Serving Like Jesus Did

Introduction

See if the perspective is a little different from this side. Good morning, and so grateful again to be with you today. Appreciate the kind way in which you listened to the lesson during the Bible class period. And glad for the opportunity to be here and worship with you. I is this thing on I guess it is. Okay. Sometimes when people look at me, I when I’m up here preaching and I they sort of look and I worry about a couple things. I worry about whether or not the microphone is on. Really worry about whether my fly is zipped up or not. Things like that get me concerned. So anyway, I guess everything’s going okay. I really appreciate being with you. This church has meant a lot to my family, my wife’s family, especially, which is my family, for many years.

I’ve been a part of the favorite clan for long time, 30 some years. And so it’s it’s it’s I know this church is important to our family. We appreciate you so very much and appreciate the opportunity to be here with you. I know that I should know people’s names better than I do. I don’t get to get down here very much. I think we were here about a year and a half ago when my son Joshua, who’s preaching in Canton, Illinois, being supported by you came and gave a kind of report on his work there. And I will tell you that I really appreciate y’all’s participation with him in the gospel. That’s really encouraging to him and to me, and I appreciate it very much.

And I will tell you that even though he is my son, and I know that I am not always objective about that, but even though he is my son, he is doing a really good work in Ken. And we’ve we’ve been very pleased. We ourselves at Paris Avenue, where I preach, and we’re we’re also participating with him in that work, and we feel really good about the things that are being done there and the work that’s being accomplished. And so I appreciate so much your helping him. And yet because it’s been a year and a half since I was here when that was that was the last time I was here. I think I don’t always remember people’s names, and I’m terrible about that.

And I think the older I get, the worse I get about it. And so I appreciate your patience with me. if I’ve been introduced to you before and you go, hey man, we you’ve hung out at my house with me or something. I’m gonna go, okay, sorry. please be patient because I’m not always really good with names and remembering. That’s why I like to have Candy with me because she helps me with that a lot and a lot of other things, but grateful that she’s able to be here today. I really enjoy the fact that preaching allows me to be to participate with people in a lot of places. I’m not a big meeting preacher or anything like that, but I do get to go and preach in different places as a result of the fact that I’m involved with this work, and it gets me opportunities to worship with other people, even going to places like Sierra Leone and West Africa, which was a great and wonderful privilege.

But to get to meet with you and to be with you is always a good thing. I especially love to be with disciples and Christians in other places and where I am as well on the Lord’s Day, it is a special day because we do get to do some things today together that we don’t get to do on other days as servants of Christ, we get to gather around the table and participate in this meal together, and I love that. I know that as we eat the Lord’s Supper together, that we are remembering our Lord’s death, the body that was given and the fact that he bore our sins in his body on the cross. We drink the cup and we remember the blood that was shed to wash away our sins.

But you know that passage that our brother read for us a moment ago from 1 Corinthians chapter 11 also teaches us that in eating this supper we also proclaim something. We say something to one another. when you saw me a few moments ago take the bread and eat the bread, I was trying to tell you something by my eating that bread. When you saw me drink the cup, I was trying to tell you something by my drinking that cup. I was trying to tell you that I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in him with all of my heart. I believe that he died for my sins, that he was buried, and that he rose from the dead, that he is my Lord and my King.

And I want you to know that. And when I eat that bread and drink that cup, I want you to know that’s what I believe. The wonderful thing about it is that when I see you eat the bread and drink the cup, I know that you believe the very same thing that I do. And that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. And it’s a wonderful blessing to be able to share that together, to know that I’m with people who care about the same Lord that I care about, who love him, and who are trying their best to serve him. And I’m just grateful to be with you. It’s my honor and privilege to be here with you. And I pray that we all have a good few days together in the preaching of God’s Word.

I want you to go with me to John the thirteenth chapter. Familiar text probably to many of us, and I want to spend a few minutes in this text this morning. Probably not say anything new, but I just want to remind you of some things that I think are very important from this passage of Scripture. I’m going to read the text to you, John 13 and verses 1 through 17, and then we’ll come back and talk a little bit about the text. Interesting thing about John’s gospel is that you know, you don’t get hardly halfway through it, because it’s barely halfway through it, and you’re all the way to the last week of the life of Christ. And of course, that’s the way all of the gospels are.

The closer we get to the end of the life of Christ, the more information we have. And that’s because it’s not his birth that was important, although it was necessary. It is his death that is the critical point of history. And so we’re coming to that as we look at John 13. 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. During the 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 the God and was going back to God, got up from supper and laid aside his garments, and taking a towel, he girded himself.

And he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. So he came to Simon Peter, and he said to him, Lord, do not wash my feet. And Jesus answered and said to him, What I do, you do not realize now, but you shall understand hereafter. Peter said to him, Never shall you wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I do not wash you have no part with me. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head. Jesus said to him, He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is complete, but is completely clean. 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? You call me teacher and Lord, and you’re right, for I so I am. If I then, the Lord and the teacher, wash your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you should do as I did to you. Truly I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is the one who sent, who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

1. Jesus Washes His Disciples' Feet

In this passage, the writer, the Apostle John, tells us about an extremely important event that takes place at the Last Supper. At some point during this last meal together, Jesus gets up from the table, and he lays aside his garments, and he grabs a towel, and he pours water into a basin, and he stoops down and proceeds to do something that was done only by the lowliest of servants. He washes his disciples’ feet. I don’t know if you’ve ever done something like that. But it is an extremely humiliating thing to do. It’s very humbling. And Jesus on this occasion does this thing, which typically, historically, was reserved, as I mentioned, for the lowliest of servants within a household. Of course, the interesting thing is that coming to the Apostle Peter stops Jesus and plainly refuses to allow Jesus to wash his feet.

And for almost what seems to seems almost the first time, we want to stand up and cheer for Peter. We want to say, finally, he got it. He got it at last. After all those blunders that we’ve read about through his life when he spoke or acted impetuously, Peter finally got it right and says that the Lord, the master, the Messiah, the Son of God, he shouldn’t be washing his feet. He recognizes that Jesus is too important to have to do such a menial task. Peter felt that the washing of Jesus’ feet would be beneath Jesus.

And I think that you and I, as we read the story, maybe for the very first time and don’t know everything that happens, we seem to feel the same way. Why would Jesus, why should Jesus? Why should he wash the feet of his servants? We’re surprised, though, to hear that Jesus mildly rebukes Peter. Jesus says in verse 30 in verse 8 if you do not wash, if I do not wash you have no part with me. For Peter to have a part in what Jesus was doing, he had to let Jesus wash his feet. What is Jesus doing here? What’s going on in this text? Kind of interesting to me that in all of John’s writing, his Greek is usually very simple, even elementary.

I’m not saying that John was illiterate or anything like that. I’m just saying that his Greek style of writing, his writing style was very simple and very elementary, almost C spot run kind of Greek. In fact, when you when you’re learning the Greek language of the New Testament, and you get to the point where you’re going to start translating, you always start, almost always start, with the Gospel of John, or with one of John’s letters. Because it’s such simple Greek. I remember years ago sitting around the table in what used to be called the pickup hall at Florida College, with Ray Madrigal, who now teaches at Florida College, and Marty Pickup, who’s now gone on to his reward, and with our mentor and teacher, Phil Roberts, who also has gone on to his reward, I remember us sitting together and translating John.

That’s where you start. Because it’s such elementary, simple Greek language.

2. Why Are We Being Told This?

We suddenly come to something that is different, a rather long and complex Greek sentence. You know, the Apostle Paul wrote really long, run on Greek sentences. And his Greek was very educated. It was very proper and right. more difficult to read and understand. John normally doesn’t write like that. And yet when we get to this passage, suddenly we come upon a statement that is a sentence that is quite complex. It’s almost a run on sentence. And even though our translators have tried to sort of break it up by putting a few periods in here and there, it’s it’s really just one long run on sentence. And it stops us when we start reading it. If we’ve been reading through John, it stops us and makes us wonder what’s going on here.

And I believe it’s intended to do that. It’s intended to stop us and to think about why are we being told this? And of course, that’s always the question you always ask yourself. Anytime you’re reading your Bible, is you always ask yourself the question, why are we being told this? So why are we being told this? Why do we have suddenly this break from his norm, normal structure of writing to this very complex long sentence here? Run on, as it were. It’s because I believe the sentence gives us some information that is critical to understanding what Jesus is actually doing here in this text. You need to understand that even before the Passover began, and Jesus knew what time it was. He knew that it was time for him to depart out of this world.

He knew that before this day by the Jewish calendar, it was evening, so by this day, by the time this day was over, he was going to be dead, having been executed on a Roman cross. And this sentence tells us that he knew that. He knew that it was time for that to happen. But it also tells us that he loved his own who were in the world, and that he loved them to the end, verse 1. To the bitter end. Jesus would love his own, according to this text. And when we think about his own, immediately, maybe even contextually, we think of his disciples, but in the greater context of John’s gospel, it seems to me that he might have in mind, even his disciples in the broader sense, in the sense of us humans.

Because in John chapter 1, in that interesting prologue of John’s gospel, in verse 10, we’re told in John 1 10, he was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own. There’s that expression, and those who were his own did not receive him, but as many as received him to them, he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believed in his name. And so Jesus loved his own, maybe a reference to all of us, to the very bitter end. But the sentence also tells us that Jesus knew exactly what kind of authority he had. He had all authority in verse 3, and that’s kind of reminiscent of what he will ultimately say in Matthew 28 and verse 18, when he says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

He knew what kind of authority he had. He also, according to verse 3, knew about his divine origin, that he had come forth from God. And he also knew about his divine destiny, that he was going back to the Father. Now I want you to think then about who we’re talking about here in this text. One with this kind of authority, with this kind of divine origin, and with this kind of divine destiny, such a one should not wash feet.

That should have been given that task or should have taken that task upon him. It was the last one in the room that you would think, from our perspective, that you would think would be the one who would stoop to wash the feet of his disciples and serve in that way. But we’re not done. The sentence isn’t over.

3. Jesus Washed Judas' Feet Also

It specifically tells us that Judas, the treacherous betrayer, that he was present with Jesus at this event. John goes on, goes out of his way, I think, to tell us that Judas was there with him, with them, when Jesus stooped over to wash the disciples’ feet. Listen, what that means is that Jesus washed Judah’s feet also.

Sure, he washed the feet of those who initially would forsake him and later repent and take the gospel to the world. But this text tells us that he also washed Judah’s feet. He washed the feet of his ultimate enemy, the one who would betray him, the one who would, after betraying him, feel so guilty about it that he’d go out and kill himself. Hang himself. Jesus washed not just the feet of his inferior friends, but also the feet of his enemies. He washed the feet of Judas. And when he was finished, completed this humiliating task of service. You’ve got to sense what that feels like to stoop down and wash somebody’s feet. I mean, I’ve had somebody wash my feet. We were at a softball game.

They were raising up money for some sort of adoption for the adoption program that we help out with, sacred selections, and they were having this base softball game, and they were doing these gags, and you would pay money to have certain people do certain things, and somebody paid money to have somebody wash my feet. In fact, Andy Diesel camp. Paid that he paid to have Andy wash my feet. I was kind of humiliated having him wash my feet.

4. Do You Know What I Have Done to You?

It’s really quite a humiliating thing. And Jesus actually isn’t the one who gets his feet washed, he’s the one who washes the feet. And after he finishes this humiliating task, he orders his disciples to follow his example. He says to them in verse 12, when he got finished and got his garments back on and reclined back at table, he said to them, Do you know what I have done to you? And of course, that seems like an odd question. That would be like if, you know, you walk up to somebody walks up to you, and you walk up to somebody, you’re slapping them in the face, and then you say, Hey, you know what I just did to you? And the guy goes, Yeah, I do.

Let me show you what it feels like. Maybe he wants to do it back to you. Of course they knew what Jesus had done to him. He just washed their feet. Obviously, they knew what he had just done. But you see, that’s what Jesus. He wasn’t just pointing to the physical act of what happened. The reason he asked them, do you understand what I’ve done to you? Is because Jesus was trying to get them to see something bigger than just this physical act of washing their feet. And it amazes me sometimes. And I’m not saying that I’m super smart or anything, but it just amazes me sometimes that some people get this all turned around and they end up wanting to have some sort of foot washing service, and they have just completely missed the point.

That is not the point. Jesus is not saying, I want you guys now to have it your church services. I want you to have foot washing ceremony. That is not the point. Jesus is wanting them to recognize who he was and the example of service he was setting before them. He wanted them to follow the example he had set for them in stooping to serve and help and wash others. But please understand, Jesus doesn’t just talk about, or with this example, he doesn’t just teach us to stoop and serve. He teaches us that we must stoop and serve not just our friends, but those who are lower than us. Those who are our enemies. Please understand that when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, he was not washing the feet of his peers.

He was washing the feet of his inferiors. Those who were supremely inferior to him. And not only was he washing the feet of his inferiors, he was washing even the feet of his enemies. Sure. If the United States President maybe asked us, or some celebrity, asked us to wash his or her feet, we might do that. We might even feel it’s kind of an honor to do that to someone of such greatness. And we would all certainly stoop to wash the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ. If our Lord asked us, will you stoop and wash my feet? We would certainly, wouldn’t we certainly do that? After all, he is worthy. He is our superior. He is vastly superior to us. So certainly we should be willing to stoop and wash his feet.

But Jesus doesn’t just teach us to wash the feet of our superiors. He doesn’t even just teach us to wash the feet of our peers, of our equals. He asks us, no, actually, he shows us that we must wash the feet of our inferiors, of even our enemies. In truth, this act of Jesus, I believe, is an illustration of what the Bible has always consistently tried to be telling us about, been trying to tell us about the nature of our God. Show us about our God. That our God is always a God who is willing to stoop and serve. Will God wash feet? Yes, he will.

In the person of Jesus Christ. God is willing, has always willingly stoop to wash the feet of his inferiors. He’s always served those who were far lower than him, even his enemies. What is it that Romans chapter 5 teaches us? Romans chapter 5. For while we were yet or still helpless, Romans 5 and verse 6, at the right time. Christ died for the ungodly, for one will hardly die for a righteous man. Though perhaps for a good man, someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We were not holy like he is holy. We were not helpful like he is helpful. We were not powerful like he is powerful.

We were helpless. We were weak. We were sinful, ungodly people who had missed the mark and missed the mark repeatedly. And this text will even go on to describe us in verse 10 as his enemies. And yet it was while we were enemies, while we were at odds with God, while we were thumbing our nose in his face and shaking our fist at him and saying, we aren’t going to do your will.

5. Love One Another Even as I Have Loved You

He demonstrated his great love for us in letting his son die for us. Later in this same chapter, John chapter 13, verse 34 and 35, Jesus will give us a new commandment. You’re certainly aware of that. In verse 34, 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.

This is a new commandment to love one another. But if we think about that, we say, hang on a minute. Is loving one another really a new commandment? It’s actually been something that has always been a part of God’s law. You go back to Leviticus chapter 19, a great Old Testament chapter that you need to figure out and study through sometime. A great text, Leviticus 19. But Leviticus 19, verse 18, it teaches us that we’re to love our neighbor as ourselves. We’re taught that. But this commandment is new. And the new part of it is that we love one another, not just as we love ourselves, love our neighbor as we love ourselves, but we love one another even as I have loved you. Verse 34.

Our love. It’s supposed to duplicate the love that he has for us. To love my neighbor, even if I love him as I love myself, is to only love my equal, my peer. Jesus loved differently than that. He loved not simply his equal. He stooped to love his inferior. Even his enemy. And we must do the same. Loving our friends who love us is not that big a deal. That’s relatively easy to love those who love you. But if we want to be like God, then we must love our inferiors. We must even love our enemies. Look at Matthew chapter 5, verse 43. Going back to the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 and verse 43.

Jesus says, You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemy. Love your enemies. And pray for those who persecute you. So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he causes his son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward you have? Do not even tax collectors do the same. If you greet only your brothers, what more do you do than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same. Therefore, you are to be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Christ is calling upon us to love one another and to love even our enemy, to love our inferior, even love our enemies.

And that’s what makes us more like God. And that’s what is this new commandment to love one another even as I have loved you. We’ve got to quit thinking that we do that just because we have a gooshy feeling about somebody who sits across the room from us. Loving one another from a biblical perspective is not ever simply a matter of emotion. I’m not saying there is no emotion in loving one another in the biblical sense. There’s emotion involved in that, but it’s not ever simply a matter of emotion. It is actually acting in the best interest of the other individual, actually going out of my way to do something in the best interest of the other person. And until I love that way, I don’t love anybody like I’m supposed to.

And if you want to know what that kind of love is characterized by, just take a minute to stroll through 1 Corinthians 13 and look at the way in which love acts. Because the love that we’re talking about is a love that acts, that behaves, that acts towards others. And it’s patient, and it’s kind, it’s long-suffering, that’s not easily provoked. And all of those qualities, it never fails. All of those qualities that are described there in 1 Corinthians 13. And Jesus, in this account, here in John 13, is teaching us that we must be willing to love and to serve. Like he did.

Which is to love even those who are our enemies. So now we get to the point where we really got to make the point.

6. Christianity Out of Our Comfort Zone

That kind of Christianity that allows us to stay within our comfort zone is not the kind of Christianity that Jesus offers us. Jesus holds before us, he offers us a form of following Him that consistently puts us out of our comfort zone. In fact, it puts us way out of our comfort zone. I am often uncomfortable as a Christian. And if you are unable to handle that, then you simply cannot be a disciple of Jesus. Following His example means that we must be willing to stoop, not be willing, we must actually stoop to serve and to love those who are beneath us, those who are not worthy of our love, those who do not deserve anything. In fact, it means that we stoop to love not just our inferiors, but our enemies.

Those who hurt us time and time again. We love them anyway. And that means that we don’t just feel something about them. We act in their best interest, not in our best interest. Too much of our time is spent acting in our best interest. In what lets me continue to feel comfortable in the way that I want to do. But we’re not talking about that. I’m not holding before you, we’re not holding before you some kind of feel-good Christianity. We’re trying to help you understand authentic discipleship as the taught in the Word of God. And that authentic discipleship involves genuine care and concern, not just for people who are worthy of it, but people who are not worthy of it. Let me tell you something. It is the height of arrogance for us to think that we would want Him to serve us.

We would want Him to love us and to save us from our sins. But we’re too good to stoop and serve the lowly, the orphan, the widow, the homeless, those who are our enemies. If we can humble ourselves to gladly and to eagerly do that, to love our inferiors, to love even our enemies, then, brethren, we will be more like Jesus. More ready to spend eternity with him. But please understand that if we are unwilling to do that, then just like Peter, we can have no part with him. We are not talking about something that is optional. We’re talking about a basic requirement of discipleship. Do you really love those who are around you? Do you love only those who love you? Do you really love those who don’t love you?

Conclusion

Do you really love those who hurt you? I mean, do you act in their best interest? In the best interest of those who actually hurt you. If you’re unwilling to do that. You simply can’t be a disciple. And coming to church is nice. And you can go home and feel good about yourself. But you’re not going to go to heaven. You’re not going to be pleasing to the master. Because you’re not being what he wants you to be. Do I recognize that this is a tall order? Absolutely. Do I do I please do not act? Do not think for one moment that I pretend to have this down. I do not. I’m still trying. I still mess up. I don’t get it right every time. And many times I walk away from a circumstance and I think, boy, that I didn’t do that well at all.

But I keep calling myself, we’ve got to keep calling ourselves back to the principle. And not make excuses for ourselves, but keep calling ourselves back to the principle and say, no, I want to be like Jesus. Folks, that is what a disciple is. Not just a fellow who comes to church. He’s someone who wants to be like Jesus. Do you look like him? Are you willing to love and serve like him? I want you to think about that. Because it is a tall order. But it is what we must do as a servant of God. Let’s stand in.