03.02.2014 John 13 - A Servant Takes Initiative

03.02.2014 Grace Summit Sermon - John 13 - A Servant Takes Initiative from Grace Summit on Vimeo.

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The way we planned going through John – after Christmas, to start and to move through to Easter. We did chapter 11 last week – and chapter 12 is Palm Sunday! About half of the gospel is the last week of Jesus’ life. So we are going to jump to chapter 13. And guess when we are going to do chapter 12? That’s right, Palm Sunday.
Let’s pray
Thank You for Your word – and the opportunity to gather together. This winter has been long, but You have been with us, and You love when we gather in Your name. You love us – and are intimately involved in our lives – so often, we don’t see that as clearly as we would like, but even if we aren’t aware of it, You are working and concerned for our lives. Your grace is abundant – speak to us now, give us wisdom and understanding from Your word.
John 13: 1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them [a]to the end. 2 During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him,
John is the only one who records a lot of this. He does not record the communion, this is My body part – but He is the only one who has most of chapters 13-17.
Jesus is giving them His heart.
He loved them to the end.
In chapter 13, we have 3 ways Jesus demonstrated His love – and what it means.
Then – how we can follow His example and love one another.
John 13:3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, 4 *got up from supper, and *laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself.

Jesus Washes the Disciples’ Feet

5 Then He *poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. 6 So He *came to Simon Peter. He *said to Him, “Lord, do You wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered and said to him, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.” 8 Peter *said to Him, “Never shall You 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, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.” 10 Jesus *said to him, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” 11 For He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He said, “Not all of you are clean.”
There is a lot to gather from this. There are 3 lessons that God is trying to teach through this passage.
John 13:3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, 4 *got up from supper, and *laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself.
Jesus served OUT of His identity/Position/Authority. He was secure in His relationship with the Father and knew His purpose – and that enabled Him to serve others.
It was in His strength and in the health of His personality/self-image/relationship with God that He was able to become a servant.
We think of a servant as being inferior. If someone has a professional job, they are professional, they have attained to something. But someone in the service industry is looked at by the world as being less or inferior. We see certain positions as superior and others as inferior – we pay some more and some less – but Jesus is turning this upside-down – the one with authority and power is the one who serves. Your ability to serve others and to serve in the lowly jobs – the washing of feet was the lowliest of jobs – Jews weren’t even supposed to do it – only Gentile servants were to wash feet, and here is Jesus, and He is doing it. Doing things that to us seem inferior is a demonstration of your personal security.
When you are given a menial task, how does that affect your thinking about yourself? You might think – this is not what I signed up for! This is not what I trained for!
When others leave service to you, how does that affect your attitude toward them? When others leave something for you to do, rather than doing it themselves – how does it make you feel? Kids do this all the time!
Like Martha – do you not hear that my sister has left me to do all the serving on my own? That is an indication of self-worth.
With what attitude do you engage serving in those areas you feel are menial or out of your comfort zone? There are some areas we don’t mind serving in… if you are a person who fixes things, and someone asks you to fix something – well, that is what you do. But what if they ask you to do something that is not in your realm? That is a test of service.
Jesus gets out of His seat and washes the disciples’ feet. They call this a living parable – Jesus is teaching a lesson as a living drama. They will never forget this as long as they live.
We will see three lessons – the first two are theological – and the third is practical.
First – knowing who He was – came from God and going back to God.
Philippians 2: 5 Have this attitude [e]in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
He takes off His ‘rabbi robe’ and lays it aside. This is a dramatic interpretation of the incarnation – what took place in heaven, when He, in a place of honor, laid aside who He was – He sets aside His God-clothes – it is not that He is no longer God – but He empties Himself –taking the form of a bondservant in the likeness of a man.
He takes off His garment and puts on a servant garment.
He is telling the story of the incarnation – God laid aside His rights and privileges to serve us.
He is still the Rabbi – still teaching – and as Jesus becomes Man, He is still God.
Phil. 2: 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death [h]on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
This is what God is like. This is what God does. He does not care about His position. He is so secure in Who He is, that He is able to totally give of Himself for others.
So what He is doing – He is revealing the nature of God to us.
6 So He *came to Simon Peter. He *said to Him, “Lord, do You wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered and said to him, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.” 8 Peter *said to Him, “Never shall You 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, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.”
Peter is looking at the physical; Jesus is talking about the SPIRITUAL. Like destroying the temple wasn’t about the PHYSICAL temple – but Jesus’ temple. Or like Nicodemus and the Born Again thing.
And Peter goes from one extreme to the other – not only my feel, but also my hands and head!
Jesus is saying – you can’t be clean unless you let Me wash you. And He is not talking about physically clean. Humble yourself to receive My cleansing – Humble yourself to receive My grace. And we don’t want that! We think everyone wants that – but we think we can get to God by being good or following laws – and the things we need to do – but we need Jesus. He has to wash us. When the disciples get their feet washed – they do nothing – they simply submit to what Jesus is doing. So it is when we get saved – there is nothing we can do but submit – to allow Jesus to clean us. And now we need to live our lives that way – we don’t need to gain more approval from God – we need to set aside pride and false humility – but we need to live washed – and we live our lives as if we were still dirty. But you have already been washed – already cleansed.
It is like a constant shower – Jesus washes us right off – and it causes us to live our lives wholly different – wholly free!
Paul talks about this freedom a lot – just how free we need to be in our Christian experience.
12 So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. 16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. 18 I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.’ 19 From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am He. 20 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.”
We need to learn to love and serve one another. To do the hardest and most-looked-down-upon acts of service. If Jesus did it – we have lots of literature from the Greco-Roman world – and in all that literature – there is never an instance of a superior washing the feet of a subordinate. What Jesus does – we can’t understand how radical this is! We think, yeah, this is cool.
Practicals:
Set aside our own status and privilege – and to recognize that there is no job that is too low to do for God. If we think a job is too low – we are not living like Jesus.
If you are a supervisor – you don’t stop supervising – but you approach it as a servant.
If you are a Sunday school teacher – you don’t let the kids run the class – but you serve them.
Second – there is an awareness of need. Jesus realized that feet weren’t washed – He was aware. Philippians says to look out for one another’s’ needs. There are two women who see needs and let me know about it – did you know this? It is encouraging to have people whose eyes are open to what is going on. And when they see a need – something clicks in their head!
A servant takes initiative. They don’t wait for permission or expect someone else to do it.
One of the guys goes out between services and shovels – he never asks or has to be asked – he just does it.
That doesn’t mean that if you think the church sanctuary needs to be painted that you just sneak in and do it!
But as you see a need you can meet, you should meet it.
We need to learn to connect our service with our relationship with God. Jesus said – if you even give a little one of these a cup of water to drink – you have done it for Me. The serving should be tied to our relationship with God. It should not be ‘fixing and irritation’ – there needs to be a connection.
A while ago, I noticed that the glass block cross had a speck of dirt underneath it – and I realized it was a little bug eye that a kid stuck there! I realized that he or she probably comes up every week to see if it is still there so I left it! I finally took it down this week…
We need to let serving become a part of our identity. Jesus did not just serve – He was a servant. There are plenty of people who just serve – it is more difficult to become a servant.
I am going to close – after this – Judas…
Jesus Predicts His Betrayal

21 When Jesus had said this, He became troubled in spirit, and testified and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will [c]betray Me.” 22 The disciples began looking at one another, at a loss to know of which one He was speaking. 23 There was reclining on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved. 24 So Simon Peter *gestured to him, and *said to him, “Tell us who it is of whom He is speaking.” 25 He, leaning back thus on Jesus’ bosom, *said to Him, “Lord, who is it?” 26 Jesus then *answered, “That is the one for whom I shall dip the morsel and give it to him.” So when He had dipped the morsel, He *took and *gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 After the morsel, Satan then entered into him. Therefore Jesus *said to him, “What you do, do quickly.” 28 Now no one of those reclining at the table knew for what purpose He had said this to him. 29 For some were supposing, because Judas had the money box, that Jesus was saying to him, “Buy the things we have need of for the feast”; or else, that he should give something to the poor. 30 So after receiving the morsel he went out immediately; and it was night.
Then He comes to this:
31 Therefore when he had gone out, Jesus *said, “Now [d]is the Son of Man glorified, and God [e]is glorified in Him; 32 [f]if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately. 33 Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’
He is laying out – I am going to the cross – within a day – He will be on the cross!
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
First way to show love: Service of humiliation
2 – He loves even when we are enemies – He showed it with Judas – and He loves us even when we are against Him.
3) He gives His life for us on the cross.

36 Simon Peter *said to Him, “Lord, where are You going?” Jesus answered, “Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.” 37 Peter *said to Him, “Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You.” 38 Jesus *answered, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.