As I Have Loved You

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church.

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Kungsvinger is a beacon for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim

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Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone. And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

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The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the 13th chapter. Glory to you,

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O Lord. Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart out of this world to the

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Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray

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Him, 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, He rose from supper.

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

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He said to Simon Peter and said to him, He came to Simon Peter who said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet?

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And Jesus answered him, what I am doing, you do not understand now, but afterwards you will understand.

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Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered, if I do not wash you, you have no share with me.

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Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. And Jesus said to him, the one who has bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but is completely clean.

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And you are clean, but not every one of you. For He knew who was to betray

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Him and that is why He said, not all of you are clean. When He had washed their feet and put out

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His outer garments and resumed His place, He said to them, do you understand what

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I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord and you are right for so I am.

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If then your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

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For I have given you an example that also that you should do just as I have done to you.

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This is the gospel of the Lord in the name of Jesus, Amen. Well, this is it.

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This is the night. This is the night that Jesus is up all night long. He's got just a little bit of time, not much, before he is arrested and then found guilty of blasphemy, even though he didn't blaspheme.

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And then he doesn't even make even the slightest effort whatsoever to defend himself because all of this was according to the

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Father's plan. And you'll note then we are now officially kind of drawing to the end of the

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Lenten season, which has been a penitential season, a time for us to reflect on our own lives in light of the

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Ten Commandments. And if you would, by the power of the Holy Spirit, not our own efforts, by the power of the

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Holy Spirit, intensify our warfare against our own sinful flesh, the devil, and the world, which always conspired to lead us into temptation.

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But it's here where we're going to note what an endearing picture Christ gives us today of his love, of his mercy, of his kindness, and his desire, in fact, will, that that same love that is exemplified in his humbling himself and washing the feet of his disciples, that that same love then pours from Christ to us and then overflows from us to others.

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You know, I was really excited to see that I received a gift from the

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Discord Flock. That's what they call themselves. What a great name, the Discord Flock. I think more churches should call themselves that.

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They would be more honest if they did. But the reality is that Discord is the exact opposite of what

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Christ has called us to. And so, let me kind of put it this way. If we examine this story,

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Christ, this is the beginning of his passion. There is one fellow among the twelve who is going to betray

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Christ. And it's such, such a sad, sad account.

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One of the church fathers, he said of Judas that he was slumbering in the sleep of Avarice.

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You see, you know, that sin kind of kills us and puts us back to sleep. It reminds me of the words of the book of Hebrews chapter three.

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Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear God's voice, don't harden your hearts as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works.

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They saw him for 40 years. Therefore, I was provoked with that generation and said, they always go astray in their heart.

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They have not known my ways. As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.

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So take care, brothers, take care, lest there be in any of you unbelieving hearts leading you to fall away from the living

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God. So exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

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Sin is deceitful. And here's the thing. The world now has people out there who are writing books.

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They're getting celebrity spots on the Oprah network and things like this.

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And they're telling you a spirituality that goes something like this. You need to follow your authentic self.

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Stop denying yourself and just go wherever your heart wants you to go, man.

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You want to leave your spouse? Go for it. Find that soulmate of yours. You want to transition to a different gender?

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Good. You do? Oh, good. You do it, man. It doesn't matter if you leave your children or not, or divorce your family.

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It doesn't matter the wake of wreckage and heartache that you leave behind you. You got to be true to your authentic self.

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This is how they talk, right? And that is not freedom.

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That is 100 % bondage and slavery. It is, don't let any of you have your hearts hardened by what?

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The deceitfulness of sin. And it's such a tragic story what ends up happening to Judas.

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It really, truly is. But in that regard then, let's consider our gospel text.

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We'll tease out a few things. One of the things I thought was funny, and as I was studying and getting ready for the sermon, reading some of the church fathers, it's like almost to a

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T. When you look at their sermons on this text, they'll go, now before the feast of the

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Passover, full stop, and then they just have to just go right into a full explanation, which isn't a bad thing to do if you think about it.

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I just find it an interesting thing. We got to stop on the word Passover, and there's an important word.

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We just read in the book of Exodus about the very, very first Passover.

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And you'll note then that the story itself of the Passover sounds hauntingly familiar in regards to the

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Lord's Supper. In fact, the Passover is the type and shadow, if you would, regarding the

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Lord's Supper itself. So, there's the children of Israel, enslaved to a snake hat guy, right, you know, a stand -in for the devil.

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And they can't free themselves, but God, by ten mighty acts of judgment, is just going toe -to -toe with snake hat dude and bringing all him and his entire empire to their knees.

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All of this in order to save his people. And beloved, isn't that what we're about to see happen tomorrow?

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As the prophecy goes in Genesis, God said that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent, crush his head.

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And this is good news for us. So, there in the Old Testament, Moses and Aaron, they're in the land of Egypt, and God has commanded, this is the feast, this is the night of nights.

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And for you, in fact, your whole calendar year is going to be centered around this event.

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This shall be your first month. You'll tell it to all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's houses, a lamb for a household.

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Oh, it reminds me of that text that says of Jesus, behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

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Those are the words of John the Baptist. He will take, count it up for the number that you need.

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You shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb will be without blemish. That sounds like Jesus, right?

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Tempted in every way that we were yet is without sin. You can take it from the sheep or the goats.

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You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month. And you're going to note here, Jesus is celebrating the

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Passover, and the very next day, he's going to the cross.

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Not a coincidence. Totally on purpose. A hundred percent planned.

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So, they shall eat the flesh that night. Eat the flesh of their Passover lamb. That sounds, well, it sounds yummy.

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How many of you have lamb on Easter, right? Lamb or ham?

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I think lamb is the more biblical of the two, right? But the idea then here is that in the

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Lord's Supper, what do we receive? It is exactly what Jesus says it is.

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It's his body and blood given in shed for the forgiveness of your sins. And you're going to note here that with the

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Passover lamb begins an unbroken thing in Scripture, all right?

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Think of it this way. So, there you show up. Long time later, centuries later, you show up at the temple, right?

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And you've got yourself a sin offering, and you offer up that sin offering. What do you do with that thing after it's been offered up?

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Well, part of it goes to the priest, and what did the priest do with it? They eat it. And what do you do if part of it comes back to you?

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What do you do with it? You eat it. You're going to note here that over and again, sin sacrifices are consumed.

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It's an interesting thing that we see in Scripture. And so, all of this is prefiguring what

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Christ is going to do on the cross, and then what he's going to do for us moving forward.

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As we, in covenant with him, feast on his very body and blood, given in shed for the forgiveness of our sins.

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It is exactly as Christ says it is. So, let's see.

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They will eat the flesh that night. Do not eat of it raw or boiled. You shall let none of it remain until the morning.

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In this manner you shall eat it, your belt fastened, your sandals and your feet, your staff, and you shall eat it in haste.

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It is the Lord's Passover. And then you'll note then, when did they sacrifice these animals?

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At twilight. Now, you sit there and go, all right, twilight, when does that begin?

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Three in the afternoon. The correlations between Christ's crucifixion are unmistakable.

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Christ cries out from the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

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And into your hands I commit my spirit. It is finished. And he gives up his, he gives up his spirit.

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And he dies at the same time of the evening sacrifice, the same time the

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Passover lambs are slaughtered. It's an interesting thing when you consider it. And then what will happen then?

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God says, I will pass through the land of Egypt that night.

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I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and on all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment.

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I am Yahweh. Now, we've heard that God, you know, over and again, you hear it said that, well, on the night of the

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Passover, the destroyer comes through. But according to what we just read here, who's the destroyer?

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God. And you're going to note the only thing that distinguishes the difference between those who believe

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Yahweh and those who don't is the blood of the Lamb. It's the only thing.

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And here's the thing, on the day of judgment, it is the same. On the day of judgment, that's what all of this is kind of prefiguring when

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God judges Satan, judges the world, brings Egypt and Babylon crashing down.

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And I'm talking kind of like in type and shadow there. And he brings everybody into judgment.

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The only thing that keeps God in his wrath from having us join the rest of the world is the blood of the

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Lamb. You see, it is Christ's blood given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins that reconciles you to God.

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It is Christ's derelict body, bruised, beaten, scourged, nailed to a tree, bloody beyond recognition that saves you and saves me.

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And it is his blood that is on us, in us, that we consume every time we have the

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Lord's supper. And you'll note then this promise that God would pass over.

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That's true for us as well in the new covenant, because all of this was type and shadow.

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In fact, we are in the Exodus now. So, the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are.

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When I, God says, I see the blood, I will pass over you. No plague will befall you to destroy you when

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I strike the land of Egypt. This day shall be for you a memorial day and you shall keep it as a feast to Yahweh throughout your generations.

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Ah, yes, the Passover is indeed most appropriate to hang on to and understand how

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Christ fulfills it. All of that type and shadow. He is our Passover lamb. And this is why, you know, we don't have

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Seder dinners on Monday, Thursday. That's, you get the idea. So, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the

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Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he even loved them to the end. And he still keeps on loving them, by the way.

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This is not saying that, well, once he died, he stopped loving them. That's not what it says. So, during the supper, when the devil had already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him,

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Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hand and that he had come from God and was going back to God, he rose from supper, he laid aside his outer garments and taking a towel, he tied it around his waist.

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We're not like this. I'm not like this. You and I, we want to be number one, right?

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Isn't this world all about climbing to the top? Notoriety or having power and influence and you just think about Jesus isn't about any of that.

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I, it was absolutely tragic as I have been watching the stories and the documentaries regarding Hillsong, the fall of Carl Lentz, the fall of Brian Houston.

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And these are men who are all about power and money.

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A story just came out this week where people who worked at Hillsong New York City said that working under Lentz, that it gave them mental illnesses.

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Sounds extreme, but it actually makes sense because these men were all about themselves.

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They preached about themselves and they taught the people who came to their services all about how to be like them, but not to be like Jesus.

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And this is the point. Have you ever had that experience? When you see a text like this, it stands in such stark juxtaposition to what we're all like inherently because we are of our father, the devil.

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We want these, the power and the glory like the devil, that something like this stands out in such stark contrast that you can't help but get that little check inside of your throat and maybe even tear up a little bit.

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It is the kindness of God. It is the mercy of Jesus.

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His humanity and humility that makes me realize that I've got a problem.

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It actually convicts me of my own evil. And I think maybe it does you too.

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So, there's Jesus, King of kings, Lord of lords, God of God, light of light, very

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God of very God, by nature, God, taking up a towel, putting it around his waist and doing the job of, well, the lowest servant in the house or the lowest slave in the house.

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This is the job that no slave wanted. And there's Jesus. And Simon, like me and like you, he's, oh, no, no, no, no.

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It's not supposed to be this way. Lord, do you wash my feet,

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Peter said. What I'm doing, you don't understand now.

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Afterwards, you will. Afterwards, you will. And it's here where I'll plug this in.

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I always love when I read the Church Fathers or I read a sermon on these texts and somebody gives me another insight into Scripture that I hadn't seen before.

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And it might seem like a throwaway connection, but it's really not. If you would, go back with me to the book of Exodus.

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You don't have to go there. I'll read it to you. But Exodus chapter 30, God is giving Moses the instructions on how to build the tabernacle, the very, very first worship building.

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It's a temporal thing that can move around. Worship facility. There we go. First worship facility for the

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Israelites. And, well, God is consecrating and setting apart the

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Levites. They're going to be the ones who are responsible for doing the priestly duties in the tabernacle.

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And then you get this little detail. God says that Moses needs to make a bronze basin for washing.

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In Hebrew, it's a mikvah, right? So, Yahweh said to Moses, you shall also make a basin of bronze with its stand of bronze for washing.

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You shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar and you shall put water in it in which

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Aaron and his son shall wash their hands and their feet. When they go into the tent of meeting or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn a food offering to Yahweh, they shall wash with water so that they may not die.

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They shall wash their hands and their feet so that they may not die. It shall be a statute forever.

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And here's the basic idea. The basic idea here is that, well, in the

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Old Testament, the Levites, before they could enter into the tabernacle or go into the

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Holy of Holies or go in to pick up the Ark of the Covenant in order to carry it outside, they all had to wash.

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They had to wash or they would die, right? And so, one of the church fathers put it this way, that what

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Christ is doing here, in part, not in total, but in part, is he is washing the feet of his disciples so that they are clean so that they can carry the

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Ark of the Good News of Christ and him crucified for our sins out into the world.

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Is it not Christ who makes us a kingdom of priests? And so, you'll note then that each of us, as a kingdom of priests, we too are washed in the waters of baptisms.

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Christ washes away our sins, unites us with him in his death and his resurrection.

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It is a washing of regeneration and all the wonderful promises of Scripture. What a great connection.

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Man, I wish I'd seen it myself. But one of my best secrets is that I'm really good at reading and taking things in and weaving from the wisdom of others and those who preceded us.

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But you get the idea here. But man, what a beautiful idea. So, what I'm doing, you don't understand now.

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Afterwards, you will understand it. And you can just see

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Peter at this point. You're never going to wash my feet, Lord. This bucks up against all of that still, latent, self -glory tendencies of Peter.

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This is the guy who in just a few minutes is going to say to Jesus after Jesus said, the

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Scripture must be fulfilled. He's going to strike the shepherd and all the sheep are going to be scattered. And Peter's going to say, even if everyone else deserts you,

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Lord, I will not. Right? Okay. It's still in there.

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And it's Christ's crucifixion and his kindness and his washing that just really is challenging to that demonic way of thinking for Peter.

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You'll never wash my feet. Jesus said, if I don't wash you, you have no share with me. Checkmate.

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Right? So, Simon Peter said, Lord, then not my feet, also my hands, my head.

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Just wash me, Lord. No one who has bathed does, the one who has bathed does not need to wash except for his feet.

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But it's completely clean. You are clean. Not every one of you. And here Jesus is using term of clean, referring to those who have faith in Christ.

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Judas doesn't. And so Judas is the one who is not clean. As one of the church fathers says, he's slumbering in the sleep of avarice.

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All right. So Jesus knew who has betrayed them. So when he had washed their feet, he put on his outer garments and he resumed his place.

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Do you understand what I've done to you? You call me teacher. You call me

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Lord. You're right. For so I am. If then your

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Lord and your teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

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For I've given you an example that you also should do just as I have done for you. Truly I say to you, servant is not greater than his master, nor messenger greater than the one who sent him.

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If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. And so Christ here is telling us to have that same love.

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Beloved, let us love one another. John writes in his epistle. For love is of God.

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Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who doesn't love doesn't know

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God because God is love. So put away the ambition.

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Put away the vain, glorious conceit. Put it all away. Stop thinking about numbers and bank accounts and influence and all that.

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Just put it all away. Christ became the lowest of the low, and he says that a servant is not greater than his master.

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And you'll note that in saying this, Christ has taken the world's values and just flipped them.

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And you can always tell when people are still listening to the world's values because it's not in line with any of this.

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In fact, what Jesus did is so kind. And in just another, two chapters later, here's what

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Jesus says, this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

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And so listen to what I'm going to say here. We Lutherans, we like to talk about law and gospel.

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We like to make a proper distinction. And absolutely, the command to love is law, but this command of love cannot be accomplished apart from the gospel.

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In fact, it is only the gospel that brings this thing to life. This is my commandment, that you love one another because greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

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You are my friends if you do what I command. So no longer do I call you servants.

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The servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends. For all that I have heard from my father,

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I have made known to you. You didn't choose me. I chose you. And I appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit would abide so that whatever you ask of the father in my name that he may give you.

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So brothers and sisters, Jesus is our friend.

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No greater love than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

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You are his friend. He laid down his life for you. He instituted the

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Lord's Supper for you. He took on the crown of thorns for you.

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He let his back be scourged and opened up and ripped to shreds for you.

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He was nailed to the cross, hands and feet for you. And he breathed his last after suffering in the dark for your sins so that you can be his friend.

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And you'll note then, if you believe this, you have nothing to fear on the day of judgment at all.

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There's no reason to shrink back in fear of God's judgment because God has sent his only begotten son and he has laid down his life for his friends.

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And he proves it not only in word, but in deed. And so this

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Maundy Thursday, although we're gathering on the internet, as we get ready to consider the sufferings and passion of Christ, let us repent of our ambition.

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Let us repent of all the ways in which we have vaingloriously set ourselves up over others rather than humbly taking on a towel and washing the feet of the saints.

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The lowest of the low are down there, but also the faithful of the faithful.

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the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.