Sermon: The Lord who Loves and Serves

I invite you to take a copy of God's Word and turn with me to the book of John chapter 13, the Gospel. According to John, uh, this morning I am going to be starting a new series of sermons from, uh, this book and particularly, particularly chapters 13 through 17, the the upper Room or Farewell Discourse, uh, these conversations, these events in the, the final night of Jesus's life. So we'll begin this morning in John chapter 13,

Lord willing, uh, we will pick back up on Mondy Thursday and then we will pick up in earnest, uh, back in, uh, in May and in June when Pastor Jason is taking a sabbatical. So John 13, before we hear God's word, read and hear it preached, let's take a moment now and ask for God to bless the reading and preaching of his word.

Our Father in heaven, our request this morning is the same request of those Greeks who came to Philip. Sir, we wish to see Jesus. That is our desire. We wish to see Jesus and we wish to hear Jesus so spirit. So we hear the word, open our eyes and open our ears. Grant us faith to behold the living Christ in your living word. Fill our hearts with joy, with thanksgiving and with love. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

John chapter 13 verses one through 30. Listen carefully for this is God's word. 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 Chariot, 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 disciple's 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 now understand, 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.

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, I am 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 Jesus spoke. One of his disciples whom Jesus loved was reclining that table at Jesus' side. 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 is scar it. 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 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.

There's an idiomatic saying that we have that describes a situation where someone is able to be an observer of an event or a listener to a conversation and to be able to do so unnoticed so that the conversation or the events are unaffected by your presence. It's that saying to be a fly on the wall. It's an expression we might use when we're interested in hearing the real details or we desire to know how something significant unfolded in real time.

Maybe an important decision was made by important people and you wanna know how it happened. I wish I could be a fly on the wall or we might use it when we want to overhear a very personal conversation between two young lovebirds.

I am the eldest in my family. I have three younger sisters. I love them all very much. Uh, my youngest sister is eight years younger than me, and when we were growing up, if there was a sibling rivalry in our family, it was between us. Uh, I knew how to push her buttons and she was very skilled at knowing how to push mine. She was not so skilled at being a fly on the wall. When I was dating Sarah, there were several occasions

where we sort of sensed a presence. My sister had found her way to the stairs and had sat down and was spying on us. She wanted to see what we were doing. She wanted to hear what we were saying. And as you can imagine, I did not appreciate that as much as she did In John's gospel. We are given the privilege, the privilege to be a, a fly on the wall, you could say, to see and to hear what took place in the final hours of Jesus' life.

The other gospels, Matthew, mark, and Luke do not include what John includes in chapters 13 through 17. They record that Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples and in upper room over a home in Jerusalem. Just as John is telling us, they tell us that Jesus instituted the Lord's supper in that upper room, but each of those gospels spend less than one chapter on the events in the conversations that took place in the upper room.

Whereas John spends five chapters, five chapters to describe what took place over the course of a few hours on the final night of Jesus' life. He recalls for us what happened. He recalls for us what was said, and he also records not just what was said but how it was said. He describes these hours at great length and in great detail, and in doing so, John gives us, as Tom and Goodwin called it, a window into Christ's heart.

We are invited by this gospel writer to be a fly on the wall or to put it as Goodwin puts it, to Come up to an open window to look in, put our ear to the window and to hear what is happening. A window into Christ's very heart, his heart of love, the farewell discourse will end with the closing words of Jesus's high priestly prayer in chapter 17. Lord willing will get there in, in June sometime and the disciples in that moment are like flies on the wall

because they are overhearing Jesus's conversation, his personal conversation, bearing his heart with the Father as he prays for them. They hear his love. Do you hear it? He says, I have made known to them your name and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them. And before the discourse even begins, John provides a theme statement, A, a heading for the whole section of all the things that are about

to happen in verse one of our text, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. Do you hear his love believer in Christ? Can you imagine a more heartwarming, encouraging statement than this one from John, He loved his own to the end, Jesus did not love his own partway, he did not hold anything back in loving them. He did not give up in loving them before the finish line. He loved them to the end, the bitter

to glorious and all the way

believer in Christ, your greatest fear, your greatest fear that God might stop loving you is no fear at all.

That is not a fear you should have. He will not give up in loving his own. He loves his own to the end and he will love you To The end.

As we spend these weeks together in these chapters of John, we are invited to come up to the open window of Christ's heart of love to come see, see his love, come here, hear his love for you. This morning we're invited to come see Christ's love and hear His love in his commitment to serve, his commitment to save and his commitment to suffer. Those will be the the headings for this morning's sermon, Christ's commitment to serve, to save and to suffer.

As John, after John frames this section of his gospel narrative in verse one with those wonderful words about Christ's heart, he immediately reveals to us what is inside the heart of one of the others in that upper room. He tells us in verse two, that Judas is scar. It prompted by the devil is set in his heart to betray Jesus. John wants us to pick up what is going on in this room. There is more that you can see than what you might be able

to see with your physical eyes. There's An ongoing conflict in this room between light and darkness. There's an ongoing conflict between spiritual forces and it is coming to a head

and in the midst of this, this raging conflict that doesn't meet our eye. What we do see, what we do here is that there's a supper taking place, a meal that Jesus is sharing with his closest followers, including Judas, one whose heart is set on betraying Jesus.

Now, that may seem like a surprise, but that's not the only surprise that we find here at this dinner.

During the dinner, we find that Jesus gets up, rises from his place and he begins to take off his outer garments and lay them aside. And then he takes to himself a towel, a long towel, and begins to wrap it around his waist and he finds a basin in the room and begins to fill the basin with water and he takes the basin of water and he, he then kneels, kneels at the feet of his disciples and he begins to wash their feet.

The Lord stooping to serve his disciples. You can sense that there's surprise in the room from Peter's initial reaction. In verse six, he says to Jesus, Lord, do you wash my feet? He's surprised, but he's more than that. Peter is shocked and he's appalled, even you, my feet, no, he says in verse eight, you shall never wash my feet.

Why does Peter object? Why does Peter object to Jesus washing his feet? I think there's two reasons. First, Peter spoke of what he did not know. He did not understand what Jesus was doing, and he did not understand why. So Jesus explains in verse seven, you don't understand it now, but you will.

Peter spoke of what he did not know, but Peter was not altogether misguided. You see, foot washing was a customary practice in the first century. At that time, there were no paved roads, there were no paved sidewalks for you to walk on to travel on. All there was was dusty roads, dusty paths to walk along to travel on.

And in those days, people weren't taking out their brand new, very clean Nike high top sneakers to travel to his friend's house. All they had was open toed sandals. And so as they walked on these dusty roads, their feet got really dirty. And so it was common, it was normal that when you entered a home, the host would wash the feet of the guest, but it was as you probably think it would be today, as we would probably consider it today, a menial task,

a very lowly task. And so usually it was not the host himself who would wash the feet of the guests. It was the host's servant. The lowest ranking person in the home would wash the feet of the guests. So Peter is objecting then because Jesus is performing a lowly task, the task of a servant Lord, he calls him Lord, you shouldn't be doing this. That's beneath you. Peter's not altogether misguided.

Ironically, ironically, however, it may be that all of Jesus's disciples thought it was not just below Jesus, but also beneath them. As far as we know, only Jesus and the 12 disciples were together in the room. There was no house servant there to perform the task. And so we find that it was left undone. But you see, there was a servant in the bunch.

It was the the one that the disciples rightly called teacher and Lord in Luke's gospel, when he's recording for us the events that take place in the upper room, he tells us that a dispute arose in that upper room. Do you know what that dispute was all about?

The disciples began to argue with one another about who was the greatest.

They wanted to be great. They wanted not to serve but to be served. And who is it that stooped low to serve them, their Lord, their master

in washing his disciples feet. Jesus was not instituting a new sacrament, but what he was doing was setting an example for them, an example of loving, humble service that they should follow because he himself was loving and humble In his service. He is teaching his disciples kingdom virtues and Christian virtues and kingdom priorities. By example, do this like me, But There's even more that we should see than just Christ's example

In this act, the Lord is showing us his humble, loving heart.

Love one Corinthians 13, that that very famous passage all about love, love it tells us is not proud. Love is not self-seeking. Christ is loving his own through service. Now, how far, How Far will Christ go to love his own?

How far will Christ go to love his own? Here he leaves the place of honor at the table to condescend to the lowest place to fulfill the task. Most despised, in order to love his own, the Lord takes the role, the place of the servant to love his own.

You see, Jesus was doing something far more than just setting an example for his disciples and washing their feet. He was revealing his heart. He was illustrating his love and ultimately he was demonstrating just how far he would condescend in order to serve his own and ultimately to save his own.

What changed Peter's mind about Jesus washing his feet was hearing what Jesus had to say and say to him In verse eight, Jesus tells him, if I do not wash you, you have no share with me.

Peter, of course, wanted to throw in his lot with Christ and Peter always adamant, spoke again of what he did not understand. Then also wash my hands, wash my head, wash all of me. I wanna share with you. But you see, Peter didn't understand that the foot washing had a double purpose, a double meaning and Jesus's responses to Peter illuminate the deeper meaning of the foot washings. It reveals a deeper concern that Jesus has.

When Jesus told Peter that if he wasn't washed, he would have no share with him. He was not speaking of an outward washing. He was speaking of an inward washing. Do you know that Jesus is far less concerned about unclean feet than he is with an unclean heart?

A heart that is defiled by sin, the filth of sin, the stink of sin

that is a heart that is repulsive to God.

An unclean heart must be cleansed. You cannot have an unclean heart filled with sin, an unwashed heart purified from sin and have a share with Jesus.

Amazing in this passage that you see that Jesus is not only willing to cleanse what is unclean, but he is committed to cleanse what is unclean. He will take the place of a lowly servant to wash dirty feet, but anyone can do that. There is only one person who can wash in unclean heart.

The point of the foot washing is that it is Jesus. Jesus who can wash dirty feet, unclean feet in a dirty heart.

After Jesus finished this task and sat back down at the table, he asked them in verse 12, do you understand what I have done to you? Do you know what this means? Do you understand the significance of what I've just done? Jesus wants to press home to them that in the act of washing their feet, he has shown them why he has come from God. I've come to cleanse you. I've come to purify your dirty heart. I have come to save you from your sins.

But at this point they don't yet fully understand. They don't fully understand the significance of all this, and they did not understand what Jesus was going to have to endure in order to accomplish this cleansing.

In order to accomplish this cleansing, Jesus would have to to act in a, in a far greater way of love. He would accomplish this cleansing through a greater act of service, a greater act of humility, a greater act than foot washing. And John wants to make sure that we don't miss what the disciples were missing at that time. The greater act is that Jesus would save through suffering, suffering on the cross.

That is the disciples didn't yet know. They didn't yet fully understand what Jesus had come to do, what Jesus was going to do. But Jesus, he knew full well.

You see in this last section of the passage that the disciples also didn't understand what Jesus meant when he was speaking to Judas and he was excusing him from the upper room. They didn't understand, but Jesus knew full well.

And these 30 verses, John tells us all that Jesus knew. He says that Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world. Verse one, that Jesus knew that the Father had given all things into his hands. Verse three, that Jesus knew who was going to betray him. Verse 11, that Jesus knows whom he has chosen. Verse 18, and the implication that is not stated, whom he has not Chosen.

Jesus was not surprised about Judas. He was not surprised that the hour of his death had come. Jesus was not surprised that he was going to suffer in the way that he did. He knew and Jesus was, was in control, control over all of these things. All that was about to take place. After all, he's the Lord.

Peter was not in control as much as it seemed like he might want to be

Judas, the secret betrayer, he was not in control. Satan was not in control. Jesus knew what must happen in order to save his own. He understood that he must suffer and die and he chose Out Of his sovereign free will to lay down his life for his own at the appointed time, the appointed hour. How did Jesus know?

Well, we're told, and this passage is that Jesus knew because he knew the scriptures. Did you catch that in verse 18? Jesus here is quoting Psalm 41 verse nine. Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me. This is a Psalm, Psalm 41, about a, a righteous sufferer who is pleading with God for deliverance while he is being assailed by his enemies

and even when he is betrayed by a friend.

We don't know. We're not told who the original sufferer is of Psalm 41. Some think that it was a Psalm written by David, written about Absalom, who we've been learning about. And second Samuel, David's son who betrays him and tries to take the throne. And some think maybe it was a HiTA fell David's wise, trusted counselor who defected to go with Absalom.

We don't know who it was, but what Jesus is telling us here is that this psalm is ultimately not about David. It's about the Christ.

Jesus understood that he would suffer like the Psalm writer and must in order to be their savior. Jesus knew Psalm 41 and he knew Genesis three 15 that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent and that the serpent would strike his heel. Jesus was not a surprised sufferer, but he was a willing sufferer.

And neither was Jesus an unaffected sufferer. Jesus is truly God. He is the Lord, but he's also truly man. And we see that here in this passage in verse 21 after saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit.

Jesus is truly human and he had to be. Why? Why did Jesus have to be truly human in order to save us? Heidelberg catechism. Question 16, ask a variation of that question. Why must he the Christ our mediator be a true and righteous man? Answer. He must be a true man because the justice of God requires the same human nature which has sinned, should pay for sin. He must be like us in every way,

but he must be a righteous man because one who himself is a sinner cannot pay for others. He must be a true man. And we see his humanity in verse 21. Jesus troubled in his spirit, he is not unaffected by what he knows will take place and what will happen.

Like many of you, Jesus knows what it is like to look at the trouble in the world, the trouble in his own life and to be troubled in his spirit.

He is a sympathetic high priest. He knows what it is like

Jesus knew that his suffering was coming and he knew that his suffering would also give his disciples an opportunity for them to be troubled in their spirits. And so all that is taking place in the upper room is Jesus, the teacher, the master preparing his disciples, preparing them, preparing them so that they would not be surprised,

but also preparing them so that they would believe in him when all these things which Christ has told them would take place and be fulfilled, that they would believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing they would have life in His name. So that's why he tells his disciples, he answers their inquiry at the end of this passage. Who is the one to betray you?

He tells them beforehand, Judas would betray him, but they didn't understand. Verse 28, Judas was the the treasurer of the disciples. He was the one who kept the money bag. And so Jesus excuses Judas, Some thought that Jesus was sending him out to go buy more food, go get more food for the feast, or that he was sent out to give money to the poor. But you see, Jesus knew what was in the heart of Judas. He knew what he was sending Judas out to do.

Judas, one of the 12 would go, and soon he would find Jesus to betray him

and Jesus would suffer, not unwillingly, but willingly.

The following day, the sky would turn as dark as the night sky into which Judas was sent.

And Jesus would die under the dark skies. Why? Because Jesus knew that only his blood cleanses us from all sin,

having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them, to the end,

motivated by love, Christ served. Christ suffered, motivated by love. Christ saves.

There is no better news. There is no greater love

Christ loving his own who are in the world and loving them until the end. Let's pray. Oh, father, how great is your love

that you would send your only son into this world and that you would send him to suffer in our place to die, in our place, that we might be washed and cleansed from all our sin? Oh, son, what? Great love that you would willingly humble yourself, leaving the glories of heaven to endure the miseries of life on earth to endure the cross for us. Oh Spirit, how great is your love that you would wash us clean in the blood of Christ?

How thankful we are that we see your love for us in Christ, that we know your love for us in Christ? Would you encourage us? Would you fill us with Thanksgiving? Would you fill us with love, that we might love you, that we might love one another? This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.