WWUTT 1184 Jesus Last Supper With His Disciples? (John 13)

Jesus said to his disciples, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another.

A new commandment? Doesn't it say in the Old Testament that we are to love one another? Yes, you have to look at the whole phrase, when we understand the text.

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Thank you, Becky. Well, in our Holy Week calendar, today is the day that Jesus had his

Last Supper with his disciples in the upper room. We refer to this day as Maundy Thursday, which is always a weird name because it sounds like you're saying

Monday Thursday. Maundy comes from the Latin word for commandment and it's because Jesus gave a new command to his disciples as they were eating this

Passover meal. I'm going to look at this in a couple of different places today. Let's begin in John 13.

I'm going to start reading here in verse 1. Now before the feast of the Passover, when

Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the 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 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, 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 the 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. Jesus answered him, if I do not wash you, you have no share with me.

Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.

Jesus said to him, the one who has 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 was why he said, not all of you are clean.

So each and every one of us who have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have been completely cleansed, as Jesus talks about here, but not our feet, because as we continue to walk this life, we continue to live in this world, we're kicking up dust.

Our feet are getting dirty. So we have a need to continually be washed by our feet, not cleansed from head to toe.

We've already had that done for us when we came to faith. We are justified before the Father.

We have been washed with the water of the word, as is talked about in Ephesians chapter 5.

The Holy Spirit has been poured into our hearts. We have had the spiritual water that has cleansed us from all unrighteousness in the presence of the

Father. But we have yet to be sanctified. Though we stand before God completely justified, we are not yet fully sanctified.

So as we live life, growing in godliness, growing in holiness, we're kicking up dust, our feet is getting dirty, and Jesus is the one who cleanses us even of that.

And so this is a picture of sanctification here. All of you are clean. You still need your feet to be cleansed every once in a while.

Jesus not only justifies us, it is also his work that sanctifies us.

Sanctification is also the work of Christ. But he mentions here not all of you are clean, for Judas was the one that was going to betray him.

Jesus washed even Judas's feet. And so we must not neglect care and love from anyone, just as Jesus would show such compassion to our enemies.

So we have also been told to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Verse 12, when he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments 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 also should do just as I have done for 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 am not speaking to 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. That's a reference to the

Psalms. 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.

Jesus saying to his disciples here that true leadership is going to be servanthood.

You know, as a pastor, I've read a lot of books on leadership. I've read good books on leadership, and I've read some bad books on leadership.

Most of them are bad. Sad to say, but most of the Christian books that are out there on leadership are bad, because it's all,

I mean, it's mostly gearing toward how you can become a pastor of a megachurch, and if you don't ever really get to that point, well, can you really say that you're a successful leader?

And it might be saying this to somebody who doesn't have any intention of going into the pastorate. You still should be a leader of something big, something huge.

There's to be a lot of people under you. If you're a successful leader, that's going to be the measure of that. That's why even some of those

Christian books that talk about leadership are often really bad. True leadership here is servanthood.

It is serving one another. For Jesus, our Master and Lord, served us.

And by the way, my friends, even though Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, he is still serving us.

For as I just mentioned to you, I just mentioned to you, he sanctifies us. Sanctification is a work of Christ.

We are justified by Christ. We are sanctified by Christ. So even in this way, he continues to serve his followers.

This is the demonstration of love that he has shown to us. So if our Lord has done this for us, how much more should we be doing this for one another?

Jesus said to his disciples, if you want to be great in God's kingdom, you must learn to be a servant of all.

For Jesus said, the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

This is the example that we have been given. And so this is how we are to be with one another. True leadership is servanthood.

It is serving one another as Jesus has served us. We read in 1 Timothy 2, 5 that there is one mediator, there's one

God, and there's one mediator between God and man, and that is the man Christ Jesus.

And in this way, Jesus is even serving us. They're in the presence of the

Father. In 1 John, it says that he is our advocate, meaning that he is speaking favorably of us to the

Father. We have an advocate in Christ Jesus, our Lord, one who has served and continues to serve.

And so we must serve. We go on here to verse 21. 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 his disciples, whom Jesus loved, as we were going through the gospel of John last year, I mentioned to you this is

John that Jesus is referring to, he was reclining at table at Jesus' side. So Simon Peter motioned to him to ask

Jesus of whom he was speaking. So that disciple, John, leaning back against Jesus, said to him,

Lord, who is it? Who is going to betray you? Jesus answered, it is he 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, buy 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.

Judas left. So verse 31, when he had gone out, Jesus said, now the son of man is 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, so 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.

Now this is why we call Thursday Maundy Thursday, because of this commandment that Jesus gave to his disciples, and this is at the beginning of this discourse that we have in the upper room, which is in the in the gospel of John.

We don't have this discourse in Matthew, Marker, or Luke, but John goes into greater detail of the things that Jesus taught to his disciples there in the upper room, before he was arrested and crucified.

And here he says, a new commandment I give to you. Now why is this a new commandment? That's often kind of confusing to us, because didn't

God tell Israel to love each other? Absolutely they did. When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, and he said, to love the

Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, a second is like it to love your neighbor as yourself.

He was quoting from the Old Testament. He said, all the law and the prophets hinge on these two commandments. In Leviticus it says, love your neighbor as yourself.

So that's exactly where Jesus got it from. He wasn't making it up new now, and so surely that commandment had been there, to love one another.

Why is this then a new commandment? We got to look at the whole phrase. You can't just isolate part of it out and love one another.

How is that a new commandment? Look at the whole thing. 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.

See we had not yet had this happen yet, even though God had given the law, and even in the law

God said to love your neighbor as yourself. We did not have the example of Christ, who came and gave his life for us, and as he humbled himself, becoming obedient even to the point of death, even death on a cross, as this was the humility of Christ.

So we are to be imitators of him. We did not yet have that example in Christ Jesus, who left his throne in heaven and took on the likeness of sinful flesh.

We had not seen that. That fulfillment had not yet come, but now that it has come, and now that Jesus has done for his own, so we are to follow his example and do this for one another.

Jesus washed his disciples feet and said, you are to do this for one another. Well if we're talking about sanctification here, and sanctification is a work that Jesus does in us, how is it then that we sanctify one another?

Well as I've heard Tim Challey say, and I've quoted this before, sanctification is a community project.

You can't be sanctified by yourself, since part of the commandment that we're supposed to be following, and growing in sanctification as a result of our obedience to this, is to love one another.

So you can't fulfill that, you can't grow in sanctification in that, unless you are with your brothers and sisters in the

Lord. And that's what makes these times, the time that we're in right now so incredibly difficult, because we can't all be together.

There are separation orders that are in place, shelter in place orders, quarantine orders, because of the pandemic.

So we can't go out and meet each other. It's heartbreaking for a lot of people as we hit the Easter weekend, that we're probably not going to be able to get together for Easter.

So how do we grow in this sanctification? Well you can still be checking on one another. Don't just sit in your box and, well

I wonder when I get to go to church again. But this shows to us why gathering is so important, and I hope that as you've been separated from your brothers and sisters in Christ for a while, it is stirring in your heart a desire to be with them again.

And we're looking forward to when these shelter in place orders get relaxed and we're able to get out again and be with one another.

Jesus demonstrated the oneness, the unity that we are to have in him with the

Lord's Supper, with this communion meal that he has gifted the church to partake in, and remember his sacrifice every time we eat and drink.

Let me go now to Matthew chapter 26, and I'm going to start in verse 26. Now as they were eating,

Jesus took bread, and after blessing it, broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said,

Take, eat, this is my body. And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying,

Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom.

This meal, this Passover meal that Jesus gave to the church, he does this in communion, in personal fellowship with his disciples, not from afar, not in separate houses, this is done together.

As we've been separated from each other, and many of us are doing church online, it's not really church, but we're still watching the teaching online, that sort of a thing, as that's the way we've been quote -unquote doing church on Sunday, the question has come up, can we do virtual communion?

And the answer to that is no, because you don't have any example of that in the scripture at all. Communion is meant to be done together.

You can't love your brothers and sisters unless you're with your brothers and sisters. And so we come together, and part of that coming together is partaking in the

Lord's table, where we are all equal at this table. Nobody is greater than another at this table.

We are unified in Christ, and we can only truly be unified when we are together.

Jesus did not leave his throne in heaven, take on human flesh,

God incarnate in Jesus Christ, all the the fullness of God dwelling in him, and then fellowship with his disciples for us to make excuses not to get together and say, hey,

I can worship God by myself, I can worship God on my computer, I don't have to go to church, I don't have to be with my brothers and sisters in the

Lord. Jesus did not leave his throne in heaven and fellowship with us, dwell in flesh with us, so we could try to do love separate from one another.

And again, this is what we see at the Lord's table, that calling to fellowship as the body of Christ.

The word church comes from the Greek word ekklesia, which means a calling out.

We have been called out from the world, but that doesn't mean we separate ourselves. See, that's the behavior of the world.

As it says in Titus 3 .3, they are hated by others and hating one another. It's nothing but division in the world.

But in Christ, we are to demonstrate family, oneness, unity.

Though we are many parts, as talked about in 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, we are all of one spirit, one father, one faith, one baptism, one

God over us all, one Savior. But we have various spiritual giftings that make up this body that we are a part of, complementing one another in strength and weakness, and so we build the body up in Christ Jesus.

That's sanctifying work once again. So we are different parts, but we are unified as one body, and that unity only comes through Christ.

True unity is only in Christ Jesus. And so we should not scoff at the body and the blood that was given for us.

Jesus dwelling with us, he took on flesh and dwelled with us, and we shouldn't mock that by thinking that we can do the

Lord's Supper separated, we can do church separated. That's not the way the church was meant to be. It's wonderful that we have this technology available to us, that we're able to do a study online.

We can still keep up with sermons and the preaching of the word through whatever videos get posted.

That's great. And I would recommend to you, by the way, that even in this time that we're separated from each other, when you're sitting down on Sunday morning to do a lesson, if your church is posting services, whether it's online streaming, like live streaming, or it's a video recording or something like that, you should stick with what your church is doing.

It's fine if you want to watch Sproul, MacArthur, Piper, Moeller, Bauckham, Dever, I mean whoever else you want to listen to.

It's fine if you want to do that another time, but whenever your church is releasing teaching, you really should be committed to what your church is doing first before you then add to that with the other teaching that you enjoy listening to.

I listen to all kinds of teachers, and I encourage my church to listen to other teachers. But first and foremost, stay up with what your church is doing.

If your church is doing sermons online, that's where you should be first on Sunday morning, and then you can kind of add in some other great teachers with that as well.

We shouldn't be doing communion. That can't be done online. I mean the very word itself, communion, means to be together.

So it's not communion when you're doing it on the internet. Anything that you're doing virtually is not really the fellowshipping of the saints, the being together in the body of Christ as we should be.

And so we are longing for that time again when we can be together. This is a taste of what heaven is going to be like.

Every time you're with your brothers and sisters in the Lord, it's a taste of the eternity that awaits us when we're all going to be gathered together with all the

Christians, past, present, and future, around the throne of God and singing his praises.

Jesus saying here, I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when

I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom. And it says that after they enjoyed that meal, after Jesus instituted this meal and telling his disciples to do this in remembrance of me.

Every time you eat of the bread, you remember my body that was broken for you. Every time you drink of the cup, you remember my blood that was spilled for the new covenant, for the forgiveness of sins.

Drink of it all of you. This is my blood of the new covenant. After Jesus instituted this meal, it says in verse 30, when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the

Mount of Olives. And so they go out singing a song, and it was likely the Egyptian Hallel, which is in the

Psalms. You know the famous song, this is the day that the Lord has made, I will be glad and rejoice in it.

That comes from the Egyptian Hallel, or the songs of praise that the Israelites sang in commemorating the freedom that they had been given by God in being freed from slavery in Egypt.

That's why it's called the Egyptian Hallel. So one of those being, this is the day the Lord has made. Imagine that.

Jesus' heart is troubled while he's with his disciples, even in the upper room. He's just instituted the

Lord's Supper, which they don't really understand, but later they would understand. His body broken, his blood spilled for the forgiveness of sins.

They didn't get that when he was giving it to them. When they left that place and went out to the

Garden of Gethsemane, they sang and probably would have been singing, this is the day that the

Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it. Though Jesus knows what's coming next.

That he's going to be arrested, tried, and crucified in our place, taking the wrath of God upon himself with his death upon the cross.

We'll pick up there tomorrow with our Good Friday reading. Let us conclude with prayer.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the goodness that you have shown to us in your Son, Jesus.

And as he came to serve us and gave us an example and said, a new commandment

I give you that you love one another as I have loved you. So may we fulfill this commandment and do that for each other.

We become servants to one another, not trying to find ways that we can elevate ourselves to a place of importance and then all you are under me and you're here to elevate me.

May that never be our approach to anything. But we understand Jesus called to his disciples, if you want to be great in God's kingdom, you must learn to be a servant of all.

And let us be that sacrificial and humble with each other, considering others needs ahead of our own.

For Christ has made us his own. Thank you for considering our need and giving us a

Savior to save us from our sins. It's in Jesus name we pray, amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .wutt

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