What has been the highlight of your week?
What has been the low of your week?

Who were you able to share or schedule a meal with?

In the east and west, the north and south
God creates beauty and life.
From all corners of the globe
God calls us to love and to live and to follow.
In our homes and our hearts, in this church and in the world
We sing and serve, we hope and we pray.

Written by Beth Merrill Neel.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
Serve the Lord with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!

Know that the Lord, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!

For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.

–Psalm 100 (ESV)

In First John, the author summarizes his time with Jesus, his long career as an apostle, and a lifetime of reading the scriptures with three words. “God is love…” (1 John 4:8, 16) But, John isn’t the first. In fact, his name for God is hardly original.  

In Exodus 34, Moses encountered the God of Israel and wrote;  “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6). Or in Psalm 108, David, Israel’s most famous king, declares; “I will give thanks to you, O LORD, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is great above the heavens;  your faithfulness reaches to the clouds” (Psalm 108:3–4).

So when the Apostle John writes,“...God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 John 4:8-9); he is hardly being original.  John simply summarizes what he has read in the text and what he has experienced in the flesh–  “God is love.”

In Jesus's words, the whole of the Law and Prophets, the entirety of the Old Testament and the New Testament, is summed up in the simple phrase: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37–40). 

At the center of Christianity are the love of God and the love of neighbor. 

These twin commands shape the center of Christian life and tell us everything we need to know about an apprenticeship to Christ. It always involves loving allegiance to God and gritty service to anyone around us. In word and deed, we are invited to make our home in the love of God and invite all to share in it. Let’s read about it in John 13.

[Jesus] rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”  Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet,[a] but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, 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 also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them…

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

–John 13:4-17, 34-35

The Message Paraphrase

1. What does John 13 reveal about the Character of God? 

2. What does John 13 reveal about human nature (positively or negatively)? 

3. Who can you serve this week?

In Luke’s account of the earliest community of Jesus' followers (Acts 2, we read it in week one), he recounts that they “had all things in common.  And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need” (Acts 2:44–45); this is what it looks like to love one another. Can you imagine what would happen if our community looked like this? 

Serving can take many forms.  We hope to grow in serving one another, but many of us need to be challenged to serve those outside of our community. Take one of the people you prayed over and figure out a way to serve them (i.e., babysitting, pet-sitting, yardwork, cleaning out a garage, cooking a meal, helping out with a bill). If you don’t know how to serve them, simply grab a meal with them and listen. This is a great place to start when it comes to determining people’s needs and serving them well.