Gift of Example
These are gifts the Lord Jesus Christ gave, and you will find seven of them. Of the seven gifts that the Lord Jesus Christ gave. The first one is found in Chapter 13. And we read it, I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. What an amazing gift. You know there are many of us as parents we had to say to our children do as I say, not as I do. Because we failed as parents. There were times when we didn't act as we shouldn't say what we want. So, the Lord Jesus could say I'm giving you a perfect example, that you are to follow a perfect example of service. The Lord Jesus said, I am among you as one that serves.

Most of us would rather be served than serve. Many missionaries one of the first things they do when they get to a mission field is to hire a servant because they don't have time. And so, they hire a garden boy, or they hire a driver, or they hire a maid. Because they are leaders. I think the Lord is wanting to send out servants and the first gift he gave to them was an example of service how to serve one another. And as you know, the picture that is drawn of our Lord Jesus washing disciple’s feet, including Judas It is such a profound example, He was among them as one that served. I don't know that most of us in our local assemblies have a foot washing ceremony, but that's the command. You do what I have done to you. So, do we obey? Saying we should as assemblies, practice foot washing, but it wouldn't be out of order to do that on occasion to help us understand how humbling it is to have your feet washed.


Gift of Love
And then secondly, in verse 34, the second command the Lord Jesus Christ gave is a command to obey. And what is that? Love one another. Chapter 13 And verse 34. Let me just read that because it's so important for us to understand that. He said, A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another. So here is a perfect example, to follow and then, that perfect example overflows into the second gift, and it's the command, to obey as I have loved you. Think of that. How amazing is his love? The Lord Jesus would say, Greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends, you are my friends. You do whatever I command you.

You know when somebody comes to visit our assembly, visit your assembly. One of the things that they want to know is, Will these people love me? Because that's a natural thing. Sociologists tell us that we have two great needs, to love and to be loved. And so, they want to come into your gathering of believers. And their question in the back of their mind is will they love me? Will they love me just as I am? Or do they expect me to change? You see, here is the Lord Jesus. He is telling his disciples the new commandment that they are to obey is to love one another. We have reminded ourselves already just a few minutes ago, that many of our evangelists and missionaries will hire a maid, hire a servant in order for them to get on with the Lord's work. And so we have many, many seminars and studies and we have courses in Bible colleges and Bible universities and how to be a leader. If we were to have a leadership seminar, I'm sure we could filled many, many gospel halls, many chapels. How many will come, if we had a seminar on how to be a good servant? 500 times the scriptures use the word serve and servant and remind us that a servant is a position that the Lord took here on Earth in order to give an example that we are to follow and encourage us perhaps is that He loved us as nobody else loved us.

How much? Well, it's very clear. It says at the beginning of chapter 13, Having loved His own which are in the world, he loved them to the uttermost. Of course, the uttermost is that He gave His life for us. Greater love, says the Lord Jesus, Greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends. Those disciples were going to go into all the world and preach the gospel and that gospel was going to be as John says, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have ever lasting life. What a gift. Lord Jesus Christ came into this world as the eternal Son of God, what a humbling experience. Philippians tells us He took upon himself the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, A perfect example to follow. A new commandment obeys.

What is the significance of that Gift? It was sacrificial. It was costly. It was painful. It meant blood. It meant deaths I couldn’t verify that many occasions where we have gone missing stringed in visiting missionaries over the course of 30 years, we were often taken to a cemetery nearby, we would walk among those two stones, and there will be the names of missionary names that I knew and maybe you would know and names of their children, names of their wife. I can remember very well story of missionary family, girls, husband, and wife. The husband was fed some food and mixed in the food was some glass, ground up. He passed away. But he was persecuted, and he was killed because of his preaching the gospel. That's exactly what the Lord Jesus does say in John chapter 16. That they would be persecuted, and they would be killed, and they would think they're doing God's service.

What does that mean? Doing God's service? It's a word that we've only learned in the last few years. It is jihad. And there are many, my own sister was killed in in Laos many years ago as a girl who is there to bring the gospel to people in that country. There are many that you would know from India, who have gone out into all the world to preach the gospel have gone to North India. They have paid with the extremely large price of their lives. So, it's an example of service. It's an example of sacrifice. He says in chapter 13 And verse one, he loved his own which were in the word he loved him to the uttermost. He has as much as to say to them, I love you. Those are such important words. And these disciples would be encouraged and strengthened in their commission to go into all the world and preach the gospel knowing that even like Thomas perhaps was killed in Madras, and many other missionaries Peter crucified upside-down John on the Isle of Patmos, eventually succumbing to his own difficulties there. A new commandment to obey.


Gift of Holy Spirit
We look further down in chapter 14, verse 16, and there the Lord Jesus has moved into the second what we would call the second chapter, of course, there were no chapters at that time. But in chapter 14 In verse 16, it says, And I will pray the Father and He will give you another comforter, another Helper, that He may abide with you forever, even the spirit of truth when the world cannot receive because it sees him not neither knows him, but you know Him for He lives with you, and shall be in you. The Gift of the Holy Spirit. One of the greatest I mean, it's probably difficult to say which is the greatest gift the Lord Jesus gives us or gave the disciples, but certainly if we compare these gifts, the idea of God in the person of the Father, sending the Holy Spirit to the disciples and saying, this is the gift.

When was the last time you said thank you to God the Father for the gift of the Holy Spirit? What a wonderful gift. We will find one of our studies that there are seven ministries of the Holy Spirit that the Lord Jesus describes, just to think of them he will teach you all the things ,he'll bring to remembrance, he'll abide with you forever. And on and on. These five chapters remind us of the the tremendous gift, what words can we use? Unspeakable gift. The enormous gift. The personal gift. The needed gift. So many words come to mind thinking of the presentation of the Holy Spirit, of all. Of all the Holy Spirit. Paul says, The Spirit is not given by measure. Paul also says if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. It's not a subsequent gift that we get after we've been a believer for 10 years, or more mature or whatever. It's a gift that's given to us at the point of conversion. The disciples didn't have it in the upper room. The Lord Jesus would say that if you need the Holy Spirit, you can ask the Father in my name, and I will give you, but nobody asks. But on the day of Pentecost, in response to the Lord's instructions. Go to Jerusalem. Stay there, until you are empowered, until you are endued with power from on high.

Wow. I it’s think sad, that many believers, carrying on their Christian lives day after day, week after week, month after month, sometimes year after year. Without ever saying to the Father. Thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit. Maybe they don't understand maybe they don't realize, and the Holy Spirit has come to live in us. If I came to live at your house, and you never spoke to me. You never acknowledged me. How would I feel? That's why we are warned by Paul, not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. Don't quench the Holy Spirit. We are told what a gift. Oh, it should be a part of our words of Thanksgiving. A day of thank you Lord for a wonderful ministry of your Holy Spirit. He's a person with mind, emotion, will. Perfect mind emotion and will and he's made me in his image with mind emotion and will. And His Spirit bears witness with my spirit, says the apostle, Paul. You need help in pray? Spirit helps our infirmity so we do not know what we should pray for. We were sealed with the Holy Spirit. And it goes on and on. And on. And yet he is called, the forgotten member of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit of God, the Comforter, another comforter, another comforter just like the Lord Jesus Christ. And we will look at that one time as we look at the wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit.