Sweaty Devotion

have been committed to his hands. Only what Christ determines will happen will happen, nothing more,

nothing less. That puts another angle on the one Judas/Satan thing, huh?

2. John 19:10-11

3. Illustration: “man is responsible. God is sovereign. believe both, and you can wake up in the morning w/

purpose & go to bed at night w/ peace.” –Matt Papa

4. Now, imagine orchestrating your own death. These chapters begin the last few day of Jesus’ life, which

are the most significant, and the reason for which He came; and they have been committed to His hands.

Sometimes we pay lip service to the idea of God’s sovereignty in our lives when we actually picture Him

as a hurried deity hoping and manipulating, biting His fingernails, straining, with a worried look on His

face, waiting to see how it will turn out. The reason that he can slowly, deliberately rise, take a towel,

and calmly go about the purposeful task of demonstrating his care for His disciples is that He is in control

of all things. And he is in control of all things in your life. That unforeseen occurrence this week didn’t

catch Him by surprise. He never lost His grip on the world this week for a moment. He made Pope

Francis the pope for a reason, and held onto me as I had a seizure on Monday morning. All things are in

his hands, from his death to a sparrow that falls to a hair that turns white or black to a baby’s first cry.

E. Lowly Service (v. 4-7)

1. Washing the dirty, dusty

feet of men who had just walked the festival swollen streets of Jerusalem was

one of the nastiest duties one could perform. This was much the point. The point was not so much feet

being washed, but who they were being washed by. Jesus, the Lord of Glory, bent down on his hands and

knees with a towel and a basin, and washed nasty feet. This would have been shocking to the disciples.

This would have been shocking to the first century audience as they heard it read to them. Only in rare

instances among peers is anything like this ever recorded in the ancient world and only for demonstrations

of extreme love and devotion, but NEVER is it ever attested to of a superior toward an inferior. This is the

only known instance in the ancient world.

2. Phil 2:6-8,

3. Illustration: tell the story of Robert McQuilken’s wife getting progressively sick while he was the

president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary, and the counsel he received to put her in a home, and

the response that he gave—“It is all more than keeping promises and being fair, however. As I watch her

brave descent into oblivion, Muriel is the joy of my life. Daily I discern new manifestations of the kind of

person she is, the wife I always loved. I also see fresh manifestations of God's love - the God I long to love

more fully.”

4. There is nothing beneath us. There is nothing too low for us. We are not too important for any task. We

don’t need to find servants to do things for us. Can you imagine Jesus’ knees on the mud stone sandy