The White Towel - Pastor Kipp Penrod

Thank you for listening to this message from

Lifehouse Church. just for a brief period of

time. Renowned leader and expert John Maxwell

says this, leadership is influence. Nothing more,

nothing less. Leadership is influence. John Maxwell

emphasizes that leadership is not based on titles.

It's not about hierarchy necessarily, but rather

your ability to influence other individuals through

relationship, through character, and through

added values into somebody's life. Maxwell says

that leadership is not a position thing, right?

Not a title thing, but it's actually an influence

thing in somebody else's life. Another leadership

guru, Robert K. Greenleaf, you may or may not

have heard of him before, has an additional take

on leadership. Greenleaf coined the phrase servant

leadership. In Greenleaf's 1970 essay, The Servant

as Leader, this former AT &T executive proposed

the primary motivation of leadership should be

a natural desire to serve others first rather

than a desire to lead. Greenleaf says leadership

is servant plus leading and not the other way

around. And I believe that both John Maxwell

and Greenleaf were only borrowing these leadership

concepts from the greatest leader of all time,

who is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the greatest leader

who ever graced this planet. If you want to understand

leadership, if you want to know what it is to

lead in your home, if you want to know what it

is to lead in your context of life, study Jesus.

If you want to understand it in its purest form,

You want to watch and read and look at what Jesus

did. Undefiled leadership should look like how

Christ led while he was on this earth. Study

it, read it, look into it. He valued what he

valued and what he did not value because Jesus

is the original influencer. How many know there's

lots of influencers on social media? How many

know there's a lot of people that shouldn't be

influencing on social media? Come on. He taught

and modeled servant leadership. If you want to

know what it is to lead in your home, in your

work, in your profession, if you want to know

what it's like to lead in your community or even

in the world at large, look at Jesus. Amen. If

you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to John

John 13 · chapter mention

chapter 13. Jesus teaches in this passage a foundational

principle, a truth about leadership. And as you

turn, I'm going to pray. Father, I thank you.

God, for each person in the house today, I thank

you those who are joining us online this morning.

And Lord God, I'm just asking right now that

you would touch our ears, our hearts, and our

minds as we dive into your word. God, let it

be a lamp to our feet, a light to our path. God,

let it speak into our spirit and change who we

are because that's the power of your word. It

is living and powerful. And we just give you

praise and glory in Jesus' name. And everybody

say it together. Amen. Amen. John chapter 13.

John 13 · chapter mention

Now let me give you just a little preview coming

up to John 13. It's Passover. It's Passover in

Jerusalem. Jesus is about to leave his disciples,

his trainees, the men he's been training for

three and a half years. It's not because he's

going to the next town to minister. It's not

because he's going to do healing or preaching

or teaching in another location. He's getting

ready to go to the cross. He's getting ready

for the final journey up to Golgotha and die

and be placed in a tomb, raise up from that tomb

and be seen by over 500 witnesses and then ascend

to the Father. This is soon going to take place.

And this is the plan of God to bring us back

into relationship with God. But before he goes.

Jesus is teaching his disciples at the last supper,

at Passover for the last time. And he's doing

it with a towel, right, and a meal. He's teaching

them leadership. A towel and a meal. And I brought

a towel with me. This morning I'm just going

to hang it here so that you can see it. How to

lead. Some of his final words before he left.

And he didn't have a power meeting with the disciples.

He didn't pull up a PowerPoint. He didn't get

out a whiteboard and say, boys, when I'm gone,

this is what I want it to look like. He didn't

do any of that. He gives them a living illustration

of what it really means to lead. John 13 once

says this. Now, before the feast of the Passover,

when Jesus knew that his hour had come, that

he should depart from this world to the Father,

having loved his own who were in the world, he

loved them to the end. At supper being ended,

the devil, having already put in 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 to God, rose up from supper, laid

aside his garments, took a towel. Say a towel.

Took a towel and girded himself about that. And

he poured water into a basin and began to wash

the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the

towel with which he was girded. Then he came

to Simon Peter and Peter said to him, Lord, are

you washing my feet? And Jesus answered and said

to him, what I'm doing you do not understand

now, but you will know after this. Peter said

to him, you shall never wash my feet. And Jesus

answered me, if I do not wash you, you have no

part with me. Simon Peter said to him, Lord,

not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.

Peter's like, he backtracks. Jesus said to him,

he who is bathed needs only to wash his feet,

but is completely clean. And you are clean, but

not all of you. For he knew that he would, who

would betray him. Therefore, he said, you are

not all clean. So when he had washed their feet,

taking his garments and sat down again, he said

to them, do you know what I have done to you?

You call me teacher and Lord, and you say, well,

for I am. For 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 do as I have done to you. Most

assuredly I say to you, a servant is not greater

than his master, nor is he who is sent greater

than he who sent him. If you know these things,

blessed are you if you do them. What was Jesus

teaching these men about leading? What did Maxwell

and Greenleaf borrow from Jesus as they taught

about leadership? It's this, that there is only

one position. There is only one posture. There

is only one platform if you follow Jesus Christ

to lead, and that is servant leadership. Servant

leadership is the only leadership style for a

Christian. There's only one posture that we can

get in if we're going to lead in the body of

Christ, if we're going to lead in life. There's

only one position that we can lead from, one

view, one lens that we look through, and it is

servant plus lead. It is servant plus lead. There's

no other position, attitude, and particularly

platform, like I'm standing on today, to lead

from when you're following Jesus other than servant

leader. And this idea runs counter -cultural

to the world that we live in. It really does.

If you study leadership in the world that's around

us, you're going to find out that there's lots

of labels for leadership. You're going to find

out there's transformational leaders, right?

That's the type of leader that will inspire positive

change and motivate people to innovate. This

is kind of some of those influencers I'm talking

about. They get on social media and they're trying

to inspire and they're trying to jazz you up,

get you stirred up right in your spirit and to

develop you. And this type of leadership is dependent

upon my ability or somebody's ability to inspire

you to positive change of some kind. How many

of you have ever... inspired your teenager to

take out the trash? Anybody ever try to do that?

How well did that go? How many of you don't inspire

teenagers very easily, right? But this is an

inspirational. It's more like a bribe with a

teenager. Like, come on, I'll do this if you

do that kind of thing. And actually that kind

of leads into the next thing, which is a transactional

leader. It's another type of leadership. This

is one who focuses on supervision, structure,

and a system of reward and punishments to meet

the goal. Amen. How many have done that with

your teenager? Yeah. Yeah. I will let you live

if you take the garbage out. You will get to

eat tomorrow. All right? Tomorrow, we're talking

about this. And there's nothing wrong with systems.

When I'm talking about these things, understand

systems are in place all over. We have systems

in our business. We have systems in our government.

We've got systems in church. You probably have

a system in your home. I can guarantee you have

some kind of system. Whether it's written down

or not is irrelevant, right? How many know there's

just things that run a certain way in your house?

You've got a certain role. Certain things happen

a certain way. There's systems. There's autocracies.

leadership, right? That relies on personal expertise

to make decisions with little input from subordinates.

We don't like this one very much. This is authoritarian

in nature. It's my way or the highway. I don't

know if you've ever been under a leader like

that, but it's my way or the highway. Maybe that

was your parents growing up. You didn't get to

say so. You didn't get into discussion. It was

just this way and that was it. There's democratic

leadership that encourages collaboration, which

is complete opposite and involves people coming

together to make decisions. And we collaborate.

We get together and do these things. There's

bureaucratic leadership. There's charismatic

leadership. There's coaching leadership. There's

all kinds of leadership that you can study out

in the world. But Jesus illustrated and instructed

his disciples, when it comes to leadership as

a follower of Jesus Christ, it must begin, it

must come off of a platform of a servant, servant

leadership. And you might be thinking, why? Why

did Jesus just highlight this one style of leadership

as the platform? You know, because he could have

been, he could have really, and honestly would

have fit very well. He could have been the authoritative

leader. He really could have. He was God's son.

He commanded demons and they obeyed. He called

on the wind and the waves to stop, and they listened.

He caused a group of fish, a school of fish,

he commanded them to jump into a net, and they

filled the net. He could have spoke and said,

this is how it is. It is my way or the highway.

He really could have. But Jesus modeled servant

leadership. He put on a towel. over his arm and

knelt down and began to show. And I believe he

did this because he was teaching his disciples.

He was teaching us something foundationally that

we have to know. It has to start with a platform

of servant leadership, because I believe he knew

that if we didn't start with a platform of servant

leadership, we would get it all messed up. If

it was all about being the authoritarian, how

many know what power hungry goes to our heads,

right? He knew we would mess it up. He knew we

would get it all jacked up if we didn't just

start off with a servant, with a towel in our

hands, with a towel. It's our platform, servant

leader. I can get very tempted to manipulate

somebody, right? We all can if we don't have

the towel. If you learn to lead, you can come

off sounding right, but you're manipulating and

you're trying to twist things. Greenleaf even

discovered this in secular circles. To lead long

-term, to do it the right way, it has to be servant

first, leader second. Servant first, leader second.

Tao first, lead second. Towel first. Before I

lead, I got to be willing to put on the towel.

I really do. I got to be willing to bend down

and wash somebody's feet. It's an incredible

living illustration. God's son, the Messiah,

the most powerful individual to walk the face

of the earth. He takes a towel. And while his

men are getting ready for supper or following

supper, he kneels down. And he begins, he takes

a basin of water and a towel and he kneels down

and he begins to wash their feet. All the grime

from walking in the streets of Jerusalem. And

God understand back then it wasn't paved. There

were animals and there were, you know, and what

animals do, right? That food goes in one end,

stuff comes out the other end. It's in the street.

You know, all that stuff is on the streets of

Jerusalem and it's on their feet. And Jesus kneels

down and he takes a towel and one by one he begins.

And Peter is so humbled in the middle of this.

He says, Lord, no, no, no, no. This should be

the other way around. And Jesus said, if you

don't let me. me do this. You have no part with

me. It was servant leadership. Servant leadership.

We cannot kneel before somebody and wash their

feet if we have pride in our life. If you resent

that person, you will never kneel and wash their

feet. If you have jealousy, unforgiveness in

your heart of some kind, you won't wash their

feet. You won't bow to the ground. You won't

become subservient in front of them. You won't

be willing to get the dirt on your hands and

on your knees and on your clothes. Leadership

in the kingdom of God has one platform. It is

servant first and lead second. It is Tao first

and lead second. It has to start there. Let the

world lead however they choose. Whatever platform

they decide to make their main platform to lead.

But if you're in the kingdom of God, Start off

with serve, towel first, lead second. If I will

not grab the towel and bend down and serve first,

I got it wrong. I'm getting it wrong. Jesus knew

exactly what he was doing with those men. He

knew what he was teaching them. He knew what

they would need going forward. They would lead.

These were the 12 men that would change the world

with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And while we

do this, we've got to make sure that our motives

are right while influencing or leading someone

else. We've got to make sure. You've got to make

sure you never lay down the towel when you're

leading or influencing. You can't lay it down.

It can't be up one minute and the next minute

like, you know, I don't think this fits the situation

so much. I think this calls for a different kind

of thing, right? You can't lay it down. You've

got to make sure that you're carrying the towel.

You've got to make sure that it's strapped on

you, and you serve first, you come in as a servant

first, and then you lead. Never laying the towel

down is a way of keeping our motives in check.

If I remind myself, you know, physically, I know

you're not going to carry a towel over your shoulder

for the rest of your life. I get it, right? But

if you, in your mind, see this illustration,

if you remember, it's towel first, right? When

I'm at home, there's a dynamic. I talked about

a system in our house. The system in our house

works like this. Dixie is an awesome cook and

she's an awesome baker. So she cooks and she

bakes because I am with cooking and baking. I've

given it a shot recently a little bit and she's

been very kind and ate it occasionally. But the

reality is she's so much better than I am at

it. So she cooks and she bakes and I do the dishes.

And I feel like that's my way of contributing

for the meal and I'm happy to do that. So I do

the cleanup work. And usually when I'm doing

the dishes, not always, but usually when I'm

doing the dishes, if you're at my house, I'll

start washing and we got a washcloth and I'll

take the tea towel that I dry with and I'll throw

it up over my shoulder. And I'll just put it

on just like this because I wanna be ready to

go. You know, when I'm done washing whatever

by hand and some of it I stick in a dishwasher,

but some of it I'm washing by hand. If it's something

big, I want the tea towel ready. So I'll put

it down, I'll dry it up. right back over my shoulder

again. And that's what I'm talking about. You

can't put the towel down. You can't put it down.

You can't lay it down and decide, well, this

situation calls for this. Now, I understand that

some of you have charisma. I understand that

some of you are able to lead and get out front

and you use that gift in your life. But at the

core level, at the platform level, if you wanna

keep your motives right, if you wanna keep your

motives pure in this, you gotta put the towel

on first. And I got a white towel on purpose

today. I could have brought a really colorful

towel, but I wanted a white one because how many

know white stands for? purity, right? I got to

have pure motives when I walk in to serve. It's

got to be pure. I got to ask myself, what's the

end game? What's my end game when I'm going to

influence somebody? What's my end game when I'm

going to serve somebody else? Most everything

we do has an end game of some kind, right? There's

a purpose behind it. What's the end game as I

lead? What's the end game as I serve? Why am

I doing this? What's the motives behind what

I'm doing? This is a whole towel, white towel

serve thing that I've got to be examining all

the time. Many of us can lead. We can lead and

serve and do it with all the wrong motives. Do

you know that? I know that sounds like the strangest

thing in the world. You can go serve somebody

and have the wrong motives. You can go and rake

your neighbor's leaves. You know, your neighbor

gets laid up in the hospital. They broke their

leg. They got leaves on their yard. Their yard's

a mess. Or maybe it's springtime, like we're

in now, and it needs cleaned up. And you just

take your rake, you take your mower, and you

go over, and you're going to take care of their

yard. And you're, right? And then you can get

over there, and the whole time you're doing it,

you're taking selfies. Right? Posting on social

media. You know, I'm helping my neighbor out.

PTL, praise the Lord. Look at me, look at me,

look at me. Right? You can serve, and your motives

are all jacked up. This thing's all dirty and

a mess with it. We can come up with that kind

of dichotomy in our lives. It's kind of half

pure and half not. Right, it's kind of, that's

kind of like, do you know there's no such thing,

by the way, only in our minds there is. That's

kind of like getting a glass of milk and thinking

this is a healthy drink and putting a liquid

rat poison in it and thinking, yeah, come on,

half, this is half good and half not, right?

I'm gonna drink this down. How many know the

whole thing is garbage? Whole thing's gonna poison

you. Whole thing's gonna mess you up. Worship

team, if you'd come. You gotta make sure your

motors are pure. It's gotta be a white towel.

It can't be any other color. And this dichotomy.

In this thinking, we find it in Scripture. Luke

22, 24 says this. And this was Jesus' disciples,

by the way. This was the men that walked with

him for three and a half years. And, you know,

probably should have had it all right. But just

like us, don't get it all right. And you can

see this dichotomy. And when the disciples messed

this kind of stuff up, it always happened because

they would open their mouths and confirm it.

And that's what happens here. And Luke 22, 24

says, now there were also a dispute among. them

as to which of them should be considered the

greatest. The 12 disciples, the ones that Jesus,

he washed their feet. At another occasion, they're

all together, sitting together, and they're like,

which one's the greatest? I am the greatest.

And the other one's going like, no, no, no, no,

no, no. I am the greatest. How many know as soon

as you start saying that, rat poison in the milk

right there, okay? Right there. They say, and

Jesus said to them, the kings of the Gentiles

exercise lordship over them. And those who exercise

authority of them are called benefactors, but

not so among you. On the contrary, he who is

greatest among you, let him be as the younger

and he who governs as he who serves. The Tao,

the white Tao. For who is greater? He who sits

at the table. Or he who serves. Is it not he

who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as

one who serves. Serves. This is one of those

hidden things. This is one of those places where

it's so easy to hide. It's so easy to have dual

motives in place, right? It's so easy. that the

towel can be on your shoulder and the motives

be all wrong, right? The towel's on your shoulder

and things are so messed up. Where are you at?

I'm gonna ask you to stand. I know for me, if

I can just be personal, as a pastor, this is

scary. It is so easy to tell yourself you're

doing the work of God and keep a little bit of

the praise back just for yourself. Right? Wrong

motive. Wrong motive. Can't be that at all. It's

so easy. It can be so easy to, you know, somebody

gives you a pat on the back and, yeah, well,

that was me. You're thinking in your mind, you're

like, oh, praise the Lord, PTO. And in your heart

and in your head, you're taking some credit.

I'm up here by the grace of God, period. You're

where you are by the grace of God, period. We

don't even take a next breath without him. Jesus,

the sinless one, the one who has every right,

every right to never pick up the towel. And he

kneels before 12 men who had it messed up so

many times. And he washes their feet, washes

their feet. There's only two ways I thought would

be great to recognize this. One would be foot

washing and we didn't, we're gonna do that sometime

here at LifeHouse. We'll have a foot washing

service. But the other was communion. And today

as you take communion, I want you to think about

the towel. I want you to think about purity in

our motives and what we're doing. There is so

much opportunity in this church. I can't even

begin to tell you all the stories we hear of

people in this church serving it. And it just

fills us with joy and good pride and those things

that... make us so excited that God's working

in the kingdom and you're doing it. And I know

so many, they're doing it from pure motives.

And I understand I can't see into your heart,

but it sure looks like it from the outside. And

we are so thrilled that God's doing that. We

just want that to continue in our hearts. We

wanna make sure that we're pure as we move forward,

that we're not doing, if somebody else takes

a picture of you, you're out in the lawn and

you're doing it and they're like, that's awesome.

And they take a picture of you, that's fine.

It's okay if somebody pats you on the back or

something, but just make sure your heart's right.

in it. Make sure you're doing it for the right

reasons. And I believe so many in this church

are. And we celebrate that in so many ways. But

I want to recognize the one, the one who knelt

and washed the disciples' feet. The one who is

King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The one who

right now is at the right hand of the Father,

waiting to return. He's coming back soon. waiting

to return as king and Lord. He's not going to

come back as a baby. Nobody's going to put him

on a cross again. When he comes back, he's coming

back as conquering king. Read the word of God.

It's true. He says the towel, white towel. Here's

what we're going to do. If your heart's ready,

and the word of God tells you this, I don't want

to miss this. If you're going to take communion,

There's only one requirement. You have to know

Jesus as Lord and Savior of your life. The word

of God says, don't take communion in an unworthy

manner. So I'm gonna do something right now.

Let's just bow our heads because somebody might

be here and need that opportunity. If you're

here in the house and you don't know Jesus as

Lord and Savior, I'm here to tell you the Lord

who knelt and washed the disciples' feet died

on a cross for you. He went into a grave. He

came out of that grave and rose from the grave.

And he did that to conquer death, hell, and the

grave. And most of all, conquer sin, which we

could not do on our own. You can't do anything

about your own sin. All you can do is give it

to Christ. Confess it before him. So the word

of God says you have to believe that he is the

son of God. You have to confess that sin to him.

And that separated you from God. It always has

you separated from God. And believe on him. And

the word of God says that you will be saved.

You got to commit to follow him. You got to commit

to doing it his way. If you are in the house

this morning, you want to do that this morning.

I'm not going to ask you to do anything other

than raise your hand. I'm going to pray one prayer

with you. So now's the moment. If that's you

in the house and you, if you're online listening,

you can type in the chat and the person that's

online will work with you and walk with you through

this as well. But if you're in the house this

morning and you want to know Jesus as Lord and

Savior and you don't, raise your hand up, put

it right back down. That's all you have to do.

All right, thank you. Church, if you'd look back

up, hearts and minds are clear. Thank you for

tuning in to this message from Lifehouse Church.

We pray that you were impacted powerfully by

this message. If you have been personally affected

by our ministry and you would like to partner

with us as we love God, love people every day,

visit our website at www .lifehousecog .com.