While the gospels are the easiest place to see the person and work of Jesus Christ, the entirety of the scriptures share the gospel story. Gospel Outside will highlight a part of the gospel seen outside of the 4 Gospels of the New Testament.
Often times, when we think of being highly successful, wealthy or famous, we think life gets easy. We picture business owners, entertainers and leaders as the people who get to kick back behind the scenes and be important while they have “their people” do the hands-on grunt work.
That’s not how it works (at least not most of the time).
I am often impressed by the work that people I often expect to be more hands-off get done. These people usually know that God has blessed their diligence and attention and has brought them a measure of success, and they are usually willing to dive in to accomplish a goal or task. I’ve spent countless hours doing hands-on grunt work next to world-famous musicians that haul and set up their own equipment, or businessmen willing to get dirty working on a construction project, or pastors and ministry leaders that aren’t content to stay behind a podium and speak but get out serve by driving a van, shoveling snow or cleaning a mess. These people recognize that they are not above these tasks-they are willing to do whatever they need to do in order to reach their goals.
Jesus was a different story. He wasn’t different in that he didn’t do those hands-on tasks, because in every story of the gospels you see Jesus mingling and interacting with people at their level; spending quality tie with the poor and needy, fishing with Peter, even spending time playing with little kids!
Jesus was willing to do whatever task needed to be done. The difference is that he was above these tasks. As Creator of the Universe, King of Kings, and Messiah, he would have been justified in saying, “Andrew, you are in charge of children’s ministry. You play with them, I’ll sit here and teach the adults.” Instead he said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 19:14, ESV) He even took time to wash his disciples’ stinky, dirty, nasty feet to display what it means to be a servant.
But these are from the gospels, and this is supposed to be Gospel Outside, so lets get outside the gospels.
Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
When we are faced with an opportunity to do good, to minister and love on someone who needs another person to show they care, remember the example that the God of the Universe provided for us. He didn’t just humble himself to become the Supreme Ruler of the Earth, with each and every human being as his servant – because that truly would have been a humbling, descending from the glory of heaven and the constant worship of angels to a fallen and sinful planet he created. No, Jesus made himself nothing, a slave, the guy that does the things others aren’t willing to do. He even allowed the very creation that he not only brought into being, but whose existence he continued to sustain, to beat, torture and murder him.
And he did it for us, to provide an opportunity for you and I to have a restored relationship with God.
When you begin to think too highly of yourself, when you start to think that you are better than someone else or decide that some task is beneath you, remember that Christ came to spend time with “those types of people,” doing that stuff that you think someone else should be doing, and that someday each and every person who has ever lived will recognize the Lordship of Christ because of it.
Driven 