When God comes looking for me, my one desire is that he won't
see me, but he'll see his Son. That's the glory of the Gospel
and it's the glory of this picture that is laid before us by the
Lord on this particular, this remarkable night. It is the hour
that's come. In 20 hours time, or somewhere
about that, he will be dead in a term. The world will be rejoicing. The Pharisees will think that
they have won a great victory. They'll be preparing their sermons. praising God for having rid the
earth of this man of Nazareth called Jesus Christ. They will be causing all of their
fellows who cried, crucify him, crucify him, to see that this
was a just act and a God-honoring act that they did. Here in this 24 hours we have
the Lord coming to this time and in John chapter 12 he says,
now is my soul troubled. Now is my soul troubled, but
what shall I say, Father? Save me from this hour? But for
this cause came I unto this hour. What's the cause? Father glorify
thy name. You get glory for who you are
over what is transpiring here. And let me remind you that the
most God-like thing God has ever done on this planet is the crucifixion
of his son. The most revealing act of God
is not his power to take a superpower and shake them like a ragdoll
and destroy every one of the gods that they trusted in all
the way up to Pharaoh and his son and Pharaoh himself and bury
them in the Red Sea and decimate a superpower with two old men is all they had, that they had God with them. And we are here brought by the
providence of God and brought by where we are in John's Gospel
to come to this extraordinary event, this extraordinary event. And the great question that lays
before all of us is who is Jesus Christ? Who is he? The world continues to treat
him pretty much like Herod and the others did, isn't it? They
set him at naught. He is someone that can be used,
someone that can be abused contemptuously. And yet, the reality of all of
this is that this is God. Jesus Christ is God. Who do you say that I am? He asked the apostles. Who do
you say that I am? All these other people have their
opinions about the Lord Jesus Christ. Who do you say I am? In John chapter 12 verse 36,
the Lord Jesus Christ finished his time with the Jews, and he
departed from them and did hide himself from them. What a shocking
thing. Is that happening today? Absolutely, absolutely. That's why that song of Gabe's
or the message of that song has been very poignant for me all
of this week and I don't know how many times I've prayed that,
oh Lord, remember us. Lord, remember us. Lord, remember
us with mercy. Lord, remember us with grace. Lord, reveal your son to us. that we might find ourselves,
knowing what it is for him to say, you are completely clean. Filthy sinners, like these apostles,
having loved his own, who are in the world, he loved them to
the uttermost, he loved them perfectly, he loved them completely,
he loved them to the end. Not just the end of the cross,
but the end of all time. He loved these 11 apostles, and
here we have this love expressed in the most remarkable ways.
So who is it? We'll look at Judas, Lord willing,
a little bit later on. But verse 3, Jesus knowing that
the Father had given all things into his hands. That all is just three little
letters, isn't it? What's it mean? Absolutely everything
that you can possibly contemplate is in His hands. He has power
over all flesh. To do as He wills. The Father has given all things
into his hands. And that he had come from God
and went to God. How do you get to God? How do you get to stand in the
presence of God Almighty who is a holy and consuming fire
and must punish sin? You only get there in Him. You
can only be in the presence of God, hidden in the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's why we sing that song,
Rock of Ages, let me hide myself, let me hide myself so that when
God looks for Angus Fisher, he finds me. So hidden in the Lord
Jesus Christ is not a tiny, tiny skerrick of me hanging out the
side anywhere. I'm so hidden. That's what it
is to be washed. I want us to look and he says
he's come from the Father, he's come from God and he went to
God and then this one who is God Almighty rises from the supper
and laid aside his garments and took a towel and girded himself. What a remarkable thing for God
Almighty to be doing. You can imagine how those apostles
felt. This is not normal foot-washing. You walked in the dusty streets
of Israel and Palestine, that part of the world, and all you
had on were sandals. And when you arrived at the house,
There was a servant, but he wasn't just an ordinary servant. He
was the lowest of the low that you could possibly imagine. Even
all the other servants looked down on this servant. And it
was his job, his job to get down on bended knees and take the
sandals off those people and wash their feet and dry them
with a towel. And he probably never was thanked.
He was probably never thanked. It is just a glorious picture
of the majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ and the wonder of his
humility and the amazement of what it was to him to come to
this place because he loved his owner in the world and he loved
them to the end. Let's go back in John's Gospel.
I spent some time, I just love John's Gospel and I just love,
I love contemplating how big the Lord Jesus Christ is. That's
one of the psalmists, isn't it? It says, come, it lets us magnify
the Lord together, which means it's to take something that's
very tiny and a long, long, long way away and make it as big as
possible. I remember going down to the
village some years ago and there was a guy with astronomy things
there and one of these telescopes. And for the first time, he was
an expert at this thing and he could show you all sorts of amazing
things in the sky. But then he turned it around
and he put it on Saturn and there was Saturn with its and I could
see them and it was just magnificent. The Lord Jesus Christ, while
ever we live in this flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ appears small
and he appears distant and often we can question does he really
love us? Does he really care? But I want
us to just have a quick look through John's Gospel at the
magnificence of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the beginning, right
in the very first verse that John makes us to hear from him
and hear from the Holy Spirit, who will be our teacher, that
in the beginning was Not in the beginning began, in
the beginning was. The Lord Jesus Christ was always
there. He was always God in the beginning. In the beginning was the Word. There is only one who is called
the Word of God. It is one who declares who God
is. One who reveals God. And he reveals
God by speaking. Exactly what we're doing today.
That's how he reveals himself today. Faith comes by hearing. And one of the glorious things
about hearing is that when you're hearing, you're not active. The
sounds, the words of him, You're passive and he's active. And may that be the case today.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the Word was with God. He had communion
with God. As it were, they were face to
face with God. So there was a delightful communion
they had from all eternity. And the Word was God. Don't you love saying Jesus Christ
is God? I love saying it. I love thinking
about it. Jesus Christ of Nazareth is God
Almighty. He is so big, Hebrews chapter
1 says that he can take this universe and wrap it around his
shoulders like a shawl. And yet, and yet in this world
today, we continually hear of people saying Jesus tries. Hold
on a second. When he created the universe,
was it an effort for him? Was he worn out at the end of
it? Is his will done? Does he reign and rule over all
things? He is God Almighty. You go down
to verse 2, it says the same as in the beginning with God,
and then he says in verse 3, all things were made by Him. Every time you look at anything
in this world, it should cause your mind to say Jesus Christ.
When you look at the magnificence of the mountains, the wonder
of the sunset, the glory of the rain falling, everything should
say Jesus Christ, because it's true. It's right. 1st Paul says, In him was life,
and the life was the light of men. He is the only light that
this world will ever have of who God is, and who we are, and
how God saves sinners. There is no other light. There
is no other light, and anyone who denies that light is just
in darkness. He's the light and life of men.
And verse 12, he says, as many as received him, to them gave
he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe
on his name. That's what's to receive him,
isn't it? It's to believe what I've just been saying about him,
what he says about himself. That believe on his name, to
believe on his character, which were born not of blood, nor of
the will of flesh. Let me read that again. Nor of
the will of flesh. But, nor the will of man, but
of God. And the word was made flesh,
God was made flesh, and dwelt among us. He tabernacled among
us. And we beheld his glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. Verse 16. And of his fulness,
how full is he? As full as we've just been reading,
isn't it? full of power, full of all of what God is, fullness
of the Godhead dwelling in a body. And of His fullness, His fullness
is an infinite fullness. That's why when we come back
to our verse in chapter 13, it says, having loved His own, He
can love every single one of His children infinitely and still
have infinite love for the rest of them. He can exercise all
the infinite power of God Almighty to save them, to hold them, to
keep them, to bring them to Himself. He has all the power of Almighty
God to wash them completely clean. of His fullness and we all receive
grace for grace. I just love that phrase, grace
for grace. I need grace now and when I've
got that little bit of grace, if I think I've received it,
I need a little bit more and a little more. I just live, don't
we? We live by the grace of God. His favour to those who don't
ask it, don't seek it, don't deserve it. His favour to those
who have no merits in themselves, that absolutely nothing in them
can stop it flowing. And it comes from his fullness. The law was given by Moses, but
grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at
any time. The only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, has declared Him." Now I've taken
ten minutes to try and explain something of the magnificence
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and every time you do, you've failed.
He's far more glorious, isn't it? I'm in the business of failing,
all the time. All in the business of being
helpful. of being utterly dependent on
God to make these things known to us. So, and when John first
declares him to this world, he takes the words of the Passover
and he says, behold the Lamb of God. You behold the Lamb of
God. And that's exactly what church
is about. I want us to behold the Lamb
of God. I want us to behold who he is. As I said earlier, this meal
is a commemoration of the Passover and I'd love for you to take
some time and read those chapters in exodus, there aren't very
many of them. But they just describe the Lord Jesus Christ and his
power over all creation. His power over those who are
his enemies. It's a memorial of redemption
accomplished. had turned it into a feast. And
even when the Lamb turned up and said, I am the Lamb, I am
God Almighty, I am the Passover, the Jews had no idea that in
putting him to death in the most bloody and embarrassing and inhumane
way possible and breaking every law that they possibly had, They
were working God's will and causing all of his people to be washed
in that precious, precious blood. The Passover, of course, was
God going through Egypt and killing every firstborn. Every firstborn. Imagine it. The scene is remarkable,
isn't it, in Egypt? There wasn't a single house. Every house was preparing a funeral,
digging a grave and wailing. And their cattle had suffered
the same. And the Jews that walked out
from there that day knew that the reason that their son was
still alive and that they were free was that the lamb had died
in the place. It speaks of satisfaction and
substitution and sacrifice and sovereignty. And that's exactly
what the Lord Jesus Christ is going to exhibit within hours. It speaks, as we
read earlier in Exodus Chapter 15, it speaks of a redemption
accomplished, not something that God tried to do. Any time you
ever read or hear of anyone saying that God offers or God tries,
you have to turn away from it immediately and say, these people
don't know who He is. God doesn't try. God doesn't
make offers, God just does. Salvation is not an offer, salvation
is an operation of God Almighty. And in this final Passover, this
final one ever, when all the fierce anger of his enemies had
reached its zenith. when his friend would betray
him with a kiss, when Satan would appear to have a great victory
in sight, when the Son of Man would be left alone, when the
Son of Man, our Lord, would cry, My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? People were saying, Where is
God? Who is God and what does he look
like? Well, this night, God reveals
God, and the next day God reveals God in the most remarkable way.
As Exodus 15 verse 11 says, Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among
the gods? Who is like unto thee, glorious
in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? And yet this same
God now comes to his apostles and he
takes off his robe. Let's read it with us. When Jesus This is the one that we're talking
about, isn't it? We won't understand the magnificence
of this event unless we understand the magnificence of the one who
did this remarkable thing. He rises from the supper, at the end of the supper and
he lay aside his garments and took a towel and girded himself. After that he poured water into
a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them
with the towel wherewith he was girded. And I want us to see
the beauty of this picture that's before us. It's a picture of
redemption by the Lamb, isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ, he
says he came from God and he was going to God. What was he like when he came
from God? What was he like before he came
from God? How glorious was the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven? we can think of and we can read
about of the angels worshipping and Abraham and Noah and Lot. You think of Rahab the harlot,
Ruth the Moabitess, all of them rejoicing in him, in his glory,
in the glory of his deity. When he came to earth, He laid aside these garments
and he just donned human flesh. And he was so much like a man
that people couldn't believe that he was God Almighty. And
yet there were so many times in his life when he was so God-like
that you couldn't possibly imagine his man. He had to become what
we were without sin in this world that he might be the one that
would redeem us. And that's exactly what this
picture is. There he is. He got up from that supper and
he laid aside his garment. You might recall that one of
those garments is that seamless robe. Not a single seam in it,
a seamless robe. The soldiers at the crucifixion
came to cast lots for his garments. There's one that they couldn't
cast lots for. They had to cast lots for, sorry, because it couldn't be broken.
That garment represents the very righteousness of God Almighty. That's the garment. You can read
about that garment in Revelation chapter 7. What's the garment? Who are these is the question,
isn't it? Who are these? Who are these? They stood before the lamb, clothed
in white robes. He says, what are these? which are arrayed, Revelation
7.13, in white robes, and where did they come from? How did they
get to be here? And I said unto him, Sir, thou
knowest, and he said unto me, these are they which came out
of the great tribulation and have washed their robes and made
them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before
the throne of God and serve him day and night. and he that sits
on the throne shall dwell among them." He took off that remarkable
garment of his deity, the remarkable garment of his glory, in heaven's
glories. And then what did he do? He took
a towel, and girded himself, he tied it around himself. And there he was dressed just
now in a loincloth, the garb of a slave, looking exactly like
a slave. And he took that towel and he
tied it to himself. And after that he had poured
water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet and
wipe them with the towel he doing? He came to each of his apostles. and he washed their feet and
he took the mud that was off them. What are we? Adam, we're
created just dust, aren't we? And we walk in this world and
we accumulate dust to ourselves. And he washed that dust off and
the dust was bound he did it thoroughly and completely
he washed them and then he wiped it and wiped them dry so each
and every one of them all of the dirt was taken from them
and all of the dirt was bound to him that's a picture of exactly
what happened at the cross isn't it brothers and sisters all of the sins of all of God's
elect children. They were in a cup, weren't they?
And the Lord Jesus Christ was given that cup by his Father,
and he drank that cup. And he was made sin, says the
Bible. He'd never committed a sin of
his own, but because of his eternal union with his own, and that
love that he had, and loved them to the uttermost, he took all
of those sins. And the scriptures declare that
at that moment they were his and he owned them as his. We
think so lightly of sin, don't we? We live in sin like fish
live in the sea and we're completely unaware of it. But you think
of the filth. You think of the filth of the thoughts. that have gone through your mind
in just such a short space of time. You think of the filth
of the acts that you have done. You think of the rebellion against
God Almighty. the treating of his son, his
son's servants, his son's beloved, with contempt as this world does. And all of the sin of all of
those people, all of the sin of all of the elect people of
God became bound to him, it was girded to him. And he took all
of that sin into himself, and when he was made a curse for
us and lifted up from the earth, he was cursed, and the curse
of God fell upon the Lord Jesus Christ. The infinite fire of
God's eternal wrath fell upon all of that sin, and it's gone. Such is the completeness of the
washing. Who does the washing? He does
the washing. Who needs washing? The dirty
need washing. The righteous don't need washing.
If you can wash one little tiny bit of yourself from sin, you
do not need a saviour. Full stop. We need to be washed. The dirty need to be washed. And the Lord Jesus Christ, when
he was finished, he put on that garment again. That towel and
all of that filth is gone forever. That's what it is to be justified.
God's children, it's not as if they have never sinned. God's
children have never sinned because all of the sins of all of God's
children were put on the Lord Jesus Christ and he bore it in
his own body. And he bore it away. And God
says, they're as far as the east is from the west. They are hidden
in the depths of the sea. God cannot remember them anymore
because they do not exist. Such is the completeness of the
washing. Such is the completeness of the
washing. And then he put his robe back on again. He put his
glorious robe back on. What a glorious robe the Lord
Jesus Christ has now. What a glorious robe. How glorious
is he in heaven's glory at the moment. How glorious is he to
the saints in heaven. Oh, if we could just bask a little
bit in the wonder of the magnificence of who he was and the wonder
of what he did. We're running short of time,
but I just wanted us to see how amazing this love is. He comes
to Simon Peter, verse six, And Peter said to him, Lord, do you
wash my feet? I can imagine Peter saying that.
I can understand how embarrassed these apostles were. They'd been
in there and they'd had this supper, and not one of them,
not one of them had enacted anything like being a servant. And they
all sat there with their dirty feet at a meal, which they never
do normally. And then the Lord, after the
supper, took this Peter. Lord, do you wash my feet? Peter answered and said unto
him, What I do thou knowest not now. How true is that of every
child of God? What he's doing we don't know
now. But don't you love the promise that comes at the end of verse
7? But thou shalt know hereafter. Did Peter know? When he says
you'll know, he says all of his children, they'll know exactly
what all this is about. They'll know exactly what this
foot washing is all about. Ah, Peter. This is wonderful. Peter saith unto him, thou shalt
never wash my feet. Peter is joined with everyone.
that's ever spoken back to the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't
ever say never to God Almighty. And later on in this chapter,
he'll say, I will. He says, I know what about those
other ones. I know how weak John is. I know how doubting Thomas
is, but I'm never going to forsake you. I'll never, I will never. I just love, I love Peter so
much. And I love the fact that in his, showing us what he needs to be
washed from anyway. But he causes the Lord to say
something wonderful. If I wash thee not thou has no
part with me. You'll have no part with the
Lord Jesus Christ ever if you're not washed by him. He must wash
you, and he must wash you perfectly and completely. You'll have no
part, you'll have no part, you'll have no part of his glory, you'll
have no part of his majesty, you'll have no part of his salvation. And Peter, Simon Peter, verse
nine, saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, Not my feet only,
but my hands and my head. You've got to wash what I do
with my hands. You've got to wash what I think,
my thoughts. My thoughts need washing. Don't
you love that we are told that the children of God have the
mind of Christ. We think his thoughts after him.
Oh, how much we need to be washed. How much our thoughts need to
be washed. Our thoughts of a God who is less than the one that
we've been reading about. Our thoughts of a world in which
this God is not reigning absolutely sovereign and supreme over all
things. The thoughts of a God who has a purpose but can't get
that purpose done unless we help him. The thoughts about a God
who loves everyone but can't get them saved. Because this
God meets the mighty free will of these amazing exalted creatures
called man. and can't win the battle. Thoughts,
those thoughts that people have that diminish the glory of the
Lord Jesus Christ are thoughts that we, I trust His people,
will be washed from again and again and again. We just want
to see Him high and lifted up. I can never ever preach Him high
enough, and neither can you think Him high enough, and we can never,
ever, ever declare ourselves low enough We can never declare
how extraordinarily needy we are to be washed. Because as
soon as we've washed, we think, oh dear, I have to go. Now I can do something by myself.
Which is why he says, Jesus says in verse 10, He that
is washed, neither is not saved to wash his feet, but is clean
everywhere. That means to be clean completely,
to be clean altogether, to be clean, to be made whole. Our feet continually treading
this earth, aren't they? And they are continually He said you're clean, but not
all, for he knew who should betray him. Therefore he said, you're
not all clean. So after he'd washed their feet
and taken his garments and was set down again, he said unto
them, know ye what I have done to you? You call me master and
lord and you say, well, for so I am. If I then your lord and
master have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's
feet. For I have given you an example
that you should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily,
I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord, neither
he that is sent greater than he that sent him. Some people want to take that
ordinance like the Pope does every Easter and put on a show
of pretended humility and get down and wash some people's feet
in a jail or orphanage or somewhere else. And if you want to wash
each other's feet, I imagine that's up to you, but I believe
that it's impossible to do it without a sense of pride. And
immediately you've done some washing, you'll need to be washed
again. This is talking about proclaiming the gospel to each
other. It's talking about the fact that
the Lord Jesus Christ said it's finished. And what did he mean? He meant it's finished. He meant the price is paid in
full. All the debt that I owe to God. All of the debt I owe him to
honour his holiness and his majesty and his glory is paid in full. All of the debt for all of the
sin that I have committed and I am committing right now and
I will commit until I breathe my last is paid in full. That's what it means. That's
what it means. It is finished. If you incurred
a debt and someone gave you a bill and you took the $100, they would
write across it exactly that word. It is finished. There is
no debt to pay. What a saviour. What a washing,
what a glorious, glorious God. His greatness, His greatness
is exalted in His humility. Son of man came, not to be served, but to serve
and give His life a ransom for many. He paid the debt, did He
get them? There are people wanting to ransom
people all over this world in sad, sad, sad situations. The Lord Jesus Christ ransomed
his own, every single last one of them. When they left Egypt,
Moses said to Pharaoh, there's not going to be a hoof left behind. Not a hoof. Nothing left behind. They're all coming with me back
to heaven. glorious redemption, glorious
saviour. May the Lord bless these words
to our hearts. May he cause us to be happy. Let's preach the gospel to each
other. Let's wash each other's feet
in the blood of the lamb and by his word. Amen.