Love One Another

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Passage Breakdowns, SOAPS Format & Instructions (Weeks 1-12)
Passage Breakdowns, SOAPS Format & Instructions (Weeks 13-26)

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8:40 Service | 10:00 Service | 11:20 Service | Sermon Audio

Well, good morning chapel family. I just want to pause and and thank you all uh for your prayers over the last week. As as many of you know, I had the opportunity to go down and serve in Cuba um with some of our chapel missionaries uh this over the last few days and spent some time there laying some groundwork and working alongside them as we get ready to send future chapel teams down there, Lord willing. And uh it was just a great week. Uh I just wanted to let you know um the Cuban people are warm. The Cuban people are welcoming. They're just they're just wonderful people. Um I had an opportunity to go into many of their homes and pray with them. And what struck me most was their prayer requests are are are the same prayer requests that we have. They're praying that God would help them with their health, that God would look over their families, that God would provide for them, and that God would increase their faith. And it was so striking to me because we all have those same requests each and every Sunday here. just the road to get us to those requests looks a little bit different for them than it does for us.

But I'm really encouraged about what God is doing there and I can't wait to see how God uses our chapel family uh to encourage our Cuban brothers and sisters in Christ in the future. So, thank you so much uh for your prayers.

We are continuing our walk through the Gospel of John. And today we're coming to a really well-known passage of scripture. And some of you may have actually you've heard this before, but you may have been a part of a church or or youth group growing up that actually did what you see what we're going to see happening in scripture this morning. So, let me get you kind of thinking about this a little bit. In a few months from now, numerically, I will be turning 50 years old. Mentally, I'm probably mid- teens. Um, and physically sometimes I feel like I've actually fought in the Civil War. Um, because of that, very often I'll wake up in the morning and have soreness somewhere. Um, almost every week it seems like something else is new, whether that's through an activity I do or maybe just sleeping bad on my pillow. Um, the point is it doesn't take much. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

Yeah. So, here's the deal. If I hurt my shoulder or I hurt my back or my elbow or my knee or my hand or my neck, my family is really really first happy to make fun of me a little bit, but then they're really quick to help me stretch or push on the area that hurts and help me get moving in the right direction. So, they're great. But let's say something happens to my foot. Everything changes. The people that would run and help me are the ones that now run away, right? I once hurt my foot really bad and and sought compassion and care and all I got was like the kind of like the stay away kind of barfy face like don't come here with that foot. See, what is it about feet?

Think about your feet right now. What if we were somehow able to zoom in on your feet and show pictures of them up on the big screen? Think about the feet in your life. What is it about feet? People are weird when it comes to feet?

I wanted to get some more perspective on this. So, I asked some kids from school number four in Patterson what they thought about washing someone's feet. A sixth grade girl said this. She said, "It depends if they have gloves on. If they don't have gloves on, it's weird and I don't want their germs." So, she was thinking about getting germs from the hand to the foot, not foot to the hand. We tried another sixth grade girl. She said this. It depends on the person. I wash my sisters and mom's feet, but not my dad's. Dad's, I don't know what it is. I think we're we're in trouble here. So, I So, I turned uh to to some boys and maybe we'll get some more compassion there. And didn't happen. Um a fifth grade boy said, "If their feet are dirty, get away from me. Even if they're clean, get away from me." And then we we went to a sixth grade boy, maybe getting a little bit more maturity, and he just said, "Get out of my face. That's nasty. It doesn't matter if their feet are clean. That's just weird." But but here's what I want to do this morning, and I want to ask you, and I want to challenge you with as we hear this familiar account of Jesus actually going and washing his disciples feet, I want us to be open to the fact that what Jesus is asking us to do is is really hard. It's really hard both to give and it's actually really hard to both give and receive. See, it goes against how we're wired. It goes against the culture. And yet, when we see it happening, it touches something deep inside us. It moves us when we see it being done. And spoiler alert, it's not just about feet.

The scripture we're reading this morning is found in John 13:1-17. It's going to be up on the screen. And so I invite you to read along with me. It says this. It was just before the Passover festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon, a scariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God. So he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin, and began to wash his disciples feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I'm doing, but later you will understand." "No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me." Then, Lord, Simon Peter replied, "Not just my feet, but my hands and my head as well." Jesus answered, "Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet. Their bo their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you." For he knew who was going to betray him. And that was why he had said, "Not everyone was clean." When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. Do you understand what I have done for you? He asked them. You call me teacher and Lord, and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you should also wash one another's feet. I set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly, I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. This is God's word.

I want to break this this this passage down into three parts and it's going to be a little bit out of order from what we just read. So, first I want to talk about Jesus's example of serving. Then I want to talk about the responsibilities that we have when it comes to serving. And then finally, I want to talk about the source of serving. So Jesus's example, our responsibilities when it comes to serving and then the source of serving. So, first let's talk about Jesus's example of serving. Verses 4 through9 are going to be on the screen.

So, here's what's happening. The disciples are enjoying a Passover meal with Jesus. There's a great painting of this from uh Da Vinci. It's called the Last Supper. It's a great picture. Um we know that it's really famous and just kind of gives us an image of what to look at. Um it probably didn't look like that exactly, but here's what we do know about how it looked. You see, when they were at the table, no one would be sitting at that table. They would be reclining on their left arms and their feet would be out to the side and their feet would be behind them a little bit. You see, your left hand that you would be reclining on that was reserved for like non-sanitary functions. So, you'd be leaning on that and your right hand will be reaching up and getting the food. And so, based on this and then some more context later in the passage, it's really fascinating. you can pretty you can get a pretty good idea of where Jesus was sitting and where some of those disciples were actually sitting for this Passover meal.

So, they're leaning back and they're eating this meal together and all of a sudden the boss, the rabbi, the miracle worker, the healer, he stands up and he begins to adjust his clothes. And can you imagine what the disciples might be thinking at this moment? Right? They've seen him multiply things. They've seen him raise raise people up. He's seen they've seen him heal people. And they're thinking about this and they're like, "What is he going to do?" And he begins to adjust his clothes. And you can feel just the anticipation in the room begin to build. He's going to do something radical and he's going to show something amazing.

And what Jesus does next is not a miracle like you and I think of miracles in this big way, but I think it's one of the biggest miracles, one of the most powerful examples in scripture about what Jesus is and how he is. And this is what he does. Jesus fixes his clothes and he assumes the position of a servant. And he begins to use his garments to one by one go around the table and wash the disciples feet. A size 12, a size nine. a 14, one that's pretty clean, another foot that's got some issues. And then it looks like pretty much from what we can tell, he gets to Simon Peter last, right? He comes to finally comes to Simon Peter and Simon Peter has this visceral reaction and he says, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" And Jesus says, "You don't know what I'm doing, but now later you will." And Simon Peter says, "No, you shall never wash my feet." And when you look at the original language, when you look at the Greek in this, it's even stronger. Simon Peter is saying, "Never in all of eternity are you going to wash my feet." Jesus says, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me." You see, here's what's happening in this dialogue. Simon Peter is basically saying that in no way, shape, or form would I let my rabbi, my teacher, the person that I respect most in this world, the person that I love the most in this world, stoop down to such a humble position, a menial task, and to actually touch and wash my dirty feet that have picked up all the stuff around me, the non-sanitary things as I walk. He says, "There's no way that I would let a person in that position do that for me." But Jesus goes on and he does it. He gives this powerful example. And here's what he's trying to tell them. And here's what he's trying to tell us.

Jesus is saying, "It's not about the place at the table. It's not about my position. It's not about my title. It's not about whose job it is to do what, but this is all about the kind of nature of the savior that I am at all times and in every single situation." That's the kind of teacher that you and I are following. A teacher who could serve. A teacher who could be served but chooses to serve. A teacher who could hold on to his power but chooses to spread and give away his power. He opens his hands to others. You see, Jesus is showing us that he is the ultimate servant leader.

It's interesting to me when I think about different things and and miracles that Jesus did in scripture. And one of the ones that stands out to me is the centurion servant. A centurion came to Jesus and said, "My servant is sick." The servant was miles and miles away. And Jesus says the word and that servant is healed. I think he could have done the same thing here. Like the disciples walk in and their feet are automatically clean like a little like foot wash they go through. But instead of doing that, he chooses to reveal a little bit more about who he is and how he is and the nature of how he came to seek and to save and to serve each and every one of us. You see, that basin is simply a pointer to the cross. Even though he's God, it's in his nature to serve us. You see, we love examples of this. It's like that show Undercover Boss where where the the woman who's the CEO of the company is working and sweating right alongside the people and they have no idea who their true identity is. And then at the end it's this big reveal. Jesus is doing kind of the same thing here. He is showing them by what he is doing by washing their feet a little bit more about his true nature and his true servant's heart. You so even though he is God, it's in his nature to serve. Jesus is the ultimate servant leader.

So Jesus comes to his disciples and he approaches them with this opportunity to be washed. But did you see that they they had some responsibility in this, right? They had to be washed. They had to accept that washing. And then when they were washed, they were told to go and do the same.

Pastor Dave mentioned a couple weeks ago that we are called to be both sheep and shepherds. Here Jesus is calling us to be both washed and washers. Look at let's look at how we need to be washed. The verses 9 through13 it says Simon Peter saying okay not just my not just my feet but all of me. And Jesus goes on and he tells them those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet. See their whole body is clean and you are clean not every one of them. So he's telling him, kind of explaining what is what is going on. And Simon Peter reacts to this and says, "Okay, wash all of me." And then Jesus explains this idea of washing. He says, "Look, if you've had a full bath, you're clean." And big picture, you and I know what this means. You know, you and I know that if we place our faith in Christ, we are washed. We are fully clean. That is a one-time cleaning. That is a one-time cleaning before God because of what Christ has done for us. And when we place our faith in Christ, we are fully and finally clean. And then Jesus talks about how sometimes we have that full cleaning and sometimes we just need to go and wash our feet. And that means because we're human and we walk around in this dirty world, we pick up habits, we pick up things, it happens to all of us, that we need to be cleansed from daily as we walk to with God to help us keep us moving in the right direction. I like to think of it like this. Maybe you have kids or nephews and and it's summer. It's a nice summer day, not like today, but it's a nice summer day and in the evening they they get a bath and then they're done with that bath and they're all clean and they look outside and there's fireflies around and the kids want to go immediately. They want to go out and chase those fireflies. So, you let them do that and they do that for a while and then they come back inside. Do they need a full bath again? No, they just need their feet cleaned off. So Jesus is talking and he's explaining about the different types of washing that each and every one of us needed.

So I think about this and I want us to picture picture yourself at that table and you see Jesus coming to you. What's your reaction? What kind of washing do you need from Jesus?

Maybe maybe you need that full washing and maybe it's time for you to just kind of set down your pride or set down the idea of needing to have all your questions answered about faith and you just need to accept what Jesus has done for you and receive him by faith and you need that full one-time washing.

Maybe for you, you've been following Christ for a really long time, but along the way, like we all do, you've picked up some habits and picked up some things in your life that that got you a little bit dirty and sidetrack you in your walk with God. And you need that daily footwashing to keep your walk with Christ moving in the right direction.

You see, whether full or partial, if we're honest, it's really hard to be washed. You see, there's a there's a vulnerability that comes from being washed, right? I mean, you have to expose the dirty part of you to the person who is washing you. They need to have access to whatever it is you need to be washed. But the beautiful thing about Jesus is the washer brings the basin to us. We can expose our dirtiness. we can allow Jesus, the humble servant, to do what he is ready and willing to do.

I think about this and I know the questions that run through our minds when we hear about Jesus cleaning and washing people and making them whole again and we say, "Yeah, but God, you don't know the things that I you don't know the things that I have done. I'm too far gone. I'm pretty dirty." But but look at who Jesus washed. Just a briefly look. The first person the person we're talking about, he watched a denier, right? Peter who so vehemently opposed Jesus washing him but then said wash all of me shortly thereafter denied even knowing Jesus three times.

Jesus washes deniers. So maybe you've walked away from Christ and the church and you've been doing your own thing for a long time and you feel like you've denied Jesus in your life. Jesus offers to wash you. He washes deniers.

Another person that he washed, this one's tough, he washed a betrayer. He didn't skip over G Judas, right? He washed his feet even though the devil had already prompted him to sell Jesus out. Maybe even doing your own thing and and saying no to God and living your own life by your own set of rules for a really long time and saying, "This is my truth and I'm going to live out of my truth. I'm going to live on my terms." And Jesus is saying, "No, you I am ready and willing to wash you and make you clean." You see, the truth is is that all of those freshly cleaned disciples feet fled at Jesus's trial and crucifixion. No one's too dirty when it comes to Jesus washing them. We all need to be washed.

But there's more to it. Our first responsibility is to be washed. But there's more. Jesus calls us not only to be washed, but to be washers. Look at what he says. He says, 'Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. Jesus is is simply saying that if I, the Lord, your God, your teacher, and your savior, did this for you, you need to just follow my lead and follow my example and do this to others. Jesus is telling them, don't do unto other people as they have done to you, but do unto others as I have done for you. You see, those disciples were just like us. They argued about being first. They argued about importance. They jockeyed for position when they're around Jesus, they want to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. They wanted status.

And like a great coach models instruct and instructs his players. Jesus says to them, "As a follower of me, there is no task. There is no person that is beneath you. There's no one in your life that you should not serve." Jesus says, "If you're blessed if you do these, if you want status, don't chase celebrity. simply pick up a cloth.

Think about this. This is how the gospel spreads is through washing and serving other people. Think about the people in your life who brought you here today, who got you to the point of being in church today. Those people initially, they probably didn't preach to you. They probably didn't come to you with big lofty theological terms and teach you deep theology as you were kind of for the first time. They probably didn't bribe you to come to church. They didn't try to sell you on Christianity. They didn't bait and switch to get you here. My guess is those people served you in some way. Maybe it was a phone call or maybe they checked in on you. Maybe they brought you a meal or they visited you in the hospital. Maybe they were walking alongside you as you suffered a great loss in your life. Here's what happened. They saw the messiness in your life. Whether that was caused by you or caused by your situation, it happens to all of us. And they weren't turned away by it. They simply came and they humbly served you. Guys, that's modernday footwashing. Going to someone who's hurting, who's feeling the dirtiness of life, and helping them and walking alongside them in their dirtiest and messiest moments.

So, who do we have the opportunity to wash? I think there's a couple a couple people that you and I can wash. First, you may be in the in the stage of life where you are you are with your family and that's the stage of life that you're in. You have young kids and the stage of life where you are dictates who you're going to be able to serve. So, you are serving your family. We were at a a wedding once. You can wash your family. We were at a wedding once and I co-pastored that wedding with a very very charismatic pastor. So, you can see the difference already of what we're talking about. So, at the reception, he was a great guy. He was just very, very wired very differently than I was, which is great. At the reception, we were sitting and his wife was there and she was super charismatic as well. She was just on fire, right? She was going for it. And as we were sitting at the table, she was asking all the women at our table what vision, what grand vision that God had given them to change the world. And I remember very very very vividly um when she came to Megan my wife and asked her that same question and my wife's answer would just kind of blew me away. She said in this stage of life God is calling me to simply change diapers. And that stood out to me because that that is footwashing in the phase of life that you're in. You can wash the feet of your family.

We can wash the feet of our friends and co-workers. We can serve them simply by being there for your friends and walking alongside them through difficult times. I'm not saying that you go to if you went to work on Tuesday morning and you saw your coworker and you got down on your knees and started taking off their shoes, right? I don't think that would go very well. But you can wash their feet by simply being there, listening with them, engaging in them, walking, and doing life alongside them because that's the stage of life you're in. And you can walk with them and hear as their life struggles and you can walk with them and allow your just spend time with them. Check in on them, care about them. Guys, that's footwashing.

This one's tough. You can even wash your enemies. Again, Jesus didn't skip over Judas. This one's hard. He washed Judas's feet even after he knew what was going to happen because of Judas. So maybe for us, washing our enemy's feet may look like being kind to your ex even when they're not kind to you. Maybe not talking bad about the people who have hurt you behind their back or maybe not blasting things out on social media, but we can wash and serve our enemies as well.

Rodney Stark was a sociologist um who wrote a book in 2006. is one of the first books that I read in seminary. It was called The Rise of Christianity. And in this book, he he wrote how Christianity kind of spread like wildfire through the Roman Empire and how this actually happened. And it was it was fascinating. I think he recently died, but the book is fascinating. And what was happening is is the Roman Empire was like a big city and of course they didn't have all the sanitation um like we do today. So when you have lots of people and poor sanitation, you get there's diseases. And we all know about the plagues that went into those places. And if you were rich and you had the means, when those plagues came in, you left. You headed for the hills, literally headed for the hills and got out of there. But for the vast majority of people, they couldn't they couldn't leave. They didn't have the means or the place to go to get out of those cities and out of those plagues. So they stayed and they got sick and they got and they died. But here's what happened. Many many of the Christians decided that they even though they could leave, they decided that they were going to stay and that they were going to serve and they were going to nurse people back to health. And by doing that and by their great example, they suffered with people. They served people. They even died right alongside people. But because of that, Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire. You see, that's what washers do. We walk alongside people in their darkest and dirtiest moments of life. Jesus calls us to be both washed and washers.

I think about this and we we see this and we say, "How in the world can we find the strength to do this?" This radical example of servant leadership to allow ourselves and expose ourselves to be washed and then order to wash other people. You see, the secret to how we can do this is found right in the first few verses of scripture that we read. Let's look at the source of serving.

It says this, "It was just before the Passover festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." It says, "The evening meal was in progress and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Scary, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the father had put all things under his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God."

So, this is where it all starts. Jesus knew that the hour had come, meaning he was about to suffer and die the worst death that any person could ever suffer and die and endure. And in this context with that looming, he goes and he washes his disciples feet. I think about times when we're in pain, when we have something that we're not looking forward to, whether that's a difficult conversation or a doctor's appointment or we're hurting or suffering in some way, how we only kind of like fall in and focus in on ourselves. But I think about that with Jesus. And as he was about to go to the cross and bear the weight of sin and be separated from God for the first time in all of eternity, somehow he loved and he and he served his disciples and washed their feet even till the end. So how do we get that kind of power? The the answer is found in verse three.

It says Jesus knew that the father had put all things under his power and that he had come from God and he was returning to God. You see the answer is this. Jesus came from Jesus knew where he came from and Jesus knew where he was going. And it was out of that deep sense of security knowing that God was in control and where he came from and where he was going. Out of that security he was able to freely serve others. You see, our culture believes that the more people who serve you, the more people who meet your needs, the more secure we are.

Jesus says, "In your relationship with me, all your deepest and greatest needs have been met because you were made in the image of God. You come from God. Sin separated you from God. And because what I've done for you on the cross, when your life is over, you go right back to God." So it's in Jesus and what he has done that we find our security to be able and go and serve the people around us. We come from God through Christ. We're going to God. It's in this time in between this liinal space in between because of Christ we can freely not think about ourselves but serve the people around us. That's where we get the security to serve knowing where we come from and where we're going because of what Jesus Christ and what he's done.

I saw beautiful examples of this last week while we we were serving in Cuba. Um each and every day we had a group of young adults that that would come with us to the different places that we went. And those young adults would get picked up before 5:00 a.m. They would have to get a taxi to the pickup place and then our bus would come and get them. And then they would come to us and get to us about 8:00 a.m. And then we would go out to the various churches and ministries where we'd be serving. And they would then go out into the different houses and do visitation with us into different people's homes in in extreme poverty and extreme heat. Right now, Cuba has no power for 22 out of 24 hours a day and it's hot. And they would go and they would do this with us and have and then they would come back and we'd have a a children's program. They would put on a children's program at a church that's a house church. So, those young adults would be serving all day long and then they would come back and put on a program for over 200 kids for like an hour and a half and keep those kids entertained. Then those kids would leave and the adults would come. They would tear down the kids stuff and then build up um like a a speaker system. They would put on a concert for the adults. Then they would do a message and then they would do more singing at the end of that. Then they would get on the bus and then they would go home and then they would get to their own home. So basically these young adults were serving for over 16 hours a day in the blazing heat each and every day. And as I'm doing this, I was talking to them and I said, "How do you do this?" I said, "I'm exhausted after like one hour. How can you possibly do this?" And they said, "God is good. God is in control. I know exactly what I need to be doing. How can I not because of what Christ has done for me?" You see, the source of serving is the security and knowing where we come from and where we're going because of Jesus Christ and what he's done for us.

One of my favorite footwashing stories took place in Madrid's royal chapel in in the 19th century. Uh the king and queen were there and they decided that they wanted to wash people's feet. So they brought in 12 very very poor men and put them at a table on one side of the room and on the other side of the room they brought in very very poor women. 12 very poor women. And then the king and queen actually came in dressed in all their finery. And the king began to wash all the feet of the men. And they were so moved that someone in such a position would do this to them. It just it changed them and they were just honored to be washed. And then the queen was doing that. And she went along and washed all the women's feet. And she had all her dresses on and all her queen things on. And she was doing this. And then she got to the last woman and as she was reaching down and washing this poor woman's dirty feet, a bracelet, a diamond bracelet slipped off her hand and that bracelet fell right into the pool into the basin. And the woman who was so just humbled by this actually happening to her, it says she reached down and she picked up that that bracelet and was just aruck by it and went to hand it back to the queen. And the queen simply told her, "Keep it, my daughter." Guys, the gift of serving and loving each other because of what Christ has done has slipped right off the hand of Christ and been given to you and I. Let's take that gift and use it really well to share the love of Christ with the people in our lives. Would you pray with me?

God, we thank you for just your nature and and the servant heart that you have. God, we thank you that you did not hold on to power, but that you give it away and that you give it away so much that you would come and actually wash the feet of your disciples. God, help us to understand that. Help it to to sink into our hearts and change us. And help us to be people who take that gift that you've given us and serve those around us and use it really well. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.