Verse by Verse - John 13:1-17

well good evening everybody it's cold outside but we're gonna fire it up in here tonight come on let's open our Bibles to John chapter 13 13th chapter then in the Gospel according to John John 13 alright well the public ministry of Christ has now come to a close as we put a wrap on chapter 12 last week and we turn now to the final day the final night really before the crucifixion okay what we have for us beginning now in chapter 13 is again what Bible scholars and theologians call the Upper Room discourse okay it is describing the events that took place between Jesus and his twelve disciples the night before his crucifixion this now is the story of what went on behind closed doors and that I think is what really makes the the next several chapter so very special to you and me that we now have Jesus turning to his own he's turning to his followers now all right he's teaching them he's equipping them not talking to the general public anymore but he's really zeroing in on his kids right and that means that he's zeroing in on you and I as well this is the inside track if you will okay what we have before us is a series of Bible studies led by Jesus himself and what she is telling those closest to him the night before he dies look these are your privileges all right this now is your portion in the kingdom this is the position that you occupy in the world that you now live in my love will never leave you I will never forsake you here are the riches that you have now and forevermore as you simply remain in me Jesus the same boys you better really pay attention alright you're not going to get it all now but it will begin to unfold and become clear to in the near future now I think we as well really need to hunker down here with Christ and really begin to tune in and pay attention the very best we can over the course of the next several chapters listen if someone you love is getting ready to pass off the scene right I mean let's say your dad god forbid is leaving you and you've been told that in a in a day or two he's going to be gone and you have his undivided attention tell me you're not gonna perk up like never before right I mean you know these are his final words you know you're not going to be talking about the weather you know his words are going to have a great weight and then great death and a real meaning to them man you're gonna take notes as what you're gonna do okay let us venture friends to treat this material with the same level of attention and care as that alright these are the final words that our great Lord and Savior gives before he goes to the cross and man they are just pregnant with insight and meaning and an understanding and they need to be deeply important to us this is you and me behind closed doors with Jesus for the next several studies okay so let's pay attention to let's give that attention it's it's commensurate level so the scene is this Jesus's public ministry is now over he is you remember hidden himself from public view John 12:36 and now he is making his total focus these twelve men and indeed you and I now we're gonna start out super strong here right out of the gate because if you were to pick a story that would best represent the person and works of Jesus Christ you would be very hard-pressed to better illustrate who he was and what he was all about than the story that we have here in the opening verses of chapter 13 now imagine what kind of a frame of mind you would have if you knew that within a matter of hours you are going to be arrested by the police you are going to be interrogated you are going to be tortured and you were going to be killed it's not days weeks months or years but it is a matter of hours in a matter of hours these guys are gonna come they are going to apprehend you and Tara gates you torture you kill you imagine what your frame of mind would be let's get in this scene guys and then on top of that you are now dealing with 12 guys no remember these are the guys that we make stained-glass pictures out of right I mean they're the guys that we name our churches after you know st. Mark's st. Luke st. Peter st. Bernards right I mean the pillars of the church but up until this point they have been absolute doofuses I think the plural is doof I okay up until this point they have been constantly bickering among themselves as to which one of them is the most awesome okay who's gonna get the corner office now these two issues form the backdrop for our story tonight Christ knows he's going to be tortured and killed in a matter of hours and you've got 12 guys that think they're the greatest thing since pepperoni pizza right and they're greater than anybody else these two issues now form our backdrop so let's dig right in tonight and begin with verse 1 of chapter 13 and Tony Joe let's look at just verse 1 now before the Feast of the Passover Jesus knowing that his hour had come that he would depart out of the world out of this world to the father having loved his own who were in the world he loved them to the end ok let's underline knowing Jesus knowing then let's underline loved that's in there twice pick either word ok well we've got the night before the Passover and we're told a couple of things here ok that Jesus knew he was about to die and that he loved his disciples number one Jesus knew that his hour had come again we've beat this thing with a we've beat this horse with a stick right I mean Christ was able to say up to this point my hour has not yet come my hour has not yet come and now he's able to say alright my hour has now come this is the reason I have come into the world now Christ though he wrapped himself in our flesh right Christ was one who walked with a keen sense of God's timing now you say well he was God well well of course he was and we get that and so he is omniscient but there was this whole father-son dynamic that plays out in the scriptures very deliberately guys there's this father-son dynamic that plays out very deliberately in order to give you an eye a model that we might relate to our Heavenly Father as Jesus related to his father in that sense Christ had such a keen sense of of the father's timing because he walked in lockstep with the father's will you remember back in John chapter 5 all that the father does I do right and again I think one of the things that that you and I struggle with so often is this idea of God's timing right because it's so often differs from our own does it not I mean some of us who are we're a couple of miles out ahead of God right we're rushing things did a couple of us you know others of us were were a number of miles behind God right Christ because he walked in lockstep with the Father's will had a very strong sense of God's timing and my guess is the degree to which you walk in lockstep with with the will of God is the degree to which you are going to struggle a whole lot less with God's timing in your life all right obedience has its rewards don't let anybody tell you any different obedience has its rewards now the other thing we're told is that man he loves these guys and look at the end of the verse we're told that he is going to love them to the end right and I think there's more than one meaning here I think there's a layered meaning certainly the immediate context is he's going to the cross for them tomorrow he is going to bring his love for them to it's perfect fulfillment right in that he will be laying down his life for them John 15 we'll get to it in a little bit greater love hath no man than this than a man lay down his life for his friends now the other layer the farther meaning the second meaning and there's probably more even the other layer is eternal really right I mean God is immutable he doesn't change his love for us is not gonna change he's never gonna leave us he's never gonna forsake us he is gonna love these guys and indeed you and I till the very end and beyond throughout the counsels of eternity world without end but the immediate view the immediate context is the cross he is about ready to demonstrate for those whom he loved the complete the full demonstration of God's love guys we need to get this that the cross is the supreme picture of God's love okay now here's the really amazing thing about God's love you see Jesus knew of these 12 one is going to stab them in the back and the other 10 are gonna forsake him the only one that's left at the foot of the cross is John the beloved the writer of this gospel okay and also the writer of the book of Revelation and the other epistles in the New Testament but imagine Jesus here he is you know in a matter of hours you're going to be tortured and killed by the police so to speak you're absolutely innocent you've gathered 12 of your closest friends in this upper room with you you know one of them is going to stab you in the back and the other 10 or the other 11 all but one are going to hide get out of there okay and yet knowing that about these guys he's still gonna demonstrate his love this is the unbelievable thing about the love of Christ the love of Christ is unbelievable in the sense that he knows everything about me and he still loves me anyway I mean that's insane listen he knows every boneheaded thing these guys did in the past you remember Luke 9 the Samaritans weren't taking to the message of Jesus very well and James and John the sons of thunder said hey Jesus you know what we're just gonna go start these guys on fire would that be okay with you you just want to smoke them right he knows every dumb thing they're doing now we're gonna be told in a bit they're gonna be arguing over who's the greatest right who's the most awesome and of course God knows every dumb thing they're gonna do in the future Peter's gonna deny him three times the Lord is gonna say hey look you know Peter Satan desires to sift you like wheat and so forth okay just like you and me man the Lord knows everything we've ever done are doing and will do and yet he loves us with this unshakable love again I think this is worthy of repeating from time to time there is nothing you're gonna do this week that will cause his love for you to diminish and there is not a thing you can do this week that will cause his love for you to increase okay that is the amazing thing about God's love now we tend to keep people at arm's length from us do we not I mean I don't want them to get too close I mean they'll find out who I really am and they're not gonna like me and you know they won't want to be my friend and and so we can live these very plastic fake kinds of lives and unfortunately we can carry that that phone eNOS over to our relationship with God and relate to him in a phony way not realizing of course that you might as well be honest with them he knows everything anyway so why are you trying to hide it from him right everything is naked and open before him with whom we have to to Hebrews four man I'm telling you and this is something personally for me that that I'm I'm starting to turn the corner on a little bit you know we're all in different places but I didn't realize I wasn't being honest with God because some of the things about myself I don't I don't like them coming out of my own mouth you know I can't read this isn't head stuff it's a hard thing all right but you know I'm telling you man when I turn that corner a little bit to a greater degree there's just such a liberating aspect to your relationship with God when you're just flat-out totally honest with him there's a release of his power that accompanies that okay and there's a release of his peace and it's like yeah okay yeah this feels like a relationship the amazing deal is God knows everything about you and yet he is madly in love with you receive that okay God loves these loves these guys here yet ten of them are gonna run for a period of time and of course picking it up in verse two now we get to the bad guy Tony Joe let's read verse two during supper the devil having already put into the heart of Jews Judas Iscariot the son of Simon to betray him all right underline having already put in two or whatever you have in your translation there now quickly if you've got a King Jimmy that says the supper having ended horrible translation okay the Greek is the supper is continuing the supper is being served it's now in the process of being served nine out of ten translations out there have got it okay okay so supper is being served now it says here I had you underlined this the devil had already put this deal in Judas is hard right now we know that Judas has been toying with this idea for at least a couple of days right you remember our study of chapter 12 he's in the house of Simon the leper Mary comes in and begins this extravagant display of worship she anoints the feet of Jesus with this very expensive oil and because he's embezzling from the Jesus evangelical Association right he raises a big stink over the deal Mary what are you doing that we could have taken this and fed the poor and all these kinds of things and Jesus publicly rebuked him you remember okay the other Gospels tell us again this is review that at that moment after Jesus chewed him out Judas then went to Jewish leadership and sought to bargain with them on how much money he could get if he would offer the undisclosed location of Christ okay where he could be apprehended out of the public spotlight so days before this Judas has cut his deal all right and and during these previous days I mean he's probably weighing it in his mind well should I do it should I not do what should I do it right now something happens during this meal we don't know what it is but he has now determined yes I'm gonna do it I've been toying with the idea and now yes I'm gonna go forward with it now remember tune in there is nothing sinful about being tempted some of us make a mistake with that there is nothing sinful about being tempted even Christ was tempted Matthew 4:1 Luke 42 okay we get ourselves in trouble as James tells us in his epistle when we are led astray and drawn away by our own lust and enticed okay and then we have what the Bible teaches are the two conditions necessary to conceive sin James teaches us that when we have the opportunity to sin and then we have the desire to sin when the opportunity to sin and the desire to sin come together that is when I end up sinning are you with me there are times where the opportunity to sin is present but I just don't feel like sitting there are other times what I feel like sinning but opportunity's not there you know what I'm talking about but then there are those moments when we have the winsome wedding of both opportunity and desire and it is then that I sin James says the Bible teaches when opportunity and desire come together they conceived sin James 1:15 and if you do not turn from that it is going to produce ultimately death in your life here both of these conditions are now present in the heart of Judas I have an opportunity and I have a will I have the desire now I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to do it and just as James says in James 1:15 right this is ultimately going to produce what in Judas is life death alright now notice the awesome thing here in verse 3 this is gonna get he's gonna start really heating up here Tony Joe let's look at just verse 3 for a minute Jesus knowing that the father had given all things into his hands and that he had come forth from God and was going back to God hmm a whole lot of theology in that verse come forth from God going back to God we got a beautiful picture being set up here now Matthew tells us Matthew confirms this that that Jesus was fully aware that all power had been given to him in heaven and earth right Matthew 28 28 Christ is reaffirming that here imagine imagine what it would be like to have all power to have all of the power of the Universe at your fingertips what would you do you know the movie the Bruce Almighty tried to have some fun with that idea right I mean wouldn't you wouldn't you love to go to the DMV with all power right I mean men talk about getting things done and getting those lost titles straightened out of me it'd be a wonderful world would it not now notice what Christ does here with all power as glenn beck and call okay all power in the universe has been given to jesus what does he then do with all that power q verse four let's look at four and five I'm gonna read part of three the way mine reads this weird Jesus knowing that the father had given all things into his hands and that he had come forth from God and was going back to God got up from supper and laid aside his garments and taking a towel he girded himself then he poured water into the basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded all right now this is unbelievable on a number of levels now here is here is his Christ and he is sitting in the chief place at this dinner okay we learned a lot about this from the other Gospels as well he is clothed with the robe that would designate him as being master teacher rabbi host okay and he stands up and he begins to give them an illustration of what he had accomplished for them in the Incarnation okay here we're told in verse four that he laid aside his garments number one and took upon himself this towel number two again these guys aren't going to put it together right away but verse seven lets us know someday they will this is very rich symbolically get with me here pregnant with meaning this speaks of what we read in Philippians two again the two pieces he laid aside his robe that designated him as the master and he took upon himself this towel very very rich it speaks of what we read in Philippians 2 remember he was in the form of God he was equal to God he was seated upon the throne of God and then he gets up off that throne and lays aside his right to act his deity and he puts himself in total submission to the Father clothe himself with flesh and he comes into this world to be a servant the setting aside of his garments here speaks of him setting aside his garments of glory and in the wrapping of himself in this towel speaks of him taking upon himself the servant to a towel of humanity if you will okay what he is doing around this dinner table is demonstrating what he had done for them in becoming one of them are you seeing this okay Philippians 2 tells us he laid us he emptied himself he laid aside his right to act as deity humbled himself became in the form of a man and became a servant he's taking off the garments taking off those robes of glory taking upon himself now the towel of humanity the picture will be completed in a little bit here so hold on to that now on the immediate level what he is doing here is totally contrary to human nature remember in that culture they were these open he's open told sandals if you will they didn't have paved the roads of asphalt and concrete like we do they they essentially had what we would call dirt roads now the responsibility and again hospitality intensive culture okay super hospitality intensive culture the responsibility for washing the guests feet as they came into your home would be designated to the very lowest servant on the totem pole okay the lowest slave in the household would be the guy that was was assigned the responsibility of washing your guests stinky feet okay now before we get to that stay with me we need to recognize that where they sat had great significance in this culture okay they did not sit at a dining room table seated in chairs like we do today again you remember they sort of leaned over on the floor and they would have these pillows tucked under their right arm and they would eat it this u-shaped low-profile kind of coffee table okay now where you sat designated where the host felt that you ranked in the social pecking order if you will okay if you were to come to my house for dinner you might ask you know hey where do you want me to sit and my response would be sit anywhere you want it doesn't make any difference right and our culture you know but for the weddings and the whole best man thing in our culture we generally don't put a great deal of importance upon where a person sits at the table in that culture they did all right the most important person would sit on your left and then it would go right on down the line around this u-shaped table the very last person seated at the table would pretty much know that you don't think they're all that important okay now the other Gospels tell us that these guys at this point are arguing over which one of them was the greatest Luke 22:24 okay again they still don't get it the disciples to some to some very real degree are still anticipating expecting in their minds some kind of a political rain on the horizon here right I mean who's gonna get the corner office right I'm the greatest no you're not I'm the greatest that's where the Bible tells us these guys were at so you can imagine man that when the doors of that upper room were opened there must have been a mad dash among the disciples to get to those twelve chairs right because each one of them thinks they're the most important each one of them thinks through the guest of honor so these guys I mean I can't even begin to imagine the scene now that's why Jesus told the story in Luke 14 right he said look when you're invited to a banquet or a dinner or whatever you find the cheap seat first okay because then if the host comes in and says you know you shouldn't be sitting over there why don't you come up here man well then that's a pretty cool deal to have happen but if you run and take the most important seats then the host comes in and says what are you doing sitting here right I mean that that can be a humiliating kind of a deal Luke 14 verses seven to eleven is the parable and the point of the parable is simple in the kingdom of God you find the cheap seed right you humble yourself you serve and then you will be exalted and so these guys my guess is we've got kind of a mad dash here to get to the most important seat now something else I want you to understand about this low u-shaped table and these boys leaning over okay they are seated pretty close to what some other dudes fee right I mean you're leaning over on your elbow and you know the dude to your rights and his feet are kind of close to you I mean I'm sure that can't be pleasant that's why they had foot washing I mean I'm sure these guys sat down maybe caught a whiff of their neighbor and said uh man we need to get somebody in here and cleaning some feet don't you think but remember it was the responsibility of the lowest one there none of these guys think they're it they're all thinking they're top dog maybe this is what started the argument to begin with I don't know we're not told maybe somebody said well isn't somebody gonna wash feet I mean that's kind of what we do now well why don't you wash feet oh I'm not gonna wash your stinky feet do you think I'm the lowest Emelia what do you mean you can't be the greatest I'm the greatest I'm floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee here I'm the greatest not you so in the midst of these guys just being full of themselves arguing over who is the greatest notice what Jesus then does having all power of the Universe given unto him right I mean here is the living God the creator of the universe before them wrapped in flesh to him has been been given all power right and what does he do he stands up and he begins to take he begins to wash their feet this is insanity all right this is the galactically Most High God and mighty God the very highest of them all beginning to assume the service dedicated to the lowest of the slaves this is utterly radical we cannot be dull of hearing here Christ shows you and me over and over again that everything that we've been taught is totally upside down he's so great and so I and so mighty he knows these guys are boneheads what does he do he takes the position of the very lowest of the law where was he born in a dunk filled manger everything about his life speaks to this ridiculous humility stunning here is their very creator washing their smelly feet their smelly guns one by one until he gets to the Apostle Peter now it gets really interesting notice what we have picking it up in verse six let's look at verses six and seven so he came to Simon Peter he said to him Lord do you wash my feet jesus answered and said to him what I do you do not realize now but you will understand here after all right there it is they'll get it later now Peter is always blundering Peter is always going to extremes I love Peter now there's pretty good evidence that Peter was seated in the very last seat there was good evidence that would indicate that he was in the lowest seat now whether he chose the seat because he was paying attention to Jesus's Bible study and deliberately picked the last one thinking that Jesus would say hey Pete what are you doing down there get up here with me or whether the end whether he ended up there arguing with the disciples because remember as Peter would argue with the other disciples they could always play though he called you Satan card right well you think you're the greatest he called you Satan remember get behind me Satan you remember that Pete never called me Satan right he may have been argued right down to the chief see who knows just maybe Peters thinking to himself as Christ is going around the table this is a test this is a test I can't believe all these guys are blowing it Christ is gonna come to my feet and I'm gonna say no you're the Christ the Son of the Living God I mean that worked for me before right thinking that Jesus would then turn to the other eleven and say see guys now this is the kind of ingenuity this is the kind of leadership I'm looking for Pete you get to the head of the class but Jesus does not say that notice what he then says picking it up in verses 8 to 11 Peter said to him never shall you wash my feet jesus answered him if I do not wash you you have no part with me Simon Peter said to him Lord then wash not only my feet but also my hands and my head jesus said to him he who has bathed needs only to wash his feet but is completely clean and you are clean but not all of you for he knew the one who was betraying him for this reason he said not all of you are clean it's good ok underline no part in verse 8 ok or what's your equivalence you have the very last phrase you have no part with me in verse 8 now do you see Peter going to extremes here verse 8 Lord you will never wash my feet never Lord Lord you will never wash my feet well yeah but Peter you're not gonna have any part of me first night oh okay well then wash my whole body then right you gotta love Peter now this is gonna be a rough several hours for Peter alright he's gonna be going from one rebuke to the next Peter could you not stay awake for an hour and pray Peter would put the sword away please of course he denies the Lord three times and he ends up after this evening going out and weeping bitterly because he let the Lord down now tune in okay I believe what we have here is perhaps one of the most important principles in all of this Scripture okay and I believe one of the reasons why we are so impotent spiritually is because we're not wrapping our minds around the concept that Christ is laying out here okay in that culture stay with me in that culture there were two kinds of cleansing there was a public cleansing and there was a private cleansing unless you were extremely wealthy extremely well-off you did not have bathing facilities in your own home okay so you would go to the public bathhouse and there you would take a bath and then you would put your rope and your flip-flops on you would head back home you would head back home hang on to that now again they're not walking on a hard paved surface right they're walking down dusty dirty roads by the time they would arrive home they would have dirty feet now this is what the Lord is telling Peter okay Peter you have already been washed all right the only problem that we've got right now is the dirty feet I want to take care of the dirty feet issue all right in our Christian lives friends there are two kinds of cleansing 'he's two bathing's that we participate in all right one when I came to the Lord when you receive the Lord you were cleansed and you were washed by the blood of Christ that happened one time that's half the shooting match in the book of Hebrews the blood of Christ cleanser that happened at one time all right then after we have been cleansed by the blood what are we now doing we are walking home this world is not our home you want to begin to mess up your life you begin to start thinking this world as your home we are in the process of walking home we are strangers and pilgrims here in the process of walking home from time to time we are going to get what dirty fee that then brings me to the second cleansing the Word of God the second cleansing agent is the Word of God all right you've got the blood of Christ one time deal and then you've got the second cleansing agent the Word of God Paul tells us speaking of the church in Ephesians five that we are to wash ourselves in the water of the Word of God I don't have to go back to the cross of Christ and ask to be saved all over again all right but now as I'm making my way home and I'm looking down at my feet and they're a bit dirty I'm pretty dirty I'm not thinking right I've said some things I shouldn't have said I've done some things I shouldn't have done I need to now cleanse myself in the Word of God not in order that I would be saved all over again but in order that listen I might have intimacy and fellowship with him once again okay it's the same model you remember in the Old Testament when we studied Exodus in the tabernacle pretend that's the east side of the tabernacle and this stage is the tabernacle you had the altar of sacrifice right there then you had this other piece of furniture and then you had the holy place the most holy place you know the actual tabernacle structure their Ark of the Covenant all that stuff in there that all represented the presence of God so you had the altar of sacrifice that pointed to the cross but then between there and this intimacy with God what was there the brazen Laver where they would wash their feet with water which is a picture of the Word of God okay two cleansing agents in the Word of God guys the blood of Christ and then the water of the Word of God the one is applied once the others to be applied with great regularity but and with the second cleansing agent first cleansing agent is all about salvation the second cleansing agent is about sanctification get with me he says part here I had you underline no park stay with me he said Peter you will have no part where me okay when he uses the word part he is speaking of fellowship okay you remember the story of Martha and Mary fresh in our minds right Martha's bickering Mary's just hanging out of his feet what does Jesus say - Martha - Mary - Martha mary has chosen the better part right Peter you will have no part with me no fellowship with me mary has chosen the better part you remember Paul talking to the Corinthians about believers being unequally yoked he said what fellowship does righteousness have with lawlessness what part does a believer have with an unbeliever if I am a saved believer and I get dirty and you will - if I do not go back and wash myself in the water of the word it's not that I'm going to lose my salvation but I'm gonna lose my intimacy my part my fellowship with him all right salvation isn't at stake here and the second cleansing but intimacy and in the relationship is if I do not wash myself in the water of the word of God what's gonna happen my heart and my mind are gonna become infected with the filth and the muck of this world and I'm not gonna want to desire to have fellowship with God I'm gonna take up the things of the world and not you know and it's gonna destroy my fellowship listen there is the blood of Christ and there is the water of the word of God those are the two cleansing agents alright I have been saved by the blood of Christ that is a one-time event but now as I'm on my way home dragging my feet through this dirty world I am to wash myself in the water of the Word of God not in order that I would get saved all over again but that my mind and my heart might be cleansed that I would have intimacy with the Lord does that making sense to you now the reason why so many believers the reason why so many believers continue to be on a merry-go-round spiritually is because every time they stop and get their feet a little dirty on their way home while they go right back up and try to get saved all over again oh lord save me I'm gonna recommit my life to you for the 23rd time all right and they never go to the water of the Word of God and just let it change and shape their relationship with it and because they keep circling back to the altar they're never in the word and so they never get to know them as you see the vicious circle if you want to change your life allow the Lord by the agency of the Holy Spirit to wash and cleanse you with the water of the Word of God again Ephesians 5:26 we being the church are sanctified by the cleansing of the water of the Word of God so he's going around the table and he says to Peter dude if all right well he probably didn't say dude so he's going around the table and he says to Peter brother you've already been cleansed from Judaism man you're one of mine now you've you've set yourself apart you've come to me by faith yeah I don't need to clean your whole body now would you just allow me to apply the water to cleanse you from the filthiness that you've collected upon yourself in order that you might have your part with me your fellowship with me now it's interesting market carefully look with me at verse 8 he doesn't say Peter you know you can't have any part with me but he says you can have no part no part with me in other words Peter unless I cleanse you with my word man there's not going to be any fellowship going on here now let's get these dogs cleaned up so we can have some intimacy here between us all right but it can only happen as we allow the water of the Word of God to do just that now verse 11 then I think gives us another clue let's look at verse 11 real quick before we move forward yeah Judas you're not clean one of you is not clean you know not all of you are clean verse 11 is a pretty clear indication to this debate that in Judis was probably never saved to begin with alright so chew on that Bible students all right well then finally tonight let's close with verses 12 to 17 and take us home 2000 12 to 17 so when he had washed their feet and taken his garments and reclined at the table again he said to them do you know what I have done to you you call me teacher and Lord and you are right for so I am if I then the Lord and the teacher washed your feet you also ought to wash one another's feet for I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you truly truly I say to you a slave is not greater than his master nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him if you know these things you are blessed if you do them underline do them the end of verse 17 we'll get to that in a bit okay now let's go back up to verse 12 real quick and this completes look at verse 12 with me this completes the bigger picture we looked at earlier right I think this is pretty awesome here we're told what that the garments the robe that he laid aside in verse 4 he now takes up again and then he goes and sits from the place from which he first rose okay again Philippians 2 he laid aside his right to act as deity laid aside his his garments of glory he then went and served them now he's taking that glory back upon himself if you will and returning to the seat that he started from even as Jesus prayed in John 17 father glorify me with the glory that I had from you with the you know from the beginning okay Christ taking that seat of Honor again here speaks to the idea of sitting once again at the right hand of the Father so when you read verse 12 I mean that's exactly what he did he serve humanity upon the cross went into the grave as sent it on high where he was robed again in majesty and now he sits down at the right hand of the Father a wonderful wonderful picture there now to the more practical and immediate context again this is stunning what's going on here and we can just allow all that familiarity with with the story and perhaps the number of times that we've read it to to dole our understanding of how radical this is you and I live in a top-down world don't we right what Christ is teaching here is unspeakably revolutionary okay if I am Lord and Master Jesus is saying and you've called me lord and master and you've done well to do that and I've got down on my hands and feet and I have humbled myself and I have done this very humiliating task to the twelve of you who in the world do you think you are that you would not humble yourselves to serve one another that is the point of this whole deal that's what he's telling these guys now in this world you know it's interesting to me when you when you go through the Gospels and you see Christ talking about this world he's always says this world as if there's another he always calls it this world in this world what we know importance is gained by how many people you have under you isn't it right well I've got a hundred people working for me so I must be twice as important as the guy that's only got 50 working for him that's importance in this world importance in the world that Jesus is laying out here importance in his world importance in the kingdom is not measured by how many people are under you it is measured by how many people are above you okay how many people are you encouraging how many people are you praying for how many people are you supporting how many people are you serving now the problem is this the problem is I have a human nature right I mean the problem is I have a fallen rebellious nature and I'm struggling for answers man and I'm trying to be the kind of man that God wants me to be and you know don't you love these cutesy little phrases that we have in the church you know we got going on somebody will come along and say well what would Jesus do well you know I'm not Jesus glad that's easy for you our enemy I'm just a human being I am addicted to myself we are addicted to ourselves we are addicted to thoughts about ourselves we get a little spot on our shirt well I can't go into Walmart know that a lot of people go to think of me right I mean it's all about us if we were to take a picture of this vxv group right here blow it up put it on the bulletin board back there who's the first person you're gonna look for yourself right Where's Waldo and all this kind of well we're a my I thought it was in that second row there we go and how do I look and boy you know I just think and your determination of whether that's a good picture or a bad picture is predicated upon how you look I mean if you got one eye shut and kind of a half cramming and you look kind of doofy oh man that's a horrible picture I think we need another one even though the rest of us look like we belong on the cover of Christianity today right but if the rest of us look terrible and you look awesome oh that's a great picture you got going on there you know well you know it's all about you you're laughing because it's true Romans three the doctrine of depravity all right in closing guys the problem here is how in the world do we conquer self I mean how in the world are we ever to conquer our fallen nature you are to wash yourself and the water of the Word of God it's not rocket science but in this church in this day and age and this American thing we call the church today we don't do that anymore we want to go have somebody give us topical sermons about this that and the other thing just do the same thing over and over and as a result we never go to the Word of God we never wash ourselves in the Word of God we never cleanse ourselves in the Word of God and the worst part is we never get to know him guys this isn't something that's supposed to happen on Sunday or Monday it's supposed to fire you up to do it all week long man all right no I don't like dogs I used to like dogs don't you know get a nosebleed here it's not that I don't like dogs really yeah I like other people's dogs I just don't want my own dog anymore many many years ago when I lived in Indianapolis I had these two dogs and they did some very disgusting things I'd come home and I can't even describe the things they were doing to you or it would ruin your next meal okay so one day I'm out there I'm discovering him I'm trying to reason with my dogs I mean we this is not the kind of house we you know we don't do this and they're looking at me like dude we're dogs all right I mean you can modify their behavior with shock collars and throwing newspapers at him or whatever but you cannot change their nature right psychology can modify my behavior psychology can give me management tools to to manage my depression or manage my anger but psychology cannot give me a new nature it can modify my behavior but it cannot change my nature listen man this cleansing agent this is more than the baby Jesus baby Jesus dying on the cross enough I'd go to heaven you know and their gospel is the power unto salvation the gospel is the power it's not just the first cleansing it's both the gospel is the power of God not only unto saving you from your sin but changing your very nature there was a new nature that God has implanted in your heart and he wants to change you but it's not gonna happen until you take part in this second cleansing that is available to you every day it's sitting on your coffee table right listen this is more than Reformation this is transformation the indictment we do not want levied against us one day as well you know they had a form of godliness but they denied the power thereof 2nd Timothy 3 I don't want a form of godliness that's denying the power of the gospel I don't want to be a nice church-going person believing that Jesus hung on the cross and his father raised him from the dead and then it somehow just ends and stops there I want to go to the Word of God I want to wash myself and cloud my brain with all this crap out there I want to be a person that experiences the power of the Spirit of God not reforming me but totally transforming me and changing me and changing my nature I'm not going to do that if I don't take advantage of the second cleansing agent alright it's not that God wants to manage your depression he wants to give you 1st Peter 1:8 a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory that will knock out your depression come on all right it's not that God wants to help you manage your anger he wants to give you this agape love that just comes pouring out of your heart like rivers of living water John 7 God wants to change us change us in the way that he does that is a number of things number one we got to stop being plastic and phony and approach him on a realistic basis this is who I am this is what my nature is done for me and this is what I want you want you to see your power change okay and then we have to not circle back and get saved and recommit all over again and not that that's a bad thing don't take that out of context but if we keep doing that and we never go to the Word of God to be sanctified by the gospel in addition to being saved by the gospel the man were just not going to become the people that the Lord desires just to be and man eternity is at stake you need to know this now finally tonight notice he's saying here in verse 17 guys do them he says you are blessed Greek word Macario they're happy well-off fortunate blessed blessed if you do them Christ is saying the weight of blessedness the way to happiness is not just agreeing with him on what we need to do not just taking notes with him on what he told us to do right but the blessing comes in doing what he's told us to do not in order to escape the flames of hell but because we want to because we want to walk into an experience this better part right and man I'll tell you what of all the promises in the Word of God and there are many and they are awesome one of the most direct is is right here before us in this picture today okay one of the most direct promises that you can have in the Word of God and you bake on it this week as we simply humble ourselves with a servant's heart we will be exalted in his kingdom in due time okay first Peter 5:6 let us draw near to him this week as we come to him as we wash ourselves in the water of the Word of God we are going to be as being the operative word guys as we wash ourselves in the water of the Word of God we are going to make the discovery that he is going to be pouring out his spirit and pouring out his power upon us making us into the people he intends you to be let's pray father God thank you so much oh god the condescension you are so high and mighty and glorious and magnificent you are the creator and the brilliant genius behind all that we see and all that we don't and yet you've wrapped yourself in our flesh and you took the lowest form possible and serving everything about your life screams humility to us God help us this week give us that hunger Lord if we don't have it would you give it to us would you give us that hunger your word says blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled will you give us the hunger to wash ourselves in your word and allow your spirit to administer that cleansing to us this week that we would know you that we would love you and that we would want to do what you call us to do we ask these things in Jesus name Amen

Channel: VXV Church

Views: 8,819

Rating: 4.6981134 out of 5

Keywords: Jesus, John, God, Word, VXV, Versebyverse.com, disciples, cleansing, Holy, Spirit, Gospel, Holy Spirit (Deity), Lord, Truth, Salvation, Holy Spirit (Christianity), Salvation (Christianity), Preaching, Bible, Bible study, Study, Christianity (Religion), verse by verse, John 13, expositional, teaching

Id: i57gRGVZeis

Length: 56min 18sec (3378 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 13 2012