Show Me The Savior Series

Show Me the Savior

CCCAG September 16th, 2018

Scripture- John 13:1-17

Intro:

Well here we are. With the exception of a brief detour into the Imagine Series we have been in the Gospel of John since January of this year.

John chapter 13 is the center break within the gospel of John. Chapters 1 through 12 dealt with the three year gospel ministry and life with Jesus Christ on this earth but now John turns a microscope into the final 24 hours of Jesus’s life.

Over the last 18 months, Jesus has alluded to the fact that he was going to be dying on a cross. Jesus would be dropping hints all the time, seemingly out of nowhere but every time he did it he had a purpose to prepare those who are following him for his eventual death.

So here we are, the cross is looming. Its shadow is Being cast larger than it ever has before. Jesus knows his time is very short. He is going to the cross. He is going to die substitutionary death to pay for our sins.

His relationship with these 12 men is going to change from a face to face, living a life before them type of relationship and be changed into a life of faith in what he has taught them up until this point.

Jesus is going to wisely use these last hours of face to face contact with these men and he is going to spend these hours summarizing the last 3 years and bringing it all together.

No more parables , no more allusions, no more examples. This is the end and Jesus has to get his last bit of teaching into them before his relationship with them changes forever.

That is what John chapter 13 through chapter 17 is all about.

Make no mistake Jesus words and more importantly his actions during this time are very very deliberate and very very thought out so it is no mistake that he begins with this example of washing his disciples feet.

That is what we're going to be looking at this morning.

Why did Jesus use these precious moments of the few hours he had left to give his friends a bath?

From our modern-day way of looking at things you would think HE would have a white board up and he would be outlining the last bit of theology or the last little bit of gospel planning (compass directions for the apostles) that he's going to want his followers to do after his death.

Or you would think you would be gathering them in a prayer meeting and preparing them for the dark moments ahead.

But he doesn't do any of that. God's ways are not our ways, amen?

Prayer

So let's explore Jesus’ actions here and see what they meant and how we can apply them to how we live our lives today.

The first thing John 13:1-20 teaches us is that-

I. Jesus shows us before telling us

From about 1921 until his death in 1955, Albert Einstein Was a professor of theoretical physics at Princeton University. Everyone knows who Albert Einstein Was. When it comes to the realm of physics, he had one of the greatest minds that has ever existed. His Theory of General Relativity summarized as E=MC2 opened the door to our modern understanding of everything from space travel to our ability to harness nuclear power both militarily and as a power source for electricity.

Within the University system you have graduate students and PHD candidates who would be teaching the undergraduate courses as part of their work toward earning their advanced degrees. One of these students was teaching in elementary 101 course in physics to some undergraduate students as part of their required electives. Everything was going well until the student instructor saw Professor Einstein enter into the back and take a seat to watch him teach. The student teacher immediately changed his style taking it from a very basic physics course and started teaching it at a doctoral level in order to impress Einstein.

People who witnessed this event said you could see the eyes of the students glaze over and they stop taking notes because they had no idea what the student instructor was trying to teach them because he hadn't even gone through the basics yet.

At the end of the lecture the student instructor asked if there were any questions from the class. In the back of the room Albert Einstein raised his hand.

Now imagine how nerve wracking that would be- Albert Einstein the father of modern physics is auditing your class and listening to you teach, and now is raising his hand to ask you a physics question.

The student instructor recognized Albert Einstein who stood up and walked to the front of the room and asked for the chalk that the student instructor was holding and in 2 and a half minutes of writing on the blackboard summarized everything in a way that everyone could easily understand what the student instructor had spent the last 90 minutes trying to teach.