendous difference between the mind of Christ and the mind of most people I know. Even Christians. Even myself. Like most of Scripture this is a passage that we may read during our devotions but not take the time to let it soak in. Maybe somebody could write a devotional that would take a passage like this and give you a thought a day for seven days, asking the hard questions and going deep into meaning of the Scripture and ways we can practice it during the week. We all like those devotionals that give us 365 Promises of God! What if we found a book called “365 Ways to Have the Mind of Christ, With Exercises and Tests.” Would we want to buy that one? Not so much? Why? Isn’t that what we claim we want? Or do we?
And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. – Jeremiah 3:15
I did not grow up wanting to be a pastor. I sort of stumbled into it by default. I’ve been told from my early teen years that I was a good teacher and I’ve developed that skill over the years. But I didn’t want to be a pastor, just a teacher.
However, this was the problem I encountered with not wanting to be a pastor: in order to be a teacher in a church, too often I was forced to fit into the mold of the senior pastor. He wanted to recreate me in his image, make me be like him. He wanted me to think like him, have his sense of humor and his manner of speech. Too often they wanted a “mini-me.” And since I wasn’t always willing to be like him, my teaching opportunities were infrequent.
The Lord says in Jeremiah 3:15 that He will give people shepherds (pastors) after His own heart. If this is so, then why did most pastors I served with (read that, “under”) want to make me in the image of their heart at the expense of God’s heart? Why did I have to do an imitation of them in order to do what God called me to do? I finally determined that to do what I felt called by God to do I had to be a pastor, a shepherd and leader, after God’s own heart. I couldn’t do an imitation of a pastor still living in the 1970’s. I had to be who God called me to be.
I’ve been reading Eugene Peterson’s new memoir The Pastor. In this book he quotes Baron Friedrich von Hügel who said “there are no dittos in souls.” When I read that I wanted to jump up and shout, “That’s it! I don’t have to be like anyone else. I just need to follow the heart of God!”
Now, before you go off and just “be yourself” (claiming all you need to do is obey God, not man, quoting Acts 5:29 as your proof text), you should know that when you follow the heart of God you also follow the leadership structures He has set up. I have willfully submitted to the leadership structure of my denomination. However, in that submission I am also free to be the pastor God has called me to be. No one in my denomination has ever suggested I would be a better pastor if I were more like Bro. So-and-So.
I want to encourage you, my half-dozen readers, to be the shepherd/pastor/leader that God has established after His own heart. Stop trying to imitate your favorite pastor in order to be “successful.” Or worse, stop being manipulated by other leaders to do their imitation of what it means to be a successful shepherd/pastor/leader. When God gifted you, He did so knowing what He was doing. He didn’t make a mistake. He didn’t make a ditto soul or a ditto pastor.
Now, when you feed on that “knowledge and understanding,” you’ll be ready to be the best at whatever God has created you to be. There may be some dittoheads on the radio, but there are none in the Kingdom of God.
“The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him” — 2 Chron. 16:9
When you hear someone say, “That is a very spiritual person,” what do they mean? I’ve often heard that description used, but when you ask the person who said it what it means, they are often at a loss. I know what it doesn’t mean. To be a “spiritual” person does not mean you walk around silently like some kind of ancient mystic, listening to the quiet breath of God for instructions on what to say and how to pray. It doesn’t mean you’re always ready to say something prophetic and give a word of knowledge and have miracles following you. It doesn’t mean you can quote a thousand different verses on any given subject. Try this for a definition of spirituality: Living your life in harmony with God.
To be spiritual means you make God’s thoughts your thoughts, God’s priorities your priorities. What is important to God is important to you. What burdens God burdens you. When He says, “Go right” you go right, you don’t say, “Why?” A spiritual person decides to follow God knowing that God doesn’t need to explain Himself to anyone. A spiritual person is one whose heart is sensitive to the things of God. 2 Chron. 16:9 says, “The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” God is looking for men and women who are completely dedicated to Him.
When I think about a spiritual person I think of David, who was completely dedicated to God in every aspect of his very earthly life. And his was a very earthly life. In Psalm 18:29 David says, “With your help I can conquer an army. I can leap over walls with a helping hand from you.” Can you envision a leaping David? Can you see him running, coming to a wall and leaping over it without hesitation and continuing his run? Eugene Peterson describes David as “running toward Goliath, running from Saul, pursuing God, meeting Jonathan, rounding up stray sheep, whatever, but running. And leaping. Certainly not strolling or loitering. David’s is a most exuberant story. Earthy spirituality characterizes his life and accounts for the exuberance. Earthy: down-to-earth, dealing with everydayness, praying while doing the laundry, singing in the snarl of traffic. Spiritual: moved and animated by the Spirit of God and therefore alive to God” (Leaping Over A Wall, pg. 11).
Spirituality means you invite God into your everyday, very ordinary, dull, repetitive sameness and converse with Him about the dullness, the hopes, the dreams, the disappointments and the surprises, the decisions about what to make for dinner and how to pray for a child with cancer. The most spiritual people are the most ordinary people. They aren’t necessarily the religious leaders we see on television, but the unseen housewives and workers we never see up front who are affecting the lives of men and women all over the world without ever getting their names mentioned in Christianity Today or appearing on PTL.
A spiritual person is a man or woman who longs to please God. They know going in that loving God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength is not going to please every one of their friends or all their family. It certainly didn’t please all of David’s brothers. But a spiritual person, although they are concerned with the thoughts of others, do not make what other people think their prime motivation for doing what they do. They know that at the end of their lives they must answer to God, so they look to make their every moment count in the sight of God. And when they fail, which they will (although hopefully, not quite as dramatically as David failed), they turn quickly to God, grieve over their wrongs, and allow His grace and forgiveness to guide their future actions. A spiritual person is an everyday person who chooses to put God first in everything they do.
So, are you ready to be “spiritual?”
Pastors, I challenge you to invite your missionaries to take over your Easter service. They are only in the states every few years, and if they are worth supporting they are worth GIVING UP AN EASTER SERVICE! In all their years of serving in missions, my missionaries said WE WERE THE ONLY CHURCH THEY EVER HEARD OF WHO INVITED MISSIONARIES ON EASTER! That is a shame. The resurrection isn’t about us, pastors. I ask you to seriously pray about stepping aside on one of the best attended Sunday’s of the year and letting the limelight shine on your missionary and the great work they are doing.
Now that I am on a roll, let me continue. We send a special Christmas offering to our missionaries. We are one of a very few churches who do. Shame.
We asked our missionaries how we could give to them personally when they come to our church. They expect a special offering going to World Missions, but we wanted to do something for the family. They said they don’t hear that question from other too many other churches. This breaks my heart.
I want my missionaries to share with the best crowd my church will see all year, and that is Easter Sunday. Therefore, unless some other pastor has the nerve to invite them on Easter when they return to the states in three years, I’ve already booked them. And what a blessing to them, and to us, that will be!
Having said that, I believe there are a couple of reasons pastors may not be sharing the pulpit with their missionaries:
- It never occured to them and now that they’ve been challenged, they will endeavor to do so.
- The missionary they support isn’t good enough to preach at an Easter service. If your missionary cannot connect their missionary calling with the Resurrection of Jesus, you need to support a different missionary.
- No matter how much the pastor says they are building the Kingdom of God, they are really building their own “ministry.” This is why they cannot give away the year’s most attended service.
- They are hirelings and need to find another vocation.
“He has showed you. O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” – Micah 6:8
As I have recently turned the half-century mark, I’ve noticed the questions I ask myself are starting to change. When I was in Bible college, I’d ask myself, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” No one is really a grown-up in college, unless you were already married and pursuing a second career. But I was nineteen, so now you understand.
Another key question on all the young minds was, “How can I know God’s will for my life?” In a continual effort to look and sound spiritual, we were very keen to put God in every aspect of our conversation, and this question verily dripped of spirituality (inquiring after God’s Will) and obedience (implying we’d actually follow that Will if we knew what it was. And I did. Mostly.).
However, now that I’m older and a LOT grayer I’m wondering, “Is this it? Is this what God has planned for me all along? A small church in a small Midwestern town with little influence and no retirement fund? Did I miss it somewhere?”
As I was thinking about these things – my education, career moves, influence (or lack thereof), my lack of a will and end of life decisions – I noticed I was asking even smaller questions. Since it is obvious that God hasn’t called me to pastor a megachurch, govern a small nation or write the next great American autobiography, I’m now starting to judge my life not on what I’m going to do, but on how I’m living and what matters most.
Since my Bible college days, the push has been to find my ministry spot (read that, “God’s Will”), get married, raise a family, buy a house, contribute to the 401k, go on missions trips and retire close to the grandkids, hopefully in a warm climate. Well, I got married, found a ministry and helped raise stepsons. Does two and a half out of eight count? In the eyes of the world, am I a success? Probably not.
It’s a good thing I don’t answer to the eyes of the world.
As I was contemplating all these things at work the other day, this one verse in Micah kept rolling around in my head. It was as if God was saying, “This is it, Jim. This is what I’ve called you to do.” And I’m thinking, Can it really be this simple? Have I inhabited the planet successfully if all I’ve done is acted justly, loved mercy and walked humbly before God? I think so.
Now I’m wondering if we all put too much of a burden on ourselves. We want to live the perfect life that pleases a perfect God. We want to raise perfect children who get perfect grades and grow up perfectly healthy so they’ll supply us with perfect grandchildren who will visit us in our perfect retirement home with the perfect golf course.
And what science fiction novel did that idea fall out of?
For all our wants, dreams, hopes, goals, ambitions, work and investments, God has already told us what is good and what He requires. Now I’m wondering why, as I’ve called myself a Christian for almost forty years, I’ve focused on everything else but what God has required.
I wonder how different my perspective would have been if, at age nineteen, my focus was not on finding the right ministry, but on justice, love, mercy and humility before God. And, I wish I had read Micah 6:8 in The Message version in college: “But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don’t take yourself too seriously – take God seriously.” Yes, this is what it means to be a success in God’s eyes. And yes, it is that simple.
Did you ever consider how the blood of Christ shed on the Cross at Calvary is still effective in washing away our sins? It is effective due to the fact the blood that cleanses us is resurrected blood! I’m now going to take you on a little Bible study, so if that’s not your cup of tea, you can move over to Pintrest or ESPN….
In 1 John we read, “This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” (4:10). John is pointing us to the value of the death of Christ and the great work that God accomplished for sinners on the cross so that we might become members of God’s family.
The word “sacrifice” in this passage takes us to Leviticus 16 where Israel’s annual rituals that foreshadowed Christ’s sacrifice, and Moses gave instructions to Israel about the Day of Atonement. That day begins by recognizing that we are separated from God and we cannot approach God on own. God reveals His presence to Israel between the cherubim above the Mercy Seat on the Ark of the Covenant, but not even Aaron the high priest can approach God on his own merit or even as the high priest, because all men are sinners and God is holy. God instructed the high priest to kill a goat, whose blood God accepted as providing access to God’s presence, and Aaron placed that blood on the Mercy Seat.
Now let’s move over to the book of Hebrews for further insight. In chapter nine we read that God is still unapproachable, but that Jesus offered His blood as a sacrifice. Heb. 9:11 says, “He entered that greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands and is not part of this world.” Just as Aaron the high priest entered into the Tabernacle with blood, Jesus our new High Priest does the same. Verse 12 says, “With his own blood—not the blood of goats and calves—he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever.”
Now, if the blood of bulls and goats could enable Aaron to approach God and stand in front of the Ark of the Covenant, the author of Hebrews goes on in verse 14, “Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God.” So Jesus entered the Tabernacle in Heaven, presented His own blood and secured our redemption forever, cleansing not just our spirit from the evil effect of sin, but also our consciences, freeing us from the guilt and condemnation of our past.
Now, I want to take us one step further. I want you to imagine a Tabernacle in Heaven. It doesn’t matter what it looks like; just think of the most holy place in heaven. This is the place the book of Hebrews just told us Jesus went to with His own blood. Here’s what I want you to consider: When did Jesus enter into this heavenly Tabernacle? We know it was after His death, but exactly when did He do this? I ask because the answer is important to our faith in His blood being able to wash away our sins. There are two clues to when Jesus entered the Tabernacle in heaven, and both are found in John 20.
After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to Mary, who thought He was the gardener – until He said her name! (There may be 10 million people in heaven with your name when you get there, but I guarantee when Jesus says your name, you’ll know He is talking to you!) Then Jesus says, “Don’t cling to me, for I haven’t yet ascended to the Father. But go find my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17). Jesus didn’t want Mary holding touching Him or holding on to Him because He hadn’t yet seen the Father.
Later in this same chapter Jesus reappears to the disciples, who were cowering behind locked doors, but Thomas was not there. The others tell them that Jesus came to see them and doubting Thomas says, “I won’t believe it unless I see nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.” (John 20:25). Eight days later Jesus reappears and says to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!” (John 20:27). (Mary believed without touching, while Thomas had to touch in order to believe. The point isn’t how you come to believe, but that you DO believe!).
Okay, here are the clues to when Jesus entered into the Tabernacle in heaven. Jesus said to Mary, “Don’t touch me,” but to Thomas Jesus said, “Touch my hands and my side.” Before I really started studying Scripture, I just assumed that after Jesus died He spent some time explaining what He had done to the spirits of the other world, as Eph. 4:7-10 and 1 Peter 3:19 seem to indicate, and then waited out the three days in Heaven. But Jesus told Mary He hadn’t yet ascended to see the Father. Therefore, it was after the resurrection but before He encountered Thomas that Jesus entered into the true Tabernacle in heaven and presented His blood. This means that the blood in heaven is resurrected blood – blood that is powerful enough to overcome all sin and death. The blood that Jesus presented in Heaven has the power to resurrect all of us, for it is fresh and flowing and eternally powerful. Are you grasping the perfection of God’s plan of salvation? Do you see that Jesus didn’t just die, but was also resurrected to present His blood in the Tabernacle in Heaven so that we may all, through the faith in that blood, also have access in the holy presence of God?
Jesus Christ is the One who satisfies God, and the blood of Christ is the basis of that satisfaction, just as the blood of bulls and goats satisfied God in the Old Testament. Now God can stretch out His hand to sinners and invite them into His presence. Furthermore, we must understand that the death of Jesus didn’t change the heart of God, as if God once hated us and now He loves us because of the death of His Son. Instead, the death of Jesus opened the way for the love of God to be poured out and manifested to sinners. The love of God preceded the sacrifice of Jesus; it didn’t follow it. It was only through the sacrifice of Jesus that the full extent of God’s love could be shown to the world. This is how we understand that it is the nature of God to love, and it is the compass of God’s love that directs all our ways.
During supper . . . Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands . . . rose from supper . . . and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. – John 13:2-5 (ESV)
Jesus Washing Peter’s Feet — Ford Madox Brown
I have to confess that I’m not a very good servant. Yes, I pastor a church and yes, I’ve been a more-than-less follower of Jesus for almost forty years now, but I still struggle to be an effective servant. I still complain sometimes when I have to go the extra mile, especially when it comes to doing a job someone else is supposed to do.
What started me thinking in this direction is this passage from John. I’m teaching a Bible study on John and after many months, we finally made it to chapter thirteen. And, as has happened many times before, I’m rereading a very familiar passage, a passage I’ve preached on more than once, when something jumps out and grabs hold of my pride – something I didn’t see before.
Foot washing was a very menial task. People went around barefoot or in sandals, and their feet naturally got muddy and dusty. Guests’ feet were usually washed on arrival at the host’s home by a servant, because people didn’t sit at a table to eat but reclined on the floor. This put their feet at the same level with their head. It was a menial job to say the least, but it was also a necessary job.
However none of the disciples, upon arriving at the place Jesus arranged to have the Passover Feast, was willing to stoop to the lowly job of washing the feet of their companions. They may have been hanging out with each other for three years, but no one was going to volunteer to serve the others.
Finally Jesus, in the middle of the meal, gets up and washes their feet. I get the picture that He’s waited as long as He could for one of the boys to understand the true nature of servanthood, and when they don’t, Jesus takes the opportunity to teach them.
How humiliating! Here we have all the personally chosen disciples of Jesus, all too proud to wash each other’s feet, now having their feet washed by their teacher and soon to be Savior. How would you feel if Jesus did something for you that you were too proud to do for someone else? The disciples were too proud to do a necessary job, so Jesus does it for them. No wonder Peter objects (vs. 8). I would too. I’d be embarrassed and ashamed to let Jesus do something I was too proud to do.
I’m sure we’ve all had experiences where a leader we admired shamed us by doing a job we showed ourselves too proud to do. I witnessed a senior pastor washing dishes after a church fellowship while the men on the church board left early. I watched a wealthy business owner wash dirty windows because his too-proud employees didn’t want to be seen doing such a menial task. I know about a bi-vocational pastor who was vacuuming the fellowship hall while retired members of the church watched from their chairs. Maybe it never occurred to them to help. Or maybe they were too embarrassed to do the job they should have volunteered to do in the first place.
Jesus reminds us it is never too late to serve. Jesus got up in the middle of the meal to remind us it is never too late to do what is right. I don’t think Jesus wanted to shame His disciples, but many times we bring that shame upon ourselves. I know I have. I’ve also learned that humility will eliminate shame if I will act in the manner of Christ.
I also know I have the supreme example of servanthood from the one Person I should be serving with all my life. If becoming a man and dying for my sins was not beneath the dignity of God my Savior, then there is nothing in God’s kingdom that is beneath the dignity of me, His servant. It is a lesson I’m learning late in life, but I’m glad to know I’m learning it.
Thinking Out Loud 