A Humble Life
The Gospel of John • Sermon • Submitted
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DURING difficult days of war, regardless of one’s particular persuasion, everyone owes a mighty debt of gratitude to the men and women of the armed forces of the United States of America who serve, and who risk their lives for freedom. Many people not long ago were touched by the story of a football player named Pat Tillman who walked away from 3.9 million dollars offered to him to play in the NFL. He walked away from a lucrative career because he felt he had an obligation to serve. That choice cost him his life. Our service to God is one that will cost much, even our lives, but we should be willing to fulfill our obligation to serve Him.823
Contemporary society is obsessed with itself. It isn’t just contemporary society, we’ve been like this from the very beginning. Having a brother that serves in the Army, and my son in the Marine Corp, stories like Pat Tillman have always touched my heart because it displays a type of selflessness and humility that is rare in the 21st Century.
But if humility is the virtue we think will land us a balance on God’s ledger sheet of my wrongs and rights, then I will have entirely missed the point of Jesus washing the disciples feet in John 13.
1 Corinthians 13 is the supreme description of love, but the Jesus Christ is the supreme example of love.
Of all that Jesus said and did, the most significant display of love was dying as a sacrifice for sinners. Philippians 2:8
he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.
The Lord Himself said, John 15:13
“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
Jesus certainly lived this standard of humble love all throughout His earthy ministry, perhaps never more clearly taught than John 13. The Gospel was written so that you would believe in Christ, and find life in His name.
The Magnificent Riches of Christ’s Love
The Magnificent Riches of Christ’s Love
The transition from Jesus’ public ministry to His private ministry the week leading up to His death is upon us.
Leading up to this moment, we’ve read that His hour had not yet come…but John transitions to this cosmological moment when Jesus is completely aware, and in full control knowing that His time had come. Though Jesus desired to return to His full glory in the Father’s presence, He never ONCE wavered from loving His own.
The love of Christ is displayed when Christ goes to the Cross. This is how His loved His own.
Verse 1 says He loved them to the end…that isn’t the end of His life, but draws our attention to the completeness of Jesus’ love for His disciples. The fullest measure possible, and it is certainly grounded in something greater than just this moment…something greater to come…THE CROSS.
Reminds me of Romans 8:35-39
Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: Because of you we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Jesus’s love for His disciples becomes one of the driving themes for the rest of this Gospel. This humble act of service display that love.
In His love and desire to teach His disciples exactly what was about to happen, Jesus took up the towel and the basin. Even though Judas was already set to betray Him, Jesus still washed his feet.
John 13:3 - Even though Satan had acted to put this betrayal into Judas’s heart, that does not take away form the FACT that JESUS WAS IN FULL CONTROL OF THE MOMENT.
Jesus knew that the Father had given everything into his hands, that he had come from God, and that he was going back to God.
God is not loving but powerless or powerful but unloving; He is simultaneously both. God is the complete manifestation of perfect love and absolute power…especially as the cross approaches.
What is about to happen in the next few verses was all apart of God’s plan.
John 13:4 - With all this power at His disposal, you might expect Jesus, as He stands up, to defeat Judas and His adversary, Satan, with one awesome blast of divine wrath...
got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself.
This is a significant moment because this is not in the norm for the Passover meal…That meal really takes a back seat to what is about to happen and will give primary meaning to the event about to take place…the CROSS.
It is also significant because Jesus puts on the garments of a servant.
But this is not a normal servant. This servant will lay down His life, even His own life by the authority that belongs to Him, and He will take it up again by that same authority.
Just as in Jesus, God became a man, so the King becomes a servant.
Next, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet and to dry them with the towel tied around him.
Having traveled through the streets of Jerusalem, their feet, only protected by sandals, would have become quite dirty.
So Jesus takes the towel and begins to clean their feet.
This is a task that was reserved for the lowest of slaves in the home. Certainly not for the Teacher.
By doing this, Jesus violates the social norms. It just wasn’t done. Kind of like something else…Oh, the fact that their Messiah, their King is on His way to the cross.
There is not just something communicated here about Jesus, but there is also something about the one receiving the footwashing. Foot washing was preparatory. (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary, p. 578).
So Jesus isn’t just showing them who He is, but He is also showing them who they are…that they are called to very special and specific task through a very special relationship.
It comes through the Cross.
So by this time, the disciples have argued about greatness, who the greatest would be in the Kingdom…and here is their Teacher, Lord, and King dressed as a servant washing their feet.
This moment captures for us the Person and Work of Jesus and life for those who follow Him in this new covenant.
Mark 10:45
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Receiving the Grace of God
Receiving the Grace of God
He came to Simon Peter, who asked him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I’m doing you don’t realize now, but afterward you will understand.” “You will never wash my feet,” Peter said. Jesus replied, “If I don’t wash you, you have no part with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.” “One who has bathed,” Jesus told him, “doesn’t need to wash anything except his feet, but he is completely clean. You are clean, but not all of you.” For he knew who would betray him. This is why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
Be mindful of how you receive and react to the Grace of God. This moment captures perhaps what some of the other guys were thinking, but only Peter is captured speaking. I like what Kent Hughes says, “Good old Peter. Sometimes the only time he opened his mouth was to change feet!” (John, 314).
The question Peter asks suggests that Peter is scandalized because of cultural abnormality of the moment.
Peter thinks that Jesus is breaking the rules of service, but it is actually Peter who is acting in disobedience.
He is in some regard, rejecting, not receiving the Grace of God in this moment.
There is a “You-me” “I-you” exchange that will make this very clear for us.
Verse 7 is Jesus’s response, and it reflects the ignorance of Peter’s response.
The scandal is identified here as not just the towel, the basin, and the act of Jesus, in the the relationship between Jesus’s “I” and the disciples “you/me.”
What I DO, YOU don’t realize now, but afterward you will...
This is not the only time Jesus is teaching like this, where it will explain the person and work of Jesus.
It is only after the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension when Peter will finally realize that Jesus didn’t come to be served but to serve and give His life as a ransom. Acts 2:14-41
Years later Peter will write the following:
For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb.
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,
The Conversation continues...
Peter says, “You will never wash my feet.”
Peter raises the stakes here…He not only prohibits Jesus from washing his feet, but adds further to his objection this phrase…You will never...” For all eternity…This is interesting because what Jesus is doing is actually going to effect Peter for all eternity.
Peter needs to recognize the humility that Jesus is showing here and receive this gracious act.
Jesus responds to Peter...
“If I don’t wash you, you have no part of Me...”
This response to Peter really gives us insight into the significance of this moment
Jesus is connecting this moment with this relationship between “I and you.”
To reject even the smallest part of this “I - you” is to reject the whole thing. See the rest of Jesus’s response.
This is the transaction that must take place, so that transformation begins. Only those cleansed by Jesus have a relationship to Him.
This means your faith/trust is in Jesus and you’ve confessed your sins and thus are cleansed by Him and united to Him for eternal life.
EVERY week, people have the habit of taking clothes to the cleaners that have been soiled. The job of the cleaners is to freshen them up and get them smelling good again. Jesus has a pick up cleaning service. He picks up dirty people—people who have allowed their lives to sink into the mud for one reason or another—and cleanses them.
In keeping with the impulsive nature to insert the other foot into his mouth, Peter responds emphatically again…Not just my feet Lord but all of me!
Track this - Peter went from stopping Jesus from serving him at all, to now commanding Him to serve Him even more!
It’s almost like Peter is saying, Jesus, what you’ve offered isn’t enough.
Jesus responds and again takes Peter through a further explanation of what is happening here in John 13:10.
In the physical realm, you bathed, only your feet are dirty, you don’t need a whole nother bath. You only need to wash your feet.
In the same way, Jesus is saying the complete cleansing of the redeemed at the moment of salvation doesn’t need repeating.
The BATH
God graciously bestows the righteousness of Christ upon the believer.
His death also provides complete forgiveness of all their sins.
This is applied to the disciples are clean by the nature and means of their relationship with Jesus.
I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
And this is the promise that he himself made to us: eternal life.
The Foot Washing
But there is still a need for daily cleansing for sanctification from the dirtiness of sin.
A DIRTY diamond is still a diamond, but it needs to be cleaned.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
There is another aspect to this moment in that expresses the grace of God so that these disciples are prepared for the very specific task and relationship of Christian Discipleship. This serves as a sort of appointing them for service. You’ll see that in verse 14.
Living SENT is the Right Response
Living SENT is the Right Response
When Jesus had washed their feet and put on his outer clothing, he reclined again and said to them, “Do you know what I have done for you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are speaking rightly, since that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done for you. “Truly I tell you, a servant is not greater than his master, and a messenger is not greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. “I’m not speaking about all of you; I know those I have chosen. But the Scripture must be fulfilled: The one who eats my bread has raised his heel against me. I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am he. Truly I tell you, whoever receives anyone I send receives me, and the one who receives me receives him who sent me.”
Foot washing is not the point. It’s an attitude…the focus is on desire, not duty.
He resumes His place at the table and asks them all this question, “Do you know what I have done for you?” Jesus is going to explain now what He has done.
Verse 13 - You call me Teacher and Lord - sets the boundaries and foundation for His argument.
Verse 14 - MicDrop Moment —> If I am these things and I just washed your feet, then you should do the same for one another.
Verse 15 - I’ve give you an example, do as I have done for you.
This is a rule of life…this is understood within the framework of the Gospel…the “I-you” relationship
It is because Christ Jesus served us, that we in turn serve one another.
If the Lord of Glory was willing to humble Himself and take on the role of the lowest of slaves, how could a disciple of the Lord of Glory do anything less?
The LORD Jesus gave us an example of humility that we ought to serve in the same manner.
Jesus said, “Why do you call Me, “Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?” Luke 6:46
Paul points the Church of Philippi to this Humble Servant known as Christ Jesus and calls on the church to adopt the same heart.
Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross. For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
It isn’t about the outward rite of footwashing, but rather the inward attitude of the heart.
It is the attitude of the heart, humility, that is desperately needed in living SENT.
John 13:16
“Truly I tell you, a servant is not greater than his master, and a messenger is not greater than the one who sent him.
If Jesus has served, “the master” and the “one who sent,” so must the disciples, the “slave” and the “messenger.”
So the example of Jesus Christ redefines the identity of the disciples and thus He now serves as the motivation of their service to Him…their mission. They will soon be “SENT” in John 20:21
So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
Blessing from Obedience - Blessing flows from obedience. “How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord.” Psalm 119:1 “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” Luke 11:28
John 13:20
The sending for service found in this passage is present once again to show the mission of the church.
Jesus is the representative of the Father (1:18)
The Disciples are representatives of Jesus.
This is the mission of God, and so it is the mission of the Church.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Jesus is the Servant of servants…He enacted that role on the cross. This footwashing displays His service on the cross is two ways.
The Superior died for the inferior. And the inferior were in need of this Servant.
The perfection and gracious love of God.
When Jesus washed their feet, He initiated them as His servants…called out and set apart for a very specific mission based on a very special relationship to Himself.
It has prepared them for service.
Matthew 20:16 - The first shall be last and the last shall be first.
“So the last shall be first, and the first last.”
You and I must see Jesus as our Servant…He took your place at the cross, and cleanses all of you.
Trust in Him today and you will be cleaned.
He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Now then, why are you testing God by putting a yoke on the disciples’ necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they are.”
According to the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
We must also see that in the Cross, and especially your feet.
1 John 1:9 - Daily cleansing.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
John 20:21 - Prepared for service.
So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
Basic Training prepares recruits for all elements of service: physical, mental and emotional. It gives service members the basic tools necessary to perform the roles that will be assigned to them for the duration of their tour.
Everything in us, our pride, our boastful hearts, may not like this idea that we need Jesus, the Servant of servants. That is exactly where Peter was. We are served by Christ, and then live in obedience to His Lordship.