Jesus Knew His Identity, Yet Served with Humility
TEXT: John 13: 1-9, 12-17
Sunday, March 10, 2002
We do serve an awesome, wonderful and great God. However, when I experience me, Richard Pfeil, I find that I am not all that great. I know that might be surprising, but.......Unlike God, I have frailties in my life. As you have worshiped, have you thought of things that just are not right in your life? As you ponder that, let’s bow our heads and go to prayer in confession to God.
If you are new with us or visiting, we have been on a spiritual journey discovering and celebrating Jesus and what makes him so attractive to people in his day and our own day. So far, we have learned three things:
1. Jesus was spiritually connected to God. In Jesus Christ, we find his spiritual presence.
2. We have learned of his ability to relate to all people and that Jesus had no “us” and “them” mentality in his heart and mind. God calls us to live lives without walls, as well.
3. We also discovered that Jesus looked at people very differently. He saw the diamond in the rough and sought to bring that to fruition in people’s lives.
I think Jesus was a very gracious and redemptive person, and these are two qualities that are so vital in our lives. I think our focus should be to be redemptive and to be gracious to others.
Another quality is found in John 13: 1-9, 12-17. This quality was very impressive to the disciples because they had a better handle on who Jesus was, especially Peter, James and John. They saw some things that no one else saw. They saw Jesus in his glorified being and presence on the mount of transfiguration. Through sleepy eyes, they saw angels ascending and descending to minister to strengthen Jesus. They knew he was the Messiah, but they also knew that in this human flesh resided the creator of the world.
Paul writes about this in Philippians 2 in speaking about Jesus.
Text from Philippians
We see that Jesus would not misuse his power or use it selfishly. In fact, he would not show off. He would not jump from the pinnacle of the temple, he would not use his power for self-enrichment, he would not even provide bread for himself when he was hungry. Jesus is not like modern speakers of today. One time I tried to hire an outside speaker, and they wanted $10,000 and an airplane fee, the finest hotels and the best of food. We do not see this in Jesus’ life. He traveled by foot and did not require limousine service or the best of food or the finest hotels. He said that he had no place to rest his head.
Instead of seeking to be served, we see this Jesus doing things like we read in John 13:
TEXT
Although Jesus knew his identity, he served with tremendous humility. He did this through the simple act of washing his disciples’ feet. It is hard for us today to relate to washing people’s feet. Our feet are very clean. However, in those days when you came in traveling, it was customary to wash people’s feet. Because they wore sandals, their feet got very dirty even though the rest of the body was clean. Usually, they reclined to eat their supper and their dirty feet would make a mess of things. It was so demeaning to wash people’s feet, that Jewish slaves were not required to do it. Foreign slaves were the ones who washed people’s feet.
If I was to make an analogy for today, I think cleaning public toilets would be demeaning for me. For some people it’s changing messy diapers. What is demeaning to you? One wealthy American was visiting Southeastern Asia and happened to notice a missionary nurse cleaning the sores of an elderly man. The American quipped to the nurse, “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars.” The missionary nurse said, “Neither would I.” She was doing it because she loved people and was willing to serve them.
Why was Jesus washing the disciples’ feet? In Luke 22:24, they had finished their meal. There had been a lot of “kingdom talk” for days before this, and the disciples misunderstood. They thought, “We are going to sit on twelve thrones!” They were very excited about it and began to ask who was closest to Jesus. Peter states, “It’s obvious that it’s me.” John says, “No, Peter. I am the beloved disciple.” There is a dispute that breaks out at this most holy and critical time, and Jesus has to figure out what to do. He has been training these men for two-and-one-half years, and it is the eleventh hour. Twelve hours from now he’s going to be killed, and he thought he had prepared these men for ministry in the world. All of sudden, everything is starting to unravel. They haven’t understood very much, and I can almost sense a panic in Jesus at times as he wonders, “What am I doing to do?”
He comes up with the idea of washing the disciples’ feet and he shocks them. The disciples should have been doing this for him. As he washes, you can hear the silence in the room. Finally, Peter’s are the last feet to be washed and he just can’t take it. He states, “Jesus, you can’t possibly do this. It is beneath you. You are my teacher and my Lord. How can you do this?” Jesus says, “Peter, you need this. You don’t understand what I’m doing. Unless you receive this, you have not part in me.” He’s really telling Peter that unless he are willing to do anything for God’s kingdom, he is not worthy of the kingdom. If we are going to follow Jesus, there is no such thing as something below our dignity. If God wants us to do something, we can’t say no if we are going to follow him. That’s what a servant does and it’s God’s message not only to Peter but to us as well.
If we follow him, there is no such thing as service below our dignity. Husbands, is there anything below your dignity in the service of your wife? Wives, is there anything that you consider below your personal dignity in the service of your husband? Parents, is there anything below your dignity in the service of your children. Children or youth, is there anything below your dignity in the service of your parents? If so, then you have not understood this message yet or this act of Jesus.
In our journals is a quote: “Jesus was a servant. He took a towel and washed his disciples’ dusty, smelly feet and said we should do the same. Imagine that! What kind of impact could we have on the world if we washed peoples’ feet? People are searching for something real, something different, something way out of this dog-eat-dog disaster. Why don’t we show them the true nature of Jesus by adopting the servanthood he modeled for us? There is no way we can drag people into God’s kingdom through political power or glitzy TV shows. We thought we would win the world with words, but in the process we become as pushy as everyone else. What if we truly served? What if Christians became known for their humility? It would change everything. Literal foot washing would be a little weird these days, but what else could we do? Mow a neighbor’s lawn, help a co-worker with a project, pay school tuition for a kid in a struggling family, offer free babysitting for a single mom, or visit the residents of a nursing home or perhaps rub their feet and wash their sores.”
How can I be a selfless servant like Jesus? I think Jesus was able to serve because he had received three different things and we need to receive them as well. A car will take you places, but it won’t do it without gas. It is very difficult to serve unless we have a certain power in our lives, and I call that GAS, as well. I am hoping that you all develop GAS this morning.
1. Good sense of self, or a good self-image. I think the key to Jesus’ ability to serve is the fact that he had a tremendous sense of who he was. Look in the passage. It says that Jesus knew the time had come. He knew God’s direction for his life and he knew that God had it all planned out. He knew what was coming and was at peace with it. He knew that God loved him, and he was able to love his disciples as a result. All through the New Testament God proclaims that Jesus is his beloved son in whom he is well pleased. God loved his son and through that loving relationship, Jesus was able to love and serve others. Jesus knew he was created in the image of Almighty God. He didn’t come from biological soup or some chance accident. He was created by God and God made him wonderful as God has made us all. Jesus knew not only where he came from, but where he was going. His sense of eternity was sure. He had a deep peace and calm about his future and his eternal life. Do you? Where did this sense of confidence come from? His confidence about the future, and confidence that God loved him and was watching over him even though things were falling apart. It comes from an intimate relationship with God. Jesus had that and he offers it to us as well. It was because of this deep sense of God’s love that he was able to accept himself and to love others. He was at peace with himself and with life and was able to serve.
Do you have that same type of peace in your life? Are you at peace with yourself and with others? Are you at peace with your past? Are you at peace with God’s purpose for your life? Are you at peace with your death and with your after-life? Are you at peace with life itself? If not, are you at peace with God. If you are at peace with God, everything else will come into alignment in your life. Having experienced the love of God, you will have an inner sense of power, love and passion for other people. So I invite you to invite Christ into your life so that you can experience his love which will empower you for service. Unless you have that love inside you, it will be very difficult for you to serve in the same capacity as Christ.
Abraham Lincoln had that sense of confidence. Here’s what one historian wrote about him: “For a president to select a political rival for a cabinet post was not unprecedented. But to deliberately surround himself with all of his disappointed antagonists seemed to be courting disaster. It was a mark of his sincere intentions that Lincoln wanted the advice of men as strong or stronger than himself. That he entertained no fear of being crushed or overridden by such men revealed either surpassing naivete or a tranquil confidence in his powers of leadership, a leadership which was grounded in the tranquility of his faith.”
2. Have you Accepted service or have you received service? It may seem con-tradictory because we read the passage that Jesus came not to be served but to serve. As you read the gospels, you will notice that God served Jesus through his entire life. Every time Jesus needed God, God was there. During his temptation when Satan came at him, God was there. During his baptism, God was there. In the garden of Gethsemane when he is sweating blood, God comes and strengthens his son. When he cries for help from the cross, God brings peace and resolve. In the resurrection, God does not allow his son to see corruption. In the ascension, you see God receiving his son.
Jesus knew that God had put all things under his power. His father had taken care of everything for him. As a result of being ministered to by his father, Jesus was then able to minister to others. That’s the point he was making with Peter. Peter didn’t want to receive Jesus’ ministry, and Jesus said, “Peter, you need to receive this because once you receive this, once you are served by me, it will empower your life to serve other people.”
Think about it, they spent two-and-one-half years being ministered to by Jesus through teaching and training and working with him and modeling after him. It was only by their training, by watching Jesus and putting things into action that they were then able to go and serve the world. The same thing is true about us. You will find it very difficult to serve other people without a little bit of training.
Someone says, “God, use me.” And God says, “Okay, go to deacon training and you’ll learn how to be used.” “Oh, God, not that!! I want to be a deacon.” God replies, “Well, you will be, but you need to be ministered to first. You need to receive some things first. You will be empowered for ministry, but you need to learn some things as well.”
When I wanted to be a minister, I couldn’t just go and be one. I went to seminary for eight years of my life. It is important that if we want to serve, we must first receive service. I know some people who feel that it is wrong to receive some form of service, and yet I challenge that thinking. Have you ever received an unexpected gift, an unexpected break, been hospitalized and had people come to visit you, or had someone do something exceptionally nice for you? How did that make you feel? Didn’t it cause you to want to return the favor to someone?
In my will, I have some money going to my university. Why? Because they were so gracious to me. There were people who sacrificed their income for me and enabled me to go to college and have a chance in life. I want to return the favor to those who are less fortunate so that they have the same opportunity that I did. It is in receiving that we are empowered to give to other people as well. We see this in Jesus’ life, the disciples’ life and in our own lives as well.
Conversely, the people that I see rejecting service I find tend to be very ornery people. When talking about helping others, they tend to say, “No one ever helped me. Why should I help them?”
Sometimes in our lives there is a point where God wants us to go to the sidelines for awhile to be healed so that we can help to heal. This is the third letter in the word GAS.
3. Once we have received ministry, we are then called to Service. We must be willing and open to serve. This is very counter cultural. We learn that the way to succeed is to look out for number one, and Jesus says that’s not true spiritually and it’s not true in this life. It is not in taking that we succeed. Actually, if you study some of the great successful people of all time, you will discover that they rose through service.
Dave Thomas, the owner of Wendy’s, decided to be the best hamburger flipper ever. Through his drive to be the best at whatever he was doing at the moment, he rose to greatness and to success. I am convinced that God wants us to succeed. I don’t think it helps God’s kingdom at all that his people are losers. God knows there is a right way and a wrong way to succeed and he wants us to be careful of pride and personal gratification. He wants us to respond by being generous to others and to give him glory. Why do I say that God wants us to succeed? Look at verse 17: “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed when you do them.”
Herb Kelleher, the CEO of Southwest Airlines received a memo on Boss’s Day in 1994. Here’s what it said:
Thanks, Herb, for remembering every one of our names, for supporting the Ronald McDonald House, for helping to load baggage on Thanksgiving, for giving everyone a kiss, and I mean everyone. Thanks for listening. Thanks for running the only profitable major airline. Thanks for singing at our holiday gathering and for singing only once a year. Thanks for letting us wear shorts and sneakers to work, for golfing at the Love Classic with only one club, for out-talking Sam Donaldson, for riding your Harley Davidson in Southwest headquarters, for being a friend and not just a boss. Happy Boss’s day from each one of your 16,000 employees.”
It is in service that success or greatness comes. Ask any teacher if that’s not true. So many teachers say I’ve learned more by teaching than by studying myself. Ask anyone who has visited an elderly person in a nursing home if they received more than they gave. Ask anyone who has served in some form, and you will discover that they received far more through service than they ever imagined.
I went on two mission trips at a time in my life when I was having financial problems in college because things didn’t work out with the scholarships I had planned on. I felt an urge to go on two mission trips in one year. To this day, the memories that I have and the results of those trips have been a far greater blessing than anything I have ever received financially.
It is in giving that we receive, and I’m talking about things other than money. There are some things that money can’t buy–Money can’t buy love and satisfaction, meaning, significance, friendships and character traits. As you serve, your character traits will be strengthened and you will become the person that you have always wanted to be.
Let me close with this little survey:
1. Do you know Jesus Christ? Have you received his love?
2. Have people served you in your life? Make a list of who has served you in your life..
3. Do you understand the example that Jesus gave his followers in John 13?
If you said yes to all three of those, then I don’t have to ask you the fourth question, but I will anyway:
4. Are you serving someone right now? Are you performing some form of service?
If not, this is God’s call on your life, and you will never be satisfied until you do . I encourage you to find some form of service, whether it’s in our church or our community, and receive all that God has for you. You will receive his blessing as you take on the towel and wash peoples’ feet.
Let’s pray.
