Alright, let's go back to John
chapter 13. I said last Wednesday that John
13 begins a wonderful section in the Gospel of John because
our Lord Jesus has now left the unbelievers behind. He has no
more to say to them. He has no more ministry to them.
He has had a wonderful public ministry for the better part
of three years. And he who went forth preaching
the gospel, as we have read in Mark chapter 1, now winds up
preaching the gospel to these Jewish people. And it was a wonderful
message and a wonderful preacher. The scripture says of him, never
a man spake like this man. These people were privileged
here. That one who is the very Prince of Preachers. Those of
you who have done some reading of preachers and sermons and
that sort of thing, you're probably well aware of the fact Charles
Spurgeon was called the Prince of Preachers, but that's wrong. He wasn't the Prince of Preachers.
There's but one Prince of Preachers, and that's the Lord Jesus. That's
the Son of God Himself. And these Jewish people, just
like they did in the passage in John 8 that I read to you,
they were privileged to hear the Son of God. And He ministered
to them. He preached to them. He told
them who He was. And they didn't have any use
for Him. And the fact of the matter is,
none of us would. We wouldn't believe the gospel
of God's grace were it not for the effectual mercy of the Lord
directed toward us. The Lord sends his gospel to
us like an arrow to our hearts, like an arrow to a target. And
he arrests us by his grace, and he gives us a new heart, which
is a heart of faith, and we believe on the Lord Jesus. And if He
doesn't do that for us, if He doesn't do that to us, we're
going to be like these Jewish people who live their lives in
unbelief and rejecting the Son of God, having no use for Him,
not seeing who He was, not rejoicing in the fact that He's the Son
of God, not believing that at all. And most of these people,
they went to their graves. in opposition to the Son of God. Can you imagine that? Listen,
if you go to your grave against Jesus of Nazareth, against the
Son of God, against this One who is the Son of Man, if you
live and die graceless and godless and Christless, without a sacrifice,
without an atonement, without the blood, Without righteousness? Well, our Savior said, if you
die in your sins, He said, where I am, you can't come. You can't
come. And I'll tell you what I want.
I want to go where He's at. Don't you? That's what I want. I want to go where He's at. And
He said, if you die in your sins, you're not coming where I'm at.
You're going somewhere else. That somewhere else is hell.
You're going to perish in your sins. Lord, I don't want to perish. Lord, I don't want to die in
unbelief, in opposition against God. I don't want that. I want faith. Give me faith,
Lord. Give me that grace of believing
You and embracing You. These people, they heard Him
preach one last time. In the end of chapter number
12, he called them to believe him. And they didn't believe
him. And then he went and hid himself.
And this is a judicial hiding. And now he's finished with them. He's got some things now to say
to his disciples, to his beloved ones. Judas will leave very shortly. Our Savior has some things for
those that belong to Him by free and sovereign grace. Now, let
me give you two things by way of introduction. Number one,
our Lord Jesus, He always had His eye on the cross of Calvary. And in this scripture, he does.
He does, and like I said, it's a whole new section, because
he's dealing with his disciples, and he'll speak to them, he'll
instruct them, chapters 13, 14, 15, 16, and then of course, chapter
17, he prays for all of his people, and then chapter 18, then we
get into the betrayal and the crucifixion. But notice here
in verse one of chapter 13 of John, 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. Let me just stop right there.
His eyes on the cross. He never took his eye off the
goal. That's been his goal forever. He often spoke of his departure.
And it's an interesting word he uses, that he should depart
out of the world. And the word, interesting, the
word depart means a change of residence. He's gonna change
his residence. He's gonna depart out of the
world, he's gonna change his residence from this world back
to the Father. Now, he had always had his residence
with the Father from old eternity, because he's one with the Father.
There's no denying that he is the everlasting Son of God. He's
the everlasting Son of the everlasting Father, and there's the everlasting
Spirit. He's always been one with the
Father, but he left that residence He left heaven to come down here. That's why we read passages like,
great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. He was in heaven. He was up above
all of creation. All that we know of creation. He was there with the angels
being His attendants. There's His majesty, there's
His glory, that's where He was, there was His residence, but
He moved. He moved and He came down here. Oh bless His name that He did
that, that He relocated down here to this earth, because if
He hadn't done that, there wasn't any hope for us. We couldn't
be saved if He didn't come down here. There's no hope of us going
to where He was, unless He came down here where we were. He came
to do the work of redemption. He came to do the work of reconciliation. And now He begins these hours
of instruction. And remember, this is the night
before He dies. This is the evening. These are
the last several hours of our Lord's life before He lays down
that life. He said, I do have the power
to lay it down. I'll lay it down. He said, nobody's
going to take my life from me. I'll lay it down on myself. And
he's just a few hours from doing that. And as he speaks to these
disciples, he speaks of that hour when he would change his
residence. When he would depart out of this
world. It's an interesting way to speak
of death. to speak of death. He's departing
out of this world. Hold your place there. We read
in 2 Timothy chapter 4, the Lord stayed
night. Look at 2 Timothy 4 again. Departure. Here's Paul preaching of his
departure. He's moving out. You know what? When we die, we just move out. We move out of this body. And
that's what our Lord Jesus was going to do. That's what the
word depart means. To move out. To change residence. He said, I'm about to move out
and go back to my Father. Move out of what? Move out of
His body. His body was going to die. Well,
He was made lower than the angels so that He could suffer, bleed
and die. But He was, our Lord Jesus, never
forget this, He was both body and soul. Body and soul, just
like you are, you're body and soul. You are a soul and you
have a body. This is your residence. This
is where your soul resides. My soul resides in this residence. Your soul resides in your residence. Go all the way around the room
like this. And one of these days, you're moving out. You're moving
out. Guess what? The old house will
still be here. You're going to move in another
house. For the people of God, it's a house not made with hands. That's what says it. Not made
with hands. eternal in the heavens. And this
is exactly what, this way the Apostle Paul, this is how he
spoke of death. Look at 2 Timothy chapter four.
He said, verse six, after giving these instructions to this preacher,
his name is Timothy. He says in 2 Timothy four, verse
six, for I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure
That's a nice way to speak of death, isn't it? That's the time
of my departure. I'm moving. I'm moving out. When a believer is on their deathbed,
we can accurately say, they're about to change residence. They're
about to change addresses. They're moving out. They're moving
out. That's what Paul said, and that's
what happens to us. We don't cease to exist when
we die. Death doesn't end everything.
Oh, death ends this body's activities for a while. Just for whatever
time it is between then and the resurrection. But that doesn't
end the existence of the real me or the real you. The soul
just moves out. It just departs. go somewhere
else. And so that's what death is for
us, and that's what it was for our Lord Jesus. He said, I'm
about to depart. The Spirit of God says He's about
to depart out of the world, change residence. He's about to move
out of this world. Here's what I'm trying to say.
Our Lord Jesus always had His death, His cross death, in His
eye, in His mind's eye. You know what it's like to have
something in your mind's eye? is when something's on your mind. I'm sure you've had some subject
or some event that's coming up, and you say, I just can't get
that out of my mind. And if it's a delightful thing,
you say, boy, I just think about that all the time. I tell you
something, it's in my mind's eye, a good bit of the time,
going to be with the Lord. I see that in my mind's eye.
That's a joyful thing. That day when I leave and go
home to be with Him. Or when He comes back for us
and I say, even so come Lord Jesus. That's a delightful thing. Or it may be a negative thing.
It may be something you dread. You see it in your mind's eye
and you can't get it out of your mind. Our Lord Jesus, He didn't
dread the cross. He looked toward the cross. He
always had that on his mind and in his heart. That's why the
scripture says over in Isaiah, he set his face like flint. He
just determined. When our Lord Jesus had finished
pretty much his Galilean ministry, and he started to go through
Judah, the scripture says in the book of Luke, he's on his
way to Jerusalem. Because that's where He wanted
to go. It was always in His mind's eye. He always saw it. He saw
His death even before He made the world. Because the Scripture
says He's the Lamb who was slaughtered, the Lamb slain before the foundation
of the world. He looked to that. And He often
spoke of it. He had to die. He had to face
divine justice. Because that's the only way God
could be just and justify the ungodly. I'll share this with
you, some of these. Men who ate breakfast. Some of
us ate breakfast yesterday. They know about this. But our
server is always delightful. We enjoy where we go to eat. And she's a very nice lady. But
she was telling us yesterday she attends a couple of different
churches. And she made some other comments. As I sit there just kind of listening
to what she had to say, I was thinking, what could I say to
her to maybe trigger some thought? And so when I went up to pay
my bill, I said, these two preachers that you listen to, I said, do
they answer this question, how can God be just and justify? I said, do they deal with that?
And she just gave me a look like, what are you talking about? And
she actually didn't verbalize an answer. It was just more... And I said, I tell you, would
you do me a favor? I said, would you ask them, ask
both those preachers, how can God be just and justify? And I said, if they're not telling
you that, I don't know what else they're telling you, but they're
not telling you enough. They're not telling you the truth. Now
listen, this is what we've got to deal with. Our Lord Jesus
always had this on His mind, His cross death. Why did the
Lord die? How can God be just and justify
the ungodly? Only through a suitable substitute
dying in the stead of the guilty. Now that's the only way He could
do it. And He didn't make salvation a possibility. He didn't open
the door so that we're either free to to go in or stay out,
it's up to us, but He made it a possibility. No, no. He saved
His people. He reconciled His people. He
redeemed His people. This is what He's always been
about ever since before He made the world. This is what our Lord
Jesus has always had on His heart. He's had His people on His heart,
and their salvation, our salvation, our redemption. That's why He
came into this world. He didn't come as an example.
He came as the Savior. Isn't that why He came? He came
to save people like us, and He did it by His death upon the
cross of Calvary. So, this is something that was
always in His mind's eye. Always. And then, here's the
second thing. Our Lord's eye has always been
upon those given to Him in the election of grace. Once again,
from old eternity, He's had His eye of mercy on the objects of
His everlasting love. Not for one second. Not for one
single second has he ever turned away from his little ones. Now, a good many of us are parents,
and with most of us, our kids are grown, and now we have grandchildren. But I speak to parents and grandparents. Your little ones are under your
care. And you watch them. And you do
what's best for them. And as you live your life, they're
always on your heart, aren't they? Even now when they grow
up. When they grow up. Here's our daughter right down
here. She's grown up. She's married, she's got kids,
but she's still on our hearts. She's always in my mind's eye. She's always in her mother's
mind's eye. Today's our son's birthday. Though he's thousands of miles
away, on the other side of the world, he's always in our mind's
eye. He's always on our hearts. Because
miles don't make a difference as far as your love and devotion. And y'all, your kids, they always
bear a burden upon you. And if they're going through
something, you're going with them too. You're right there
with them every step of the way. And you wouldn't think of ever
leaving them or forgetting about them or forsaking them. But I'll
tell you this, you can't always be thinking about them because
you've got other things to think about too. Isn't that right? Of course you do. You've got
other projects, you've got other people. You can be thinking about,
we got two children, I can be thinking about Susanna, but when
I'm thinking about Susanna, I wouldn't be thinking about David. I can't
think of both of them at the same time. I can't get both of
them my full, undivided attention. Just can't do that, and I can't
take care of her, I can't take care of him, though she's just
a few miles away and he's thousands of miles away. I'm very limited
in what I can do, but I still care. But here's our Lord. His eye is always on His children. Every single one of them. And
He never takes His attention off of us. Never for a second. His eye is on the sparrow. And I know He watches me. That's
what the songwriter said. I sing because I'm happy. I sing
because I'm free. His eye, the eye of my God, if
it's on a sparrow, the scripture says a sparrow can't fall to
the earth without your heavenly Father. How much more valuable
are you to God than a sparrow? I know He watches me. And I know
He watches you. And here are these disciples.
Our Lord never lost concern for them. Here He is, there's a weighty,
weighty issue right in front of Him. The hour of His death. And yet with all of this on Him,
here's the full salvation of His people dependent on Him. the weight of our redemption,
that heavy weight, the load of the wrath of God's about to be
laid on Him, and yet even then, though the hour has arrived,
He's still concerned about His people, His disciples. Because it says, having loved
His own, having loved His own, which are in the world, He loved
them unto the end. Unto the end of what? Unto the
end of their lives and beyond. Unto the end of His life and
beyond. Unto the end of the age and beyond. Having loved His own. His own. We're His own. He speaks of us
as being His own. We're His own. He owns us. He owns us because the Father
gave us to Him. We're His own. He owns us because
He bought us. You're bought for the price,
the blood of the Lord Jesus. He owns us by the effectual call
of grace, who drew us to Him, having loved His own which are
in the world. He loved them unto the end. Now,
all of this happened at Passover. Here he is getting ready to wash
the disciples' feet at the feast of the Passover. We know from having previously
studied the Passover, it's to the Jews, this is a big deal. There's no way we could really
enter into their kind of mentality about this. Boy, this is big
for them. very solemn because when they
got together for Passover, this was to remember, to memorialize
what God did for Israel in bringing them out of Egypt. And they did
this every year. They'd been doing this for hundreds
and hundreds of years, 1,500 years. They'd been observing
the Passover. And our Lord, he tells a couple
of his disciples, go out and you're gonna find a room. And
he had it all arranged where they'd observed the Passover,
the last Passover, the last Passover. where the lamb would die. I don't need to remind you of
what happened back in the book of Exodus when the Lord said
He's going to deliver His people, and He said it's going to be
by means of the blood of the Passover lamb. He said, now,
y'all choose a lamb, told Moses, tell the elders of Israel. Choose
a lamb, a male of the first year, Not sickly, not weak, not disabled. It's got to be perfect because
it pictures the lamp of God. And he said, let every man take
a lamp, put it up, inspect it, make sure it's fit to be the
sacrifice for God and fit for the blood to be shed and then
put on the doorposts and over the lentil. And he said, now,
when you kill that animal, shed the blood, catch the blood in
a basin, and then go outside, outside the house with some hyssop,
kind of like a sponge, and dip it down in that basin and mark
both sides of the doors and then mark the top. Don't mark, not
down at the bottom where you trample over the blood, no, over
top and the sides. And then you go back in. and
you roast that lamb and you eat it with bitter herbs and unleavened
bread. And he says, God said, when I
see the blood, I'll pass on you. And we know that the Lord came
through that night and thousands upon thousands of the firstborn
of Egypt died, because that's what God said. If you don't put
the blood up there, blood's not up there. I'm going to take the
firstborn, man and beast. That's what he said, man and
beast. And there's a cry from Pharaoh's
house down to the least of his servants where the firstborn
died. But where the blood was shed
and put on the doorpost, like God said, God passed over because
he had already got death at that door. He'd already got death
at that house, and that picture's the death of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Lamb of God. He died. He died, and God's satisfied. One of the greatest heresies
in this world is that there be people in hell for whom Jesus
died. That's utter nonsense and foolishness. That's one of Satan's big lies.
And we believe because the scripture teaches our Lord Jesus redeemed
his people. He bought his people, everybody
he bought he has. And so here the Jews gathered
together for the Passover. And as they gathered together,
the scripture says this in the second verse, supper being ended,
the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot,
Simon's son to betray him. And I'll give you this, in the
first verse, we see love. In the second verse, we see hatred.
That's what we see. And then, third verse, 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,
laid aside his garments, took a towel, and girded himself,
and after he had poured After that, he poured the water into
a basin, began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the
towel wherewith he was girded." Now, we know back in those days,
if people went barefoot, or the servants went barefoot, those
that were a little better off than servants, they wore sandals.
The streets were dusty and dirty, so you got into somebody's house,
typically you had your feet washed by a servant. This was a menial
task, but a vital task nonetheless because whosever house it was,
he would make sure that when you entered into the house that
your feet were washed and massaged because the hot kind of air that
they had, the weather that they had, the dusty streets, the servant
washed the feet and massaged the feet. Typically, that was done as soon
as you entered into somebody's house. Of course, this was a
borrowed room, and so none of these men in this room actually
owned this house. But the one who arranged all
of this is the Lord Jesus, and He rises to wash their feet. It's interesting In the last
chapter, our Lord, his feet were anointed. You remember that? Back in the first part of chapter
12? His feet were anointed by Mary. And she anointed also his head
with this expensive ointment in preparation for his burial. And now our Lord, He takes the
low position. Because what Mary did, the Scripture
says it's going to be talked about from now on. She wrought
a good work. And now the Lord of glory, He
rises from supper. And He laid aside His outer garment
and He wrapped a towel around Himself He poured some water
in a basin, maybe some soap or something, I don't know. And
He began to wipe the feet, wash the feet of His disciples and
then wipe them with a towel wherewith He was girded. He took the lowest
position. Listen, our Lord Jesus, He came
as the servant. He came as the servant. He came
to do something, indeed something for God. Because if he doesn't
do something for God, he can't do anything for us. He's got
to serve God. He's got to serve God with a
pure heart. And he's got to serve God by
rendering to God the sacrifice that God required to save his
people. So he had to do something for
God before he could do something for us. But he also did something
for us, even as he did something for these men, he served us. He said, I came not to be ministered
to. You know what that means? I didn't
come to be served. I didn't come for you to serve
me, he says. I didn't come to be ministered
to, but to minister. I came to serve you. I came to
do for you. See, that's what salvation is. It's not us doing something for
the Lord or doing something with the Lord. It's the Lord doing
something for us. And continually doing something
for us. And so here he takes the lowest
position. He who is the master, the master
washes his servant's feet. Notice what he says in verse
13, and I'll go back to this, because I'm not going to get
through this tonight again, but look at verse 13. He says, you
call me master and Lord, and you say, well, that's accurate. For so, he says, so I am. I am, I am Lord and master. He said, if I then your Lord
and master have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another's
feet. And what he's talking about is
to serve one another. Now we have, the Lord only left
us two ordinances. He left us the ordinance of baptism,
was a picture of salvation. It's a picture of the death,
the burial, and the resurrection of Christ Jesus. He left us baptism,
and he left us also the Lord's Supper. Pictures his body and
his blood, the bread and the wine. I know there are some churches
that have feet washings, and they do it as an ordinance. Our Lord did this out of necessity
for these men because their feet were dirty. I don't need you
to wash my feet. There's no need for us to have
foot washing service because all of us have showers and we
have bathtubs. You would not be rendering a
service unto me. That would to me be more of a
show. Just a show. Because you really
wouldn't be helping me. That wouldn't be a needful thing
for me. You see, when our Lord Jesus
washed the feet of the disciples, that was a needful thing. That
was a delightful thing to them. They came in there wearing their
sandals and here's the master and he unlooses their sandals
and takes the sandal off and takes the foot, each foot, puts
it in his hand, dips it down in water and washes that foot
off and massages that foot. And they'd been out walking around
through the day because they walked everywhere they went.
And their feet were aching. blisters, tired, callous feet,
and that feels good. Boy, that feels good. I don't
need you to wash my feet. We're not going to have a foot
washing service because how is that going to help me? That's
not going to help me. See, he's doing a service that
would be beneficial to these men. But here's what he was doing. He was teaching them this. Serve
one another. Be willing to take the low place.
Everybody wants the top job. Everybody wants to be over everybody
else. Here's the master. Here's the Lord of glory. And
you know what he does? He takes the very lowest position
and washes dirty, stinking feet. He came to serve. He came to
serve. And His greatest service was
to lay down His life for us. And I tell you, we would do well
to serve one another, to help one another. What can I do for
a child of God? What could I do for a brother
or a sister in Christ Jesus that would be beneficial to them?
It wouldn't be any good for me to come to your house and say,
I come over to wash your feet, Aaron. Aaron said, well, you
think my feet are dirty? Don't you think I should take
a bath? But I can render another service. I can pray for him.
I can visit him when he's sick. And the same way with the rest
of us. We can do for one another. Take a lowly position. Take a
position of service. That's what our Lord Jesus did. We'll pick up with this. I'll
have part three, Ron. We'll have part three the next
time we get to this, and I'll see if I can finish up this section
here. Well, let's sing a closing song tonight.