Text: John 4:1-42
“Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” —1 Corinthians 11:1
Monday night this past week we were sitting in our associate pastor’s living room praying with him for his mission trip to the Ukraine. In less than forty-eight hours, we got news that he had suffered a fatal heart attack on the shuttle bus enroute to the Atlanta airport. Pastor Tim’s shocking departure at the age of forty-two has left a tragic hole in our lives and a huge loss for our entire community. Please pray for his wife and eight children he leaves behind.
Oftentimes the script doesn’t make sense to us in the moment, yet we must still trust that the story God is writing is so much bigger and far more glorious than our hearts can grasp in times of suffering.
There are so many things I could write about Tim Maslov. His relentless passion for Jesus. His love for people. His magnetic leadership. The invaluable way that he mentored my own son in the corporate sector while Zach was starting his film and video production business this past year. But the one thing that stands out for me the most about Tim, was how he made people feel.
Maya Angelou once said,
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Though his primary agenda was always God’s truth over feelings, he epitomized what it meant to speak the truth in love. Tim was a rare leader who could see into the heart of a person and recognize their intrinsic worth and value, not for what they could do for him, but simply because they were made in the very image of God and had something redemptive to offer this world. He had a selfless way of making all of us believe that our lives were very precious to God, that our gifts and talents mattered to the community, and that our place in God’s family was equally as important as anybody else’s. He restored dignity in people the same way that Jesus did it throughout his earthly ministry.
Jesus never restored dignity by glossing over sin, but we cannot refute the way that he valued those who had been marginalized by society or deemed “less important” to God by those religious elites in the party of the Pharisees. Think about how Jesus empowered a Samaritan woman, one that had a “shady” past and whose ethnicity was presumed to be inferior to the Jews (John 4). Think about how Jesus restored dignity to a woman caught in adultery and was on the verge of being condemned to death by a legalist mob (John 8). Think about how Jesus showed value to a tax collector named Zacchaeus (Luke 19), whose political affiliation would’ve made him a first-century “deplorable,” or how the Son of God told a guilty criminal hanging on the cross next to him, “Today, you shall be with me in paradise” (Luke 23).
What all of these sinners had in common was the grace that Jesus offered them—a gift that could only be afforded because Jesus took the wages of their sin upon himself when He was crucified. He paid in full the punishment for their sins. And not theirs only, but yours and mine also.
If we want to restore dignity in the lives of those who have been battered by shame, guilt, condemnation, betrayal, abandonment, or simply those who are products of a loveless society, we do well to follow the way of Jesus. Or as Tim liked to reference, “Follow me as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). God’s truth must be proclaimed in order to liberate hostages of dignity-thieving terrorists, but the manner in which it is spoken is also important (see 1 Peter 3:15). We must see people as those who are truly created in the image of God, with intrinsic value and preciousness of soul, and not just people to be preached at. And that value can, and surely must, be “seen” or reflected in our words.
Think about that as you seek to abide in Him by empowering others through the message of the cross.
PRAYER
God, our hearts are heavy over the devastating loss of our dear brother in Christ. We know that today he is more alive than he has ever been in the company of Jesus. Yet we ask you to comfort our community in this time of loss. And may we all follow Pastor Tim’s enduring example of seeing people the way that Jesus sees people, and having that value reflected in our words. Holy Spirit, help us to do this. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Questions for personal reflection, small group discussion, or dinner table conversations:
- Why did Jesus sit down by Jacob’s well? (John 4:6)
- What did Jesus say would be the result of drinking the water He offered? (vv13-14)
- How did Jesus say people would worship God? (vv21-23) What kind of worshipers does God seek? (v23) Who did Jesus say He was? (vv25-26)
- How is the world’s need for salvation and eternal life like thirst? In what ways did Jesus restore dignity in this woman’s life? What was the result of her being empowered by this encounter with Jesus? What did she do?
- What can you do this week to follow Jesus in the way he loved the loveless, engaged the marginalized, restored dignity, and proclaimed salvation to the lost?
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