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If you would please open to John's
Gospel, chapter 13. The setting here is the Last Supper.
Jesus is with his disciples in that upper room, and he's leading
them in this Jewish Passover Seder, knowing full well that
he's about to become the sacrificial lamb. that is portrayed in that
Passover festival. His blood will be shed. His blood
will cause the sentence of death to pass over those to whom it
is applied. And so that's the setting. And
let's read now, follow along as I read, verses 1 through 17,
John chapter 13, beginning in verse 1. Now before the feast
of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that
he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having
loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the
end. And supper being ended, the devil
having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son,
to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all
things into his hands and that he was come from God and went
to God, he riseth from supper and laid aside his garments and
took a towel and girded himself. After that, he poured water into
a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them
with the towel wherewith he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon
Peter, and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto
him, What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt
never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash
thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter said unto him,
Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith
to him, he that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but
is clean every whit. And ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray
him, therefore said he, ye are not all clean. Soon after he
had washed their feet and had taken his garments and was set
down again, he said unto them, know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me master and lord, and
ye say, well, for so I am. If I then, your lord and master,
have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example
that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say
unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord, neither
he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know
these things, happy are ye if ye do them. Let's pray together. Our Father, we thank you again
for your word for this record of what took
place in that upper room where Jesus and his disciples had gathered
to observe the Passover. And Lord, we thank you for you
inspiring John to write and record the events that took place, this
washing of the disciples' feet, And thank you, Lord, for the
lesson that it gives for us today. We pray that you would speak
to us in this hour, in Jesus' name, amen. Chapter 13 begins a new major
section in the Gospel of John. And in my introductory message
to this series, I presented a kind of simple outline of the whole
book, and I'd like to review that with you since we're now
entering a new section. Chapter 1 of John is a prologue,
a very unusual way that he began his gospel. And we studied that
together, and it was quite a blessing. Chapters 2 through 12 cover Jesus'
public ministry. But as we come to chapter 13
and all the way through chapter 17, this section covers Jesus'
private ministry. Chapters 18 and 19 cover Jesus'
passion ministry, and then chapters 20 through 21 cover Jesus' resurrection
ministry. And so beginning with today's
passage, the focus here is on Jesus' private ministry, his
ministry in private with his disciples, with the 12 of his
inner circle. And as we compare this to the
other three gospels that we have in our New Testament, we see
that John expands significantly on what is reported, much more
so than the other three gospel writers. So here again, we note
that a major portion of John's gospel is unique to his gospel. And that's why it's so important
to study John's gospel. We're covering a lot of material
that we would not have covered otherwise. And that includes
today's passage. For you see, John is the only
one of the four gospel writers that records the washing of the
disciples' feet. And so this is a very precious
passage that we're considering this morning. In this passage,
Jesus, our Lord, and our teacher, not only teaches a very important
lesson, but he demonstrates that lesson himself. Actions speak
louder than words, so the saying goes. And in this case, Jesus
gives us both words of instruction and the actions that go with
it. And so here's the lesson, here's
the theme today. The Lord wants us to serve with
the humility that he himself exemplified. He wants us to serve
with that same humility that he had. Now, the first 11 verses of this
chapter present the Lord's example. As we've already mentioned, the
setting is the Last Supper. To be specific, Jesus was observing
this Passover festival with the 12 apostles for the last time,
for the final time. Now, the Passover figures prominently
in John's Gospel. I mentioned this before. John
really builds and structures his entire narrative around a
series of three Passovers. One is mentioned in chapter 2,
verse 23, at the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. A second
one is mentioned in John chapter 6, in verse 4. And then we come
to this one, the final one of the three, the Passover of the
Passion Week. Now this was a somber and sacred
occasion. I mean, Passovers were really
meant to be somber and sacred. But it's even made more so because
of the circumstances that this one took place around. Verse
one informs us that Jesus knew that His hour had come. That is to say, in a short while,
He would complete His redemptive work that the Father had sent
Him to do, And so the remaining time was short for him to minister
to these 12 men, these men that he had poured his life into for
some two plus years, men that he had spent so much time with,
men that were a little slow to catch on at times, but Jesus
continued to disciple them. These are men that Jesus had
come to deeply love. That's how John presents it here.
And of course, John was one of those 12. And so he knew the
love of the Lord Jesus in a very personal way. So the time was short. Indeed,
that very night, that very night, Jesus is going to be betrayed,
arrested, taken into custody, put on trial. a sham trial in
a kangaroo court, if you will, and he will then be led to the
cross and crucified. So that very night, Jesus is
going to be betrayed and his sheep, the men in that room,
are all going to be scattered. Verse 2 raises the urgency by
mentioning that the betrayer is at hand. The devil had already
planted the desire in Judas' heart to betray Jesus that very
night. This would be his opportunity.
Matthew and Mark record that while they were eating this Passover
meal, Jesus made this announcement, one of you who eats with me will
betray me. And then we come to verse three
and it raises the urgency yet more. It tells us that Jesus
was in full control of what was about to happen, having received
authority from the Father to lay down His life and to raise
it up again. And following that, after a number
of days, He will return to the Father. the Father who had sent
him, and his work, the work of his first advent, will be complete. So everything Jesus said and
did on this occasion in that upper room is very significant. These are, in essence, the final
words of instruction for his disciples. And so it is, we come to verses
four and five and we see the Lord's actions. During the Passover
meal, Jesus arose, he laid aside his outer garments, he girded
himself with a towel, and he washed his disciples' feet. Now we're reminded of the customs
of the day. If you recall in the first century,
A Jewish home would welcome in a visitor who had been maybe
traveling for some time. And of course, you know, in those
days they wore sandals. They didn't wear closed-in shoes
like we do. And so after a long journey of
walking along a dusty road, you can imagine how dirty those feet
would get. Very dirty, very dusty. And so it was inevitable that
their feet would need washing. And so they would enter into
the home and the host would provide for the washing of the guest's
feet. He would not do it himself. Usually a household servant would
take a basin of water and a towel and wash those feet. Maybe the
children in the home would do so. I mean, this was lowly service. And so they would loosen the
guest's shoes and wash those feet, dry them off, and they
would put their shoes back on again. Now here's Jesus washing the
disciples' feet. Jesus, not the lowly household
servant, not a child in the household. This is the Lord Jesus Christ
washing feet. He inverted the cultural norm.
He was Lord, he was master, and they were his disciples. What
was he doing washing their feet? If anything, it should have been
the other way around. But Jesus washed their feet.
And then he said to them, if I then your Lord and master have
washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. In a most memorable way then,
Jesus illustrated his own teaching. He illustrated his teaching of
humble service, of the importance of being willing to serve. And then we come to verse six,
and we have the Lord's interaction here with Peter. You think about
it, Jesus has worked his way through the room one by one,
washing the disciples' feet, and now he comes to Peter. Peter's
been watching all of this. And Peter really just had a hard
time with what the Lord was doing. And so good old Peter opens his
mouth and he raises an objection, Lord, are you going to wash my
feet? Are you really going to do this?
I mean, this was hard for Peter. One commentator, Craig Keener,
writes this, Jesus' act violates cultural status boundaries so
thoroughly that Peter finds it unthinkable, end quote. I mean,
Peter just couldn't get his mind around this. What was going on
here? This is the Lord doing this. A literal rendering of verse
eight would be something like this. You most assuredly will
not wash my feet, will you, Lord? That's kind of how Peter is talking. And so we might ask, why did
Peter react this way? Was this some kind of like mock
humility on his part? You know, Peter's trying to be
the humble one in the room. You know, you can wash the other's
feet, but I'm so humble, Lord, I won't let you do this. Well,
we don't really know all of Peter's reasons. What we do know is that
Jesus insisted. He insisted that Peter let him
do this. And what Jesus basically says
is, if you do not let me wash your feet, then that means that
you have no part with me. If you don't allow me to do this,
you're not in proper fellowship with me, Peter. That's what he's
saying. Well, typical of Peter's personality
at this point, then he overreacts. He goes to the opposite extreme.
He basically says, Lord, you know, if you're going to wash
my feet, you might as well wash my head and my hands. I mean,
just do the whole job. Peter, Peter, Peter, this guy. Another commentator observes
a moment ago, he told his master he was doing too much. Now he
tells him he's doing too little. I mean, it's almost as if Peter
is standing over the Lord saying, you're just doing this all wrong.
He wasn't humble at all. And so Jesus takes this opportunity
to teach a spiritual lesson. He says, those who are already
clean do not need to be washed head to toe. It's not necessary. They just need to wash the dust
off of their feet. That's all that's necessary.
And many see this as a lesson in spiritual sanctification.
For those who have been justified have had their sins washed away,
right? And only need to have a daily
sanctification, the washing of the feet, if you will. Then the interaction here between
Jesus and Peter, it concludes on kind of a somber note. Jesus
says, you are clean. And here he's using the you plural,
okay, in the South we'd say y'all. Y'all are clean. Except for one. I mean, that's
sobering, what he said right there. Except for one. Not all. He knew in that very room at
that very moment was the very one who would betray him. The
betrayer. was at hand. And the tense of the verb here
indicates that the betrayal was already in process. Indeed, Judas
had already come to terms concerning the price of his betrayal, 30
pieces of silver. So the wheels were in motion
and the betrayal would soon take place. And Judas would betray
the Lord with a kiss. Thus far we've observed the Lord's
example and we know the Lord wants us to serve with the humility
which he himself exemplified. So we looked at his example,
now we want to heed the Lord's instruction that we find in verses
12 through 17. Look again at verse 12. It says,
so after he had washed their feet and taken his garments and
was set down again, he said unto them, know ye what I have done
to you? A pause. Because I think in that
room there was dead silence. I don't think anyone in that
room knew how to answer that question. So there was an awkward
silence just like we had a moment ago. I mean, if you were one of the
12 whose feet the Lord had just
washed and you were in that room and the Lord finishes and He
asks this question, would you have an answer? Would you know? What Jesus had done was so unexpected,
so contrary to cultural norms, that it was almost like a shock
to those disciples. What could it all mean? What
could it mean? Well, thankfully, Jesus answers
that question for us, doesn't he? To put it simply, Jesus tells
his disciples both then and now, do what I have done. Follow my
example. Serve one another humbly as I
have served you, even if it means stooping down and washing dirty
feet. I'd like you to use your imagination
this morning. Let's suppose that as I'm preaching,
the back doors of the room open and there's Jesus. And he's standing
there with a basin of water in one hand and a towel in the other
hand. And I stop and I look and I'm
just in shock and you turn your head around and you see Jesus
standing there and you're in shock. It's Jesus. And he comes over and your pew
is the first one he comes to. And we understand his intention.
He's going to wash every foot that's in this room. Everyone. You're going to take off your
shoes and he's going to wash your feet. And so he comes over
to your pew, and he washes the feet of the person next to you.
And all this time you're thinking, what am I gonna do when he comes
to me? And you realize, I'm next. And the Lord himself comes to
you, and he washes your feet. And when he's finished, I mean,
this is like a one-on-one moment. I mean, as far as you can feel
right now, you're the only person in the room other than Jesus,
right? And he looks you in the eye, and he says to you, do as
I have done. Wash one another's feet. That's what Jesus is saying here
in this passage. And he's saying it not just to
those 12 men, he's saying it to us today, folks. This is the application for us
today, to be willing to wash someone's dirty feet. Why would we do this? Well, in this passage, Jesus
gives us three compelling reasons for doing this. Reason number
one is in verses 13 through 15. It's really Jesus' own example.
I mean, He's modeled this for us. He's modeled for us the heart
of a humble servant. And in verse 15, He says, I've
given you an example. So here's reason number one.
I've given you an example. As I have done, you should do. He's like the master craftsman
who is showing his trainee what he ought to do. He's showing
him, he's demonstrating for him how the job is to be done. And
then he says, okay, now it's your turn. You do as I have done,
okay? Jesus gives us an example. And of course, he did this all
through his earthly ministry, didn't he? Jesus proved himself
humble. I mean, he humbled himself at
the beginning just to come from heaven and take on human flesh
and be born in a manger in a little obscure village called Bethlehem.
I mean, his whole ministry started out with humility and he demonstrated
it all through his earthly ministry. In Matthew 11, 29, Jesus says,
take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly
in heart. You know, as many times as I've
looked at that passage and studied that passage and even taught
that passage, it never dawned on me that when Jesus says, learn
of me, he wants us to learn meekness and lowliness, because that's
the way he is. In Luke 22, 27, Jesus says, I
am among you as he that serveth. Yeah, he came to serve, to serve. He's among those who are around
him as one who serves. And we have Mark 10, 43 through
45. Jesus says, whosoever will be
great among you shall be your minister. The word there really
means servant. And whosoever of you will be
the chiefest shall be servant of all. For even the son of man came
not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life
a ransom for many. Throughout his earthly ministry,
Jesus taught his disciples this principle of meekness. He instructed
them in the Sermon on the Mount, the meek shall inherit the earth. He told them repeatedly that
the first shall be last and the last will be first. And so we
have Jesus' own example as reason number one why we ought to serve
humbly, even to be willing to wash dirty feet. Reason number
two, this is found in verse 16, the lesser emulates the greater.
Jesus makes two comparisons here. He says the servant is lower
in rank than the Lord, than the master. In the second comparison, the
one sent is lower in rank than the one who sent him. And then
using these comparisons, Jesus argues from the greater to the
lesser. That is to say, he's the greater, he's the Lord, he's
the master, he's the sender, and he's over his disciples. They're the servants of the Lord.
They are the sent ones. The apostoloi, that's the very
word, the apostles means sent ones. And so if he, their Lord, their
sender, their teacher has washed their feet, they ought to be
willing to wash one another's feet. It's an argument from the
greater to the lesser. The apprentice copies the master.
The trainee mimics the trainer. the lesser emulates the greater. That's the second reason why
we ought to be willing to serve humbly like the Lord did. Reason
number three, and this is a very good reason. It's found in verse
17. It will bring you blessing. Look again at what 17 says. If
ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. You want to
be happy? Start serving. That's what Jesus
is saying. And so if we really learn the
lesson that Jesus is teaching his disciples, if we really take
this lesson to heart and we begin to bless others with our service,
we're going to discover, you will discover, that you're on
the receiving end of blessing. That you'll get a blessing out
of it. You will get the greater blessing. You will experience
the greater joy because you're serving. You're doing what the
Lord has taught you to do, what he demonstrated for you. You're
being Christ-like in your Christian walk. And it's gonna bring you
joy. Jesus said, it is more blessed
to give than to receive. And that principle applies to
our service as well as to our giving. The more you serve, the
greater your blessing. And the longer you serve, the
more you will take delight in it. So three very good reasons why
we ought to serve humbly like our Lord. We have Jesus' own
example. We have the fact that the lesser
emulates the greater. We're under the Lord. We're just
copying what he's done. And it will bring you a blessing. The Lord wants us to serve with
the humility He Himself exemplified. We have the Lord's example. We
have the Lord's instruction. And I'd like to conclude with
what I see as three potential applications intended by the
Lord, the Lord's intended application for us. The first application
is what has been called servant leadership. Jesus was the teacher
and the Lord. He was the leader of the disciples,
and they were the followers, and yet he served them. And so this principle would apply
to anyone who is in a position of leadership, leadership in
the church, maybe it's informal leadership in the sense that
you're older and more mature than somebody that you're discipling,
you're the discipler or the disciplee, that kind of thing. And so we
would make this application, we are to be servant leaders. We're to put this into practice
in our leadership. And so we have Jesus giving this
example, it's a supreme example for every leader to follow. Servant
leadership. It almost sounds like a paradox,
doesn't it? Like an oxymoron, you know? Servant leadership?
And yet that's exactly what we see demonstrated in the Lord
and in His instruction for us today. Jesus says, I have given
you an example that you should do as I have done. He's the leader. He's the Lord. So to every leader
out there, follow the Lord's example of servant leadership. James Montgomery Boyce refers
to Jesus' act here as, quote, love on its knees. I love that. Love on its knees. If you're
going to love those whom the Lord has called you to lead,
then you need to get down on your knees and serve them. And
that's exactly what servant leadership is. It's love on its knees. And what a contrast this is with
those who are in secular leadership, those who are bosses. They're taught in corporate culture
to boss everyone around, but not so in God's kingdom, not
so in the Lord's church. Every leader is to be a servant
and to be willing to serve those whom he leads. So we have servant
leadership. Second application, humble service. So this applies not just to leaders,
but really to everyone. It doesn't matter who you are. If you know Christ as your Savior,
the call here is to that of humble service. And the emphasis here
is on the word humble, humble service. We all need to be willing
to humble ourselves in order to serve the way that Jesus served. Think about what Jesus did there
in that upper room. That was truly humble service. Washing someone's dirty feet,
dirty, stinky feet, is about as humble as it gets. And I think I see here a lesson
in the posture that Jesus took as he performed this humble service.
He stooped. He stooped down to wash their
feet. Really, there's no other way
to wash feet in a basin than to stoop down because the feet
are down there low on the ground, right? You have to stoop. And so Jesus demonstrated that
no act of service was below him. however menial it may be, however
lowly it may be, Jesus was willing to serve. And it raises the question, what
do we see as beneath us? What dirty job are we just not
willing to do? We're not willing to get our
hands dirty with that. Would we be willing to actually
physically wash someone's dirty feet? Would we? To wash the yucky grime and dirt
off of those feet, all the while thinking about
where those feet have been? To dip our bare hands in that
dirty water? I mean, there might be germs
in there. I want to read a poem written
by Ruth Harms Culkin entitled, I Wonder. She writes this, you
know, Lord, how I serve you with great emotional fervor in the
limelight. You know how eagerly I speak
for you at a women's club. You know how I effervesce when
I promote a fellowship group. You know my genuine enthusiasm
at a Bible study. But how would I react I wonder
if you pointed to a basin of water and asked me to wash the
callous feet of a bent and wrinkled old woman day after day, month after month,
in a room where nobody saw and nobody knew. That's a good poem. I mean, it
just pricks you in the heart, doesn't it? And of course we
know, yeah, there might be times when we're serving when nobody
really knows about it, but the Lord knows. He sees. And you will have your reward
with Him. So this is humble service that we're talking about. But
there's a third application that I think may be in view here.
Many have seen this in this passage, and that would be the application
of corporate sanctification. Many have observed that this
passage beautifully illustrates how we are to help one another
in terms of our mutual sanctification. You know, washing one another's
feet, this is kind of a good picture, an illustration of helping
one another grow in the Lord to overcome those sins and the
temptations that we struggle with, to grow corporately in
our sanctification. In fact, we have an obligation
to assist our brothers and sisters in Christ in this way. Paul writes
about it in Galatians 6.1. He says, brethren, if a man be
overtaken in a fault, that's a trespass, a sin, ye which are
spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness. Meekness. And he goes on to say, considering
yourself, lest you also be tempted. So we have this obligation to
help one another in our growth, in our personal sanctification. Spiritually speaking, we must
wash one another's feet and we must do so with the right spirit
of meekness. Michael P. Green extends this
analogy by suggesting that we need to come to our brother or
sister with the right water temperature. He says, not hot with anger,
not cold with self-righteousness, but with the soothing warmth
of love wrapped in a spirit of servanthood. So three potential applications
for this passage today. This idea of being a servant
leader, when we're in a position of leadership, when we're maybe
over someone else or we are responsible for someone else, we're a ministry
leader, maybe we're discipling someone, servant leadership. And then for all of us, humble
service, being willing to stoop to serve because it's what the
Lord would have us to do. And then to make application
here in a way that would appeal to the whole body, the corporate
sanctification, realizing that the Lord wants us to grow together
and to look out for one another. And that's pictured in this idea
of washing one another's feet. The Lord wants us to serve with
the humility which he himself exemplifies. He said, do as I have done. Humble
yourself. Go and wash someone's dirty feet. It will change you. You won't
be the same person when you serve in this way. It will conform
you to the likeness of Jesus Christ, the one who came to serve. and to give his life a ransom
for many. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank
you for this passage. It is such a touching and moving
passage. As we picture what took place
in that room, the Lord Jesus and his 12 disciples in his humble service, his example
of serving, washing those feet, Lord, I pray that we would not
come away from this without being affected by it. May it change the way we think
about what the Lord would have us to do. May we get off our high horse.
May we crush our own pride and be willing to stoop and to wash
dirty feet. if that's what you would have
us to do. In Jesus' name, amen.
Washing the Disciples’ Feet
Series The Gospel according to John
| Sermon ID | 113241837333722 |
| Duration | 40:18 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | John 13:1-17 |
| Language | English |
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