Power to Serve
Sermon Notes
It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not everyone was clean. When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
John 13:1-17
No other god like this
The reason I do this is that I want you to have an accurate picture of the God that we worship in this place.
“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” -A.W. Tozer
He goes on to say, “We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God.”
Why does this matter so much?
Because our view of God shapes the way we think about life, the universe, and everything else.
Everyone, regardless of religious affiliation, lives their life (forms their personalities, plans their futures, makes daily choices) on the basis of their understanding of the character of God.
The problem with this, of course, is that so many people, including so many people in the Church, have such a distorted view of God. They see God as:
A chess master
A traffic cop
A vending machine
An absentee father
Tonight, let’s allow this text to serve as a corrective. Before we get into talking about this passage, would you take a minute to close your eyes and picture the scene
Pay attention to the details
Pay attention to how you feel
Pay attention to the man at the center of the story, the man to whom every eye is drawn.
John, in the first chapter of this book makes the case that the person revealed in His book will be for us the visible representation of God. And, here is what this God is like.
As you think about God, this is the picture I want you to have in your mind. This is the God of Canopy church.
He is a God who serves.
A God who serves: it’s a remarkable story
Begins with Jesus absolutely secure in His identity and authority.
His identity was absolutely secure in His relationship with His Father.
Will aligned to the Father: food is to do the Father’s will.
He only did the things He saw His Father doing. He didn’t come to do His own will but the Father’s.
All authority belonging to Him.
The sovereign of all of creation
The King preparing to ascend His throne.
What does Jesus do when He has all authority?
He takes off His robe
Grabs a towel
Kneels before them
And washes their feet
Foot-washing was an ordinary part of life in the ancient near east.
Feet were looked at then like they are now.
He took the place of a menial servant (one of the Midrashim suggests that Jewish servants couldn’t not be compelled to do this).
This is not something anyone in His position should have ever done, which is why Peter reacts the way he did.
But, there’s even more to it than that.
Think of who was sitting at the table with them.
Jesus, in His most desperate hour, preemptively forgave those who would hours later abandon Him, even the one who would betray Him. Can you imagine?
Even this, as remarkable as it is, is not the whole of the story. John gives us several clues that there’s more going on here than a foot washing.
“He loved them until the end” (to the fullest extent). Setting us up for the understanding that what we are about to see will be the fullest expression of the love of God.
When Jesus began to wash their feet, and Peter freaked out, Jesus replied, “You don’t understand what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
When Peter replied, “You will never wash my feet,” Jesus responded with a pretty cryptic statement, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” (Side note: doesn’t Peter’s response make you just want to squeeze him.)
It’s a pretty big and confusing statement. You mean, if you don’t wash my feet, I can’t hang out with you.
There must be something else going on.
What He’s saying here is that, “Unless I serve you, unless you receive from me a gift that you have done nothing to earn and cannot possibly deserve, you have no part with me.”
Please allow me to again reiterate, there is no God like this.
Every other god demands we come with something to be a part of them.
This God invites us to come with nothing, in fact, demands that we come with nothing, in fact, doesn’t even ask us to come. He comes to us when we have nothing to commend us to Him.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
You see, all of this is about what was about to happen.
In the ultimate act of love, the ultimate act of service, would be arrested under false pretenses, convicted in a sham trial, and executed for crimes He did not commit.
He, standing with all authority given to Him, chose to exercise that authority by dying.
This is Jesus at His most powerful.
It’s not that He laid aside His power to serve. This is how He chose to exercise His power.
Jesus knew that the Father had given Him everything, and from that place of power, He served.
The great wonder is that the cross was His throne. He took a horrible instrument of torture and death, an example of power gone wrong, power used to corrupt and destroy, and he bent it to His will. He redeemed it. He transformed it into the ultimate symbol of triumph.
This is who He is
He is a King who rules through service
Who conquers by dying
Who transforms the broken and the breakers through love.
And this is how His reign will be defined, how His Kingdom will operate. In other words, it is how all of us who follow Him are to live.
Power to Empower: And, He does all of this, He says, to provide us an example.
He served them to set them free to serve
He freed them from the tyranny of an upside-down power structure where we all use our God-given power to build our own kingdoms.
And, He invited them into the right-side-up, God-intended reality of building His Kingdom in relationship with Him.
Redeem through service
Exercise our full authority as Spirit-filled images of God through radical service
Where leaders are not at the top the pyramid but on the bottom.
This is how we will change the world: through your love, they will know you’re mine (John 13:35)