Who Does Your Life Model?

Get In The Game

Well good morning church, it is a fine day to be together!

My name is Zach Klundt and I am the Director of Student Ministries here at Bethel.

And I am super excited to talk to you today about a new series we are starting called Get In The Game.

You are going to be hearing from Kevin and Weston also, as over the next couple of weeks as we talk about how to get involved in the church, what worship looks like, why community is important and how we need to be the church that scatters into our city durning the week.

As we are without a senior pastor at the moment and it would be easy to just wait until he arrives and not move forward, but just because we don’t have this doesn’t mean we stop doing kingdom work.

The church is still the church with or without a senior pastor.

So over the next couple of weeks we want to encourage and even challenge us to get in the game.

I do not believe that the Christian faith is meant to be a spectator sport.

But many times in our churches today, we fill up on Sunday morning, and we go back home and never have another though about God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit or others.

We are too busy to serve, We don’t have a community around us, we don’t share our faith, our worship is stale because we live just like everyone else during the week.

We become consumers of a religion rather then partakers of a relationship.

We may wear the jersey and know everything about the game but when we are called upon to get into the game we fade back and out.

When I was in High school, I played football my senior year, because what do you have to lose?

Apparently a lot because we were not good.

But anyways, I played Wide Receiver, and I loved that role, I got to catch the ball— even though we hardly threw it.

But I also had another role on the team— Middle Linebacker.

Now I was second string for this role and I was pretty happy about that.

The guy in front of me Josh McManus, one of my good buddies, was all conference, He was a stud.

I never had to worry about playing defense in a game.

Let’s be real— I was not the dominating figure you see in front of you today.

Here is a picture of us.

I mean he is missing a tooth— dude was hardcore.

So during one of the games we were playing Josh got hurt.

What a wimp.

Now in football, that just means the next guy up.

Who was that next guy— it was me.

Who never studied the defensive play book?

That would also be me.

Who has no idea how to play the middle linebacker position?

Me— even though I was the second string player.

I knew that this was not a good situation.

I am thinking oh no… this means I have to go in?

And what snapped me back into reality was the coach yelling KLUNDT--

Klundt— where are you?

Klundt get over here--

I was frozen to the spot.

And I was totally fine with that.

I kept my head down and I never went over to him, oh man was he mad that he couldn’t find me!

So He grabbed another kids and that is how I avoided playing defense my whole football career.

I was perfectly content watching the game from the sidelines.

I would practice with the team but I wasn’t prepared, I never studied, I wasn’t committed.

And when my name was being yelled to get in the game— I froze because I knew I was about to outed— I was going to be seen for the phony I was.

It was going to hurt my street cred, I was going to be embarrassed and out of fear of exposure I did not answer the call to get in the game.

What I find interesting is that this is how some Christians live their lives.

Sidelined, unaware, frozen, and fearful of being exposed.

We don’t want to get involved in the church because we are comfortable watching church.

And I am not talking about online church— but literally just coming to church and not getting plugged into the church.

What does it look like for us to go from spectator to participant in our faith.

This is what we are going to be looking at today.

We are going to be looking at moving from spectator to servant.

I can’t think of anybody else to look to as an example then Jesus.

Jesus as he lived on earth was fully God and fully man.

He experienced temptation but never sinned.

He taught, he healed, he spoke, and literally turned the world upside down as we became the sacrifice that would be offered up for the sins of the world.

Your sins, my sins and all sins.

He showed grace to those who had honest questions, love for the sinners and those marginalized in Jewish society and humility as he went to the cross silently.

Today we are going to be looking at the action of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.Jesus as he lived on earth was fully God and fully man.

He experienced temptation but never sinned.

He taught, he healed, he spoke, and literally turned the world upside down as we became the sacrifice that would be offered up for the sins of the world.

Your sins, my sins and all sins.

He showed grace to those who had honest questions, love for the sinners and those marginalized in Jewish society and humility as he went to the cross silently.

Today we are going to be looking at the action of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.

We are going to see the example Jesus set before us as a servant.

So our first point this morning is Jesus modeled being a servant.

JESUS MODELED BEING A SERVANT

But before we dive to far into that point lets talk about what Jesus did prior to the section we are going to be looking at in John 13.

Jesus washing the feet.

John 13:1–5 ESV

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. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, 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 and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

This is it the end of Jesus’ life and ministry is in this room.

It is durning the passover meal which they all would have celebrated together last year, that Jesus was going to challenge them and change somethings.

And he begins this change with taking the place of a lowly servant.

You may be aware that during Jesus day that upon entering a home, one would clean off their feet.

And if one was wealthy they may have a servant do this, or many times it was the task given to the low man on the totem pole.

So much so that many Jews would not allow other Jews to wash their feet, that was the task for a gentile slave.

But it was this night where Jesus stood up and took off his outer garment and took on a towel and wrapped it around his waist taking on the position of lowly servant.

And he began to wash his disciples feet.

God in the flesh took on a position that was down right degrading.

This culture is built on shame and honor and status mattered a great deal but here is Jesus, their Rabbi, Their master on his hands and knees washing and then drying the feet of his disciples with the same towel that is now around his waist.

The towel would have been fifthly and wet, yet Jesus wore it.

He wiped off their dirt, filth and grim and took it on himself.

I imagine that room was very quite, as Jesus was washing the physical dirt off of their feet and in only a few hours he would be doing a different washing.

A washing away of sin with his blood on the cross again becoming a lowly servant.

The imagery of the master becoming the servant cannot be more clear.

On the last night he would be with his friends, his followers, Jesus could have taught them, told them or showed them anything but in this moment he chose to get up take off his outer garment and put on a towel and washed the feet of his followers.

It is no mistake that Jesus was taking his final moments with his disciples very seriously.

And in this moment he was showing action but he would then explain why he did what he did.

This is where I really want to bring our attention to, That Jesus modeled being a servant.

Because while it was the action that was important, the explanation is even better.

Let’s pick up in verse 12.

John 13:12–20 ESV

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? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. 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. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. 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.’ I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

The tough question is, Why did Jesus do this?

There are a couple of reasons.

The first one is that it was symbolic of forgiving sin.

If you know the story, then you know that Peter was one that argued with Jesus, saying, nope you are not going to wash my feet.

John 13:8 ESV

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.”

Peter turns pretty quickly because he is all for Jesus.

He wants all of himself bathed because he wants to show that he is all in!

But Jesus say to him No- just your feet dude.

He is simply saying no— you are clean but your feet are not.

Many theologians run with this and for good reason that Jesus tells them that they are already clean, as they have accepted his word and they are followers of Him, making them Christians.

BUT yet just like when we sin, so did they and they needed to be forgiven.

Hence the cleansing.

It was symbolic as Jesus was getting ready to go to the cross to wash not just their feet but their sin completely away.

While we could spend a lot of time here, we are going to move into the second reason why Jesus washed his disciples feet.

He was setting an example of service

Verse 14

John 13:14–15 ESV

If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.

He is setting up an example for his disciples to follow.

He doesn’t literally want them to wash people’s feet, I mean if they really need to sure, but what he truly wanted for his disciples is to serve others.

To serve others—

This is nothing new to the disciples.

They heard Jesus speak often about serving others.

They watched him serve the poor, the hurting, the Gentiles, the Jews, those who were cast out— virtually everyone.

And for the disciples to hear this, I think would have been a little deflating.

Because they believed that they were going to be in a higher position since there were with Jesus.

As we know from Luke’s account of this night, that there was an argument over which disciple would be considered the greatest.

Luke 22:24 ESV

A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest.

Maybe this happened before Jesus washed their feet, it is hard to tell, but it does seem like it would fit.

You can almost imagine them arguing over who is the greatest and then Jesus gets up and takes the place of a lowly servant and washes their feet.

And if that was not enough to change the mind of the disciples He would go on in verse 16 to say something that would have rocked them a bit more.

John 13:16–17 ESV

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. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

Let us think on this for a moment.

A servant is not greater then his master.

A messenger is not greater than the one who sent him.

Jesus is saying that, you call me master, you call me teacher, which they did often— look at what I just did for you.

And if I, Jesus the Son of God, humbled myself and washed your feet, then there is no excuse as to why you can’t serve others.

No one in that room was greater than Jesus— No one today is greater than Jesus.

No preacher, no teacher, no worship leader, or anyone else you can think of— No one is great then Jesus— which makes us all His servants and His messengers.

If you know this today then blessed are you.

If maybe if have forgotten then then let us repent, and seek the lowly position of servant to others.

To serve and to minister to people.

That is what Jesus was going after here.

AND Lastly Jesus washed the feet of this disciples Because he wanted them to love people well.

I mean often Jesus spoke on loving others.

It is the second greatest commandment.

Matthew 22:37–39 ESV

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. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

and even at the end of this meal Jesus would tell his disciples this again.

John 13:34–35 ESV

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Church hear me please, we have a lot of knowledge about Jesus but what we fail to do is to show the love Jesus to those around us.

We know we are suppose to be a servant but somewhere along the line we have become puffed, elevated, and became loveless.

We want to get knowledge about Jesus but we don’t want to be a light for Jesus and in doing so we have become idle in our faith.

We have become stuck in idle and it has become our idol.

Jesus was giving them a command to love others.

Love God and love people.

We get the first part down— we get welcomed into God’s family and it is amazing!!!

We love God!

We sing praises to Him, we spend time with Him, we find joy in him.

We become part of the team.

We get that fresh jersey!

There are only a few things that top the emotion of putting on your jersey for the first game.

There is something magical about a jersey.

You see while I may have a different number than my teammate, we are all unified by what is across our chest.

In my case it was ROCKRIDGE!

Or Hannibal La-Grange

And when you saw that and everyone was under one name it was pretty cool.

One goal, one mission, one team.

And on His team we love God and we love people

And when you say yes to Jesus, you get a jersey.

It does not matter about your age, your race, your gender or who you voted for, if you wear a mask or not, none of that matters, all that matter is that you are all in for Christ.

If you acknowledge him and confess your sins then God will be faithful to forgive you because of the blood of Christ.

You are saved!

We get a jersey, we made the team, and we look good.

But this is where some of those followers stop.

And God is saying hey, its time to get out onto the field, I need you to serve your neighbor, I need you to serve the church, I need you to serve in this ministry, and we respond like I did to my coach--

In silence and just flat out refusal—We disobey— we ignore those nudges— one may wonder if you are just a spectator rather than a servant.

Because look you can practice with the team, you can wear the same jersey and you can go through the motions but when you don’t go out unto the field because of fear, doubts, hurts and other excuses are you really on the team or are you just a spectator?

I will never forget that night, I chose not to go into the game.

Because when we got to the lock room after the game— my coach just annihilated me in front of the whole team.

He asked me where I was at? Why I didn’t go into the game? Then he told me flat out— tonight Zach you let your team down.

And he was 100% correct

I let my team down— I was a fake— and a phony.

I pretended to play defense at practice it is easy to hide when you are a spectator.

While we don’t let God down because we are never hold him up, we don’t have that kind of power, we do disobey, we fail to use the gifts and talents that He has given us, to advance the Gospel.

What we need is an all in, I’m sold out for the gospel faith!

It leaves behind the crowd and it moves us to serve and love for others.

And I know that no one wants to talk about loving and serving others.

It is a touchy subject but man, this world is hurting and if you are a follower of Christ then you have the BEST NEWS IN THE WORLD.

THE BEST NEWS FOR A HURTING WORLD IN THE GOSPEL OF JESUS.

That he made himself low so that he could save the world.

You might be thinking, Zach this is so elementary, but if it is so elementary then why is it so hard for us to live out?

Can we be honest and ask ourselves who was the last person I led to Jesus?

Jesus is our great example of what it means to serve others.

but There is another person I want to talk about who was a spectator and who is mentioned in his passage.

I want us to look at how Judas modeled being a spectator.

JUDAS MODELED BEING A SPECTATOR

John 13:18 ESV

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.’

I know this may sound a bit extreme but let me break this down for you and before we start asking the questions am I Judas, let us just take a deep breath.

First off Judas was part of the disciples.

We have to acknowledge that.

He answered the call from Jesus.

He was chosen by Jesus to be part of the 12 disciples.

He was there when Jesus walked on water, when Jesus healed many, when Jesus feed the 5000, and Judas was there this night, As Jesus washed his feet.

Judas was present through it all but Judas was just a spectator.

He allowed greed and comfort to lure them away from the Son of God.

While Judas is known as the betrayer, a title that he rightfully deserves, He is also was a disciples that even though his intentions were known by Jesus, Jesus still got down and washed his feet.

That is being a servant, that is showing grace and forgiveness and mercy.— that his world will never understand but so desperately needs to see.

I don’t know about you but a lot of time in my life I look more like Judas then I do Jesus.

I have seen all the great and wonderful things that the savior has done in my life and still remain a spectator, I still mess up, I still fall, I still sin, I can be selfish, and hurtful, I can get angry and jealous and I don’t think that God can possibly use me but it is in these moments that I remember that Jesus wash the feet of Judas, and because i want to follow after him with my whole life, I know that he can still use me, and he wants to use you.

Yes even through all the failures and complacency God still wants to use you for His kingdom.

Judas may have been a spectator and sometimes we may look more like Judas then we do like Jesus, but I want to challenge you with the idea that you were made for more.

The Christian faith is more.

Jesus calls us to more.

Like we can’t even be a spectator of life, there are very few things that we can just spectate and have it work for us.

This thought hit me the other night at about 1:30am my sweet like 8month was screaming his head off.

Here is a picture of his sweetness.

And here is a picture of him crying— this is what he mostly looked like at 1:30

As Theo is screaming in my arms and I realize that I could have stayed in bed and part of me wanted to but that is not what he need nor my wife needs.

And it got me thinking:

You can’t be a spectator as a father

You can’t be a spectator as a husband

A brother

A Sister

A wife

An employee

A pastor

Yet we treat the church as it is here to serve me rather than me serving the church.

Folks the church is not a game to come and spectate but it is a place that is bigger than you.

Its purpose is going to cause you to get dirty, to be involved with the messiness of people lives, to pray for those around, to open a door, to lead others to Christ, to pick up trash—

and if we don’t feel like or we feel to busy, we are no better then Judas who sees the miracles, sees the signs, hears the teaching, and saw the messiah on his hands and knees washing the feet of the disciples and he turned away and betrayed him for some money—

the church is a place to be involved.

Follow Jesus is involved.

Isn’t the chance to lead others to Jesus, being a friend that someone can count on, sharing truth but also showing love or to teach someone about Jesus worth it?

Yep the church can get messy, as we are all sinners serving sinners.

But that is what makes it so unique.

It is a place of love and truth.

Warren Wiersbe stated; “Truth without love is brutality and love without truth is hypocrisy.

The church is meant to do both, no brutality and hypocrisy— but truth and love.

Ask another question to ourselves- Have we been loving lately?

Many of us get this and we serve, and we are sold out for the Gospel and I am so thankful for you and your serve here at Bethel.

Keep going!

And some of you this may be your first time here, and we are not asking you to be involved, at least not yet, but we will.

But those who have been here for years and you aren’t serving somewhere— maybe it’s time to get in the game.

Those that are maybe just making their way back from the pandemic welcome back and it is time to move forward.

May last thought as we begin to prepare for communion:

If we have said yes to Jesus then aren't we suppose to live a life that is a reflection of Christ.

And who was Jesus— on the night he was betrayed he was washing the feet of disciples— church we look to Jesus as our example and Jesus was not a spectator and if he wasn’t then I know that is not what we are called to either.

Can we move from being a spectator to being a player for the Gospel today?

AND AS WE NOW SHIFT INTO A TIME OF COMMUNION- I WANT TO INVITE KEVIN AND TEAM BACK UP

We are going to have a little time to reflect now.

Maybe this is an area that we need to address with God.

As we move into communion if anyone has not gotten the elements go ahead and grab them now.

So maybe right now as we head into communion we need to talk some things out.

Maybe we need to confess our compliancy to God.

*****On the night that Jesus was betrayed, the same night that he washed the feet of his disciples.

Jesus and his disciples were celebrating passover.

And the passover meal is such a special meal for the Jewish people.

And tonight the meal would be forever changed.

As Jesus took the bread he gave thanks and broke it.

He then gave it to his disciples and said this is my body which is given to you do this in remembrance of me.

And then he took the cup at the passover meal he took the third cup the cup of redemption as He would fulfill the promise of this cup to redeem the world.

He took the wine and gave thanks and said this is my blood which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins, do this in remembrance of me.

Lets Pray

Father we love you.

Thank you for sending Jesus to be our great example and our great savior.

Lord I pray that we as a chruch can rally around this community and be lights to those around us.

That we can love people well and that we can serve other humbly.

Let us continue to live out our faith boldly and to encourage others to do the same.

Amen

Ministry Fair is going on today!

Find out what is happening here at Bethel and how you can use your gift and talents to serve the Kingdom!

STUDENTS!!

ROCK THE LOCK IS TONIGHT STARTING AT 5!

High School and Junior High!

We are going to have snowcones, a dunk tank, inflatables, 9 square, volleyball you name it we got!

See you tonight!

Church as you leave from here and go through-out your week know that you are loved.