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The following message is preached by Reverend Dr. Bruce Wheeler Thielman. His sermon is entitled "The Splendor in Service." Let us continue in worship by giving attention to the reading of God's Word as it is recorded in the Gospel according to John, the 13th chapter. I begin the reading at the verse

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numbered 1. Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas

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Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he

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was girded. He came to Simon Peter and Peter said to him, "Lord, do you wash my feet?" Jesus answered him, "What I am doing you do not know 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 part in me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only,

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but also my hands and my head." Jesus said to him, "He who has bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but he is clean all over, and you are clean, but not every one of you." For he knew who was to betray him. That was why he said, "You are not all clean." When he had washed their feet and taken his garments and resumed his place,

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he said to them, "Do you know 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 as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater

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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." And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his word. Amen. Pray with me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

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I offer this effort this morning to the glory of God and in loving memory of my friend, Linda Pulhemus. The pulpit is to be a launchpad for the human spirit. It is to be that place where those who are in God are encouraged to mount up with wings like eagles. And in this Advent season, we are seeking to fly to the joy star. Now the joy star has five

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points. And last week, we noted the first and the most important of them. If one would know joy, one must have the presence of God in Christ in one's heart. This is what gives guidance for the path of life, and this is what brings ultimate pleasure to the soul. This morning, we look at the second point of the joy star, which is to know the splendor

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in service, the joy of flying to the aid, the help, the assistance of others. Now Jesus teaches us of this in John chapters 13, 14, and 15. The scene that initiates the story begins in ugliness but ends in beauty. Jesus and the disciples have been caught up in a busy day of ministry, and throughout the course of the day, for some reason, the disciples

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begin to debate amongst themselves as to which is the greatest. The argument becomes somewhat surly. In the evening, they arrive at the place where they are to enjoy the Passover feast together. Now customarily, there would have been a servant on hand to wash the feet of all those who assembled, but for some reason, we do not know what it was, there was no servant.

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And none of the disciples was willing to wash the feet of his brothers. They had been arguing all day about which was the greatest, so none of them was going to abase himself with such a menial act of service. Jesus, of course, quickly is sensitive to the tension that exists within the group. So he rises from the table, he strips to the waist, he takes a basin and

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pours water into it. And as he lifts up the basin, I imagine that the slanting rays of the sunset sun, which were filtering into the room, hit that bowl of water and were reflected up onto his brown arms and his brown chest and his brown face. And in that moment, he must have looked as if he were made of burnished gold. A reminder here, if you will,

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of his royal nature. But the next moment, he is on his knees. God on his knees. The menial master washing his disciples' feet. Now when the task is done, Jesus explains what he has done and why. He says, "I have washed your feet to encourage you to wash one another's feet. I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you.

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You are called to abide in me. And that means that you are to love one another as I have loved you. By this will all men know that you are my disciples when you love one another. And these things I have said to you that my joy might be in you and your joy might be full." Now Jesus' words are so definite here that they're not debatable. He is saying,

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"You are to imitate me. You are to follow my model in service. You are to abide in me. That is what will identify you as a servant of mine, as a disciple of mine. And when this happens, you will discover in you a wonderful joy." Now how is it and why is it that such service brings joy? Well first of all, it's because the serving Christian knows the extreme

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happiness of walking in the shadow of his Savior. If you want Jesus Christ to flow through your life as ink flows through a pen, then each of us must serve as he served. Now that does not mean that we are just to copy him. If the Christian life is nothing more than an attempt to mimic the master, that can very easily lead to an arrogant self-righteousness

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to the degree of one's success. But what Jesus is saying is other than that. He is saying that we are to receive his service. We are to let the shadow of his service fall upon us and when we experience his service, then we will find welling up within us a desire to serve others. The scriptures say, "We love because he first loved us." Peter says, "You're

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not going to wash my feet." Jesus says, "If I do not wash your feet, then I will not be part of you." And Peter responds, "Then wash me all over." The point is, as we receive Jesus into ourselves, then he moves through us. So Christian service is not just reflecting Jesus, it is responding to his direction within our lives. Sometimes you hear people say,

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"All you have to do in the Christian life is follow in the steps of Jesus." And that sounds very simple, but the fact of the matter is it's altogether impossible, for we are too weak. None of us can walk in the steps of Jesus. What we seek, rather, is to have Jesus so living within us that we are enabled to do by his power through us what we could

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never do in and of ourselves. That's the reason this is the second point in the Joy Star. The first point is to have the presence of God in one's life. And then when one has that presence of God in Christ in one's heart, then one focuses on the cross. Then one moves into the life of prayer. Then one experiences the power of the Holy Spirit as he seeks to

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sway the life. And out of this comes our ability to fill the basin with water and begin to serve. And out of this comes joy. Think of it in this way. Suppose you were called upon to serve under one of two great captains of the sea. Let's say the first captain is Captain Bly, made famous in Nordhoff and Hall's novel Mutiny on the Bounty. He was a monstrous man,

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severe, unyielding, obdurate, stubborn, cruel, insisting upon absolute obedience. The other admiral, let's take as our example Horatio Nelson, the greatest British sailor to ever sail the seas. A man who loved his men and whose spirit somehow moved into his men so that they rejoiced in his service. One of Nelson's seamen, after being with him on a

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long and difficult journey, wrote a letter back to his family in England and he said, "We are half starved and otherwise inconvenienced by being so long out of port, but our reward is we are with Nelson." Now you see, the service of Bly is the service of fear. The service of Nelson is the service of love. Those who obey Bly obey him because they must, and that

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kind of attitude leads to mutiny. But those who serve Nelson served out of love, and that kind of love leads to the splendor of joy in what one is doing. Now applying this to our spiritual situation, we are not to be serving Bly. We are to have Jesus as the admiral of our souls, and his presence and his power and his peace are to flood into us, and out

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of that comes our service. Mother of Teresa, that little Yugoslavian nun who wears the blue and white veil and who is a model of sacrificial service in the world, put it this way. She wrote, "Pray for me that I not loosen my grip on the hands of Jesus, even under the guise of ministering to the poor." And what she's saying is simply this. It's as

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you hold on to Christ, not the poor. It's as you hold on to being overshadowed by his grace and receiving his love in your life, not the poor. It's as you cling to Christ, not the poor. It's as you are led by him, not by them, that you are enabled to do those things which are genuine acts of service and produce the star fire of joy.

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Now another thing that the serving Christian discovers is, and finds joy in, is the significance of the inconspicuous. You know, the world has a tendency to say that only prominent people really accomplish things of importance. You have to be a somebody in order to do something that really matters. But the fact is that the opposite is the truth. It is in inconspicuous

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acts of service that the greatest joy is discovered. Did it ever occur to you to ponder on the fact that Jesus did not come to the earth as a legislator? He did not come with a selection of rules and regulations, of laws to be laid aside and new laws to be instituted. He did not try to get righteousness by the rite of passage of some legislation. He rejected all

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attempts to politicize his ministry. In like manner, Jesus did not come to the earth as a wealthy person. There are many people who believe that if you're going to accomplish anything in society, it can only be done with cash. Giveaway programs are the way to solve the difficulties that encounter so many people. But Jesus never suggests that money be used

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as a tool of moral influence. There are some people who say that the way to get things done is through organization. This is the way generals and presidents and prime ministers think. Administrate, organize, drill, manipulate. But when the disciples came to Jesus and asked him to appoint some as lieutenants and to establish some kind of organization, he completely

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rejected their suggestion. Now I'm not saying that legislation and wealth and organization cannot be used to very good purpose because they certainly can be. All I'm saying is that Christ in his earthly ministry did not use those methods. Instead, he sought to change people by catching them in a web of love, in a net of caring service. And don't laugh

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at his method because remember that what he did in a tiny corner of a tiny land in a very small fertile crescent of the earth, that has gone on to become the greatest revolution in the history of humankind. At the outset of my sharing this morning, I mentioned that I offer this sermon to the glory of God in the memory of my friend Linda Paul Hemis.

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Linda was a lovely woman. She had a fine husband, a very brilliant physician, and two children, a son and a daughter, both of whom grew up to honor and bless their parents. Some 25 years ago, Linda contracted multiple sclerosis, that disease which we have still not learned how to conquer. Now I met Linda when I was ministering in California, and it was then

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that my tape ministry began, making tapes available to people who felt that they could use them. And when I was going to leave my charge there, it was understood that the tape ministry would come to an end. But Linda asked me to visit her home, and I did. And she suggested to me that she might carry on the tape ministry, that as I would preach back here on the East

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Coast, I would send the messages out there, and they would be duplicated and sent out. And I agreed. And so this woman, suffering from multiple sclerosis, pain, limitation, all of the things associated with that disease, set aside a little room in her house, had a special orange chair which was comfortable for her, and a special typewriter. And she

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began reproducing the tapes and sending them out to people who asked for them. But when she would send these tapes out, she would almost always include a letter. And as a result, she became involved in a correspondence with recipients of these tapes in more than 20 different nations and almost all of our states. And I wish you could see some of the letters

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that came back. Her sensitivity of spirit, her desire to serve was so great that she became the confidant of many people. Many ministers wrote to her for advice. Her prayer list was huge. I remember her once sending me a picture of a group of people in a hospital ward in Indonesia, gathered together around a tape recorder, listening to one of the messages.

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She had gotten those tapes into that hospital. She got us onto radio stations in Utah in order to have some ministry to Mormon people that are there. She reached out to those who were bereaved and wrote again and again to them and also to those who were in an invalid state as she was. On more than one occasion, I would go someplace to preach and an ambulance

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would pull up or a station wagon and they would carry someone out and that someone would be there because they had gotten a letter from Linda telling them that I would be in that area and that they might want to come. And some of the most beautiful conversations with people I sought to serve through God's word preached were the conversations that

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resulted from that. During all this time, Linda's condition deteriorated until about a year and a half ago when it suddenly became much better. And she was enabled for the first time to begin teaching a Bible study group in her church in Los Angeles. And she loved it and was much admired as a teacher. And she did this for a year and suddenly her condition

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worsened. And she couldn't understand why. She'd known such happiness in this time of being able to teach and now it was taken away. And she asked her husband about it and as I would talk with her on the telephone trying to be a friend and also a pastor, we shared about this. And then one day her husband, Don, was standing in the kitchen of their

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home. He was not in prayer. He was not thinking about Linda or her question at that precise moment. But suddenly, for the first and the only time in his life, he heard the voice of God. God spoke to him. He says as clearly as if it were another human voice. And he wrote me and told me what God said. Let me share those words. "Linda is very precious

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to me and she has touched many whom she will never know. Her faithfulness in the face of pain and adversity has been an encouragement to so many of whom she is unaware. She often suffers from low self-esteem and has been denied the joy of seeing the harvest of her efforts. Therefore, I allowed her to have a year in which even she could not deny the

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obvious benefit of her work for me. It is true that the ladies of her circle were enriched, but that was not my primary purpose. They already were mine. It was all for Linda's joy. And if I have another reason for choosing someone else now, what is that to you?" Don shared that with Linda and they got great peace from it. And two weeks later, just a

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few weeks ago, she died in her husband's arms and wakened in the presence of Jesus. A sick lady in a little room with an orange chair and a typewriter writing letters. And what does God say of it? "Linda was very precious to me. She will never know how many she has touched. I gave her this year of teaching so that it could become obvious to her. And

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all of this I have done for Linda's joy. You don't have to be famous to be faithful." I quoted Mother Teresa before. She said on another occasion at a Congress in Bombay, "We can do no great things, only small things, with great love." And that's what Linda did. And when the servants of Christ work out their service, even in small and inconspicuous ways,

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they discover the significance of that. How God weaves it into other people's lives and transforms spirits and times. And when they realize that, they have burning in them the fire of the joy star. Very quickly, one last thought. The serving Christian also discovers the satisfaction

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in sacrifice. You know, many times when you serve other people, your efforts are not appreciated. That happened to our Lord himself. You know how he was more often rejected than he was accepted. God spent centuries teaching people the vocabulary of love. And at last he sent into our midst one who could speak it perfectly. And even when Jesus came and spoke it flawlessly,

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his disciples often misunderstood. And the people he healed and made whole didn't even pause to thank him, and he was left in the end to die alone. Yet he's the one who taught that those who lose their lives will find them. And what, of course, happened to him has always happened to his disciples. No matter how sincere

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you are in serving some people, they'll only lash out at you. We have a tendency, you know, to romanticize the needy, to believe that needy people will always be grateful for what we do. And the fact of the matter is, that just isn't true, for needy people are just as sinful as people who have all of their earthly and worldly needs met.

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So sometimes in service, there is the sacrifice that comes with rebuke and insult and rejection. But there are bittersweet blessings that come in service that can come in no other way. For example, you get to meet Christ earlier. Some of us have many years until we will die and meet him face to face. But Jesus has taught that inasmuch as ye have done it unto the

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least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And that means that when you minister to an addict, when you do something for those who have no place to stay, when you assist the jobless, when you visit the lonely, even though you may pay a price in the doing of it, you are meeting Jesus then, there, in that person. I read the other day of a youngster

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eleven years old in Philadelphia who has begun, a youngster eleven years old who has begun a ministry of taking blankets to people who are forced to sleep on the streets at night. He is meeting Christ now. When he meets him in heaven, that will be to meet him again. But he is experiencing him now. And this blessing too, though one might be sneered at as one

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serves, remember that the scriptures teach us that we are compassed about by a great company of saints and the angels of God. And there are many more of them than there are those who criticize or who ridicule us for what we do. The whole church triumphant applauds our service. And there is joy in the knowledge of that applause. And it is ours even in sacrifice,

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especially in sacrifice. And this also, in the end, only what we do in sacrificial service lasts forever. Build a bridge, write a symphony, plan some course of action for the future, all of these things will pass away. The only thing that lasts is life, for life is eternal. So it is only what we do for another life that has about it the dimensions of forever.

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When one soul touches another soul, eternity is involved. And that person is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he can never lose. That is the reason Jesus said at the end of his life so full of sacrificial service and said it not as an act of resignation, but said it as an act of triumphant affirmation. It is finished. I am satisfied and I have

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satisfied and eternity is mine. That is the reason he says to us, serve, let me serve through you and the joy which is mine will be yours. [PAUSE] [PAUSE]

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