Well, you notice in the bulletin that we're not in Revelation. We're going to take a few weeks break since we're right in the middle of the book. I like to do that when we're at the halfway point. Next Sunday is known as Reformation Sunday. So we're going to start to disappoint you, but it won't be a sermon against Halloween or trick or treating, but it will be looking at what the Protestant Reformation was about and why we believe what we believe. We're going to look at John 13 this morning, if you would like to turn there in your Bibles. The first 17 verses, I will read this portion of the Word of God. Please give it your full attention. 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, 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 is bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but he 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 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. Lord, as we see in this last verse that Your blessings are upon the doers of the Word, make us doers, O Lord, that would not be so deluded to think it is simply enough to hear Your Word with no response in our faith and life. Give us grace, O Lord, and do good work in our hearts as we hear Your Word. We pray in Christ's name, Amen. In our modern day of hospitals and medication, seeing a person at the end of his or her life at home in bed, gathering the family around to offer final words without making any comments about our modern medicine, that sort of is a thing of the past. But it used to happen often. And you know that the final words of a person when they gather the closest people around them, those are very important and valuable words. The last words they want to impart to their loved ones. Well, that is what we have here in John 13. Jesus is about to die. And so he gathers his disciples in a very private place And he gives what is known as the farewell address of Christ, the closing discourse. The public ministry of the Lord has ended. He has separated himself from the public and he is now giving his final words before his death to his disciples. These, like all final addresses with your loved ones, are very intimate and they're very personal. And we are invited into this room via the word of God, because we are his people. And he would leave these words with us also. But his final word actually begins with an act. One act, he washes his disciples' feet. In this act, he would demonstrate the whole purpose for why he came, as well as how we are to live as believers. Now, John begins in verses one through three very uncharacteristically. He describes for us the mind of Christ before this act. He describes that Jesus was perfectly self-aware of what was going on, of who he was and what was happening. And so we are told that Jesus was aware of his intense sufferings. He knew what was ahead of him that night. He knew that he would be beaten and mocked and spit upon. and he would suffer, then the next morning he would be on the cross suffering and then dying. Because it was the Passover, he knew he was the Passover sacrifice that year. He would be the Lamb of God offered as a sacrifice for sins. Notice also in these verses, he knew that he had now completed, including what he would do in the morning at the cross, he had now completed the work God had given him to do. He had loved His own going all the way to the cross for them. And if you're a Christian this morning, you're included in that verse. He had loved you going all the way to the end of His sufferings to the cross. He also was aware that He would return to the Father. He was aware that He had come from the Father. He had come from heaven. He was an eternal being. He was God. And He would return to His Father after His death. And finally, we are told that he was perfectly aware of the betrayer, that Judas was right there in the room who would betray him to the authorities, which would lead to his death. You see, it is the backdrop of this knowledge that makes the next act so amazing. At a time when Jesus, we would expect him to be totally involved in his own problems, his own sufferings, concerned only with himself. And he was also aware that he had the authority to stop all this. He was from the father. He had all power. Instead, he uses this opportunity to show his disciples his love for them. That's what makes this passage so amazing. And so the next verse, so he arose from supper and laid aside his garments and taking a towel, he girded himself about. So here you have one of the most amazing pictures in all the Bible of God's condescending love. The Creator takes on the role of a servant. He clothes Himself with a servant's outfit, with a rag. He picks up a rag and He begins doing what only the lowly servants would do. He washes His disciples' feet. The disciples were shocked. Can you imagine? This had not happened in the three years with Christ. This did not happen in society. Custom was, if you were an honored guest, the servant washed your feet. And that was expected. And so they were stunned at first and shocked, not quite sure what to do with this. And as usual, Peter speaks out. That is the nature of Peter. But as you read this, don't be too hard on poor Peter, because we see throughout the New Testament that what Peter says, the others think. So it's not like Peter is alone in this shock or not being uncomfortable with this. Peter is usually just the spokesman who is very unrestrained in his words. And so Peter is very embarrassed by this. And so he says, Lord, and the Greek brings this out even more, the way the pronouns are formed Lord, you wash my feet? It just seems so wrong for Jesus to lower himself this way. Now, what was Peter's problem? Well, Peter's problem is pride, right? It's the same feeling you have when you're uncomfortable receiving a gift. You like giving, and someone else can be pleased, but when someone gives you something for free, there's a discomfort about it. That's pride. We don't like to receive something for free. We don't like to ask for help. We want to help ourselves. We don't want to admit there's a need that we may not be able to handle. That's pride. And so Peter would say, now I have no problem with God helping me in life. I need God's help, but not this much. You see, not to the point where I'm so helpless that God has to become a servant. to do anything for me, that God would have to actually go to the cross because I'm so helpless as a sinner. That was too humbling for Peter at the time. Now, notice Jesus gently rebukes Peter. He says, well, you will understand later why I did this. And that statement shows you that the foot washing would picture something coming. And of course, it would picture the cross. Now, Peter's response, never will you wash my feet. He's thinking he's honoring Christ, but actually he's prideful. Never will you have to lower yourself that much for me. I can do enough myself to serve you without this. But notice the Lord's gentle but serious response. If I do not wash you, you have no part with me. The word part could be translated inheritance or share. So this foot washing represents something that is the dividing line with being with Christ forever, being apart from him forever. The foot washing then pictures the cross. And so if you do not accept my service on the cross on your behalf, you cannot be with me. You cannot ever have a relationship with me. You cannot be saved. Now, Peter struggles often. Peter does have foot-in-mouth syndrome. I sometimes struggle with Peter's syndrome. He had a very weak understanding of Christ and what he needed to do. He had pride, but Peter loved his Savior. And that's what we see in his response. Verse 9, when he heard that if he refuses this, he can't be with his Savior. Notice his response, Lord, not my feet only, wash all of me. If it means not being with you, I'll take it. As difficult as it is to accept, I'll take it. Give me all you've got." Notice that Peter is not afraid to express his love for Jesus here. Now, verse 10, Christ uses a local custom of foot washing to explain what this foot washing represents is sufficient. A traveler bathes before going out on a journey, but when they arrive somewhere, you would only have to wash their feet. because it was dirty from the road. And now they were already they were all clean. The feet was the only area that needed cleansing. So the point here is that what this foot washing pictures, the cross is enough. That's all you need to be clean before me. The cross is sufficient. And then Peter, Jesus goes on to say, but you are already clean, which means he's already a Christian. The cross had already been applied to him as an Old Testament believer, just like all the other Old Testament believers. The reason they were believers, the reason they go to heaven, is because the sacrifice of Christ was applied to them, even though they lived before that. But notice how Jesus goes on to say, now you are all clean. In other words, you are all Christians, except for one of you. And that, of course, is the betrayer. Now that makes this humble act of foot washing even more amazing. He's washing his betrayer's feet. He's even serving his enemy in this act, Judas the apostate. And so the foot washing is a foreshadowing of what would happen the next day. Jesus is showing them what he was about to do for them and that they needed this service. For them to be saved, for them to know God, they needed Jesus to do the ultimate sacrificial act of service, which was going to the cross. But the foot washing, as we move on in the text, not only foreshadows and pictures what Christ would do, it also pictures for us how we are to live once we know Him, once we have been forgiven of our sins. Verse 12, 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 the Lord and the teacher washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I gave you an example that you should also do as I did to you. We see here that the cross is not only our salvation. The cross becomes our example of Christian living, how we are to then live with others. Now, there are a few sort of fringe groups in history that have taken this verse to mean you need to practice the right of foot washing. And they actually do foot washing. But that's not the point here. Jesus is not calling for a new ritual. He's calling for a new way of life. He's calling for a way of living to treat one another the way Christ treated us. And that is to be servants. And notice how he explains that he goes on to explain. Truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master. If you say, well, I'm too busy, I'm too involved in myself to serve. What you're saying is I deserve more honor than Christ. I'm greater than Christ, though he held himself to serve. I shouldn't have to. And so you would be taking on an honor greater than the Master. And so Christ is saying that once you're a Christian, and once you know forgiveness, and once you've been served by God Himself, the way you respond in thanksgiving is to serve one another. And notice, be willing to go to the cross for one another. Be willing to die for one another. Not just your family, but one another in the Lord. That is what it means to serve. And so the question is, how do we do this? How do we serve others when by nature we are mainly interested in our own needs, in our own happiness? And how do we serve others when they might not even respond well to our service? I mean, look at Judas responding to Jesus. Well, the way we serve is to remember what Christ has done for us. We need to think upon who we are in Christ. First, Jesus is God. God came down to earth and picked up a rag and washed your feet. Think about that. The creator of the universe humbled himself to stoop down to your feet, Christian, and to wash them. Picturing what he did for you on the cross, the loving hands that wiped your feet. That's the loving hands that took those nails in your place on the cross. This is what God has done to me. And the reality of that then shapes us. and helps us to respond. What then can I do to my fellow man, especially, as Christ points out here, my fellow brother and sister in Christ? You see, too often in the Christian church, we're very focused on self-improvement. We know what we should be as a Christian. We look in the mirror and we say, eh, you know, I've got a lot of improvement, so I'm going to begin to work on myself. Now there's room for that, but the problem is that can become very self-centered. Everything's about me. And what this chapter teaches, instead of looking in the mirror and just saying, I need to work on this mess. If you want to be Christ-like, look in the mirror and say, I'm going to take this mess of a person and go help somebody. I'm going to take who I am now and serve my husband, my wife. I'm going to serve in the church. I'm going to get to know that neighbor that needs help. I'm going to help that unbeliever. I'm going to take what I have and serve. You see, that's Christlikeness. There's room for self-improvement. We don't give it up, but we don't focus on ourselves. We use what we have to help others and serve others. We take our eyes off ourselves and we serve. That's living the Christian life. We wake up and we say, who can I serve today? That's much more Christlike than saying, what can I fix about myself today? And often as you serve, those things tend to start being fixed anyways as we look outside of ourselves. Now this passage ends in verse 17 with an encouragement and a warning. Notice the encouragement. Jesus says, God's blessings are on those who not only know these things, but do them. What a wonderful promise. How people always look for happiness with other relationships, with wealth, with personal fulfillment. And here Jesus says, if you really want God's blessing, What could be greater in life to know that you have God's blessing? That can't be taken away. He says, in the name of Christ, serve. If you're serving, you have God's blessings. That is the greatest joy for the Christian. But then notice the warning implicit here too. There is a brand of religion out there called Christianity where you know all the right things. And if someone asks you, do you believe Jesus died for your sins? Yes, I know these truths. But you still live for yourself. You do not live serving anybody. And notice what Jesus says here. There's no blessing there. There's no true Christianity there. That is a false Christianity. And so what we take away from this passage is we take away a sense of renewed joy. What God has done for me, a helpless sinner. He had to come down to my feet and wash in order for me to be saved forever. And then, how do I then respond in kind? How do I give back in thanksgiving? Jesus says, serve one another. That is true Christianity. That is true religion. And may it be your true religion. Let's pray.