John 13:12-20
Notes
Transcript
Gill set us up last week with great context of where we’re at in scripture.
It’s passion week or Holy week.
The last week of Jesus’ life.
Public ministry getting pulled back
With a deeper relationship being shown to the 12.
Gill mentioned the “shadow” of the cross is upon.
The very next day, the cross
And we were shown this great act of servanthood and love.
The creator of all, come and bore flesh with his creation, took off His outer garments, knelt down, and washed dirty, nasty feet.
The very day before His crucifixion for a creation that rebelled.
This is the context of where we are at today.
And we read today
12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. 16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
18 I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’ 19 I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. 20 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”
12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you?
“Do you understand what I have done to you?”
Skip Hitzig story of a young ruler doing bad and punishing someone else for his mistake.
Our Ruler, our King is totally opposite.
He takes upon the punishment for our mistake.
This is the Gospel!
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
Jesus wasn’t bruised and beaten for anything He did.
Jesus wasn’t hung on cross and killed for anything He did.
He was bruised and beaten for what we did.
He was hung on a cross and killed for what we did.
“Do you understand what I have done to you?”
“Do you understand what I have done for you?”
They don’t during this time of washing but they will.
7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”
But we are privileged in knowing this and what is to come...the cross.
Which makes it that much more louder!
The picture of selflessness and care of someone over self is overwhelming to say the least.
Torture is coming, hate is coming, mocking is coming, humiliation is coming...but worse than that, sin & death.
21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Our Holy, Pure, Perfect God, our very creator is about to bear the truth of sin by death on a cross.
All for something His creation did against Him!
What, how, why?!
Love!
“Do you understand what I have done to you?”
Jesus is trying to get them to see!
It’s by love, I do this. It’s because I love!
I do this because I am love!
8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
This is God and God’s kingdom!
Love!
Matthew 22:34-40
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Love not as in feeling but as in action of a loving heart!
Love not as in feeling but as in action of genuine care and concern!
Love not as in feeling but as in importance of their well being after you’ve left them.
Love not as in feeling but as in compassion for others.
Love not as in feeling but as in knowing the Love that has been given.
Love as it’s been shown!
19 We love because he first loved us.
“Do you understand what I have done to you?”
I’ve loved you!
I’m showing and teaching you these truths of servanthood and love because tomorrow the truth of unworldly love is going to be shown to the max.
And I don’t want it to get misplaced with anything.
It is love, not misfortune, not that dang Judas, not those dang Pharisee’s.
Love for the Father and love for us.
“Do you understand what I have done to you?”
Cleaned us, saved us, not because we’re all that but because He is!
Church you are loved!
13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.
Do we confess this a Christians?
Is He our Teacher and Lord?
He’s not just a good teacher.
He’s not just some history figure that once live and had a few good teachings.
He is our Lord, a Lord unlike any other lord. One that is perfect in love!
Confess this Church! Jesus is Lord!
14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. 16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
Whoa, pump the brakes, say what?
I like the Lord and Teacher part when you’re doing the washing and I get to sit back and be loved.
But you want me to wash others, to love others.
Ya, but do you know my brothers and sisters, especially that one named Tony?
He’s not the easiest to love.
And my wife can attest to this, you don’t want to touch my feet!
But seriously, this is how many of us in the church act.
We love the message of the Gospel, of the love bestowed upon us but when it comes to live out that Gospel, many are void.
Why?
Our flesh is real, outside of God we are opposed to Him and this all sacrificial love for others.
We don’t love perfectly, heck we don’t love perfectly the people we like, let alone the ones we don’t like.
We outside of Christ are of the world and what is of the world?
Selfishness, climb over one another to get to the top, just flat out unloving.
The world and the ruler of this world in a nutshell is concerned with one thing and one thing only, self.
It is opposite of God’s kingdom. Selfish instead of selfless.
Why do some like Gospel but aren’t changed by it? Because they make it about them and not about loving God and loving others. aka selfishness.
Why are some void of the good works of the Gospel? This heart transplant needs to take place.
To remove the heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh!
To learn the words and love of Jesus!
Acts 20:35b
remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
What should the gospel be to God’s children?
We love the Gospel because it reveals God to us and by this Truth, we are forever changed!
And with the Gospel comes the heart of transformation.
19 We love because he first loved us.
Why do we do the work of the Gospel, because our Savior loved us and through that love we love.
We shouldn’t love as an obligation but as in a heart of love for Jesus and what Jesus loves.
Think about it for a moment.
Did Jesus come down and bear flesh, live, feel pain, suffer and die because your the apple of His eye and He just can’t live without you?
No, He came down first and foremost for the love of the Father.
And what does the Father love outside of His Son? His creation!
Jesus loves what His Father loves.
Jesus values what His Father values.
We first love our God with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul and than that love spreads out to what He loves.
His creation.
You can’t love Jesus without loving people. Plain and simple.
People matter to Jesus.
So, like all things, we need help!
We must look at our brothers and sisters through the lens and power of the Holy Spirit!
All are loved, all are valued, and all are worth what Jesus shows us they’re worth.
They’re worth serving, they’re worth caring for, they’re worth loving, they’re worth dying for...
This is the mark of a follower of Jesus, a Christian.
35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
This is it, you want to know if your a follower of Jesus, a Christian, do you love one another, do you care for one another, do you put the wants of others over yours?
Nope, me neither by my power.
But through His power I can do all things.
13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
We must love through the power of Him and His generous love.
Remember this, next time a brother or sister annoys you, treats you unlovingly, sins against you.
Through His love you’ve been forgiven for being annoying and selfish, for being unloving towards Him and doing your will over His, for every sin you’ve commited.
We are called to be united in Him. Not divided.
We are called to practice mercy and grace and it’s been bestowed on us.
We are called to love as He loves.
Listen to the heart of scripture about this.
16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
Does the love of God abide in our hearts?
If so, love in deed and truth!
If it doesn’t get on yours knees and seek the love of God!
In closing, I want us to reflect on the kind of love we’re seeing.
The very day before His crucifixion, Jesus is concerned about His disciples.
What they’re going to see, what they’re going feel, what they’re going to be up against.
An angry world, an hateful people, a beloved friend betrayed by one of their own, not just their friend but their Messiah, beaten, tortured, & murdered.
In their minds the sky is falling and things are out of control.
Two highlights, two keys to remember from this glorious passage from our savior.
First, through high’s and low’s, doubts and confusion, persecution and turmoil, loving God and loving others reign supreme.
Not every man for himself and run to the hills with what’s coming.
No, we get a calm loving Jesus, truly concerned with the well being of His disciples, over His own well being.
Our Savior in His perfect Holiness, showing Truth in Love and Love in Truth.
17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
And secondly..
18 I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’ 19 I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. 20 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”
Nothing is by chance.
God is in control of all things, and that should bring us great comfort.
Even when love seems to fail and someone is betrayed.
19 I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he.
Love never fails but when it looks like it is, take faith, He’s got this.
Matthew 6:25-34
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
20 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”
Folks, people will come and go, things will happen that makes senses, other times they won’t.
Don’t be surprised by this, you’re not all knowing!
Through it all we’re called to Love God and Love others. And trust in Him, not in ourselves.
Not all are sheep and not all are wolves.
Love and trust God even when differences arise.
Stay in constant prayer with a humble heart.
Stay connected to Him by reading His Word.
And let God be God and let us be faithful to Him and His ways.
Amen!
