Good morning, brethren. Let's
turn in our Bibles to John chapter 13. Verse 1, it says, Now before
the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was
come, that He should depart out of this world unto the Father,
having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto
the end. And supper being ended, the devil
having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son,
to betray him. Jesus, knowing that the father
had given all things into his hands and that he was come from
God and went to God, he riseth from supper and laid aside his
garments and took a towel and girded himself. After that, he
poureth water into a basin and began to wash the disciples'
feet and to wipe them with a towel wherewith he was girded. Then
cometh he to Simon Peter. And Peter saith unto him, Lord,
dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto
him, What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt
never wash my feet. And Jesus answered him, If I
wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto
him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash
his feet, but is clean every whit, and ye are clean, but not
all. For he knew who should betray
him. Therefore said he, Ye are not all clean. So after he had
washed their feet, and had 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, ye 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,
a servant is not greater than his Lord. Neither he that is
sent greater than he that sent him. If you know these things,
happy are ye if you do them." Now, God's saints, born of God, given faith to see and behold
and believe what Christ has done for us, we want to honor our
Lord. We want to obey Him. We want
to serve Him. We want to do what He commands us to do. And this
is what He commands us. This is His commandment that
we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and
love one another as He gave us commandment. So where does the
believer look? From whom are we going to learn
what it is to love one another? Where do we look? Our Lord is
saying we look to Christ. We look to Christ. Our Redeemer
said in verse 15, I have given you an example that you should
do as I have done to you. We learn everything looking to
Christ by His Spirit working in our hearts. He said there
in verse 1, we saw this last time, having loved His own which
were in the world, He loved them unto the end. Our Lord loved His own by taking
the lowest place, by taking the lowest position, by coming down
as low as one could possibly come to serve His people, to
save His people. That's what He did. Verse 2,
Supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart
of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him, Jesus knowing
that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that
he was come from God and went to God, he riseth from supper,
and laid aside his garments, and took a towel, and girded
himself, and after that he poureth water into a basin, and began
to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel
wherewith he was girded." And in those days, you know the custom,
they would travel and they would walk and they had sandals and
their feet would become dirty and so they would wash one another's
feet. When you entered to a house before
supper they would wash your feet and that was always for the lowest
servant. The lowest servant washed the
feet. That was a custom. I was trying
to think of something we might relate this to in our culture
and I really I don't want to say anything that would shame anybody. I can't really
think of an occupation that's, but it's a low occupation. It
would be a low place, a low place of service. And that's what our
Lord did. He took that place there that
night and bowed down and took his outer garment off and put
water in a basin and got down at their feet to wash their feet. He knew himself to be God Almighty. It says, Jesus knowing that the
Father had given all things into his hands and he was come from
God and went to God. You think, you know, when men
get to be in very powerful positions, they start treating people lower
than them as insignificant. You know, men get lifted up in
pride and they treat people that they believe are beneath them,
they don't treat them very well. This is God. This is Almighty
God. All things are in His hands.
He came from God. He is going back to God. This
is God Almighty. And He rose from supper and laid
aside His garments and took a towel and girded Himself and bowed
down to their feet to wash them. And He is showing here what He
did when He came from glory to save His people. Go back over
there to Philippians 2. Philippians 2. This is what he
is showing us right here. Philippians 2 verse 5. Philippians 2 verse 5. Let this mind be in you which
was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought
it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation,
and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the
likeness of men. And being found in fashion as
a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross." This is what the Lord did to save
His people. And it says back in John 13,
He poured water into a basin, into a laver. Christ is the laver. He is that laver pictured in
the Old Covenant. And the righteous, sinless God-man,
He poured out His blood. He poured out His blood. He not
only came down and took the form of a servant, worked out a righteousness
for His people, obedient to the law, proving Himself fit to go
to the cross. He went to the cross and poured
out His blood. That's loving somebody. That's
perfect love. He poured out His blood. Life is in the blood. Without
the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. That's the
only way our sin, we had to die. And that's the only way God would
be satisfied. And Christ poured out His blood.
He poured it out unto death. Revelation 1.5 says, unto him
that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. And that water, when that soldier
pierced his side and blood and water came out, the blood that declares we're justified
by God, the water shows he's our sanctifier and our sanctification. It's by him washing us in regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost, washing us by the water of the
Word that we're sanctified and made holy. And he's that fountain
that washes. Zechariah 13 once said, In that
day there shall be a fountain open to the house of David and
to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. And he is that fountain open. Senator, he is the fountain open. Nothing is barring anybody from
coming to him and believing on him and washing in his blood
and being cleansed by the Lord Jesus. Come and believe on him.
That fountain is open. And that's so for me and you,
believer, that fountain's open. Verse 5, And he began to wash
the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with a towel wherewith he
was girded. How did the Lord wash us? How
did He really put away our sins? Our Lord takes this towel, this
towel that was girded about Him, He takes this towel and with
this towel He takes all of the dirt, all of it off of their
feet and it comes onto the towel. That's what our Lord did when
He went to the cross. He took all the sin of all His
people and bore it in His own body on the tree in answer to
the justice of God for us. That's how He washed us. That's
how He washed us. And He robes us in His righteousness. Not only did He take the dust
from their feet and the dirt from their feet, when He got
finished doing it, their feet were clean. He took all the sin of His people
and gave us His righteousness, His perfection, His cleansing,
so that you are washed. And now from His throne in glory,
He's teaching us who He is and what He has done for us and what
He's continuing to do for us. That's what He's teaching us.
Drop down to verse 12. So after He had washed their
feet and had taken His garments, He was set down again. He said unto them, Know ye what
I've done to you? After Christ finished the work
of redemption, and He accomplished the work of redeeming His people
from all our transgressions, fulfilling the law on behalf
of His people, putting away our sin, and when He had finished
the work, went into the grave, suffered the death, we died,
passed through death, He arose to the right hand of the Father,
and He sat down. Just like He did there that night,
He arose and He sat down. Why? Scripture says, when He
had by Himself purged our sins, he sat down at the right hand
of the majesty on high. And right now, He's the one sending
forth the Gospel. When He sent them forth into
the world on the Great Commission, He said, go into the world and
preach the Gospel. Go preach Him. Preach His person. Preach His works. Declare what
He's accomplished. And this is what He said, He
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth
not shall be damned. And He made this promise, Lo,
I am with you always. There's no way the Word would
ever come in power, there's no way that anybody would ever be
washed, spiritually washed and made to behold Christ and believe
on Him if it wasn't for Christ sending the Word forth and preaching
and teaching His people in our heart. And that's what He's doing
right now from glory. Do you believe that? Do you believe
Christ is walking amongst the candlesticks, that He's dwelling
amongst His churches, walking and preaching and teaching and
guiding His people through the Word of the Gospel? He is. He certainly is. Now, we see
why we need Him to teach us. We see why we need Him to teach
us. When He came there, And he takes off that outer garment,
he poured that water in the basin, and he bows down, and Peter saw
what he was about to do. Here's why we need the Lord to
teach us. Verse 6. Then cometh he to Simon Peter,
and Peter said to him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? I would
think Peter put the emphasis on thou. Does thou wash my feet? You're the The holy, sinless
Son of God, you going to wash this sinner's feet? Now we understand
why Peter protested. This was his Lord. This was his
Master. And Peter saw this, him washing
his feet. That was the task of the lowliest
servant there was. And Peter thought, this is beneath
my Lord to bow down and do this. But the devil wanted Peter to
resist him. Our sin nature is nothing but
pride. And that's really what this was,
was pride. And it doesn't take the devil
to provoke us very much to puff us up in pride. And that's really
what this was. But the Lord is so long-suffering
with His people. Verse 7, Jesus answered and said
unto him, What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know
hereafter. Peter, he knew what he was doing. He knew he was fixing to wash
his feet, but he didn't know the meaning. He didn't understand
spiritually what the Lord was doing. And we ought to keep this word
right here always in our remembrance. If you have to type it out, put
it on the refrigerator, put it in your vehicle or whatever,
we ought to keep this word always in remembrance because this is
the case with us. almost 100% of the time. What
I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. Now
that's just the case in about everything we do. Our Lord sends
you a trial, He sends you sorrow, and very often we're like Peter,
we start objecting and we start, you know, have our false humility,
and when it's all just pride, really, and our Lord's just long-suffering,
and He says to us, what I do now, you know not, but you shall
know hereafter. Our Lord never tries to teach
His people. He's sovereign God. He's omnipotent
God. He spoke the heavens and earth
into existence. He don't try to do anything.
He teaches His people. but He's very long-suffering
with us. And He lets us question and fret and what have you to
show us what we are and what we would continue in were it
not for Him. But like Peter, we're slow to
hear, we're slow to learn, and we need Christ to teach us. We
need Him, and He's gracious to teach us over and over and over. Verse 8, Peter said to Him, Thou
shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash
thee not, thou hast no part with me. Our Lord is not only teaching
us humility and love, He is teaching us the necessity of Christ washing
us. The necessity of it. Christ must
wash us and Christ alone He must receive all the glory for washing
us. He's the only one that can wash
us. He said, if I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Peter,
if I had not washed thee with the washing of regeneration by
the Spirit of God, you would have no part with me. That's
what the Lord's telling him. If I don't wash you from all
your sins, you have no part with me. What part of all? This concludes everything. If
I don't wash you from all your sin, you have no part with me,
no communion with me in this world, and no inheritance with
Him in the world to come. No part with Him. God selects
to have a part with Christ through God's electing covenant grace,
because God in grace chose us freely. And we have a part with
Christ because Christ came and washed us thoroughly from our
sin. And we have a part with Him because
the Spirit of God washes us and makes us whole. And only Christ
can wash a sinner clean. Our works can't wash us. Baptism won't wash us. No kind
of religious deed will wash us. We cannot wash ourselves. It's
impossible for you and I to wash ourselves and for Christ to get
the glory for doing the washing. If I wash thee not, thou hast
no part with me. But he that Christ washes, he's
clean. Whoever Christ washes is clean.
Look here in verse 9. Simon Peter saith to him, Lord,
not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus said
to him, he that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but
is clean every whit, and ye are clean. The Lord Jesus has washed his
people every whit. That means Completely. Totally. He's finished the work on the
cross. Not all are His. Judas was not
His. And He wasn't washing Judas.
He didn't wash him at the cross. But when He creates, but He did
all His people. All His people He washed at the
cross. He justified us freely by His blood and He accomplished
it every way. So that before God, you have
died. Believer, you've died. Justice
has been poured out on you in full. How fully? An eternity
of hell has been poured out on you already in Christ on the
cross. There can't be one more thing
poured out on God's people. Every wit. Every wick you clean. And by the Spirit of God creating
a new man within us, there is a new man created in the child
of God that's born of the incorruptible seed that is incorruptible. That
means He's created in the righteousness of Christ, through the blood
and righteousness of Christ. He's created in the true holiness
of the Holy Spirit of God. That new man is holy and without
sin. Every wit clean. Because it's
the creation of God. And here's what our Lord said,
and this truly is our Lord's word in Psalm 32.1. Blessed is
he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed
is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in
whose spirit there is no guile. He has been made new. He is complete
in Christ. And this is what true, this new
birth, this sanctification of the Spirit teaches us. Christ
has washed us every wet. He has made you whole. You are
complete in Him. In Him. And He is abiding in
His people and He will not let us be severed from Him. But walking
through this world, because we have a sin nature, And because
we live in a sinful world, walking through this world, we become
defiled. We become dirty. So Christ continues
to wash us, to wash us, to wash our feet. He cleanses us within
to keep us coming to Him. He continually purges your conscience.
He brings you to yourself. He makes you see when you sin
and your need of Him. And He draws you to Him. He pulls
you to Him. He brings you to Him. And He
is doing it to cause you to confess your sin to Him and your need
for Him to wash you. The Lord taught us to pray. Father,
forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. He taught us to
pray, forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone that
is indebted to us. David was righteous, he was holy,
he was washed every whip by our Lord. And I know that sometimes
people can't understand that. How was he washed? Christ hadn't
been to the cross yet because Christ was his surety. Christ
entered covenant to do it for David before the world was made.
He's the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. David
was washed everywhere by Christ through the forbearance of God.
But David sinned. David sinned. And our Lord washed
David. He made him see he sinned and
made him see he needed the Lord to wash him. And the Lord drew
him to Him. And the Lord brought him to cry
out for the Lord to wash him. And that's what the Lord did.
He cried out in Psalm 51.1, it said, Have mercy upon me, O God,
according to Thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude
of Thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. wash me throughly
from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge
my transgression, and my sin is ever before me." He prayed
in Psalm 2511, For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity,
for it is great. Look upon my affliction and my
pain, and forgive all my sin. And our Lord does this to keep
us knowing as long as we're going through this world. Our Lord's
teaching us from heaven, just like He was teaching them that
night, and He's teaching us our constant need of our advocate. And He's teaching us He is our
advocate, our only advocate, our only high priest, our only
righteousness. And He's continually teaching
us this by making us continually see our need and He's continually
drawing us to Him to confess what we are to Him. And to show us that because of
Christ, for His name's sake, He's faithful and He's just to
forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And this is what He's going to keep teaching His people all
the way to the end. Now, by all this, Christ is also
teaching us to love one another as He loves us. Verse 13, You call me Master
and Lord, and You say, Well, for so I am. They never called
Him Jesus. You call your mom and dad by
their first name. They called Him Lord. They called
Him Master. He said, If I then, your Lord
and your 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,
truly, truly, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than
his Lord, Neither he that is sent greater
than he that sent him. None of us is greater than our
Lord, our Master. And he said, if I then, your
Lord and Master, have washed your feet. Now he's not saying
here for us to literally wash one another's feet. This wasn't
an ordinance. We have two ordinances, baptism
and the Lord's table. He's saying, if I've forgiven
you and washed you of your sin, you ought to love one another
the same way as I've loved you. He came down from His throne
in glory. He humbled Himself and He served
us to put away our sin. When did He do that for you?
When did the God of glory, who is so immaculately holy that
you can't even conceive it, When did He come down and do this
for you? When you were an ungodly enemy. Just full of nothing but hate. And He says, now you love your
brother as I've loved you. You can't make your brother love
you. If they're full of hate to you, you can't change it.
But you can still love them. And don't stop loving them. They
may turn their back and bar you and whatever to you. Just keep
loving them. Keep loving them. He came down
from His throne in glory. He humbled Himself and He served
us. and He is teaching us to humble ourselves and serve one
another. And then remember this, we saw
this last time, He knew that it was His hour, and having all
the pain of what He was facing, all the shame of what He faced,
all the tremendous burden of what He faced, When we have something
tremendously burdensome to us that's on the horizon that we're
going to have to face and we know we're going to face it,
we get self-absorbed and we can't think about anything but the
trouble. But He didn't let that stop Him from loving His brethren.
And that's what He's teaching us. With the trials and the burdens
before us or even if they're upon us, let nothing stop us
from loving one another. ministering the gospel to one
another. He loved us when we were His
enemies, and He loved us to the end, despite their failures,
despite the fact that right there in that room that night, He knew
their sins right then. Peter is protesting that He can't
wash him, and this is sinful. And He loved him, and He washed
him. Knowing what they were going
to do in the days ahead. He loved them to the end. And
that's what he's teaching us. You're going to fail. You're
going to fail. We fail a great deal by thinking
we have splendidly never failed. And that's a great failure. Love
one another when they fail that way. And when you fall and fumble
and sin and disappoint your brethren, love one another anyway. Christ
has fulfilled the righteous requirements of God's holy law for His people,
for each of our brethren. He's justified us before God.
He's regenerated us. He's made us every wit clean.
And God remembers our sins no more. That's how He loves us.
And He teaches us to receive one another without doubting
and without disputing. Because we only have one Master.
And our brethren's master is not us. Our brethren's master
is the Lord. So we trust one another to Him.
We go to Him and ask our master to help one another. And we trust
one another to Him. Our brethren are His own. He
said, having loved His own, He loved them to the end. Your brother
and sister is His own. So when you love them, you're
loving Christ's own. And He continues to wash us.
He continues to wash us. He continues to cover our sin.
He continues to remember our sin no more. He told us to ask
the Lord to forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. But
He also said if we won't forgive, we won't be forgiven. If we won't
have mercy, we won't receive any. And you can see who needs mercy
most. They'll be most merciful. Because
they know they need it. They know they need it. You know,
there's something about needing God's mercy. It doesn't harden
you. It makes you compassionate. When
you fall, whatever it is you've fallen, however, and God shows
you mercy, it makes you Have compassion for people like that.
They fall into that. You don't look down your nose
at them and say, oh, I can't believe. Look at that bunch of
people, what they're doing. You have compassion on them.
Because you know that's you. That really is you. And you know
how easily that was you. And you know how easily that
could be you again. And so you cover one another's
sins, you point one another to Christ your righteousness, and
you forgive one another even as He forgives us. And this right
here is important. This is important. This might
be the most important part of it. When our Lord was serving Peter
to teach him all this, to show him this, Peter objected. He
didn't want the Lord to do that. He didn't want the Lord to wash
his feet. It felt like I was beneath the Lord. Whenever brethren are trying
to serve us and love us, don't object. Don't object. Don't reject it. It's easy to do. Somebody wants
to pay your way. Well now, I'm gonna have, no,
no, no, I'm gonna pay, I'm gonna pay. You know what most of that
is? Pride. Pride. Whatever it is our brethren are
doing for us, we don't like to admit we have needs. And we need
to be, have our needs met. It takes just as much grace to
be loved and receive somebody serving you as it does to love
and serve another. So don't object to it. Don't
steal that blessing from them of being able to serve you because
the Lord has given my heart to want to serve you. That's a hard
lesson to learn, but it's so. It is so. And our Lord tells us this right
here. Believe in Him. Love in Him. And love in our brethren. And
obedience to Him. This is true happiness. This
is true happiness. He said, verse 17, if you know
these things, happy are ye if you do them. Everybody wants
to be happy. Everybody talks about, I'm just
not happy. I'm just not happy. If you want
to be happy, our Lord is telling us how to be happy. Believe Him
and love and serve one another. Now that doesn't mean everything
is going to be all rosy. That doesn't mean there's not
going to be somebody saying, you can't wash my feet. But see, your happiness is from believing the Lord and
doing what He tells you to do. Whether somebody else receives
it or does it or thinks you don't do it or whatever, that's not
where you derive your happiness from. It's from Him. And it's between His child and
Him. And that's where you'll have
your happiness from, You're doing what He commanded
you to do, and that'll be your happiness. All right, brethren,
let's go to Him. Father, thank You for this day.
Thank You for this Gospel. Thank You for setting this example
for us and saving us, washing us everywhere as You've done
so. Lord, we thank You that You continue
to wash us. Thank You, Lord, for showing
us our sins. Thank You for showing us our
need continually, keeping us coming to You, looking only to
You. Lord, help us to love one another,
Make us behold You and how You laid down Your life in such a
way that it makes us fall in love with You and with our brethren,
makes us selflessly want to serve one another. And Lord, make us
give You the glory, make us praise You, because You do, You get
all the glory. Forgive us, Lord, our sins. We
ask You for Christ's sake, You forgive us. And Lord, work grace
in our hearts to help us forgive one another. How thankful we are, Lord, You've
provided all in Christ and You continue to do so. We ask it
all in His name. Amen.