5. SOMETHING FOR YOUR HEART

John 13:14

"Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet."

 

Start

Money can't buy happiness, but it can borrow a few friends. Outside your house you could toss up a swimming pool with multilevel waterslides--and inside, carve out a not-so-mini arcade and an eye-popping, ear-bursting home theater with multiple game systems. With playthings like that, you'd be a real friend magnet. Until someone else throws a better party.

 

What's the best way to get friends?

 

Read John 13:4-5, 12-14

"[Jesus] 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.

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."

 

Think

You probably don't have the option of handing out cash or prizes to make friends, but maybe you wish you did. Jesus unleashes a more dazzling, durable way to win friends. As the clock ticks down the final hours before his crucifixion, he shows his followers "the full extent of his love" (John 13:1 NIV). Then he commands us to act the same way. If you want to be a friend worth having, Jesus demonstrates how.

 

Jesus does a crazy thing to show love to his closest friends: He washes their feet. Why do that?

 

Picture those disciples: burly, sandal-wearing men who spend their days clomping down dusty dirt roads. It's a recipe for filthy, stinking feet. By untying his guys' sandals and scrubbing their feet, Jesus performed a practical, necessary deed. But foot washing was the job for a household's lowliest servant. Unlike Jesus, none of the disciples seized this obvious opportunity to serve. In fact, the book of Luke shows them hotly debating which one of them is the greatest (Luke 22:24).

 

What does Jesus expect his followers to learn from his act of servanthood?

 

Live

Suppose you were God. King of the universe. Ruler of all. Tell how you'd expect to be treated.

 

What do you think of what Jesus did?

 

People today won't get the point if you just snatch their shoes and socks and powerwash their toes. But Philippians 2:3-4 tells what genuine servanthood looks like in any time and place: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others." Servanthood doesn't mean you let others stomp on you. Instead, you make their needs as important as your own.

 

True or false: Taking the role of a servant can help you make and maintain friends. Explain your answer.

 

Wrap

Do you want a collection of friends who care about your needs as much as they care about their own? That's the love God wants to grow among his people, a kind of care that sticks people together forever. If you grow in showing that Jesus-like mindset toward other people, you won't have to buy friends. People will beg to be around you.

 

More thoughts to mull

 

- Do something today that honors another person, putting his or her interests before yours.

 

- Who do you know--someone nearby or someone famous--who knows how to serve like Jesus? How do people respond to that person's attitude and actions?

 

- What's the difference between being a chump and being a Jesus-like servant?

 

More scriptures to dig

 

- The mother of two of Jesus' closest followers once tried to score the best seats in heaven for her boys by kneeling before Jesus and begging that James and John be allowed to sit at the Lord's left and right. The guys weren't embarrassed by their loud-mouthed mom, but the other disciples roared. Jesus called them together and said the real path to greatness is the low path, not the high road. He said, "Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant" (Matthew 20:26). Catch the whole story in Matthew 20:20-28.

 

- While you're looking at Matthew 20, don't miss a couple more essential truths from that event. In Matthew 20:25 Jesus points out that it's human nature to rub your rank in other people's faces. But Jesus did just the opposite. In Matthew 20:28 he outlines his one-of-a-kind approach to life: "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

 

- Read Philippians 2:1-11 for a summary of Jesus' intense unselfishness. It's woven together with details on how you can imitate him. You might be surprised to learn this passage makes servanthood sound downright beautiful, and the poetic words of verses 6-11 were probably lyrics sung by early Christians.

 

- Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, the Old Testament told of a "servant" who would arrive on the scene to take up our pain and bear our sufferings. Check out Isaiah 53:1-12 for an amazing description of Jesus' ultimate sacrifice--his death on the cross for humankind's sins.

 

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Taken from "Stick" by Kevin Johnson, copyright 2008, Youth Specialties/Zondervan. Used by permission. Order the book here:

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