John 13, Are You Washed?, Dr. John Carpenter

John chapter 13, hear the word of the Lord. Now before the feast of the

Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of the world to the father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

During the supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him,

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, rose from supper.

He laid aside his outer garments and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with a towel that was wrapped around him.

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

I am doing, you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand. Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet.

And Jesus answered him, if I do not wash you, you have no share in with me.

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 was bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but is completely clean.

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

That's why he said, not all of you are clean. When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garment and resumed his place, he said to them, do you understand what

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

Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do just as I have done to you.

Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. I'm not speaking of all of you.

I know whom I have chosen, but the scripture will be fulfilled. He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.

I am telling you this now before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am he truly, truly,

I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.

After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit and testified truly, truly,

I say to you, one of you will betray me. The disciples looked at one another uncertain of whom he spoke.

One of the disciples whom Jesus loved was reclining at table close to Jesus.

So Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So that disciple leaning back against Jesus said to him,

Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, it is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when

I have dipped it. So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.

Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him what you are going to do, do quickly.

Now, no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that because Judas had the money bag,

Jesus was telling him by what we need for the feast or that he should give something to the poor.

So after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out and it was night when he had gone out.

Jesus said, now is the son of man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him,

God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I am with you.

You will seek me. And just as I said to the Jews, so now I say to you where I am going, you cannot come.

A new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another.

By this, all people will know that you are my disciples. If you have love for one another.

Simon Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going? Jesus answered him, where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.

Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.

Jesus answered, will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.

May the Lord have his blessing for the reading of his holy word. But have you ever passed through an initiation for fraternities or sororities?

It's hazing. Some teams have training camps and tryouts. The military has boot camp. And then if you make it, you're finally fully considered a soldier or Marine.

Some jobs have a probation. You go through a trial period before you're considered a regular employee.

We often have these rights of initiation to mark transitions. In traditional cultures, they often have initiation rituals to mark becoming a full member of the tribe.

You're now an adult. For Jews, it's called bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah for girls. And many

African tribes, boys will go through about two or three months of initiation rituals before they're fully considered men.

In China, ancient China, the rites of zoo were rites of passage. There were rites of passage for boys to be initiated into adulthood at age 20 and for girls at age 15.

In modern societies, those kinds of rites of passage just kind of fall by the wayside. We don't have any of those. And that's lamented by many people.

Some think that we need something, you know, to signify, you know, when we definitively pass from childhood to adulthood.

Because it's really kind of weird now. In one sense, we can vote at age 18, but you can't buy liquor until age 21.

You can drive at 16. It's really kind of fuzzy, isn't it? We don't have like one moment that marks one kind of transition.

Graduation from high school doesn't seem to cut it. The prom doesn't really work that well. And so some people think we should bring back the draft and have boys at least go through a couple of years of military service.

That'll make them grow up finally, they say. Maybe it would, but it is the purpose of the military to be a rite of passage.

I have you pass through a rite of passage, an experience that marked a new beginning. Now, for some, it's going off to college.

For me, I went to college near my parents. So my rite of passage, I think, was when

I drove 2 ,000 miles to California and lived there on my own. For some of you, maybe it was coming to America.

Sometimes it's good, I think, for young people to make a bold decision to kind of strike out on their own, move somewhere far away and do something unexpected.

It makes them grow up. It's their rite of passage. A rite of passage is an experience, a ritual that you go through, which is supposed to equip you for the next level, to signify you've made it to what's next and portray you passed through the threshold to something new.

The Christian rite of passage is baptism. It was based first on John the Baptist taking a

Jewish rite of passage. It's first a Jewish rite of passage for Gentile converts to Judaism. If a Gentile wants to become a

Jew, they dipped him, they baptized him. John the Baptist took that and applied it to repentant

Jews. And he was saying that you, you repentant Jew, are now passing from the old false

Israel. Remember he would say, God could make sons of Abraham out of these stones. You think just being a

Jew is all that matters to God. No, he can make it out of these stones. So you gotta be, you gotta repent, you gotta be baptized. So you're passing from the old false

Israel to the new real one. And our mandate to baptize is only to baptize people who are choosing to leave our old life and become like Jesus, to follow

Jesus. It's a rite of passage for disciples. Remember Jesus said, go and make disciples and baptize them.

Who's the them? It's the disciples. So baptism is for disciples, not for children born into our family.

It's fine to have some kind of ritual or something to observe the birth of a child, but that's not what baptism is supposed to do.

It is a literal washing that portrays that you have been washed, that you've already gone through a real spiritual passage, a washing.

Well, here John, the apostle John tells us that as Jesus is preparing for a new passage, he teaches about a greater passages, not just symbols, but substance.

And he does that in five parts. First, the washing. Second, the messengers.

Third, the trouble. Fourth, the glory. And finally, the failure.

First, washing. Jesus washes the disciples' feet. Is this a ritual?

Is this a rite of passage? Like we're all supposed to do this. We're all supposed to practice it today. Are we wrong as a church?

We don't, we have never done this. Should we? Well, let's see. Jesus knows that his hour has now come to leave this world and to go to the father.

That's how it begins in chapter 13. And so this is a key turning point. His hour had come. He knew that his hour had come.

So this is a key turning point, a transition in the gospel of John. Several times earlier in this gospel,

Jesus has said, my hour has not yet come. He once puts off his own mother, saying, my hour has not yet come.

And now he announces, the gospel of John does, he knew that his hour had come.

So this is the end, at least of his ministry on earth. We pass through a threshold here. Verse one sums up his ministry simply with Jesus loved his own who were in the world.

He taught them, he healed them. He shined the light for them. He lived perfectly for them. He loved them. It says to the end.

Note that he loves them specifically. I just saw this the last few days.

He loved his own. That is a specific people. It doesn't say, well, Jesus, if it could write in verse one, he loved everybody.

It says he loved his own. It doesn't say that he loved everyone to the end. It could say that if that's what

John wanted to say, but he specifically says he loved his own, a particular people.

And he loved them to the fullest extent. That's probably what it means by to the end to with everything he had.

That's what the cross is about. The sun loving us who are his people were his own in the world to the fullest extent.

That's what we remember in the Lord's supper, which happens this very night. But it's interesting in the gospel of John here, the gospel of John doesn't mention the

Lord's supper. I don't, I don't particularly know why, but you speculate maybe sacramentalism was already beginning by the time

John wrote this and wanted to counter that. But it says if John intentionally sought to focus elsewhere on the night,

Jesus was betrayed this night, Jesus did something else besides the

Lord's supper to portray what he was about to do for us for his own. Verse two says that Judas had already had the idea satanically plant implanted in his heart to betray

Jesus. So that's set. And Jesus knew in verse three, that the father had given all things into his hand and the ministry.

He's the father had given all things to Jesus into his hand. The father puts all authority in the words of Matthew, puts all authority in heaven on earth in the hands of Jesus.

What's he do with all authority? Now he's all things in his hand. He crushes enemies. He sees earthly throne.

No, he puts a towel in those hands. He had come from the father and was going back to him. But he had one more thing to do is all things in his hands.

So he puts a towel in them. It's going to portray his loving them to the end with what he does. Now, it was typical, typically the chore of the lowliest slave to wash the feet of visitors.

You have a servant in your home and your visitors come, you have their feet washed and you get the lowliest servant to do that.

No one here was willing to lower themselves to do that kind of despised task. It's so humiliating.

You got to bow and be on the floor in front of somebody, take their dirty feet and wash it. No one, none of them was willing to do it.

So Jesus gets up, he takes off his outer clothes, probably a cloak kind of thing. And we might say of a man wearing a suit that he took off his jacket and tie and rolled up his sleeves.

And so he gets a towel, wraps it around himself in a basin. And one by one, he bends down and washes and dries 12 pairs of dusty feet.

We're in shock. We were probably in shock and we were there too. Maybe one of them should have done it, but none of them thought that they were the low man on the totem pole.

The last one they thought should do it was the one who did the

Lord. So when he gets up, I should say when he gets to Peter, Peter objects, he won't stand for Jesus humiliating himself before him like that.

He's trying to, he thinks he's trying to do Jesus a favor. You should be groveling in front of me,

Jesus, you're better than me. He thinks he's being biased and right and respectful. Lord, do you wash my feet?

Jesus understands what's going on in Peter's conflicted mind. What I'm doing, you do not understand.

I know you don't understand it yet, but go along. But afterward, you will understand. Peter won't put up with that.

Not me. I'm not going to let you look like a servant in front of me. I'm not worthy.

Seems humble, right? But Jesus answers. If I do not wash you, you have no share.

You have no part in me. If you're not washed first, you have no part.

You have no investment. You have no stake. You have no participation in Jesus.

You must be washed. It's a strange answer, isn't it?

And if you think this is, it's just a ritual, this is just an illustration, servant leadership.

Here's Jesus illustrating it and he wants Peter to go along with it. You think that's all it is. You expect

Jesus to say something like, Peter, you're ruining my object lesson. This is to portray servant leadership and you're getting in the way.

Just go along for now. I'll explain it later. And Peter go, Oh, okay. All by all means, go ahead.

But there's something more here than just a lesson in humility. Now it is that certainly as I'll explain in a bit, but there's a deeper dimension than just a lesson in humility and leadership.

Are you washed, Peter? Maybe Peter did get that this was a portrayal of humble servant leadership, that the first should be willing to bow and before the last, but being rash,

Peter was kind of a hothead, emotional. I mean, he means well, he's pious, he's his faith, but he's just emotional type.

And now he wishes that he was one of, he was the one on the floor. Why did I think of this? Wrapped in a towel, washing feet.

If only I had thought of it, but I'm not going to let him do it for me. What he doesn't get, what

Peter doesn't get though, is that Jesus isn't just portraying the fact that we in the church, not just, he's not just doing an object lesson for servant leadership, that we in the church shouldn't have people as leaders who insist on titles and perks and fancy pulpit chairs and special parking places who use the church to feed their ego.

They're craving to be listened to, to be somebody to be looked up to. That's true.

That's one dimension of what Jesus is saying here, but Jesus is going far beyond that.

As we see here that you must be washed. If you're not washed, you have no part in me.

That's not having to do with servant leadership. That's having to do with salvation. The son has humbled himself, not just by washing feet, but by becoming a human being in the first place and then shedding his blood for the cleansing of our sin.

You, Peter, must be washed first. If you're not washed, then you're no, you have no part in Christ.

What Jesus is about to do is to serve us by going to the cross to create a bath in his blood in which we are washed clean.

Our robes are washed white in the blood of the lamb. Blood that makes clean doesn't work in the physical world.

Don't try this at home people, but spiritually when the stains are our sins and the blood is the blood of the lamb, then it is the most spectacular detergent.

Notice the verse eight, you must be washed by Christ. It's not good enough just to learn the lessons, to be humble, learn the lesson,

Peter. It's just, it's about being able to make sandwiches for the gym, junior kids and drive vehicles and open the gym so the guys can play and to clean and to listen humbly and to be a good church person.

Oh, that's great. But to belong to Christ first, before any of that, you must be washed.

Are you, are you washed? Well, Peter, always emotional jumping to extremes response.

You know, first he said, you, you're not going to wash my feet. I don't want you humbling yourself before me like that. And then verse nine goes to the other extreme after Jesus said, if I don't watch you, you have no part of me.

Verse nine. If that's the case, if I have to be washed to share in Christ, then don't just watch my, don't just watch my feet, but my hands and my head.

In other words, give me a shower. But Jesus is taking their cultural practice of washing feet that arises from the fact that, you know, people were sandals, mostly wore sandals and, and would walk to dusty roads, wherever they go.

And so you would welcome them into your home. They're visiting with a foot washing because that's the part of them that's dirty.

The rest of them is a dirty. So I mean that they had washed themselves already at home. Jesus takes that and is portraying something about salvation, but what you need to go through first, first, before you get to the object lessons about servant leadership, any of that first, yes, you need to be washed to belong to Christ.

But then once you are washed, you don't need to be washed over and over again.

Every time you come into contact with the world, the washing is what we saw in Romans justification being made right with God.

The, the little, the like that foot washing, the part that's, that's like sanctification, the continual cleansing that you need to experience.

He says in verse 10, the one who has bathed, that's a full washing. The one who has bathed does not need to wash.

You already, you already got a bath. You're already clean. You're no use bathing you again, except for his feet because you got, you got dirty walking those dusty roads, but it is completely clean.

So once you're clean, you don't need to bathe again. Once you're justified, you don't need to be justified again.

At least you don't need to be cleaned or bathed again. At least not right away. Not just, not just because you walk down a path, down a trail to a dinner party.

In other words, Jesus distinguishes between the once for all cleansing, like in Romans justification compared to a bath and the continual washing of the specific part of a body that maybe got dirty doing something.

Maybe like for us, since we all, we all tend to wear shoes that cover our whole feet. You're more like washing our hands, you know, wash your hands after you've gone to the bathroom or before you eat.

We don't think you have to take a shower all over again. Do you? None of us do that. Right?

You don't, we don't have a shower in the bathroom every time you know, no, you wash what might be dirty.

So once you bathe in the blood of Jesus, you don't need to bathe in it again. You'll need to be cleansed of specific sins.

If you've gotten a little dirty, where you kind of come in contact with the world, you need to confess your sins to experience what called the washing of water with your word, with the word, reading the word, maybe hearing sermons to be washed of being contaminated with the world.

You picked up their attitudes, maybe their arrogance, their greed, their lust. You were out in the world.

You got kind of dirty with the dirty things of the world. And so the blood of Christ or the word of God can wash that away.

You need to be sanctified continually, but you don't need to be justified all over again.

You, he says, plural y 'all, he's Southern y 'all are clean.

Jesus says to his disciples, but not every one of you. The one exception was Judas, the betrayer noticed that Judas is not clean.

Even before he betrays, it's not that he became unclean by betraying

Jesus. He was unclean. And so he did what unclean people do betray

Jesus. Are you washed Judas? No. Second messengers.

Then Jesus speaks to the messengers are about the messengers. It's important that they understand the moral lesson from what he's done.

You call me teacher or rabbi and Lord as master.

And you were right. Right. Terms of respect. The Christian community is not a communist society in which everyone is going to equal in rank.

There's no terms of respect or that we're all comrades, brothers and sisters, uh, with none older or younger, none with more authority or more insight than another.

Now, first there is the Lord himself. Call him teacher and Lord. We should, that's right.

And then there's other witnesses, messengers to whom we give heed, to whom we give respect here.

We are right to call him the Lord. But if our Lord and teacher has washed our feet, if he served us by spilling his blood for us so that we would, we could be clean, then we should others of his people in the same way.

A few years ago, we had a young man from Singapore, a Duke student stayed with us for a few weeks. Uh, he said that he was thinking of becoming a pastor and wanted to watch me how to do it.

I'm not sure what you watch me. What? I don't. Okay. I'm trying to watch me read and watch me, right?

He can watch me preach, but you all kind of do that. But I decided to teach him that it wasn't all about reading and delivering sermons.

We're going to put up a sign on highway 86, a sign still there, by the way, we're going to paint those steps.

We're going to mop. He needed to learn how to mop. He didn't know. Oh, so you want to clean up the church?

What'd be a profit? I'm going to clean up the church. I'll start with a broom in your hand. Jesus gave us an example that we should follow.

Of course, some people like to use that excuse to get others like pastors to do the menial chores.

You're supposed to be a servant leader. Now mop this building pastors are told today. Sometimes by people who have no intention of serving themselves.

We had a lady who used to attend with us who wasn't engaged in any service and yet made a list of chores that she thought

Mary should do. It was busy with all kinds of things like Jim jr. Made this list of chores. It was just ridiculous. That's the thing.

Some churches put up with that. They put up with people giving others. Here's a list of chores you should do. Why don't you do it?

That's the way these disciples had just thought. Any one of them should have taken the initiative and washed the feet, but let someone else do it.

So they were all thinking, you know, we all got dirty feet. Someone should wash it. I'm not going to do it. Someone else should do it. Not me.

So Jesus did it. Jesus lesson here is that now that your master has done this, now that he's bent down and he's done the thankless, dirty, lowly chore, you should too.

For us, maybe serve those unthankful, misbehaving, disobedient, disrespectful, infuriating brats of Jim jr.

Maybe serve by listening, maybe serve or, you know, all kinds of little things we need done. Serve the messengers by heeding.

Maybe relieve someone who is serving in several ways and take something off of their hands. So it's not all in one person.

Verse 15, I've given you an example. Jesus says, so this is an example. First, one level, it's, it's a picture of justification and sanctification.

Justification is like bathing or showering. You can wash your old self. Sanctification is like the continual one. We wash our hands for them, their feet.

And then on another level, yes, indeed, it is an example that we should follow. I've given you example that you should do just as I've done to you.

Now, does that mean that we should literally wash each other's feet? I suppose if we needed it, yeah. Now, some churches think this is a ritual that we have to follow, actually have foot washings.

You know, I think if you bathe at home and you're wearing shoes and socks, you probably don't need a foot washing right now. But remember the, the washing the feet here, this is not a symbolic ritual.

It's not a rite of passage that they were, they were going through mystical spiritual symbol of something.

No, this was a practical chore. The example we're to follow then is to be willing to do practical chores for each other, like fixing toilets and sinks, kind of a thankless job, preparing a meal, mowing grass, cleaning houses, helping someone move paint necessary, wash feet.

Now, did you know our members have done those things? I was thinking practical chores. I can think of specific things specific members have done.

They've done it for each other for this building. Jesus would, and we're his servants.

The servant is not greater than his master. And verse 16, we're not greater than Jesus. We're his messengers.

We have his message to give to the world. So we must be like the one who sent us the foot washing one, the practical menial, lowly chore doing one here.

Jesus is preparing these messengers in front of them. The apostles is teaching them practically with a towel in a basin, how to be a messenger of Jesus.

It's not just theory. The church is not just about abstract lectures on theology is that we come to church only to learn doctrine over reform.

We love theology or maybe for some other motivational slogans that will help you get up on Monday morning or intriguing insights into, into scripture.

Well, we are to learn how to serve and then actually do it. You know what

Jesus says, give an example that you should do. That's why we have Jim jr.

And Jim, we have Sunday school and the sermon to teach. Sure. You do need to learn, but we have these other programs to give you a real opportunity to do.

Our other service is you coming to serve. Blessed. Are you, if you do them,

Jesus says in verse 17. Then for the second time in this chapter, Jesus speaks of the betrayer.

Blessed are you if you are actually serve, but the betrayer is not serving. Now he looked like he was, he even had an official position.

He was the treasurer of their group. He was a servant. He has a title, but he wasn't doing it out of service, but for what he could get out of it.

Why was he chosen then? Why was Judas chosen to be the treasurer? Was it a mistake?

No notice that Jesus says in verse 18, I know whom I have chosen. I've chosen you.

And I know each of you. So Judas was chosen on purpose. Like those who don't believe we were going all the way through John.

We would have noticed just in the previous chapter, chapter 12. There are those who are chosen not to believe so that scripture will be fulfilled here.

Judas was chosen. So the scripture will be fulfilled. He ate my bread.

This is the scripture. He ate my bread has lifted his heel against me from the Psalms.

And that's fulfilled by Judas. God chose him for that. Jesus is serving them.

The other 11 apostles by telling them this now, the why he was chosen, why Judas was chosen before it happens.

He says in verse 19, so that when it does happen, when it does happen, they'll remember how Jesus chose him for that.

He was caught off guard by Judas. They will believe literally. Jesus says in verse 19, they will believe that I am.

That's what it says in Greek. The evil isn't there in Greek. Maybe it's implied, but in John, it seems meaningful that Jesus simply says they will believe that I am.

He wants them to believe so that later they will go out with the gospel as his messengers in verse 20, truly, truly pay attention to this, to the truly, truly, every time you see a truly, truly pay a special attention.

Whoever receives the one I send, the apostles receives me. The way you accept the apostles is the way you accept

Jesus. Some people say, well, Jesus never commented on homosexuality.

Sure. He did. He did in Romans chapter one. He didn't first Corinthians six. He did in first Timothy one, the apostles speak for Jesus.

If you reject the apostles, including Paul who came later, you're rejecting Jesus. And he says, whoever receives me receives the one who sent me

God, the father, the way you receive Jesus, the way you receive God, the father, where you see the apostles, the way you receive

Jesus is the way you receive God, the father. So if we receive them without Matthew, Peter, who probably helped give us

Mark, their testimony in Luke, apostle John, like here, the late coming of apostle

Paul, James, if we receive them, we accept their word.

We've received Jesus, the son and the father. The way we would treat the messengers is the way we treat the message sender.

Third, the trouble. One of them doesn't believe that gives

Jesus trouble in verse twenty one. Jesus is troubled, as he said he was in the previous chapter when the

Greeks came here. Jesus knows his hour has come in verse twenty one. Truly, truly, this is certain.

One of you will betray me. Betrayal is troubling to have someone who pledged their loyalty, who's been with you, who you shared so much with them, have him turn on you to his claim.

I've got your back only to stab you in it, to trade you away for a little money or hurt ego or convenience or another thrill.

Jesus is troubled by betrayal, even though he knew it was coming, even though he chose

Judas for that purpose. The disciples look around at each other without a clue as to who it would be.

Who could possibly do this? We tend to think that Judas, you know, he must have been a sinister, slimy looking character.

It's obvious that he's the one. Anyone can tell he's the one. But the disciples who had lived so close to each other for years now, they knew each other close, would never have guessed that it was

Judas. You know, Peter asked John, the disciple whom Jesus loved is what John refers to himself, because he's so amazed of the grace that the

Lord Jesus gave to him. So I'm the, Jesus loved me. Can you believe that?

Peter asked him, ask who Jesus, ask Jesus who it is. And Jesus says, it is he whom

I will give this morsel when I have dipped it. So having food personally served to you by the host here,

Jesus, was a particular sign of honor and love. And so Jesus hands

Judas one last gift, one last gesture of grace in the piece of dipped bread.

Jesus handed over to Judas a piece of food and then told him, what you're going to do, hand me over to my killers.

Do quickly. Satan inspires him to go trade his teacher and Lord for 30 pieces of silver.

Jesus is troubled by that. Not even John, it seems, understood that Judas was a betrayer.

Even after having been told, you know, this is a sign. I'm going to do this. You want to know who it is?

I'm going to do the sign. And he gave the morsel to him, to Judas. But to them, it was just, it was unthinkable.

You know, he was, he was going out to do a chore or help the poor. You know, he'd just spoken up for the poor when

Mary poured out about $30 ,000 worth of ointment on Jesus in the previous chapter.

Judas, he, he loves the poor. He means well. That's what they thought about the man who was the messenger of Satan.

So he goes out from the light. Jesus said, I'm the light of the world. Jesus goes out from the light into the darkness of night, leaving

Jesus troubled fourth, the glory.

Jesus declares in verse 31. Now his hour has come.

The wheels of betrayal are in motion. Now is the son of man glorified son of man is the title for the

Messiah from Daniel chapter seven. The one who comes after the beastly kingdoms of men and receives quote from Daniel seven, dominion and glory and a kingdom just as here in verse three,

Jesus had received all things, all authority in heaven and earth was given to him.

He says in Matthew, Paul says that he must now now reign until he has put all his under his feet.

The son of man is being glorified. He's receiving all things. All authority is reigning. His glory is not something that we have to wait on.

It's not a, not yet. It's now it's already happening and is now happening.

Now, Jesus says in verse 31, when his hour has come, he is glorified.

His glory is manifest. It is seen and what he is doing now, going to the cross.

God is glorified in him in this hour that's come.

Notice how inseparable God, the father and the son are in verse 32. God is glorified in Christ.

He says God will also glorify Christ in himself. And he'll do that at once this very day.

It's now night after all. And in the Jewish reckoning, that means it's now

Friday. Good Friday. Then Jesus loving his own to the end, tenderly addresses them, calls them, called them, calls us little children.

That's who we are to him. Yet a little while I am with you a very little while, then you will seek me.

We might wish we had him now physically with us. He's not now here physically with us anymore, where he is is not hiding in a cave somewhere.

He is where we cannot go right now. If we seek him, if we want him with us, then in verse 34, we'll find him in keeping his new commandment, love one another, just as I have loved you.

We are commanded. We were commanded before to love our neighbor as ourselves.

It was love our neighbor like we love ourselves in the same way that we love ourselves. Here, Jesus's new commandment is to love one another, that is other of his people who are washed in the blood of Jesus, who are in Christ, his own love, his own.

This is he loved them to the fullest extent, loved them not just as ourselves, but as Jesus loved his own, as he loved us, giving up his life for us.

If we do that, if we love one another, then by this, Jesus said in verse 36, all people will know that you are my disciples.

They'll know we are Christians by our love. A loving community displays the world that we really do believe in Jesus.

That's how we get glory. Not by being somebody, somebody big with titles and pomp, big chair on the platform.

By this, just as Jesus is glorified in the cross, his love displayed in giving up us the washing that we needed.

Our glory is in loving one another. That's how we display that we believe in the one who loved us to the end.

Fifth, the failure. We're all failures.

Like Peter, we're all failures. That's why we need to be washed. Peter is puzzled by Jesus saying, where I'm going, you cannot come.

He doesn't understand, but he wants to follow Jesus wherever he goes. And he asked, why can't

I follow you now? Peter thinks Jesus is going, who knows, maybe like to the palace to take over, to the temple, to some earthly glory.

Now he understands that it may be hard. It may take some sacrifice. He may have to lay down his life, but he believes it'll be worth the earthly glory.

We can all be sold into sacrificing for earthly glory.

If we knew that a stock was going to sky rocket in value, it's just going to be come many hundreds of times more than it's worth.

Now we'd all be willing to sell everything we have, put all our money in that stock, live out in the street.

If we had to for a while and barely survive all the charity until we get the cash in our stock, then we'll be exorbitantly wealthy.

If we knew that was coming, we would be willing to sacrifice for it. If that's our idea of glory, we'll sacrifice for it.

We'll be willing to work day in and day out. Forget about church. Forget about God to get rich.

If that's what we think glory is, we think it's money. We think it's wealth. We'll sacrifice for that. Athletes are willing to push their bodies to the extreme, the aching and workouts and running and lifting and practice to get the glory of the championship, the trophy and the millions of dollars that come with it.

Peter thought Jesus was coming for some such glory. He's going to be the King. He's going to rule or earth.

And he wondered why he couldn't go along. I want to go along. Jesus, he proclaimed, I will lay down my life for you.

In verse 37, he knows it may be dangerous, but he's willing to try it. He eventually does, of course, lay down his life for Jesus.

But first, Jesus says, before you lay down your life, your body, you'll see what your flesh will do for you.

Truly, truly. Again, Jesus says that you can bank on it. Truly, truly.

The rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.

You may be washed, Peter, but you're going to fail. But didn't

Judas fail, too? You know, what's the difference? Failure is failure, right? Are Peter's denials as bad as Judas's betrayal?

Well, maybe. But Peter was washed. Judas wasn't.

Judas and Peter were both failures. But one was a washed, repentant failure.

And the other wasn't. They were all failures. The only question is whether we're washed failure or not.

If you're washed, you're initiated. You've gone through the passage.

You have a share in Jesus along with the others. He has washed. That's the key.

That's the foundation. That's the starting place. That's what you have to get first. Are you washed?

Don't get ahead of yourself. First, you have to get in. First, you have to be washed. Not first have the ritual like baptism, follow the example, serve others, receive the messengers, don't be a betrayer, wash feet, don't fail.

You can do all those things or try. But if first you aren't washed in the blood of Jesus, you have no share in him.

You aren't getting your life from him, your new heart to serve him, to humbly accept the word of God, to love each other.

You'll fail. But if you have a part in Jesus, if your life comes from him, you participate in him.

You'll know you have failed when you fail. The light that is in you will show you are a failure, but you'll be okay.

Because you're washed. We're all failures. There's no question about that.