Open today’s lesson by reading this brief story to your students:
Rajan is 13 years old and lives in an Indian orphanage, where he heard about Jesus and began to develop a personal relationship with God.
In spite of the hard things he’s experienced, Rajan is still your classic teen, goofing off with friends and playing games. And like a typical teen, he doesn’t find chores very exciting, especially those involving laundry.
One day, his teacher found Rajan hand-washing the dirty socks of 20 of his friends.
Now, these aren’t your average socks that get worn once and then tossed into the laundry basket. These belong to children living in a dry and dusty terrain filled with countless insects, wild monkeys, snakes, and pothole-marked dirt roads. It’s likely these socks are the only pair they own, many ragged and worn.
As he grew in his relationship with Jesus, Rajan noticed how Jesus served others—and realized that he could serve others, even at the orphanage. Rajan demonstrated the heart, sacrifice, and humility of Jesus by serving others.
- Why do you think Rajan chose to serve his peers in this way? What reasons could he have given for not serving others? (Accept all thoughts, though students may reference Rajan’s desire to serve others as Jesus did. They may also share that Rajan could have focused on his difficult circumstances, rather than serving people.)
Although we don’t like to admit it, we don’t always serve others with the right motivation. Sometimes, serving feels like work instead of fun. Other times, we are motivated to serve by the recognition we may receive from serving.
- Think about a situation where serving others may not be fun or where you may not get recognition for serving others. How could you choose to serve anyway? (Accept all thoughts, though students may reference praying to ask God for help, remembering a Bible verse about serving others, or thinking of a time when others have served them.)
Today, we’ll look at a biblical parable in order to understand how and why we should serve unselfishly.
