Let Me Wash You - 10/3/26

Greeneville Seventh-day Adventist Church: Well it is a definitely a high Sabbath, it's full of music and it's a communion sabbath. So we're we're very blessed today. As we begin, I'm have a brief word of prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord, we ask that you would please draw near to us, speak to us, and let our hearts burn within us. I pray that you would please hide me behind the cross and give me the right words to say, and let us all see more of Jesus. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So I'm sure you guys have heard the upper room story many times and know what's going on in the context of what we're going to be talking about today. We're going to be looking in John chapter thirteen, if you want to follow along in your Bibles. In John chapter thirteen, this is before the pe feast of Passover. The Passover was a Jewish festival, celebrating Jesus and his sacrifice for us in shadow. But before it happened, it was looking forward to Jesus, the Lamb that would be slain. The Hebrews would put blood on the doorposts back in Egypt to escape the death of the firstborns, and that was a symbol of the blood of Jesus that would cleanse us and save us by the death of his firstborn. And so this this is a very meaningful feast of to the Jews and full of symbolism, and it's right before this. And Jesus is wanting to teach the disciples some very important lessons about the fulfillment of this Passover festival coming up in himself here in a couple of hours. And yet while Jesus is getting ready for this meaningful lesson, this meaningful ceremony, the disciples are bickering about who's gonna be sitting on the right hand and the left hand of Jesus on the throne when he gets you know when when he gets his kingdom. And there's just a very, very contrasting mood, right? It's hard to talk about these heavy, deep, meaningful things when there's a lot of bickering and and strife and rivalry and and and just nonsense going on. And it was also custom in that day for people to have their feet washed. when they went ca went into a house. It was it was just customary because they didn't have cars back then. They weren't around for for a little while. And the roads were often traveled by horses, donkeys, cows, stuff like that. And if you know anything about them, what goes in comes out. And so there's a lot of junk on the road and people walk on that road and they get the junk on their feet. Dust that's it's gross. And so people would have their feet washed When they came inside, and that was usually a servant's job because you who wants to touch horse poop dirt, you know? And so that's the context, and yet they're so busy bickering about who's gonna be greatest that they don't nobody does this job of washing the feet. There was no servant to do it. There's twelve men, at least, the twelve disciples, plus whoever else was following Jesus for this, probably some of the ladies, I don't know. But At that time, nobody wanted to do it. It was kind of like a elephant in the room kind of thing, where everyone kinda knows someone needs to do it, but no one wants to be the one to do it. Like sometimes, you know, when I was younger, there'd be like a mess. Like for example, my dog puked once on the I feel I'm a little embarrassed to share this story. he puked on the floor. And I had had such a long day at school. I was younger, and so I pretended I didn't see it. So that I didn't have to pick it up. And then my mom would pick it up. Don't do that, kids. That's very bad. You should help your parents. But that's kind of like that situation. It's like, I don't want to be the one to do that. It's like a ugh. And Jesus seeing all this, starting in verse four, he rises from supper, he lays aside his garments, takes a towel and girds himself, he pours the water into a basin, and he washes the disciples' feet. You know, if if this was just a man, a teacher, With some disciples, even that would be astonishing. If you saw a rabbi washing his disciples' feet, man, that rabbi is weird. That rabbi is ugh. But this is not just a rabbi. This is not just a man. This is the Son of God. This is the King of Glory who has millions of angels. at his command, who has never known a taint of sin or filth or guilt. And this is the one. Who humbles himself to the place of this lowly job to wash his disciples' feet while they're busy talking about being so great. We've talked about that. We talked about that last time I was doing communion. We focused on that. This time I want to focus on something else I think is really important. And that's the interaction that Jesus has with Peter. So he came to Simon Peter in verse 6. And Peter said to him, Lord, Dost thou wash my feet? Are you gonna wash my feet, Jesus? You? You see, Peter knew something of who Jesus was. He probably didn't know the extent to which Jesus was holy and separate and high and lifted up, but he knew something of it. He had already at this point said that you are the Christ. And he knows something of who he is, not to the fullest extent, you know, he's still going to betray Jesus after this and and deny him basically three times in front of a bunch of people. And yet he seeing this this contrast refuses, understandably. Him a sinner, a lowly man, having this this humble job performed by the Lord of glory, by the Messiah himself. And so Peter says, You're gonna wash my feet? And Jesus didn't really give a straight answer, as he does sometimes. He said, What I'm doing now you don't know, but you shall know hereafter. And so Peter, in his zeal for God and and his zeal for for the honor of Jesus, said, Lord, you shall never wash my feet. Never. You're not gonna touch my f my s my filthy, sinful feet. And that's a I think that's a reasonable response. From his perspective. You know, Peter was very impetuous. And he ha he was a little hasty sometimes. But I want to talk about this. There's a sort of humility here on the part of Peter that's not necessarily good humility. There's there's the there's always the the the the one extreme of god, I'll fix myself and then I'll come to you, right? I don't need you to wash my feet. I can do it. We'll figure it out. That's there's this this pride And then there's the other extreme of God, I'm too sinful, I'm too dirty, you're too high, you're too holy to have to deal with someone like me. I've gone too far. You shall not you you can't don't I don't want you to to to humble yourself to wash my feet. And I think sometimes we can fall into that trap. We might not think, I I can I can fix myself and everything would be fine. I don't really need someone to wash my feet. I don't need Jesus to do that. I can figure it out. But sometimes we can say, man, I'm I am I'm such a mess. And and God is is so holy. And there's there's there's no way that He I can let Him wash my feet. I can let Him humble Himself to someone like me. And that's where I think Peter's mind is at. But Jesus' answer hits really really hard. Jesus answered him and said, If I do not wash you, you have no part with me, no portion with me. Jesus points Peter beyond the physical to the to the spiritual representation. Jesus is saying, If I don't wash you, we can't be connected. You cannot take part with me in the inheritance of the Messianic kingdom. If I don't do this, if I don't humble myself and deal with your sins, not belittling those sins, yes, they're sinful, they're disgusting. Yes, your feet are dirty. But if I don't do this, you have no part with me. And so I think Jesus doesn't undermine the humility, and I think we need to be careful about that. It's not like Jesus didn't know that it was humiliating. It's not like Jesus didn't realize how humbling this is, or that it's a servant's job, or that he didn't care. But he cared a lot more about Peter than he did about some dirty feet or humbling himself. And he cares a lot more about us than he cares about having to deal with our sin. And I think that's an important lesson we see here. Jesus says, if I don't wash you, we can't be together. And so will you let me wash your feet basically? And Peter, in his impetuous self, goes on to say, Lord, not only my feet then. Wash my head, wash my hands, head to toe. And I think that's a beautiful response in his zeal. He's saying, Lord, when he realized that it was something that would separate him from Jesus, he said, Okay, any anything. Wash me. And Jesus corrects the other extreme. He says, He that is washed does not need to wash except his feet, but he's already clean. And you are clean, but not all. And this all here is not all of the body, but all of the people. And here's where I want to kind of transition. Peter doesn't want Jesus to wash his feet at first. He he doesn't want Jesus to humble himself and and stoop to to to to mess with someone who's so sinful. And yet when he realizes that if Jesus doesn't do this humiliation and he doesn't serve this sinner and deal with his sins, then there can be no union between them. He's willing to give up those prejudices and let Jesus do what he needs to do and be a part of it. But then Jesus says that you're already clean. Jesus is showing that through their interactions with Jesus, through the three years that they had spent with Jesus, they were already clean. In the sense that they had been baptized into Jesus. They had followed Jesus. They had given up everything for Jesus. And they loved Jesus. They had already been changing through the story, growing closer to Jesus. And so Jesus could say. That they were clean. And that they only needed their feet washed. So what does that mean? I think it's pretty straightforward. You know, we go through life and we deal with temptation, we deal with struggles, we mess up. That doesn't mean that our bath is invalid. It doesn't mean that our baptism doesn't count because we mess up. It doesn't mean that we need to start over in our walk with Jesus because we make mistakes and we struggle with sin and temptation. He that is washed Only needs to wash his feet. But he needs to wash his feet. When we do fall into temptation, when we do struggle, when we do sin, it doesn't mean, I've been baptized, it's no big deal, I'm saved. We still need to come back to Jesus and say, Jesus, will you wash my feet again? Even though it's humiliating, even though I don't deserve it, because if you don't wash my feet, we can't be together. But then he goes on to say, not everyone is clean. In verse 11, because he knew who would betray him. Therefore he said, You are not all clean. So in contrast to Peter, you have Judas. Judas had been with Jesus for three years, just like Peter. Judas had been learning the same lessons, listening to the same teaching, doing the same errands, the same miracles were being seen, and I think a lot of the same impulse is felt. They're different. Jesus said that Judas was not clean. We know who was going to betray him looking back at Judas is not clean according to Jesus. Why? Well we we look deeper in this story, you look at the the other gospels in the context in Judas hadn't surrendered his heart to Jesus. Judas hadn't come to the place where Jesus could really clean him. Judas didn't let him in. He didn't let Jesus clean him. And I think this is very sobering and we should all take heed of this. It's possible to be close to Jesus, to be with Jesus all the time. To listen to all of Jesus' teachings, to know all the truth. It's possible to be so close to Jesus that you're in the twelve, sitting with him at the Last Supper, that he literally washes your feet and while he's washing your feet, to know that you're not clean in heart. That you haven't surrendered to him, that he's not the Lord of your life. You can know, you can be close, you can participate and yet not be connected to Jesus, not surrender, not be right with God. I would much rather be a Peter than a Judas. We need to be careful. And this ceremony that we do four times a year, sometimes I think we don't do it often enough, is a symbol of that interaction with us again. Before we do foot washing, we should ask ourselves are we a Peter or are we a Judas? Have I really given my heart to God? Have I really surrendered on the inside? Because if you have, the foot washing may be humbling, having Jesus deal with your sin again may be frustrating at times. But we'd be willing to do whatever we need to so that we can stay close to Jesus. But if like Judas We're doing all the motions and yet inside we're clinging to something that's separating us. No amount of foot washing is gonna fix that. So I want to encourage us to search our hearts, and this is a time to let Jesus wash us. Whether we need a bath or whether we need just our feet washed. Jesus is willing to do it. Praise the Lord. And get an Amen for that. The fact that Jesus is even willing to wash our feet in the first place and wash them again and again and again. But let us pray and strive that we don't commit the grievous sin of not being willing to let him do what he needs to do, to not cooperate with him in the process of g getting clean. Have you let Jesus wash you? And then he tells us afterwards, Do you know what I've done? You call me your master and your Lord, and you say, Well, because I am, and if I then your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. I've given you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Truly I tell you, the servant is not greater than his Lord, neither is he who is sent greater than the one who sent him. I want to let Jesus wash me. I don't know about you. And he tells us that we need to wash each other's feet as well. Only when we are right with God, when we have allowed Jesus to wash our feet, can we really right the wrongs with each other? And this is also a time for that. And I want to encourage you guys, if there's anything between a brother, a sister, a wife, a husband, a kid, a parent, this is a good time to do that as well. To come together. To confess the sins, even though it's humiliating, even though you might blush, even though it's not enjoyable, I pray that we would all have the mindset of Jesus that if we don't do this, there's gonna be something between us. And that unity, that connection is more important than the humiliation. If you know these things, happy are you if you do them. May the Lord bless you and keep you, and may his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord be with each of us as we go about our week ahead and give us that bread of life each morning that we can give it to those around us. Jesus said to go and make disciples of all nations, to go and do likewise, to share what he has given us. And I pray that we may do that this week.