Serving Like the Master

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in John chapter 13 this morning. John chapter 13. Years ago, when I felt like God was calling me into ministry, it took me months to say yes.

For months I argued with God, because that was not my plan to go into ministry. But I eventually said yes to God, and then it took a while before I told anybody else about it. But when I did, I was fortunate to be at a church where the men in ministry took an interest in investing in the future of people in ministry.

And our church at the time had three men on staff who let me as a high school kid hang around with them all day. Now, that would probably get irritating after a while. But they let me hang around with them.

Whether they were at the office or they were going out to do stuff, they sort of brought me along with them and taught me. I didn’t learn ministry from seminary or Bible college. I learned ministry from hands-on getting in there and doing it.

They would drag me with them to hospital visits. They would drag me with them to the nursing home. They would take me with them when they had to drive one of the little old ladies to the doctor.

They’d take me with them, and we’d help people clean up their yard. We mopped bathrooms. When I felt like God was calling me to preach, you know what they did? They stuck me in children’s church.

I thought, this is not who I want to preach to. Our church at the time had, in the 4th through 6th grade children’s church, had about 30 kids in there. And I learned real fast that if you can preach, If you can preach to fourth through sixth graders, you can preach to anybody.

And so they gave me those opportunities. We talked about preparing messages. We talked about all the things that go into their job, whether it’s the things in front of a congregation on Sunday or whether it’s the service things that go on behind closed doors throughout the week.

They sort of brought me into this and showed me and let me do things. And as time went on, they gave me more opportunities. They’d send me out to smaller churches that needed somebody to fill the pulpit.

Eventually, I got to preach in that big church. And they just gave me opportunities. And they showed me what it meant.

And they let me experience what it meant to serve. And I’m grateful for that education, that free education that I got from my church. And a few years ago, a young man came to me as a pastor and said he felt like he was being called to ministry as well.

So I thought, I’m going to do the same thing. I mean, this is sort of a Paul and Timothy thing. You take what you’ve been taught and pass it on to other men, faithful men who will be able to teach it as well.

And I thought, I’ll do that. I’ll take him under my wing and show him what little I know, and we’ll learn things by experience. But what I realized soon was he was a good man, but he liked the idea of ministry.

He liked the idea of being up in front of people, but didn’t want to do any of the behind-the-scenes stuff. So-and-so’s having surgery. Come with me.

We’ll go sit with the family. I don’t feel like it today. Okay, well, I don’t feel like it today either, but we’re going.

I’m going. Okay, I’m not going to make you. Let’s sit down and work on how do we prepare a message that you’re going to deliver to people?

Because believe it or not, it’s not just standing up front talking. There needs to be some thought that goes into it. Well, I don’t know.

I’ve got other things to do today. we’re going to go clean up tornado debris in Oklahoma. I have to, yes, get in the car.

We’re going to go clean. And just, you know, God love him. I thought he was a good man at the time.

I still do. But it became very apparent after just a few weeks, he’s not really interested in ministry. He likes the idea.

He likes the idea of ministry. He doesn’t like to actually do the things that are required. And so I eventually just told him, you know, if God’s called you to do this, then you need to step it up.

But my personal view is I don’t think he has, or you’d have more of a desire to go and do these things. See, there’s an element in there where you’ve got to realize that ministry, whether we’re talking about being a pastor, whether we’re talking about being a church staff member, whether we’re even talking about ministry as just a believer, and I shouldn’t say it that way, just a believer, as a believer. Whatever ministry God’s called you to, we think sometimes we see the glamour of it.

We see these guys on stage at churches with thousands of people in their fancy suits, and we see all these things and we think, that’s ministry. We see the guys on TV who fly around in private jets and we think, that’s ministry. We see the people who, you know, maybe they are living in more humble circumstances, but they’ve got thousands of people who love and respect them, and we think, that’s ministry.

There’s got to be a humility to ministry. There’s got to be a humility to following Jesus Christ, whether it’s following him in the vocational ministry or whether it’s following him as I’m a follower and I’m going to serve him and I’m going to minister in my day job. If I work at a bank, if I work on a farm, then I’m going to minister here.

There’s got to be a humility about it, where we learn and where we realize it’s not about me and getting what I can get and being served. And Jesus taught this. Jesus had an incredible way of teaching this to his followers, of saying, come along and let me show you what ministry is all about.

Let me show you what a life of following me is all about. And he did this in ways that were unmistakable and unforgettable and shook the disciples up just a little bit and said, if you’re going to follow me, there’s going to be a cost. And you’ve got to be willing to not be worried about, as they were oftentimes, who’s going to be the greatest in the kingdom? You need to be worried about being down here and what can I do to serve other people.

And so if you haven’t already turned with me, we’re going to be in John chapter 13 this morning. Starting in verse 1, it says, Now before the feast of Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own, which were in the world he loved them until the end. so as they’re there for the Passover, they’re there having what we know of as the Lord’s Supper, the Last Supper, depending on whether you’re talking about our observance or the painting, they were having the Passover together, and Jesus knew that he was about to fulfill the ministry that the Father had sent him for, that he was about to be taken out of this world, and that he’d done everything the Father had sent him to do up to this point.

He’d been obedient, and he had loved his followers up until the end, even though, honestly, it was very difficult. We look in hindsight, even though we would probably say and do the exact same things they did, we look at the disciples and say, my goodness, you fellows just don’t get it. And how was Jesus patient with you at all?

But he loved them that said until the end. And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things unto his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God, he riseth from supper. So at the end of the meal, Jesus knows everything that’s about to happen.

Jesus knows Judas is about to betray him. He knows that the devil put him up to it. I won’t say the devil made him do it, because he had a free choice in the matter, but the devil certainly put him up to it, and he took the bait.

He knows that he’s about to go back to his father, or that events are about to be set in motion that are going to lead to the end of his life and eventually him ascending back to the Father. And so knowing everything that’s about to happen, knowing what this man in particular is about to do to him, and by the way, knowing that Peter’s about to betray him, or not betray him, Peter’s about to deny him, Judas is about to betray him, Thomas is about to doubt him, the others are about to cut and run and hide. Knowing all of this, it says in verse 4, that he riseth from supper, and he laid aside his garments, he took off the outer garments, and took a towel and goaded himself.

So he’s not dressed up here in any way, shape, or form. He’s costumed himself as a servant. And that he poureth water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and wiped them with the towel wherewith he was goaded.

Okay, and we know that story. Most of you know that story, that he washed the disciples’ feet, and we think, oh, okay, it’s a show of humility. This was a show of absolute humility.

They walked everywhere they went. And they wore sandals in that day if they had shoes. They wore sandals.

Sometimes my kids wear sandals. And sometimes your kids and grandkids probably wear sandals. And sometimes they’ll go play out in the backyard, or they’ll play on a playground, and they’ll come back in and their feet will be filthy, and I don’t even want their feet in my house.

let alone having to wash their dirty, nasty feet with my hands. In their day, they walked everywhere they went. The streets were dirty, they had these open shoes, and their feet would have gotten absolutely disgusting.

And when you would come into somebody’s house as a show of hospitality, the servants would then get down and wash the people’s feet. They would take this nastiest of jobs. They would wash the people’s feet as a show of hospitality to somebody before you sat down to eat or before you made yourself comfortable in the house.

That way you would be clean. You wouldn’t be worried about my feet are nasty, you know, your nice clean house. And so the servants would come and do this.

Jesus took on himself. Nobody asked him to do this. Jesus took on himself one of the lowest jobs.

And he did it for these people who were about to walk away from him. To various extents, they were all about to walk away from him. And he began to wash their feet like he was the lowest of the servants, and like they were the honored guests.

He washed them, and he began to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon Peter. And Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet?

And I don’t think this is so much a question as a, Do you really think you’re going to wash my feet? I see it as less of a question than a challenge. And Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.

He said, You don’t really understand right now what I’m doing, but there’s going to come a time when this will all be clear to you. And I love Peter. Not in spite of all his rash outbursts, but because of them.

Because he’s saying the things I think that a lot of times the rest of the disciples were thinking. He just doesn’t seem to think them through before they come out of his mouth. And I can identify with that problem.

Anybody else? He just blurts out whatever he’s thinking. Peter saith unto him, verse 8, thou shalt never wash my feet.

Because he’s looking at Jesus as, he’s called him master, he’s called him teacher. This was the guy that I’ve given up my life to follow. That is my leader right there.

And to see his leader, to see the man he’d put so much trust in, humble himself in such a way that he’s getting down there and he’s cleaning his nasty feet. He couldn’t stand such indignity to come to Jesus. And he says, you will never wash my feet.

He couldn’t, he’s wrong here, but I like where his heart is. He couldn’t stand to see Jesus humbled that way. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.

He’s not saying you’re not saved. He’s not saying you’re not. What he’s saying here is if you don’t let me wash my feet, you’re not really my follower.

You’re not really the disciple you think you are, Peter, if you don’t let me wash your feet here. This gets to Peter because Peter, at least until it comes to the point of death, Peter thinks he is just absolutely devoted. If this were today’s day, he’d be one of these little squealing girls with one of the boy bands.

You know what I’m talking about, right? I’m not going to try to do the squeal for you. But they follow him around and they’ve got their poster in their room and they just love him.

Oh, Peter just loves Jesus. And when Jesus says, you can’t be my follower if I don’t wash your feet, then Peter says, oh, no, no, no, I don’t want to not be your follower. He says, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and head.

He says, wash all of me. Okay, Jesus, if that’s the way it is, if you have to wash my feet for me to be your follower, then just wash all of me. And Jesus said to him, verse 10, He that is washed needeth not, excuse me, needeth not say to wash his feet, but is clean every wit.

And ye are clean, but not all. And that’s something Peter really wouldn’t have understood in both senses that Jesus was talking about. You would have gotten clean, or you would have kept yourself clean their day.

And then as you go travel, your feet would get a little dirty from the world you walked in. And so when you’d come sit down to dinner at someone’s home, only your feet really would need a cleaning. But there’s also a spiritual application here where Jesus washes us thoroughly.

We are cleansed in the blood of Jesus from every sin. And yet sometimes we get a little dusty from the world we walk in, don’t we? And we need our feet cleansed a little bit again.

It doesn’t mean that we have, it doesn’t mean that his blood is no longer effective. It doesn’t mean that we need to be washed all over again. It means sometimes we need to be spruced up.

Sometimes we need to come to him and get right again. So he’s told Peter, I don’t need to wash all of you. Just your feet will be sufficient.

For he knew who should betray him. Therefore And he’s not just talking to Peter, he’s talking to the group. He says, you’re clean, but not all.

And I think they would have understood that, that he’s talking about somebody here is not. And he knew Judas was not. Judas was not a believer.

So after, verse 12, so after he had washed their feet and had taken his garments and was set down again, he said unto them, know ye what I have done to you. He sits down and now is the teaching time. And Jesus gives these really great object lessons, and then very often we see recorded in the scriptures afterwards, we see where he goes and explains to them what just happened.

And it’s sort of like after my children undergo some kind of consequence. They’ve been disobeying, they get a spanking. After they calm down, then we sit down and we have the teaching time.

It says, now do you understand why that just happened? Do you understand what this means? Okay, we go through that.

Jesus didn’t leave them hanging either. After he gives them these great object lessons, He makes sure they don’t misunderstand the point he’s trying to make. He says, Know ye what I have done to you.

You call me Master and Lord, and ye say, Well, for so I am. He says, You call me your Master and your Lord, and you’re right because I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, hear this, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.

Think about that for a minute. It seems like such a simple statement. Yeah, you should serve each other.

you should humble yourself and serve each other. But the reason why, the reason that he gives them for why they’re supposed to serve each other is so incredible. He says in verse 15, For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done unto you.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord, neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. And so all through this he’s saying, I washed your feet, so you should wash each other’s. And he says, I’ve given you this example.

And then he gets right down to the point of it. He says, the servant is not greater than the master. They called him master.

They called him Lord. They called him the one who was in charge of them. And the one who was in charge came and spent three years ministering and serving, washing their nasty feet.

and then eventually giving his life for every sin they’d ever committed. And yet in their pursuit to serve, to follow this servant, Jesus, in their effort to serve him and follow him, they were arguing about who was going to be the best and the greatest in the kingdom. They were concerned about their own prestige, their own power.

Even Peter, when he says, no, no, Lord, you’ll never wash. Even in his humility, There’s an element of pride. I don’t need you to do this.

They were being prideful in an effort to serve and follow someone who was humble. And it doesn’t work that way. I mean, it’s totally out of the job description.

It doesn’t work. Sort of like when I took that young man and tried to show him the job description, he wasn’t interested in doing any of it. And some of the stuff that’s just incidental, you know what, if you’re not willing to do the things that are involved in ministry, You don’t need to be in ministry.

And that applies to any job. If you’re not willing to do the things that apply to being a banker, then you don’t need to be a banker. My dad is a banker, and they have very strict rules about what they have to do and account for all the money.

If he’s not willing to do that, he has no business working in the bank. As a farmer, there’s stuff you have to do every day to take care of your animals or your crops. If you’re not willing to do that, then you can’t really call yourself a farmer.

Whatever the job is.

if you’re not willing to do the job if you’re not willing to follow the job description there’s no point in even calling yourself that right here he lays out the job description for somebody who follows him if you’re going to follow me he says you need to serve the way I serve because if I’m above you if I’m over you and I’m willing to serve you’re not any better than I am and yet I’ll raise my hand and say I’m guilty of that God you want me to what you want me to serve that person you want me to help them with what now oh no I would never dirty my hands in such a way and I don’t mean actually physically dirtying my hands I don’t mind getting my hands dirty as long as I can clean up afterwards I mean sometimes people’s lives are messy and there’s drama I don’t want to get involved in God you want me to help them with that excuse me am I following Jesus’ example or not he says the servant is not greater than his Lord and if he’s above me and willing to serve then I need to get off my high horse sometimes and realize that he’s called me to follow his example and do the things that he’s done and folks when you get right down to it following the king means becoming a servant if we want to follow him it sounds paradoxical to the way the world works nowadays because people are concerned with power and prestige and if they want to be a leader of a country, it’s a lot of times about serving me.

I want the country to serve me. And I would say that’s not a statement about the elections nowadays, but yeah, it really is. It’s about most of the people on the ballot anywhere.

Not all of them, but most of them. What can I get out of this? If I want to lead, it’s because I want people to serve me.

But our king is different. If we want to follow our king, if we want to serve our king, if we want to be one of his followers, if we want to do the things he did, if we want to be like our king, we need to become servants. That’s a hard thing to do.

To follow our king means becoming a servant. And he says in verse 17, if you know these things, happier ye if you do them. There was nothing that was too, if he was willing to get down and wash their feet, there was nothing that was too undignified for Jesus to do.

He served those who needed to be served. Kind of like I talked about last week with the Good Samaritan, the message that he teaches us in there is that anybody in need of mercy is my neighbor. And Jesus was willing to serve all of them.

Jews, Gentiles, Samaritans, religious people, sinners, poor, rich. Jesus had interactions with all of them. And Jesus served them.

Sometimes it was a kind word. Sometimes it was a healing. Sometimes it was an encouragement.

Sometimes the way he served the religious leaders and the powerful and the rich was to point out where they needed to get right with God. But Jesus served everyone. If we’re going to follow our king, he says, if we know these things, happier are ye if you do them.

There’s a joy in service. See, when you’re here to be served and you start to expect things from people, I’m working really hard to make sure my children don’t grow up with an entitlement mentality. They get mad.

It’s human nature. I get mad if you didn’t get me a cookie. Did I owe you a cookie?

Did you earn a cookie? No. So I haven’t wronged you because you weren’t entitled to that.

You’ve grown to expect it, but you weren’t entitled to it. You didn’t earn it. So anything good that I do give you that you haven’t earned is not something you’re entitled to.

It’s a gift. And it’s grace. And I’m trying to teach them the difference.

Because I think it’s human nature that if we come and expect to be served, and then we are served, we want more. And what yesterday was such a great blessing now is expected, and if we don’t get more than that, we’re upset and we feel like we’ve been wronged. Am I wrong here?

I feel like this is human nature because I see it in myself, and I see it in my children, and I see it in other people. There’s no joy. There’s no lasting joy in being served.

There’s just the desire for more that can never be fully satisfied. But when we serve others, there’s joy in that. Maybe not in the moment.

I’ve mopped up bathrooms before to help people, and I didn’t feel particularly joyful in the moment. But there’s a blessing in serving others, and that’s what Jesus here says. And the bottom line is that if we want to follow him, and if we want to do it right, and if we want to have joy in doing it, that we will serve the way the king served.

If we want to follow the king, it means becoming a servant. We need to change the way we think about ourselves and our relationship to other people. And this is a hard one.

And be careful to not overestimate my own importance. It’s not about me. I think we all probably at some point need that tattooed on our hand.

Or you can just write it. It’s not about me. I have to remind myself of that every day.

It’s not about me. but humility and being willing to serve in humility it also doesn’t mean that we need to see ourselves as human garbage humility doesn’t mean beating yourself down it means raising other people up Jesus didn’t really talk about you need to think of yourselves as garbage he talked about esteeming others better than ourselves we don’t humble ourselves by bringing ourselves down here we humble ourselves by lifting others up. Taking on the role of someone who follows Christ means that we have to shed this idea that we’re here to be served.

And instead, we need to wrap ourselves with a towel and humble ourselves and lift others up by serving them in Jesus’ name. And there are a couple of different options that a church, especially, and believers individually contribute to this, but it really is the culture of a church as a whole. There are a couple of options that a church has to choose from.

One of them is the country club mentality. You all know what I mean when I say country. But I’m not against country clubs, by the way.

If any of you are members, I’d love to come with you. But a church can get into a country club mentality where we come in and we’re focused on being served. How can the church meet my needs?

What religious goods and services does the church offer that meet my needs. There’s nothing wrong with being served in the church. It’s just not supposed to be the focus.

We can get inwardly focused on, I’m here so I can be served. And we make ourselves the most important consideration. What this does is it drives others away.

It drives the outside world away when they do come looking for Jesus. And we grow spiritually stagnant. But on the other hand, and I’m not saying that we see that here.

I may see it in myself at times, but I’m not saying overall we see it here. But there are many churches in our country. There are many churches around the world that have fallen to the country club mentality, the focus on self and being served.

But what Jesus draws us to is the servanthood mentality. It says in contrast, we’re focused not on being served, but we’re focused on serving. We’re focused on taking care of the needs of others.

I’m not here to see what religious goods and services the church can offer me. I am here to see what I can do to serve others in Jesus’ name. Without slipping into a John Kennedy impression.

Ask not what your church can do for you, but ask what you can do for your church. And instead of ourselves being the primary focus of everything, the primary focus when we have a servanthood mentality, is sharing the love of Christ with other people in word and in deed. They need to hear that we love them.

Our message to the world needs to be one of love that flows from the love of Christ. But we also need to show that. We need to back that up with deeds. Because it’s very easy to say that we love someone.

It’s something else entirely to show them that we love them. It has more impact if we show them than just tell them. But we need to do both.

It’s about loving in word and deed. And making that the most important consideration. What that does is it invites people in.

And I don’t mean into the building. I mean into this family, into this fellowship that we call the church. It opens doors.

It gives us the opportunity to share the love of Christ as far as what he’s done for us in salvation. We would be amazed. I’m not one who says, you know, we just need to live in the right way and they’ll see and they’ll ask us about it.

But we do need to live in the right way. And we do need to love people. But we also can’t neglect sharing the gospel with our mouths either.

I think we would be amazed at the effectiveness of our witness. I think we would be amazed at the open doors we had to tell people about Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and how much God loved them that he sent his son to die for them. If we demonstrated that love to them first, I think we’d be shocked by the kinds of doors that would open.

It invites people into the church when we have a servanthood mentality. It invites them into this family, into this fellowship. and it helps us to grow spiritually.