Why Am I On Mission?
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Have you ever wondered why God has called us to share our faith? Why does he ask us to step out of comfort zone? If you take some time to look around you, the why is everywhere. Your family, friends, coworkers, classmates and all the strangers on the street…they are the reason why. They are your mission field. They are your calling. They are the mission. It’s time to share Jesus with them.
So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
The Bible tells us this about love, “So we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16) In the very same epistle we find that Scriptures warn us with, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8)
James C. Hefley wrote an article titled, “White Man” to “God’s Man.”
When Wycliffe’s translator Doug Meland and his wife moved into a village of Brazil’s Fulnio Indians, he was referred to simply as “the white man.” The term was by no means complimentary, since other white men had exploited them, burned their homes and robbed them of their lands.
After Doug and his wife learned the Fulnio language and began to help the people with medicine and in other ways, they began calling Doug, “the respectable white man.”
When the Melands began adapting to some of the customs of the people, the Fulino gave Doug greater acceptance and spoke of him as “the white Indian.”
One day, as Doug was washing the dirty, bloodcaked foot of a very badly injured Fulnio boy, Doug overheard a bystander say to another: “Whoever heard of a white man washing an Indian’s foot before?’’ Washing feet to the Fulnio Indians was a very caring and humble gesture. Then the Fulino Indians started saying, “Certainly, this man is from God!” Not long after that, whenever Doug would go into an Indian home, it would be announced, “Here comes the man God sent us.” (Knights Treasury of 2,000 Illustrations)
Doug showed the necessity of showing love and support to a community while teaching the Word of God. God’s Word says “Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” (1 John 4:21) “Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God is in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like Him.” (1 John 4: 16b-17)
What sacrifices are you making to show God’s love to others? Do you grasp God’s love for you and have you embraced His love by accepting Jesus Christ as personal Savior and Lord?
We need to learn a few things from our text this morning found in John 13. Things that help us to understand more clearly why we have been called to mission - sharing the Gospel to others?
Jesus is Our Example
Jesus is Our Example
Served with all Humility
Served with all Humility
Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 13
Jesus leads by example; by affirming this title here, He instructs the disciples to follow His example as they have already committed to doing. He reminds them that even in difficult times or in situations they consider beneath them (see note on v. 5), they must follow Him. See note on 1:38.
We have been called as Christian brothers and sisters by God to go out of our way to serve in such a way that defies explanation. The acts of service and demonstration of Love points people to a living and loving God. True love has an abundance of Humility in it.
A large group of European pastors came to one of D. L. Moody’s Northfield Bible Conferences in Massachusetts in the late 1800s. Following the European custom of the time, each guest put his shoes outside his room to be cleaned by the hall servants overnight. But of course this was America and there were no hall servants.
Walking the dormitory halls that night, Moody saw the shoes and determined not to embarrass his brothers. He mentioned the need to some ministerial students who were there, but met with only silence or pious excuses. Moody returned to the dorm, gathered up the shoes, and, alone in his room, the world’s only famous evangelist began to clean and polish the shoes. Only the unexpected arrival of a friend in the midst of the work revealed the secret.
When the foreign visitors opened their doors the next morning, their shoes were shined. They never know by whom. Moody told no one, but his friend told a few people, and during the rest of the conference, different men volunteered to shine the shoes in secret. Perhaps the episode is a vital insight into why God used D. L. Moody as He did. He was a man with a servant’s heart and that was the basis of his true greatness.
Jesus lead by example He lead with all humility, showing that if you want to be great, humble yourself…Jesus through that humble act of washing the feet of the disciples became a slave, a true servant.
Served as a Slave
Served as a Slave
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
In Middle Eastern countries, it was the slaves who washed the feet of guests; here Christ took the place of a slave. He makes this clear to His disciples: if their Lord and Teacher has washed their feet, then they should wash one another’s feet, that is, serve each other in humility. This must have been a striking rebuke to the Twelve, for just that evening they had been debating who was to be the greatest!
Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 13
13:16 a servant Jesus is doing the work of a slave (see note on v. 5); He now suggests that His disciples do the same in service to others.
Jesus is also likely evoking imagery from the prophecies about the Suffering Servant (Isa 52:13–53:12). He becomes a servant to God and to others to fulfill His role as the one who (through His death and resurrection) restores God’s people into right relationship with Him (Isa 53:10, 12). He now calls His disciples to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of God. This is a vocation Paul clearly understood: He regularly called himself a slave of Christ (see note on Rom 1:1).
Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God
Now look at vs. 16
Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him.
Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 13
he who is sent John the Baptist was God’s messenger about Jesus, and Jesus’ disciples will continue to be God’s messengers to the world (see note on John 1:23). Jesus wants them to understand their role in this service. They should be humbled by it in the sense that they are not equal to Him in any way and that He—the very Son of God to whom the universe belongs—will empower them for this work.
Then Jesus says in vs. 17
If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 13
13:17 blessed are you God will help and honor those who follow Jesus.
Follow Jesus’ example in the mission He has placed you on. Loving, Reaching, Teaching, Showing, Sharing, Giving, in all humility serve the Lord as He works through your life to full the Great commission to show the gospel message to all people