The Practice of the Altar

September 20, 2026

Title: The Practice of the Altar

Subtitle: “Why the Greatest Leaders in the Room Are the Ones Who Kneel First"

Scripture: John 13:1-17

Speaker: Bill Sizemore

Series: General Adult The Romans Road Series | A Living Sacrifice, Week Three | Living Example: Jesus

Big Idea: True leadership was never about being served. It is proven the moment a leader kneels to serve the very people entrusted to him.

Phrase of the Day: Pick up the towel before you pick up the title.

Key Supporting Text: Mark 10:43-45 (ESV): "But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Introduction: The Night the Leader Got Up From the Table

Picture the last ordinary evening of your life, if you knew it was the last one. You know exactly how the night ends. You know who will betray you and who will deny you, and you already know both of their names. What would you spend that evening doing?

Jesus spent it on His knees, washing feet.

John 13:1 ESV

1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

He loved them to the end. Not loved them in general. Loved these twelve, specific, imperfect men, all the way to the last night, all the way to a basin of water and a towel. For two weeks we have talked about the altar Israel never built for itself, and the posture that determines whether a person actually meets God there. Today the altar gets up and walks across the room, and it teaches us something we do not talk about enough: what leadership actually looks like when it is done right.

Last week we watched a Pharisee stand at a distance, comparing himself to everyone else in the room, and a tax collector who would not even lift his eyes. Today, watch where Jesus puts Himself. Not standing over anyone. Kneeling in front of everyone, including the two men in the room least likely to deserve it, and never once losing His authority in the process.

Here is the question underneath this whole passage. If Jesus, the most secure leader who has ever lived, spent His last night on His knees in front of the men He led, what does that say about how the rest of us are supposed to lead?

A servant leader is not a leader who stops being the leader. A servant leader is a leader who is more concerned with the welfare of his people than he is with his own comfort, his own image, or his own preferences. The position was never given to him so he could be served. The position exists so his care for the people under him has a place to work.

Phrase of the Day: I will pick up the towel before you pick up the title.

Hold onto that phrase. We are coming back to it more than once before we are done.

Here is our road map this morning, three movements this passage puts in front of us:

Secure Enough to Kneel.

Trusted Enough to Follow.

Humble Enough to Multiply.

📌 Secure Enough to Kneel

John 13:1–5 ESV

1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

Security in your position allows the expression of service.

John 13:3 ESV

3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God,

Your identity and position are given by God.

Jesus knew who he was for all eternity.

Authority is given by God alone

Romans 13:1 ESV

1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

Security in who you are is not the reward for servant leadership. It is the only thing that makes servant leadership possible, because an insecure leader cannot afford to look, even for a moment, like the least important person in the room.

Your service is an expression of God’s grace.

How do you serve the people under you without losing your ability to lead them? You don’t.

Jesus didn’t set His authority aside to wash feet. He carried it into the basin with Him.

Security in your position allows leadership and servitude to coexist.

John 13:4–5 ESV

4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

Vulnerability doesn’t change your security as a servant leader.

Jesus had already taken the form of a servant by taking on the form of sinful man.

Philippians 2:5–8 ESV

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Jesus made himself vulnerable to the point of death.

Washing feet was easy.

The real sacrifice was coming tomorrow.

📷 Illustration. Mr. Rogers and Francois Clemmons

In 1969, at the height of American racial segregation and the year after many public pools across the country had been drained or fenced off rather than integrated, Fred Rogers filmed an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in which he invited a Black police officer, played by Francois Clemmons, to join him and cool his feet in a small wading pool on a hot day. Rogers, an ordained Presbyterian minister who held full creative and editorial authority over his own program, never surrendered a shred of that authority by getting down on the ground. He simply used it to model, without a single word of protest or politics, what it looked like for a leader secure enough in his own position to kneel in a way the culture around him refused to. Clemmons later said he understood exactly what Rogers was doing. Rogers never needed the moment to prove anything about himself. He already knew who he was. That is precisely what let him kneel.

Remember: Nobody who is unsure of their own worth can afford to kneel like that. Only a leader secure enough in who he is can afford to serve, like the least important person in the room.

Application. If serving the people under your care still feels like it costs you your authority, you don’t yet have the mind of Christ. A leader who is chasing significance cannot afford to serve, because serving looks, from the outside, like losing ground. A leader who already knows his significance is secure in Christ has nothing left to protect, and can become the living sacrifice to the people he leads.

📌 Trusted Enough to Follow

John 13:6–8 ESV

6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”

A lack of understanding can lead to lack of trust.

Peter's objection sounds like reverence. It is not.

Notice what Jesus says before Peter ever refuses: “what I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Jesus does not stop to explain Himself fully. He simply tells Peter that understanding will come later, and asks for trust now.

That is exactly the tension so many leaders live inside every week. Sometimes a leader can explain every reason behind a decision.

Sometimes he cannot, either because the timing is not right

He has information you don’t have.

He’s protecting a person

He’s guarding the organization

He’s dealing with a person that has not reached the spiritual maturity to understand the decision yet.

He’s thinking long term or 5 steps ahead

He’s simply following what the Lord has shown him without fully understanding it yet.

Peter’s objection was unrealized rebellion.

This is the second time Peter said to Jesus, “Not so, Lord” a contradictory statement.

He should have given Jesus the benifit of the doubt.

Jesus Required Trust, Not Understanding

John 13:8–10 ESV

8 Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.”

When you don’t understand you swing to extremes.

Watch how fast Peter swings from refusing the whole thing to demanding all of it. Both reactions come from the same root. Peter is managing the moment based on what he can see and understand, instead of trusting the one he has already given his life to.

Servant Leaders make decisions in the best interest of the people wether the people understand it or not.

Many believers say they want a pastor, but what they actually want is a pastor who never asks them to follow anywhere they cannot first fully understand and approve.

The moment a leader's direction feels unfamiliar, people react the way Peter reacted, with an opinion, a suggestion, or an outright refusal, sometimes leaving altogether if the direction does not make sense to them. But a faithful leader often carries more insight, more prayer, and more of the Lord's direction than he can fully explain to everyone he leads.

We must be careful assuming we know more than we do.

📷 Illustration. Landing on the Hudson

On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of geese shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport, losing both engines less than three minutes into the flight. Captain Chesley Sullenberger came on the intercom with four words the passengers did not have time to question or understand: "This is the captain. Brace for impact." Nobody on that plane could see what Sullenberger could see from the cockpit, and there was no time for him to explain the physics of a dead-engine glide over Manhattan or why the Hudson River was the only viable option left. The flight attendants began shouting the brace commands they had trained for, and passengers who had never met Sullenberger, who had no way to verify his split-second judgment, followed his instruction anyway. All one hundred fifty-five people on board survived what investigators later called one of the most successful ditchings in aviation history. Their trust was not blind. It was placed in a captain who had spent decades earning the authority he was exercising in that moment, even though not one passenger on board understood, in real time, exactly what he was doing or why.

Remember: Understanding was never the price of following a trustworthy leader. Trust was.

Application. If people follow you, you don't owe everyone a full explanation for every decision. Some things you carry, you must carry alone. And if you follow a leader you trust, watch yourself the next time you want to push back or walk away. Ask one question first: is this discernment, or is this Peter at the basin, refusing a gift because he mistook his own confusion for wisdom?

📌 Humble Enough to Multiply

John 13:12–13 ESV

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.

The towel and the title were never in competition

He does not treat the towel as something that replaced His authority.

Jesus served as the leader, from inside His leadership, and then simply kept leading.

That is the answer to how a servant leader remains the leader while he serves. He never actually left the position. He just let the position be defined by what he was willing to do for the people under it, rather than by what he could make them do for him.

Jesus Turned His Example Into Their Assignment

John 13:14–17 ESV

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.

The authority of a leader is never jeopardized by his servitude.

Servant leaders promote those around them.

Mark 10:42–45 ESV

42 And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 43 But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus is building a movement where the towel gets handed off.

Greatness, by His definition, is not measured by how many people serve you. It is measured by how many people you have made great by serving them first, and then taught to do the same for someone else.

Remember: Jesus never told the disciples to admire what He did. He told them to do it. The blessing was never attached to understanding servant leadership. It was attached to practicing it.

Conclusion

Servant leadership was never about a leader disappearing behind the people he serves. It is a leader whose entire authority exists to make sure the people under him are cared for, valued, and eventually handed a towel of their own.

Here is why that matters for you this week, far away from any basin. If you lead people, at home, at work, on a team, or in this church, the question this passage puts in front of you is not whether you understand servant leadership. It is whether the people who follow you would say, honestly, that your leadership has made them feel cared for or simply used. Jesus did not simply describe what a leader owes his people. He knelt down and proved it. The only question left is whether you will.

Altar Call: Gospel Invitation

you might be having a trust issue this morning.

Maybe you have never trusted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. Jesus is still serving people today, and he wants to serve you.

Maybe you have had trust issues with your church leaders that causing you to question every decision that’s made or even worse you have been listening to someone church hurt that is making you question everything. It might be time to open your heart up to trust again.