Jesus Humility in Action

In John 13 you see Jesus serving his disciples in a way that is almost embarrassing and outrageous. They were having dinner and the servant’s duty would be to wash everyone’s feet as they sat at the table. When there is no servant someone else must take this lowly responsibility. This task was even too lowly for the disciples of Jewish leaders to do, so Jesus’ followers felt no responsibility in doing this task.

The question is why Jesus would do this? Well the disciples earlier in his ministry were worried about sitting on Jesus left and right in his kingdom and Jesus rebuked them saying in Mark 10:43-44, “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.” Jesus taught this lesson to them, but they still have not fully grasped it.

They were not convinced of this teaching and needed a visible and practical demonstration of what Jesus’s teaching looked like in action. They certainly got it. Jesus got out of his chair and tied a rag to his waist, poured water into a bowl, and began to wash his disciples feet. They all sat there stunned, not knowing what to say, and feeling embarrassed that they did not do it before he did.

They were humbled by the presence of the one they consider to be the Lord humbly serving them in a task, that they perceived to be lower than them. If people consider a man great and this man does a service that these people who think so highly of him deem as too low for even themselves, it causes them to rethink how they view themselves. The act of humility here by Jesus was an example to follow, but also was for the disciples a humbling realization of how prideful they really are.

The most shocking insight I saw here was how this act by Jesus brought a command not just an example. Jesus the one who they consider not just their teacher but also their Lord (Jn. 13:13) was humbling himself in the service of his followers and then tells them this is an example for them to follow in how they treat each other (Jn. 13:14-15). One of the greatest ways pride presents itself is by refusing to take the lower role in situations, while Jesus here the Lord of Lords and King of kings has just done that. Now that Jesus has done that by washing the feet of his disciples there is every reason for why they also should wash one another’s feet, and no conceivable reason for refusing to do so. Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and if he did, then what is our reason for why we shouldn’t do the same?

Now washing the feet of others is not the specific message on what we should be doing as Christians to serve one another, but what Jesus is teaching to us is that we must love others by serving them in some of the lowliest ways we can think of. If that means handing out food at cafeterias for homeless, or just getting people coffee when they are studying. I don’t know what it looks like for each person, but we should not just wait for a chance to serve people to come our way. We must be seeking out opportunities to serve and love the people around us, even if it will hurt our prides and embarrass us in the process.

We are called to serve the brothers and sisters in our life in a way that is loving and sacrificial, and we must seek out these opportunities, just as Jesus did in this situation. If Jesus didn’t wash their feet they would have been fine and no one would have been bothered that no one did this task. Serving may not be expected of you in circumstance by the people their, just as the disciples didn’t expect this type of service from Jesus, but that doesn’t change how you are expect by God to do in the love for his people. We must go out of our way to serve people with our actions towards them. I pray I continue to grow in a heart that desires to serve the people I love in my life like Christ did.

God Loves us in our Brokenness

In this passage we see Jesus coming before the family of Lazarus, who has died. Jesus comes late to the house and Lazarus has already been dead for 4 days. Mary, Lazarus’ sister, ran up to Jesus and fell to her knees at his feet (v. 33). She said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” She had faith that Jesus would heal her brother, but she didn’t have faith that Jesus could raise him from the grave. So many times in life we have faith that Jesus can do one thing that can impact and work in our lives, but we lack faith that he could do something even bigger and greater that we didn’t even see coming. Mary didn’t even think that raising Lazarus from the dead was a possibility for Jesus; she only thought healing him before he died would work.

Jesus had a plan greater than that of Mary’s. We must be open to the idea of God working in our lives differently than what we imagined him doing. Mary thought Jesus would get there in time to heal her brother before he died. Jesus’ didn’t plan to work that way he came 4 days after Lazarus’ death and raised him from the dead. Mary thought Jesus was too late, but he was right on time. She just didn’t see the plan that he was working from. This is a reminder that we must have faith that God will work even when we are confused by the methods that he is taking. We must always remember that he has us in his hands (Jn. 10:28). He will not let us perish and he is protecting us and working through our good and bad times. This doesn’t mean everything will go right, but it does mean God has a plan in all of it, just sometimes we don’t see it.

As Mary comes before Jesus with her claim that he came too late and that Lazarus is dead and there is nothing to do, Jesus sees her weeping. I feel like looking throughout the gospels this would be a perfect time for Jesus to say one of his favorite things to say and that would be “Oh you of little faith.” It would make sense, because Mary does not have faith that Jesus will bring Lazarus back to life like He has already planned to do (Jn. 11:11).

But Jesus does not rebuke her lack of faith in him. He does something that all other religions would say would be abominable for God to act in such a way towards lowly humans. Jesus saw Mary weeping and saw all of the other Jews, who were family and friends of Lazarus weeping and he felt troubled for them in his spirit. He actually felt greatly troubled for them and his spirit was deeply moved, when he saw them (Jn. 11:33). The God of the universe didn’t rebuke their lack of faith in his abilities, but he felt the sorrow they were feeling! One of the next verses says, “Jesus wept” (Jn. 11:35). The shortest verse in the Bible is the sign of the love that Jesus shows upon those that are broken and hurt in this world.

Why did Jesus get so deeply moved and have such great anguish by them all weeping before him? Why did He weep with them over Lazarus death? Jesus knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead, so he knew that their weeping was out of place and was soon going to be changed into rejoicing, so why was he deeply moved and wept? It doesn’t make sense. Jesus loved these people, so much that even as God he couldn’t help, but weep over not Lazarus’ death, but other the temporary and momentary grief that these people were experiencing. God doesn’t look at us and tell us, “hey shut up and stop complaining about your life! You will be fine!” NO, God weeps over our pains, stresses, difficulties, and sorrows. This is the reason we cry out to Jesus so freely, for he cares about us and even the smallest of problems in our lives, that he knows are going to be fixed in no time at all. God loves you and me. Do not believe he is not compassionate to the cry of your heart, for he always is! He wants to hear those things! Go before him and cry out to him, for he loves you (1 Peter 5:7).

We all have something to give no matter what we think it may be. We may not have much, we may think we have no worthiness. God has gifted us all with something no matter how much or how little.

The boy in John 6 didn’t have much. He had only five loaves of bread and two fish. The disciples doubted and him and told Jesus “What is this for so many?” This is them showing their lack of faith in God. We are meant to have child like faith and this is a perfect example of it. It is irrational for the boy to think that Jesus could do anything to help all those people with this little boys lunch, but he just trusted that Jesus could use it. Hesaw a needed and saw what he had and wanted to serve no matter if in the view of man it did nothing at all. This is the faith of expecting great things from God, when you give the little you have.

 

We must go to Jesus like this boy! We must go with the expectation in faith that God will use what we have to offer him in an extreme and powerful way for his kingdom. We must go to Jesus knowing the promise he has made to us, if we would go faithful to Him that he would multiple what we have.

I am not talking about a prosperity gospel were our wealth will be multiplied when you give 100 dollars to the church today. No, I am speaking about God working things for eternal significance for the kingdom of God with the gifts and talents and resources I have to offer to God. This is a building up of the kingdom of God and not the building up of individuals.

God has gifted all of us with our loaves of bread and fishes. We must be faithful to give those back to God in service to him and the people around us. We must love! We must use the gifts God has given us to love the people around us. The loaves and the fishes may not seem like much but we must give them back to God and what he does with them is all for the glory of himself and is awesome.

The child like faith, with the audacity to say I will put the little I have into God’s hands and see what he does with it is something we all must live by. The skills as teacher at my age and maturity as an SLC I must use them to equip and lead the small group leaders under me. I must give that up to God, for him work through me in a way that will impact my guys in a eternal way. If I don’t give it up to God and try to do task way above my own abilities believing I can do it myself will like the little boy passing out the fish and bread he had to as many as he could without giving it to Jesus and having Him bless it. We must surrender all that we have to Jesus before we can be any effect to anyone around us in our lives.

Surrendering all that we have to Jesus to love and to serve him and build up his kingdom with a child like faith that expects God to do mighty things with the little that we have. This is what the little boy did in John 6 and it feed thousands of people, all with just his lunch for the evening. .

 

Jesus’ Need To Love

Christians today are so use to just living our 9 to 5 lives and going to church services and leaving and doing nothing else. We are so comfortable with the cultural norm/minimum. We never seek out things that would be extreme in people’s eyes around. We never do something that makes people question why we do what we do. We never take off our shirt and put it on a homeless man that has no shirt. We never stop and talk to people that everyone else ignores. We just keep walking like everyone else. We never radically love people in a way that is abnormal and confusing to the people around us. If people aren’t asking why we are acting different in how we love other people, then do we really love others like Jesus did?

Jesus loved people even when the culture thought it was wrong for him to. In John 4 you see that “Jesus had to go through Samaria” (4:4). Why is that? It is because he had to love someone there. He had to love those people even when others thought it was wrong. It was wrong because Jews did not associate with Samaritans because they were half breads in a way. They were half Jews with other gentile blood in them. They were not pure Israelites. This made the Jews stay away from them and consider them unclean, so when a Jew traveled he never went through Samaria because they disliked them that much. But “Jesus still HAD to go through Samaria.” Jesus had a divine task to handle by loving someone against the cultural norms.

Then Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well (4:6-7). She was by herself at the hottest time of the day, which most of the women would come together in groups during other times of the day instead of then when it was the hottest. This possibly shows she was coming at this time out of her shame of herself. Jesus meets this broken woman and tells her to draw him a cup of water so that he could drink (4:7). She was shocked cause Jewish men do not speak or interact with Samaritan people, especially not a Samaritan woman and especially not when it is just them two together. Three reasons he shouldn’t talk to her and then on top of that if he drank from her cup, he would become unclean by the rules of the Jewish leaders at that time, because a Samaritan’s cup is considered unclean to drink from.

Jesus shouldn’t be doing anything he is doing and everyone would have looked at him like “how could he be a greater teacher if he is interacting with this horrible woman?,” but Jesus still did it because of the love he had for her. Jesus did all of it going out of his way to talk to the worst of the worst of the people at that time. A Samaritan women, who has had five husbands and is committing adultery with another man now, a person that everyone in society would have deemed as worthless. The Jews didn’t care about her and even her own people, the Samaritans, look down upon her with disgust, but Jesus still loved her and went out of his way to have this meeting with her. Not for the head priest or a roman official, but for this lowly half bread trashy women, who has no friends of her own, this is who Jesus HAD to go through Samaria for.

Where are we with those who are like the Samaritan woman, the people that no one accepts, the outcasts, the forgettens? When is the last time you loved someone that no one else paid attention to and someone was shocked by you doing it? When have we sat down and talked to someone who is homeless on the street for 30 minutes, for no reason at all, but to just love them? When have we volunteered to help children with mental disabilities and spend time with them? Where are we in the half way houses and prisons? Where are we in the hood, were gangs are killing 100s of people a year? Where are we in the darkest and loneliest places in our community? If we are not loving those that no one else loves, what are we doing? That is what Jesus did, He went out of his way to meet and impact and help bring life to the lowliest people. We must do the same and bring the good news of Christ to everyone in our community even if that means going to a place that people would call us crazy to go to and talking to people that most people are scared of or ignore. Jesus did it, why not us?

Being Lesser is Being Greater

John The Baptist says in John 3:30 “He must increase, and I must decrease.”

John the Baptist is one of the greatest showings of what it means to be humble and to rely on Jesus as your identity.

Identity

John the Baptist was finding his identity in the Messiah even before he thought Jesus was the Messiah. In John 1, when the religious leaders were asking John the Baptist who he was he said, “I am a voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord” (John 1:23). Even before Jesus came John was speaking of his work only as a voice preparing the way for the real important one to come, which was Jesus. He faithfully made it about the messiah he was serving and not about himself or specifically the ministry he was doing.

Unworthy

When John the Baptist spoke in John 1:27 saying, “One coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.” The lowest of the low servants were the ones that untied the sandal straps of people. John the Baptist is stating here that the Messiah that he is preparing the way for is so great that John isn’t even worthy to do that lowest of services for Him. This is the sign of the true weight he put in Jesus and how it reminds him of how much Greater the Messiah (Jesus) is from him. This creates in John the Baptist this humility of not being worthy to serve Jesus, but actually needing Him instead, just like at Jesus baptism.

Need

At Jesus baptism in Matthew 3:14 it says, “but John tries to stop Him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?’” This shows that John didn’t just see how he is unworthy before Christ, but how he also needs Him. He needed Jesus and desired Jesus. He doesn’t just feel unworthy to baptized Him or untie His sandals he feels the need for Jesus to serve and help him. He feels the need to be baptized by Jesus.

Humility + Identity

John the Baptist is finding his identity in Christ by seeing that he is unworthy of Him and in need of Him. This is what it means to submit to Jesus our identity is to understand our need for him and our helplessness without Him. John the Baptist is the example of this right here. He knew his work was for the Messiah, and By God alone he did the work. It was never by his own power that he baptized, but by Jesus and for Jesus John did his ministry. John the Baptist’s view was on Jesus the whole time.

Sacrifice for the True Purpose

John the Baptist showed this to the point of sending his own disciple to the way of Christ. In John 1:35-37 John the Baptist speaks of Jesus being the Lamb of Life to two of his disciples and they left John the Baptist and followed after Jesus. John was so humble that he pointed his own disciples and students towards Jesus, for he knew that Jesus was the messiah that would change the world. He never got full of himself and jealous of what Jesus was doing and becoming. He humbly acted in his role and stayed in his own lane doing what God planned out for him to do. He never took the light off Jesus, but always reflected it back to Him. John the Baptist is a great example of humbly finding your identity in Jesus Christ and never making what you do anything else.

JESUS: Beginning, Middle, & End

John 1:1-3 states “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”

“The Word” here is referring to Jesus Christ the savior of mankind according to the Christian faith. The amount of things that you can pull from just these first three verses of John is astounding. When looking at how the other gospels begin they all speak on Jesus’ birth or a genealogy of his ancestors. It speaks of his beginning as a human in Matthew, Mark and Luke, but in John it starts with the creation of the world, even before the world existed. The Apostle John is not just retelling the story of creation that is found in Genesis, but he is proclaiming a message. A message that by comparison to the creation of the world is equal to or even more important than. This message is Jesus. No not a name, but the incarnation of the Word. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14). See Jesus being “The Word” is not that he was a special man, or a man that was sort of like God and had a special connect with Him, but that He was God himself. Jesus being one that existed before time and space as God. He is “the Word” through whom all was spoken into existence that ever was (John 1:3). As God the Father spoke and the world was created Jesus was acting in it. Yes, Jesus is God and we should never take that lightly. When he acts in the gospels you are seeing the creator of everything in the universe acting out His redemptive plan for the world in human flesh.  This means that Jesus is not someone we give our Sundays to or give our quiet times to, this means this is the GOD we give every last breath to. John opens with this statement to show us the importance of this Jesus we are following and how worthy He is of our full attention in our lives.

So do you daily look at Jesus with the worth that John speaks of Him here? If not remind yourself daily of how Jesus is the creator of all and savior of all and how worthy of our lives that makes Him.