Untitled Sermon (2)

Welcome

Well, maybe this is not your first rodeo, when it comes to a Maundy Thursday! Maybe you’ve come every year, you know what it is, why it exists - it’s what you do. Maybe you’re a Junior High or High School student and you’re here every year because your parents dragged you here against your will - and you don’t know when Maundy Thursday even is on a calendar, but you know what it is, because all of a sudden you’re just being forced to get in the car, and to church at night. On a THURSDAY! Or maybe you’ve come each year, but don’t really quite know what this is about - it just seems a bit somber - but you’re here and really want to just know, ok why ARE we here, why is this a thing.

Maybe you’re like me, and you didn’t “grow up” at all with the knowledge of Ash Wednesday, or Maundy Thursday, or Good Friday - and you grew up off of the Gulf of Mexico - a stone’s throw away from Galveston, and when Ken hired you in 2017, and shortly after says he wants you to lead “Ash Wednesday”, you think “WOW. I know I grew up in a small baptist church, and I had no IDEA other churches celebrated Mardi Gras. And 7am is way too early”.

Lean In

But I want everyone in the room, no matter what seat you’re sitting in, or what mindset is sitting in it, to understand that tonight, we have an opportunity - together, myself included - to meet together. To open God’s word, and for a short time, look deeply in the Word of God and meditate on the love of God. I’m praying, and I want you to pray, that the Lord - whether you’ve known Him for 9 years, or 90. Whether you know of Jesus, or do not know Him at all - pray that the Lord would make Himself, and His love, real to you tonight in a way that leaves you changed when you leave here. That even though we do look at a specific event in the life of Jesus, and look at what Maundy Thursday is, which is the mandate - “Maundy” is the latin word for “mandate” - that Christ gives us when he says “this is the mandate I give to you: that you love one another.” And He gives this mandate, the night before what’s called the crucifixion, where he would be killed, murdered, as part of His plan to offer a destiny-altering redemption, to humanity. To us. To YOU.

Onramp

I think one thing we could all agree on, is that the world around us, could use a little more love right now. I think we could all agree that there’s not much love going on around us; in any sphere - any area. And if you were honest, I think really really honest - with yourself - no matter what side of an issue, what side of a ballot, what side of what you feel is right and wrong - the CHURCH, christians have a lot to do with why that’s the case. Because if the world WE’RE IN, does not have a lot of love in it’s speech, in its’ actions, in its’ lack of unified community, and our MANDATE by Christ Himself is that we “love one another”, I think we have to be honest and look at the level of health in this area, and agree that we have not loved, like we know we are capable of, and know we are called to. Any of us. I think we, collectively, need to have a moment of unification among us here tonight, and put everything outside of these walls that’s not the passage we’re reading tonight, and that’s not the topic of refocus tonight, and look honestly, openly, and unbiased at “what can we do to change the environment around us?”. To be thermostats, not thermometers, (thermometers adjust to their environment, thermostats change their environment) and impact a beaten down humankind. And I’ll just say, if I said that, and your mind immediately went to anything that has to do with feeling a sense of affirmation toward a certain side of a political party that you personally feel like you align with, put that outside of the walls too. I mean to the very essence of who we are as believers. No political parties, no candidates, nothing but people, humans, and the very words of Jesus to the people He commissioned with this mandate, through His disciples. I need it. We need it. Together. Put it all aside, and let’s get to the very heartbeat that we’re missing, and GET. IT. BACK. Let’s look at how to be thermostats here tonight. Are you with me?

Let’s dive in. Turn to John 13, verse 1 - and while you turn, let me say, I’m glad you’re here. I love you. I love that you’re here, and I hope I get the opportunity to meet you or to say hi tonight. If you don’t have a bible...

John 13:1-5, 12-15

English Standard Version Chapter 13

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.

English Standard Version Chapter 13

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.

Story - Losing Mr. C

I loved sports, and I would get so excited for games that I would wear my baseball socks under my school uniform, even though they’d make my legs itch because my mom never dried them enough - but, I didn’t realize it at the time, at the core of the way that God had so divinely and uniquely wired me, was music.

When I didn’t have a place that felt like I belonged there, Marcus Colvin’s classroom became my place where I made sense - and for one hour a day, every day of the school week, I wasn’t a walking blurred image of myself.

And I’ll never forget the early morning, when my Mom came to wake me up - softer than normal - to tell me that while I was asleep last night, Mr. C was killed in a car accident.

Love has made the greatest impacts on my life.

And I think if you look back, I think you’ll realize it has in yours too - through the actions of a parent, a friend, a mentor, teacher, coach, someone you didn’t even know

The people who impact us, do so, because of how they love

In this passage in John 13, Jesus shows us one of the greatest acts of love found in scripture - before he even willingly makes the walk to the cross.

Love was at the core of who Jesus was:

That’s why, after everyone had expected this long-awaited Messiah who had finally come, to be - truthfully - their political hero - to just lift them from under the foot of oppression, of the Roman’s rule over them, Jesus arrives and begins to reveal that he’s come to do something much different than the people, who believe that, expected. Even much MORE than expected.

He began to say and teach things, that seemed so contradictory to natural ways of thought, like:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

And love your neighbor as you love yourself

Love was Jesus’ last act. Before going to the cross.

Where, by the way, he would perform the greatest act of sacrificial love - to a humanity who deserved the complete opposite, that would shift the plates of the hopeless black hole we were headed toward.

And on the night before, at a final meal with his disciples - the men who had made the decision of following Him for the rest of their lives, he begins to reveal what the plan is - and that’s that the time has come for him to go to the cross to willingly give Himself.

So you want to be more like Jesus?

If you want to be more like Jesus, yet you do not love His who are in the world, like He did - start there.

Because that’s at the core of everything He was then, and is now

To go another layer of blunt statement below, If you believe you look like Jesus, yet you do not love, you do not look like Jesus. Why? Because that’s at the core of everything He was then, and is now.

So how do we do that? How do we love? Tangibly? - Tyler, I hear you. I hear this concept, all the time, in the “christian life”, but how do I do it? How do I truly love those around me..

The 3 Postures

Every follower of Jesus should KNOW that they love like Jesus, because they pursue and exhibit these 3 postures.

And we’re going to do something different, maybe strange to you. We’re going to work backward from the external (the act of doing; loving) to the internal (where it comes from; the source of love - and it’s different than what our culture around us knows about what they THINK is love). And we’re doing that because I want you to see that it all goes back to something - and the external doesn’t happen without knowledge of the internal. The mandate of doing doesn’t happen adequately without being connected to the source of where it came from, and still comes from. So every follower of Jesus should KNOW that they love like Jesus, because they pursue and exhibit these 3 postures. The first:

Service - v. 3-5 - “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, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet..”

I looked up the definition of the word “service” in the dictionary, and it said this: “a system supplying a public need such as transportation, communications, or utilities such as electricity and water.”

So then I closed the dictionary, and realized why I’ve never opened a dictionary. Instead, we’ll look straight at just these three verses and see, in them, Jesus model this - service - for us

What is the key component to the posture of service?

action

v. 3-4 - “KNOWING that the Father had given all things into his hands” what does Jesus do? “He rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, he tied it around his waist.”

Why is this significant?

You look at Jesus’ “status”. Who He was. Right at this moment. “The Father had given ALL. THINGS. Into HIS hands”! He has every bit of knowledge, of power, of control, and what does he do? - he rises from supper, takes off his garment, puts on the one of a servant, and loves.

You know where specifically, this could be a really good start for us, where we could really afford to see this play out the most in the current climate of our culture?

With people who think, act, and live differently than you.

With people who don’t agree with you, and you don’t agree with them.

A popular word that has come out of the climate of our country: Cancel Culture.

Even me just saying that, some of you may have just looked for the exit because - you real uncomfortable right now.

Here’s the heart sinking, unifying truth that’s nothing to be proud of - but everything to acknowledge:

We, and by we - the body of believers, christians, created Cancel Culture. And it didn’t start in the past several months.