Love Is Washing Feet
What is Love?
"Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired." - Mark Twain
"Love is friendship set on fire." – unknown
"Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it...It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more." - Erica Jong
"Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Love is like war: Easy to begin but hard to end." – Anonymous
"Love is more than three words mumbled before bedtime. Love is sustained by action, a pattern of devotion in the things we do for each other every day." - Nicholas Sparks
"Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence." - Erich Fromm
If you asked Jesus … He’d have a lot to say about it. But from this story, we can see that
LOVE IS WASHING FEET.
1. LOVE
“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. ” (John 13:1, ESV)
A. Context = Fight Over Who Is The Greatest
Luke 22 – At this meal the disciples were busy arguing over who was going to be greatest in the Kingdom.
- The Disciples were expecting Jesus to make the Kingdom of God public
- They’d finally be famous
- Rome would be over thrown
- There would be a new Golden Age of Israel, like in the days of David and Solomon
- Who will be the commander in chief of the army?
- Who will get the choice cabinet appointments?
- Who will have the corner office … the one with all the windows and a view of the temple?
As this fight is brewing … Jesus thoughts are elsewhere.
- He’s thinking about how much he loves this group of goofs
- He’s thinking about the fact that Judas was possessed by Satan and about to betray Him
- He’s thinking that he only has a few more hours to be with the disciples
- He’s thinking about the Cross
His response …
“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 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. ” (John 13:3–5, ESV)
Why?
He would correct their attitudes about greatness … Luke gives us His answer
But before He does that, He gives them the ultimate example of Love.
PRINCIPLE – You Can’t Love Unless You’ve Been Loved, and You Can Only Love To The Extent To Which You’ve Been Loved.
NIV (v.1) showed them the full extent of his love.
ESV (v1) loved them to the end.
“telos” = Ultimate Goal
- The telos (end) of an acorn is to become a tree
- The telos (end) of a child is to grow into an adult
- The telos (end) of Jesus’ love is to be a servant
B. In This Act Jesus Shows Us The Dimensions of Love
Love is Humble – Jesus served in spite of who He was
Love Endures – Jesus served in spite of what He was facing
- Not distracted by the upcoming betrayal, suffering & death
- Totally un-self-absorbed
Love is Patient & Forgiving - Jesus served in spite of who He was serving
1 Corinthians 13:1-7
C. When We Respond To This Love, We Become “Christians”
Christian = Little Christ / Christ-Like
- Christians are people who do more than know about Jesus.
- Christians are people to make this image of Jesus kneeling to wash their feet as the hub of their being.
We can’t love God by ourselves.
It is in this humility and service that we finally see God and are able to love Him.
“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10, ESV)
GOAL OF LEADERSHIFT – To give us practical tools to express this love.
2. Love Is Washing
Only slaves would wash.
Midrash – Jewish slaves can’t be forced to wash feet
Feet back then were dirty
Walked dirt roads, covered in droppings, mud and rocks
Caked in dust, mud and filth
Scratched, Wounded, Infected
Real dirt, real filth, real pain
Love is Not Tolerance
Vision for who you could be …
Becky Pippert’s book, Hope Has Its Reasons.
“Think how we feel when we see someone we love ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might with strangers? Far from it…Anger isn’t the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference.” (Becky Pippert, Hope Has Its Reasons.)
Pippert then quotes E.H. Gifford, “Human love here offers a true analogy: the more a father loves his son, the more he hates in him the drunkard, the liar, the traitor.’
She concludes: “If I, a flawed narcissistic sinful woman, can feel this much pain and anger over someone’s condition, how much more a morally perfect God who made them? God’s wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer of sin which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being.” (Tim Keller, Preaching Hell in a Tolerant Age, (Leadership Journal, Fall, 1997), page 48).
This Was the Passover Meal
Exodus Connection
- People in bondage
- Unable to free themselves
- Judgment was falling on Egypt
- God wanted to set aside His own people
- He didn’t just choose to have judgment fall on the Egyptians
- They all equally deserved it
- He couldn’t save Israel & punish Egypt based on merit
- That’s why there had to be a sacrifice
Sacrifice to pay for First Born
“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. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:7–9, ESV)
When We Respond, We Take The Form of Servants to Help Real People With Real Sin Meet a Real Jesus
GOAL OF LEADERSHIFT – To Equip CGS To Help Real People With Real Sin Meet a Real Jesus
3. Love Is Washing Feet
If one false way of expressing love = Tolerance
Another fake love = Attraction
- Not just romantic/sexual attraction
- Attracted to a personality type
- Attracted to someone’s success
- Attracted by common hobbies
- Attracted by their mind and wit
The essence of Love is not attraction … it is service
HUNGER vs. LOVE
Love based on attraction is really HUNGER
- I want you to fill my emptiness
- I want you to make me feel significant
- I want you to make me feel whole and happy
- I want you to help me feel like a fulfilled individual
Love is not hunger, it is service
- I want to help fill your emptiness
- I want to help you feel significant
- I want you to feel whole and happy
- I want you to become a fulfilled individual
- The only way I can do this is to bring you to Jesus
- But bringing you to Jesus might be a long, slow process
- So I’m going to have to wash your feet
- Get to know your real sins
- Get to know your real pains
- Get involved with the real filth of your life
- So that you can be washed, healed and saved
Golden Rule of Love
Isn’t this what you would want?
The “GOLDEN RULE” is “do to others as you would have them do to you.”
In other words … you owe whatever you want.
This is what Jesus is telling us.
- To cultivate this sort of love … don’t wait for feelings of love. Just find a set of feet to wash.
v.34 // v.14
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. ” (John 13:34, ESV)
“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ” (John 13:14, ESV)
Foot Washing Is An Ongoing Challenge For the Church
When we respond, we learn to measure our love not on the emotions, response or satisfaction gained
GOAL OF LEADERSHIFT = To Learn To Measure Our Love By Who We Serve, Not How We Feel
4. Two Paths Of Response
Judas vs. Peter
JUDAS
- Had the best small group
- Had the best preacher
- Had the best example
- Had great training
- That’s his input
Also
- He had been sent to minister
- Probably saw more lives changed than all of us combined
- That’s his output
Yet in all this he was never a Christian
HUNGRY – wanted Jesus to make him important
He wanted Jesus to make him rich, to bring about an earthly kingdom
In the end, he betrayed Jesus because Judas couldn’t understand what it meant to base your life around the idea of washing someone’s feet.
PETER
Resisted – Don’t wash my feet
Submitted – Not my feet only, but my heads & hands (complete)
Failed – Betrayed Jesus three times
SHIFTED …
“When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.” ” (John 21:15–19, ESV)
Peter’s live was changed.
He learned LOVE because He had been loved by Jesus
He learned to Wash other’s sins because his own sins had been washed
He even learned to wash feet … moving away from all desire for success and comfort … submitting to his own death on a cross … so that He could show how much he loved Jesus.
Conclusion
- You Need A Bath
- You Need Jesus To Wash Your Feet Every Day
- You Need to Organize Your Life So That You Wash Other People’s Feet
Jesus washed us to make us a part of His Kingdom.
Now we are able to serve, washing other people’s feet lovingly, humbly and practically so that real people with real sin can meet a real Jesus