Now, if you want to, you can
open your Bibles to the 13th chapter of John. This passage of Scripture, which
I read a few moments ago, John 13, 1 through 17, has been the
center of so much controversy and debate
through the years. And I regret that most people,
because of that controversy and because of the debate surrounding
the washing of the disciples' feet, that most people fail to
see the richness and the beauty in this passage and the glory
of Christ and the gospel that's preached here, and the instructions
and the good example that's set forth. In fact, if you read this
passage, when you read it, most people who listen to you read
it, they begin to debate whether or not we ought to wash feet
today or whether we ought not to wash feet. That's right. And
if you read it, and there are a bunch of preachers present,
they say, well, I don't think foot washing is an ordinance.
Somebody said, well, I think it is. And we're so taken up
with form that we miss the spirit of the
word. We're so taken up with theology and our religious duties
and doing things exactly, exactly that we miss the very spirit
of Christ and the message of Christ and the grace of Christ. It's like Magruder said one time
years ago, the grace of God in doctrine is important, no question
about it. We wouldn't argue with that.
But grace in the heart and graciousness in the life is equally important. And if the true grace of God
in doctrine has been applied to the heart, it will manifest
itself in graciousness of life. And that's so. Where that's missing,
the grace of God's missing. Because grace is not a doctrine,
it's a person. And this is what I fear, that
the very glory of this incident is totally lost, the very glory
of it. Every time I hear anybody preach
on it, they spend time talking about whether or not we ought
to wash our feet, and why we should and why we shouldn't,
and why we should and why we should. They spend their time
on that. But let's look at this approach to this scripture, if
you can, if you will. Let's approach this scripture
as if we've never seen it before. Never, ever seen it before. We
have no prejudices, no tradition, we've never seen it, we've never
even heard it. And let's see what the Holy Spirit
will teach us. Now it says here that in verse 2, and supper being
ended, John 13, 2, the devil having now put into the heart
of Simon Iscariot, or Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray the Lord,
Jesus knowing that The Father had given all things into his
hands that he was come from God and went to God. He rises from
supper. How they were eating I do not
know at a table or they had in the picture, you know, the last
supper they had a table, but whether they were reclined on
pillars or anything, but he got up and our Lord went over and
took off his robe and laid it aside. And then he took a huge
towel. And he girded himself with it,
a large towel. And then he poured a basin of
water, poured water out of a pitcher into a basin. And the disciples,
I'm sure, were sitting there amazed, wordless, watching him. They didn't know what he was
going to do. And then he, when he filled that basin with water,
he went over here to the first disciple and set that basin down. in front of the disciple and
got down on his knees and took off the disciple's sandal. If
he had them on, he might have already taken them off at the
door. You know, the custom in those days was when you, as far
as I can determine, I didn't live in those days, you know.
Brother Bill Parker advertised me last week, preaching in that
conference at his church, and he wrote in the bulletin that
Brother Mahan is coming, a preacher of righteousness, like Noah of
old. And one little boy read it, Brother
Mahan, a preacher of righteousness as old as Noah. And that was the whole talk while
I was down there, if I really was as old as Noah. But they
tell me that when you came to a home as a guest that the that
the owner of the home stationed a servant, a lowly servant, and
that would be a lowly duty. Everybody came in off the street.
You washed their feet. Everybody came in. They'd kick
their sandals. You'd take them off. They'd just
pull them up and you'd take the sandals off and wash their feet.
And then take this one off and wash their old dirty feet and
dry And then they'd go on in. That was the job of that servant.
Or in some places they would provide you water to wash your
feet. But generally they had a servant.
And this is what our Lord was doing. He got right down on his
knees in front of those disciples and he began to wash their feet.
And then he took the towel and he dried that disciple's feet,
washed both his feet. And then he went to the next
one. And he washed his feet. He went from one to the other.
And where Peter was in that group, I don't know, but he came to
Peter like he'd washed the other disciples' feet, he came to Peter,
and Peter recalled, just pulled his feet back, and he said to
him in verse 6, he come at the Simon Peter, and Peter said,
Lord, Lord, Lord, Supreme Master, do you wash my feet? Do you wash my feet?" And our Lord said, Peter, what I do now you don't understand,
but you will know. You know, I can understand Peter's
objection. I can certainly... I believe
I've been sitting there with those disciples. I'm not trying
to be pious now, trying to be humble, but... Peter, you know, generally was
the outspoken one. He wasn't a shrinking violent.
He wasn't an introvert. Whatever Peter thought, he said.
And I got a lot of that in me and some of you got a lot of
that in you. And I can understand what he's saying. Peter is saying,
Lord, I'm a worthless servant. You're the king. I'm a sinful
man, you're a holy one." In fact, on one occasion he said to the
Lord, he said, depart from me, I'm a sinful man. Why, he said,
I think he was saying like John the Baptist, switch places with
me, I have need to wash your feet, not you wash my feet. And then our Lord Jesus says
something in verse 7 that opens up a lot to my understanding. He answered and said to Peter,
verse 7, What I do now you know not, you do not understand. Now just stop right there a minute. If this is strictly an ordinance
to show humility, Peter understood it. Why sure, Peter said that, Lord
do you wash my feet? He understood the humble station
our Lord was assuming, he understood that. He understood that perfectly. Peter, as to the literal meaning,
knew what was going on. He knew that he, the servant,
was having his feet washed by the Master. He knew that the
Lord and Master was taking his place as a humble servant and
washing the disciples' feet. He saw that. What he did, Peter
knew. If that's all this is, is an
ordinance or a foot washing or a demonstration of humility,
what our Lord is saying here does not apply at all. He said,
what I do you do not know now, but you will know someday. You'll see what I'm doing someday.
Yes, you will. What he was doing literally,
Peter understood. The example, Peter understood.
But there's something in here that Peter didn't understand,
that the Lord Jesus told him that you don't understand. Now
I'm going to show you what it is. It's a two-fold lesson. It's a two-fold lesson. And Peter
said to him in verse 8, now watch this. Peter said to him, Lord,
you'll never wash my feet. Never. I'll never let you wash
my feet. And I can understand that. Peter
just could not bring himself to subject his master to such
humility. But my friend, this is what our
Lord came to the earth to do. He came as the servant. He's
called in the Old Testament the servant. My servant. That's what he's called. Turn
to Philippians, if you will, chapter 2. Philippians, the second
chapter. This is our Lord's character
in mission. And what he came to do in redeeming
his people. Look at 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 robbery to be equal with God,
but made himself of no reputation. He had to be identified with
people of no reputation. Took upon himself the form of
a servant, of a slave. Was made in the likeness of men,
in the likeness of sinful flesh. And being found in habit or fashion
as a man, he humbled himself. He who was rich, for our sakes,
became poor. Poor. And he became obedient. Obedient unto death. even the
death of the cross. What Peter didn't see, he was
trying to keep Christ up here where he is, where he's
King, Lord and Master. He never ceased to be King and
God. But our Lord identified himself with us. He became numbered
with the transgressors. He became flesh. Our Lord came
to do what he's doing. to humble himself, to deny himself,
to give of himself, and this is what Peter is rejecting. Peter rejected him going to the
cross. Remember, our Lord talked about suffering and dying, and
Peter said, never, never, and our Lord turned and said, get
behind me, Satan. And here he is again saying,
you'll never wash my feet, never, never. Now, my friends, In this
thing of the condescension of the Son of God, this is one thing
that we've got to lay hold of and embrace, that our Lord is
Lord, He's God. But He did actually become a
man. And I know they mean well when
they picture Christ with the halo. I know they mean well. And when they picture Christ
in His perfections, and in his power, and in his healing ability,
and in Christ separate from sinners. But now, you've got to see the
Lord Jesus Christ as identified with sinners. This is what the Pharisees couldn't
understand. They said, if he were a prophet,
he wouldn't let that woman touch him. Well, being our prophet,
that's his very character, to let her touch him. They said, why does your master
eat with publicans and sinners? Well, this is why he came. This
is identification. To be identified with him, he
had to be identified with us. And this thing that Peter is
rejecting here is so necessary. He'll never wash my feet. I must
wash them. The Son of Man must be lifted
up. He must be crucified. He must
be numbered with the transgressors. This is what Christ must do. I wish we could see that. And
here's another thing, the second thing. He said, Peter, if I wash
thee not, you have no part with me. What is this washing he's
talking about? It's the cleansing of the blood.
It's the blood that maketh atonement for the soul. The blood of Jesus
Christ God's Son cleanses us from all sin. David said in Psalm
51, wash me and I shall be clean. Purge me and I shall be clean. Turn to 1 Corinthians 6. Listen
to this. 1 Corinthians 6. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse
11. And such were some of you, but
you're washed. He talks about thieves and covetousness
and drunkards and adulterers and idolaters and infeminate
and abusers of themselves with mankind, extortioners. Verse 11, 1 Corinthians 6, he
said, And such were some of you, but you're washed. You're washed,
washed in the blood, sanctified. The blood of Christ cleanses,
the blood of Christ purifies, the blood of Christ puts away
sin. And he's saying, Peter, if I
don't wash you, if I don't wash you, you have no part in me,
no part in the covenant of grace, no part in my righteousness,
no part in my death, no part in my intercession, no part in
the first resurrection, no part in God's eternal kingdom, if
I don't wash you, if I don't wash you, Now, before I come to the third
thing, do you see those two things? There are really three things
here that our Lord is demonstrating and showing when he washes the
disciples' feet. He comes to Peter, and Peter
said, is this necessary? Do you wash my feet? Now, Peter,
what I'm doing, you don't understand now, but you will, you will.
You don't understand. You don't understand the cross.
You don't understand the just and justifier. This what's God,
but someday you will. Well, you'll never wash my feet.
You'll never, you'll never humble yourself. I'll never cooperate
with your humiliation. Oh, yes, you will. Yes, you will. You'll never be the serpent,
yeah? He's God, and this thing is crystallized in the hearts
of those who are redeemed. He's our God, and yet he's one
with us. He's our God, and yet he's a
man. He's our God, and yet he was
numbered with the transgressors. He's our God, and yet he bore
our sins in his body on the tree. Yes, he did. And you see both. And here's the thing, it's like
a preacher said on television, if I had been at that cross,
I'd have stopped it. I wouldn't have stopped it. That's
what Peter tried to stop. You'll never wash my feet. Oh
no, thank God for the cross. Thank God for the condescension
of Christ. Thank God that he subjected himself
to guilt and shame and sin and bearing our hail. I'll gladly
let you wash my feet. Gladly. I'm glad we've got a
servant. And then the washing, see, is
the cleansing of the blood. Our Lord Jesus cleansing us,
and in cleansing us, he makes us perfect and holy. You see,
a believer, a child of God, because Christ is his righteousness,
is perfect before the law, and because Christ is his justifier,
his sins are all forgiven and put away by the payment which
Christ made. He's justified. Now, here's the
third thing. Simon Peter said, well, Lord, don't just wash my
feet. Wash my head and my hands and
wash me all over. Now, listen to this. And our Lord said to him, Peter,
and these are things the man didn't understand. Now, you on
this side of the cross, you understand. But he said, Peter, he that is
washed needeth not save to wash his feet. But he's clean. He's
clean. Now, here's the picture. They
used to have bathhouses, public bathhouses. They still have them
in a country. I was in, I don't remember where
I was, but somewhere in a country, maybe St. Kitts, but somewhere
they had a public bathhouse. People didn't have baths in their
homes, places to shower and take a complete bath. And so they'd
have these bathhouses, men and women, bath houses, and you'd
go in the public bath, take your towel with you, and your soap,
you'd go down there and pay a quarter, a pittin' cent, and go in and
bathe. Well, you're clean. Your hair's clean, and your head's
clean, your body's clean, you're clean, your arms, your hands,
you're clean, all of you just had a bath. And you take your
towel and your soap and you walk home. Now you got sandals on,
and you walk home, and you come to the house and start in, you
wash your feet. You don't bathe all over again
because you're clean, but you do wash your feet because it's
come in contact with the on the way home with the dirt along
the road. That's what our Lord is saying here. Peter's sitting
there, and the Lord was going to wash his feet, and he told
him, he said, if I don't wash you, and that's the overall purifying,
wash you, you don't have any part with me. And Peter said,
well, wash me all over. And the Lord said, if you're
clean, you don't need to wash all over, you just need to wash
your feet. What he's saying is this, he's
saying his blood cleanses us, washes us, purifies us, we're
clean, soul, heart, mind, nature, we're clean in God's sight through
the shedding of his blood. But walking through this world,
we need daily cleansing. We need daily pardon. See, if
you've been to the cross, you've been cleansed. Between being at the cross and
coming here this morning, even since you've been here this morning,
you've made contact with the world. You've made contact, even with
yourself, when you've made contact, you've made contact with a lot
of world. And we not only need the purging of the cross, which
purifies us and cleanses us, but we need daily sanctification
and daily purifying and daily cleansing. You see what he's
saying there? Daily cleansing. That's what our Lord's teaching.
That's what he's teaching. But now watch this carefully.
He said, you're clean, but not all of you. Not all of you. He knew who would betray him.
He knew Judas Iscariot did not believe, did not know him, and
he says he's not clean. Christ didn't die for him. That
ought to settle that issue once and for all. I hear people say,
well, he died for Peter and Judas. No, he said, Peter's clean. He said, Judas is not clean.
That's what he said plainly. He said, not all of you. You're
clean every which way. But not all of you. He knew who
would betray him. All right, now we get into the
fourth part. And this is so beautiful. It's
our Lord. See, you preach the gospel. This
is the gospel of God's grace, the gospel of redemption. And
our Lord is preaching to these disciples the gospel. He came
to them to wash their feet. And Peter, when he came to Peter,
this whole thing was brought out. Peter said, do you mean
you're going to condescend to wash my feet? Yes. And you're
going to accept it. You're going to bow. You're going
to see my condescension and humility. The Lord who was rich became
poor. He was tested in all points as
we are, yet without sin. And Peter, if I don't wash you
and purge you and cleanse you, you have no part with me at all,
no part in anything that God has, no part. Your part is with
the devil and his angel. Oh, he said, wash me all over.
That's not necessary. You've been washed. By one offering
he perfected forever them that are sanctified. The blood of
Christ cleanses us from all sin. If Christ died for you, you're
purified, cleansed, washed in the sight of God. You have no
stain, no sin, but you need daily attention. You need daily forgiveness. You need daily sanctification
and daily cleansing and daily pardon. You don't ignore prayer,
you pray, Lord, forgive us of our sins as we forgive those
who sin against us. But now watch this. So, then,
after he'd washed their feet, verse 12, and taken his garments,
he put his robe back on, and he'd already talked to them,
but he sat down again, and he said to them, do you know what
I've done? Do you know what I've done to you? Do you know what
I've done to you? Now, you call me Master and Lord,
and you say, well, so I am. infinitely above everything on
this earth. If I then, who have a name exalted
above every name, the very glory of God manifested in me, given
him a name higher than every name, as the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, let the holy angels of God worship him. If
I have washed your feet, then you ought to wash one another's
feet. Now, some people are accustomed to literally washing the saints'
feet. In churches, they literally have
this type of ceremony. But this example was never meant
to be carried out literally. Never. Because washing feet today
is not rendering any service whatsoever. Not rendering any
service whatsoever. It's not meeting anybody's needs.
It's serving no purpose at all. Washing feet that are already
clean is rendering no service and actually is not even an act
of humility. The lesson here is this. It's
an example. In the kingdom of God, there's
no Mr. Big. There's no Mr. Important in the family of God.
We're all servants of the Lord God and we're servants one of
another. and their acts of kindness, their
acts of service and acts of love, their obscure service, that we are to render to the
least and the most obscure of God's children. Let us always
be ready, ready to wash the feet in forgiveness, in mercy, in
humility, in service, whatever needs to
be done, whatever need that a person has. You know, I read a story
one time. There was an old fella lived
out in the way out near a camp, way out in the country. And one
night he was sick, lived alone. His wife was dead and he lived
alone. One night, it's pouring down
rain, just raining so hard outside, and he was sitting in his little
cabin. He'd finished his supper, and
he was sitting there by the fire, and he had an old violin that
he was playing. He tried to play. He couldn't
get much out of it, but he liked to squeak and squawk on it, playing
for his own amazement. And there was a knock at the
door. And he went over to the door
and there stood a man just dripping. He had on a coat and a hat, but
the rain had just drenched him. And he said to him, so come in,
friend, come in and get out of the weather. He said, well, he
said, my car broke down. And he said, I wondered if I
could use your telephone. The old man said, I don't have
a telephone, but come on in and get dry. And wait till the rain
lets up, and then you can go somewhere and find a telephone.
But he said, just come in and sit by the fire. He took his
coat and hat. and his other coat and put it aside and the man
sat down by the fire and uh... they talked a little bit and
uh... the visitor said I noticed you
have a violin well he said yes he said uh... said I play it
a little bit would you like to hear me play well he said all
right yes I believe I would the guest said that and so the old
man picked up his violin and he squeaked and squawked a little
bit made an effort at playing it Finally, the visitor said,
why don't you let me try it? And the old fellow was amazed,
you know. He handed him the violin, the
bow, and this fellow, instead of just playing it, he kind of
tightened the bow a little bit, the hair there on the bow. And then he got the violin, he
plunked on it a little bit and turned the knobs, kind of tuned
it up a little bit. And then he started playing.
And the old-timer didn't know that he had as his guest the
first violinist in one of the leading field harmonic orchestras
in a big city near to him. And that man made that violin
play like it had never been played before. He got out of it what
that old man couldn't get out of it. He got out of it that
sweetness and beauty and harmony that that old man didn't even
know was in that violin. And that's what I'm saying. I'm saying
if God the Master ever gets hold of us, these old violins, there's
never anything been produced, no tune, no beauty, no harmony,
no symphony, no sweetness, but if He ever gets hold of it, He'll
get it out of it. And He will. He'll get this thing
of washing feet. I had a person say to me a few
weeks ago, said, you know, said, a member of another church where
I was, not down at Beale, some other place, said, said, we've
got a bad thing around here, people not speaking to one another.
They get a little friction and they don't speak to one another.
What do you think about that? I said, they're murderers. They're
murderers. What you're doing is murdering
the person. You're saying he doesn't exist. I've put him in
the grave, so I don't speak to him. That's a wife and husband.
If your husband goes around and doesn't speak to you, he's killed
you. He's put you in the grave. And he's acting like you're not
even existing anymore. You say, but he gets over it.
Yeah, but he's still a murderer. Now you can't do this, that's
not, see this washing feet, you could come to church and we could
put some basins up here and put everybody on the front row and
wash their feet, that wouldn't get it. Go right out still and
treat people that way. So this is what our Lord, to
hear the Lord and Master has brought himself down to condescend,
to meet our menial needs, we ought to meet one another with
that same, yeah but That's beneath my dignity. You know who I am?
Yeah, unfortunately I do. Son of Adam. And you sure acted
like one too. If you was a son of God, you'd
act like him. You know who I am? Yeah, I know
exactly who you are. Wish you knew. Cause till you
know who you are, you'll never know who he is. That's exactly
right. Gotta be whittled down. Doctrine
won't do it. Religious experience won't do it. Professions of faith
won't do it. Christ's got to get that old
violin in tune with it. And he'll get some sweetness
out of it you didn't know was there. That's it. That's it.