43 John 13: Preaching/Teaching
Notes
Transcript
The Greatest Love of All!
The Greatest Love of All!
If you could reach the world for Jesus and had unlimited resources how would you do it?
Christian history has so many ups and downs, but there have been many incredible people and movements that have been spurned on by God throughout all of history.
Jesus tells us our greatest evangelistic tool and this is going to be the key verse for the section. This would be a great verse to memorize.
Key verse:
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
“By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
1. We must love like a slave:
1. We must love like a slave:
because of our master’s example.
because of our master’s example.
This story is at times referred to as the last supper.
Notice we are in the last week of Jesus life and it takes up 9 out of 21 chapters.
Jesus is the ultimate servant
Jesus is the ultimate servant
Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
We talked about this a little last week, but his hour had come. Earlier in the gospel his hour had not yet come, but now it had come. The tie had change.
Who in here likes change?
Then He showed them the full extent of His love. His humble service (13:1–17), His teaching (13:18–17:26), and finally His death (chaps. 18–19) are in view. All three revealed His love.
Our messiah is not some celebrity who lived on a yacht he is a crucified messiah that came to die on a cross so that we could live.
But even his disciples at times wanted to deny the fact that he really was a servant: Remember Jesus had to tell Peter get behind me.
AS BELIEVERS MANY TIMES WE WANT TO MAKE JESUS INTO OUR OWN PICTURE INSTEAD OF EMBRACE HIM FOR WHO HE IS.
The Passover is mentioned again AND IS DIRECTLY TIED TO HIS HOUR. HE WAS GOING TO BE THE PASSOVER LAMB.
Servants serve!
Servants serve!
During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him,
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God,
got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself.
How would you respond to someone if you knew they were trying to betray you and you had a greater position than they did?
Would you fire them?
Stay away from them?
BUT HE WAS NOT JUST SERVING JUDAS HE WAS SERVING ALL OF HIS DISCIPLES.
Remember how the disciples defined greatness
One point in scripture they one of the disciples mom asked who could sit at his right and who could sit at his left.
Jesus served them.
Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.
It was a mark of honor for a host to provide a servant to wash a guest’s feet; it was a breach of hospitality not to provide for it (cf. 1 Sam. 25:41; Luke 7:40–50; 1 Tim. 5:10). Wives often washed their husbands’ feet, and children washed their parents’ feet. Most people, of course, had to wash their own feet.
This is a picture of the gospel.
This is a picture of the gospel.
So He came to Simon Peter. He said to Him, “Lord, do You wash my feet?”
Peter is like your are the teacher and I am the student, I should be the one washing feet, it should not be the other way around.
Don’t you love how Peter says what everyone else is thinking: ....
Why are you doing what I am supposed to be doing, why are you doing what nobody wants to do.
If you are the President of the USA
There are approximately 3,200 special agents and an additional 1,300 uniformed officers who guard the White House, the Treasury building and foreign diplomatic missions in Washington.
Could you picture the president of the USA doing this.
Heather’s favorite Boss Glen Martin-Did this Christmas play. Messy. Glen was the one who stayed the entire time until every thing was vacuumed and put back meticulously.
Jesus answered and said to him, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.”
His hour had come and this was a picture of what his death would accomplish
Peter said to Him, “Never shall You wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”
WE STILL RESIST JESUS WASHING OUR FEET
Feet are dirty, this job was so nasty that it was not Jewish slaves who would wash feet.
But I think their is something else here.
What would keep Peter from wanting Jesus to wash his feet?
Our feet our dirty.
His Pride
Embarrassment
Because of sin we are dirty and we need to be cleaned. This is such a great picture of the good news of Christ.
When I ask people on a scale of 0-100% how sure are you that you are going to heaven?
People say what Peter says, I can do this on my own.
I am not that bad, but what we are really saying is we are okay without God.
But that is simply not true, the bible teaches that we are hopeless and helpless without God.
We need a savior.
And this saviour came to serve us by dying on a cross.
Do you believe that?
Have you recieved his gift or are you like Peter, Don’t wash me Jesus.
Salvation Lived out daily
Salvation Lived out daily
Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.”
Peter misses the boat again.
Isn’t it refreshing that when we miss the boat we don’t have to act like we have it all together.
The Bible Knowledge Commentary 13:9–10
A preferable interpretation is that after salvation all one needs is confession of sins, the continual application of Jesus’ death to cleanse one’s daily sins (cf. 1 John 1:7; 2:1–2).
Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.”
For He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He said, “Not all of you are clean.”
So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you?
The reality Jesus had not died yet and it wold be funny to think of the disciples saying, No I don’t know what you have done for me.
One of the things I love about Jesus he did not teach these disciples for pure head knowledge, but so that their lives would be changed.
“You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am.
“If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
“For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.
Being great is not a bad desire, living to your full is not a bad thing. But Jesus tells us what true greatness is .
The Path to Greatness
The Path to Greatness
“Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him.
“If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
Everyone wants to be called a servant but no one wants to be treated like one. We want the greatness without the path. But Jesus wants us to take the path of service.
Is the picture of Jesus as a slave something you think of much.
The picture of Jesus should motivate us to meet others needs self sacrificially?
Are you clean?
Let’s not forget to reflect on such a great God that we have, the only God I have read about that serves his people.
2. We must love like a slave:
2. We must love like a slave:
because the alternative is bad (18-30).
because the alternative is bad (18-30).
The very thing we desire is sometimes the worst thing we can want.
“I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.’
“From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am He.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.”
When Jesus had said this, He became troubled in spirit, and testified and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will betray Me.”
The disciples began looking at one another, at a loss to know of which one He was speaking.
13:22. That anyone in this close fellowship could do this to Jesus was almost beyond comprehension. Judas had covered his tracks so well that none of the others suspected him.
There was reclining on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved.
So Simon Peter gestured to him, and said to him, “Tell us who it is of whom He is speaking.”
He, leaning back thus on Jesus’ bosom, said to Him, “Lord, who is it?”
Jesus then answered, “That is the one for whom I shall dip the morsel and give it to him.” So when He had dipped the morsel, He took and gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.
After the morsel, Satan then entered into him. Therefore Jesus said to him, “What you do, do quickly.”
The Bible Knowledge Commentary 13:25–27
A host’s giving a morsel of bread to a guest was a sign of friendship. How ironic that Jesus’ act of friendship to Judas signaled Judas’ betrayal of friendship.
Now no one of those reclining at the table knew for what purpose He had said this to him.
For some were supposing, because Judas had the money box, that Jesus was saying to him, “Buy the things we have need of for the feast”; or else, that he should give something to the poor.
So after receiving the morsel he went out immediately; and it was night.
The Bible Knowledge Commentary 13:28–30
And it was night in any other Gospel might simply be a time notice, but in John’s Gospel it probably also has symbolic significance. Judas was leaving the Light (8:12; 12:35, 46) and going out into the darkness of sin (3:19).
A life without Jesus is not good.
3. We must love like a slave:
3. We must love like a slave:
because it is our greatest evidence that Christianity is real (31-38).
because it is our greatest evidence that Christianity is real (31-38).
As believers we are faith seeking understanding.
There are many arguments and a ton of evidence that Christianity is true. Many have even written on the topic.
Examples:
CS Lewis ‘Mere Christianity’
Therefore when he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him;
if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately.
“Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
“By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
13:34–35. The 11 disciples would survive in His absence by obeying His example of love. The command is new in that it is a special love for other believers based on the sacrificial love of Jesus: As I have loved you, so you must love one another. Christians’ love and support for V 2, p 322 one another enable them to survive in a hostile world. As Jesus was the embodiment of God’s love, so now each disciple should embody Christ’s love. This love is a sign to the world as well as to every believer (1 John 3:14).
Blum, E. A. (1985). John. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, pp. 321–322). Victor Books.
Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, where are You going?” Jesus answered, “Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.”
Peter said to Him, “Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You.”
Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.
How will you practically serve this week?