The True Meaning of Jesus Washing The Disciples' Feet

hey everybody welcome to the uh monday what was the mark series typically but today we're taking a slight detour i was gonna do eschatology prophecy stuff i'll explain in a minute why we're not doing that today and instead i'm going to be talking about john chapter 13 and jesus washing the disciples feet i think this passage is definitely one of my favorite passages in the bible um for just the simple beauty of it like not because of some something you have to study super deeply to understand it's just so wonderful and beautiful as is and so i decided to teach this because i'd like you to know the meaning behind the washing of the feet and we'll also answer the question like are we supposed to be washing each other's feet regularly today in the body of christ is that something we're supposed to do jesus told us to do it is that what he meant we'll talk about that as well but more than anything it's just the heart of it the whole picture of christ and what he's doing is beautiful but let me just start by explaining real quick now why we're not doing the eschatology stuff i promised you was coming well it's still coming i'll keep my promise but it's not coming today and the the reason is this so we're in mark 13 and i've taught through the passage of mark 13 which are not at least i'm very convinced are not signs of christ's coming they're not signs of the ends the earthquakes and famines and even things like the pandemic that these are not signs right because there it's a matter of degree when those are signs later in revelation they're just so extreme you could nobody would have to tell you it's way beyond anything we've seen in in our lifetimes so the so the current ones are not signs um but then i got to the abomination of desolation right that amazing and very interesting and very uh complicated and debated issue and i thought to myself here's the problem within the body of christ there are all these different people that have these different views about eschatology there's pre-millennial post-millennial amillennial and amongst those people they have different views of of the book of revelation so they have like an idealist view or a preterist view which would be a historical preterist or partial preterist view or they have a futurist view which is the view i have and so many of you have only ever been exposed to one view and if there's any area of my theology that is that i'm most likely to get wrong it's going to be eschatology about the future second coming of christ and not just the second coming we all kind of agree on that it's really the stuff that happens between now and the second coming of jesus like that's the stuff where a lot of us have these different sort of schools of thought so here's what i thought instead of doing the abomination desolation and i teach through this as a premillennial person as someone who believes a futurist view of revelation how about instead i back up and just do a survey first of different christian views of eschatology where i'm not trying to promote one view or another i'm just surveying them and that's what i have been planning on doing that's what i've been studying for this week although was been a complicated week we had some uh some medical things going on with my uh with my mom so i was taking care of her and everything got delayed and so i was only able to do like 40 hours of work this week it was not enough to prepare so i'm going to do that next week next week is going to be a survey of just what is the primal perspective what's the on mill perspective the post mill and i'm going to try to do in a very charitable fashion where i'm not trying to convince you to be pre-millennial i'm just trying to sort of give you a an understanding of the scope some of the pros and cons i'll even share with you some of the things that are hard for pre-millennialists like myself some areas where it's challenging like how do you explain that and um yeah that'll be next week that i'm planning on covering that and then we'll get back into the desolation the rest of the of the gospel of mark chapter 13 and we'll plow through today is just a side study all that long rabbit trail to say i just decided to teach something that was easy that i've studied before that i love and is simple and it's john 13. and we're going to read through the passage right now again it's one of my favorite bible passages and i just want to read straight through it with you and i want you to be um as you're doing this i'd like to give you some prompts as we're reading and one of the things i encourage you to do is is ask yourself what it means like what's the meaning behind what jesus is doing and just at least notice not just he washes their feet but notice all the steps he takes along the way notice those things and notice what he says to peter as well interesting stuff 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 to back to god rose from supper 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'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 simon peter said to him lord not my feet only but also my 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 he put on his outer garments and resumed his place he said to them do you understand what i've 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've 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 is a messenger greater than the one who sent him if you know these things blessed are you if you do them all right that's that's the section we're gonna be covering today and um i think it's i think it's beautiful i i think we can look at what jesus says to peter and he says like you don't know what i'm doing right now but afterwards you'll understand this is this is like a hint that there's a deeper meaning behind jesus washing the disciples feet that there's something significant happening here it's it's a picture of christ's overall ministry to to us and then his calling on us to follow him and i think that the specific details of him taking off his cloak and putting up a towel and tying it on himself and washing their feet and then wiping it with the towel that he's wearing that's significant and then afterwards he puts on his clothes again and he sits back down in his place and it's just all totally a picture of the entire ministry of christ we'll get into the details really exciting beautiful wonderful passage but let's do it verse by verse which is the best way to study the bible and here we are verse one now before the feast of the passover when jesus knew that his hour had come he knows his hour has come and so this is this is the idea that his time of crucifixion has come now speaking of side note of a prophetic statement about like no you know no one knows the day or the hour this this doesn't mean they don't know the calendar day or the hour of day it just is saying they don't know the time they're using the term hour frequently as like a just a general time indicator like now is the time you know this is the hour that's that's that's what it means he knows that his hour had come or hit the time for his crucifixion was coming in fact from john 13 on the rest of the gospel of john is um is basically within 24 hours of the crucifixion or or after the crucifixion you know like when you get the resurrection the appearances so really a large part of john john's gospel is the last day of christ and then the days after the last day of before his crucifixion and then the days afterward when he uh when he rises and then is appearing and it says his hour come to depart out of this world and to the to the father having loved his own who were in the world he loved them to the end now the hour notice this the hour that's coming and this sets the stage for what is going to happen next jesus has come from the father right he's going to go back to the father and he's taken on this human form and he's serving us he's going to die on the cross for our sins he will then you know he will rise from the dead and then he will go up to heaven he'll go back to the father and this is all pictured in the washing of the feet verse two during supper oh like side note it shouldn't be a side note it is a big deal john just randomly throws in that jesus loved his own who were in the world he loved them to the end like this is the kind of thing that most of us probably wouldn't put in the bible like if we were writing now i mean don't get weird about this like you're not writing the bible and and the the writing of the scripture wasn't like by man's instigation it was through the leading of the spirit my point here is that we would talk about what jesus did and we would just not stop and pause and mention how much he loves us like he loved us so much and as john's writing this he he just he's thinking back about christ going and washing the feet he's thinking about jesus going to the cross for us and he just writes he loved us to the end and when you when he says that it's like to the end it meant the end of his own life to the very end to the highest possible cost to redeem us and to save us he loved us that much god so loved the world he gave his only son so it's just this incredible love this is the kind of thing that a lot of people would feel like is cliche you know god loves you so much could feel like a cliche and my encouragement to you is this like if you like christianity doesn't have cliches there are no cliches in christianity there are just wonderful truths that people say with empty hearts and when you say things that are beautiful and wonderful with an empty heart it does sound like a cliche it feels like a cliche it's not a cliche it's just that you don't get it so when you say these words christian listening when you say these words god loves me is that like this overwhelming wonderful truth he loves me or is it like something you take for granted yeah he loves me and i i would encourage you this that you've got to be in the place at all times where there are no cliches there are just beautiful truths in christianity and if you're you're part of the world you don't know christ then my encouragement to you is to realize that this is like you're probably used to people trying to pitch to you things that do feel like cliches and feel empty and you're wondering where the heart of it really is and i'm just saying like go to the gospels read the gospels see the heart of it find out the truth behind the cliche behind the thing that feels like a cliche and see the goodness of christ all right verse 2 says 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'd come from god come from god and was going back to god this is so cool because this is this is what's pictured in him washing their feet right spoiler coming from god doing this task and then going back to god beautiful rose from supper laid aside his outer garments and taking a towel tied it around his waist notice the things he does he he rises from supper he's in a seated reclined position where he's enjoying things he lays aside his outer garments the next step is he takes a towel and he ties it around his waist right he wasn't completely his outer garments right but he takes a towel and ties it around his waist this is like a servant's position then he pours water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them specifically with the towel that he's wearing so that has that has draws a picture for us that gives us details about what jesus is doing let's talk about the significance of these different elements so yeah we know he's washing the disciples feet what a lot of you already know is this is like the task of a servant this is like the job of the lowly the the lower servant of the household the one who washes the disciples feet or the people's feet um it was not uncommon when you entered into somebody's house and they're your host that if they're well off enough to have a servant that the the lowest of their servants does wash your feet it wasn't culturally weird like if i walked into your house today living where i live and the culture i live in and you were like take your shoes off my servant's gonna wash your feet like that would be very strange i would be like what's going on here um but it was normal for them this was not uncommon for them so there was nothing shocking about the washing of feet what was shocking was the person doing the washing jesus is doing the servant's job the lowliest servants job a job that in their culture tends to mean that you are of low status you are of lesser status this is um john taps into this john the baptist when he says of christ he's not worthy to loosen his sandals i think john is probably tapping the same thing a visitor comes to the house and takes off you know the servant takes off the sandals of this person and washes their feet he's like i'm not worthy to do the lowest servant's job john says this of jesus he's not worthy to take the sandals off jesus yet jesus does that task and the foot washing for his disciples so it's understandable when peter's like oh no no no no no you can't do this but when we look at it in a christian perspective we go this is god almighty coming and serving me in the basis of ways this is a picture of christ's ministry he comes as a servant it's an incredible act of love that he calls us to follow alongside there is no task too low for a christian to perform there is just isn't a task too low for christians to perform partly because we see the value of other people so serving them is a glorious thing he wants to be great let him be the servant of all and also because we see our savior modeling servant true servanthood right true servanthood and in ways that we rarely see it in the real world now what he does is very specific he gets up from the from the he's reclined at meal so he's like in a nice happy place he gets up he takes off his outer garments and i think that this is a picture of him laying aside his glory remember his outer garment was like a um there's some other elements of what's the term i should look for here a typology that are going on here the outer garment jesus had scripture tells us was like woven in one piece so it was it was a nice single piece item the only real connection we have in that phrase woven in one piece with the old testament is the high priests the priests would wear these garments that were woven in one piece you know from top to bottom not not multiple pieces of cloth that were just sewn together and that's pretty interesting because it connects jesus to the priests now there were times when the priest was to take off once a year to take off his outer garments and he was going to go in and it was when catch this it was on the day of atonement when the priest was to take the high priest take off his outer garments and he was going to go into the holy of holies and he was there to bear the iniquity and make atonement for the people of israel he was to like wear their sin on himself so he takes off this outer garment so that he could be the the lowly carrier of sin as he goes in and offers one man atonement for all the people jesus when he takes off his outer garment he's doing a picture of his entire ministry he is god almighty right he is the in the beginning was the word the word was with god the word was god and then he became flesh and dwelt among us right he laid aside his glory scripture tells us so he set aside that glory he comes lowly as a servant this is this is a striking thing the next thing he does is he takes this um this towel so he takes off the glory right and picturing the high priest but also just god becoming man and then he wears a towel so he comes not as a conquering king right like when he enter jerusalem on a donkey a beast of burden as opposed to in revelation when he's seen on a white horse because now he's coming as victor as lord here he's coming as a servant so he wears this towel he ties a cloth around himself that's meant to be a preparation for service and an outward sign that he's here to serve he's here to minister to others it's also interesting side note that when jesus was on the cross he had been stripped of his clothes again just like the high priest when he was going to bear the sin of the people he was stripped of his close christ on the cross stripped and bearing our sin so jesus is a servant he's actually doing menial labor he's not just a servant in like theory he's actually saying i'm just going to do really menial labor to prove my servanthood character to you and ask you to follow me in it then he pours the water into a basin and then he takes this basin of water and he goes from disciple to disciple he's got he's got 12 guys here and he washes their feet he washes their feet now this this seems to be obvious right like it's the idea of cleansing jesus is cleansing us of of our worldliness he's cleaning of us of our sin as you walk around the world and gather up the collect the the dirt of the world upon yourself and he comes and he washes that he washes that but what i think is really interesting is that he what he does with it let me take us to the text again he began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him jesus is not just washing their feet with the water it's all water in a bowl so that water was going to get increasingly dirty as he went from disciple to disciple 12 pairs of feet 24 for dirty feet he's got a wash with one bowl of water so it's going to get dirtier and dirtier which means that the towel that he's wiping them with is the final thing that's actually wiping the dirt off of them this towel is getting dirtier and dirtier and as jesus goes from disciple to disciple their feet become clean and he becomes more soiled the next person's feet become clean and jesus becomes more dirty the next person's feet becomes clean and jesus his towel is getting not only wet but dirty this is happening 12 times in a row i wonder how long it took i wonder what they were thinking while it was going on i know what i'm thinking right now i'm thinking what ii corinthians says that he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of god in him that christ he became sin we don't want to stretch that that that terminology too far right but it's that he became like he's he's the high priest bearing our iniquity right on the cross he took our sin upon himself our cleanness is because of the filth that he took upon himself and so the the washing of the feet is a picture of the entire ministry of christ of forgiving us powerful powerful powerful and then after he's done doing this he takes his garments back right he he takes that towel and he sets it aside he doesn't keep wearing the towel the filth that he wiped off of everyone else he doesn't keep wearing that all night he takes it and he sets it aside he takes his garment back which is a picture of him getting his glory back receiving his glory back as as the word who was god right and jesus in john 17 talks about this glorify me with the glory i had with you before the world was so jesus takes his glory back and now wears the towel it's just not even talked about again because all that filth is taken care of so jesus transfers our sin to himself he dies for our sin as if he was sin but then he rises from the dead clean he's cleansed us and remained clean himself and then this is a picture of ultimate of our salvation um he takes his garments back he has sins and is glorified and now everyone is going to bow to him but the next and that to me that's like the big amazing beautiful and simple thing of this passage is just a picture of what jesus did for us verse six this is where peter pushes back it says he came to simon peter who said to him lord do you wash my feet and now you might think peter's being pompous here i mean maybe there's an element of pride going on or or at least there is going to be an element of arrogance in a second when jesus tells him you don't know what i'm doing and peter still doesn't listen but there's there's another part of this which is just like jesus is too great jesus is too wonderful to do that to me he's too awesome to do that to me and this is appropriate this is proper that we would feel this sense of like um not you you you doing that for me you doing that for me like you're so great you're so wonderful and we just realized that it's love that has overcome all of that but jesus answers and tells him what i'm doing you do not understand now but afterward later on you'll get it later on you'll get it and here peter stands as like the guy who's gonna represent misunderstanding what jesus is doing so that we won't misunderstand it right like he'll get it wrong so jesus can correct him so we can get it right but i think there's an application here that goes really deep into our lives there are times when you're going through things where you're kind of like peter going like this isn't right like what's happening in my life right now just doesn't make any sense and perhaps god would say to you like what i'm doing you don't understand right now but afterward you'll understand it like later on maybe it's in eternity you'll understand some of the suffering that's going on in your life or the hardship later you'll get it later you'll understand and this is where like as a pastor and i and i talk to people or counsel them they tell you what hardship they have going on and they often are looking for help one of the things that can subtly be implied as they talk about the issues they're going through is that they want someone to explain to them why it's happening like just i want to know why this is happening and pastors can sometimes fall into the trap or i should say christians can someone has fallen to the trap of trying to guess at the reason why hardship is coming upon somebody and i think that this is um a dangerous thing to do i think that we're sort of we're sort of doing heart surgery on people recklessly when we do that and i'm much more comfortable saying i don't understand i know i'll understand later i know you'll understand later i don't understand it now i'm not going to try to explain it i'm just going to suggest like jesus did to peter that you just trust so jesus is kind of appealing to peter's faith here peter you don't know what i'm doing but if you really respect me as lord then you'll just let me do it and you'll let you'll you'll get it later trust me just trust me peter doesn't tolerate that because peter has a hard time comprehend with things he can't comprehend when god's doing something he doesn't understand he doesn't like it right when jesus says i'm going to be crucified he's like no way no way that'll never happen when jesus is there and he's like look i'm being betrayed jesus peter pulls the sword out and he's chopping off the high priest servant's ear this is this is us going i will follow you wherever you go lord as long as i understand where it is you're leading me i will trust you no matter what lord as long as i understand what's happening in my life and what's going on and peter kind of stands at the moment as that now later when you read his letters first and second peter you realize he's totally changed he's totally changed when he goes through hardship and suffering he's like oh you're being refined the genuineness of your faith is much more precious than gold that perishes and and he's a different man so this is this is him before he learned and maybe you're maybe you haven't learned yet and you're on your way so peter responds uh pretty drastically he says lord you'll never wash my feet never never you will never wash my feet which is interesting because it's it's here's here's peter you're too high and lofty to wash my feet you're the lord you're in charge so you can't serve me so you're in charge so i'll dictate what you can and can't do right you'll never watch my so the irony is that peter in a weird like reversal of understanding he is thinking that god's lordship entails peter forbidding the lord from doing something he wants to do which is just a very strange moment so he says you'll never wash my feet and jesus answered him if i do not wash you you have no share with me and now we see something nice about peter he is not he might be like strong-willed in a sense but he's not exactly stubborn because he immediately changes his tune and goes oh well lord not my feet only but also my hands and my head okay if if this is if you're saying i can't even know you relationally if i'm not even part of of i look what he says no share with me you're not part of what i i'm about then then wash wash my whole body or at least his feet his hands and his head he's asking for a bigger a greater washing okay i want i want to be part okay fine fine i'll be part and he just kind of gives up the fight against jesus washing him very quickly which is interesting um this is an admirable quality of peter he had bad theology but he was able to get it corrected very quickly although he still didn't quite understand and so jesus peter here getting it wrong then gives an explanation of the washing of the feet to help us understand what it doesn't mean and it doesn't mean in this case here's the thing you have to go through for to be saved it's something slightly different so jesus said to him the one who is bathed does not need to wash except for his feet but it's completely clean and you are clean but not every one of you for he knew who was to betray him that's why he said you're not all clean um so that was judas obviously judas was the one who betrayed him but what is this thing okay the one who's bathed does not need to wash except for his feet okay well okay there's there's different words for washing in the greek that we um don't maybe carry the same connotation in english but the basic idea is this you have already been bathed peter there's something that bathed you already in your past and so that has made you clean but you still need to have a foot washing whatever this means whatever this represents you need to have this experience it's important but it's not the thing that makes you clean initially and so there's a lot of plenty of debate i'm not going to get no massive theological discussion on it but i want to say this i do think we know what bathed him and some would say well that was um uh that was baptism it was baptism that based i mean the foot washing is like a secondary thing um i actually think what bathed him here in the context of john john 15 3 he says already you are clean that's the same terminology he said to peter and he explains why because of the word that i've spoken to you so they were cleansed or made clean by simply believing what jesus had been saying they trusted in christ and so they were cleansed so they were clean so long story short the the bathing was just believing the word believing the word and then being washed now baptism represents that and it's important and we all should be baptized everybody should be baptized it's very important but that's not what jesus is talking about i don't think in relation to the foot watching so what is he talking about then in john 13 why does he have right after my footwash what is that i think it has to do perhaps with the idea that um i need to continually come to jesus and recognize that he's the one who not only saves me but he's the one who continually cleanses me as i gather sin in my life even as a christian so i'm walking through the world i'm bathed but i walk through the world just my feet getting dirty so it's like here's a saved person who has sin issues that we gather in our lives on a regular basis and so we must regularly come to christ and be like you're still serving me you're still watching me you're still cleansing me now i'm clean because i've just trusted in faith but i must relationally come to you on a regular basis because this is very much about an ongoing healthy walk with god this is like when you tell a christian how's your walk with god you're like how's your walk with god and they realize you don't mean are you saved what you mean is how's the health of your walk with god is there sin that you're harboring your heart are you distance in your prayer are you neglecting the the devotional life with god or the the heaven focused purpose of a life of living this world living in this world for his kingdom those are the kinds of questions that we're talking about there so i think that the application here is that we need to come regularly to christ for that foot washing right where we realize jesus he's lord but he's still serving me in the sense of i am daily in need of his cleansing in my life all the time all the time and the the counsel here i'd give for us as christians very practical counsel is to keep short accounts with god that term short accounts it's like a banking term where when you when you say buy something on a credit card you're buying it on an account you're getting credit and then you pay it back immediately that's keeping short accounts or you start doing finance charges and you pay it every month a finance charge and you keep owing money owing money that would be keeping long accounts now the thing about keeping short accounts is god's the one who's actually paying it off our whole task here is just we come to him relationally after we've sinned and we're saying like i'm sorry lord i repent of that i refocus my heart and my life on christ one of the things that i think keeps christians from doing this is feeling that we have to be worthy that especially me as a young believer i i experience this all the time where i would you know feel like i'm up here in my walk with the lord i'm just like i'm solid i'm enjoying relationally i'm joined god enjoying christ i feel like i'm walking and as far as i'm aware i'm walking in a in a righteous life and then i commit a sin and that sin brings shame and it causes me not god causes me to distance myself from god and then i get this feeling of like well what's the point of me is we'll just sin i'm kind of like already in that mode or something weird like this this is me as a teenager and and so then you know that the sin prolongs and the distance prolongs and then finally like i come to like a low point where i'm like oh lord i just want you i'm sorry will you forgive me and i wasn't as confident in god's grace as i should have been back then i didn't understand that you could boldly come to the throne of grace as hebrews tells us boldly come to find that grace to find that mercy that you need so then i would get back up to the top now i'm doing good now i'm doing solid but then it was like one one real blatant sin that i was aware of would just trigger this episode of shame and distancing and feeling like what's the point and all this was terribly unhealthy what i should have done was just come straight to the lord at that first moment of sin and this is the habit i try to conduct now i heard old story and i don't know if it's true i don't care if it's true i think it's just a good illustration and the old story was some preacher probably charles spurgeon i think is how it went and now he was walking across the street and he was seen stopping in the middle of the street and pausing for a moment and then he walked the rest away across the street and a bystander saw him was like uh you know pastor spurgeon uh why why did you stop in the middle of the street like that and he said well i was walking and again i don't know if this is true don't care this is a great point though and and according to the story he says as i was walking it came to my awareness that something had come between me and god that there was a sin that had come between me and god and so i didn't want to take another step until i repented of that thing and that to me is a beautiful attitude um i don't want to become legalistic about not taking a physical step but i do want to take the heart of that and apply it in my life and say you know what the minute you recognize that there's some ounce of rebellion some measure of sin you come to christ for awashing the cleansing the daily cleansing so to speak that you um that you do that constantly constantly keep your account short we're saved by grace we're sustained by grace we just have to relationally come to him that's the issue then in verse 12 we get the rest of the passage here when he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place i love the way it's worded here so he puts on it so obviously he took the towel off he puts on his outer garments that's that glory and then he takes his place he resumes his place so his place here seems to be a picture of him in heaven and then he comes as a servant and then he does the task of taking our sin upon himself dying for us discarding that sin and then taking his glory back and sitting back down in his rightful place this is i think this is really neat um it's beautiful um if you're not blown away by this then it's just because i'm not doing a good job it's just amazing um so then he asks them and this is part of the clue that there's more to it than washing feet he says do you understand what i've done to you do you understand what i've 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've given you an example that you should do just as i've done to you truly i say to you a servant right here 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 all right you know these things you know you're supposed to be a servant but do you do it that's the question do you do it and that is the application of washing each other's feet um let me let me uh cover that in just a second should we be washing each other's feet today but before i do that i just want to take you to a parallel passage which i think is parallel um philippians chapter 2 there's actually several passages like this in the bible that talk about jesus's sort of like journey from glory to to servanthood and suffering and death back to glory this like sort of swooping thing it happens in the book of hebrews a lot where you get this sort of recounting of jesus doing this but here in philippians is probably one of the most well-known passages and i think if you parallel that if you just take this and superimpose it on top of jesus watching the disciples feet you'll see this neat thing so this is about jesus christ jesus who though he was in the form of god that's him sitting at the table with the with the glorious robe did not count equality with god a thing to be grasped but emptied himself he emptied himself so he takes off that thing and he takes the form of a servant well that's exactly what he looked like there in the house without that wonderful robe and wearing the servant's towel girded around him tied around him being born in the likeness of men you see it's about the whole incarnation and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death and that is him loving us to the end that john talks about in john 13. he's as he's washing he's taking the sin of all of us and in a sense christ was dirtier than any of them had been after this foot washing because he took the sin of not or the dirt of not one man but of all of them and so we have christ he becomes sin it's it's this elevation he he took not one not one person's sin but all sin of all people of all time upon himself so he becomes obedient to the point of death even the death even death on a cross therefore and here's the after the foot washing therefore god has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name now he's seated in heavenly places he's seated at the throne the right hand of god um the name is above every name so that at the name of jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that jesus christ is lord to the glory of god the father so we have this whole picture of christ his servanthood and the next question is are you supposed to wash feet today like am i in my church should i have regular foot washing like ceremonies and events is this like supposed to be a a typical thing that we do and um i'm going to answer that i think the answer is no but i want to be careful here there's nothing wrong with churches that want to do foot washing that is a nice thing it's a wonderful thing the only question i'm asking is if it is a necessary thing and i'm going to give a few reasons why i would say it's not necessary first off jesus washes our feet and it's highly highly symbolic in john 13. it's very representative of him saving us of him forgiving us and him serving us he then tells us you ought to wash one another's feet right but in the context of all the symbolism i think that that's what he's getting at do that he even tells him you don't even know what i'm doing right now later on you'll get it right so it's not just about washing feet it's about the symbolism the meaning behind it and i'm to do that to others as well we also see so in john 13 there's a reason to to suggest that this is not a command for regular foot watching but we also see it in the book of acts that we have regular church events talked about acts talks about normal things the church does acts 2 42 the breaking of bread communion fellowship they continuing the apostles doctrine they're praying these are the things that they're doing as a local church why isn't foot washing on there why i mean the breaking of bread is on there right there was a regular activity the church did right the communion and the meal but foot washing is not there in fact nowhere in acts do we see it and and someone could say mike that's an argument from silence and you could say that but here's the thing arguments from silence um they become valid when you when you say but i should expect to see it there so if i was to tell you there's an elephant behind me right now right you not seeing an elephant is proof that i'm wrong but that's not even silence it's just what you don't see yeah but you would expect to see an elephant because i just told you one's behind me in this little space and so you would expect to see it now if i told you there was an invisible unicorn behind me and you said i don't see it therefore it's not there that would be an argument from silence because you you wouldn't expect to see an invisible unicorn you would look for some other verification of it which there's no invisible unicorns behind me uh open it again and worms there but the um the nature of acts is that we are seeing the early church and we do see like baptism and we see communion and we see fellowship and we see gatherings we see all these regular things the church does in the book of acts and we don't see anything about foot washing the only mention that i know of about foot washing later on is when paul writes about the wife of a deacon and that she should be in the pastoral epistles and that she should be known for washing the feet of the saints of the people and so the idea here i think is because the deacons are also required to be hospitable i think in their culture remind us in their culture it's normal to wash feet it's not an abnormal thing right it's just a normal cultural thing you wash each other's feet and so she washes the feet of the guests in the home as the deacon is probably bringing believers to his house to minister to them to teach to care for them to to to host bible studies that kind of thing and so yeah there's that sort of thing going on um so i would say this that there isn't you can't make a strong case for foot washing in the text of scripture it seems to me that it's optional and not required now if you're at a wedding and they do foot washing and it's dispute and people understand it it's beautiful it's wonderful if you're at a church and people understand it and you let them know guys this is how we represent loving and forgiving one another and if i was to do it i would probably do it like that i would say what jesus did when he washed our feet is not only serving us it's forgiving us and here in john he's even talking more about not just about service but about forgiveness so as we wash each other's feet what i want you to do is i want you to go up and every person whose foot you wash if you wash someone's feet you're telling them by washing their feet that you hold nothing against them that you love them as your brother or sister in christ that you love them and you have nothing against them so i think that could be like a beautiful way of doing um ministry in the in the body but it's not required that's that's the thing i want to emphasize it's not required it's not required now if churches are doing it because they think it's required i think the lord will honor that i'm just saying it i don't think it's required so hopefully that made my position clear at least my understanding jesus then goes on to suggest um that we really need to forgive each other not only um in john in all the gospels and throughout the scripture forgiveness is massive forgiveness is huge and so i just want to point that out if there's anybody you as a christian you're holding something against you have a heart of unforgiveness of bitterness can i say you need to do major heart surgery before you do anything else like this is a really serious issue forgiving others is absolutely very significant and god takes it so seriously that it's not just about your relationship with the person you have bitterness towards it's about your your relationship with god himself he's like you forgive them because i forgave you so now it's about you and him very very important that we do that then um verse 16 and 17 i'll just read this again to us truly truly um actually let me go to i have two different translations in front of me so that's the nasb truly truly the esv puts it this way verse 16 and 17. truly truly i say to you a servant is not greater than his master now check this out when you when you refuse to love serve and forgive your fellow believers because you think you're better than that and that's just to be honest that's our attitude right because we think we're better than that you are implying you're greater than jesus if that's not a huge slap in the face to those who are unforgiving or too good to do things i'm not flipping burgers or i'm not working in that low position i'm not doing such a small thing you think you're greater than jesus who deliberately did the lowest job around just as an illustration of us serving one another he says nora is a messenger greater than the one who sent him if you know these things blessed you if you do them and that's the application for you is to do them right now remind yourself that we were we were to be different the body of christ is to be different than the world the world is like ranks of authority and prestige and in the body of christ it was meant to be flat like it was meant to be flat not ranks of authority and prestige just flat like james rebukes them because they're giving rich people better seats in the church like no because they're supposed to be flattened out like there isn't we don't have these ranking things because we're all children of god we're all elevated as both totally based and humble because we're we're sinners who deserve judgment but also forgiven and given the holy spirit and so we're all equal so that there are even leaders in the body of christ a pastor is a leader okay he has some decision making he has some authority but he's not better than he's not higher than in that sense we're all meant to be servants and this is something jesus kept hammering in and it's something the church does we get wrong because we start to treat the church like it's a corporate entity and i've seen this over the years um this has been my week spot i'm not very good at treating the church like a corporation i say weak spot because sometimes organizationally i get weak because i just i'm more about the organic side of it than the organizational side of it and i end up being weak in that area but there are those who are really good at the organizational side and they do tend to also turn things into ranks and elevations and special locations for the guest speakers to be at and giving them special treatment and parking spaces and all these special things that we're gonna make people look more special and different and all this kind of thing and it's just basically we start to lose this attitude of serving one another in love serving one another in love and it just it just happens over and over again unless we very purposely heed what christ has said so there's my word for you guys today's study slightly shorter than usual and i will be with you on friday for the q a um other than that i still have a video coming out every day um from the interview i did with elisa childers talking about progressive christianity stuff so i would recommend you guys if you're interested in that stuff to check it out every every day there's a new video that might look like slightly similar thumbnails because maybe i'm just not doing it pretty good but um but they're all actually different like 18 videos in a row other than that i don't know what to tell you we're fastly approaching 200 000 subscribers on this youtube channel i don't know what to say that's amazing i'm blown away i'm blown away by it so i um i don't know anything else to say let me just pray with you and we'll all go about our day lord god we pray for your blessings upon our minds that we would clearly see clearly see our chances to be low in front of others to serve them to really serve them to love them the way that you loved us to forgive where our bitterness especially in those long-term relationships relationships that have lasted for years and years and how bitterness starts to get root help us see it lord please i was to follow christ help us to be truly surrendered to the example of jesus in loving servanthood i mean jesus knew the hearts of those whose feet he washed and they had all kinds of issues and he had such grace and kindness may we imitate that in jesus name amen amen see you all friday

Channel: Mike Winger

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Rating: 4.9601893 out of 5

Keywords: Mike Winger, the mark series, mark 12, mike winger, the mark series part 51, the mark series part 52, episode 52, mark 13:1-13, Pt 52, pandemics and earthquakes are not signs, earthquakes are not signs, is the pandemic a sign of Jesus' coming, signs of Jesus' coming, eschatology, when will Jesus come

Id: coNf5_Tz7Fs

Length: 43min 50sec (2630 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 25 2021