Latest / The TakeAway / John 13:1-21 Why Did Jesus Wash His Disciples’ Feet?

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John 13:1-21 Why Did Jesus Wash His Disciples’ Feet? · The TakeAway

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: On the night before his crucifixion, Jesus did something his disciples never expected.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: He took a towel and a basin and began washing their feet.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Why would the Son of God take the place of the lowest servant in the room?
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And why would he wash the feet of the very man he knew would betray him?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: In John chapter 13, Jesus reveals the depth of his love, the cleansing only he to provide, and the humility he calls his followers to demonstrate.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Join Pastor Harry as he unpacks why Jesus washed his disciples' feet and what his example means for us today.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Here's Pastor Harry Barns with today's message.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, and welcome again to the takeaway.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Pastor Harry Barens, and today I want to talk about how we posture ourselves as Christians, both out in a world that does not believe and inside the church where we do.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there is a tendency, every one of us fights, and we rarely say it out loud because nobody wants to admit it.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: It shows up in what we do long before it ever shows up in what we say.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to watch it play out in the disciples themselves in today's message.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Paul names it plainly in Romans chapter 3, verse 23, when he says, for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now, we have said this before in this series, but it is worth saying again because falling short of God's glory does not stop us from wanting it.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: It just sends us reaching for glory of our own.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we do not have to look far to find this, because we were just there ourselves a few episodes back in chapter 12, where John tells us that many of the religious leaders actually believed in Jesus and would not say it out loud.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: And he gives us the reason himself.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: He said, they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now that is the same reaching for our own glory we just named, sitting in men who were standing close enough to believe in him and still could not let go of what people thought of them.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that reaching for our own glory keeps surfacing because it turns into something we do almost without ever noticing that we're doing it, which is that we are constantly sorting the people around us, including ourselves, into who is above us and who is below us.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: We are always asking, even when we would never say it out loud, what the chain of command is, who has been placed over me, and who have I placed under me.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: And we carry that sorting with us wherever we go, looking at almost everyone we meet inside the church and out in the world through the same grid.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what Jesus does, both in what he teaches and in what he does with his own two hands, puts his finger directly on that.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the best picture I know for what he is doing comes from the prophet Malachi in chapter three, verse three, where he says, He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now, a refiner does not heat the metal once and walk away, because he sits there watching it and skims the impurity off the top again and again as it rises, until what is underneath is finally clean enough to see.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what we see on this last night is Jesus doing exactly that with his own men, sitting with them patiently and bringing what is underneath all the way up to the surface.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that is exactly what he does when he washes his disciples' feet, because he is touching the very thing in each of them that wants to be above someone else instead of beneath them.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to watch it hit Simon Peter so hard that he answers him, You shall never wash my feet.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: So here is what I want you to think about as we walk through this today.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine your own pastor stepping down off the platform, coming to where you're sitting, kneeling down in front of you, and washing your feet right there in front of everyone.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: What does that stir up in you?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Somewhere in your mind, that man has already been placed above you.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe because of his title, maybe simply because that is what our culture trains us to do with people who stand up front.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: So what happens in you when the person you have placed above you comes down and places himself beneath you instead and serves you?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: That is the tension I want you to feel today, because it is exactly the tension sitting in that upper room.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it is the same tension Jesus is about to walk every one of his disciples straight into.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: So with that, let's look at how John sets it up in verses one through five.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: It reads, 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.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given him all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Now before we move any further, I want you to notice how John opens this scene because he sets it right inside the Passover week, in the very days when household lambs all across Jerusalem were coming to the end of their time of inspection.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord had commanded this back in Exodus chapter twelve, when he told Israel in verse three to select a lamb, and in verse five, that it be without blemish.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then in verse six, it said, You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now every household preparing for that feast had already selected a lamb this way, and was keeping it in full view of the family until the day it would be killed.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that waiting existed for inspection because the lamb had to be examined in the open long enough to prove there was nothing wrong with it.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that is exactly what is about to happen to Jesus in the days ahead, because he has already entered Jerusalem.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: And across the days that follow, he is going to be questioned and tested by the chief priest, by the elders, and then finally by Pilate himself, who will stand in front of the whole crowd and say, I am bringing him out to you, that you may know that I find no guilt in him.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then Peter will look back on this later in his first letter in chapter one, verse 19, and tell us that we were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the lamb in every house in Jerusalem that week was being proven spotless before it died.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so was he.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: And while the city outside was still busy examining its lambs, Jesus already knew everything there was to know about what was coming for him, down to the smallest detail.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, watch the order John gives us here, because he does something very deliberate.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Before Jesus ever touches a basin, John stacks up what Jesus knew.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And he does it on purpose because in verse one, he tells us Jesus knew that his hour had come and that he loved his own to the very end.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: And in verse three, he tells us Jesus knew that the Father had given him all things into his hands and knew where he had come from and where he was going.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it is out from underneath all of that knowing that the towel comes, because this is a man who knows that everything, all of it, has been placed into his hands.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: And what he does with hands that hold everything is pick up a towel.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And to feel the weight of that, we have to understand what footwashing actually was in that world.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: The roads were dirt.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: People walked in open sandals, and by the time you arrived anywhere, your feet carried the filth of everywhere you had been.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: So when a guest arrived at a house, the host would often provide water for the feet.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: We see this all the way back with Abraham in Genesis chapter 18, verse 4, when he receives his visitors and says, Let a little water be brought and wash your feet.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we see it again with Lot in chapter 19, verse 2.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: But notice the arrangement, because the host provided the water and the guest washed his own feet.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: And if there was a servant assigned to do the actual washing, it was the lowest servant in the house, because putting your hands on another person's dirty feet was the single most degrading task anyone could be given.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, when Abigail is told she will become the wife of David in 1 Samuel chapter 25, verse 41, the way she expresses total humility is to bow and call herself a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's how far down this task sat.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was the thing you named when you wanted to say there was no lower place you could possibly take it.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there's one more piece to this that we need before we can move on.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it comes from Luke's account of this very same night.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because Luke tells us what the disciples were doing at this meal, and it is almost impossible to believe.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: In Luke chapter 22, verse 24, a dispute breaks out among them, and it is a dispute about which of them was to be regarded as the greatest.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: So on the last night, in the last hours, at the table where Jesus is about to give them his body and his blood, the men are arguing about rank.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus answers them in verse 27 when he says, I am among you as the one who serves.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then John shows us that he didn't only just say it, because he got up from the table, took off his outer clothing, and became the one who serves, right in front of the men who were fighting over who was the greatest.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: So what we see is that footwashing was a living answer to an argument, and the answer was his own body on the floor.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then we see that he goes around the room and comes to Simon Peter, and Peter's response reveals the heart of what's going on in the men in that room.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: So let's look at verse 6 through 8.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: It says, He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus answered him, What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Peter said to him, You shall never wash my feet.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now we should be careful about how we read into Peter's response here, because it is easy to make him look worse than he is.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: He is not being difficult for the sake of it.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Peter sees exactly what is wrong with this picture, that the teacher is on the floor doing the slave's job while the students sit there with their clean hands.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: And everything in him revolts against this.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: So his refusal is actually a kind of reverence because he cannot stand to see his Lord in that position.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: But what Peter does not yet see is the thing Jesus points at in verse 7 when he says, What I am doing, you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: So what's happening is that there is a meaning here that Peter cannot yet reach.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And because he can't reach it, his reverence hardens into refusal.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: And the refusal is the dangerous part.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because look at how Jesus answers that refusal in verse 8.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: He says, If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now that is a stunning thing to hear because Peter thinks he is protecting Jesus by refusing to be washed.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus tells him that the refusal could cut him off entirely.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: What that means is that this washing is not about etiquette at all, but a picture of something Peter must receive or else have no part in.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the moment Jesus says it, the whole scene stops being about dirty feet and starts being about cleansing.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And Peter, being Peter, swings straight into the other extreme in verse 9, when he says, Lord, not my feet only, also my hands and my head.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus answers him in verse 10, and he says, The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you are clean, but not every one of you, for he knew who was to betray him.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: That was why he said, Not all of you are clean.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is where the whole picture opens up, because Jesus draws a line between two different kinds of washing here.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: He says, There is the bath, which happens once and makes the whole person clean, and then there is the washing of the feet, which happens again and again as a person walks through a dirty world.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says the man who has been bathed does not need the bath a second time because he only needs his feet washed.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: What we see is that Jesus is teaching two things at once, because the bath is the once-for-all cleansing that happens when a person is brought from death to life and never has to be repeated.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the foot washing is the ongoing cleansing a believer needs as they walk through a daily life and pick up the dust of it.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And here's where it gets interesting, because this pattern is written right into the tabernacle where we see Aaron and his sons were ordained as priest.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Moses washed them one time at the very start.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: We read it in Exodus chapter 29, verse 4, and again in Leviticus chapter 8, verse 6, that Moses brought them and washed them with water.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now notice that they did not wash themselves here, because they were washed one time to be made priest.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: But then, once they were serving, there was a bronze basin that stood at the entrance to the tent.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we read about it in Exodus chapter 30, verse 19 through 21, where the priests had to wash their hands and their feet every single time they came near to minister.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: So there was the one washing that made them priest, and then the ongoing washing every time they approached to serve.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: But here is what we need to see in the tabernacle, that ongoing washing was something the priests did to themselves, because they stood at the basin and washed their own hands and feet before they served.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: But in this upper room, Jesus himself gets down on the floor and does the ongoing washing for them.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: What we see is that the new covenant gives us a priest who does the ongoing cleaning also, kneeling in front of us with the basin again and again as we walk.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that cleaning is his alone to do, because no one else can kneel in front of another soul and wash away what is actually wrong there.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: So when we get in a few verses to Jesus telling his men to wash one another's feet, that command asks them to carry his posture, the getting down, the tau, the willingness to serve out into how they treat each other.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: It is love freely given because we have already been made clean.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a debt we are working to pay off.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: The washing that saves is his work.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the washing he commands of us is love wearing the same shape.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that is exactly what the New Testament tells us he is still doing.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: The writer of Hebrews, who calls Jesus our great high priest, tells us in chapter 9, verse 24 that Christ has entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: He is in the true sanctuary right now.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: And John tells us in his first letter, chapter 1, verse 9, that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: That is the foot washing that never stops, because the bath happened once, but the feet get washed for the rest of the walk.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: And the same hands that were pierced are the same hands still holding the basin.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now, before we move on, let's look at what John slips in in verse 11, because it changes everything about this scene.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: John tells us that when Jesus said, Not all of you are clean, he was speaking about the man who would betray him, which means that when Jesus went around that room with the basin, he came to the feet of the man he already knew was planning to sell him out, and he washed those feet also.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: He knelt down in front of Judas and he took Judas's feet in his hands and he washed them exactly the way he washed the others.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: That is what love does when it knows, because it does not skip the feet of the one who is about to break its heart.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now we have to ask, why would Jesus wash the feet of a man he already knew was going to betray him?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: Why not send him away before the basin ever came out?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the answer is that Jesus does not require certainty about a person's heart before he will kneel down and serve it, because verse 11 has already told us he knew exactly who this was and he washed him anyway.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: This was not an accident of compassion because he saw this coming and moved toward it on purpose.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: And we will see exactly how much he saw in just a few verses.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: But the deeper pattern is the one he had just given to Peter because he told Peter in verse 7 that what he was doing could not be understood now, only afterward.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that same pattern holds right here for us as well.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: We are never going to be given the certainty Jesus had in that room.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: We do not get to know ahead of time who is genuinely his and who only looks like it.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: What we get is the basin and the call to use it anyway and to let time reveal what we cannot see up front.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: And this asks something hard of us because loving someone we cannot verify goes directly against the instinct we named back at the start of this episode.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: The instinct that is always sorting people into who is safe and who is not, who has earned our trust and who hasn't, who belongs above the line and who belongs below it.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Washing Judas cuts directly against that sorting because Jesus obeys out in the open in front of the 11 other men who are about to be told to do the exact same thing rather than waiting until safety could be confirmed.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus names this as the standard, not just for that room, but for every room his people will ever walk into, when he says in Luke chapter 6, verse 35, Love your enemies and do good and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: That is the description of whose family we belong to, because the Father Himself is kind to people who have done nothing to deserve it.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And every time that we love someone before we have proof that they deserve it, we are simply acting like our Father.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And having shown them all of that in silence on the floor with his own hands, Jesus is about to put it into words.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: So when he finishes, he sits back down, and now he explains it.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: So let's look at verse 12 through 17, where John says, When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, Do you understand what I have done to you?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: If I then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, notice that Jesus does not soften the titles here.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: He does not say, Stop calling me teacher or Lord.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: He says, You are right, for so I am.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a pattern Jesus taught over and over, as we see in Luke chapter 14, verse 7 through 11.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: It says, Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Say to you, give your place to this person, and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, Friend, move up higher, then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then Paul makes that very same pattern and roots it in Christ himself in Philippians chapter two.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: He tells us in verse five, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then he describes the mind he means in verse eight, that he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: So the tau in the upper room and the cross on the hill are the same motion, because the one who was highest went lowest on purpose for people who could never have earned it.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now hold that on the first phrase of verse 16 when he says, A servant is not greater than his master.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: And once you have watched what just happened on that floor, that sentence stops being a simple statement about rank and becomes something much harder to sit with.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because the master in that room, the one they are right to call Lord, just made himself the least person in it.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: So if a servant is never greater than his master, and the master just took the lowest place there is, then calling him Lord is not simply agreeing that he is above us.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: It is agreeing that we have nowhere left to stand except beneath the very least, because that is exactly where he went.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And we do not get to rank higher than where our master stood.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the same posture Jesus named elsewhere when he told his disciples in Matthew chapter 18, verse 3 Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now we tend to hear that and picture something like wonder or innocence or a simple trusting faith.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: But Jesus points us somewhere else entirely, because in that culture, a child had no standing of their own, and they depended entirely on someone above them for their voice, their inheritance, and their very place in the family.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: So when Jesus says, become like a child, he is asking us to actually stand where a child stood, relying on someone else for everything.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the very next verse tells us this is exactly what he means, because he says, Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: And humbles himself is the very same phrase Paul already gave us in Philippians chapter 2, when he told us that Christ humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is asking his disciples to take the same posture he had already taken himself and to keep taking it one basin at a time for the rest of their lives.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then notice the second half of verse 16, because Jesus plants a seed here that he's going to harvest in just a moment when he says, A messenger is not greater than the one who sent him.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now hold on to that word sent because it is about to become the whole point.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: But first look at what he says in verse 17.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: He says, If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now that word blessed is doing something we might miss.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: He does not say you will feel good if you do them, or that people will admire you if you do them.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: He says you will be blessed.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the great reversal at the heart of his whole kingdom, because the world says you rise by climbing and you fall by kneeling.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says it runs exactly the other way.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that the one who kneels is the one who is lifted up, and the one who grabs for the high seat is the one who is brought down.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I say this all the time because I have to preach it to myself first.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing that will expose your heart faster than getting down on a floor to do something nobody else would ever have blamed you for skipping.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: When you take the lower place and no one required it of you, something in you either fights it or breaks free in it.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And both of those things are worth knowing about yourself.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: And here's what's important to know kneeling can never actually lower a believer because Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 6, that God has already raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: That is the position we serve from.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: We are already seated with Christ, already lifted as high as a person can be lifted before we ever pick up a towel.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so a few verses later in verse 10, when Paul says, We are created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them, we see that the seating comes first and the serving comes second, because we do not wash the feet to climb up to the seat.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: We wash feet because we are already seated, and there is no height we could lose by kneeling.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that security is exactly what makes what comes next so unsettling, because not every man at that table was resting on it the same way.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: So Jesus has given them the command, but now he pulls back and says something that would have chilled the room.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: So let's look at verses 18 and 19.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I am not speaking of all of you.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: I know whom I have chosen, but the scripture will be fulfilled.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am he.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is not the first time Jesus has said this.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: Way back in chapter six, verse 70, after a huge crowd had abandoned him, and only the twelve were left, Jesus looked at those twelve and said, Did I not choose you the twelve?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: And yet one of you is a devil?
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: So this shadow has been over the group for a long time here.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: And here in chapter 13, Jesus makes it plain that when he says, I know whom I have chosen, he is not saying all twelve are truly his.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now I've watched this happen in ministry more times than I care to see.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Someone joins and sits at the table and looks every bit like one of the family.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then a day comes when they walk away, and their leaving makes plain what was already true underneath.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: Judas had his feet washed by the Son of God, and it did not make him clean because he never received it.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: Proximity to Jesus was never the same thing as belonging to Jesus.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: And notice why Jesus is telling them all of this ahead of time in verse 19, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am He.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: He's not warning them so that they can stop it.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: He is warning them so that when the betrayal comes and it looks for a moment like everything has spun out of control, they will remember that he saw it coming, named it in advance, and was never once called off guard.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: What we see is that the betrayal will not disprove that he is who he says he is, because it will prove it.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: And having just spoken about the one who would not receive him rightly, Jesus turns in the very next breath to speak about everyone who will.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he takes the word he planted back in verse 16, the word sent, and he opens it all the way up.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: So let's look at verse 20.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now watch what Jesus is building here, because it is a chain with three links.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: There is the Father who sends the Son, there is the Son who is sent by the Father, and who now sends his people.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: And there are the people he sends.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says the chain runs in both directions at once, so that to receive the one he sends is to receive him, and to receive him is to receive the father who sent him.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: What that means is that when one of his people carries his word to someone, and that person receives it, they are not merely receiving a messenger, because they are receiving Christ, and through Christ, the Father Himself.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is going to pray this exact thing over these men just a few chapters from now in the great prayer of John chapter 17.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: He's going to say to the Father in verse 18, As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: And he will pray in verse 15, I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one, because they are being sent right into it.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: So the sending we hear in a single sentence here in chapter 13 becomes the burden of his whole prayer in chapter 17, because he is sending them into the world the very same way the Father sent him into it.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: And this is why all through the rest of the New Testament, we are given the language of people who have been sent.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: Paul tells the Corinthians in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now, an ambassador does not speak for himself because he carries the word of the one who sent him, and to welcome the ambassadors to welcome the king.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: And Peter calls us sojourners and exiles in his first letter, chapter two, verse 11, where he says, Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against the soul.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: That is the picture of someone only ever passing through, carrying a word that belongs to the country they actually came from.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we are sent like ambassadors into a world we are only passing through, and the word we carry was never our own.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then right after saying all of this, John shows us something break open in Jesus in verse 21.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: It says, After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit and testified, Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is the same Jesus who just a moment ago was calmly teaching about being sent, and suddenly John tells us he was troubled in his spirit.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: The betrayal that has been sitting under this whole scene finally rises up into words, and he says it out loud to the whole table.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: One of you will betray me.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then he stops.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: He does not name the man.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: He lets the sentence hang in the room, and the men begin looking at one another, each one wondering if it might be him.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that is where we're going to stop today.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right there in that silence, with the question hanging over the table, because that is exactly where John wants us to sit before we find out who it is.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: So let's come back to where we started today.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: We said that falling short of God's glory does not stop us from wanting it.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: It just sends us reaching for glory of our own.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that reaching is what turns into all our sorting, all our ranking of who stands above us and who stands below.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: And on his last night, Jesus knelt down in front of that very instinct with a towel in his hands.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: So let me ask it plainly.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: What does love do when it knows?
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because now we have watched love answer that question three times over.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: It knew the cross was hours away, and it knelt down anyway.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: It knew it held all authority in its own hands, and it picked up a towel anyway.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it knew the man who would betray it was sitting right there, and it washed his feet anyway.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: What we see is that the love of Christ is not a love that waits to find out whether you deserve it, because it is a love that already knows the very worst about you and moves towards you on the floor.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he said that this is our example, that we ought to wash one another's feet.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now, for most of us, that will almost never mean an actual basin.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: It will mean cutting the grass for the neighbor who can't, taking a meal to the family that is drowning in sorrow, and carrying the trash cans out for the widow next door, and sitting with the person nobody else has the time to sit with.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: It will mean doing the low thing, the thing nobody would blame you for skipping, the thing that costs you something and earns you nothing the world can see.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: And here's the thing about that kind of serving, because it makes the world ask a question it would never otherwise ask.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: When a person who could clearly have taken the higher seat gets down and does the lower thing, for no reason the world can explain, someone is going to look at that and ask, why would you do that?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: No other posture pulls that question out of people the way this one does.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because only a person who is obviously free to stay up high and who kneels down anyway makes the watching world stop and wonder where that comes from.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that question is the doorway.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because when they ask why, we get to tell them who sent us.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: This is how the world comes to see that we belong to the one who washed feet.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: When they watch us take the lowest place on purpose and find no bitterness in us when we do.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, A servant is not greater than his master, and our master knelt down on a floor.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: So the mark that we are truly his was never how high we can climb in his name, it is how low we are willing to go in his love.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus tells us exactly where this ends up.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: He says in Matthew chapter 5, verse 16, Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: So watch how the whole thing moves.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: We kneel because we are already seated with Him and have nothing to lose by it.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: The world sees it and asks where it comes from.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: And when they find out that it comes from Him, the glory goes up past us to the Father.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: And here's the part I don't want you to miss, because the whole way through it, there's joy.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: We are not kneeling in order to be seen, we are kneeling because we are already His.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it turns out that the lowest place is where the joy actually is, and the joy spills over into praise, and the praise becomes glory to God.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: That is the whole reversal right there.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: The instinct we started with today chases the glory that comes from man.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: But Jesus calls us to chase the glory that belongs to God instead.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: And every time we take the lower place instead of the higher one, we are choosing which glory we actually live for.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because the Tao was never a step down.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: In the kingdom of God, the Tao is the throne.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: So let me leave you with this question, this whole scene puts to each of us.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: Whose feet is Jesus asking you to wash?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: And underneath of that, the question that shows whether you have really understood any of this, when you picture getting down on the floor to do it, does something in you fight it?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Or has his love already set you free enough to kneel?
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: Father, thank you that you knew everything about us, the very worst of it, and knelt down in front of us anyway.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for a Savior who took all authority into his hands and used it to pick up a towel.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: Teach us to kneel the way he knelt, without bitterness and without fear, because we are already seated with him and have nothing to lose.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: And let the watching world see it and ask where it comes from and be led home to you.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: We ask this in the name of the one who washed our feet.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: I want to thank you again for joining us today, and I hope this message has helped you take a step closer to living the way Jesus lived on that last night, kneeling low and loving the people right in front of you.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if anything today resonated with you, if you have any questions or comments, please click on the text us link in the episode description because we would truly love to hear from you.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in our next episode, we're going to stay right here at this table and we find out who Jesus was speaking about and what he does with the one he already knew would betray him.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: God bless, and we'll see you next time on the takeaway.