Dirty Feet - Serving Series

Dirty Feet

John 13:1-5

September 18, 2016

Have you ever had that uncomfortable moment when someone asks you to help them? You really don’t want to help, but you’re stuck - - you’re not sure what to say to get out of helping. Maybe they are moving, and you know they won’t be ready. It’ll be throwing things in garbage bags at the last second. Or they need a ride or they need something fixed. You know what it’s like. Well, there’s great news! There’s a new app you can use to get you out of helping.

Watch this video!! (I used parts of this because of the length and language --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQHKIYWPBZk)

WOW! Isn’t that cool?! You can have ready made excuses not to help one another. Excuses when we ask, “Hey, who can help serve?” You can go to this app, and tell me you have a ‘class on how to rid the world of fruit flies.’

Yet, as Christ followers . . . is this how we are to live our lives?

Are we to say yes to Christ, but no to the rest of the world?

Are we to say yes to heaven, but no to our brothers/sisters when they have a need?

I believe we’ve all had moments when we think to ourselves, "I'm not doing that." Help me out with that. Will you tap the person next to you and say, I'm not doing that.

Just do that, will you? A lot of you, you're going, "I'm not doing that." Forget about touching my neighbor, I'm not doing that. Right? You see? Either way, I got you.

In our short series, we're looking at the love of Jesus, that He continually sought to perform irrational acts of love. Last week, we saw Jesus forgive sinners and I heard from a lot of people how you thought someone called me and told me to preach that for you. Honestly, that was really encouraging.

Next week we're going to look at Jesus breaking bread - - showing the power of community, as we love one another.

Today, I want to look at the image of Jesus washing feet, the picture of Him serving those around Him. We're going to look in John's gospel, John 13. We'll start in verse 1, and let this set the context for the image of loving like Jesus. How do we do it? One of the ways is, we wash feet.

John 13:1 says this, 1 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.

This is the day before His crucifixion and you can imagine the emotion He's feeling. Yet, I love what John tells us - - - Jesus loved the disciples to the end.

Jesus knew the disciples still didn’t get who He was. They argued about who was the greatest, how many times I need to forgive, at times they seemed faithless and mostly clueless. So, Jesus looked around the room at His closest friends and what does He see. He sees proud hearts - - - and dirty feet. Watch what Jesus does.

3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going back to God,

4 rose from supper. He laid aside His outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around His waist.

5 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.

We’re not going to look at the reaction of the disciples who were shocked that their teacher, the Messiah would stoop down and wash their feet.

Foot washing was a common courtesy when someone came to your home. For example, if you came to my home I may take your jacket, then ask if I could get you something to drink? It's common courtesy. If you came to a home in the 1st century, the first thing they would do is greet you with a kiss on the cheek. Then they would ask, "Would you like your feet washed?"

It's important to understand the host would NEVER wash the feet of the guest, that would have been too humiliating. There would always be a servant who would come and wash the feet, the host wouldn’t do it, because, let's be honest. Feet are kind of disgusting."

Imagine if I came to your house. "Hey, Pastor Michael. We're glad you're here. Could I get you a drink? Here take your shoes off, I’ll give you a foot massage!"

I might take you up on that! But, you’d never say that. You're not going to touch my feet. This was a job reserved for the servant or the slave.