Love and humility

WELCOME:

Next Sunday is Palm Sunday.

Next Sunday is our quarterly members meeting.

SCRIPTURE READING:

1 Chronicles 29:10–13 NASB95

So David blessed the Lord in the sight of all the assembly; and David said, “Blessed are You, O Lord God of Israel our father, forever and ever. “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O Lord, and You exalt Yourself as head over all. “Both riches and honor come from You, and You rule over all, and in Your hand is power and might; and it lies in Your hand to make great and to strengthen everyone. “Now therefore, our God, we thank You, and praise Your glorious name.

LET US STAND AND WORSHIP!

“The Goodness of God”

Words and Music by Hillsong’

PRAYER OF PRAISE FOR WHO GOD IS

Lord, thank you for your constancy. For never turning Your back on us, for never getting frustrated with us, for forgiving our sins, for allowing us to be part of Your plan. We ask that You would look down upon this gathering of people and fill our hearts with great joy today as we focus on You. Amen!

“What a beautiful Name”

Words and Music by Hillsong

“What a beautiful Name”

Words and Music by Hillsong

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION TO OPEN OUR HEARTS

Lord, give us ears to hear Your voice and eyes to see Your glory. Would you this morning illuminate Your Word and make it known to us? Help us no to make application to others peoples’ lives, but to apply every Word to our own lives. Amen

SERMON

INTRODUCTION:

John 13 begins a section in John’s gospel that is completely focused on the disciples. No more interaction with the Pharisees. No more interaction with the Jews or the public crowds. It is Thursday one day before the crucifixion, and Jesus spends it pouring great Christian truth into His disciples. He is in the supper room, the 12 are sitting with Jesus around the table at supper, and he begins by washing the disciples feet.

There are two main things we will see in this: the love of Jesus demonstrated in humility and the call for the disciples to emulate what He did, and that extends to all followers of Jesus for all times. Love and humility are not optional for the Christian life and you cannot have one without the other. Love and humility are deeply connected and Jesus says later on that the world will identify us with Jesus by how we love.

The willingness to serve closely relates to our ability to love

John 13:1 NASB95

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.

Explanation:

“Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end”

Having loved His own

His own: The disciples of Jesus. Matthew, Mark, John, Peter, Andrew, etc… those who have followed Jesus and believed in Him.

Scripture makes this point over and over again: God has a special love for His children that this world does not know. The world loves the thought of God’s love and loves to declare that God loves everybody in the world the same and that everyone is a child of God, but Scripture says “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God” and this verse says He loved His own who were in the world….

There is a clear difference in how God loves you and how God loves this world just as John spoke of a special love for these men this same love is extended to all His disciples over the past 2,000 years.

Application: And how we need to remember that because it is can be tempting to place ourselves in the same category of the people of this world and generalize God’s love as one kind of love….but that is not true!

He is personal with His children

He is gentle with His children

He has the absolute best for his children

He works all things together for good for His children

He does not deal with us according to our sin

His love towards us is unique and of the highest degree…

“Having loved His own, He loved them to the end”

Here is another aspect of God’s love: it never ends.

There will never comes a time in your life when God says I have decided I do not love you anymore.

There will never come a time in a believers life when they do something, sin, make a stupid decision, that causes God’s love to change. It’s constant. It steady. It’s eternal.

And it’s out of this great love, that Jesus does this amazing act of foot washing in the following verses

John begins with this overview of Jesus’ love for His disciples, and right before this humiliating act of service and something these men have probably never seen before, introduces it with the love of God…

Why? Because that is where real Christian service flows from

We are called to serve one another…we will see that today. And John is saying do not miss the reason Jesus is serving these men! It’s not because He has to! It’s not because He will have a guilt trip…it’s because He truly loved those men

The same is true for us….servanthood is fueled by one’s love for others. People who come into the church and look for places to serve, who look for people to serve do so because they love others!

And the opposite is true as well: Those who come into the church and look to be served, do so because they have great love for themselves. They are focused more on their own needs, they are focused on their desires, and so instead of being a servant to others, they expect to be served…

A heart that truly loves, does not even withhold love from one’s enemies

John 13:2–5 NASB95

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. 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.

Explanation:

Let’s talk about FOOT WASHING: This is not something that we are very familiar with because our culture is much different than it was in the first century AD.

In the first century people primarily walked everywhere they went and sandals was the main footwear of those days. When you traveled from house to house or even city to city, walking down dusty roads, your feet would get dirty. So it was the custom of those days to keep a basin of water at the door so that guests who came to your home could wash their feet when they entered.

Sometimes (probably in more prestige families) there were servants of the house who would carry out this task of washing the guests feet. But as you could imagine, this was a very lowly task that no one wanted to do. The ones who did this were the lowest of servants: those who were older, or Gentiles, but never would you see a Jew washing another person’s feet.

So when Jesus took the basin of water, that was reserved for slaves, and gifed Himself with a towel and began to wash these disciples feet, it was a great shock to them. Not only was Jesus a Jew, but Jesus was the King of the Jews, who was infinitely greater than all these men, highly respected by them all (but one)….and was here doing this act of service in the most humble way.

Now no doubt this was a shock to them all because according to culture they should have been the one’s washing Jesus’ feet….but what’s even more shocking is that Jesus washed Judas’s feet too.

Judas was right there in that group too. He was reclining at that table with the other 11. He was eating that supper with them. And He was one of the disciples whom had His feet washed by Jesus.

And Jesus knew that even at that very time, Judas was planning to betray Him…even that very night.

John 13:11 “For He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He said, “Not all of you are clean.””

Jesus did not wash Judas’ feet not knowing what he was going to do, He washed Judas’ feet knowing that he was His enemy and that even in the moment Jesus was serving him, he was planning to betray Jesus…

Application:

Can you imagine you being betrayed, by someone who has been right there by your side for over three years, knowing what they were doing behind your back..and yet still wash their feet?

Most of us do not have a problem with loving others, until it comes to loving our enemies and that is where we often draw the line. We say, yes I’ll serve others because I love them, I’ll be humble, I’ll be lowly…BUT THOSE WHO HATE ME I WILL HATE THEM IN RETURN!

But Jesus loved them all, even those who hate Him

But we’re quick to bring a defense and say, “yeah, but this was Jesus!” He was perfect I am not, He does not expect me to do that! If someone hates me then I am going to hate him in return. Surely God does not expect me to love my enemies!

Matthew 5:43–45 NASB95

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ “But I say to you, 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 sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

If we really want to be Christlike in love, if we really want to reflect God’s love through our lives, then we are to love even those who hate us, just like Jesus did and just like God does..

QUESTION: Would you wash your enemies feet? Jesus washed yours..

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners (enemies of God), Christ died for us.”

Unless we are served by Jesus, we can have no part with Jesus

John 13:6–11 NASB95

So He came to Simon Peter. He said to Him, “Lord, do You wash my feet?” Jesus answered and said to him, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.” 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.” 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 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.”

Explanation:

Now you’ve just got to love Peter. He just does not hold back when it comes to whatever pops in his mind. “Lord, do you wish my feet?….”Never shall you wash my feet”…Peter often saying the wrong thing, but here he is probably saying what all the other disciples were thinking.

You, the sinless Son of God, the King of the Jews, the Promised One whom God has sent into the world…are stooping down to the level of a slave to wash my feet??

And then says, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.”

Now what is He talking about here? He is saying, Peter you do not understand yet that I am the humble servant who has been sent to die for the sins of the world in an even greater act of humility by going forth to the cross, never even opening His mouth in His defense, not allowing Peter to defend Him in the garden of Gethsemane, allowing Romans to hang Him on a cross until He dies…resurrecting from the grave to conquer death and sin, becoming the Lamb of God on Passover who takes away the sins of the world…..Peter will not understand who Jesus is until all of these things take place and then He will look back at this foot washing and undertsand Jesus came to Philippians 2:7–8 “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

And then Peter will see that this humble act was only pointing forward to the greatest humble act of a perfect man giving up His life for the lives of others.

This was an illustration of humble service for others, a parable if you will, with Jesus as the main character of the story who was the last person expected to become a humble servant but did so because of his great love for His disciples, humiliated Himself to the lowest position in the house to save the life of His friends.

Then Jesus tells Peter, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me”

Notice He does not say, “wash your feet” but says “wash you”. And it’s clear that Jesus is not talking about dirt here but sin. He’s not saying Peter, you can’t hang out with Me if you have dirty feet, He is saying Peter if I do not wash your sins away, then you can have no fellowship, no communion, no relationship with Me. interested in the dirt on Peter’s feet, but doing this as an illustration of washing away sin.

This is what Jesus’ humble service on the cross does for us. It washes our sins away.

1 John 1:7 “but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

Psalm 51:2 “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity And cleanse me from my sin.” David said

Unless Jesus serves us by washing us, then we have no part with Jesus! The washing is essential to a relationship with Jesus.

But there is a second meaning here

(v 10) “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.”

“He who has bathed”, needs only to wash their feet

Bathing would be the initial cleansing of sin. Once we have been saved, justified, forgiven, our sins have been washed away, there is no need to be “bathed” again. One can only be born again one time. That one time makes a person clean forever!

Jesus is telling Peter that he does not need to be born again and again and again. “You are clean”

But them He says, “he only needs to wash his feet”.

Think about these disciples who probably bathed that morimg before they left and started their day. Their bodies were clean. But when they left the house, they traveled through this world picking up dust and dirt on their feet as they walked and then entering a home they need their feet washed again. Their bodies are still clean, they just need their feet washed.

In the same way, those who who belong to Jesus are clean, they are justified, they have had their sins washed away, but as we walk through this world we get our feet dirty. We stumble over things, we say things, we fail here and there and we need that dirt removed from our feet…

Application: How do we wash our feet?

1 John 1:9 NASB95

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Now this does not mean that if we do not confess every sin we have somehow lost our justification, it means that this should be the practice of every confessing Christian who walks through this world collecting dirt here and there

How should we confess our sins?

Don’t wait till the end of the week and say God forgive me of all my sins. When you do something you shouldn’t do, confess it immediately.

Name it specifically. That’s what it means to confess.

And ask for forgiveness and demonstrate repentance! Leave that sin behind and plan to never luck that sin up again! Hate it with a ruthless passion and get it out of your life!

Just as Jesus served the disciples, we should serve one another

John 13:12–17 NASB95

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 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. “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.

Explanation:

(v 14) “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet”

Now Jesus takes what He has just shown to the disciples by His actions, and applies it directly to the lives of these men. He’s saying, do you see how I just made Myself lower than all of you. I did not have to do that. It was not my rank to be lower than you all, it was actually my rank or right to be greater than you all. Truly they should have been washing Jesus’ feet if we are going by cultures standards. But culture does not matter in the Kingdom and often Kingdom life is the opposite of cultural standards…

(v 16) “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 Jesus who was infinitely greater than all of us, played the servant role, then we who His servants are not greater than He are we?

Jesus is saying what you have seen me do here, you should also do because we are not greater than Jesus and He is the One who is sending us…

Church this is the Christian paradigm that Jesus has set for us. Not like the pattern of this world like Peter was so accustomed to, but a model for people who live in the kingdom of God.

Jesus is saying this is the way I want you to live. This I the way I want you to relate to one another. And according to this standard, if we are truly disciples of Jesus, the church should be full of people standing in line to serve one another.

Application:

How do we do that?

It will never happen without humility. And humility will never happen without love. These two things go hand and hand. One cannot be humble unless one loves and one cannot love unless one is humble.

What is humility? It is not thinking more of ourselves than we ought to. It means to be lowly, little, insignificant and totally ok with that. And Jesus said the greatest in the kingdom of God will be your servant…

The greatest person in this room has nothing to do with worldly status, riches, fame, education, how well they know the Bible….the greatest person here today would be the one who has made themself a servant of others..

Humility is decision that you and I make. We decide whether or not we will be humble or be remain proud.

1 Peter 5:6 “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time”

That is imperative for us to obey. It implies that we can be humble if we choose to be humble.

But then there is love

John said that it was love that motivated Jesus to lower Himself to the status of a servant.

But can you choose to love? It is absolutely true that to love people is a choice. But I think real love is something more than just a decision. To be able to truly love someone is something that comes from God.

1 John 4:7 NASB95

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

People cannot love because they cannot give what they do not have. Love comes from God. Not the emotions of love. Not the feelings of love. A real love that will serve someone else from the right motives and the right reasons.

And if you cannot love, it may be because you have never known the love of God in your life and that is demonstrated in Christ at the cross.

Come to Jesus.

Come and let Him wash your sins a way and give you a heart to love and serve others.

~PRAYER~