John 13:1-17 Growing in Service

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches for his three -part series,

Growing In, reminding us all of the growth of Recast Church. Let's listen in.

Well, good morning, everybody. If you can find your seats, that would be great. I wanna start off just by welcoming you to Recast Church.

I'm glad that you're here, and I hope you are, too. I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here, and this morning, we're gonna be wrapping up a three -part series on our growth map.

That is how we intend to grow in 2018, and that is, as I said last week, it's not primarily about growth as in filling up the seats in here.

It's growth about God growing in our hearts the things that he desires to accomplish and the things that he wants us to expand in in the new year.

Our growth map here is that we believe that fundamentally, everybody needs to be growing in faith, growing in community, growing in service, and those are three components that we think, if those things are increasing in your life, then you are, what

I would say, maturing in your walk with God. That's a good thing. That's what we desire for everybody to be growing in, faith, taking in God's word, believing it's true, and then going out and living according to it, community, that we are connected to others and we need others and others need us.

Service is the one that we're gonna be looking at this morning, and when I set out to write a message about growing in service,

I had a lot of different passages to choose from. You can look at a lot of different parts of scripture that talk about our service toward one another, our service toward the

Lord, and I had a lot to choose from, and to be quite honest, I originally started out with a preconceived notion about what

I wanted to say to you about service, and then started to look at the Bible, and the Bible kind of changed what

I wanted to say to you, so scripture has a way of doing that. Do you ever have that happen to you where you had in mind what you thought you were, what the

Bible said, and then you actually read the Bible, and then you actually got into it, and you were like, oh, it corrects me.

It fixes the things that I was thinking about this subject, and so, yeah, what

I am gonna be telling you this morning is actually quite radically different than my first thoughts, because I encountered

God's word and it changed my message for you this morning, so it's a reminder, hopefully, just even in that, about how we need to let scripture guide us rather than us leading scripture, and I wanna say what

I wanted to say to you initially was that service is doing what you were made to do. Just go out and find what you enjoy, and then serve the

Lord with that. Find a niche, find a way that you just feel fulfilled in ministry.

Find something that just makes you feel great, and then do that for others, and that is what service is.

How many of you have ever served in a sweet spot? You've served like that, where it was good and it was fulfilling, and that's a great thing, but that is not the sum total of what service is.

Did you know that? How many of you ever served children? Have you ever served children? Have you ever raised children?

How many of you have raised some children? Is changing diapers really fulfilling for you?

Is that a fulfilling aspect, but is that serving your child? Absolutely that's serving your child, but, man, that's not a fun thing.

Some of you are in the middle of it right now, and you're like, no, don't even talk about it. I don't even wanna talk about that right now. But, so yeah, there's aspects and parts of service that are just not that fulfilling, but they're things that we need to do, and we're gonna look at a text this morning that's gonna challenge us all, hopefully, in regard to our perspective about service.

And so I want you to please turn in your Bibles to John 13, one through 17. Again, it's the

Gospel of John, chapter 13, the first 17 verses of that text, and you can find that on page 525.

If you didn't bring a Bible, or you don't have a means to navigate to the Bible, you can grab a Bible out of the seat in front of you.

Under there, there's a rack with a Bible on it, and it's page 525 in that Bible. By the way, if you don't own a

Bible, we do have those under those seats, and you can just take one. We want everybody to have a copy of God's word at home.

So if you don't have one, just grab that and take it home with you, and we'll just replace it this week. But let's follow along, and let's all read together

John chapter 13, verses one through 17. And remember that all of this is said in the context of service, and what

Jesus himself wants to teach you and I about serving one another. Now before the feast of 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 in 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 afterwards 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. 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 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.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for a cleansing that is offered, and here in this illustration in our text, we see a text about washing feet, but there's so much more depth to what's going on here.

There's so much depth, and I just pray that you would impress on our hearts a hunger and a desire to grow in service, that Jesus Christ would be our pattern and our model for serving one another, but even before we ever get to that, before we get to the part about serving others, that we would really just genuinely reflect on whether or not we have allowed ourselves to be served by you, whether or not we have humbled ourselves and submitted, or whether or not we are, saying like Peter, us, cleansed by you, no, we're fine, we've got this.

Father, I pray that you would impress on us how much you have loved us, how much you have served us, how much you have sacrificed for us, and that it would only be from that place of recognizing how much you have loved us, how much you have given to us, how much you have forgiven us, that we then, in turn, would launch out into serving one another.

Father, I pray that it would even be from that place of recognizing how much you have loved us, that we would sing songs before you.

Right now, Father, as the band is preparing, we're gonna be singing some songs here in just a moment.

Father, I pray that you would be honored and glorified by the thoughts and the reflections that we have of you in these songs.

Father, that it would be much more than just an exercise of our singing capabilities, or lack thereof, but instead that what goes on here in the next few minutes would be an honor and glory given to you and you alone.

And I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks to the band for leading us.

And yeah, you can go to be seated. And I would ask you to make yourself comfortable during the next half an hour or so as we dig into God's word.

If you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts, while supplies last, they're in the back. And then also please keep your

Bibles open to John chapter 13, one through 17, the passage that we read earlier. I recognize in the shuffle you might have lost your place, and it'd be good for you to be able to see that the things that we're looking at are coming from God's word.

Let me set the stage for us a bit. You know, we haven't been preaching through the gospel of John, and so understanding a little bit of the context, and I think

I could introduce you to the main character, I think, and hope and pray that most of you are familiar with who the main character is in our text.

But by the time that we come to our text, Jesus is about 33 years old in this passage.

He was born to a middle class family from Nazareth who were visiting Bethlehem at the time of his birth.

Some pretty unique circumstances surrounding his birth. Hopefully you celebrated some of those things over the

Christmas season. But then we actually see that Jesus, after his birth, he drifts into obscurity until he shows up again at the age of 30.

And he shows up at the age of 30. He's baptized in the Jordan River by John the baptizer.

And then from that point on, he spends three years out teaching, performing miracles, proclaiming that the kingdom of God is at hand and the king has arrived.

He gathers many disciples around him, but he selects 12 specific disciples to be his unique inner circle.

And we see them here in the text as well. And they're gonna be his inner circle for three years of ministry.

The more that he teaches, the more it becomes obvious over the course of his life that he's claiming to be extremely unique, even the son of God, claiming divinity for himself.

He claims unity with the God of the Jews and then claims to be sent from God the

Father. He also begins to prophesy that he will be killed and rise three days later.

All of this, the context and the setting. By the point of our passage though, religious leaders have been angered that Jesus doesn't dance to the beat of their drum, that he doesn't dance to their rhythm.

They want him to do certain things to prove to him, to prove to them that he is the rightful

Messiah, that he's the right type of religious leader. So they want him to follow all of their rules and regulations and the extra things.

And ultimately at the end, they just kind of like authority. They like to tell people what to do and what not to do.

And Jesus isn't having a whole lot of that. And so we see that they get stirred up quite a bit.

And he's been telling his disciples that the time is near for his death when we come into our text here.

And now he's gathered with his 12 closest friends to have a meal called Passover. A meal that is celebrated every year by Jews.

It's a religious celebration that remembers the time of the exodus when God accepted the sacrifice of a lamb to save the firstborn of Israel from death.

That final plague in Egypt. And then the beginning of the exodus when the people of Israel all left

Egypt and went into the promised land. And so that's the very meal that they're taking part in.

Here, again, a reflection of a lamb being slaughtered in the place of us. And a pretty apt picture in context here at the end of John.

So verses one through three are really the setting of our text. So we pick up the text and John paints the scene in those first three verses.

It was the feast of Passover. Jesus, it says in the text, knew it was his time.

He knew he was soon going to be betrayed. He was soon going to be killed. And how many of you know that that would be a stressful thing to know about yourself?

Would that be a pretty stressful thing to be privy to, to know that that's the way it was gonna go for you in the next 24 hours you were gonna be hung on a cross?

And that's a terrible thing. But notice how gently John says it. He says, Jesus really says it in the text, and John recording it for us.

I am about to depart out of this world. I'm going back to the Father, he tells them.

It shows that Jesus knew that he was going back to God. He knew where his hope rested.

He knew that he had come here to accomplish a mission. His mission was set before him, and he was going to accomplish that and then depart from the world and go to be with the

Father. The author John wants to make sure that his readers know that Jesus showed compassion to his disciples to the very end, and so he records that for us here at the end of verse one.

John makes it clear that Jesus loved his own. He loved them. This is not merely a lesson here in our text when he's washing their feet.

It's not just a lesson he's teaching. It's not some kind of objective thing that he's doing for his disciples.

He's doing what he does because he loves them. He wasn't just going through the externals of washing their feet just because, boy, that would make a really poignant and powerful lesson to teach them.

Now, is he teaching them? Of course he's teaching them, but more than teaching them, he's loving them.

He's showing love to them. He genuinely loved his disciples. He genuinely loved others, but there are two more very amazing things that John wants us to know before he tells us this story of Jesus serving others and loving others in the extent of his love for you and I and for his followers.

There's two more things that he wants to explain to us that add to the dramatic effect of Jesus Christ who would humble himself and get down on his knees and wash the feet of his disciples.

In verse two, John emphasizes that Judas was already planning on betraying Jesus. It was already in his heart.

He had already made up his mind. He was planning to betray Jesus. By turning him over to the religious leaders so that we understand from John's perspective that Jesus does what he is about to do, washing the feet of all 12 of his disciples and he's going to wash the feet of one who is going to betray him in just a few short hours.

The one who's gonna turn him over to the religious leaders, the one who is going to betray him with a kiss at the

Garden of Gethsemane. And that adds to the drama of the context here, the drama of the event that the one who is betrayed is mentioned a couple of times in this text to emphasize to you that he even washed the feet of Judas.

And he wants to go on further in verse three. Jesus is about to do this act of service and John, it's like he says these three things in verse three to us and they seem out of context unless you're really taking this all in and realizing to what extent this is out of place.

To what extent Jesus' service of his disciples in washing their feet is completely and utterly paradoxical.

It's just crazy mind -blowing because Jesus did so knowing these three things.

It tells us in the text what Jesus had at his disposal, what he completely understood to be true while he humbles himself like a slave and washes their feet.

It says in the text, Jesus knew his own authority. Jesus knew his own authority.

He knew he had authority over all things. Jesus knew that he was from God. He had a full and complete understanding of his identity is deity.

Jesus knew where he was going. He knew he was going back to God. And even in the midst of those three things, he is going to serve, he is going to love, he is going to spend of himself.

Why all this setup from John? Without it, we might get grossed out by the feet thing, the washing the filthy feet or whatever.

We might be even just kind of like, oh yeah, that's gross. That's pretty humbling. For you or I, would that be humbling to wash somebody's feet?

Would that be a humbling thing? Probably. So we might just think of it just simply in that context.

Like, oh yeah, that's kind of a messy thing, kind of gross. Personally, I'm not a feet person. I don't know about you.

I don't know how much you like feet. Other people's stinky feet. I'm not a stinky feet person. Not my preference.

But we might just think that. We might just think, oh yeah, that's gross and move on. But John here in setting this up, and Jesus wants to make sure that we understand all that Jesus was, all that he had at his disposal, all of the character and the deity that he was, and then the text, then the explanation.

I need to add to John's setup for a further perspective of the washing of feet in Jesus's day.

We need to understand that because, I mean, probably very few of us in the room have actually washed somebody else's feet.

And even if we have, it's not quite the same thing. So we need to understand what this meant in the ancient world.

In the ancient world, traveling by foot was the most common mode of transportation. Yeah, you're going, okay, they had donkeys, they had horses, they had all different kinds of things.

The average person walked from point A to point B all over the place. The roads were filthy, they were dirty, and they were traveled by animals.

Okay, animals traveled the same roads that the people did. So that was a common thing. And I don't know about you, but if you've ever watched a parade, there's this guy who has the job, guy or lady that has a job at the end.

Do you know what I'm talking about? The scooper and sweeper person? And they didn't have that at their parades.

They went without their, you know. So you can just use your sanctified imagination to go, what's the, now what do they wear?

You know, are they wearing boots and rugged combat boots or something? Or, you know, hiking, they're wearing sandals?

You getting a picture here of the condition of people's feet during this time?

I think our imaginations can run with that and probably still not be quite to the state of people's feet.

They didn't have tenactin back then, you know, and all these things to take care of the fungus. Okay, anyways.

Did I go too far there? Somebody can, yeah, a couple people are nodding. Yep, just a little too much there. But yeah,

I've seen some nasty feet and I've seen some nasty toenails and I've had some nasty toenails. So, anybody else who runs, you don't judge me.

You know what I'm talking about. If you've run, you know. Anyways, when a guest came for a meal in that day and in that era, it was customary to have the lowliest.

It's all over Roman and Greek documents from this era that you had the lowest person in the household, the lowest servant or the lowest slave in the house was to offer water.

Offer water for the washing of feet. Now, that's polite, like that would be acceptable to just say here's the water, here's a basin, here's a towel and people would sometimes wash their own feet and then in real ritzy context then they would have the servant actually wash the person's feet for them.

But a servant so lowly to be designated in a house as the foot washer would likely have very little provision for clothes and so they would often be clothed without an outer cloak.

They would just be wearing like a loin cloth or something like that and they would have very little provision for them. And so that makes some context of why

Jesus is gonna take off his outer cloak to do this, to mimic and to show them the slave nature that he is willing to assume for his people.

The way that he's willing to serve us to the end, to the greatest extent possible. This was an activity, by the way, even in that context, in that era, it was reserved for non -Jews.

In a Jewish context in Israel, Jews did not wash other people's feet. Even a Jewish slave was not routinely required to wash other people's feet.

You would reserve that for a different slave. And so Jews could be slaves but you wouldn't have a

Jew wash other people's feet. But starting in verse four, we have one of the most amazing accounts of humility and love in all scripture.

With that setup, with that understanding of the cultural context, with the setup of understanding what Jesus knew to be true of himself, it shows all the more the love that he has for his followers, for those who are his.

And although our translation of scripture doesn't capture the present tense verbs in this text, in the recounting and the telling, because present tense verbs don't work very well in English when you're trying to tell a past story.

So we like to put everything in past tense. And so that's what the translators have done. But what we have here is actually

John recounting this as if he's seeing it in his mind's eye as he's got his pen and he's writing this down.

It's very active, it's very present tense in the way that John writes it. This had a major impact on John so that as he's saying it, he doesn't even perceive it or want to convey it as a past thing.

He's telling you from his mind's eye as he's remembering these events that happened to him.

This was blazed in his mind as something that had significant impact on him.

So that verse four reads literally in the Greek language, Jesus rises from supper.

He lays aside his outer garment, taking the clothing of a servant. And he takes a towel, a long towel that was long enough to tie around the waist.

And then he would be feeding that and drying off their feet as he goes from person to person, feeding the towel around his waist.

He pours the water in a basin. Can you picture every eye on him? Can you picture the questions going on in the disciple's mind?

I imagine it's silent until we get to Peter here in a moment. It's silent.

What's he doing? Can you imagine the questions? Here's the master getting weird on us again.

I wonder who he's gonna call out this time. He always calls somebody out. I mean, one of us is doing something wrong. What's going on this time?

What's the lesson that he's gonna try to teach us? And then realization as he pours the water into the basin.

He's not gonna do what it appears to be that he's gonna do here, is he? I wonder if anybody even thought for a moment, and I imagine not, but I wonder if anybody thought, wait, why didn't

I think of doing this? We're gonna eat a meal. Everybody needs their feet washed. In that culture, before a meal, why didn't

I think of doing that? But regardless of anybody thought about it, it's too late because Jesus begins to wash.

The disciples' feet. And he wipes them with a towel around him. Judas included.

All of them. The God of the universe washing the crusty, nasty, dirty feet of his pride -infested creatures.

At this point, I'm supposed to somehow give you an illustration of this. I'm supposed to make it come down to our level, make us understand what

Jesus is doing here. And I'm supposed to give you a category that you can relate this to, but I can't.

There is no category for what Jesus is doing here in this text. There is nothing to compare this with.

Nothing. God entered into his creation as a man and served to the lowest degree.

To the lowest degree. It's hard for me to consider that what I originally thought of when

I considered preaching on service was our fulfillment. Serving in a way that makes us feel good.

And that shows, of course, obviously, the depth of my own sin and my own problems that I would consider standing up here and telling you that you need to find a ministry in which you feel fulfilled and then run with that while the

Son of God keeps washing feet. Do you think he felt fulfilled in that moment?

Think he felt like, I found what I was made to do. I think I've got a niche here.

Finally found something that I can excel at. Do you think that's what's running through Jesus' mind as he's washing their filthy, stinky, gross feet?

So much of encouragement to serve in the church simply comes in the false encouragement, the wrong -minded encouragement of self -fulfillment, self -actualization, self -realization.

Just serve in ways that make you happy. And I was almost guilty of getting up here and recommending that to you.

So I praise God for his word that in such a timely way can correct our folly, our foolish thinking, our misunderstandings about what it means to serve one another.

What comes next in the text could look out of place if we don't consider the broad scope of the entire story. Jesus comes to Peter and Peter, he's not having any of this.

And it's kind of confusing. Anybody a little bit confused when you read the interaction between Peter and Jesus here?

I think many of us can understand the initial reaction. The Greek lets us read it this way.

You, Lord, wash my feet. The emphasis of the

Greek language there is the first word is usually, it doesn't matter what word order it is, and so they can put any word they want first.

The first word in this Greek sentence is you. You, you,

Lord, wash my feet. He's, it's incredulity. Are you serious? This can't happen,

Jesus. I'll never let you wash my feet. Well, Jesus is gonna appeal to a greater act of service that he's about to accomplish.

He's about to wash them in ways that have nothing to do with their feet. He's about to go to the cross and wash them with his blood.

It'll be nothing less than the washing of many, including those of you in this room who have accepted his washing by blood, us included.

But he says, Peter, you're not gonna fully get what I'm doing here right now, but it'll make sense to you a little later, so be patient with this one.

You're not gonna understand all of this, but you will later. You're gonna get it. The eyes, your eyes will be open, and the light's gonna come on for you,

Peter. Peter's like, I get at least enough to know that you wanna wash my feet, and that's not gonna happen.

You will never wash my feet, says Peter. You see, Peter is humble enough to not want the

Lord to wash his feet, but ironically, he's not humble enough to avoid trying to educate his

Lord and teacher. Correct him. You got this wrong, Jesus. You're doing it wrong.

Let me just, maybe in humility, say, you're never gonna wash my feet. You're getting it wrong. Jesus, who's ever patient with those he loves, and obviously, by selecting

Peter, he knew who Peter was, and he knew all the ways that Peter had a, it's been said he had a foot -shaped mouth.

You know, it's really easy to get his foot in his mouth a lot, and that's definitely, we see that in Peter often, but I love

Peter because he speaks his mind. I think the other disciples are a little cowardly in this situation. I think they were thinking the same things.

They were kind of like, what in the world, but they just didn't open their mouth. Peter just says what everybody's thinking, and Jesus lovingly says to Peter, if you wanna be part of what

I'm doing, you wanna be a part of my kingdom, you wanna be with me, then you need to be washed by me.

You need to be washed by me. There's a double illusion here, obviously, because he's giving them an illustration in physically cleansing them, but also, he's pointing to a deeper act of service that's gonna be accomplished.

In other words, without being washed from sin, Peter, you will not be incorporated into my kingdom.

The only way to come under my kingdom, says Jesus, is to be washed by me. You need to be washed.

And this is what Jesus was saying, he said, Peter, you're gonna get this later, you're gonna understand, but not right now. So Peter has this all or nothing kind of fashion about him.

He's black and white, everything's so clear to him, so then he takes it to the other extreme, the pendulum over here, you'll never wash my feet, oh, wash all of me.

Wash it all, Jesus, I need it all. So the cool thing that you see about Peter is his desperation to be in with Christ.

You see his hunger and his desire to be there with Jesus, and there's a beauty in that.

He's like, oh, okay, then cleanse me, cleanse me. I need this cleansing. You can see in Peter the heart that hungers for and longs for a righteousness, a righteousness that can only be given by the washing of Jesus.

And so he's like, if that's the way I get into your kingdom, if that's what you need of me to humble myself and to take you as my king and to be, then wash all of me,

I need all of this. And Jesus is saying, well, you've already been washed. All you need is your feet washed, and he uses that illustration.

Somebody who comes to a banquet, comes to a feast, has already bathed. But on the way there, your feet got filthy.

So let's take care of that, he's going on to say. Let's just take care of this right now. I'm carrying forward the physical part of the illustration.

So, Jesus keeps up with the double meaning of washing. And Jesus says externally, Peter, you've already bathed for this feast.

You need to be washed. And I think Jesus, in a sense, is kind of saying to Peter, can you let me stay in charge of my own illustration here?

I'm trying to illustrate something to you. Can you let me run it here? And he says, you're already clean except for your feet, but spiritually, you are all clean.

By this point, he's actually identifying that his disciples were all in with him as king, as lord, as messiah.

Of course, in an Old Testament sense, people could be saved before Jesus ever went to the cross by the hope and the trust that God was gonna provide a messiah who was gonna wash away their sins.

And I think there's an indication right here that the disciples were getting it. The disciples were getting it all except for, the text tells us, all but one.

There was all of them physically had their feet cleaned, but only 11 of them had actually accepted his spiritual cleansing.

And so, now we finally get down to the application for us here where we live in growing in service.

He wraps up here in the text, the heebie -jeebie job of washing their feet. Did I mention that I don't like feet?

I think I already mentioned that, but let me say it again. The most loving thing that I've ever done for my wife is give her a foot massage.

It's the most, yeah, okay. Twice, I think. She's probably keeping track.

Yeah, I am just not, I'm not even kidding. I'm not trying to be dramatic. I do not like feet.

I don't like to touch my own feet. Ah, they're touching me. He asks here in the text, do you understand what

I have done for you? It's an interesting question if you think about it. Of course, they've seen it, they've heard him.

He's talked about it a little bit. Now he's like, he puts his outer cloak back on, resumes his seat at the table and says, do you get it?

Do you get it? And I pose that question, that genuine question to all of us in the room.

I think it's something that all of us need to take pause and consider as we enter into 2018 together. Do you understand what

Jesus has done for you? Do you understand it?

Are you getting it? He has done something so much more amazing than washing your feet.

He's provided a way for your souls to be cleansed, for your past to be forgiven and washed away, for you to have a fresh beginning and an eternal life forever with him.

Without that cleansing, you will not be found on his side of history in the end.

You will not come under his kingship without being washed by him. And the most fundamental thing about you is whether or not you are willing to let the master cleanse you.

Are you willing to let him clean you? Ironically, serving others begins by a willingness to be served.

Serving others begins with a willingness to be served by the master. Jesus begins this acted out parable by serving his own.

And only those who he serves, only those who come to him for true cleansing are equipped then in turn to go out and serve others.

The message this morning is not, it is not go out and serve others.

It's step one, humble yourself and let the king of kings wash you and cleanse you from your sins.

That's fundamental. Jesus goes on to identify himself. He says, you know who I am.

You call me teacher and Lord, and you're right. He outright takes those titles on himself.

He says, you've called me that many times over the course of the three years I've been ministering to you, teacher and Lord, and that is true.

And school here, he tells his followers, is in session. And here comes the direct point that was so obvious it barely needs to be stated, but he doubles it up for those of us who are thick.

If the Lord of all things, the teacher of big T, capital

T truth, has washed your feet, then get to washing others.

Get to washing each other's feet. This is a figurative injunction in that foot washing was a cultural form that Jesus is using as an object lesson, something that's far removed now from our cultural context.

It's not saying you need to literally get out a basin and a towel and begin washing each other's feet physically.

Service is the point. You need to be serving one another, humbling yourself. Not clamoring and grasping for power, not clamoring and grasping for fame or authority, or bigger friendless than each other, or whatever you might clamor for, but instead, serving is the point.

And now in conclusion of the text, Jesus doubles up his point by saying, obviously a servant isn't greater than his master.

I am the master, you are the servants, he says. I washed your feet, and I'm the master, so get out and do likewise.

And notice what comes at the end. What comes at the end of this text is blessings. Blessings.

We don't start out in this prospect of service considering and thinking about ways that we can be blessed.

Don't start your quest for serving others with how can I be blessed? You see, it's all flipped on its head.

Genuine, heartfelt service to others leads to being blessed. And I believe the words of Christ here.

If you know that you're called to serve others and you do it, you will be blessed.

On the flip side, I believe that it is impossible to genuinely serve others while trying to be blessed.

By seeking your own, seeking your own effort, seeking your own glory, seeking your own praise. Join me for a moment in focusing in on the final verse, though.

Let's conclude there and wrap things up there. Verse 17 in our text this morning, Jesus is saying, if you know these things, then blessed are you if you do them.

He doesn't say you will be blessed if you do them and just leave it at that. He says, he starts off, if you know these things, and then if you do them, you will be blessed.

It starts with if you know these things. And I believe that what Jesus wants us all to know first before we ever go out and serve each other, before we ever serve others, is fundamental to a life well lived.

This is fundamental to our understanding. In 2018, if we are going to grow in service, we must come into this year knowing, knowing that Jesus is a servant who humbles himself and washed the feet of his people.

Do you know these things? Do you know that the master loves you?

Do you know that your Lord and teacher has washed you? You see, our eyes jump to the action.

And if you're anything like me, I mean, that's where my attention is drawn right away. Do the things, right?

Do things. You see that at the end of the text? Do stuff. But the action according to Jesus must be based on knowing the right things.

Not just jump to doing. But make sure that what you're doing is based on the right things.

And so my prayerful hope for Recast in 2018 is that we would be growing as a church that knows we are loved by Jesus.

That knows that we are loved by Jesus. And once we're secure in that love, I'm convinced that Recast, if we really grasp this in this next year, if we recognize how powerful and how mighty and how glorious and how beautiful our

Savior is, and that He has indeed served us, I believe that we'll be a force to be reckoned with when it comes to loving our neighbors and our families and our coworkers and our community.

I believe that that will be true of us if we genuinely take this on and recognize how much we have been loved by Jesus.

In the end, my encouragement to you, Recast, is to deeply consider the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

Knowing His authority, knowing He was from God, knowing He was going back to God, knowing that He served like a slave, knowing

He served those whose life He had created and sustained. Knowing His service, knowing the depth of His service and love.

I hope that we can come to communion with that knowledge. We come to communion this morning to reflect on the true cleansing that God has offered us in Jesus.

His blood was shed as a covering for our sins. And the metaphor of being washed in blood, as gross as that might sound to some, it's a metaphor about holiness.

It's not a literal cleansing in blood, it's a metaphor. It goes all the way back into the

Old Testament and the shedding of blood and the temple sacrifices. But Jesus did more than just wash

His disciples' feet, but He washes the hearts of anyone who would come to Him for forgiveness and cleansing.

Anyone. So if you've come to know the love, the forgiveness, the spiritual cleansing of Jesus, then

I'd encourage you to come to one of the four tables at the corners of this room. As Dave comes up and plays a song for us, you can take the cracker and the juice to remember

His sacrifice for us, His body broken for us, His blood shed for us.

We see in our text that Jesus proved Himself to be a humble servant, crazy humble. And all those who have submitted to His cleansing have a share with Him.

As He said to us in verse eight there. But if you've refused to be cleansed, some of you maybe are here and you've refused and maybe you're just not quite sure if you're really dirty inside.

Maybe you're not sure Jesus is the source of cleansing. Maybe you've just been thinking that you need to clean up your own act before coming into the presence of the

King. And so you've been trying and trying and trying to cleanse yourself. I'd encourage you, if you're in that camp where you have not yet been cleansed by the

Savior, I'd encourage you to sit back and take in this song during communion, but consider giving in to Jesus Christ this morning.

Maybe this morning is a morning that someone here in this room decides to let Jesus wash you instead of trying to make yourself spotless for Him.

So please come and talk to me if that describes you this morning, if you're here and you're in that state and you recognize I need a cleansing.

My sin has made me filthy and I recognize how dirty I am and I don't even know how to clean this mess up.

If that's you, please come and talk with me. I'm gonna be out at the door at the end of the service and I would love to talk with you more about how you can find the cleansing that you're longing for.

For all of us, let's go out from this place in the security of the love of Jesus Christ. His great service towards us.

And then from that place of security in the love of Christ, let's get our hands dirty serving one another in this new year.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the service of Jesus Christ.

Without Him, we would have no hope. We would have no place to go for cleansing. We would have no hope of eternity with you.

We would still be in our sin. We would still be in our filth. Thank you that even the model, the example of Jesus in washing the disciples' feet just goes, shows us the extent, the depth of His great and awesome love for us.

Father, I pray that you would be honored and glorified in this next year here in this place. Father, that you would help us in our quest to serve one another, to serve one another with joy, with gladness.

The sense of your presence with us because of your sacrifice for us.

And Father, as we come to these communion tables and many will stand and testify and go to these tables and say,

I am filthy and I've received a cleansing. It wasn't because I've done good.

It's not because I've given to the church. It's not because I've fixed all of my problems.

But we come in humility recognizing that it's only His cleansing that He's given to us.

Thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that makes us whole. Walk with us throughout this week and throughout this next year in serving one another in Jesus' name.