Serving with a Purpose

Essentials of Faith

Part 6

Serving with a Purpose

John 13:1-15

Amen, Amen.

God is so good to us! He provides the way, His promises are true, and His love will never fail us, and because of that, eternity is secure for those who are Born-again believers. Amen?

I want to invite you to pray with me this morning.

We are in the sixth week of our sermon series Essentials of Faith. We have been adding essential items to our faith to use in our everyday live as we live this life for God and His Church.

We began this year with prayer and fasting; we know that we are called to fast and pray, and they are to be part of our lifestyle as believers. We then added another essential which is to live in harmony with God and one another. We also added the essential of love. Love is the earmark of a true believer.

Then last week, we added wisdom to our spiritual toolbox. This wisdom comes from the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, our Lord. The Bible taught us 7 steps to Spiritual maturity.

We are to diligently add to our "faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love." 2 Peter 1:5-7). These are the steps to growing spiritually, and when we are growing spiritually, we are growing in all areas in our lives. Because God cares about our everything in our lives.

Well, today are adding to our spiritual toolbox serving, service, servant hood.

Jesus had a heart to make a difference in humanity. He is the one who came to seek and save the lost, the Bible tells us. He is the one that served us first and is the example to follow.

Many people believe that serving others is beneath them or that they have done their part in the past and have an attitude that someone else should help.

And truth be told, this is an earthy attitude, not Godly character. Now serving can come in many forms. Sometimes it requires a particular skill, but others need a heart willing to make a difference.

Think about that for a moment. Do you have a heart that wants to make a difference in the life of the Church and others?

It is an essential question for us to wrestle with today.

If you have your Bible, and I hope that you do, I invite you to open God's Word to the book of John. The Gospel of John chapter 13. If you are unfamiliar with where John is, it is the fourth book of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. John chapter 13.

One of the lessons that Jesus wanted His disciples and us to learn is how to serve others.

By definition, a servant is a person who does the work for another. Jesus wanted the disciples to know that being a servant is more important than gaining wealth, power, or position. A servant does not receive a lot of praise or credit; they work solely for the love of others. And we see this example by Christ Jesus Himself in John 13.

Let me set the stage for you:

Jesus' death is coming quickly, His time is now short, the arrest, the beating, the trial, and the death on the cross is coming, but before this all takes place, Jesus gathered with His disciples in the upper room for one last meal together.

This is described in the Bible as the Last Supper. It is the last time Jesus would eat supper with the disciples before His death.

It is essential to know that it was customary in biblical days for a host of the home to provide a servant at the door of any dinner party to wash the guests' feet. Remember, in those days, people walked with sandals down dirty filthy roads, and when they entered a home, they reclined at low tables—a foot to eighteen inches above the ground while eating. That meant their feet could be near the next person. So, it was essential and the custom for a servant to wash a person's feet as they entered your home. This is where we find ourselves today at the Last Supper.

Well, if you are there in John 13, read with me from verse 1. This is the Word of God, and it begins like this:

"Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

2 And supper being ended, the devil having 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 to God, 4 rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. 5 After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.

6 Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, "Lord, are You washing my feet?" 7 Jesus answered and said to him, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this."

8 Peter said to Him, "You shall never 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, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!"

10 Jesus said to him, "He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you." 11 For He knew who would betray Him; therefore He said, "You are not all clean."

12 So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, 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 should do as I have done to you."

I know that I might say this a lot, and I do so because I am always blown away y this thought. Jesus has never asked us to do anything that He has not done Himself? Carrying the cross, dying, prayer, fasting, living a holy life. Well, here He is again teaching us through His example of what it means to be a dedicated servant of God.

This brings us to the Take Home Truth.

The Take-Home Truth is:

WE SERVE GOD WHEN WE SERVE OTHERS.

Listen, folks, Jesus came to serve for the glory of the Father.

Here is the bottom line about serving God and others, we have to let go of who we are to be who what God wants us to be.

To serve the way He wants us to serve Him by serving others.

Look at Peters's attitude about Jesus washing his feet is exactly what I mean- Notice Peters attitude in verse 8, "You will never wash my feet.”

Peter had to stop being Peter with all his attitude and outspoken ways for Jesus to serve Him.

I am not shy about giving my testimony. In that testimony, I always provide the truth that I had already said the prayer, walked down the aisle in a Baptist church, stood before the congregation, joined the church, and got baptized. But, I never let go of who I was.

The Bible says in 2nd Cor 5:17 that if we are in Christ, if we belong to Christ, if we have accepted Christ by faith – that the new has come, we are made fresh, and the old things that have passed away are gone.

In my life, and maybe this is where you are today, but in my life, where I was, I did what man said I needed to do to be seen as a believer, I said the prayer, I walked the aisle, I joined the church, but I wasn't made new. I did not want to give up who I was. I did not want to lose myself.

Why am I telling you this?

You see, in the deepest part of our hearts and souls lies our desires, motives, and intentions, and that's what we see with the disciples laying there with their filthy feet—it is what drives us to be who we are. They motivate us to do the things that we do, whether good or bad. And if we are to change our desires, motives, and intentions from our perspectives or the worlds' perspectives, we must let go of ourselves and live for Christ Jesus. I mean living for Christ. We need to be made new. So that we can serve like Jesus.

When Peter spoke out saying to Jesus, you won't wash my feet, Jesus' reply was simple in v8 He said "If I do not wash you, you have no part with me."

Do you see that? Jesus spoke to Peter in a way that Peter wanted to be part of Jesus. This allowed Jesus to teach them and to serve them.

Notice with me the actions of Jesus; look at verse 1. Our scripture tells us that He knew that He was God – He knew that He was returning to the Father. Jesus did not just teach about being a servant; He lived it. Verse 4 He stripped Himself of the deity of God so that He could serve mankind.

Jesus said in Mark 10:25 that "the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve."

Jesus had spent 3 ½ years or so with the disciples teaching them, and on this evening, he was about not only to tell them how but to show them that being a servant was not about being who they were in the world, but it was about who they are in Christ Jesus.

And that is the same lesson for us today that our life, status, and everything about us doesn't matter if we are not renewed in Christ Jesus.

Here is the thing, at the crux of the story is the point that the disciples wouldn't serve one another. Jesus knew that His time was short, and for the church to begin and to grow they needed to learn what it meant to be a servant. So Jesus took on the job of the lowest servant so that He could serve the disciples by washing their feet.

He took off his outer garment, put on a servant's clothing, and washed their feet.

Serving like Jesus requires us to take off who we are, our pride, our position, our selfishness and take on a servant's role.

The towel is a sign of a servant. Even in today's world, a server always is seen with a towel around them. The water is symbolic of cleanliness and refreshing, making us physically clean, poured, and readied for perhaps the most undesirable parts of the body.

So how do we lose ourselves to serve God by serving others?

How do we make our lives about Kingdom Building and Kingdom serving?

Here is the fast answer- Serving God and the Kingdom happens when we let go of ourselves and serve others.

Folks, can I tell you today that God has shaped us to serve.

It just so happens that Jesus is our prime example of being a servant.

Today, I want to speak to you about the two essential truths that Jesus teaches us about being a servant.

First, to serve God through others;

WE MUST SERVE WITH THE RIGHT MOTIVATION.

Look at the latter part of verse 1 with me "Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end."

Jesus was driven by love. The love that He has for all creation. Not just the disciples, but for mankind.

That's why He came as a servant in the likeness of man, born of a woman so that He would die at the hands of man to save the world.

I heard this last Sunday at our friend's pastor installation service.

The speaker said this:

Jesus incarnated Himself; he came to earth as a man. Why would He want to do that? We cannot truly understand why He wanted to come as a man.

But I do know that we cannot incarnate ourselves to Him. But He was fully God and Man with all the characteristics. He came to do what man could not do. He went on to say this; the pastor must incarnate himself for the church and that the church must incarnate itself to the community to serve the community, and ultimately, serve God.

It's all about setting aside who we are and becoming incarnated to serve.

Throughout this last supper, Jesus is speaking and teaching the disciples and us about love and serving. Let me remind you that the disciples were not at times easy to love.

They were arguing and fighting about which of them was the greatest (Luke 22:24). Jesus knew that

• One of them was going to betray Him.

• One of them was going to deny Him.

• Ten of them were going to desert Him.

Yet Jesus still served them. Why?

Because of His love for them, He had the right motivation. He understood that they were not perfect. After all, none of them stood up and washed the other's feet.

Sometimes we have the wrong motivation as we serve, sometimes we serve out of guilt, or we think that we can earn credit for lousy behavior or God's favor, or maybe we do it to be praised by others.

To be effective, you have to have the right motivation. You see, Love is a universal language. The Bible says that it can endure all things. The Bible also tells us that God is love. When it comes down to it, our love for others begins when we receive love from God.

When the world starts to realize that God loves us and that we, in turn, are to love Him back- God then turns to us and tells us with the same kind of love that He has for you and me that we reciprocate that love, in others words return it to others.

Jesus is quoted in verse 34 look down to verse 34 "I give you a new command; love one another, just as I have loved you (to the very end as a servant) you must love one another."

The Bible goes on to say in 1 John 4:10-11, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."

Notice what I am saying when you make the conscious shift from you and become other people minded, you will serve them with the right motivation.

This brings us to the second truth of serving;

WE MUST SERVE WITH THE RIGHT ATTITUDE.

I think we all know that attitude is everything!

Did you know that humility is all about losing yourself to serve others?

Looking at verses 4 and 5 with me, it says that Jesus "rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel, and girded Himself. 5 After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded".

Jesus could have commanded them to wash each other's feet, but how far would that have gotten?

It would be like a parent making their child apologize, and it would not have been done with the right attitude.

We are selfish creatures. From the moment of birth, we want our needs, wants, and desires to be meet.Today, people are all about taking care of themselves- looking out for numero uno, which was true even with Jesus' disciples.

This Last Supper that Jesus is with His 12 Disciples begins with everyone's feet un-washed.

Luke chapter 22 is a parallel passage that shows how selfish the disciples were that night: V 24-26

They began to argue who was the greatest among them- they were fighting about who was the best. Probably with still a little steam under the collar, no one was going to get down to the ground and wash feet. Sure, the bowl was there, the water was there, the towel was there, and everything was ready.

But no one had the right attitude to serve each other.

The Disciples knew that no one had washed their feet but, each of the 12 waited for someone else to take action.

Can I ask you a question? Have you done that? Knowing something had to be done, but you were unwilling to take action because you were waiting on someone else to do it? Or ,maybe you thought it wasn’t your job.

Listen, I believe they thought it would be beneath them to clean the other's feet.

Would you do me a favor? When you say that or feel that, would you say to God these words? "God, somebody should do something about that."

And then listen to His response.

Because what I found is this; every time I say, God, someone has to do something about that, He often puts those words in my head- I did I created you. From picking up garbage, holding a sign, cleaning toilets, making a difference at the Ball Park Village to everything else.

You know also I have found? We will often smell the feet than be one to clean them. We would rather smell and complain about the garbage than pick it up and take care of it ourselves. We would rather see something that needs to be done and say, well, someone should do something about that, than doing it ourselves.

I believe that people don’t want to serve in either the church or others because they are to selfish.

Someone had to step down into the role of being the servant. So, Jesus, The Son of God, The long awaited for Messiah, The Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, the one in which every knee will bow and tongue confess, got up and did it. They wouldn't serve each other, so God in the flesh served them.

Philippians 2:6 says that Jesus "existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for his own advantage. Instead, He emptied Himself by assuming that form of a slave."

Do you see what just happened? The thought of what Jesus did is so incomprehensible, inconceivable, incredible, unbelievable, unimaginable, unlikely, unthinkable, unassuming.

He did not just get up and begin to wash the disciple's feet; He didn't just dress for the part.

He lived the part.

His whole life on this earth was the part a servant.

He got up, laid aside His outer garments, set aside who He was as God, and then took a towel tied it around His waist. The Towel was the sign of a servant- a servant had no position, title, or honor, yet God, The King of Kings, the Alpha and Omega, Christ Jesus Himself became the lowest, so He could do the duties of the servant so the disciples could become clean.

Do you see that with me?

After Jesus finished washing all of the disciples' feet, verse 12, So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you?”

Later in the same evening, He then (watch this) took a piece of bread and broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you." Next, He took a cup and said, "This is my blood. I pour it out for you."

His teaching of sacrificial serving would extend beyond just cleaning their feet, and the ultimate act of service was coming: the giving of His life as Jesus poured water into a basin to wash the disciples' dirty feet. He poured out His blood on the cross to wash our impure hearts.

The Bible says in Matthew 20:28: "the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

What Jesus is teaching us is you can't just look the part; you have to live the role of a servant. Humility is so hard for us- yet it is one of the most significant rewards.

The Bible says in Philippians 2:3-4, "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own interests, but also for the interest of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus."

You know, folks, I am not beyond cleaning toilets -picking up garbage on the side of the road, I am not beyond doing something that others wouldn't do- I want to serve with the right attitude.

To be a servant of God for others, to serve like Jesus, we must have the right motivation and the right attitude.

The third truth of serving is;

TO SERVE WITH THE RIGHT WISDOM.

Notice what Jesus said to Peter in Verse 7

"What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this." God's wisdom is given to us freely.

We are called repeatedly in the New Testament to grow in wisdom. The book of Proverbs says that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." James tells us that if we lack wisdom, we should pray for it, and it will be given to us.

Jesus said in verse 17, look there with me that "If you know these things (if you are wise about serving), you are blessed if you do them."

And in Mark 10:43, Jesus said, "whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.”

Many people don't understand that true greatness doesn't come from gaining wealth, power, or even position. True greatness comes from understanding God's Word and serving Him through serving others.

Jesus goes on to tell us, "a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him."

I love how the Apostle Paul put it. Remember what he said to the Galatian church 5:13, "for you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love."

We must live out our calling by serving others.

Serving others is love in action.

Did you know that there are many places to serve right here in your church?

Because as born-again believers, it's not about us. We must have the right motivation, attitude, and wisdom to serve God through others.

How can you begin to serve?

Invitation.