Thursday - Jesus Serves and Prays for His Disciples

We are in John chapter 13. So, I invite your attention to John 13, where we pick up tonight with the last supper as it's often called. Jesus has celebrated the Passover feast with his disciples. He has introduced the communion or the Lord's supper as we know it. The memorial observance of Christ's death. And now he is doing something which we began looking at last week and that is washing the disciples feet. Remember that this event, the washing of the disciples feet, occurs at some point during the meal. We don't know exactly where it's not before the meal starts. We know that because John 13 tells us that they were already into the meal. It probably occurred near the beginning of the meal, although that's not real clear. So for that reason we've just kind of left it to last. We went through all the events of the Passover meal and now we're looking at this one event that is somewhat isolated from the others. And that is the washing of the disciples feet. We saw that the first three verses indicate the heart of the servant. Jesus is acting as a servant living out his own servant heart here. And we saw that his heart certainly is one of courage and love and compassion, confidence and knowing who he is, where he's going. Remember that this is 12 to 15 hours before he will be hung on the cross. And Jesus is very confidently, compassionately moving toward that event. We also saw in verses four and five that the actions of the servant when Jesus got up and got up from the table and laid aside his outer garment, put him around him to the servant's robe or the servant's towel and took the basin of water and went to wash his disciples feet. That all of that really is symbolic of his entire mission. Now that's where we left off last week. That that is very symbolic of Jesus' mission of laying aside his outward display of his glory and leaving heaven, coming to the surface, robing himself with humanity and becoming a servant, taking on the form of a servant as Philippians 2 says. And then actually pouring out his life blood for us on the cross, very symbolic of his mission. Let's pick up tonight in verse six where we find this action that Jesus is doing, the action of the servant also is symbolic of our cleansing. So let's see what verse six says. 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 am doing, but later you will understand. No said, Peter, you shall never wash my feet. Peter obviously is embarrassed that Jesus has gotten up to do the work of the servant when some of them should have been doing it. Remember Luke 22 tells us as we saw last week, they were still fighting over who is going to be the greatest in the kingdom and Jesus gets up to wash their feet. So Peter is obviously embarrassed and so he says, Lord, you will 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. If I am not going to have any part with you, if you do not wash my feet, then just wash everything. I want to have all the parts with you I can have. And I admire Peter's exuberance, his enthusiasm, his desire, but Jesus answer is leaning in a very different direction toward Peter. Look at verse 10. Jesus answered, those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet. 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 said not everyone was clean. So what we have here is the story of Peter's resistance to Jesus cleaning his feet, washing his feet to begin with. And then when Jesus makes that statement, if you don't let me wash your feet, you have no part with me. Or in a sense you have no fellowship, no part with me means you have no fellowship. There's no communion with each other. You don't let me do that. And so Peter then just goes overboard saying, Lord, I just want you to wash all of me then. And Jesus makes this very inigmatic statement. Those who have a bath only need to wash their feet because the whole body is clean. What does he mean by that? In Bible times people would usually take a bath before they went to a feast or a dinner such as a Passover feast. And so they would take a bath before leaving home to go to wherever they were going for this dinner or before they went into the room. But if they were going somewhere else to have dinner with someone, their feet would become dusty and dirty because of the streets. And the roads of that time, which were not paved, you might have some areas of stone that the Romans had put down, but basically dusty, dirty streets. So your feet would get dirty. And at the entrance to every house would be this basin of water and a towel, typically a household servant would do that job of washing the feet before you would go on in to where the meal was going to be served. So Jesus makes this distinction between the bath which cleanses all of you and the washing of the feet which just cleanses that which has gotten dirty after you've had the full bath. Now it's obvious from what Jesus is saying to Peter that he's not just talking about a literal bath and a literal washing of feet because it's obvious from his comments to Peter. If you don't let me wash your feet, you have no part with me. There's something deeper there than just sitting at the table together. And when he's talking about not needing an entire bath, you only need to wash your feet. There's something else going on here besides just what's happening at the meal with the literal washing. What do you think Jesus was getting at? What do you think he meant by the bath and the cleansing of feet? And a person who's had a bath doesn't need that again. You just need to feed cleanse. What's he talking about? Salvation as opposed to, did you say blame confessing sins after you've been saved? Okay? Any other thoughts? Okay, I think that is what Jesus is getting at. The bath that he's talking about is salvation, justification. That's the full cleansing. That's the whole bath. That's when all of your sins are forgiven because when you get saved, the moment you trust Christ at justification, justification means that you are declaring salvation. It's a legal declaration in heaven that you are declared righteous. All of your sin has been forgiven. Past, present, future. All of us have been forgiven. It will never be held against you again. You never need to have that bath again. You only need to have the bath one time. Because once you are saved, everything has been forgiven. But as we walk through this life, our feet get dirty from the stain and sin of the world around us. And so we do, we do at times sin, even though we've had the bath of justification, we still sin. And what we need, Jesus is saying, is if you've had the bath, you don't need another bath. You don't need the full deal again. You don't need salvation again. What he's saying basically is you don't get saved over and over and over and over again. You get saved one time. That's the bath. And the person who's had a bath needs only to wash their feet, he says, because the whole body is already clean. So when you pick up some of the stain of this world on your feet, all you need to do is clean the feet. And that I believe is symbolic, as Blaine said, of the confession of sin, the cleansing that comes from forgiveness. You see, there is the forgiveness of justification where God wipes all of our sin off of our record book in heaven, puts Christ's righteousness there on our record book. And that only happens one time. You only get saved one time. You're only justified one time. The Bible is very clear on that. But we still sin, we get our feet dirty as we walk through this world. So we still need another kind of cleansing, another kind of forgiveness, which is just getting rid of that stain. There's a verse in 1 John 1 9 that we're very familiar with, many of you, most of you are familiar with. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Now John is speaking to believers here. He's speaking to Christians. He's not speaking to people who need to be saved. He's speaking to people who already are saved. They are already justified. They've had the full bath. Now he's saying, when you sin, what you need to do is confess that sin. The word confess literally means to say the same. The verb Lego is to speak or to say in Greek. Home means same. To say the same. The word literally means to say the same thing about sin as God says. So it means you agree with God about sin. You agree with his word. You agree that what you've done is sin. You basically admit your sin to God. That's what confession is. To say the same thing about sin that God says about it. Agree with his word about what you've done. You admit your sin to God. When we confess our sin, then God is faithful, which means he never fails to do this. And he is just. He's right in doing this. It's not like he just says, well, I forget about it. It's kind of sweeping under the rug. No, no, he is just in forgiving you because Christ's blood has already taken care of that sin. You just got some dirt on your feet and you need to get those cleaned. So he forgives you and he cleanses you, purifies you from all unrighteousness. That's the washing of the feet. So there's a very important symbolism in this action that Jesus does that he's communicating to Peter. And he told Peter said, you're not going to understand this right now. You will later and Peter would get it later as the disciples would get so many things that they didn't understand this night. They would understand later as Jesus patiently teaches them before the ascension, as the Holy Spirit comes and as their teachers, they begin to put everything together. They'll get this. They'll understand this. But it's such an important truth in scripture. It's beautifully symbolized here. You get saved one time. One of the reasons why we believe in eternal security. You only get the bath one time. From then on you just need to cleanse your feet. You need to wipe the stain and dirt of this world sin off of your feet and have that other kind of cleansing or forgiveness of confession and restoration to fellowship. That's why Jesus said, if you don't let me clean your feet, you have no part with me. That's talking about fellowship. It's not talking about the relationship. And when Peter said, well then clean all of me, Jesus said, you don't need that again. You see what he's saying? You only need salvation one time. You need the cleansing of confession many times. Any questions, comment about that? Yes. I'm afraid that I may be wrong. I didn't see that. There will be judgment for any sin that is unconfessed. Yes. But you will be in heaven. Because you trusted Christ as your Savior. You were forgiven completely of your sin. The record books in heaven were changed. And that's done once and for all. That can't change. Now when you think about it, all of us, I dare say, all of us will die with some unconfessed sin in our life. Something we've forgotten about. It may not be as graphic as the one you described. Hopefully not for all of us. But all of us will probably die with something that we've forgotten about. That has completely left our consciousness or something that we just never confessed to the Lord. I would dare say all of us will die with some unconfessed sin. But the point is that once the record book has been changed in heaven, nothing can take you away from the eternal life you have in Christ. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. Nothing can take you out of the Father's hands. The issue of sin after you've trusted Christ is simply you need to confess it to get cleansing and be restored to fellowship with Christ. Now it's a sad thing when we die with unconfessed sin. And I think those are the things we'll lose rewards for at the judgment seat of Christ. That's what the judgment seat of Christ is about. It's not an insignificant thing to have unconfessed sin in our lives. It does break our fellowship. I like to say I always like to give this illustration of this. And it's always helped me to understand it a little better. Just like we were born into the family of God, we were born into a human family. That's why salvation is called the new birth or the second birth regeneration. I was born into my family. Now once I was born into my family, there was nothing that could take me out of that family. There was nothing that could make me unbecome my parents' son. I mean I might do some things. And I think as I was growing up, I remember maybe a couple things I did wrong. And when those things happened, my mother remembers a lot more than that. I'm sure things I did wrong. But when those things would happen, I never stopped being their son. It was always their son. That never interfered with that. I was still their son. But I'd say what? There was some distance between us. And there were some difficulties that needed to be overcome. And some discipline that needed to occur so that fellowship could be restored. Joy could be restored. Happiness in the family could be restored. But I never stopped being their son. And so we never stopped being God's children once we get saved. But when we mess up, when we sin, we need to restore the fellowship. That's always helped me to understand the difference between those two kinds of forgiveness. Great question. Any others? Okay, a very important point that Jesus is illustrating here with this servant act. But he moves on then to challenge us through this act of servanthood. Verses 12 through 17, look at the challenge of the servant. First of all, there is the challenge to our pride in verses 12 through 14. 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. Now, did they fully understand? No. They didn't fully understand the significance of everything he was doing. But did they understand what his action was communicating about servanthood? No doubt they got that. And he goes on to explain it. Verse 13, 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 also should wash one another's feet. Okay, they knew exactly what he was showing them about their pride through this action. And he goes on to reinforce it with what he says. Remember, Luke 22 gives us the context again. They were arguing at the meal about who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom. They are demonstrating their pride right there. And so Jesus without saying a word, the one who without question is the greatest among them. They are arguing about who's going to be the greatest. Well, everybody in the room knows who the greatest one in the room is. It's their Lord, it's their teacher, it's Jesus. And without saying a word, as they're arguing about who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom, Jesus gets up and takes the role of a servant and serves them like none of them thought to. None of them thought about it because when you're thinking about how high and mighty you're going to be, you don't think about acts of servanthood. So they didn't think about that. Jesus demonstrated it. And so that's why he says, you understand what I've done. And no doubt they all had their heads hanging because they understood he had just taken the role of a servant while they were arguing about who's the greatest. And the reinforcement of it is you call me teacher, Lord rightly so. I am your teacher. I am your Lord. You're talking about who's the greatest. You know who I am. But I, your Lord and teacher have washed your feet. I've done the job of a servant. And so that's what you ought to be doing. His point is very clear. Rather than arguing at the table as to who's the greatest, you should have been washing each other's feet. You should have been jumping at the chance to take that basin and towel and wash each other's feet and you didn't do it. Wow, what a blow to pride. Challenge to our pride, Jesus gives us. And then there's a challenge to our practice as well. In verses 15 to 17, I've 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. What do you think Jesus meant by that? What does he want them to do? Do you want them to wash each other's feet? Drop the pride for sure. Drop the pride. Do you want them to become servants? Yes. There's a good bit of controversy over this, not a good bit, but some controversy over this. There are some who believe that Jesus was instituting a new ordinance here, like he had just done with the Lord's supper, that he was actually telling them they need to do footwashing as an ordinance. That he was literally commanding they observed that. That's not really as clear here as it is with the bread and the cup. But there are some who believe this is an ordinance. And I don't think that's what Jesus was talking about, but I can't be dogmatic about that. I think Jesus basically was saying, you know what I've done to you. And he's obviously talking about the servant. That's what he's challenging. He's their pride. And so he's talking about you know I've served you. I your Lord and master have done a servant's job. So I think the transition to the lesson that he's teaching them is what he's telling them to repeat. Not the action necessarily, not not the literal action of washing each other's feet, but but the action of serving one another. And so our practice is to be one of serving one another. So twice Jesus says, do this. Don't just talk about it. Don't just understand it. Do it. Do it. He says, I've set you an example that you should do as I've done for you. No servant's greater than master, messenger, not greater than one to send him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. So the emphasis is on our practice. Do it. Don't just talk about it. Just don't just understand it. Don't just be able to explain it well, but do it. Do it. And that's the real question. That's the challenge to us. Does our practice line up with what we know? Are we really doing this? So that seems to be the thrust of what he's getting at. I have mentioned this before. I'm sure that one of the seminaries I attended was a Grace Brethren seminary. And the brethren do understand this as an ordinance. And they do this along with their love feast, which is a part of their communion service. They do a love feast, a meal. And out of that meal, they do the communion. And then they wash one another's feet. They literally do wash one another's feet. I never went to one of those services while I was at Grace seminary. But I had a lot of friends who were brethren and still do. And they tell me that it is one of the most humbling things that they've ever done to either have their feet washed or to wash someone else's feet. And the symbolism that is actually being acted out there for them in that service is from what I understand very meaningful. And so I certainly would not denigrate or criticize those who take this as an ordinance. I don't believe that's what Jesus was teaching, but I certainly think that people who have done this have found great benefit from it. Yes, ma'am. Yes. Right? Wow. Yes. Every testimony I've heard has been very similar to yours that it is a very meaningful, very moving service. It's like any observance like this. If it's done with the real meaning behind it, it's very, I'm sure, very powerful. Thank you for that testimony. It reminds me of our nine years in northern Indiana where we had a lot of Amish, Midnight, German Baptist with several German Baptist churches in our area. Just wonderful people, many of them who, especially the friends we had in the German Baptist churches that really lived out there, say good people. Okay. Any other questions or comments? Kenneth? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good point. Good point. If you didn't hear Kenneth's statement, wondering of verse 14, where he says, I've left you this example. You should do as I've done to you. Not only refers to the acts of servanthood, but refers also to forgiveness because in what Jesus was doing, the washing of the feet symbolized the forgiveness from and cleansing from daily sin. And so what I've done for you to carry the analogy for what I've done for you in forgiving you, you should also do for others and forgiving others. I think that's, I think that could very well be included. Yes. Good point. Good point. Yes. The two do go together as Kishti said because it's awful hard to serve someone if you haven't forgiven them. It really is, isn't it? If you can't forgive someone, it's very difficult to serve them because it's a humbling thing to serve someone. And pride is what stands in our way of forgiving people. Good point. Okay. Anything else? There's a great scene in a great story, isn't it? And great lessons for us as well. Okay. We have five minutes. And so we're going to just quickly introduce the next section. And that is John, we did not make it to the back. In fact, we're not even going to introduce the next section because I forgot what I wanted to do. The next section being the Lord's, the high priestly prayer. I did put on your outline chapter 14 through 16. And the upper room discourse, we are not going to take that verse by verse because that's a whole series in itself. And I just can't do justice to that. And expect to get through the series on the life of Christ anytime before the rapture. So that was a crazy statement. No one knows when the rapture is going to be anyway. I mean, we may not get through tonight before he comes. But I would like to at least outline it for you. Chapter 14 through 16. Let me just give you a quick outline of what Jesus talks about. They are still in the upper room as it's called. They are still at the place where they had the, the Passover meal, instituted Lord's Supper washing of the feet still in that same room. So this is often called the upper room discourse or the farewell discourse. Jesus says a lot of things to his disciples here. Let me just give you briefly an outline. 10 things he says to them. First of all, he talks about returning for his own. He's been talking with them about going away. You're going to deny me. I'm going back to the father. And he'll talk more about that. But he comforts them in verses 1 through 6 of chapter 14, but saying I'm returning for my own. Chapter 14 verses 7 through 15. He basically speaks of his deity. Talks about who he is. 14 chapter 14 verses 16 to 26. He gives them the promise of the spirit. I'm going away. He says, but I'm going to send a comforter who will be with you forever. And that's the Holy Spirit. Chapter 14 verses 27 to 31. He promises them peace. He gives them a promise of peace. He says in this world, you'll have a lot of trouble, but you have peace. I give you peace. Chapter 15 verses 1 through 17. He speaks of abiding in him and fruit bearing. He's teaching them of what it means to live the Christian life. Abiding in him and fruit bearing in 151 to 17. In 1518 to 27, he speaks of their relationship to the world and persecution. He talks about how they'll be persecuted. Then chapter 16 verses 1 through 6. He warns them of suffering. Verses 7 through 11. He tells of the work of the spirit to the world. How the Holy Spirit will deal with unbelievers. Convicting them of sin, of righteousness, of judgment. He talks about his conviction of the world. Of unsafe people. Then in verses 12 to 15, he tells them about the ministry of the spirit to them. Particularly as apostles, and I believe those verses are talking about revelation. How the Holy Spirit will reveal truth to them that they will then record in the scriptures. Only by way of application is that true of us. That the Holy Spirit will teach us and reveal things to us. God is not revealing any new truth today. He revealed it all. It's incorporated in the scriptures. Jude said it very well. In Jude, verse 3, the faith once for all delivered to the saints. There's no more scripture being delivered. In these verses, chapter 16 verses 12 through 15, he's really talking about the Holy Spirit revealing truth to the apostles and they'll write it in scripture. The last thing Jesus talks about in chapter 16 verses 16 to 33 is he predicts very clearly his death, resurrection, and return. They begin to get a little glimpse of what he's talking about. In fact, at the very end, Jesus says, do you understand that what I'm talking about? They say, we understand where you're going and he says, finally. Finally, you understand. They're beginning to get it a little bit. They don't have everything yet, but they're beginning to see a little bit of what's happening. Okay, that's the upper room discourse. And that is, as I said, a series of messages all its own. Chapter 17 is the high priestly prayer. If this is the chapter that really deserves to be called the Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer is not what Jesus taught His disciples. Our father, which art in heaven, how it be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as is in heaven. That's not the Lord's Prayer. That's the disciples prayer. This is the Lord's Prayer. And it is amazing. It's one of those great chapters of the scriptures, like Psalm 23 or Romans 8. It's one of those mountain peak chapters in the Bible. And so next time we're going to dig into chapter 17 and our Lord's Prayer for His disciples and also for us. Did you know that you are mentioned in chapter 17? You are. And we'll see how that works out next time. Okay, let's pray. Thank you, Father, for our Lord, our teacher, our master, the one who... Amazingly serves us. The one who served as disciples in the upper room, the one who will serve us at the banquet feast in Revelation 19, the marriage suffer of the Lamb, who will serve us. We are amazed at that. And if he would stoop to serve us, help us to learn from his example to serve one another. May we be faithful to serve each other in your family, in your body. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.