John 13:1-18

[0:00] Now, before 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.

[0:14] During supper, when the devil already put the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things in his hands, that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper.

[0:35] Therefore, he laid aside his outer garments, taking a towel, tied it around his waist, and poured out water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that had wrapped around them.

[0:52] He came to Simon Peter and said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? Jesus answered him, What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.

[1:05] Peter said to him, You shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I do not wash you, you will have no share with me. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet?

[1:45] Peter said to him, Father Garmenton resumed his place. He said to him, 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, Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash another's feet, for I have given you an example that you also should do, just as I have foredone to you.

[2:09] Truly, truly, 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.

[2:24] Good morning. Let me pray for us. Father, we gather today to receive your truth and respond to your grace.

[2:39] Make us see you more clearly today. Who you are, what you've done, and what you've called us to do. Holy Spirit, don't just let us consume information today.

[2:51] Cause us to properly respond with wholehearted worship to you. To worship you with our minds, what we think about. To worship you with our mouths and our ears. As we'll see today, to worship you with our hands, as we demonstrate your love, based on how you showed us to love King Jesus.

[3:09] Father, use the next 30 minutes or so for your purposes. Use this time for your glory and for our good. We know you are preparing your bride this morning for eternity with you.

[3:22] We pray this in the name of our servant King, Jesus. Amen. Well, I'll go back to the beginning.

[3:34] So, my name is Ben Parker. As I said, I've been here about a year. I'm a member here at Shoreline. But like Matt mentioned, this is like round two for us.

[3:44] We came back here in 2018 for a few months and we're extremely blessed by this church. And so, I'm excited to be part of it and a member here. So, if you are new, and you want to know what it's like to be newer to the church, come talk to me or one of the members or elders.

[3:58] So, we're going to dive into John 13 this morning, which my son just read. Good job, Jack. And so, this is the main question of how do we love like Jesus.

[4:10] If you're an older kid, there's some like worksheets in the back. There's some notes and there's some places that you're supposed to take notes. So, get those fill in the blanks and I'll call them out when it's time for them. All right.

[4:25] So, we'll see this slide a few times. So, if you have a Navy background, these are like our topical guide objectives. This is what we're going to try and answer. There's no other theme and there's a main question.

[4:36] The TGO has got six parts. I'll get to those. Then there's a secondary question as well, but only the main question is tested on. And so, I'm going to go through this in a slightly different order than normal.

[4:49] It's okay. I talked to Mike. He's okay with it. So, we read it. So, we've done step one. Then we're going to dive right into the conclusion. Jesus is going to go through some thoughts.

[5:00] Then he's going to do some actions. Then he's going to explain what he did. So, we're going to start with the end in mind and then we'll go back and look at what he did. And so, I thought people would know the reference, maybe not Memento.

[5:10] If you haven't seen it, it's like a movie done backwards. It's a pretty cool movie. And so, that's the order we're going to go. So, we'll do first, I got a little pointer.

[5:21] I'll try this. We'll do the explanation. Then we go back to the beginning and think about the context. Like, what is, Jesus is going to wash his disciples' feet. What did it mean to wash feet? What does it say in the Bible?

[5:31] What's like contemporary? What did that act? What did that convey? And then we'll go through the verse in proper order. And then finally, like, again, this passage is about application.

[5:45] Like, Jesus is teaching his followers to do something. Like, there's a call to action at the end of this. So, we'll dive into some of those, what that could look like for us. Again, main question. And our theme.

[5:57] So, Jesus is our great lover and teacher. He's going to use those words a lot. I should have wrote down the numbers. But like, in the first 13 chapters, like, the word love was used a couple times.

[6:10] But in the next, where we are now, it's like, blows up. It's all over the rest of John. You're going to see it over and over again. And then Jesus calls out, he calls out his role as teacher. We'll see it in a second.

[6:21] All right. So, we did this. I don't know. Read these. All right. Let's dive in. All right. So, this, Jesus explains his lesson here.

[6:33] I think it doesn't take a lot of explanation. He does like a really good job. I don't know if you know this. Jesus is a very good teacher. So, he like explains it pretty clear. Almost like, remarkably clear. Like, you're so used to reading Jesus' words sometimes.

[6:43] It's like, what does he mean by that? But this one's very, very clear. And this, it's intentional. We'll see in a moment, like, where we are in the book of John. Like, this is like, he is now diving deep in with his disciples in a very private setting, preparing them.

[6:58] And so, this is also, I think, was pretty cool. We can look at the big, straightforward explanation. That Jesus is saying, since he's willing to serve, we're called to do likewise.

[7:09] If Jesus is willing to do a very dirty task to show his love to his friends, how could we do less than? I thought it was also cool, like, this is not only interpreted elsewhere in scripture, but by the same author.

[7:24] Like, John wrote this gospel. He also wrote his letters. And so, he wrote here, in 1 John 2, 6, Pretty clear. In 1 John 4, Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

[7:40] And then 19, we love because he first loved us. And I think a lot, for me, a lot of times when I think about how Jesus loved us, I think of how he died on the cross to save us from our sins, which is true.

[7:52] Like, that was like the greatest act of love. He loved us so much, he came to earth, he suffered, he died, he rose again. And if you don't know that truth, then please talk to someone afterwards that we can talk one-on-one.

[8:03] But that is, when I think of God's love, I always kind of think towards that. But I think Jesus intentionally is saying, I'm getting ready to do this big act of love, you should worship me for that, but you also need to love in the small ways that I did here today.

[8:19] And so we see that in 1 John, reiterated. So, I'm going to highlight a couple notes here, things that I, that caught my attention during my time of meditation on this passage, and then we're going to dive into the, to the, we'll dive into the other parts more deeply.

[8:34] But, so one is, at the very end of this, he says, if you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. So, part of this act of love that Jesus did of washing his disciples' feet, he didn't do it begrudgingly.

[8:48] He didn't do it because he had to. He did it in a way that was blessed. He did it knowing that it would bring greater joy. And this is the same way, if anyone that has children, if you want your kids to obey, yes, but you want them to obey with a glad heart, that's, that's the harder part.

[9:07] But so he's teaching his disciples the same thing here. And we'll see, this is not the natural posture of us. It was not the natural posture of Simon Peter. And then I mentioned a couple times, like Jesus highlights here, his role as teacher.

[9:24] And I think that's important. We'll see in the context where this is, but he wants them to know, he is their teacher, and he is teaching them something very important over these next four chapters. Chapters, I don't think he thought in terms of chapters, but over these next couple hours, because he knew he was getting ready to leave them.

[9:40] So he is, this is the train the trainer model. He is getting these people ready to carry on this mission after he's gone. Okay.

[9:52] All right. So now, how did Jesus love and teach his disciples? So these are the order we're going to go through. So he is the great teacher, and he taught them by a visible demonstration.

[10:04] He showed them something. He showed them like how to do something. And then he answered some questions during that process. And then he explained it. So we just went through the explanation.

[10:16] So I want to dive more into, what did he show them, and how did he handle their questions? All right. So, so now we've done the first part. Now we're, now we're at the turning point.

[10:26] This is like the context of this act that Jesus did. So first, we're right here. If you have seen these Bible product videos, they're pretty helpful. Might be a good thing to go look at. Again, now we've taken a break for a month or three weeks.

[10:40] But this is where we are, right here, that red box. And we're at this turning point. The first 12 chapters of John cover about three, three and a half years of Jesus' life.

[10:52] And then these next, well, the next four chapters cover hours. Like, like, it is a deep dive in just hours of Jesus' life. But the, the rest of the book is just the next few days.

[11:04] So, I think it's pretty, like, this is intentional by the author. He wanted us to know what Jesus did for these three and a half years.

[11:15] But he wants to dive deep into these last few hours of Jesus' life and show what he learned from the great teacher. So, similar, I mean, this is hard to see up here.

[11:31] But, this is like the Holy Week. This is, you know, the Passion Week. And, these are all the different things that Jesus did in that, in that Passion Week. But I, I highlighted just in John, it goes from triumphal entry and some Greeks see Jesus.

[11:47] So, extremely public ministry and Jesus did some teaching. But then, all these other acts that were recorded are in the other Gospels. John does not include.

[11:58] He goes from, he wants to highlight this great public ministry and now we're in the upper room. He wants to show, there's like a contrast. He wants to, I'm going from telling you about Jesus' public ministry to telling you what he taught us.

[12:14] Okay. Alright, so, that's where we are context-wise in the book of John. We're at this turning point. But now, I want to talk about Jesus could have loved his disciples in many different ways.

[12:27] to show them this small act of love. But he purposely picked foot washing. And so, I want to, I'm going to think, like, why did Jesus pick that? What did, when Jesus thought of foot washing or his contemporaries thought of it, what were they thinking of?

[12:40] So, let's go through a couple of these. So, first, the first time it's mentioned in the Bible, which I bet Jesus knew pretty well, was in Genesis 18. And this is where the practice of foot washing started.

[12:52] And this is with, so the tradition of hospitality with Abraham. And that makes sense. There was, there's an act of foot washing of like, I want to be a good host. I want to make sure my, my guests' feet are clean.

[13:06] Probably dirty. So, hospitality. But then, we also see it here in Exodus where there's, it's related to cleanliness and being priestly able to go do your, your tabernacle tasks.

[13:22] So there's a, there's not just hospitality now, there's also, part of it that has to do with cleanliness, being ready and holy to do the work God has for you. Then, there's also, part of it that has to do with like, humility or submission.

[13:38] So, Abigail, before she, after her husband died and she went to marry King David, she did, she talked about washing feet and like a way of saying, I will submit to this person.

[13:50] There's all these ideas, I think Jesus saw at the same time as he's getting ready to wash his friend's feet. Servitude as well. So, in the psalm here, it's referencing these other nations that will serve Israel and the examples that wash Israel's feet, that kind of idea.

[14:11] And then, these two struck me. If you think about the times in Israel's history where there's great moral failure, right before that is foot washing.

[14:27] You see, so, I think Jesus was thinking of this all. If you think about foot washing and the context, the act of submission and hospitality and contrast that with like, something really bad happening.

[14:40] So, it happened in Israel's history twice and then similarly, we're going to see it here. Jesus is going to wash his disciples' feet and then you contrast that with him being betrayed. So, it's like this stark contrast.

[14:51] It's one thing, oh, that guy betrayed you. He washed your feet and then he betrayed you? So, you see it with, in Judges, like, maybe the lowest point.

[15:03] Like, if you read the book of Judges, it is like downhill slope and the end of it, the very end of it, is the story with the Levite and his concubine who is murdered and then just burst around the nation.

[15:19] I don't know if there's kids in the room, but it's pretty gross if you don't know the story, you should look at it. One of those definite PG-13 parts of the Bible. And so, that's, but right before that, it's the, there was foot washing and feeding and eating and then that's the rest of the story.

[15:38] And then similarly, if you think of Israel's greatest king and he is going to, his greatest moral failure, it's right that David said to Uriah, go down to your house and wash your feet and then he murders him a couple later.

[15:58] All right, so that's kind of like, I think, I mean, Jesus, great teacher, he had all these, he knew all this and still, or because of that, chose this act of love. Also contemporary, I don't know, I'm not going to try and pronounce that, Midrash, I guess I'll try and pronounce it, Makilta, it's not that hard.

[16:17] At the time, I don't know, he, he wrote this, that a Jewish slave does not have to wash the feet of his master. You could have a non-Jewish slave require them to wash people's feet, but not, not a Jewish slave.

[16:32] It was beneath a Jewish slave at the time to do this. So, this was not, a glorified job. But I think it kind of highlights this last part, it's not from the Bible, not from the Bible, the last two aren't.

[16:46] But Jesus has a, a tendency to redeem things that are, seem less than, or seem bad. So, we see the cross now as a symbol of love and sacrifice.

[16:59] It was not that way at the time. It was a symbol of death and torture and horribleness. And the same thing with this foot washing. He knows he's going to do something that changes the way the rest of history thinks about foot washing.

[17:15] And same thing with a meal. We're going to do communion later. Like, we're called now not to just eat and not think about it, but anytime we gather and eat together as a church, like, it is different now.

[17:27] We're supposed to think back to what Jesus did. So, he is changing the definition of what these things mean. All right. All right, so now, now for kids, get ready.

[17:38] This is where we're going to start getting some of those answers to the main question. So, Jesus taught his disciples in the end, like, love like I loved. I loved and I'm the master.

[17:50] If the master's willing to do it, shouldn't you do as well? So, I think we understand that's the call. So, now it's, well, how did Jesus love is the main question. So, let's go through this.

[18:01] We're going to, let me read this, verses 1 through 3 again and we'll dive into them. 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.

[18:16] During supper, when the devil had already put it in the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, that he had come from God and was going back to God.

[18:31] So, with hours left on earth, Jesus, these are the things Jesus is thinking before he goes into this act of love.

[18:47] So, one of the things he thinks about is now before the Passover, Jesus knew his hour had come to depart. He is, has a proper sense of urgency right here. He's not hurried. He could have taught his disciples this message anytime, but he chose this hour.

[19:01] He knows he's getting ready to depart from this world. So, I think that's, I didn't even write down, but I think that's probably a good place to be. There's like a proper sense of urgency of calling to do our mission and Jesus had that right here.

[19:17] So, next, answer to, main question number one is out of this world to the Father. Like, this is, Jesus is getting ready to die and he's thinking about where he's going to go next.

[19:32] With that perspective, this eternal heavenly perspective, he, that motivates him to love right now.

[19:43] So, I think, as we talk about this, I hope it's clear, we're going to see there's this call to love, but the world can do some of this. They can love people in great ways, the secular world, but what, I would say, there's some of these answers that differentiate the way we love than the rest of the world.

[20:00] And so, one of them is, we aren't just loving so that someone will like us or someone will think we are a nice person or because it's what we're supposed to do. We love with eternity in mind.

[20:11] We know that these acts of love now are investments for the first 10,000 years in heaven. And I think Jesus is thinking about that right here. Out of this world, he is excited to go back to the Father and that drives him to love his friends right now.

[20:28] Answer one, we love with the heavenly slash eternal perspective. All right, answer two, here we go. Oh, wrong way.

[20:40] Having loved his who were in the world, he loved them to the end. So I said answer two here is we are called to love long. Jesus knew that there was opportunity like, he could have just kind of slacked off here.

[21:05] He's like, I know what's coming up next. I'm going to love you on the cross. But he chose this one. He's going to keep, he wants to finish the race well. He wants to love for the long distance.

[21:17] I think that's important for all of us in this room as well. Sometimes it can feel like I've loved that person for so long, haven't I loved them enough? And it takes wisdom and discernment to kind of know the best way to love someone.

[21:29] Maybe, you know, it's not always like being right next to them with them, but I think we all have the call to like not just love for sprints, but to love for the marathon. And I think about those of you that have parents or myself, we aren't just called to love them when they're young.

[21:46] We're not just called to love them until they're 18. We are investing in this relationship with our children for their whole life. And so, but that's just one example, but I'll get into the applications later, but Jesus knew the tendency or the temptation to like love off and on or to love for a sprint, but he is calling us to love long.

[22:10] He thought about it. He's like, I've loved them to the end. He loved them to the completion of that love, which he did on the cross, but I really think, in my reading, I think there's like a time duration of this.

[22:26] I'm going to love them for a long time. Okay. All right, next one. Answer three. You guys get that answer two?

[22:37] Good. Answer three. He loved them regardless. When Jesus washed his disciples' feet, you know, all 12 of them were in there.

[22:49] He's washing all their feet. He did, he included in that, he loved and washed Judas' feet. And he did it in a way that was not begrudgingly. No one knew, when Jesus said, one of you is going to betray me, no one knew.

[23:01] It wasn't like he washed everyone's feet and then just like threw water in Judas' and like, it's probably the guy going to betray him. He loved Judas. He loved him regardless of the fact that Judas was about to betray him.

[23:16] I think this is good for all of us to hear, important for all of us to hear. We are called to love those around us whether or not they reciprocate that love.

[23:28] Whether or not they understand why we love them. And it wasn't just here.

[23:39] We talked about this about three and a half years of Jesus' public ministry. He loved Judas that whole three and a half years. He did not love him in the beginning and then thought, you know what, he's going to betray me and kind of like let his love decline.

[23:53] He loved him long and he loved him regardless. Jesus chose to love a treasonist by humbling himself and washing his dirty feet.

[24:08] He chose to love Peter who was about to abandon him. Like falsely say, I'll stand with you forever and then leave him.

[24:18] he loved all his disciples regardless of their response to him. So, Jesus loved with an eternal perspective.

[24:30] He loved for long and now we see he loves regardless. And so, this is our model. Jesus said, Lair, I'm going to do this. You are called to do likewise.

[24:43] Alright, answer four. He loved in response to the promises from the Father. Again, this is one of those that differentiates the way that we love from the world.

[24:55] The world can train people to love or show kindness. Maybe we're not love in the same way but show kindness for a long time or regardless.

[25:08] Maybe. I don't know. But we love in response to the promises of the Father. He knows that the Father has given him all things into his hands.

[25:19] He is not relying, he's trained us not to rely just on our own strength but to lean into the Father. This is good news because we will often fail or feel overwhelmed to, under this call to love others but we aren't doing it based on our own strength.

[25:40] And it becomes more clear with the promise of the Holy Spirit as we understand that more. This triune God is not only calling us to love but also empowering us to love in the strength of the Spirit.

[25:56] So that promise is good news for us that we don't have to love on our own strength. We can trust on the promises of the Father. Alright, answer five. Here we go. Similarly, that he'd come from God and was going back to God.

[26:11] So there's a security there. So there's a secure love of the Father. We know where we came from and where we're going. And so we have the promise that God will enable us to do this call but we also have the security of that he is with us no matter what.

[26:27] So there's one more we'll get to in a moment in the next passage but these are the I would say the first five as I meditate on the Scripture and read like these are like Jesus wants us to learn that our call to love this is kind of how it looks.

[26:46] We love small. We love long. Small is one to do next but I give it a thing. We love regardless. And then we rely on the eternal secure love of the Father and His promises.

[27:00] Okay. Dang it. That was like the cliffhanger of the sixth one for the kids. Alright. Alright. So we're about to get into this verse four or five and this is like Jesus demonstrating this love.

[27:18] Okay. Alright. Now we talked a lot about this foot washing. So before we romanticize what foot washing is I'm going to read from the Jesus Storybook Bible which is really good if you haven't read it.

[27:37] This is a picture from it. Now the this is a quote. Now the thing about feet back then was that people didn't wear shoes. They only wore sandals which might not sound unusual except that the streets in those days were dirty.

[27:52] And I don't just mean dusty dirty. I mean really stinky dirty. With all the cows and horses everywhere you can imagine the stuff on the street that ended up on their feet.

[28:06] So there's a reason that no one wanted to do this job. It was pretty gross. There were no pedicures back then. I don't know if there was cream for athlete's foot.

[28:18] I don't even know if they had like toenail clippers. They might have like bite or peel. Yeah. So this was a dirty job. So we talked a lot about and this is where I get back to like Jesus redeemed us so we see it differently now.

[28:32] All right. All right. So there so one thing I want to mention like we're now in the part of John where he has slowed down from this like three and a half years of mystery to like these few hours and he notes so many physical details in this story.

[28:51] I feel like John like it was very like Jesus did this very conspicuously and then John and the rest of the disciples was homed and like watched his every movement and he recorded these. Okay. So I'm going to ask for some help from the kids here.

[29:03] Children. Okay. So we're going to go through. I want to look at all these physical details. So if you see an action verb I'm going to go in order. If you see an action verb you know what an action verb is?

[29:14] Nods. Yeah. If you see an action verb what's the first action verb you see here? Look at the passage. What's the first action Jesus did? Raise your hand. Hannah you got it?

[29:28] No? Look up there. Jesus. He rose. He just like got up. Everyone's eating supper and then Jesus stood up.

[29:39] Okay. I wonder what he's doing. What's the next action verb kids? Raise your hand. Come on. Jack. Thaddeus.

[29:53] What else you got? He laid. Yeah. He took off he laid aside his outer garment. So you're eating dinner all of a sudden Jesus stands up everyone looks over takes off his jacket his outer jacket.

[30:04] That's strange. What's next? I know you kids know this. Zachary. He grabbed a towel. He just like grabbed a towel that was sitting there and just grabbed it.

[30:18] Okay. So he like very all these actions seem like out of the blue. If you're just sitting there eating dinner all of a sudden your dad got up took off his jacket grabbed a towel tied it around his waist like this is this is not Jesus doing this in the shadows.

[30:38] This is Jesus wanting his disciples to see what he's about to do for them. And the next one poured water into a basin. So not just now like in my mind this is a quiet room everyone's washing Jesus and now that he picks up there's like this sound of pouring what is he doing?

[30:56] And then he washes their feet. Remember this is not a clean job. This is a pretty gross job. And this was not going to be fast either.

[31:08] He didn't just wash one person's feet. He has 12 people in there he's washing their feet. One after another. And then finally he dries their feet.

[31:19] And this isn't like here you grab a towel you can dry your feet. He uses the towel that's tied around his waist. He's like right up on them. So like this was a extremely visible demonstration sensory demonstration of how to love someone.

[31:35] And the other thing I want to point out here is Jesus saw a need people with dirty feet and he wanted to love them in like this public way. We don't always have to love in an extremely public way but he wanted them to know that I love you.

[31:50] I want you to know all of you. I love this whole group here. But none of those are miraculous. We've seen now going through the book of John there's these different signs of Jesus showing his power and his might and his love and care for the people.

[32:05] These are none of those signs. And he stood up grabbed took off his clothes put on a towel poured water into a basin and washed and dried feet.

[32:18] So I kind of already gave it away the final answer here for how Jesus loved us he loves small. he didn't wait for or look for an opportunity to love them in some medium or better way.

[32:35] He intentionally chose this very small act to show that he loved them in a group. And we'll get to the application at the end and I've kind of just been brainstorming you know spoke with Megan about it as well like what are some ways that this looks like and so I'll give you some examples of what I think this could look like nowadays but you don't have to wait for these big opportunities to love someone.

[33:02] You love them in the small everyday moments. Alright. Alright so now so we've answered topical objective alpha which is how do we love like Jesus?

[33:16] He loves small he loved long he loved regardless and then he loved in light of eternity in light of the secure love of the Father and the promises of the Father.

[33:27] So as Christian we have to be able to like do both of those. We don't love just in our own strength we love based on the power of the Father and the Spirit. And we don't love just thinking about love of what the Father calls us to do we actually do it.

[33:43] So it's twofold here. You love in light of the gospel and then you actually do something. So now we'll get to the topical objective bravo which is not on the exam and that's like how do we answer questions?

[34:00] This is I found it was good for me so I want to include it but I want to get to some of the questions that people had during this situation. So I'll read this apart again.

[34:11] 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 understand now. but afterwards you will understand. Peter said to him you shall never wash my feet.

[34:23] And 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.

[34:40] For he knew he was to betray he knew who was to betray him. That is why he said not all of you are clean. So during this demonstration oh yes pause think about it if you are a teacher or you have ever taught someone else or taught kids if you have kids I think you can resonate with this experience where you are trying to teach someone something and they just keep asking questions.

[35:05] Some of them good questions some of them very bad questions. And so how did Jesus handle Simon Peter's questions? So we are looking at Jesus as the great lover but also he is teaching.

[35:16] So I think we can get some information like how do you teach someone from this? How did Jesus lovingly teach someone asking questions while he is trying to do something? Alright.

[35:27] So first the first question Peter asks is basically what are you doing God? Or what are you doing Jesus? He is God. You wash my feet?

[35:39] And so Jesus gets this question of what are you doing? And he says I would say if I had to summarize it he says to observe and be patient. I think that is okay.

[35:51] He says you don't understand now but you will understand afterwards. I think that is okay to tell someone that is asking you questions I understand your question we'll talk about this later.

[36:02] I want to finish what I'm doing and then we'll talk about this. He does not do it in a way that is exacerbated or annoyed. He just says you need to observe and be patient.

[36:16] This is a good lesson for me. I have a tendency I can be I want my kids just to listen. Why do I have to say be quiet? So this is like humbling for me.

[36:28] Like I need you to observe and be patient. Alright. So question one by Simon Pierce what are you doing?

[36:40] Alright. Question two says you'll never wash my feet. It's not really even a question I guess it's just a statement but I think this question if I think he is saying I don't I don't think you should do this Jesus.

[36:55] This is beneath you. And this one I would say Jesus gives well it's rightful this one Peter is saying I don't feel comfortable doing this with you Jesus.

[37:11] This is it takes it takes a lot of vulnerability to let someone that you trust and love to say to do this act on your feet. He also might feel some guilt that he should have been the one washing people's feet.

[37:26] He should have thought of this to wash their feet. But so I think part of this is Peter is having a hard time being vulnerable and humble in front of Jesus at this moment.

[37:40] And Jesus teaches him tells him to trust the teacher. You have no share with me. Like there is I know you don't feel comfortable doing this but do it and you will have a share with me.

[37:54] There is there is a purpose behind this. Trust me. And then the last one. So Jesus directs the training to be patient observe. Trust the teacher.

[38:05] Know that this is important. And then the last one. Peter asks a good question I would say. He asked a question and then Jesus answered a different question.

[38:17] I'll say that. Simon Peter said Lord not my feet only but also my hands and my head. And Jesus said to him the one who is bathed does not need to wash except for his feet but is completely clean.

[38:28] And you are clean not every one of you. So this one I think takes a little bit harder to understand what's going on here. But first of all I want to point out there are two different Greek words for wash in this verse.

[38:46] There's wash and bathe. So they translate them different. Wash and bathe. See he says the one who is bathed does not need to wash. So there's two separate words here. And so the first bathing all over.

[39:01] So he says who is bathed does not need to wash. That first bathe. Okay so first of all Jesus answers his question and then gives clarity on a deeper question that Peter didn't even ask.

[39:14] Peter says well if you're going to wash me wash all of me. And Jesus says that's not what you need. But there's actually a teaching moment here.

[39:25] And in response to this question I'm going to teach you something that he wasn't maybe intending to teach them. And so I would say the first so what he does here is he gives clarity to this deeper unasked question of what does this washing mean?

[39:40] This is like saying why are you doing this? And he answers this. And so he says one who's bathed does not need to wash. Except for his feet it's completely clean. And so the first bathed has to do with if you are completely regenerated in Christ then you are washed all over.

[39:59] You are saved. You have salvation. You have security. And I get that partly from 1 John 1 7. So that the regeneration that once and for all cleansing from sin.

[40:13] 1 John 1 7 says but if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin.

[40:25] It's like the commentaries made these connections here. Not just me. It's like there's like a bathing all over and a regeneration and cleansing eternally once and for all from sin. So if you're bathed you are clean once and for all from sin.

[40:39] But then he talks about the washing of the feet. So if you're bathed and washed and cleaned all over the washing of the feet has to do with this daily cleansing of confession.

[40:53] And Mike mentioned this last week. We were going through the Lord's prayer. This communion with God part of that is this daily habit or this reoccurring habit of bringing our sins before the Lord confessing them and receiving that daily cleansing cleansing.

[41:10] So again in 1 John 1 9 so just two verses later right after he says you're cleansed from sin all sin two verses later he says if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

[41:29] So even though we are cleansed from all our sins the regeneration the bathing there's a daily confessing of sin in that cleansing to restore or maintain that communion with God.

[41:43] You'll see that again when we do communion today. There's a call to examine your heart before the Lord and make sure you've confessed those sins prior to taking the bread and wine.

[42:01] How am I doing on time? I assume this would be 30 minutes plus or minus 20 minutes. Jesus is our great lover and teacher and these are the six points we've talked about of how to love.

[42:24] How do we love like Jesus did? So I'm on the last two slides here. Home stretch. We're going to love to the end. similar to what Mike was saying, I don't want to just talk about prayer.

[42:38] We're called to actually pray. And we don't want to just love or talk about loving. We actually want to love. So here are a couple quotes that I found were helpful from Bob Goff and G.K.

[42:49] Chesterton. So don't be scared. If you feel like you're going to love bad, just go ahead and jump in. And I also want to give some examples. don't narrow these down to this is how you love.

[43:02] This is what Ben is saying. These are some examples of ways that I have been loved in small, long, regardless ways. Or ones that I'm trying to work on.

[43:17] So I'm just going to start reading. These are not exhaustive though. There's many others. Serving and discipling kids. First thing I think of, what does it mean to love long?

[43:28] The discipling process of my own children is long, long process. And then we had another kid last year so we reset the timer. One that Megan mentioned was we had a big spill at Costco and some lady came and helped her.

[43:46] She had five kids and this lady came and helped her and the lady was like, oh yeah, we're always on the lookout for how we can help someone else. Her with her kids. So it was like, it's simple, but it stuck with Megan. Intentionally served neighbors.

[44:00] This is one that I know I'm weak at. I want to be able to love my immediate neighbors better. I thought of Jake. Where's Jake? Oh, he's in the back.

[44:11] He's in kids. He's like driving people everywhere. If someone says they're willing to go to church, but they don't have a or he's always finding some people. I don't know how he finds people at the gym probably, but he's like driving them to a small group or church.

[44:26] One way that I'm trying to love in a small way is I really want to be a good listener at work especially. There's some people just wait for their turn to talk and I pray God will help me not do that.

[44:39] Kids, think of what you guys could do here. What would it look like if you cleaned up messes without mom asking? How could you love your parents without being told to do so?

[45:02] Servant church. This is one that there's a reoccurring call. We can talk about there's a tangential benefits. We talk about being blessed in verse 17, but we're called to love in small ways, not necessarily for the benefits, but because it's good.

[45:19] It's what we're called to do. It's obedience. One that I know I struggle at is I think I should do better at calling friends and families that I don't see regularly. There's some people in this church that have done that this week.

[45:31] It's been very helpful and encouraging to me. Finally, think of a church in Boston, which we went to five years ago. Megan and I and our kids flew cross-country and a friend volunteered to drive us to the airport up in Boston.

[45:47] It took hours of her time and then she vacuumed our car afterwards because it must have been pretty dirty. She got no benefit out of that. It was a small act of love.

[45:59] There's no reciprocation. Austin Reed and his family watched our dog for four weeks in their basement. That was very good. All right, final, final, final slide.

[46:10] Promise. all those, again, I want to reiterate, we are called to love in response to the Father's secure love. So don't just do things because I'm doing my own power. And one of the things that has helped me have this eternal perspective are these Every Moment Holy book, if you've seen this book.

[46:29] It's just a bunch of prayers for every moment holy. And this one, at first it seems funny, but it's true. So I'm going to read this liturgy for not the whole thing, but part of it.

[46:41] And so for any of you parents that are going to change a diaper today, you can think about this. So this little act of diapering, though in form sometimes felt as base drudgery, might be better described as one of 10,000 acts by which I am actively creating a culture of compassion, service, and selfless love to shape the life of this family and this beloved child.

[47:03] So we're doing this for the eternity in mind. You can change a diaper knowing that you're loving them, you demonstrate to your other kids, to your spouse, those around you, like you love this child. You're doing it for eternity in mind.

[47:16] All right. All right, I'm going to pray for us then. Father, thank you for this time and space you provided to feed and grow us.

[47:27] King Jesus, you are our example. You saved us from sin and death, and you love us to eternity, and you love us in the small moments of every day.

[47:39] Cause this gospel truth to not just be an idea to contemplate, cause us to live the gospel life you demonstrated to us. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.