Dirty Feet Part II
The Story - An Interwoven Gospel • Sermon • Submitted
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· 2 viewsAn example of love; an example for us
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What the world needs now
What the world needs now
(below for handout, not to be said)
What do you think the world needs now? What was Jesus example of washing the feet of the apostles an example of?
What the world needs now, is love sweet love, it’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” - Burt Bacharach.
Jesus taught about love (Mt22:36-39; Mt5:43-44)
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 foremost commandment. 39 “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
Love is the greatest commandment; sometimes love is not easy, but still Jesus commanded us to do it.
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
Love is the greatest commandment
33 “Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord.’ 34 “But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God,
So I want us to look at Jesus example of love in Jn13:5-11
5 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. 6 So He came to Simon Peter. He said to Him, “Lord, do You wash my feet?”
Love is the greatest commandment
7 Jesus answered and said to him, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.” 8 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.”
9 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.” 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.”
11 For He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He said, “Not all of you are clean.”
What do you see?
What do you notice?
What sticks out to you?
What had Jesus done?
When did Jesus do it?
Serving will not always be convenient (during supper?)
Serving will not always be pleasant either (washing stinky feet)
Serving oftentimes will be humbling, but when we look at Jesus example what do we see?
Today I want to focus on this example of love set by Jesus in a topical way, we have previously looked at this exegetically
I think it is a fair assumption to say that love is a key factor in Christianity. And in this world people are craving for love, to be touched by love, to feel love and many to give love.
In the commandment that Jesus gives to His disciples it is not to be more zealous, or to be more dedicated, or even more committed. He commands them to love for by love people will know you are His disciples (Jn13:35)
35 “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Not only does Jesus give a teaching, He gives an example in this passage and there are some great things we can grab from this passage
(below is one slide, leave it that way)
The Freedom to love
The Cost of love
A Model of love
The Difficulties with love
I. The Freedom to Love
I. The Freedom to Love
On the heels of the apostles arguing, comes this teaching and example (ref: Lk22:24) - in spite of arguing, love wins out
24 And there arose also a dispute among them as to which one of them was regarded to be greatest.
Even in the midst of one who is going to betray Him, love wins out (Mt26:14-15)
14 Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 15 and said, “What are you willing to give me to betray Him to you?” And they weighed out thirty pieces of silver to him.
In a time when the cross is only hours away, the time of Jesus departure is at hand, love wins (Jn13:1)
1 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.
Jesus had the liberty to love, why? Because He knew where He came from and where He was going (Jn13:3)
3 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,
So something to think about, I know I do, I struggle at times with the things, the choices, the mistakes of my past. Not just from years ago, but from days ago, or even months ago. When I struggle then I cannot love like Jesus did. I need to know where I came from and where I am going. If I am strangled or struggled by my past I miss out on the present and cannot love like Christ. See love holds us together.
Satan wants to keep you in the past, he is the accuser and wants to keep you from loving the way we are commanded. we know he is liar for if you are in Christ you have been set free from the past. You have the liberty to love, the freedom to love.
To the believer we have the truth that our sins are forgiven and if we sin we have an advocate with the Father (1Jn2:1-2)
1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
Not only are our sins forgiven they are forgotten (Heb8:12)
12 “For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And I will remember their sins no more.”
Now I have spoken of the past, and referred to my past, the reality is today I’m OK with my past, not because of my perfection but because of my position. My position in Christ Jesus. Knowing what He did for me when He want to the cross, not just for me but for you too who believe.
Consider this
“If my past is taken care of by the blood of Calvary and my future is in heaven, I am free to love in the present.” - Jon Courson
The greatest of these things is love, but all are needed (1Cor13:13)
13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Faith in the past that your sins have been forgiven
Hope in the future that you are secure in Christ Jesus and your future home in heaven with the Father
Love in the present makes life worth living now when we display it so others may see it and come to know the hope and the faith that you have.
May we be free to love like Jesus was free to love
II. The cost of love
II. The cost of love
Love is not always going to be convenient, any of us that are parents or grandparents know that to be true. You can count on it, just like telemarketers calling at supper time. (Jn13:4)
In the passage we see that Jesus got up during dinner to do something that normally would happen upon entering
4 got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself.
2 During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him,
To be one who loves is to be one who will be OK with interruptions. Not only interruptions but involvement too.
Jn13:
Jesus was not like a mom saying “go wash your hands before supper” - no He saw, or smelt a need and got up to wash some stinky dirty feet. No long explanation about hygiene on why, no long lecture on doing it, He simply got up, girded himself, humbled Himself and did something about it.
Christianity is not about being neat, it is about being clean and sometimes to help people to get clean you have to be willing to get dirty. Don’t talk about dirty, stinky feet, that would be judging, do something and that is called love. Jesus didn’t talk in this case, He showed us a model for love.
III. A Model for Love
III. A Model for Love
Jesus did not get up and talk about what He was going to do, for love does not brag (1Cor13:4-5)
4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,
Look at who He served
No saying, hey watch Me, take some good notes and file them away that you may use them one day. This was not something that was done in public, it was done in private between He and His disciples. No press, no video’s being made, just the Savior of the world in the flesh serving.
Serving a zealot named Simon
Serving a skeptic named Nathaniel
Serving someone who would deny him; that’s Peter
And serving the one who would stab him in the back - Judas
So here is this crew of what the world would say is unlovable and Jesus humbled Himself, girded Himself and touched each of them with His example of love.
We may not be very lovable at times either, if we are honest we can be zealot on things that are not consequential to salvation. We can be skeptical, and in thought and even sometimes in words we have, or could betray someone, in other words stab them in the back.
Christ could do that for them, and Christ can do that for us, we too can follow Christ’s model of love and do it for others.
Now when we are honest, we know there is a cost to love and there is the model of love we just looked at but there is also difficulties in love too, isn’t there?
IV. The Difficulties With Love
IV. The Difficulties With Love
Look at (Jn13:6-9) can you see a difficulty?
6 So He came to Simon Peter. He said to Him, “Lord, do You wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered and said to him, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.”
8 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.” 9 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.”
8 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.”
The problem, the difficulty was pride, then on the back side it was overdependent.
The problem, the difficulty was pride, then on the back side it was
Pride in Simon saying cannot wash my feet. He did not want to humble himself enough to allow the Lord to do that. pride here is independence
Overdependent - basically saying if you are going to help me in one area, you must help me in all areas. Do we know people that are overdependent and want the church to do everything for them and if not they may accuse us of not being good Christians.
No wonder Jesus told him he did not understand now, but would later. Isn’t it the same with us, sometimes we don’t understand until hind-sight.
We need to know we are not the Lord over anybodies life and we can’t let them think the church is, we are a body of believers bound together by love, we cannot fix anyone, we are not the solution to peoples problems, but we can introduce them to the One who can fix their problems and from our heart to theirs we can be willing to wash their dirty feet when possible.
We need to be willing to help to follow according to the Lord and His leading and not people and their demanding. We need to remember (Mt11:30)
30 “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
We need to learn to say no at times, and I struggle with that, for the Lords yoke is easy and His burden is light.
So we need to take a position practically, either wash your hands like Pontius Pilate (Mt27:14) and not do anything, or pick up the basin and be willing to follow Jesus example and wash some dirty stinky feet.
We need to take a position theologically. We are born again, we are believers who confess, repent have been baptized and try to live in obedience, but we still fall short, we have failings, we have shortcomings and we need to be continually washed. Think what it says 1Jn1:9
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If you have dirty feet, allow the Lord to wash them for you today through repentance. Let Him show you His love in forgiveness and his faithfulness through His Word.