Main Idea: Show Christ’s great love by humbly serving each other
This past month our little Wallace family of 5 had one of the most joyful and yet challenging experiences we have ever had. We had son and grandson, a precious little baby boy, about as cute as they come, and we gave him up for adoption. Thank God, we had the best family we could ever hope for within our extended family to give little Colton James up to, and we will see him again, but nevertheless, it was a very challenging experience.
And I expected it to be difficult for Annie, and for Jeanie, and much more for the girls than it would be for me, because if you know anything about Jim Wallace, when it comes to Jim Wallace and babies, well, we don’t always mix real well. There have been a number of times in my life when I’ve stood next to my wife or some other lady with a wonderful mother’s instinct as we got a glimpse of an infant for the first time, and the lady turned to me beaming, and gushed and said, “Isn’t he a beautiful baby?” And on the inside I was telling myself, “Well, not really. But you need to go along with this!”
Yep, I’m bad, I’m real bad when it comes to babies. But Tuesday was the day of departure, the day baby Colton James would go with Chris and Michelle back to Nebraska and we wouldn’t see him for a long time. And something strange happened to Jim Wallace that morning. Jeanie got up early to go to work, I got up early to start working on something, and just before Jeanie left she stole little Colton out of the bedroom where he and adoptive Mother Michelle were sleeping and instructed Amanda to take a few last pictures of him with her. And she was all smiles, and I got included in the picture, and somehow, as Jeanie raced off to work, the baby ended up in my arms for 15 or 20 minutes. Now it was the first time baby Colton and I had had alone time together, without others watching. And so for the first time I really ended up paying attention to Colton, rather than the girls around me who were paying attention to him. And I began to hear all those cute little baby sounds as Colton stretched and breathed and yawned. I saw him raising his little arms and watched him even bat himself in the face with the back of his arm. And I saw what a precious little baby He was, and the next thing I knew is that he had stolen my heart. I fell in love with him. And so when an expected long-distance call came from a friend, and I had to give him up, I was all choked up. And when I explained what was going on my friend decided it wasn’t such a good time to talk after all. And I agreed, and then I hid in my bathroom as I began to sob over the departure within the next couple hours of the precious baby boy, a grandson, like the son I had never had.
I didn’t want anybody to see the pain or the grief I saw in my eyes as I looked at them in the bathroom mirror. After all, this wasn’t supposed to be happening to me—this was a girl thing, this was mother and grandmother thing. This wasn’t a Jim Wallace thing—of all people!
And then I had to drive birth mother and adopted child to the RV Park. And then we all gathered in the RV to pray at this most poignant and meaningful and difficult point, and, of course, being the pastor, I got to close in prayer. And I didn’t disguise my grief very well, I held it together long enough to pray, and I saw Annie stroking her little boys head gently those moments before she would turn him over to Michelle & Chris, and I just had to get out of there, or I knew I would be contagious and the whole family would be wailing along with me.
And I saw Annie courageously and gently do her duty from the insulation of my Suburban, and it was she who came to comfort me rather than the other way around, and then I began driving home, and the sobbing returned and my face and my head began to tingle, and I had trouble catching my breath and for a moment I thought I might faint. And that continued all the way home, complicated by the fact, I got lost driving to my house, because I was grieving so greatly.
And so undoubtedly some of you are wondering why I’m telling this story this morning. And it’s because this is precisely that situation that Jesus and the disciples found themselves in as we come to John 13. Jesus’ departure from this world was only hours away. And those 11 disciples were his babies, his children. He was their spiritual father; they had come to depend on Him for their very lives for everything, for the past 3 ½ years. And they had one last evening together, one last very meaningful, intimate, poignant moment together before life would drastically change. Jesus had warned them that his death at the hands of evil men was imminent. Now it was as though they would be orphaned and sent out into a largely hostile world with a message the world desperately needed to hear. And it was Jesus’ heart to prepare his babies for what would come without his physical presence. It was incumbent on Jesus as a loving spiritual father to attempt to protect them in any and every way from what was about to befall them, for the success of his entire mission of saving those who would believe depended on the welfare and success of these 11 men. And the very first danger, the most imminent danger, regarding their spiritual welfare, of all things, was the evil that lurked within them themselves. Yes, I’m speaking of their own sinful nature, the selfishness and the pride that afflicted them, that could destroy their unity and their mission, if somehow they would not be broken of it.
And their need to be broken of it was evident even as they commenced this last intimate evening together, even the evening of the Last Supper. For Luke 22:24-30 reveals that they were behaving like feuding children even as this poignant and incredibly significant evening began.
Show Christ’s greatest love by most humbly serving each other (John 13:1-5)
When the disciples had shown up in this upper room, they, along with
Jesus, had found a pitcher of water, and a wash basin, and a long linen towel,
a U-shaped low table, and pillows along side of it that each of them would recline
on. That is they would lay on their left sides on the pillow with their head toward
the table and their body and feet extending out from the table behind them, and
with their right hand free to partake of the meal. At formal dinners in the Middle
East at that time it was customary to have a slave or a servant who would honor
the guests who had walked through the dusty pathways of Palestine at that time
by washing the dust off their sandaled feet. The disciples had likely walked a long distance, a couple miles from Bethany to Jerusalem to experience this
Passover Meal, and they alone had the privilege of spending the meal with the
One whom they would later realize was the actual Passover Lamb who would die
the next day to take away their sins and the sins of the world. But as they entered
this room made ready for the Celebration and Remembrance of the Passover, it had to be evident to every single person, that though the equipment was available
for the washing of each guest’s feet, no slave or servant was present to carry out
the duty. And as the feud broke out as to which of them was the greatest, you better believe that not one of the disciples was in the mood demonstrate that he was in any way less important than any of his brothers. And so the meal commenced, and every one of them had dusty feet, but there the pitcher and the basin and the long towel sat, silent testimony to the arrogance, selfishness and anger each of them felt toward one another.
And this was all despite the fact that each and every one of these disciples knew that Jesus was the greatest among them, and Jesus was about to die and depart from them. This was in spite of the fact that they had all witnessed only a week earlier the most supreme act of worship that anybody had ever demonstrated toward Christ in this life—when Mary of Bethany had anointed Jesus’ head and body with oil in advance for his burial—an act of worship which Jesus most highly commended. Here, on the last evening, in the last few hours of Christ’s life, when each of them had a chance to honor the One who was truly worthy of such an honor for the last time, each of them missed that opportunity because they were more worried about their wounded pride, and how they stacked up against each other in terms of personal greatness. How petty? How ridiculous? What a lost opportunity!
And you know who this reminds me of, more than any other person—Jim Wallace in the flesh. I read this, and I’ll tell you what—I, in my thoughtlessness, in my flesh, in my typical Jim Wallace character, fit the description of these disciples as well or better than anyone else I know. How about you? I hope you’re not as bad as I am, or as they were. If you are, you’ve got a lot to learn.
So as each of these disciples sit there nursing their wounded pride, guess who gets up. Jesus, the Christ. The God-Man. The one who was acknowledged by all of them to be the greatest among them all, hands down, the very Creator who has spun the galaxies into their orbits and who had knit them together in their mother’s wombs—the King of King and the Lord of Lords—He gets up, and He goes over to that lonely pitcher and wash basin. He takes off his outer garment. He ties that long linen towel around his waste so that it extends out in front of him for cleaning purposes. He takes that pitcher and pours water into the basin, and then He proceeds to get on his hands and knees at the feet of each of His disciples as they extend out from the table, and he begins washing their feet!
Do you get this? This is the God of the Universe! This is their Creator, the One who gave them life, who is Sovereign over all, and who is about to give His life for their sins. Who is it who ought to be honored atn this banquet, but Jesus Himself, for the very fact that He’s becoming the Lamb of God who would be sacrificed for their sins? And yet He is alone the one among the 13 there that evening who is willing to humble Himself and demonstrate just how great His love is for them, by serving them according to their needs.
Now imagine for a moment that you’re one of those disciples, and Jesus has just positioned himself behind you, and he’s unlatching your sandals, and quietly, submissively, He’s begun to gently and respectfully wipe your feet off with his towel. How are you feelin’ about this point?
I don’t know about you, but I’d be feeling like a complete heel! Because of my selfishness and my pride, because of my selfish ambition and wounded ego, I had refused to serve Jesus, much less anybody else. And once again I’m beginning to realize that Jesus has once again demonstrated the superiority of His nature compared to mine, His love compared to mine, His righteousness compared to my selfish ambition. And I’m in awe of Jesus, embarrassed about myself, swearing to myself that I will never let this happen again—and yet, in terms of Jesus’ presence with me, I may never have another opportunity to let this happen again.
So what is it that Jesus is saying here through this powerful object lesson? Remember in John 13:1—it said that He loved his disciples, His babies to the end. That He was showing the full extent of his love, His love to the uttermost. What He’s demonstrating is precisely what His love, what Christ’s love, what God’s love looks like, what it is—it is demonstrated by most humbly serving one another’s needs. He’s showing how these disciples would survive the vicissitudes of life, how they would not only survive without Him, but how they would thrive without Him—by loving each other as He had loved them. By humbly serving and preferring each other to themselves. How they would give preference to one another in honor, and bless one another, and stay together with each other, and encourage one another through the thick and the thin of life and ministry in this evil.
He was also demonstrating for them the solution to the very danger they were to each other, and their mission, and their unity and their love and their service for Christ. The danger—selfishness, pride, feuds, factions, anger, hatred, competition, broken relationships. If the disciples continued in their selfishness and arrogance toward each other, their lives and their relationships and their mission would be destroyed by the very behaviors that threatened the destruction of the New Testament Church of Corinth. As Paul described those behaviors that were tearing at the very life of that church later in the first century, he listed them strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, gossip, arrogance, and disturbances.” All the things that characterize carnal and worldly attitudes, the natural man, and unfortunately, even tragically today, what we call church splits.
And you see what Jesus is trying to do—in a positive and powerful way. He’s trying to destroy forever the first danger to the spiritual welfare and impact of His disciples—of His babies. He’s trying to protect them from themselves, from their own sinful natures, by replacing selfish ambition with Christ-like love. And He has just defined Christ-like love as humble, even the most humble service to each other.
And that’s our first point this morning. Through thick and thin, but especially when the chips are down, Show Christ’s Love by humbly serving one another, by the most humble service for each other. We ought to be literally jumping at the chance to serve each other, whenever that opportunity presents itself, no matter how humbling the service is. Lest we find ourselves standing before Christ one day and belatedly realizing that we, like these disciples, missed our opportunity to honor Him when we had a chance, and no further chance remains.
Now I was trying to think of humbling opportunities to serve one another in our church family. And I didn’t have to go very far to find them. About 30 feet to my left, there in nursery and children’s church. Did you happen to know that there’s a real shortage of nursery and children’s church teachers. Angela was in there for years most every Sunday, except when Meg would give her a break, and now Angela gives her a break. And I suspect changing someone else’s diapers probably gives footwashing a run for its money when it come to humbling experiences. But what an opportunity to serve humbly and show Christ’s love in a way that will count for eternity—that really shows what you’re all about—not yourself, or enjoying the service every week, but humbly serving others according to their needs rather than your own.
And when I think of humbling service, what comes to mind is the bathroom and in particular the toilets. Who cleans those? Well, we have some folks who are great, great servants, at least according to the standard Christ gives for them here in John 13. There’s the worship team once, and I guarantee from 15 to 20 years of experience with them, many of them are among the greatest Christians on the planet. Of course, I’m biased. And then there’s Tracy who doesn’t have much to give, as Jesus said about Mary. But she does what she can, and there’s Jim and Jeff, and I noticed something very interesting. Do you remember when Jim and Jack would kind of shake the schedule for cleaning the church back there every Sunday to get people to sign up. Well, I checked out the list of those who have signed up for April and May and June. And there’s one name that dominates. Three weeks out of four in April, May and now June, you find one name—Randy. Yes, Randy!. That quiet guy who sits in the back, never toots his own horn. Yes, I’m talking about that Randy whose life has been falling apart the last three or four years—who lost his wife, the biggest part of his family, who is losing his home, who has lost his wealth because he has lost his health to Rheumatoid Arthritis and all the chemo treatments he’s been through—who is in constant pain, and still works a 40-hour week at a physical job and somehow finds the time and energy in the midst of all that to clean the church almost every week. You know what I think—I think Randy knows something that perhaps not all of know so well. That cleaning toilets, and taking out the trash, and getting on your hands and knees is the essence of how to please Christ and be like Him and demonstrate His love to others. That showing God’s love means humbly and sacrificially serving. And that Christ will not forget our work of love and service, though others may, in the end.
You know what I think, if we’re all about Christ’s love, there should be line of us waiting to volunteer for those kinds of jobs in the church family—for the nursery, for Children’s Church, for cleaning toilets—because that’s how we really demonstrate Christ’s love and glorify Him.
Well, if the disciples really were uncomfortable with what they now saw and felt Jesus doing, you would expect someone to speak up, wouldn’t you? And just
who would that someone be? If you know the disciples, you know it would be Peter, the impulsive, impetuous, think-before-you-speak Peter
And He doesn’t disappoint us here, does He? Jesus apparently makes his way around to Peter in the midst of the stunned and embarrassed silence of the other disciples, and Peter says what most everybody else is thinking.
Verse 6: So He came to Simon Peter. He said to Him, “Lord, do you wash my feet.” Literally, in the Greek it reads, “Lord, ¬You, My feet wash.” Wait just one moment here! Something is terribly incongruous here. Something is terribly out of whack—something in this picture doesn’t add up.
And of course, here it was, the One who was clearly the greatest of them all was the one who was the foot-washer, the slave of them all. Jesus, who alone was worthy of the foot washing, is washing the feet of the unworthy, the sinners in his midst. Did it ever strike you that Jesus not only washed the feet of the eleven, but the 12, including Judas Iscariot, the unrepentant sinner, the man who had already embarked on his plan to betray Him and who had already struck a deal with His enemies to lead them to Him? Do you remember who gave the commandment, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you?” Do you remember who said love your neighbor, and then described who your neighbor is by telling the story of the Good Samaritan who helped the very person who treated him as an outcast when that person was in need?
Yep, that was Jesus, and He’s at it again. But as Peter objects to Jesus’ washing His feet another even deeper meaning for Jesus’ actions comes clearly into view.
For what Jesus was doing in washing the disciple’s feet, feat that it was, was nothing compared to what it symbolized--what Jesus would do on the morrow to cleanse them from their sins. Jesus would demonstrate the ultimate heart of God, the full extent of His love for us, when He would become our servant in dying on the cross for our sins, instead of us, so that we wouldn’t have to. Just as surely as the water and towel cleansed the feet of the disciples from dust, so Christ’s death cleansed their souls, spirits, and bodies of the sin which kills.
Clearly, Peter did not understand this symbolism, nor likely did any of the other disciples at this point. So Jesus answered him in verse 7 by saying, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.”
Well, that wasn’t enough for Peter. Not by a longshot. So he gets tough with Jesus. Verse 8: “Peter said to Him, Never shall you wash my feet.” In the Greek, he says literally, never, unto the ages, not forever shall you wash my feet. And you can just see Peter pulling his feet up and away from Jesus as he’s reclining at the table.
So Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”
Wow, what an incredibly strong statement, what an overstatement, if Jesus is merely talking about the physical removal of dirt from Peter’s feet. So he must be talking about something else. And indeed He is, as becomes evident as the story unfolds. What Jesus is saying is that if Peter or anybody doesn’t gratefully receive Jesus’ incredibly humbling death on the cross as the means for washing away their sins, then he will have no part or fellowship or salvation from Jesus. Yes, this physical cleansing by Jesus was just the start, a mere symbol of the act which would define what God’s love is really all about and what would be the standard for Christian behavior for all time to come—and that is the humble self-sacrificing service for the sake of others.
And where this really becomes evident is as Peter then reverses direction completely and now offers his head and hands to Jesus as well, and Jesus replies that they were all clean, spiritually speaking, but not all of them, speaking of the fact that only Judas, who was still among them, had not been cleansed spiritually, because He had not truly believed or trusted in Jesus.
What lesson should we gain from Peter’s reaction and the fact that this object lesson was a symbol of Christ’s ultimate demonstration of love for us when He died for us on the cross? That humility and love applies to receiving as well. That we should receive Christ’s great love & grace with the same humble gratitude that we show it to others as well.
You see what Jesus is preparing the disciples for. To give and show love humbly and selflessly and to receive it with the same humility and gratitude from both God and from each other.
Someone offers to serve you, to sacrificially help you out. For Christ’s sake, for your brother or sister’s sake, accept it, receive it, with gratitude, no matter who it is, that He may be encouraged and strengthened in his love and obedience to Christ.
Finally, Jesus finishes the job, puts on his outer garment and sits down. And now it’s time to drive the lesson home: “Do you know what I have done for you?
And that’s His question for you who sit here this morning? Do you really know what Jesus did for you when He died for your sins on the cross? He set the standard of your love for Him and for one another.
Verse 13: “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, died for your sins, 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 the one who is sent greater than the one who sent him.”
“If you know these things, blessed are you if do them.”
And that’s our final point this morning. Knowledge and theory count for nothing in God’s Kingdom or in God’s family, unless knowledge and theory are turned into consistent practice. And if you want to be blessed in God’s family, if you want to gain his commendation, then take care of His babies. Find God’s greatest blessing by turning this knowledge you have gained this morning into action—humbly serving each other in love, beginning today.
Now I think Jesus has just one question for you this morning: Are you in the foot washing business? He asks us this, because He cares about his babies. He wants them to be well cared for. And you are your brother’s keeper this morning.
If you aren’t in in the foot washing business, you’re not following Jesus.
And If you’re not following Jesus, it’s high time you got with the program—and the program is showing Jesus’ love by most humbly serving Him and His family ‘til He comes again!
Let’s pray.
