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John 13:1-20
The Importance of This Passage
What if we were commanded to wash each other’s feet?
What would you think if I started my sermon by pulling out a basin of water and a towel and began to wash your feet?
How shocked would you be?
Though your shock would be for different reasons, you begin to see what the apostles felt during the Passover when Jesus washed their feet.
This is a powerful passage.
Yet, it is often overlooked.
When it is discussed, we typically spend more time trying to explain what it does not mean instead of learning what it does mean.
It does not mean we have to actually wash each other's feet.
This was a cultural tradition based on their societal needs and would have absolutely no meaning to us.
Additionally, even within that tradition, it was never used as a means to worship God.
This passage issues the greatest challenges of all the word of God.
When we learn what this passage really does mean, we may find ourselves wishing that all it taught was that we need to have a foot washing service every once and a while.
This passage breaks through the shallowness of so much modern Christianity.
It strips away the fineries and luxuries with which we often want to decorate our Christianity and says, "Here is what being Christlike is all about."
John 13 says, "You may have been baptized, you may go to church regularly, you may put lots of money in the collection plate, but until you have done this, don't deceive yourself.
You are lost."
That is kind of frightening isn't it?
This passage contains the essence of what it means to be Christian.
The rest is icing on the cake.
In this lesson we will learn the six challenges of John 13:1-20.
Learn to Serve Others.
Jesus came to serve.
Matt.
20:28
In Matthew 20:28, Jesus claimed the "Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve."
Of course, the ultimate example of His service is that He gave "His life a ransom for many."
Yet, I think at times we have become so used to speaking of the crucifixion that the service represented by it has become blase and unimpressive.
Or perhaps, it is so grand that we stand in awe of it and cannot make application to our own lives.
Jesus' example in John 13 is a little more down to earth.
And, because we speak very little of it, quite impressive.
Jesus turned the social order upside down.
The Master performed the task of the slave for His own disciples.
Luke 22:27
Though He knew God had given Him all things (John 13:3), He did not simply command the disciples to wash one another's feet.
He served them Himself, leading by example.
According to Luke 22:27, Jesus, who should have been reclining at the table, being served by His disciples, sat among His own disciples as their servant.
Luke 22:27 “For who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves?
Is it not he who sits at the table?
Yet I am among you as the One who serves.”
Imagine what was going through the disciples' minds as Jesus sat down and began teaching.
"You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am.
If I then, the Lord and Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash ... "
What did they expect to come next?
Perhaps, "Do unto me as I have done unto you."
"You also ought to wash My feet."
But Jesus did not say that.
He did not use this illustration to teach the apostles to serve Him.
John 13:14
He said, "If I then, the Lord and Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:14).
Can you see it now?
The uproar in the mind's of the disciples.
Imagine Matthew thinking, "Me, wash their feet?
I work for the government.
Most of these guys are just fisherman.
I don't have to put up with this humiliation."
How about Simon the Zealot?
“We’re wasting time washing feet, we need to be preparing to overthrow the Romans!”
Look at those around you.
Jesus is challenging you to serve them.
Could you gird yourself with the towel and wash their feet?
I know, I know, this passage does not mean we must literally wash someone else's feet.
But perhaps the mere fact that we bristle at the thought of washing feet demonstrates we have yet to rise up to this challenge.
If washing feet is too archaic, perhaps you could take some time this week to go to their house and clean their toilets.
What was that?
"How dare you expect me to get on my hands and knees and scrub anyone's toilet!"
If Jesus, the Lord and Teacher, performed the lowest of all acts of service for His servants, then we also ought to serve one another.
Are you challenged yet?
Learn to Humble Yourself in the Sight of Your Brethren.
Two kinds of “navel-gazing”
How easy it is to look at ourselves through rose-colored glasses.
Or perhaps how easy it is just to look at ourselves.
There are two kinds of navel gazing.
The kind wherein we constantly look at ourselves as something special.
(The subject of the Carly Simon song, "You're so vain" fits here.)
The other is the one who would never think he is vain and arrogant, because his thoughts are so negative about himself.
The problem is, most of his thoughts are about himself.
Both people are caught up in forms of arrogance.
Because both, whether they admit it or not, think the world revolves around and is focused on them.
We are not to live this way.
We are to humble ourselves.
James 4:10; 1 Pet.
5:5; Phil.
2:5-8
If Jesus were simply saying what James said in James 4:10, "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord," there would be no challenge.
After all, how can we help but be humble in the sight of the almighty God.
But He didn't say that.
The challenge of John 13 is to humble yourself in the sight of your brethren, your equals.
As 1 Peter 5:5 says, "Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another."
Jesus is our example, who, though equal with the Father, did not struggle to hang on and demand to be treated as equal but rather came to this earth as a servant.
He was a servant not only to His equal but to many who were lesser than He and humbled Himself even to the point of death (Philippians 2:5-8).
Unrestrained SELF is the greatest threat to our humility.
Phil.
2:3-4; Gal.
3:28
In our own minds we are the important ones.
Our strengths are the greatest.
Our accomplishments the biggest.
Our minds the wisest.
Our position the most important.
Our problems the hardest.
Our concerns the most worrisome.
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