A Humble Life
Notes
Transcript
Over the next couple of weeks leading up toward Easter we are going to dive into the life of our savior. Whenever we think of a savior or a ruler our first thought is typically someone who has people waiting on them constantly. We rarely think of a person that is a servant to others.
But we all know that the best leaders in the world are leaders that lead by what___________.
Example!
The best leaders always lead by example. This is great news since whenever we look at the life of Jesus we consistently see a leader who is the creator of the universe who came down to earth as a human who actively leads by example.
Jesus modeled his life as a servant so what should exempt us from living a life as a servant.
One of the most memorable sections of scripture that indicates the servanthood of Jesus is the moment in which he washed his disciples feet.
1 Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end. 2 It was time for supper, and the devil had already prompted Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. 4 So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, 5 and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.
6 When Jesus came to Simon Peter, Peter said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
7 Jesus replied, “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will.”
8 “No,” Peter protested, “you will never ever wash my feet!”
Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.”
9 Simon Peter exclaimed, “Then wash my hands and head as well, Lord, not just my feet!”
10 Jesus replied, “A person who has bathed all over does not need to wash, except for the feet, to be entirely clean. And you disciples are clean, but not all of you.” 11 For Jesus knew who would betray him. That is what he meant when he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
12 After washing their feet, he put on his robe again and sat down and asked, “Do you understand what I was doing? 13 You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you are right, because that’s what I am. 14 And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. 15 I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. 16 I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message. 17 Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them.
18 “I am not saying these things to all of you; I know the ones I have chosen. But this fulfills the Scripture that says, ‘The one who eats my food has turned against me.’ 19 I tell you this beforehand, so that when it happens you will believe that I Am the Messiah. 20 I tell you the truth, anyone who welcomes my messenger is welcoming me, and anyone who welcomes me is welcoming the Father who sent me.”
Jesus embodies the life of practice what you preach. Jesus was by no means a hypocrite whenever he told his disciples and has told us to do things. Jesus himself actually practiced it!
Jesus practiced it so much that whenever he said love your enemies he actually did it!
1. We must show humility
1. We must show humility
1 Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end. 2 It was time for supper, and the devil had already prompted Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. 4 So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, 5 and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.
Jesus knew that his life was about to come to an end because his entire life was meant for him to die for us. If anything that would drive us to be selfish with our time and completely do whatever we want to do without any fear.
BUT that is not at all what Jesus who is God who is the creator of the entire universe did.
Jesus instead of being served and being selfish became selfless and took on the role of a servant. Jesus went and got a bowl of water, a dirty rag, and a towel wrapped around his waist to wash his 12 disciples dirty nasty feet.
Jesus completely humbled himself in order to serve his followers. We need to understand that the life of a christian is not about how many people you can lead or how many people look up to you but rather how many people are you serving.
Being a follower of Christ is unlike any worldly idea because a follower of Christ does not want the recognition of doing a service but would rather be overlooked in order to show Christ like love to others.
Jesus washing feet was not the craziest part of this story but whose feet did he wash?
These verse continually alluded to Judas as being one of the 12 disciples at the table. Judas who has already made up his mind to betray Jesus over to the hands of the people wanting to kill him. Judas who has been an adamant part of Jesus’ life over the last 3 to 4 years. Judas who is one of Jesus’s best/ closest friends.
The most bizarre part of Jesus washing Judas’s feet is that Jesus knew that Judas was going to betray him but yet Jesus still washed his feet.
This is complete selfless love and action to wash your enemies feet. Yet, Jesus modeled this for us in this moment.
This brings about the question would you wash Judas’s feet knowing what he was about to do?
It is easy to serve those that love you but it is drastically different to serve those who want you dead. Being a follower of Christ is about serving people! We serve people with the humility that Christ demonstrated to all people. The serve that we are called to give the world comes from the humility that Christ gives us.
2. We must repent
2. We must repent
6 When Jesus came to Simon Peter, Peter said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
7 Jesus replied, “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will.”
8 “No,” Peter protested, “you will never ever wash my feet!”
Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.”
9 Simon Peter exclaimed, “Then wash my hands and head as well, Lord, not just my feet!”
10 Jesus replied, “A person who has bathed all over does not need to wash, except for the feet, to be entirely clean. And you disciples are clean, but not all of you.” 11 For Jesus knew who would betray him. That is what he meant when he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
As soon as Jesus came to Peter to wash his feet Peter immediately refused to have them washed. Peter felt as if he was not worthy of Jesus to wash his feet because lets be honest who would feel worthy of letting the creator of everything serve you. But Jesus then rebukes Peter for refusing.
Jesus also explained to Peter that he will not understand the meaning of this until later. Jesus is referring to his death and resurrection but Peter has no idea what Jesus is talking about. Peter had heard that Jesus would die and that he would come again but would you actually realize what that meant if you had not seen anyone come back from the dead.
If I were Peter at this moment I would have thousands of questions but first I would say teach me to understand. Tell me what I don’t understand about this moment.
Jesus quickly reminded Peter that he is in need of repentance even though he has been saved. Jesus said that unless he washes him then he would not belong to Him. Jesus is foretelling the future in which Jesus dies for all mankind to have the opportunity to be saved.
Once we are saved we must continually repent of stuff in our lives. Whenever we are saved we all still fall into sin but that does not mean that we have lost our salvation but it does mean that we have lost fellowship with God. We are cleaned if we are saved but yet we must still be cleansed. Another way of saying this would be we are saved when we give our lives to Christ but we are in the process of being saved and we will ultimately be saved when we see Christ face to face.
As Christians we need to be humble enough to realize that we cannot do this Christian life in our own strength. We must be reliant on Christ to supply us every single day. We must also understand that we have to repent of our sins daily to remain in fellowship with God.
God will continually cleanse us because we are already cleaned. As Christians we can never neglect repentance or get to a point in our lives where we think that we are too good to repent.
We repent because we are humble enough to realize that we cannot do this on our own.
3. We must serve others
3. We must serve others
12 After washing their feet, he put on his robe again and sat down and asked, “Do you understand what I was doing? 13 You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you are right, because that’s what I am. 14 And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. 15 I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. 16 I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message. 17 Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them.
After Jesus had demonstrated the ultimate gesture of being a servant He then explained to them the importance of being a servant. Jesus first explains that the most important people we should be serving are other Christians.
We need to be serving people and most importantly we need to be serving fellow christians. Jesus’s command to the disciples was for them to serve one another and for them to serve their own followers.
A Christian life is a life of service to God and to others.
The disciples knew that Jesus was God and they modeled their lives after Him, from their teaching to their living and now Jesus wants them to model being a servant.
None of us are too powerful to serve others because Jesus himself humbled himself to serve people that were by all circumstances lower than Him. Jesus served the people closest to him not because he was forced to but because that is how he showed his love and ultimately he served them and us by going to the cross as our sacrifice.
Service is not something that is only done toward people we like and care for but service is done for all people. Service is not something that is common in this world because everybody wants to be the center of their own little world. We want to be served not serve others, but Christians are called not to imitate the world but rather be different from the world.
Christians are called to serve and love a lost world in order to share Christ with them. Service is the way for us to show people that we are different through Christ. Being a Christians is not about shouting Bible verse at people or telling people that they are going to Hell but rather about us showing God’s love to others through our lives.
As Christians our lives must be marked by our humility, our repentance, and our service. We are called to these three major points because this draws people toward Christ.