Servant King (John 13:1-17)

We're gonna be continuing in the Gospel of John.

So we're gonna be in chapter 13 today, starting in verse 1.

If you don't have a Bible, we would love to bring one to you so that you can follow along.

We go through the Bible verse by verse and uh and book by book.

So you're catching us right in the middle of the Gospel of John.

Uh, and that's okay.

You don't need to catch up.

Um, it's a it's a great spot to jump in.

But like I said, John chapter 13 starting in verse 1, and as you're turning there, chapter 13 as a whole has an interesting layout.

John 13 · chapter mention

You know, it starts with our passage today talking about serving one another.

And then we're gonna see the beginning next in the chapter, the beginning of Judas's betrayal.

And then Jesus is going to call his disciples to love one another.

And Jesus is gonna go as far as to say, this is how the world will know that you are my disciples, if we as the church, if we as his disciples love one another, and then right at the end of chapter 13, it ends with the beginning of Peter's denial of Jesus.

And I point this out because I want us to keep in mind that Jesus knows the betrayal, the denial, and the abandonment of these disciples, and he knows that none of them are gonna follow him all the way to the cross.

Yet I want us to pay attention to how he serves and he loves them all the way to the end, as we're gonna see in verse one.

So if you're able, would you please stand for the reading of God's Word?

John chapter 13, starting in verse 1.

John 13 · chapter mention

Before the Passover festival, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world to the Father.

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

Now, when it was time for supper, the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas, Simon Iscariot's son, to betray him.

Jesus knew that the Father had given everything into his hands, that he had come from God, and that he was going back to God.

So he got up from supper, laid aside his outer clothing, took a towel, and tied it around himself.

Next he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet and to dry them with the towel tied around him.

He came to Simon Peter, who asked him, Lord, are you going to wash my feet?

Jesus answered him, What I'm doing you don't realize now, but afterward you will understand.

You will never wash my feet, Peter said.

Jesus replied, If I don't 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.

One who has bathed, Jesus told him, doesn't need to wash anything except his feet.

But he is completely clean.

You are clean, but not all of you, for he knew who would betray him.

This is why he said, Not all of you are clean.

When Jesus had washed their feet and put on his outer clothing, he reclined again to say and said to them, Do you know what I have done for you?

You call me teacher and lord, and you are speaking rightly, since that is what I am.

So if I, 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 also should do, just as I have done for you.

Truly I tell you, a servant is not greater than his master, and a messenger is not greater than the one who sent him.

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

Let's pray.

Lord, there is so much here in your word this morning that I'm excited about that is life-changing for each one of us.

So we thank you for this passage.

We pray, God, that you would do your divine work not only in us as individuals, but in us as a church body.

Would you have your way?

Would you mold us and shape us into the people that you want us to be?

Please show us how to follow Jesus in a deeper and more intimate way, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

Okay, now I want everybody to take your shoes off.

Okay?

Ready?

Just start.

No, no, I'm just kidding.

But I do want to start with a question.

Is this foot washing that we just read about, is it symbolic?

Or is this just Jesus coming to his disciples that have these sturdy, these dirty, stinky feet?

And Jesus was like, you guys, it's been three years of dealing with your feet.

And I'm just so done with this.

Just take your sandals off.

I'm gonna wash your feet.

It's symbolic, right?

It's just symbolic of what Jesus is doing for his disciples.

It's symbolic of serving and considering others as better than yourself.

You know, there's a point in Jesus' ministry where James and John's mother asked Jesus if her sons could sit at his right hand and at his left hand when he had established his kingdom.

And she does this, and the story continues, and I want to read it.

We have the verses for you.

It's Matthew 20, 24, just to kind of give you an idea of where the disciples' heads are in these three years of following Jesus.

It says, When the ten disciples heard this, that James and John's mother had uh had asked this question, they became indignant with the two brothers.

Jesus called them over and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them.

This was just common in this day.

It was not, um, it must not be like that among you, Jesus told them.

On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave.

Jesus as the Son of Man did not, oh, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Did you catch that?

Jesus came to serve and not be served.

God came to serve and not be served.

And if we are truly his disciples, that means people that are following him and trying to become more like him, what are we supposed to do?

Become like him, right?

In this act of service.

If Jesus wasn't below the menial tasks of a servant, then we shouldn't be either.

The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

What Jesus did on the cross for each and every one of us here today.

And that's what we get to see today as he serves his betrayer, as he serves his denier, and as he serves his abandoners.

So look at verse one.

Before the Passover festival, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart.

Your translation might say, transition from this world to the Father.

So many times, you know, we've seen Jesus or John, the author of the gospel here, mention that Jesus did or didn't do something in particular because his hour had not come.

Now we see Jesus on the doorstep of his death, and his hour had finally come.

You know, and I think this is a good time for self-reflection as well.

To think about this for ourselves.

If you knew that you had one week left to live, what would you do with that week?

You know, we're getting to see Jesus answer that question right before our eyes as we continue on in the Gospel of John.

We're getting to see Jesus answer that by serving.

You know, he's not making sure that he has the best last meal.

You know, he's not traveling to and relaxing in those perfect destinations that he loves the most on this earth.

He doesn't have this bucket list of skydiving or seeing the Grand Canyon or flying first class or you know, swimming with dolphins in the Mediterranean or something like that.

He serves.

He loves.

And then he teaches his disciples how to do the same thing.

You know, Jesus is so kingdom-minded that he serves his own to the end, as we see here at the end of verse 1.

Look at the second half of verse 1.

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

Now, if you remember in chapter 10, that's the good shepherd uh chapter that we talk so much about.

Jesus tells us in that chapter who his own are.

He says, The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.

The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice.

He calls his own sheep, it says, by name, and leads them out.

When he has brought all his own, there it is again, outside, he goes ahead of them.

The sheep follow him because they know his voice.

So look at the second half of verse 1 again.

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

You know, we're gonna see in John 15, 13, here in a couple weeks, Jesus is gonna say, No one has greater love than this, to lay down his life for his friends.

That's how he loved his own to the end.

He laid down his life for his friends.

Not just on the cross, but his whole life.

He lived a sacrificial life with sacrificial love all the time, every day, to the end.

There was zero selfishness, there was zero self-seeking in Jesus.

And then the word that's used here, the end, you know, it's sometimes translated in different versions of the Bible as uttermost.

And I want to show you this Greek definition of this word.

And it the definition says end, termination, the limit at which a thing ceases to be.

But in the parentheses here is what I want us to focus on.

Always of the end of some act or state, but not of the end of a period of time.

This means he didn't just love them to his death, you know, to the cross.

He loved them to the highest degree that is possible.

There was no more love that could be expressed by him.

And that's what's gonna continue on for these disciples and for his disciples that are here today until the end of time.

Loving us to the uttermost, to the fullest extent, all the time.

Now, John continues on in verse 2.

Please look at that first chunk with me.

Now, when it was time for supper, so we're just gonna stop right there because I really want to set the scene of what we're looking at here.

Because this is really gonna come to play as we go through, come into play as we go through this chapter.

So they're in this upper room that they're using for this last supper.

And for formal meals like this, they would be reclining around a U-shaped table.

It wasn't a big long one all sitting on the same side as we see in the painting.

It would have been a U-shaped table.

They'd be laying, and it's low to the ground, so they'd be laying on their belly, propped up on their left arm, and eating with their right hand.

You know, we don't know a lot about the seating arrangement, though many have made a lot of guesses over the years of what it might have been.

But what we can deduce from what we see in scripture and what we do know is that John was reclining to his right, the author of our gospel, and Judas was reclining to his left at this table.

And when they would have these feasts, there was a traditional hierarchy of how each person would be seated at this table.

And I think this will come into play a bit, but what do we already know about these disciples and what they are concerned about?

They're concerned with position.

We just read about that, aren't they?

They're concerned with their position in Jesus' kingdom.

In Luke's account of the Last Supper, the same meal that we're looking at, the disciples openly argue about who would be the greatest.

They didn't even hide it.

You know, so there could be some pride and some hurt feelings going on here about who was seated where around this U-shaped table.

So keep that in mind as we go on.

Look at the verse 2 again.

It says, Now, when it was time for supper, the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas, Simon Iscariot's son to betray him.

You know, here it says the devil had put it on Judas's heart.

Now, in verse 27 of the same chapter, it's going to say, Satan entered him.

You know, it seems to be this progression that's going on that Judas is going through right now.

You know, it's on his heart.

Satan is tempting him and had been tempting him.

Judas had already talked to the priests at this point, but he had not carried out the betrayal of Jesus just quite yet.

And then there seems to be this resolve a little bit later on in the chapter where he comes to this resolve to betray Jesus, and then it says Satan enters him.

You know, something that Satan cannot do to a true follower of Jesus Christ.

Tempt, yes, but enter into a true follower of Jesus Christ, that's not possible.

You know, and I have so many questions about Judas that are not answered in Scripture, so I'm not going to obsess over those questions.

But Jesus knows Judas is going to betray him to his death.

And Jesus still serves him.

Think about that.

Jesus loves his enemy all the way to his death.

So much so that he's about to wash his enemy's feet.

Think about that.

Now look at verse 3 with me.

Jesus knew that the Father had given everything into his hands, that he had come from God, and that he was going back to God.

So Jesus is not surprised by what lies ahead, is he?

He's not surprised by Judas betraying him.

He's not surprised when he's arrested, when he's abused, when he's lied about, when he's mocked, when he's crucified.

You know, I like how the enduring word commentary phrases this.

It says, Jesus went into this situation as a victor, not as a victim.

He could have backed out anytime he wanted to, because the Father had given all things into his hands, as we just read.

You know, and I like that because it removes the idea that Jesus was the victim of some circumstance, or the victim of Judas, or the religious leaders, or a victim of the mob mentality that was shouting, crucify him, crucify him.

Nobody forced Jesus to the cross.

And we need to understand that.

Now keep in mind from verse 3 who Jesus is, as we just talked about.

He's God.

Where he came from, he came from God.

Where he's going back, back to God.

Now read verse 4 at what God does.

Verse 4.

So he, Jesus, God, got up from supper, laid aside his outer clothing, took a towel, and tied it around himself.

Next he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet and to dry them with a towel tied around him.

All things, it says, in the previous verse, were given into his hands.

And what does he do with his hands?

He picks up a towel to wash his creation's feet.

Think about that.

The humility of our Savior.

And then on a completely different note, think about feet in this time.

They didn't have socks and shoes like we do.

They definitely weren't showering every day like a lot of us do.

They had sandals, they had dirt roads, cobblestone if they were in a fancy region.

They're walking behind horses and donkeys and camels on the road.

So I'll leave it to your imagination of what they were stepping in.

But let's put this in a modern day context of something we might be able to understand a little bit better.

So let's say you have your shoes on, you're walking up to the front door of a friend's house, you're walking across the lawn, you accidentally step in some doggy doo-doo that's on their lawn and it's all over your shoes, not just on the bottom, it is just all over your shoes.

Would you take your shoes off before going into your friend's house?

Yes, I hope so.

If you want to keep your friends, yes, you would take those off before you go into their house.

But if you're wearing sandals, you can't take your feet off, can you?

So washing feet was a normal thing to do before going into somebody's home.

You know, and if the household could afford it, they would have a servant or a slave that would do that for you.

It would actually be, if there's multiple slaves or servants, it would actually be the lowest position in the home as a servant would be the one washing people's feet as they came into the house.

This was not something that a king would ever do.

And then now thinking a little bit more about the situation here in this dining room where they are, they're laying on their bellies, right?

So their feet are exposed behind them.

They're sticking up.

It's not like a nice, you know, table with these chairs where we can tuck our feet underneath and hide our dirty feet.

Their feet are exposed for all to see.

And the disciples didn't wash their own feet coming in.

They definitely didn't wash each other's feet coming in because that's the job of the lowest of low servants.

So throughout the rest of this chapter, he shows and then tells them all about being a servant, all about loving one another.

It's all about loving each other just as he demonstrated to them.

Look at verse 6 with me.

He came to Simon Peter, who asked him, Lord, are you going to wash my feet?

Jesus answered him, What I'm doing, you don't realize now.

But afterward, you will understand.

You know, Peter tends to often be like in a literal mode.

He's not seeing the symbolism quite yet of what Jesus is doing.

But John, our author, who is right there next to Jesus at this time, has the benefit of writing this afterwards.

He now understands as Jesus said they would understand later.

You know, but really, just putting yourself in the disciples' shoes, you can't say that because they didn't have shoes back then.

They had sandals, I guess, but putting yourself in the disciples' sandals, I could see their hesitation with what's going on here.

They just watched, think about this, they just watched his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

The king's entrance into Jerusalem.

They laid coats down so his donkey's feet didn't have to touch the filth that they were walking in.

And now God bends down to wash the filth and animal waste from their feet.

The same waste that they just tried to protect his donkey's feet from with palm branches and with coats.

You know, I know for us, foot washings, uh, it's hard to relate to.

It's just not a part of our culture.

But picture this.

So you wake up tomorrow morning and you hear a noise outside, and you look out the window, and Jesus is in your driveway, and he's washing your filthy car covered in mud and bird poop and dead bugs stuck all over the place.

So you run out and you say, Jesus, what are you doing?

Stop.

I can do this.

I should be doing this.

You shouldn't be doing this for me.

And he says, It really needs it.

It is really bad.

And I wanted to survive.

You in this way.

And I don't want you to just sit here, and here's a cup of lemonade, you know, and you can just wash as watch as I'm finishing washing and drying your car.

You know, if you're like me, you'd be like, you know, at least Jesus, you know, this is awesome, but at least let me help you.

Like, you shouldn't be doing this by yourself.

You shouldn't be doing this for me.

He's like, no, just sit there, just just watch.

Just let me do this for you.

You know, I think that's a good example of what the disciples might be feeling, maybe even more so, as Jesus was washing their mode of transportation, as he was washing their feet.

Which I think explains Peter's reaction in verse 8.

So look at that with me.

You will never wash my feet, Peter said.

Jesus replied, If I don't wash you, you have no part with me.

So we've already established this is a humiliating task, right?

To wash feet.

But not nearly as humiliating as being stripped of your clothes, being mocked and beaten publicly, and then lifted up on a cross, being crucified in front of the world to see.

Jesus' response here to Peter is about the washing of his blood over Peter through an even more humiliating task than washing feet through being crucified.

You know, it's not about the foot washing, it's about accepting the washing and accepting the cleansing of Jesus Christ.

And if Peter couldn't accept this foot washing, how could he ever accept the act of service of cleansing that Jesus was going to bring to him on the cross?

You know, if we can't accept the humble act of Jesus cleansing us, look at what it says right here.

It says, You have no part with me.

Now look at Peter's response in verse 9.

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

You know, Peter's all out.

We know that about him, right?

Or maybe all in regarding how you look at it.

He doesn't do anything halfway.

You know, first it was, don't do this at all, to Lord, just do all of me then.

Like I just want all of it.

But both times, notice Peter's error here.

Both times he's trying to tell Jesus what to do.

That's never a good idea.

You know, Jesus, you shouldn't be doing it this way.

To Jesus, you're not doing enough.

It's basically what Peter says here.

You know, and we like to be hard on Peter, but we do the same thing.

You know, we kind of have the Goldilocks mentality with God sometimes.

Well, thanks, God, but this porridge is too cold and this porridge is too hot, and I like my porridge, you know, just a certain way.

But the way we do it is, oh Lord, you know, if I just had a little more money, then fill in the blank.

Or Lord, if I could just be in this one relationship, then I would finally be happy.

Oh Lord, if I just had a little less family drama, then I could really was that too close to Thanksgiving?

Maybe it's too close to Thanksgiving.

But we have this Goldilocks mentality of Jesus, you know, thanks, but if it was just, we want to give him directions on how to how to best teach us and bless us and all of those things.

But look at Jesus' response to Peter, verse 10.

One who has bathed, Jesus told him, doesn't need to wash anything except his feet.

But he is completely clean.

You are clean, but not all of you.

Speaking of Judas there.

You know, the disciples were clean, they were saved by Jesus, all but Judas.

And all had believed and followed him and would continue to do so.

But even though they had been made clean, had been bathed by Jesus, there's still a filth from the world that would cling to them as they traveled through it.

There was a continual washing that Jesus is speaking of here, of recognizing our sin when we sin, and then asking for forgiveness and allowing Jesus to wash us once again.

We don't need salvation again when that happens when we sin.

We don't need another altar call or another response.

We need simply need the washing of Jesus.

You know, there's a difference between bathing and washing here in the words that we're seeing in this chapter and in the Greek as well.

So Jesus just points out you don't need to be bathed head to toe, Peter.

You're saved.

But you do need this continual washing that he's talking about.

But Jesus then points out that Judas had not been bathed.

He was not saved by Jesus.

The rest of the eleven are good, but Judas was in trouble.

Look at verse 11.

For he knew who would betray him.

This is why he said, Not all of you are clean.

You know, Jesus could have said, Judas, get out.

You know, just go do your thing, go betray me.

I'm going to serve and love my faithful followers, but not you.

You just need to leave.

But Jesus loved Judas to the end, didn't he?

And Jesus gave Judas an opportunity to follow him to the very end as well.

You know, I love that Jesus never gives Judas a reason to say, yeah, Jesus drove me away.

You know, he rejected me before I rejected him.

You know, all Judas would be able to say honestly is that he served me until the end.

Jesus loved his own until the end, and he loved his enemy until the end as well.

Look at verse 12.

When Jesus had washed their feet and put on his outer clothing, he reclined again and said to them, Do you know what I have done for you?

You call me teacher and Lord, and you are speaking rightly, since that is what I am.

So if I, 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 also should do just as I have done for you.

The best leaders lead by example, don't they?

This is the example of our rabbi, that our rabbi, our teacher, the one as disciples, the one we're following and trying to become like.

This is the example that he left for his disciples.

You know, up until this point, we haven't really witnessed a lot of servant leadership from the disciples, have we?

We do see them jockey for position, though.

We've seen that a couple times throughout the Gospels, haven't we?

But I want us to look at what Peter has to say roughly 30 years after this event, when he wrote 1 Peter chapter 5.

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

And we're gonna put it up behind me.

Peter wrote this.

He said, All of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Humble yourselves, therefore, until the mighty hand of God, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time.

Peter learned his lesson here, didn't he?

He learned the lesson that Jesus was demonstrating right here at this last supper.

He demonstrated the lesson that Jesus is about to explain to us at verse 16.

So look at that with me.

Truly I tell you, a servant is not greater than his master, and a messenger, you might see apostle right there, and a messenger is not greater than the one who sent him.

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

You know, these disciples, soon to be apostles, these sent ones, that's what it means, are about to be famous, aren't they?

They're going to have people begging them to tell them stories about what it was like to be with Jesus for three years.

You know, they're gonna be looked on as leaders of the church.

Their thoughts and their opinions are gonna be sought out by so many different people.

They're gonna be known throughout the world.

I mean, even 2,000 years later in the Tascadaro, here we are still talking about him.

Jesus needed to make sure that they knew their job was to be a servant like him and to not elevate themselves or allow others to elevate them above Jesus.

You know, and as Jesus' disciples today for us, when we place ourselves on a pedestal, you know, when there are those that seem a little too lowly for us to serve, maybe a little too icky for us to serve, or different, or politically different for us to serve, we're placing ourselves not only above that person, but above Jesus.

Because if Jesus was not above serving the leper and the prostitute, the despised, the outcasts, the sinners, the tax collectors, the traitors as we're seeing it here today, if he wasn't above serving those people, but we are, that places us above Jesus.

That's why he just said a servant is not greater than his master, and a messenger is not greater than the one who sent him.

You know, whenever we have the thought that we are above serving anyone or above loving an enemy, we're elevating ourselves above Jesus.

Not that person, but above Jesus.

But if we do not elevate ourselves and we do serve the least of these, as Jesus instructed, what does Jesus say?

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

There's that part at the end where that's very important.

We don't just need to know it.

You're blessed if you do them.

We're blessed if we serve Jesus and serve as Jesus did.

You know, somehow that old adage has come to a place where many people believe that it's scripture that says the Lord helps those that help themselves.

That is the absolute opposite of Jesus' teachings.

It couldn't be further from biblical truth.

Jesus is saying right here, the Lord blesses those that serve others.

The greatest commandment we learn is to love God and love others, right?

You know, I'd like you to turn to Luke chapter 14, 11, and we're gonna end with this.

Luke 14 · chapter mention

So that's one book to the left in your Bible, Luke 14, 11.

And this is really, I think, the concrete application of what to do with all of this that we just took in here today.

What we need to leave here with today.

It talks about not looking for self-promotion, but to leave any form of promotion to God and really only caring about his promotion.

So, Luke chapter 14, starting in verse 11, it says, When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, don't sit in the place of honor, because a more distinguished person than you may have been invited by your host.

Luke 14 · chapter mention

The one who invited both of you may come and say to you, Give your place to this man, and then in humiliation you will proceed to take the lowest place.

But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when the one who invited you comes, he will say to you, Friend, move up higher.

You will then be honored in the presence of all the other guests.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

Will uh be exalted.

This is so the opposite from human nature, isn't it?

It's so the opposite of the world that we live in.

You know, the world tells us to climb the ladder, to promote yourself, to love yourself.

They lie that God helps those that help themselves, this we just talked about.

But Jesus says, follow my example and be the lowest of servants.

And if you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

So I think the encouragement for us here today is let's follow our master.

Let's follow our master's example and how he served as the lowest of servants.

You know, and if you've not been bathed with the cleansing and forgiving blood of Jesus that was shed for us on the cross, you only have to ask, and Jesus will bathe you completely from every wrongdoing and every filth of the world that is clinging to us right now.

Head-to-toe cleansing.

If you just asked for him to do that, and I promise you that he will.

That all we have to do is ask him for that forgiveness, to be our Lord, to be our Savior, knowing that we cannot do this on our own, but we need that cleansing blood of Jesus for that forgiveness of sin.

And then for the rest of us that have already been bathed head to toe, we still need that continual washing, don't we?

We still fail on a daily basis.

We still get ourselves into positions in this world where we come out, it's like, ah, I feel like the world's stuck to me right now.

Jesus, would you wash me one more time?

We all need that continual washing of Jesus Christ.

Will you please pray with me?

Lord, we cannot thank you enough for the gift of your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

For the gift that He has given us and offering us salvation.

Lord, all we need to do is confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that you raised him from the dead.

And Scripture says that we will be saved.

You couldn't have made it any easier for us, but Jesus, you went through absolute torment and torture for us to make it that easy.

So, Lord, help us to not take that lightly and to take advantage of the invitation that you've given to each one of us.

And Lord, we take that we thank you for that continual washing that you offer us that we need daily.

But we thank you that you loved us that much.

Help us to never take that for granted and to to remember that as we're about to take communion.

Lord, the the importance of the cleansing blood of your son through these symbols uh that we're about to partake in.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.