Teacher and Lord

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This morning, I’m going to ask you to turn with me to John chapter 13. John chapter 13. You know, when I was a little kid, I was very attached to my grandfather, to my papa.

And I wanted to be just like my papa. And I may have succeeded because Charla tells people that she married papa Louis. So I guess I was successful.

But I wanted to be just like my papa. And one of the things that I wanted to emulate from him was his ability to work on cars. He, after he, you know, I think he worked just about every job there was after he got out of World War II.

But the one I know that he held the longest was he was a Ford mechanic. And so he knew just about everything to keep cars running. Whether it was the right way or the wrong way, he knew a way to keep them running.

And I have always, ever since I turned 16, I have always driven older, high-mileage cars. And now my wife does also because I am cheap. And so we drive old cars.

My truck just topped 206,000 miles and still going. So we drive old, high-mileage cars. And I knew I was going to need to figure out how to keep one of these running.

And so I wanted to learn all the things that he knew. And it didn’t work out great in the beginning. Because I would watch the, you know, it started out with him working on it and me helping, or me watching and then me helping.

And eventually it got to where I would work on it with him watching as he got older. But it was kind of rough going for me to learn some of that stuff in the beginning. Because he’d climb under the car and he’d get dirty, he’d get covered in grease and oil, and he’d get his arms and hands all scratched up.

And I didn’t want to do any of that. And I wanted to work on the car, but from a nice, clean, safe distance, you know. And I realized, you know, why is this not clicking with me?

Eventually, I realized, well, I’m wanting to be like him and know the things he knows, but I’m not willing to get down there and get dirty and do the things that he does. And I realized that was never, ever going to work. So I had to learn I’ve got to put on some old clothes and just be willing to get in there and get dirty and get scratched up.

That’s just sort of the price of learning what he knows and learning to be, I don’t even want to say half the mechanic he was, but maybe a quarter of the mechanic that he was. You know, I could not sit back and think that I was too good to do the things that my teacher did and then expect to learn all the things that he was trying to teach me. And that brings us this morning to John chapter 13 where Jesus taught his followers the same lesson.

You know, they were supposed to be following his lead, but like we do with Jesus all too often, they thought they were too good to get dirty and get scratched up. They wanted to be like Jesus. They wanted to know the things that Jesus knew, but they thought they were too good to do the things that Jesus did.

And Jesus made it clear, those two ideas do not work together. If we’re going to follow Him, we’ve got to follow Him and do the things that He did. If you would, turn with me to John chapter 13 as we look at another I Am statement.

And if you would, stand with me as we read from God’s Word together. John chapter 13. And we’re going to look at verses 3 through 17 this morning.

It says, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside his garments, took a towel, and girded himself. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. Then he came to Simon Peter, and Peter said to him, Lord, are you washing my feet?

Jesus answered and said to him, What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will know after this. Peter said to him, You shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.

Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus said to him, He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not all of you.

For he knew who would betray him. Therefore, he said, you are not all clean. And just to interject there for a minute, I’ve wondered about that phrase, especially as I’ve read it in the King James, you are clean, but not all clean.

I can’t remember the exact wording. He’s not saying that Peter is clean, but not clean. He’s saying the disciples as a group, they are clean, but partly unclean, because he’s referring to Judas as being the unclean one there.

And I want to make sure we pick up on that, that as Jesus goes through and washes the feet of his disciples, he knew that Judas was going to betray him. He knew everything Judas was going to do, and he washed his feet anyway. Verse 12, So when he had washed their feet, taken his garments, and sat down again, he said to them, Do you know what I have done to you?

You call me teacher and Lord, and you say, Well, 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 should do as I have done to you.

Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them, and you may be seated. So we’re continuing to look at some of these I am statements that Jesus made in the book of John.

Where he went through, and all throughout this book, he’s telling people who he is. And we’ve looked at some of the instances where people seem to be confused, even though he’s telling them very clearly who he is. They just didn’t want to hear it or just couldn’t understand.

This is another one of those. He says, I’m your teacher and your Lord. And those words meant something.

Those are words that we just kind of throw around as they apply to Jesus. But to be their teacher and their Lord, to be their teacher meant he was their rabbi. He was somebody they studied under and they followed, not just followed him around, but they patterned their life after him.

And to be their Lord means he was their master. They were expected to obey him and do the things that he did and do the things that he told them to do. And so when he says, you know, you call me master and Lord and you say, well, for I am, I am those things.

He was affirming, this is the role I’m supposed to play in your lives. But there’s a cost involved in that. And so we see in the beginning of the story, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet as part of the Passover observance.

Now, we didn’t read the first couple of verses of the chapter, but it explains that they were there at the Passover. And this is right before Jesus was crucified. And so he gets up partway through the supper.

I don’t believe they were necessarily in the process of eating yet, but they were in there for the supper. It was part of the festivities of the evening. He got up from the supper.

He wrapped himself in a towel. He poured water and began to wash and dry the disciples’ feet. Now Peter questioned, as we saw, he questioned, what are you doing?

Are you about to wash my feet? He’s trying to figure this did not compute for Peter. So he’s trying very hard to make sense of the situation, trying to understand what is happening.

And is Jesus really doing what I think Jesus is about to do? Are you about to wash my feet? He questioned what Jesus was doing, and Jesus told Peter he would understand in just a little bit.

So then once Peter realized, okay, he is going to wash my feet. Because Jesus didn’t always answer things yes or no, did he? His answer was, you’ll understand in a few minutes.

Peter realized that meant, yes, he’s about to wash my feet. And so Peter moved from questioning what Jesus was doing to objecting to what Jesus was doing. He said, you will never wash my feet.

If you have learned nothing in life, I hope you have learned never to tell Jesus never. Because more often than not, that’s what will end up happening. All right.

I was never moving out of Oklahoma. Certainly was never moving to Arkansas. Guess what happened?

Woo pig suey. Yeah, that’s right. Charlotte was never marrying a preacher.

She was never moving more than a mile away from mama. Guess what happened? Don’t ever tell Jesus never.

Peter said, you will never wash my feet. Jesus said, you don’t belong to me. You don’t belong here.

You have no part with me unless I wash you. And so Peter said, let’s think about this a second, then wash all of me. Which is a good response on his part.

Wait a minute, Jesus, in order to belong to you, you have to wash my feet. Wash all of me. He’s saying, I’m all in.

I don’t like this, I don’t understand it. I don’t like seeing my master in this position of washing my feet, but if it’s what you say has to happen, Jesus, then let’s go all the way. I’m all in.

But Jesus said it was unnecessary. Because he was teaching, he wasn’t just washing their feet. He was providing them an example as we’re going to look at, but he was also teaching them about purity.

And he was teaching them about spiritual cleansing. And some of this will be familiar to a lot of you. You probably, some of you have heard dozens of messages, I’m sure, on Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.

So if I could just give you a reminder today and maybe explain this to those who’ve not heard it before, but if you’ll just bear with me. In that day, we know they had dirt roads, and we know that unless you had horses or donkeys, you walked everywhere. Most people walked everywhere, more than we do.

It’s a world we don’t understand. I remember picking up some Venezuelan exchange students at OU, and we were going to get them settled in their apartments and then take them to dinner. There was a Sonic about a half a mile down the road.

You could see it across the field. And the American girl from my church that was with me, we headed off toward the car, and these Venezuelans head off toward the field. We said, where are you going?

We’re going to the restaurant. But we have cars. They said, but it’s right there.

we can walk. But we have a car. In Venezuela, we walk.

We said, this is America. Get in the car. It’s a world we can’t relate to, all right?

As Americans, we drive to go over there to City Hall. But they walked everywhere like people do all over the world. They walked, and so their feet would get dirty, especially as they would walk around in sandals.

Let me rephrase that. Their for the afternoon and they came back in with feet a completely different color and a completely different smell, right? Feet would get filthy, and so they would need to be cleaned.

If you were going into somebody’s home, you would want your feet cleaned. If somebody was coming into your home, you would want their feet cleaned, and so you would make facilities available for that. If you were poor, they would wash their own feet, or you might wash their feet.

If you were a person of means, then you had a servant for that purpose. But their feet would need to be cleaned. Now the Jews were big on cleanliness.

And so especially if they were going to a feast or a festival, they were going to make sure they were well bathed. I know that we think of people back in history and oh, they didn’t bathe as much as we do. And that’s partly true.

But if you were going to a religious festival, you were going to be clean. You’re going to be clean and sweet smelling, as I tell the kids. They get their Saturday night bath.

I say, no fighting, you have to be clean and sweet smelling for church. All right, there’s no argument here. They were going to go to the feast, they were going to be clean, and they were going to make sure of that.

But by the time they got there, their feet were dirty again. And so they’d need to be cleaned all over. So once those feet were rinsed off, you didn’t have to get to somebody’s house and go take a complete shower again, you just needed your feet cleaned off.

And then you were considered clean again. You could participate in the festival. We’re not really talking about ritual cleansing with the Old Testament law here. We’re just talking about practical cleansing.

You didn’t want to be dirty when you sat around to eat. Some of the men came over and helped me cut trees a few weeks ago. And I had worn these overalls for a couple of tree cutting sessions.

And it’s not that they smelled like me, but they smelled like gasoline. And being out in the wind, I didn’t realize it until we sat down to eat. And I said, I am sorry.

I apologize to everybody. I’m making myself sick. And Mike Scott says, well, I didn’t notice anything.

I don’t know if he’s just being polite or what. But I noticed. I’m thinking, I don’t want to sit here and smell like gasoline while I’m eating.

I want to be clean when I sit down to eat. And I’m sure everybody else wants that too. They needed to be clean.

And that’s why Jesus said, he who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean. If he was clean before he walked over to the feast, all he needed was the dirt cleaned off his feet. He didn’t have to go through the whole ordeal again of cleaning up.

But Jesus was taking this idea of the physical cleanness and using it to teach them about spiritual cleansing. Because he said in verse 10, you are clean, but not all of you. And again, he’s referring to Judas.

I’m sure Judas had bathed before the festival, before the feast. And Judas got his feet washed during the whole thing. So when he says you’re clean, but not all of you, He’s not talking about physical cleansing at that point. He has segued into talking about spiritual cleanness.

They were spiritually clean. And those who have been cleansed by Jesus, those who’ve been forgiven, those whose sins have been wiped away, washed away in His blood, are considered spiritually clean. We don’t have to be bathed over and over and over and over again.

We are clean. As a matter of fact, if we’ve been cleansed by Jesus, and we think, oh, but I’m dirty again, let me tell you what there’s nothing else left to clean you if the blood of jesus wasn’t enough there’s no other sacrifice that’s going to do it for you we simply need the dirt of the world wiped off our feet from time to time we are clean we just got to get the dirt of the world off and that’s where we as christians say we we go and we confess things to the lord and we get right with Him again. We ask His forgiveness.

It’s not that we’re going to hell. It’s not that we’ve lost the relationship with Him. We are clean.

Just need to get the dirt of the world off the feet. And so Jesus was teaching them an important spiritual truth here, but as much as what He was teaching them was important, also the way, the how He taught them was important too. Because He was teaching them so much by the example he provided as he did these things.

And the image that made his actions such a noteworthy example to the disciples was also what caused Peter to have such a visceral reaction to the whole thing. What caused Peter to have such heartburn about what he was seeing? Because he looked there and he saw Jesus doing what he considered to be a humiliating task, something so menial. Because we think, oh, it’s so nice, Jesus washed their feet.

I mean, it’s a dirty job. It’s not something I would volunteer for. Jesus did it, though.

How nice. No, no, this is something that they would have been shocked by. Because this was the job of the lowliest servants.

This wasn’t what your chief servant did. As a matter of fact, I’ve read where some historians say that this kind of service was reserved for non-Jewish slaves. It wasn’t just any of the servants that could do it.

If you had a servant who was Jewish, like you, you didn’t have them washing the feet. No, you got a Moabite or an Ammonite or a Greek or somebody, somebody who was already unclean themselves, and you had them do the really dirty job. You know how our politicians talk about jobs that Americans just won’t do?

This was a job that Israelites just would not do. so this is a job for the lowest of the low as far as they were concerned jesus here is their rabbi and rabbis were revered they were looked up to there this is the example this is the guy you’re trying to be like and for jesus who was their leader to stoop so low as to wash their feet was unthinkable to them. I mean, it would be kind of like finding out that Queen Elizabeth goes down in the sewers and does maintenance down there.

I mean, and there’s nothing wrong with working in sewer maintenance if anybody from the city is here. It’s not what I’m saying. It’s just not what you’d expect Queen Elizabeth to be doing, right?

Especially in those hats. You’re going to ruin that hat going down the sewer main. It was unthinkable for them to see Jesus doing this.

They couldn’t believe what they were looking at. But what made it so unthinkable is also what made the image so powerful. And so Jesus explained why he was doing this.

He said he did it to be an example. Verse 13, he said, you call me teacher and Lord and you say well. You say correctly, for so I am.

I am your teacher and Lord. You’re absolutely correct. He was saying, I am your rabbi, I am your master.

I’m the one you’ve committed to follow. I’m the one you’re trying to be like. And so in verse 14, we see him continuing the thought that if Jesus, he’s telling them, if I am your example, and I am so great, I’m so glorious, and I’m so holy, And if even I would stoop to wash others’ feet, what excuse do you have for not serving others?

I’m telling you what, this is a convicting message for me. And like I told you with the prayer for our leaders last Sunday night, please don’t feel like I’m saying this to get on you. I feel like I’m stepping on my toes telling you this this morning.

If Jesus, being everything that He is and everything we know Him to be, still was willing to stoop to wash others’ feet, what excuse do I have for saying there are ways that I will not serve? He was telling them, you should do what I’ve done. Look at verse 16 with me again.

Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. The servant should never think that he’s better than the master. And what that means for us is that if Jesus never thought he was too good to serve others, then we certainly are not.

And I’ll be honest with you, there are some things I just don’t want to do. Right? Anybody else, or is that just me?

Am I the only selfish one? there are some jobs I just don’t want. But if Jesus, who was God in human flesh, was willing to wrap himself in a towel, to get down on his knees and clean the feet of 12 men who’d been walking the streets of first century Israel, and collecting on those feet everything that would have been on those streets.

If He was willing to do that, what excuse do I as His disciple have for not serving others? He’s telling us we’re supposed to serve like Him. We’re supposed to be willing to do the things that He did.

Now this is not just a message about go out and try harder and be better people and serve and be nice. And we actually bring glory to Jesus by following His example. If He’s our teacher and He’s our Lord, He’s the things that He said He was, then we bring Him glory when we follow His example.

Because when we follow His example, we show others what He was like. It’s a lot of people. Right now, with a lot of complaints about a lot of Christians, some of it deserves, some of it not.

And it breaks my heart when I see. . .

Now, understand, you get on social media, there’s always going to be people who want to complain. And there will always be people who just find any excuse they can to say something against Jesus. That was true in His day, it’s true in ours.

But I’ve read things on social media just in the last week where people are commenting about Christians, and what breaks my heart is they say that it reflects on Jesus. That they don’t like somebody said something and, well, you know, it just shows the whole Jesus thing is baloney. No, it shows that some people who claim to be, actually all people who claim to be Jesus followers are imperfect, along with all those who claim not to be Jesus followers.

None of us have a corner on perfection here. But the world oftentimes draws its cues about what it thinks about Jesus from what it sees in us. I’m not saying if we act right and we serve and we do all the things we’re supposed to do, that everybody’s going to automatically flock to Jesus.

They had Jesus in front of them and still didn’t automatically flock to Jesus. But we don’t want to be the ones that throw up obstacles to people believing. When we serve the way Jesus served, we give the world a more accurate picture of what Jesus was really like and who He is.

When we humble ourselves to serve, we draw attention to the way He humbled Himself to serve. And nobody has ever gone further to serve humanity than Jesus did. And He didn’t have to.

Okay, Jesus was God the Son in human flesh. If anybody deserved to just sit on His throne and be glorified, it was Jesus. But that’s not what He did.

Philippians chapter 2 says, Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God. Now Paul is telling the church at Philippi, conduct yourself the same way, have the same attitude that Jesus had. And Jesus, who was in the form of God, meaning He was God in human flesh, He did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, meaning it was not something for Him to hold on to.

It’s not something He grasped onto and held onto, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man. He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Now what that passage is telling us is that Jesus deserved all the splendors of heaven.

He deserved to stay on His throne and be glorified by all the angels, to be glorified by mankind, for us to exhaust our vocabularies in trying to come up with new ways to praise Him. But instead of holding on to what He deserved, He was willing to step down out of heaven, out of eternity, into time and space, to come and be one of us, to come and be among us, Can you imagine the letdown that was to go from being in heaven with God and among His angels to being here on earth among us? But He did that and He suffered in all the ways that we suffer so that He could serve us and so that He could love us and so that He could go to the cross for us while we were yet sinners.

He didn’t do it for us because we’re lovable. He did it for us in spite of how unlovable we are. And He did it because He is love.

And folks, when we serve the way He served, we point people to what He did. And sometimes when you serve in a selfless way, people will say, I don’t understand why are you doing this. I’ve gone on some disaster relief things, and people have said, I don’t understand why you’ve come this far to help cut trees or help tear down what’s left of our house so we can rebuild?

Why would you take time away from your family to come do this? And we’ve had the opportunity to tell them because it’s the kind of thing Jesus did. It’s a small glimpse of the kind of thing that Jesus did.

He came. Who deserved not to have to? He came to serve people who did not deserve to be served.

He served us at the greatest possible cost. of His own life on the cross so that He could save us and reconcile us to the Father. When I say this is not a message about go out and try harder and be better, you’ll get that message in a lot of churches and it misses the mark of what the Bible teaches. The message of the Bible is not just try harder and be better.

The message of the Bible is you couldn’t try hard enough or be good enough so Jesus had to come. So the lesson here is not follow His example so you can go out and be good people. The lesson here is that it’s not about showing how humble and how servant-hearted we are.

It’s about showing the world the kind of thing that He did for us. About taking what we have to offer, our service, and following His example so we can give Him the glory that He deserves. And his example here in this passage is a call for us to humble ourselves and serve.

If he really is our teacher and our Lord. He said, you call me teacher and Lord and you say it correctly because I am. I am that.

And if he is our teacher and Lord, then the task before us is to follow his example. That means we take on the unpleasant tasks. I thought about listing some things we ought to do, but I don’t know what the Holy Spirit’s calling you to do.

it may be different for every single one of us in here. But I know we get opportunities to serve, and I know they’re not always the things we want to do. And I know that just from my own life.

We take on the unpleasant tasks. We’re supposed to take on the menial tasks and the thankless tasks and the task that nobody ever sees or knows about we never get a thanks or a pat on the back for. We take on those things and we serve.

It may cost us. It may cost us our money, our time. It may cost us our sanity.

As we’re thinking, I’ve already helped you out with this and I’m going to pull out what’s left of my hair. But we serve. And we don’t think ourselves too good or too important for any kind of service.

Because what He did for us to teach us is a reminder that we are merely. . .

let’s not think how good and how important we are we are merely servants of the one who was willing to forego the splendors of heaven was willing to step out of all of it in order to suffer the ultimate humiliation and agony of the cross to save sinners like us and if he was willing to do that what excuse do you or I have not to serve