Jesus Washing His Disciples' Feet. This message was first preached on January 29, 1865 by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Our text for this morning comes from the book of John, John 13, verse 6. Jesus came to Simon Peter, who said to him, Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"

Our Savior had so faithfully set his face towards the awful sufferings of his passion that when they actually approached he was not in the slightest degree disturbed or unsettled. If you were absolutely aware that tomorrow morning, after a night of terrible agony, you would be led out to a cruel and humiliating death You would probably feel like men distracted with terrible apprehensions and fears. Or at any rate, if through grace you were able to be calm and peaceful, your mind would scarcely be in a fit state to minister consolation to others or to conceive new methods of instruction for your friends.

But look at your Lord and Master. It is the evening of the same night in which he was betrayed. Because he is God, he knows in advance that the bloody sweat within an hour or two will cover his body. He is well aware that he who is eating supper with him will that night betray him. He foresees that he must feel the Roman scourge and be the victim of Jewish slander. He truly knows and understands that he must bear all the wrath of God on the behalf of his people.

And yet he sits at supper. He eats as if no unusual cloud were lowering over him. And when the supper is over, his inventive mind is fully at work with admirable plans of instruction for his disciples. And he stands up. takes off his outer clothing and wraps a towel around his waist. He goes to his disciples as they are reclining around the table. Coming up behind them, he begins to wash the feet of the first one and then another.

What blessed calmness of mind! What sacred serenity of spirit! Oh, that our hearts were equally fixed on God in our days of trial and grief. Without question, we may go further and most solemnly notice that there was in the near approach of death a joy in Jesus's heart into which no stranger could enter. What he had longed for was now about to be accomplished. Didn't Jesus say, I have a baptism to undergo and how distressed I am until it is completed. Jesus also said, I have a great desire to eat this Passover with you before I die.

Did this account for his giving out a hymn of praise on that mournful night? For after supper they sang a hymn. Did that account for his adding these remarkable words Now is the Son of God glorified and God is glorified in him. Did his joy in the prospect of what he was about to accomplish for his people swell to the very highest, just about the time when the fountains of the depths of his griefs were about to be broken up, and his spirit to be flooded in agony as he cries out, My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.

Oh, to know His joy, the joy of loving even unto death! Let us come at once to the teaching of our Savior and let it be surrounded with an unusual interest because of the fact that it is His dying teaching. Let us see Him as He wraps Himself with a towel remembering that he was soon to be wrapped with the straps of death. Let us see him, I say, with a more profound interest, because he is just on the verge of these terrible depths where all the waves and thunderclouds of Jehovah's justice will slam over him. His sermon beginning, Do not let your hearts be troubled, is his farewell. These are the last drops of his life that he is now spending. As we see him washing his disciples' feet, we will discover choice love worthy of the last solemn hour of his departure.

We will take the text in four ways. First, there is the question, Lord, are you going to wash my feet? Secondly, there is the admiration. Lord, are you going to wash my feet? Thirdly, there is the gratitude. And fourthly, there is the imitation.

First, there is the question. We know that the Savior washed the feet of Peter, but does he wash our feet also? We do not expect, of course, the literal transaction to take place. But is there anything in the conduct of Christ now analogous to his washing Peter's feet when on earth?

He has washed all believers once for all in his most precious blood. But of this we do not speak this morning. Cleansing as before the bar of justice is completely accomplished forever for all the chosen by His great blood shedding on Calvary. That is a matter of the past, a thing for which to bless God for all eternity. We are clean. Through Jesus' blood we are clean.

But here is another kind of washing, not of the entire man, but of the feet only, not with blood, but with water, not in the fountain filled from the Savior's veins, but in a basin filled with water." Does our Lord Jesus do anything of this kind now? Anything so humbling to Himself and yet so needful for us? Answer, yes, He does. Yes, He does.

And first, doesn't the Savior perform an action parallel with this when He watches over the earthly affairs of His people? Doesn't the Savior perform an action parallel with this when He watches over the earthly affairs of His people? You know, beloved, that not a hair of your head falls to the ground without His care. In all your afflictions He is afflicted, and as the angel of God's presence, He saves you and carries you. Your most insignificant trouble may be taken in prayer to Christ and spread before Him with as much certainty of deliverance as when Hezekiah spread Sennacherib's letter before the Lord. For Jesus waits to be gracious to His own beloved In every event of life, we should adore the providential care of our great shepherd and friend, for the government is on his shoulder.

Now, therefore, when Jesus oversees your daily affairs, helps with your family troubles, and bears your household cares, saying to you, Cast all your anxiety on me because I care for you. Is he not in effect doing for you what he did for Peter, washing your feet? For he is caring for your lowest part and looking after your poor dust-stained body. O King of glory, the stars would not make a crown worthy of you, the hurricane would be a poor chariot for your glory. And yet you stoop, you stoop from all this greatness to observe man, who is less than a worm, to observe me, less than the least of all your saints, and to care for me as a mother cares for her child. It is true, he does do it. He does in this sense wash his people's feet.

When Jesus Christ cleanses us from our daily weaknesses and sins, doesn't he, in effect, wash our feet? When Jesus Christ cleanses us from our daily weaknesses and sins, doesn't he, in effect, wash our feet? Last night, when you bowed the knee, you could not help confessing that there had been a lot in the affairs of your life last week. which was not worthy of your standing and profession. And even tonight, when the activities of this day are over, you will have to mourn that you foolishly committed the very same sins which you repented of weeks ago, that you have fallen again into the very swamp of folly and sin from which special grace delivered you long ago. And yet Jesus Christ will have great patience with you He will hear your confession of sin. He will say, I forgive you, be clean. He will again apply the blood of sprinkling. He will speak peace to your conscience and remove every spot.

Oh, it is a great act of eternal love when Christ once for all completely forgives the sinner, takes him from under the dominion of the law and puts him into the family of God. But what tolerance, what patience there is when the Savior with great compassion bears the daily follies of the recipient of so much mercy, day by day and hour by hour, covering with His blood the constant sin of the sinning, but yet beloved child.

To dry up a flood of sin is something marvelous, but to endure the constant dripping of daily sins, to bear with that constant trying of patience, this is indeed divine. To blot out all of our sins at once like a thick cloud, this is a great and matchless power, as well as grace. But to remove the mist of our sins every morning, and the dew of it every night. Oh, this is condescension. I wish I could describe it better. It is the picture of condescension to wash Peter's feet.

Consider again our poor prayers, which are very much like the feet of our soul. Since with them we climb to heaven, With them we run after God. Our poor prayers always need washing. Our poor prayers, which are very much like the feet of our soul, since with them we climb to heaven, with them we run after God, our poor prayers always need washing.

It is oftentimes easier to do something over than it is to mend and patch up a work which has been poorly done by others. Then what patience it must require in Christ's case to take my poor, imperfect, and polluted prayers and make them fit to be presented before His Father's face. There are His own prayers for me. I thank Him for them, for they triumph. But I cannot help also blessing him that he should take my prayers and put them into the censer and offer them before his father's face. For I am certain that before they can have been fit to offer, they must have experienced a great deal of washing.

John tells us that he offers the prayers of the saints. This is indeed humbling himself. Oh, how much waste and excess must have been taken away from our petitions when we have asked for what we ought not to have desired? How much of omission must have been made up when we have forgotten to ask for the things which we needed most? How much of our unbelief he must take out of our prayers? How much coldness, deadness of heart? How much formality and wandering of thought Oh, how much holy life and holy faith and holy joy must the dear Redeemer have infused into our supplications before they could have been fit to come up before the ears of the Lord God of hosts.

Yes, impatiently bearing with my prayers, Jesus does daily wash my feet. Think still more. Jesus makes our works acceptable. These may be compared to the soul's feet. It is by the feet that a man expresses his activity. The walk of a Christian, by this we mean the good works which the Christian performs for his Master. But look at our works. If Christ would simply throw all of our good works into a heap and let them rot, that would be the quickest way to deal with them. If he would take our gifts to the poor, our preachings, our teachings of others, our prayers and thoughts, and good works all together, and just throw them into the fires of hell, how dare we complain?

But instead of that, He is not unrighteous to forget our work of faith and labor of love, but remembers that his Father is glorified when we bear much fruit. I remember hearing of someone who made sugar out of old rags. But then it was found that the sugar cost a great deal more than the sugar was worth. The manufacturing costs were greater than the goods were worth when produced. And judging from our point of view, this is something like our works. Jesus Christ makes sweetness out of the poor rags of our good works. Surely I may say they cost Him more in the manufacturing than what the raw material was worth, or the finished works themselves are worth, except in His opinion.

Couldn't He, if He pleased, Convert men and women without our preaching? But he will not do it. He would rather that they be brought in by our imperfect preaching and therefore he washes our preaching. He washes our feet. Couldn't Jesus save sinners without you, my sister? Without you, my brother? And yet he sets you longing after souls and opens your mouth to speak a good word to them. and he accepts what you do.

But oh, what condescension there is, what tenderness, what divine stooping from his loftiness that he should cleanse your works. It is more than he ever did for angels. When an angel had defiled his service, he banished him from heaven. But despite all the imperfection of our service, We expect that in Christ we will be welcomed into heaven with the words, well done, good and faithful servant.

If you want other instances of the familiar condescension of Christ, let me remind you of how patiently he is content to suffer in his people's sufferings. Let me remind you how patiently he is content to suffer in his people's sufferings. Not a pang of pain shoots through that head of yours that Jesus doesn't know and feel. Not a grief that makes your heart ache is overlooked. Rather, Christ intimately shares in those griefs.

The Bible says the Lord will sustain him on his sickbed and restore him from his bed of illness. Oh, what a blessed text that is. As one old expositor says, Jesus does not merely make up their pillow, but makes up all of their bed comfortable for them, where their feet lie, where their head lies, all of it. Jesus says, I will come and I will have great sympathy with them in all of their grief, from the beginning to the end of it, I will make them happy in the midst of grief through my divine comfort. I will sustain them on their sickbed and restore them from the bed of illness.

Haven't you experienced the wonderful presence of Christ in your worst times, so exactly fitted to your particular case that you did not know which to admire most, the love which visited you or the condescending care which brought itself down to your case and sat down at your bedside and put itself so entirely into your position that it could feel as you felt and speak to you just the words which your case required.

The Lord Jesus loves his people so much that every day he is washing their feet. He accepts their poorest work their deepest sorrow he feels, their slightest wish he bears, and their greatest sin he forgives. He is still their servant as well as their friend. He still takes the basin. He still wears the towel. It is not only the majestic deed of intercession that he performs, all the while wearing the crown on his head, and the precious jewels glittering on his breastplate. But humbly, patiently, still like a servant, he goes out among his people, washing his disciples' feet. Oh, I pray to God that I could speak worthily on such a theme as this. But it is true, as your experience must tell you, that he remembers our lowest state, his love endures forever. Before I pass from this point, there is still a question in some of your minds, which is, Lord, have you washed my feet? Lord, have you washed my feet? Some of you are not washed by Christ, for you live without thinking of him. I never did him any harm, says one that I know of. I will ask you another question. What did you ever do for Christ? Can you answer that? You must reply, I have done nothing for him whatever. Oh, then if you have never been enabled to do anything for him, I fear it is because you have lived thoughtlessly without a care for him. But if he had ever washed your feet, you could not forget him, and little as it may be, yet you would have done something, and you would even now be desiring to do more. Ah, my friends, some of you are so far from ever having your feet washed daily that you have never been washed at all. There is a fountain filled with blood, but filled in vain as far as you are concerned. There is a Savior, but you are unsaved. There is a healing ointment in Gilead, but you are not healed. There is a physician there, but you are still sick. There is life in Christ, but you are dead. The bronze serpent is lifted up, but you are dying of the fiery serpent's bite. One look at Jesus will save you, But you have not looked at Him. You are without God, without Christ, without hope, and thus not a child of the King. May God the Holy Spirit visit you with His life-giving power and convince you of your sin this morning. May He make you feel uneasy until you find Christ. May he give you a hunger and a thirst for him that will never be satisfied until you take him into your arms and say, Christ is mine. I wish that I did not have to make this remark, but I must make it in the faithfulness to your souls. You are obliged to answer, no, no, no, the Lord Jesus has never washed my feet. But then send up the prayer. Lord, do it. Lord, do it now for your love's sake. Now we come to our second major point this morning, which is the admiration. The admiration. We see in our text the admiration and we see that in several respects. It is a matter for admiration when we consider the freeness of the deed. It is a matter for admiration when we consider the freeness of the deed. Lord, are you going to wash my feet? It is perfectly wonderful that he should, for we have seldom ever desired the mercy. If you look through the chapter, you will not find that Peter asked Christ to do it. Peter was lying down. He had been eating the supper. He had no thought of Christ washing his feet. There was not one of the twelve that ever dreamed of such a thing. And when the Lord began to wash the feet of one, the others did not say, Lord, come and do the same to me. No, it was unsolicited, unexpected. He comes without any prayers or supplications on their part and begins to wash their feet. Peter is surprised. It is great kindness on Christ's part to do what we ask Him to do, to answer our prayers when we really feel our need. But does He also perform for us such menial, such generous acts as to wash our feet without being asked? O Beloved, if Christ did no more for us than what we ask Him to do, we would perish forever. For nine out of the ten things which he gives us, we never ask for. We do not know our own needs. We have a general idea of our necessities. But our daily needs, our daily wants, who among us can tell what they really are? Christ's sufferings were endured for our unknown sins and to supply our unknown needs. that we might have that multitude of mercies which we may call unknown mercies. We should not only bless God for the mercies which we have known, but for those which we have not known, for probably those make up the larger proportion. You that are Christians, some of you who have been believers in Christ 10 or 20 years, Haven't there been many nights on which you have gone to bed without any particular sense of guilt and without any special prayer for special cleansing? You have forgotten to ask for the cleansing that he has never forgotten to give it. He has spontaneously washed your feet. You have risen in the morning. You were not aware that any special danger would come to you. And you did not pray for special protection, but yet he knew it. And unasked and unsought for, he has followed you, held the shield over you and kept you from danger. He has washed your feet without you having desired it or having known that he had done it. Let his name be praised for this. These unsought favors of unspeakable love, These perpetual mercies of untiring carefulness, let them wake us up to gratitude. And now may we cry out with wonder, Lord, are you going to wash my feet? The next subject of wonder is the glory of the person. Lord, King, Master, God, everlasting, almighty, King of kings and Lord of lords. Are you going to wash my feet? You who calls out each star by their own unique name, and they shine only by your light. They are created and extinguished at your command. You guide them through the universe. The heavens are yours. The earth also is yours. You sit enthroned above the earth and its people are like grasshoppers. You have measured the waters in the hollow of your hand. And with the breath of your hand, you have marked off the heavens. Lord, are you going to wash my feet? When you were on earth, you walked on the water. The waters knew you. and they became like marble beneath your feet. You terrified death itself, for Lazarus came out at your command from the darkness of the grave. Fevers knew you, leprosy, epilepsy. Every disease understood their master's voice and fled at your command. The winds were stilled at your command. Even the demons were subject to you. Though you were veiled in manhood, your creatures knew your greatness. Angels ministered to you and the heavens were open to you. And are you going to wash my feet? Oh, my brothers and sisters, meditate on this. It is far more a theme for thought than for speech. He whom the angels worship takes the towel and wraps it around his waist. Listen to the song. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of your glory. All the earth worships you, you the eternal Son of the Father. And yet, Lord, are you going to wash my feet? Oh, think of this. You that are spiritual, Think until your hearts melt with love. No one else could cleanse us. The infinite God must take away the infinite wickedness and filth of His people's sin. What a condescension this is. Let us lift up our eyes in wonder. Let us lift up our voices and praise His name, that Jesus should ever wash our feet. Change again the word. Observe the lowliness of the office. Lord, are you going to wash my feet? Observe the lowliness of the office. Lord, are you going to wash my feet? Here comes a traveler who has journeyed far. He is very tired. There is a lot of dust on his sandals and his feet are stained with the filth of the travel. As soon as he steps over the threshold of the hospitable house, a slave, a servant, a hired servant takes off the traveler's sandals, brings a basin, a pitcher full of water, and begins to pour the water on his feet, having first untied the laces of his shoes and taken them off. The host does not stoop to this task. It is not the part of the master to wash feet. It is servile, menial, humiliating work. Yet this, which was the lowest of all responsibilities in the East, is that which the Savior undertakes, not in fiction and metaphor, but in reality, for every one of us. Lord, are you going to wash my feet? To wash my head, Lord, is very gracious. To purge my mind from evil thoughts is very loving. To wash my hands, to take my heart and make it clean is very condescending. But are you absolutely going to do slaves' work and wash my feet? Lord, will you take the filthiest part of my body and wash that? I know you have said, you will sanctify my spirit and my soul, and that is a great promise. But will you sanctify my body too? My feet, the lowest part of the man, the dirtiest part? Are you not content to leave a spot or a wrinkle on me anywhere? And therefore do you humble yourself to the lowest action of all, to wash my feet? Truly, beloved, this is a subject of wonder. And yet the wonder is surpassed if you remember that He shared a slave's death as well as a slave's life. A slave's life when he washed our feet, a slave's death when they sold him for thirty pieces of silver and afterwards pierced his hands and his feet. I put this act of love in contrast. Visualize Jesus now in the highest heavens. with the keys of heaven and earth and hell swinging from His golden belt, holding the silver scepter by which He governs all creation. Can you picture Him when every knee bows and every tongue confesses that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father? And yet He, that very same One, comes down from the splendor of heaven and the majesty of infinite honor, and he washes, absolutely washes, dressed as a slave and acting in a very humble manner, he washes the feet of his disciples. Oh, that we felt a tender appreciation worthy of this miracle of love. Once again, There is a note of wonder if you lay the stress upon the word my. Lord, are you going to wash my feet? Lord, are you going to wash my feet? Perhaps to some of you this will be the greatest marvel of all. The unworthiness of the object of this washing. Are you going to wash my feet? You have favored me with more mercies than most men. You have overwhelmed me with your gifts, and yet my heart is hard towards you. I am often unbelieving, forgetful, lazy, careless. You might as well cast me away forever. Because of my ingratitude, you might as well say, Depart from me, I will have nothing to do with you. I have shown you enough patience. I cannot endure your rudeness any longer. Yet are you, Lord, absolutely going to condescend to wash my feet? My feet? In this you have displayed yourself more glorious than ever. Your grace has outgraced itself. Lord, don't you remember that I once cursed you to your face, that there was a time when your holy day was my best day of business, when your church was a place I abhorred, your Bible was unread, my knee was never bent to you. I boasted of my own righteousness when I was a sinner, wicked and filthy. And are you now going to wash my feet? I hear a sister with special tenderness say, O Jesus, I would gladly wash your feet with my tears and wipe them with the hair of my head, for I have been a sinner, and are you going to wash my feet? I think I hear another say, Lord, I once denied you. I made a profession of faith in you. But in an evil hour I fell, I went into sin, I said, I don't know the man. And are you still going to wash my feet? I hear another say, Lord, you know all my secret sins, my secret vices. I dare not tell them to my closest friend on earth, the faults into which I have fallen. I am only fit to be burned in the fires of hell. There is nothing in me except what is damnable. I am completely an unclean person. And are you still going to wash my feet? O you that are the people of God, can't you all find some special reason to wonder at all this? There are some of you who are so poor that even some of your own Christian friends are wicked enough to be half ashamed to say they know you. Yet Jesus Christ washes your feet. Your clothes would not sell for six cents and yet He washes your feet. You scarcely have enough shoe leather to keep your feet from the cold. and yet he washes them. You have been laughed at and despised and ridiculed and yet you have Christ for your foot washer. The moment your name is mentioned there are some who are quickly ready to slander and abuse you. Yet so tenderly does Jesus love you that he washes your foulest part. However, I must leave you to think, for I cannot talk. I must leave you to think on such a precious passage as this. Certainly the angels of heaven will never stop wondering how it can ever be that their king, their prince, their leader could so humble himself as to become a servant of servants. To take the very lowliest of his people and declare that he will wash their feet, yes, and then really do it. One more subject for wonder. It is perfectly marvelous to remember that Christ completely washes our feet. It is perfectly marvelous to remember that Christ completely washes our feet. Lord, if you are going to wash my feet, then there cannot be any filth on them when you are finished. If you wash my feet, then they will be really clean. It cannot be that you could wash them and any filth remain. When things are washed by careless servants, they need washing again. But when they are washed by the loving hands of Jesus, washed by Him who makes heaven and earth, surely they are completely clean. Come then, you that feel you have been sinning the last week, you that are God's people, you that are resting on Christ but have a sense of guilt on your consciences and cannot get rid of it and are sighing and crying, just ask this question. Lord, are you going to wash my feet? If so, then I will come to you. I will come with my filthy feet if there is such a basin as this to be washed in. Here I am. Just like when I first came, I come again. I rely on nothing but your merits. Nothing but your love is my confidence. I give myself up to you. Take me as I am and wash me clean. I say it is a subject for admiration how thoroughly clean Christ washes his people so that they can really cry, there is no stain or wrinkle or any other blemish even on my feet. I will be holy and blameless and faultless in the sight of my God through Jesus Christ my Lord. And now our third major point today. We turn from admiration to what may be more practical to gratitude. We will turn from admiration to what may be more practical gratitude. Oh, I hope that we already feel that heaven born flame glowing in our souls. I heard the other day of a meeting for prayer. at which my dear brother offered, who made a marvelous confession of sin at our great prayer meeting in the first week of January, was moved to make another confession of sin. And he did so in such a manner that the whole assembly was moved, and there were audible sobs and cries from God's people while they confessed their transgressions. No sooner had they all done so than some brother, wise above what is written, rose in the assembly and said he thanked God that he could not join in the confession of sins, for all of his sins were forgiven and therefore he had no sins to confess. He stood before God so accepted in Christ that he had no sins whatever to confess." His prayer spoiled the whole meeting and grieved the people of God. I occasionally do meet with erring brethren who say, I never need to make any confession of sin. I have prayed for months, said one to me, and I have never made any confession of sin. I believe all my sins are forgiven and I have none to confess. Now, at the very mention of this, don't you feel shocked? The holy sensibilities of a child of God feel outraged at the very thought of such absence of repentance. I would have been surprised if I was not prepared to hear any monstrosity from persons associated with the false doctrines of the Plymouth Brethren Movement. Concerning that sect, much as I love and respect many of its members, I dare not say less than this, that God alone knows what they will teach tomorrow. For they seem to be given up to the inventions of their own boastful minds, to concoct and devise delusion after delusion. I pray that God will keep our young people from their company, for their professions and pretenses are such that, if it were possible, would deceive the very elect. I grant them to be gracious men, but as to doctrine, they are out of control and unreasonable in their thinking. When I first heard this doctrine of not confessing sins, I was startled. I felt as if I could have no more communion with a man who could talk in this way. To kneel down and not confess sins? My dear friends, I hope to die with this on my lips. I have strayed like a lost sheep, Lord. Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands. I believe that I would be totally lost and without Christ if I would reject repentance and confession. I know that my sins were forgiven at Calvary. There is no man in the world who preaches more than I do the doctrine that Christ has forever made a full atonement for the sins of all his people. But as to not making a confession of sin, God forbid these lips should ever utter anything so un-Gospel-like, so un-Christ-like. Let me plainly put this matter before you. It is quite certain that those whom Christ has washed in his precious blood need not make a confession of sin before God the judge because they are no longer under God as a judge. They are not ruled and governed on the principle of law at all. Christ has forever taken away all their sins in a legal sense so that no one can bring anything to their charge. They need not confess where there is no one to accuse. The blood of Jesus has set His people entirely free from being prisoners under the law. They do not stand where they can be condemned. They are no longer culprits and criminals. They are taken from under the dominion of the judge. But what are God's people? Why are they children? And as long as God is their Father, and they are children, and imperfect children, nature teaches them that it is the duty of children to make a confession to their Father. If my son should do anything wrong, God forbid it ever should be, but suppose he stole some money from me. I might say, my child, as far as that theft is concerned, No policeman is going to arrest you. You will not be taken before the judge or put in prison for that. You are forgiven as far as that is concerned. I do not want him to have to go before the judge and make a confession, but then again he has offended me as his father and I as his father expect him to confess the wrong that he has done to me and if he does not I will chasten him. Not by the way of punishment, that is not my part as a father. I will have nothing to do with penalties for my children, but by way of chastisement that he may be led to see his fault and may never do it again. No father who has his wits about him ever chastens his child with a punishment for the offense itself. No, he says, that is not my business. The offense must be punished by God, or if it is an offense against the law of the land, then by the law of the land. When a father uses his rod, he does it for chastisement, for the good of the person chastised, not as a vindication of law and order. Now God never chastens his people because of any sin in them, in order to punish them for their sin. or he has punished Christ instead of them. They are quite clear there. But now, having become his children and offending as children, shouldn't they every day go before their Heavenly Father and confess the sin and acknowledge the iniquity? The grace of God in the heart would teach us all that this is the way it should be. We daily offend as children We offend as we could not offend if we were not children. I doubt my father. I am guilty of a lack of love to him or obedience to him. I offend in a way I could not offend if I were not his child. Now suppose that this offense against my father is not quickly washed away by the cleansing power of the Lord Jesus because I refuse to confess the sin. What will the consequence of it be? Why, I will soon fall under the slavery of a bad habit. I will feel such defilement in my nature that I will do it again and again and again until it becomes a habit. If I am not washed clean from these offenses against my Father, I will feel at a distance from Him. I will begin to doubt His love for me. I will tremble at Him. Most likely I will be afraid to pray to him. I will become like the prodigal son who, while he was a child, was far away from his father. If I am not washed, I will soon have need to feel the rod, and I will have it. But, O Beloved, if the Lord Jesus Christ will daily come to me and wash my feet from these defilements of offenses against my father, Why, then, I will to a great extent escape the rob. I will feel a holy love to my Father. I will walk in His light. I will have joy and peace through believing. And I will go through my Christian life, not only saved, but as one enjoying present peace with God through Jesus Christ my Lord. I think you can see the difference between Christ putting away sin by blood and by water. I think you can see the distinction between confessing sin as a criminal and confessing sin as a child. I think you can see how much gratitude you owe to Christ that after having once set you free from the law, He daily, as your elder brother, goes in before your Father's face and still keeps you clean in the Father's sight. When there has been any defilement as you walk in the world, then He washes your feet from it, that you may still stand with peace in your conscience, with joy and love in your heart, and with the Father's love flowing through you. Here is a reason for gratitude. that having once washed heads and hands and feet with blood, He still daily washes my feet with water. For my part, I must keep on praying. Forgive us our sins as we forgive them that sin against us. And it is my joy that if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense. In the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin. Our last point this morning is the imitation. Does Jesus wash our feet? Then we ought to wash one another's feet. Does Jesus wash our feet? Then we ought to wash one another's feet. Some of our brethren, for example the Scottish Baptist, has a practice of literally washing the feet of their members. I don't think it would do any of the saints any harm, but still it was never intended for us to literally carry out the Savior's example by actually washing each other's feet. There is a spiritual meaning here, and what he means is this. If there is any act of kindness or love that we can do for the very lowliest and most obscure of God's people, we ought to be willing to do it. To be servants to God's servants. To feel like Abigail did, when after being advised that David wanted to take her to be his wife, she replied to King David, here is your maidservant. ready to serve you and to wash the feet of your servants." Abigail became David's wife. That is the true position of every Christian, married to the king and yet ready to wash the feet of the king's servants. That must be our spirit. Do you know any poor bedridden soul? Go and talk with that poor woman or that poor man. Seek to bring comfort to that poor man's humble home. Do you know a brother who is rather angry and tempered, and he needs a kind word said to him, and someone says, I will not speak to any such person as he is? Do it. Do it, my dear brother. Go and wash his feet. Do you know of one who has gone astray? Someone says, I would not like to be seen in association with him. My dear friend, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. Wash his feet. There is another brother riding the high horse. He is very, very proud. One says, I am not going to humble myself to him. My dear brother, go to him and wash his feet. Whenever there is a child of God who has any defilement on him and you are able to point it out and free him from it, submit to any humiliation. Put yourself in any position rather than let that child of God remain subject to the sin. Especially let those who are highest among us seek to do the humblest task. Whoever wants to be first must be your slave. Remember that Christ's way of rising is to go down. He descended that he might ascend and so must we.

Let us always count it as our highest honor and our greatest glory to lay aside all honor and all glory and to win honor and glory out of shame and humiliation for Christ Jesus' sake.

I believe this is done in this church I hope we are as free as possible from the feeling of being in different social classes. God deliver us from any trace of it. You are brothers and sisters, love one another. The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position, but the one who is rich should take pride in his low position. You are all brothers and sisters, and you have one master, and that is Christ.

Each one of you try to carry out to your utmost the teaching of our Lord, that you should wash one another's feet. You have an opportunity of doing it in the special offering about to be taken, an offering to help many aged ministers, servants of God, who are now living in great poverty. They need that today. You would, by your contributions, wash their feet. Amen.