Dear Christian friends:

Once again we have gathered here with our friends to begin these special midweek Lenten Services that we may sing the praises of Jesus who suffered and died for our salvation.

This is good for us because we say that we are His disciples. A disciple is a learner and a doer a person who listens and then obeys; believes and then acts as He believes. Certainly our gathering here ought to help us improve and become better disciples.

Sometimes we may feel that is is a waste of time. We come every Sunday; we came every Wednesday last year and we have not improved. When we look at our brothers and sisters here in the church we do not see much love and kindness to one another and we wonder if all our gathering for church is worth it. And when we honestly see ourselves and find our many faults and failures we fear that we are not doing what Jesus really wants us to do.

Why are we such poor disciples? What prevents us from following our Lord and Savior as we ought to?

In our text we see Jesus talking to Peter and His disciples in the Upper Room before they go out to Gethsemane where Jesus would pray and Judas would betray Him. What Jesus here says to Peter will show some of the reasons whey we are such poor disciples and then also how we can be helped to improve.

In the Upper Room Jesus gave the disciples a good model to follow - Himself. Often and long He taught them that a disciple serves - and does not expect others to serve Him. But they quickly forgot His instructions and were arguing and quarreling about who would be the greatest. So Jesus told them that's how the unbelievers talk and do: "The kings of the earth expect everyone to bow down and serve them and do little or nothing to help the nation."

With you it's different. The greatest among you should become like the youngest, and one who leads should be like the one who serves ... I am among you as one who serves." In God's kingdom we must all be as servants and slaves - not as rulers and lords.

We often forget that we are here to serve and help one another and not for our own advantage and profit - to get honor and praise for ourselves. We often search for people who can help us and serve us and neglect to visit those who can't help us or serve us. We try to find the educated and wealthy person to join our church because they can help our church and support it, but the retarded person; the deaf, the blind, the old, and the poor we neglect and forget to visit and serve. We think, "They will not make good church members."

Also when we have a dinner at our home, we invite those who are important because if we make friends with them maybe they will help us and invite us to their home. We do not invite the poor and the retarded because they can't help us or advance us or profit us.

So we often join a church and work only for our own advantage and profit and fail to see what Jesus means when He tells us we are to serve - serve those who can't serve us back.

To his selfish and proud disciples Jesus said, "I am among you as one who serves." Now it is 2000 years later and 5,000 miles away, but can we still hear His voice say that to us tonight? Do we see Jesus asking for our service first to one another and then to our world? That night Jesus still had to go and die on the cross to pay for our selfishness and pride, our poor service.

But now He has finished it. Tonight we look back to His cross and see what He did and then look at ourselves to see what we are doing. He did that then that we now might love Him and do His work. The Bible says, "He died for all that they which live should not live for themselves, but for Him that died for them and rose again."

We forget to strengthen one another for service. That night in the Upper Room Jesus chiefly talked to Peter because he was bragging, yet very weak. Jesus said to him Simon, the devil wants to have you, but I prayed for you, that your faith will not die. And when you come back strengthen your fellow disciples.

This is a very important way in which we are to serve: strengthen our brothers and sisters in faith. This starts when parents bring their baby to baptism and should go on through life, at home and church, in happy days and sad days unto the evening hours when grandpa and grandma are a burden and need extra love from their children and grand children. "Strengthen the brothers and sisters."

We are doing that tonight, sharing God's Word with one another singing these hymns and bowing our heads together in prayer, greeting one another before and after church, wishing one another God's blessing on the way home and for the days ahead at home in the family and at work. And some are using their cars to help strengthen.

Do we realize how important it is for us to help one another to grow stronger in faith? Jesus said to Peter, "The devil has asked to have you." So the devil wants to have all of us, too, and lead us away from our faith in Jesus. Jesus prayed for Peter that his faith fail not and Jesus warned him to watch and be careful.

Jesus shows us that we must worry about one another and help to feed and make strong their faith. When Peter that night failed Jesus looked at Him, and he remembered and went out and wept bitterly. Now Peter realized what a fool He had been. And so we too can find forgiveness when we have failed. God's love in Jesus not only forgives our sins, but it builds us up again and makes us strong so that we help others who become weak and fall.

This Lenten Season we intend to go with Jesus as He suffers and dies, really walk the way He went to see what He did for us long ago so that now, today we know He prays for us at God's right hand that our faith fail not, but be made new that we may serve Him in strengthening our brothers and sisters.

Amen