to John, with me, John chapter
13. John chapter 13. It's an interesting
story, and I'm not going to ask you to turn to the passage in
Luke where it's found, but our Lord Jesus was preaching the
gospel in Galilee And he went down to the edge of the Lake
Gennesaret, or the Sea of Galilee, as it's usually called in the
scriptures, and there he continued to preach. And there was there,
docked there by the lake, two fishing boats. And he just walked
up into one of the fishing boats, and he sat down, he told the
man who owned the boat, Take this boat out a little bit from
shore and then anchor it. And the man did that. Our Lord
Jesus sat down and he began to preach again. Now, he then said
to the man, the man's name was Simon Peter, he said, I want
you and the owners of that boat over there, I want you all to
launch out into the deep and cast your nets over and I want
you to catch some fish. And Simon Peter motioned to the
other two men, the two men on the other boat, they were James
and John. He motioned to them, he said,
well we've been out all night fishing and fish aren't biting. We didn't do any good all night
long. We've just been mending our nets
Kind of getting everything ready for this evening. We'll go out
again tonight. And the Lord said, launch out
into the deep, and I want you to cast your nets over on this
side of the ship. And he said, well, like I say,
we hadn't caught anything. Nevertheless, at thy word, at
thy word, I'll let down the net. So he did, and his little fishing
boat, and that other little fishing boat, they backed off into deeper
water, and he cast his net out, and he's catching so many fish,
he just yelled over at James and John, said, help! I can't
get all the fish in! And so they hauled all the fish
in. And he fell down before the Lord Jesus. He said, I'm a sinful
man. Oh Lord, depart from me. Scripture
says he fell at the knees of Christ Jesus. There's another story. This is
found in the previous chapter of John, John chapter 12. And our Lord was eating with
Mary and Martha and Lazarus. Lazarus had been raised from
the grave, as we know, and of course Martha was waiting on
the Savior. But there was Mary, and here's
what she did. She fell down before the Savior,
knelt down before Him, and she began to anoint Him, to wash
His feet with her hair, and she broke open alabaster box of some
sort of fragrance that just filled all the room with a wonderful
fragrance. Peter had bowed before the Lord. There's Mary bowing before the
Lord. And then you get over into the
book of Philippians. And this is what we read, that
our Lord Jesus in the last day, every knee is going to bow before
Him. And every tongue is going to
confess that He's Lord to the glory of God the Father. All
of these people on their knees before Christ Jesus. But right here in John chapter
13, we have an amazing scene. because it's the Lord Jesus on
His knees before His disciples. This is astounding. I can understand,
and it must be that we kneel before the Savior, that we go
before Him, we bow before Him, we submit to Him, and we serve
the Master. But in this Scripture, it's just amazing, I say. Because
here's what we have. We have our Savior on His knees
before His disciples, washing their dirty feet. It's an amazing
story. Look at verse one. We've had
two messages on this. This is the third one about the
master washing the feet of his servants. In verse one again,
now before the Feast of the Passover. This is our Lord's fourth Passover
during his ministry, his public ministry. Of course, we know
this was followed by the instituting of the Lord's Supper. This occurs by divine design
because our Lord Jesus is the true Passover lamb. And all those Passover lambs
in the Old Testament They were just figures and types and pictures
of this One who is THE Passover Lamb. They were all just shadows. He's the substance. And here
He is. This is the time of His death.
And by the way, there will be no more Passovers. There'll be no more animal sacrifices. Because this is the offering
that all the rest of all those animal offerings, this is the
one they all pictured and prefigured and directed our minds toward. So before the Feast of the Passover,
when Jesus knew He knew his hour was come, that he should change
residence, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father.
He knew what he came to do. He's omniscient. Everything that
happened to him, it happened by his own will, and he being
in submission to the will of the Father. But he knew this
was coming about and he never tried to avoid it. He set his
face like a flint. to die for us. Because this is
the only way we're going to be saved. And as it goes on to say,
He loved His own unto the end. He loved His people in an everlasting
love. And He knew what it would take
to save us. He knew what it would take to
redeem us. He knew what it would take to
reconcile us to God. He knew what it would take to
put our sins away. He knew what it would take to
bring in everlasting righteousness for us. He knew what it would
take to make things right between a holy God and us. And He came,
He said, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. No wonder the writer says, He
taketh away the first that He may establish the second. And then notice this in that
first verse. Our Lord Jesus speaks of two
things that were His own. His hour and His own. He speaks of ownership, two things
that belong to Him. His hour and His own. His hour,
He doesn't mean like 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock. What He's talking
about is His season. His season had come. That appointed
time. for him to die. So often he said
during his ministry that his hour had not come. In John chapter
2, when he changed the water to wine and his mother said something
to him about, you know, they need more wine, he said, what's
that to me? My hour has not come. My hour
has not yet come. In John 7, when He went up to
the Feast of Tabernacles and the Jews were ready to kill Him,
it says they couldn't lay a hand on Him because His hour was not
yet come. John chapter 8, the same thing. He's speaking to the Jewish leaders
and it says they would have killed Him, but His hour was not yet
come. And then He says now, His hour
had come. This is His hour. This was His
hour to do His work. The work that nobody else could
do. It was His hour was come that He should depart. That is,
that He should die. Then watch this, having loved
His own. Here's the second indication
of ownership. Not only that hour, that season
when He would die, but it says having loved His own. His own. Over in Luke, I think it's Luke
chapter 18, the Lord Jesus said, shall not the Father, shall not
God, revenge His own elect? His own elect? You know who His
own people are? It's His elect, that's who they
are. In John chapter 10, it talks about His own sheep. Who are
these people that belong to Him? They're His own sheep. They're
His own children. And having loved them, which
are in the world, He loved them unto the end. Look at the next
verse. Supper being ended, literally
during the supper would be a more accurate translation of that.
during the supper, the devil having now put into the heart
of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him." And our Lord
Jesus, He knew this too. He knew that Judas was a devil. In fact, a year before this,
back in John chapter 6, He even said that. Remember when multitudes
of disciples left, then he looked at his immediate 12 disciples. He said, will you also go away?
And Peter said, to whom shall we go? Lord, thou hast the words
of eternal life. We believe we're assured thou
art the Son of the living God. And then our Lord Jesus mentioned
to them, or it is mentioned of him that he knew that one of
them was a devil. Our Lord is omniscient. You know
what omniscience is. That's all-knowing. He has all
knowledge. And He knew, here's Judas sitting
there at the table with these other twelve men, whether they
were sitting upright or reclining, that doesn't matter. There was
our Lord Jesus and these twelve men who had followed Him during
these last few years who had been instructed by Him, whom
He commissioned to go into the world and preach the gospel,
and gave them unusual gifts and authorities so that they could
perform miracles. And Judas was one of them, and
he sat there at the table. But our Lord did not refuse to
serve him, even though He knew he was a devil. So as Judas sat there, and listened, and then watched
as the Lord Jesus knelt before them and began to wash their
feet, that which is going through the mind of Judas was betrayal. Oh, how evil that is. Well, look at verse 3. Jesus, knowing that the Father
had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from
God and went to God. Our Lord knew the Father had
given all things into His hands. What's meant by all things? Well,
all the persons of the elect had all been given to Him. We
had been given to Him. Are you a believer? You believe
on the Lord Jesus? Is He your only hope of salvation? Well, you were given to Him by
the Father in the covenant of grace. Now, you think about that. Next time your spirits get low
and you get to feelings of self-pity and how woe is me and nobody
knows what I'm going through with, remember this. Our Lord
Jesus was given you as a gift by the Father for your salvation
before the world ever began. And God appointed him to be your
Redeemer, your Savior. The one who would reconcile you
to God. God gave you as a gift, as a
present to Christ Jesus and said, keep him safe. Rescue him. Preserve him. Make him righteous. Bring him home to me perfect. through your comeliness. That's
what He did for you. That's what He did for me. That's
what He did for all of His people before the world began. He knew
the Father had given all things into His hands, and not only
all of His people, but all power to do everything necessary for
their salvation. He was given all power as a man,
as a man over even all the forces of evil. that he would have dominion
over everything to bring about that wonderful salvation of his
elect. And he knew he was come from
God, and he knew he was gonna do the
work that God gave him to do, and he's going back. Now watch this, verse four. He riseth from supper, he laid
aside his garments, he took a towel, and he girded himself. Think
of this, those same hands which all things had been given
to, those hands took his outer robe off, then he took a towel, He girded Himself with it. And
He got a basin of water. And verse 5 says, after that
He poureth water into a basin and began to wash the disciples'
feet, to wipe them with a towel wherewith He was girded. It's
interesting, the Roman Catholics, they want people to believe that
He started with Simon Peter. But it's obvious he didn't. He
didn't start with Simon Peter. He gets to Simon Peter. He began
to wash the disciples' feet. Tradition says he started with
Judas. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. But he began to wash their feet,
wipe them with a towel wherewith he was girded, And then he came
to Simon Peter. And Peter, he said, Lord, dost
thou wash my feet? And to me he kind of, he must
have pulled his feet back in. Not my feet. You're not going
to wash my feet. If anybody's going to wash any
feet, I'm going to wash your feet. And I can understand Alan,
you know, his reaction, because it reminds me of John the Baptist. Our Lord Jesus, remember He approached
John the Baptist, He said, baptize me. You remember what John said?
John said, I have need that you baptize me. And that's the way
Peter felt, and I can understand, I can understand why he would
do this. He said, Lord, Dost thou wash
my feet? Now notice this in verse 7. And Jesus answered and said unto
him, What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. Now, Simon Peter knew what the
Lord Jesus was doing, Literally, he's washing the feet of these
men. But he didn't understand the
significance of what Christ was doing. He didn't understand the
meaning. He didn't understand the reason.
He didn't understand the teaching. But the Savior says, but you
will know hereafter. You'll know later what this is
a picture of. Now certainly Peter recognized
that the Lord was humbling himself. And we know he did humble himself.
He humbled himself to come to this earth. That's what it says
in Philippians chapter 2. He thought it not robbery to
be equal with God, but he made himself of no reputation and
he took upon himself the form of a servant. He humbled himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
And Peter knew full well that the Lord Jesus was humbling Himself
here. And this is an example of humility
and a wonderful example it was. But there's more to it than that. Look at verse 8. Peter said, Unto him, after our Savior had
said what I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know
ereafter. Peter said unto him, thou shalt never wash my feet. Emphasis on never. And then Jesus had something
to say to that. Jesus answered him, if I wash
thee not. He didn't say if I don't wash
your feet. He said, if I wash thee not, thou hast no part with
me. Our Lord's teaching here, it
certainly includes humility, but it's much more than that.
He's talking about washing people in His blood. You've got to be
washed in the blood. of the Lamb. You see, we're filthy.
We're filthy in sin. We've got a sin problem, and
we're contaminated, and we're rotten, we're corrupt. All of
us are, and we've got to be washed. We sing, are you washed in the
blood of the Lamb? You've got to be washed. You've
got to be purified. You've got to be cleansed by
the blood of the Lord Jesus. Joe read to us in the beginning
there in Psalm 51, David said, wash me, wash me, and I shall
be whiter than snow. Lord, you've got to wash me.
You see, this isn't only a statement of and an illustration and an
example of humility, though it is that, but it's much more than
that, it's much deeper than that. There is here set forth the necessity
of being fully, fully washed by the Lord Himself. In fact, when our Lord Jesus
uses the word wash, it's a different word. It's a different word than
Peter used. Because when Peter said, Lord,
dost thou wash my feet? He's talking about washing a
specific part of the body. But our Lord, when He talks about
if I wash thee not, He's saying, if I don't give you a full bath,
A full bath. You have no part with me. You
have no relationship with me. You have no portion with me.
You have no acceptance with the Father through me unless I wash
you through. We need a bath. We don't just
need our feet washed. We need a full bath in the bloodiest
sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is substitution and that
is satisfaction. Wash me. Wash me. And you see, the thing of it
is, Simon, Peter, and the rest of the disciples, they didn't
understand this. They couldn't see His bloody
death. When He set this before them,
they refused to even think about it. Because they still had the
mind-set that Messiah had come into the world to establish an
earthly kingdom. Well, how could He establish
an earthly kingdom if He died? So they just kind of put that
out of their mind. They didn't understand it. But
our Lord Jesus said, you will later. You will later. In fact, look over to, look at
John chapter, two or three chapters, 16. Look at chapter 16 verse 12. The Savior said to these same
disciples, Judas is now gone, of course. He leaves at the end
of chapter 13. But look at verse 12 of John
chapter 16. He said, I have yet many things
to say unto you, but you can't bear them now. You can't handle
them now. You'll need the Holy Spirit.
And He'll teach you. In fact, our Lord has introduced
them to this idea, another Comforter's coming. And He's going to teach
you. He's going to show you. The Savior
said, you can't handle it. If I told you all this now, you
couldn't handle it. And you know, here's the fact
of it is, we can't handle much, can we? We don't grasp very much
in reality. We understand in part. We see in part. But I'll tell
you, we see so little. And we don't want to be too hard
on these disciples. I don't want to be too hard on
Simon Peter. Because it's so little we understand.
You see, there's more here in John 13 in the washing of these
men's feet than just an act of humility. He sets before them
the necessity of having a bath. Oh God, wash me. Wash me, throughly,
from mine iniquities. I'm so filthy, all. I'm filthy
on the inside. And that filth manifests itself
on the outside. I can't be clean. I can't be
purified unless you do it! Wash me, Lord!" It's what Simon
Peter didn't understand. But he would. The Savior said,
you will. You will. This is too big a pill
for you to swallow right now, but you will. You will. So in verse 9, Simon Peter said
unto him, Lord, if that's the way it is, Don't wash my feet
only, but my hands and my head, because my hands are occupied
in doing wrong things, and my head, my mind is filled with
foolishness. My mind is rotten and corrupt. Would you like for people to
know your thoughts? Would you like for anybody to
read what goes through your mind most of the time? Wash my mind. Don't you feel
like your mind? You know, it used to be every once in a while I'd let
a little foul word come out of my mouth and say, I'm going to
wash your mouth out with soap. The mouth, the mind, the hands,
the eyes, the heart. That's where the defilement is. Wash my heart. Peter said, just wash me all
over as it were. But Peter didn't understand. You see, he had already been
washed. He already had a bath. You say,
this man? This man who in just a few hours
from this, he's gonna deny the Lord one, two, three times. You mean he's been washed? Yes,
sir. He's been washed. But he'll need his feet washed
again. See, verse 10, Jesus said unto
him, he that is washed, he that is completely bathed, he who's
had a bath of salvation, needeth not save or accept to
wash his feet. That's all. But he's clean everywhere. You're clean everywhere. But
your feet come in contact with the world. You need daily cleansing. Nancy and I made a church camp
back in the 60s. And I worked. I started going
to church camp when I was real young. And then, I wasn't but
about 9 or 10 years old, I went to the man who owned the camp
because I just loved it. And I said, could I come to camp
and work for you and I'll do anything you want me to do. I
just, I love camp. I love coming. He said, you willing
to clean the Johnny houses? I said, well, you tell me what
it is. He said, well, you carry a bucket of lime around. And
you pour the lime in. And you take a broom. And on
the broom handle, you'll have a bunch of toilet paper. And
you'll keep it filled with toilet paper, keep that place with toilet
paper. And then you sweep it out. I
said, I'll do anything. He said, how good are you at
slinging weeds? I said, well, a sling's just
about as big as I am, but I can sling weeds, too. He said, OK,
you can do it. He said, I give you $5 a week,
too. And I thought I was rich then. But I started working. When I got to be about 14, 15
years old, I started staying on the weekends. Two workers
stayed on the weekends. The campers left early Saturday
morning. New campers came in late Sunday
afternoon. Somebody had to stay at the camp
because the guy who ran the camp, he was a preacher in Eden, North
Carolina. And he would go back home to
preach. And two workers would stay. And
we stayed, we lived in a little cabin up above a lake. At that time, they didn't have
hot water. It was cold showers. right out
of a well. And the warmest place to really
wash was in the lake. It was warmer than the water
coming up out of the well. So here's what we'd do, because
there's always two workers, two of us stay. We'd get our bath
towels and a cake of ivory soap, because if we dropped it in the
lake, it'd float. Hey, we're smart. And we had
a washcloth. We'd go down, walk down the hill
to the lake. Nancy, of course, that's where
we met, so she knows exactly what I'm talking about. And we'd
dive in, come back, get that washcloth, have it wet in the
soap, and get all lathered up and dive back in, rinsed off,
and come out. But then we had to walk right
back up to the cabin, and our feet would get dusty, even though
we wore flip-flops. And we had that damp washcloth
and we get back up there. We didn't need a whole bath.
We just need to wipe our feet off. This is what the Lord is
saying. You don't need a whole bath.
You've been saved by the grace of God. You've been fully forgiven. But you walk through this world
every day and you come in contact with filth. All you need is a refreshment
in the grace of God. You need your feet washed. And we confess our sins, don't
we? We confess our sins to the Lord every day. I read today,
one writer said the word confess means to say the same thing God
says. He said that's what it means
to confess sins. To say the same thing God says.
I've sinned against thee. That's what David said there
in Psalm 51. Against thee, thee only, have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. But he didn't need
a whole bath. He just needed his feet washed.
And that's the way we are. We need our feet washed by the
Lord every day. We need to be cleansed. Refreshed, forgiven. The scripture says if we confess
our sins, if we agree with God about our sins, He's faithful
and just to forgive us our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So he says, he that is washed,
he that's completely bathed, he needeth not save to wash his
feet. He's clean everywhere. And you
are clean. But not all of you. Not all of
you. And verse 11 tells us who He's
talking about. But He knew who should betray
Him, therefore He said, you're not all clean. Judas wasn't clean,
because our Lord never came to redeem him. He never came to
reconcile him. He never came to forgive him
of his sins. Judas was born in sin, lived
in sin, died in sin. Our Lord Jesus said, if you die
in your sins, where am you? You can't come. So, verse 12, after He had washed
their feet and had taken His garments, and was set down again,
He said unto them, Know ye what I've done to you? Do you understand
what I've done to you? He says, you call Me Master and
Lord, and you say, well, For I am, I am Lord, and I am Master. 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." He didn't say, I've given you
an ordinance. He didn't say, I've given you
something to do in your churches. Every so often? He said, I've
just given you an example. Never in the book of Acts. The
book of Acts is the transition book. It's in the book of Acts
we learn doctrine, we learn church practice, we learn the officers
of the church, and never in the book of Acts is it ever mentioned
that any of those early churches, that they participated in foot
washing, and never in any of the epistles. Our Lord says,
I've given you an example. An example. An example that I
have forgiven you and I forgive you every day. That's what He's
saying. I forgive you every day. I wash
your feet every day. Now you wash one another's feet.
You be forgiving of one another. Don't hold any grudges against
any of your brethren. They're just like you. All of
us got dirty feet. We all need each other's forgiveness. He said, I've given you an example. Do as I've done to you. He says,
verily, verily, truly, truly, amen, amen. I say unto you, the
servant is not greater than his Lord, neither he that is sent
greater than he that sent him. If you know these things, if
you understand these things, if you perceive the things I've
showed you, the example I've set before you, if you understand
the necessity of having a total bath in the grace of God and
in the blood of Christ Jesus, and the need for daily cleansing
of your feet, if you know these things, well, happier ye if you
do them. You know what happy means? Blessed. That's just another word for
blessed. You're well off if you understand what he's talking
about. Isn't it wonderful to be bathed in the blood of Christ
Jesus? We've had a total bath. And every
day we come to the Lord. It's like one of the old Puritans
said, he said, when I get up in the morning, I say, Lord,
keep me from sin today. And he said, at night when I
go to bed, I say, Lord, forgive me of my sins today. Wash my
feet again. I need my feet washed, Lord. And he's always faithful to do
that. Because he's faithful to forgive
us. Because he's just. He forgives us on the basis of
justice satisfied in his own substitutionary death. That leads us to...