Kneeling King: When Jesus Washed Our Feet — John 13:1-17 (08.16.2026)

Good morning. Our scripture reading this morning comes from John chapter 13.

John 13 · chapter mention

If you'll please remain standing as a way to honor the Word of God.

And after I finish reading, I will say this is the Word of the Lord,

and you can respond by saying thanks be to God.

John chapter 13, verses 1 through 17.

John 13:1–17

Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come

to depart out of this world to the Father.

Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot,

Simon's son, to betray him,

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that

he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper.

He laid aside his outer garments and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.

Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and

to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet?

Jesus answered him, What I am doing you do not understand now,

but afterward you will understand.

Peter said to him, You shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him,

If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.

Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.

Jesus said to him, The one who has bathed does not need to wash except for his

feet, but is completely clean.

And you are clean, but not every one of you.

For he knew who was to betray him. That was why he said, Not all of you are clean.

When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his

place, he said to them, Do you understand what I have done to you?

You call me teacher and Lord, and you're right, for so I am.

If I then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

For I have given you an example, that you should also do just as I have done to you.

Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master,

nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. This is the word of the Lord.

Good morning. Go ahead and be turning in your copy of God's word to John chapter

John 13 · chapter mention

13. And I'm gonna pray for us one more time.

Father, what a beautiful picture this is for us. What a beautiful snippet of,

your son's life and who He is, a demonstration of who He is.

Would you open our eyes this morning to see Him clearly and in seeing Him to be transformed?

We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.

So we are to John chapter 13 and working our way through John and the first

John 13 · chapter mention

12 chapters of John are sometimes referred to as the book of signs.

And that's because in the first 12 chapters, you see these huge signs,

these seven miracles that point to something beyond themselves,

point to something beyond just a show of power.

They show us something about Christ.

And so the first half of the book of John is this book of signs,

and it's really the open manifestation of Christ's glory.

It's the public display of his glory. And then you get to last week,

chapter 12, over the last two weeks, chapter 12, which is like a transition.

And so now Jesus is transitioning and now he is in what's referred to as the upper room discourse.

And we're going to be in that for several weeks. And in the upper room discourse,

what you are unpacking is really this kind of last five hours with his disciples

before going to the cross.

And he's going to do a lot of teaching in these five or so hours.

Today, we're seeing the beginning of that when he completely baffles his disciples.

He completely surprises them by washing their feet.

What we're gonna see is that while this is an example to follow,

he says that there at the end, and we'll get into that, it is more than an example to follow.

It is symbolic. It's a teaching act.

It's, there's, there's a lot wrapped up in what he does. And he is,

he is showing his disciples and now, you know, through them,

he's showing us something crucial.

He says to Peter in verse eight, if I do not cleanse you, you have no share

with me. If I don't wash you, in other words, you can't have any kind of relationship with me.

And that's what we're going to see. This week, I went into my youngest daughter,

Millie's room and to wake her up before school, you know, trying to get back

on the rhythm of early morning wake ups for school and she's asleep.

And she wears this hilarious and cute sleep mask. It's like a fuzzy,

I don't know if it's a bear eyes or what, but anyways.

So I sneak, I slip in, I'm trying to like gently wake her up and I see her laying

there, just get the sleep mask.

And before I can say anything, she says, who goes there?

And I'm telling you, Millie, if y'all don't know her yet, you need to get to

know her. she has jokes from the moment she wakes up to the moment she goes to sleep at night.

So I'm laughing and I tell her, you know, it's time to get up for school.

And I'm trying to like open her blinds, let a little of the pre-dawn light in the room.

And she's like, okay, okay, you got me up. Now leave. I can do the rest.

And she's in one of those stages. Kids go through those stages,

you know, and they're normal. And it's normal for a second grader to be like,

I got this. I don't need your help.

I can do it on my own. And it's really cute when a second grader does it.

But it's not so cute when we turn to our creator, our sustainer, the one who gave us life.

And we say, hey, leave me alone. I got this.

And that's essentially the heart behind what Peter does in this story.

And it is something we are all extremely prone to do.

It's not just foolish. It's not just foolish. It's actually antithetical to the gospel.

We can't do it on our own. We desperately need someone outside of ourselves to save us.

And that's what we see in this story.

My sermon outline this morning is really simple. We'll walk through the passage

a section at a time. Christ loves us.

Christ stoops to serve us. Christ cleanses us, and Christ sends us to serve.

All right, first of all, Christ loves us. Let's look at verse one of the passage.

It says, now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour

had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who

were in the world, he loved them to the end.

He loved his own to the end. Who are his own?

Those whom Christ loved from the beginning. They're those he came to save.

Back in John chapter 10, we learned of Christ being our good shepherd,

John 10 · chapter mention

and he has sheep, and his sheep are his own, and he calls them by name.

He knows them, each one by name.

They're our particular sheep, Jesus tells us back then in chapter 10.

That the Father has given to him. And no one that the Father has given to him

will be lost. And that's who this is talking about. Christ loved his own and he loved them to the end.

And so this includes us, believers, those of us who have turned from our sins

and put our trust in Jesus.

This includes us. And so everything that we're going to see about his love for

his disciples is directly applicable to each one of us.

I want us to see that Christ loves us to his final breath, to the fullest,

through failures, and to the Father.

So first, he loves us to his final breath. When it says he loved them to the

end, that's one of the things that it's getting at. He loved them until he left the world. Okay.

It says, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world,

and then it says he loved them to the end.

If you knew that in just a few short hours, you were going to go through unthinkable

suffering and death, who would you be thinking about?

Or maybe to help out a little bit, if you've got a little bit of a head cold,

or you didn't get quite enough sleep, or you had a long, tiring day at work,

or your knee aches, or you're under pressure at work, or you have too much to do for the time you have.

Who is on your mind?

It's us, right? We're so unbelievably self-focused when we have pressures, when we have anxiety.

And it's amazing considering what Jesus is facing, considering that he is about

to suffer. He is about to be betrayed.

He is about to drink the cup of the wrath of God for sinners. And who is he focused on?

It's amazing how completely unself-absorbed Jesus is.

He's concerned about the needs of his disciples. Their feet need washing and

he's going to take care of it.

So it says he loves them to the end.

And that means that even as he is overwhelmed by anxieties and the things that

he is facing, he cannot stop thinking about and putting the needs of his disciples before his own.

He loved them to his final breath. He loved them to the fullest.

When it says that he loved them to the end, it's saying more than just to the

end of his life. It's saying, commentators, multiple ones that I read said the same thing.

This Greek phrase here, it literally means to love them to the fullest extent possible.

He loved them to the fullest extent possible. He couldn't have loved them more.

And the same is true for you, believer. Not because you're so impressive,

not because you had a perfect record this week, but he loves you because you're his own.

He loves you because he chose you. He loves you because he set his affections

on you. He loves you with the fullest amount of love possible.

So don't believe the whispers of the accuser.

Don't believe his lies.

He loves you more than you can possibly fathom. And that is why Paul prays,

in Ephesians chapter 3 for the church in Ephesus that they would have a supernatural

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

strength, a strength given to them by the Holy Spirit to be able to, what?

Comprehend the love of Christ for them.

It actually requires supernatural power to comprehend his love.

And we need that. And then Paul goes on to say that if the church in Ephesus

would be able to comprehend his love for them, they would be filled with all the fullness of God.

There's a connection between your ability to wrap your mind around Christ's

love for you and you being filled with God.

He loves you, believer, to the fullest extent.

He loves you through failures.

He loves these disciples, even though he knows that in just a very little while,

they are going to betray him.

These same feet that he is washing are about to run away from him in his darkest hour.

They belong to him. And so he loves them through their failures.

He loves Peter. He's going to wash Peter's feet and Peter's about to deny him three times.

He loves them with a perfect love in spite of their sins and weaknesses.

Charles Spurgeon noted on this, all the infirmities, the imperfections,

the carnality, the dullness, and the slowness of their nature,

which he saw much more clearly than they saw it,

did not make him cease to love them.

Believer, he sees as clearly as you see how unworthy you are to be loved,

he sees it more clearly and he loves you completely.

He sees things you don't know about and he loves you to the fullest extent.

He loves you to His final breath. He loves you to the fullest.

He loves you through failures. And finally, He loves you to the Father.

Those that Christ loves can never perish.

They can never fall short of getting to the Father and being justified before Him.

Every one of His will stand before God, holy and blameless.

Though the path through this life is a minefield and sin and Satan assault us

on every side, Jesus' love for you will see you through it.

He will keep you in his love until the day that you appear before the throne.

He will love you all the way to the Father.

So what about Judas? because right here in verse two, immediately after hearing

about him loving his to the end, we're reminded of this guy again, Judas Iscariot.

Verse two, during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of

Judas Iscariot, Simon's son to betray him.

So here's Judas. He's right there among the disciples, getting his feet washed.

And he's always been there. Judas has got everyone fooled. Judas has heard all

the best teaching that anyone will ever hear.

He's been through the best discipleship course that anyone will ever go through.

He has gone out with other disciples and done successful ministry, and he's lost.

He's lost.

Not because Christ lost him. And that's what you've got to see. He was never his.

Back in John chapter six, Jesus said, did I not choose you, the 12th?

And yet one of you is a devil.

Did I not choose you? And yet one of you is a devil.

Judas, we remember, was in love with the world. He was in love with money,

and he liked being a part of the band of brothers.

He liked being a part of this big thing that Jesus was doing,

but he didn't love Jesus.

It says the devil put it into his heart, which is to say the devil planted the

seed in his heart through suggestion, the way that he planted a seed through

suggestion in the garden with Eve, right?

Did God really say That's how he works. He's planting seeds through suggestion.

Beware, brothers and sisters, beware.

This is how he works. He plants seeds of suggestion that are lies.

We can assume that's exactly what he's done to Judas. He plants the idea into

his sinful heart that loves money, a way that he can get a lot of money really

fast and Judas runs with it.

But Judas's sin cannot thwart Christ's ability to love his own to the end.

In fact, Judas's betrayal is the very thing that Christ is using to be able

to save those that he loves.

So, we see Christ loves us to his final breath. He loves us to the fullest extent.

He loves us through failures, and he loves us all the way till we get to the Father.

Secondly, Christ stoops to serve us.

Foot washing, maybe you've heard this before, it was considered the absolute

lowest and vilest of jobs.

It was reserved for Gentile servants alone. Rabbis in that day taught that Jewish

servants were not allowed to wash feet. It was beneath them.

And so the rabbis thought it only a Gentile servant can wash feet.

And with that in mind, look at verse three with me.

It says, Jesus, knowing that the father had given all things into his hands,

and that he had come from God and was going back to God.

What is the Holy Spirit through John doing here? Why remind us of this right

before we see Jesus getting down on the ground and washing feet?

He's helping us to comprehend the humility of Christ.

You have to understand the heights from which he is coming to get all the way down to the ground.

You have to understand who this is getting down on the ground and washing feet.

Jesus is completely aware of who he is, where he's come from,

what he's come to do, where he is headed.

He's completely aware that the father has put all things into his hand.

In other words, that everything is under his authority.

He's emphasizing the comprehensive scope of Christ's power.

He has full dominion over all things. He is the eternal son of God.

He is co-equal with the father in majesty, in glory, in power, in worth.

And completely aware of that, he gets down on the ground and serves.

He says in verse 13, you call me teacher and Lord, and you are right for so I am.

John wants us to see that Jesus doesn't serve because he's forgotten that he is Lord.

He is serving precisely because he knows he is Lord. You see that?

If we were in his shoes, what would we do? If we were Jesus,

if we were in his shoes and we knew that all authority, that everything had

been placed in our hands, we would get up from the table.

We would stand up from the table and we'd say, come on, serve me. What are you doing?

Not Jesus. Not Jesus in view of his divine glory, his authority,

his origin, his destiny.

Jesus gets down from the table, down on the ground and wash his feet.

He stoops. He takes the position of a servant.

He takes off his robe and clothes himself as a servant. In doing so, what's he doing?

He is giving a living picture of the incarnation.

The one with all authority is taking the position of a servant.

This is what the Apostle Paul writes in Philippians 2, verses 5,

Philippians 2:5

through 8, where he says, Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in

Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality

with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself,

by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men,

and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the

point of death, even death on a cross.

When Paul says that he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant,

he does not mean that he emptied himself of deity.

Paul tells us exactly how he emptied himself.

He took onto himself, he took the form of a servant, became obedient to the

point of death on a cross.

The son's emptying was not a subtraction of deity, but a humiliation of status.

Though he is God, remains God, he humbles himself and serves man, his creation.

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands,

does what with those hands?

He takes up a towel.

In just a moment, we're going to consider the implications of all of that for us.

But first, we need to look at the act of foot washing and what Jesus is meaning

to teach his disciples through it.

So point number three, Christ cleanses us.

Says in verse six through eight, he came to Simon Peter who said to him,

Lord, do you wash my feet?

Jesus answered him, what I'm doing, you do not understand now,

but afterward you will understand.

Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him,

if I do not wash you, you have no share with me.

So Peter responds in a very understandable way.

I mean, if you just put yourself in his shoes and,

the Messiah is stooping down at your feet to do the job that you see is reserved

only for the lowest of servants, you're gonna say, no way, right? No way.

That's understandable, but he doesn't do this out of humility so much as God.

Pride. It's often, if we just think about it, it's often more humbling to be

helped than it is to help. Think about it.

To resist outside help, though, as I said in the beginning, it's anti-Christian,

because the gospel, the very thing that we base our lives upon is that we are

in desperate need of help.

We're dead in our trespasses and sin until God comes to us and makes us alive

together with Christ. That's Ephesians 2.

We are a people who recognize we need help.

In washing the disciples' feet, Jesus shows us that we need cleansing that only He can provide.

Our sins defile us, and only His blood can make us clean.

If he does not wash us, we cannot be his. We cannot share with him in any way.

How does Jesus wash us clean? And there's a beautiful picture in this.

Imagine he gets up. What does it say? He does with the towel.

He wraps it around his waist. He's clothing himself with the towel.

Why? It's a picture for us. Jesus is showing his disciples in a visceral way

that in order for them to be clean, he must take their filth onto himself.

As Christ washes the disciples' feet and moves down from one to the next,

to the next, to the next, their dirt becomes his.

The disciples who were dirty become clean, and he who was clean becomes dirty.

It's a picture of the great exchange made at the cross.

On the cross, Jesus took the filth, the defilement for your sins and mine.

The Bible says he became a curse.

2 Corinthians 5.21 tells us that he who knew no sin became sin so that we might

become the righteousness of God. This is what he's done for you.

He took your defilement, your sin, my sin, and he wore it so that you could become clean.

What amazing grace.

What amazing grace. And in spite of that offer, we're all like Peter.

We resist his cleansing. We resist his grace. We resist his help.

We want to be self-sufficient. We want to think we have some goodness inside

of us that can justify us before God, and we don't,

We don't. Have you been resisting being served by the Son of God?

If so, you cannot have any part with Him.

You have to see, first of all, you have to see that you are dirty.

That's the first step. You've got to admit, my sins have defiled me.

I need, I need grace. I need cleansing.

I am a sinner.

And then the next step is to receive him.

It's to stop resisting. To receive is to say, okay, I want what you are offering to me.

John 1, 12, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name,

he gave the right to become children of God.

James says, God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

It's our pride that keeps him away. It's our pride that makes us think we don't need his help.

It's humility to say, I cannot cleanse myself.

I cannot make myself right with God. I cannot justify myself by my own good deeds. I need another.

So we have to admit our need and we have to receive his grace.

And when we do, he cleanses us. And when he cleanses us, what follows?

And that brings us to our last point.

Christ sends us to serve. So Jesus stoops down to serve us first and foremost,

primarily because it's the only way we could have any part in the kingdom that he is bringing.

But also he does so as an example for us. Look at verse 15 through 17.

For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you.

Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master,

nor a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. So,

Simple final point, simple conclusion.

Christ loves you. He loves you fully and completely.

He loves you enough that he stoops down to serve you by dying in your place on a cross.

And in so doing, he cleanses you when you put your faith in him,

when you trust him. You are cleansed.

If you have believed in him, then what does that mean? It means you're united

to him. It means you're one with him.

It means you're adopted into the royal family.

It means you've been given an inheritance in the kingdom of God.

It means that you've been made a kingdom of priests. It means you are a part

of a redeemed humanity, a new humanity who will inherit the world.

It means you have access to the very throne of heaven.

Wow, that's what's true of every single one of us who believed in his name.

Now, what do we do with that exalted status as children of God?

We follow his example in humble, loving service.

Jesus shows us in this passage, in this story, that humble service isn't a departure

from his status as high king of heaven and earth.

It's not inconsistent with his glory. Instead, it is the very expression of his glory.

Just as when he hangs on the cross, it is the ultimate expression of the glory

of his grace for mankind.

That's how John understands it. What does John say at the very beginning of

the book? He says, we have seen his glory. And what does he mean?

He means we saw it in his teaching. We saw it in the way he lived his life.

We saw it in the way he always resisted temptation.

We saw it in the miracles that he performed. We saw it in the way he served.

We saw it in the way he died.

Everything Jesus did was a revealing of glory. And this is no different.

This king who gets off of his throne, comes to earth, takes on the form of a

servant, gets down on his knees, and does the lowliest task imaginable.

It's a revealing of glory.

It seems upside down to us that a king would serve his followers.

But it's only because sin has turned our world on its head.

This humble, loving service is how things are meant to be in his kingdom.

He taught us that the most noble in his kingdom would be the greatest servants.

When we sit with him at the marriage supper of the lamb, he will wrap a towel

around his waist and he will serve.

It's who he is beginning to end.

And, believer, united to him by faith, it's who you're meant to be.

It's not a departure from your exalted status as a son or daughter of God.

When you are most assured of who you are in Christ, you are most free to serve.

When you know you are loved, when you know you are adopted, when you know you

are cleansed, you are most free to get down on your knees and serve.

And when you serve from that place, out of the confidence of who you are in

Christ, you can serve with great joy, knowing that what verse 17 says is true.

You are blessed when you do.

Christ loves you. He stoops to serve you.

He's cleansed you. And now he sends you to serve. Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for setting an example for us. But more than that,

thank you for taking our defilement onto yourself and taking it to the grave.

Thank you for defeating our sins.

Thank you for cleansing us and sending us to serve.

Help us now to go and to do that out of an assurance of your love for us,

out of an assurance of our exalted status as sons and daughters of the King.

I pray it in Jesus' name, amen.