Ford Galin: We're gonna be in John chapter 13, which is also there in your worship guide. And since we are a little bit low on time, we'll dive right in, if I can open to it that is. John 13 verses one through 17. Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world into the father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it 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 had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments and taking a towel tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter who said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? Jesus answered him, what I am doing you do not understand now, but afterwards you will understand.
Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, if I do not wash you, you have no share with me. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head. Jesus said to him, the one who is bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean but not every one of you.
For he knew who was to betray him. That was why he said, not all of you are clean. When he washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, do you understand what I have done to you? You call me teacher and lord and you are right for so I am. If I then your lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.
For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly. I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. This is the word of the Lord.
Pray with me. Lord, God, we are grateful to hear from you. Lord, we come in here desperately in need of you and expecting you to reveal yourself. Lord, I confess that at best I can offer words. But God, you bring forth life.
So do you breathe life into us now? Speak for your servants are listening and we pray that in the present name of Jesus. Amen. Well, imagine that this is a familiar story to many of you, especially those of you who grew up in church. Of course, Jesus washed the disciples feet, but I actually think the familiarity of this story may be working against us a little bit.
The reality is what we just read should absolutely shock and astonish us. What we just read makes no sense that Jesus, the most authoritative, most prominent person to ever walk the earth, well, our account today is taking the form of a servant or actually the form of a slave. That's just not something you see happening. Joel and I actually spent this week trying to come up with illustrations that explain just how shocking this would have been for the disciples. And we couldn't do it.
Like, things we came up with or would be imagine like you're in your yard working and the president's motorcade comes by and he pulls over and gets out of his car and in a suit starts doing yard work alongside you. Or imagine that you're at a wedding, and all of a sudden, you look for the bride, but you can't find her because she's in her wedding dress in the kitchen doing dishes. Like, the idea of someone of this degree of prominence taking the form of a servant, it doesn't make sense, and there genuinely is not an example or a story that Joel or I could think of that captures it. The closest I could come is that for about ten years, NBC used to run a show called Undercover Boss. And in this show, CEOs of this large company, they would tell in disguise and take the form of their entry level employees to see what their company was like on the ground level.
So for instance, you'd have the CEO of seven eleven showing up like he was a new attendant at a gas station. Or the CEO of waste management showing up as a brand new garbage man. Now, the most exciting and interesting part of this show was always when the CEO's revealed their true identity. Sometimes, you'd have their co workers really excited and honored that they would take the time to get to know them. Other times, you'd see coworkers panicking because they realized how mean they had just been to their CEO.
And they also realized they weren't going to have a job the next day. But whatever their reaction was, it was always one of shock and astonishment because it doesn't make sense for the most important person in an organization to take the lowest level. I mean, that you walked into your job, your office tomorrow, and you go to the restroom and you see the CEO in there scrubbing toilet. Would you not be shocked? Now imagine that unlike undercover boss in that situation, your boss, your CEO actually makes it clear they're not doing this for some ulterior reason, they just want to serve.
Pretty shocking. Now, imagine you found out that that CEO knew that they were going to die the next day, and this is how they chose to spend their last few hours. And you begin to get at how shocking this is that Jesus spends his last night on earth washing feet. And so we're gonna look at this story from two different perspectives. First, we're gonna look at it on its surface level.
And the point there is that Jesus is our example for how we're to serve one another. But then we'll look at it a little bit deeper and see what spiritual realities is Jesus pointing to. And there, we'll see how Jesus is also our gift for salvation and sanctification. But first, we'll start with seeing how he is our example for service and throughout this sermon, considering we're in a series looking at the life cycle of a disciple, looking at Peter's life cycle and progression, we'll try to consider a lot of this story from his point of view. And so as we look at Jesus as an example to us of service, there's at least four things that we see in this passage that are worth pointing out.
We see Jesus serving humbly, we see him serving indiscriminately, we see him serving knowingly, and we see him serving freely. I won't go into a ton of detail on any of these, but there are a few things worth pointing out. And first, probably the most obvious is that Jesus' service here is an example and a picture of humility. I mean, I don't think anyone came here thinking that washing feet would be a glorious or admirable task to do, but it's actually more shocking than we get in our cultural context. You see, in those days, if someone was going to host a feast, what would have happened is before guests even arrived, they would have set out basins of water.
And so when these guests came, many would have walked long distances with open toed shoes on these dirty roads that probably had even animal excrement on them. They would have gotten there and their feet would have been disgusting. And often times, would have sat at these low tables where you were kind of reclined next to them, so your feet was pretty close to the table. And so, as guests arrived, the lowest ranking servants or even the slaves of a household would then offer to wash the guests feet as they showed up. Generally, it was expected that if it or if a host of a feast was wealthy enough, it would be non Jewish slaves doing this work because it was considered so degrading and disgusting that well, that wasn't even a job for God's people seemingly.
But here we have Jesus, the king of the Jews, the creator of the world, the one who spoke and we existed taking the form of a slave. It just doesn't make any sense. Where have you ever seen that degree of humility? It is shocking the way that he empties himself. It's almost a humiliating thing that Jesus does here, but he's not afraid of it at all.
And that's how he calls us to serve others. Here at Redeemer, when we have someone on staff hit their five year mark of working here, typically use a staff meeting to celebrate and to affirm some of the ways that we've seen God work in them. And I think one of the most impactful things I've ever heard in one of those meetings was a few years ago, we celebrated Kristen Williams' five year anniversary. Kristen Williams is our pastoral coordinator here. And Joel said, Kristen, as you've been here and as you've gotten promoted and as you've gained respect, what amazes me about you is you never seem to find a task that you think is beneath you.
That's what we're called to do when we serve others with humility. And so think, is there any task, any job out there that if someone asks you to do, you think, woah, woah, that's their job. And if that's us, remember that Jesus gives us an example of serving with humility. Second, Jesus serves indiscriminately. So at some point at this meal, Jesus gets up and he strips off his outer garment and he puts on this towel, this servant's towel, and one by one, he starts washing each of the disciples' feet.
Now, what's really shocking as we think about that is that there were 12 disciples at that table, not just the 11 who were gonna remain faithful to Jesus. Jesus took time on his last night to wash Judas' feet. Actually, last two things that Jesus ever does, already knowing that Judas is about to betray him, we see that in verse 11, the last two ways that Jesus ever interacts with Judas before Judas goes to hand them over to be crucified, is he washes Jesus' feet and then he'd later on gives Judas a piece of bread, that's verse 27, it's beyond what we're looking at tonight. But in that cultural context, that invitation giving someone a piece of bread would have been akin to giving someone an invitation to fellowship. Jesus serves indiscriminately which is not to say that he treats everyone exactly the same.
Verse one says, he has this special love for those who are his own. But Jesus, the one who betrays him still has his feet washed by Jesus. And if Jesus treats Judas that way, how much more do you think he longs to lovingly serve you, o you his child? Jesus serves indiscriminately not just those who are gonna reciprocate or who are gonna somehow show that it was a worthwhile thing to serve them because they will pay him back. Because if that was the case, there is no one Jesus would be able to serve.
It is good news for us, and we likewise are called to serve not just those who may repay us, not just those who have something we may want, but those who have no hope of being able to pay us back. Third, we see that Jesus serves knowingly. In the first three verses, we see that Jesus' actions here, well, they're motivated by his knowledge of his identity. Verse one, it's that Jesus knows that his hour had come. In verse three, it's that Jesus knows that he has been given all things by the father, authority over all things, that he knows he was with the father and soon going back to the father.
And I won't say much about this except to point out that it's Jesus' knowledge of his identity, his high and exalted position that doesn't cause him to turn his nose up at serving others, but it actually frees him up to take the form of a servant in this case. Question for us to consider is where in your life do you have prominence or respect or influence? Is it a place of authority or prominence in your family? Is it that in your working space or in your school, you have a degree of authority or you have people reporting to you? Is it that in a certain social setting or with a certain group of friends, you have a degree of respect?
Is it that you have resources that others in your community or perhaps others here in Avondale would not have. Now, wherever it is that you've been resourced, wherever it is that you maybe have prominence or respect, in that area of your life, are you more or less likely to humbly take the form of a servant? Because in the upside down kingdom of God, where the last shall be first and the first shall be last, exemplified by our servant king Jesus, it's actually the more power and influence and respect and prominence and resource we have, all the more should we be seeking to lower ourselves and take the form of a servant to others. And that brings us to the last thing I'll point out, which is that Jesus serves freely. Jesus had spent the last few years leading and teaching these disciples.
If there's ever a time to say, you know what, my work is done, it's now. Like, you couldn't blame Jesus if you thought, guys, I've lived the perfect life. Tomorrow's the big day going to the cross for your sins. I'm taking this one for myself. Like, you know what?
Actually, Peter, go ahead and give me a glass of water. John, give me a second helping, like, big day tomorrow, I'm going rest up. He had every excuse imaginable. Yet in his freedom, he chooses to use this night to give one of the most glaring pictures of service that we've ever seen. And in verse 15, he says why he does this, it's to give us an example that we would do likewise.
Over the last few months, I've been starting to spend a good bit of time in first Peter to prepare as our church is about to study that together. And I've noticed that I don't think that Peter ever received an example from Jesus or ever had something so impactful is this account. When we read through first Peter, you'll see evidence and echoes of this scene are all over the place in Peter's letter. First Peter five five, Peter writes, clothe yourselves all of you with humility and it's not hard to imagine that Peter was thinking about Jesus clothing himself with that servant's towel as he wrote that. First Peter two twenty one, we see Peter echoing that same language saying that Jesus left us an example to follow.
Or one that sticks with me probably most profoundly, first Peter two sixteen. Live as people who are free, only don't use your freedom as a cover up for evil, but living as servants of God. And that phrase servants of God could mean those who serve God, or it actually could mean those who serve in the way that God served. This example that Jesus shows, this time where he freely decides to serve when he had every excuse not to, what sticks with Peter? That's because using his freedom not to serve himself, but to serve others, it's at the very heart of not only what Jesus is doing here, but at the heart of who Jesus is.
We didn't read it but there in your worship guide, have Mark ten forty five. For even the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. And so if we see this example for Jesus, this picture that we are called to serve with humility with or we're called to serve indiscriminately and knowingly and freely, well, how are we called to follow that example today? And honestly, I couldn't begin to answer that because for each of us it's different. For some of us, it may be looking for more formal ways to enter into service.
Maybe that's gonna be something like looking at one of Redeemer's local missions partners with Red Mountain Grace or Oak Tree or East Lake Initiative, and looking for ways that you can serve in some of the under resourced areas in our community. And if you feel called towards that, I'm excited to let you know that next week in our mission summit, there'll be plenty of chances to hear ways you be involved in part of the work God is doing there. Others, it may be looking for ways to serve in this faith family by signing up to help with children, or in the nursery, or helping with parking. For others, it may not be some formal way of service, it may be informally just looking at your spheres of influence, your family, your friends, your neighborhood, your job, your classmates, this community, and saying, well, where are there opportunities for me to take the form of a servant to work for others good? But I don't know what it is and it may not be that there's a clear here's the one way to go and do this because Jesus doesn't intend for service to be a box that we can check.
He intended to be a posture of our hearts in the way we live our lives. So if you wanna know how to apply this, what I encourage you to do is over the course of the next week, continually have a picture in your mind of Jesus with that servant's towel kneeling at your feet. Every time before you go into an interaction, think about Jesus kneeling before you to wipe the grime off of your feet, and then see how that affects the way you relate to the people that God brings before you. Again, I don't know what it'll look like, but I imagine that he will stir in our hearts a posture of servant heartedness as we go. I can remember one of the ways I've been a recipient of this type of service.
Before going into ministry, I worked for an accounting firm. And I remember on my second day at I made an enormous mistake that really had an effect on one of our big client accounts. I remember the shame as I went in to tell my manager about what I'd just done, knowing it was actually going take hours of work and manual data entry to fix what had to happen. And I was ready for him to come down hard on me, but instead he asked me to just give him a minute, and I watched as he took out his phone, and he called his fiancee, and said something in effect of, Hey, I'm really sorry, I know we're supposed to spend time together tonight, but one of our first years just made a mistake and I'm going to stay tonight so he doesn't have to work on it alone. And he stayed with me till about one in the morning, doing some of the most menial grunt data entry task that was so far beneath him.
That's the picture of what we're supposed to spend our lives doing. Not working and using our freedom for our good, but humbly serving those who actually can't repay us and who maybe even in one sense should be beneath us. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. And that's our first point today that Jesus is our example for service, but there's this deeper level of what's going on in this story in John 13. As almost always is the case, the physical thing Jesus does point to deeper spiritual realities.
And the way we're gonna get that is we're actually gonna zoom in on Peter's conversation with Jesus, how Peter responds to this moment. If you're a note taker, the second half of the sermon, our point is gonna be that Jesus is God's gift for our salvation and sanctification. Let me read again John thirteen six through eight. He came to Simon Peter who said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? Jesus answered him, what I am doing now you do not understand but afterwards you will understand.
Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet. But Jesus answered him, if I do not wash you, you have no share with me. So twice Peter objects to having his feet washed by Jesus. And the text isn't explicit in why Peter seems to have these objections, but it's probably safe to assume, most commentaries agree that, well Peter, he's realizing that Jesus is his master and it doesn't make sense for his master to be serving him. Yes.
Stop me if you've heard this one before, but Peter just can't get it in his mind that in God's kingdom, it's the first who will be last and the way to greatness is to first be a servant. And so he tries to protest Jesus taking this form of a servant once again. Now, this remark from Peter, different than some of the other times he's gotten it wrong, it actually seems like this time Peter's coming with some humility. Like you can picture, Lord Lord, you shouldn't wash my feet. And it sounds humble, if you really start thinking about it, you realize there's an inherent pride in what Peter is saying.
It's subtle, it's consequential. You see, Peter has enough humility to recognize that Jesus is greater and should not be serving him. But Peter cannot have a humility enough to realize that he is actually so far beneath Jesus that his only hope is if he is cleansed by him. This is about to be an absurd example, but imagine that you have a baby with a dirty diaper, and a parent comes to change this child, and for some reason, because it helps the illustration, this baby can speak. And the baby says, woah woah woah woah, you shouldn't change my diaper, let me clean myself up.
Like, yes, in one sense, that would seem like a humility, a sense of no, I shouldn't be served, you're greater than me. But if a child said that, would that not betray an absolute misunderstanding of just how helpless and needy they are? That's Peter's problem here. He knows Jesus is greater but he doesn't understand just how far that gap is. And Jesus makes this clear to Peter.
He says, Peter, if I do not wash you, you will have no share with me. Jesus is saying, Peter, the only way that we can be a relationship is if I come and cleanse you. Notably, earlier I mentioned that foot washing would happen before the meal, but Jesus for some reason waits. It's actually after the last supper starts that he begins this foot washing. Now, we're not entirely sure why he does that, but there's one thing that's clear that should be an enormous amount of good news to you and I today.
It's that Jesus welcomed those with dirty feet at his table. That Jesus welcomes the unclean into fellowship with him. Whether you're here today as a believer in Jesus, or whether you're here today and you've never put your trust in Christ before, hear this clearly, that what that reminds us is that your sin, your filth, your mess, your uncleanness will not be the thing that keeps Jesus from you. He is not put off by all of our brokenness and our mess and our sin. He welcomes us to fellowship all the same.
Now, it is true that our filth and our mess and our sin won't keep us from Jesus. But if we do not let Jesus cleanse us, we can have no fellowship with him. Which means, that it might not be our sin that keeps Jesus from us, but it might be our self righteousness and our pride that refuses to accept that we actually need to be clean to that degree. Going back to that story of my second day at I look back on it fondly now, but if I'm honest, I was miserable that night with my boss sitting next to me helping me. Because his present was an indictment and a reminder of the mistakes that I had made.
It was constantly reminding me that he had hired me to help him, but I was incapable of doing that. And while he was there to serve me, in order to accept that service, I first had to admit that I did not measure up and it was my failures that caused him to be there. It was humiliating, if I'm being honest. And we actually have to take on a degree of that humiliation for us to come to the Lord for salvation. Yes.
Jesus is God's gift for salvation because he will not let our dirt and our sin keep us from him, but all the same we have to humble ourselves and admit just how unclean we are before him. And we have to admit that we cannot clean ourselves up, that only Christ can do it for us. If you've been around Redeemer any period of time, you've probably heard Joel say something at one point. Then the kingdom of God, it's not the bad who get left out and the good who make it in. It's the humble who get in and the proud who get left out.
So we're willing to humble ourselves to accept the cleansing that Jesus offers. As Tim Keller used to say, the good news of the gospel is that we are far worse than we ever dared imagine. Yet we are or sorry, we are far worse than we ever dared believe but we are also far more loved than we ever dared imagine. That's the good news that you and I are unclean and we cannot cleanse ourselves up but Jesus welcomes the unclean to his table of fellowship. We don't clean ourselves up first because that's his job, but it's a gift.
It's not something we earn, it comes from us confessing that we never could and receiving it freely. To this point that we see kind of an odd shift in the conversation. Peter, again, has this one eighty. Peter says, okay, well, I can have a share with you, that case, Jesus, give me a full bath, not just my feet, but my hands and my head also. Say this about Peter, he keeps getting wrong, but at least he's a picture of someone who is zealous to be in relationship with the Lord.
Now, thinking that, we can follow his example. But Jesus responds weirdly. He kind of says, well, Peter, the one who has been bathed has no need for or the one who is clean has no need for a bath, only his feet. And he says, you are clean. He'll later double down on that a little bit later in this scene in John fifteen three.
He'll say, already you are clean for the word I have spoken to you. And so what's going on? Why does Jesus say, well, Peter, I have to clean you, and then he kind of dials it back. Well, Peter or Jesus, sorry, is shifting. One commentator phrase it this way.
He says that that Jesus has moved from talking about union to him to talking about communion with him. So we've gone from union to Christ to communion with Christ. You see, once we've repented and believed the gospel, we don't have to be saved by Jesus again and again and again. It's not that our salvation is up in the air. No.
Jesus gives this remark in one sense to give us assurance of salvation. This is why we don't have to go and get baptized again every time we sin or every time we get more serious about our faith. We've already been made clean by what Jesus has done. But he says, still our feet need to be washed. That's communion with Christ.
He's saying, still, we have to keep coming to him and confessing and repenting and being cleansed again and again and again. In a word, we have to keep being sanctified in the cleansing work of Christ. First Peter one talks about or sorry, first John one talks about this in-depth. The chapter is all about how we can have fellowship with God, not about our salvation but how we have fellowship with God and we hear these words starting in verse nine. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin.
If we say we have no sin, well, we're deceiving ourselves. The truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, then Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So just as Jesus is our gift for salvation by being cleansed in him, also he is our gift for sanctification. That as believers, our salvation is not up in the air but we continually come to Jesus to be washed clean yet again and again.
It's a little confusing. It may be helpful to think about this in a picture of marriage. On 11/19/2022, Megan Williams did me the honor of marrying me. At that point, we were united together as one and her name went from Megan Williams to Megan Galen. It's an incredible thing that happened.
Now, we've had ups and downs since then. There have been plenty of times that I've sinned against her. But every time I transgress against her, it's not that all of a sudden our union comes into question. Her name doesn't go back to being Megan Williams. Our marriage isn't in doubt, the relationship is secure.
But at the same time, we notice there seems to be this wedge between us until I confess and ask for forgiveness and receive forgiveness from her. Our union isn't in doubt but our fellowship gets interrupted. There's a degree which our communion starts to get uncomfortable, gets to get unclear, our intimacy is weakened. That's what Jesus is saying here. He's saying as we sin as believers, it's not that all of a sudden our union or our salvation is lost, but our communion, our fellowship, our intimacy with Jesus, all of a sudden it's hindered.
And so we come to him again and again and again to be cleansed in sanctification. But just it takes humility to receive Jesus as God's gift for salvation, it takes the same type of humility to continue to come to him for sanctification. I don't know about you, but for me, it's actually pretty easy to see and to know that I was saved by grace alone. Like, didn't think that I was gonna be able to save myself. I spent twenty years of my life apart from Christ and there's no part of me that goes back and is like, you know what?
If I tried just a little bit harder, I think I could have earned salvation. Like, it doesn't happen. But as I think about my Christian life, a lot of times I think, Lord, I know I was saved by your grace and there's nothing I could do to deserve that, I'm but going go and prove that I was actually a pretty good investment. Like, let me show you why you were right to choose me by the ways that I live that are going to honor you. Problem is that flies in the face when I see my sin creep up again and again and again.
For me, I'm twelve years into following the Lord and I don't know where you're at. I know some of you are just months in, other of you are decades in. Wherever you are, if you resonate to me that sometimes you're discouraged that you're not further along in your spiritual growth. I don't know if it's the maybe you're wondering why now you still have a hard time having consistency in God's word and in prayer. Or maybe it's that you just can't understand how you haven't kicked that one sin habit or how these other sins keep surfacing up.
Know that if that's you and you're wondering why your discipleship is going slower than you thought it was, we're still unclaimed people who need God's grace. Certainly, Peter felt this having followed Jesus day in and day out for the last three years and still getting it wrong at every turn. You know who is not surprised by Jesus or by Peter's repeated failures, or by mine, or by yours? It's Christ. Jesus knew you were gonna be messy and filthy and keep on sinning when he saved you.
And he does not have buyer's remorse for what he got in you when he went to bleed and to purchase you on the cross. He continues to wash us again and again because John thirteen one tells us that he knows those who are his own and he loves us to the end. And I actually think he delights in doing this. Some of you may have read Gentle and Lowly. It was a really popular Christian book a few years ago by Dan Ortlin.
In there, he shares a story that's been continually really encouraging to me each time I've fallen and needed to come to Jesus to again ask for forgiveness. He says, imagine a compassionate doctor who traveled deep into a jungle to provide medical equipment or to provide medical care for a primitive tribe that has a contagious disease. He says, this doctor, he brings in the right medical equipment. He spares no expense so that the the people of this village won't have to pay him back, there will be no compensation needed. And he gets down there and he diagnoses the disease and he understands it and he has the right medicine ready.
But then, as he seeks to provide care, the afflicted, they refuse. They say they want to take care of themselves. They want to heal on their own terms. Is the doctor happy about this? No.
He is discouraged that he doesn't get to do the work he came to do. Now, that a few brave men step forward and finally receive the care that this doctor is providing. What does the doctor feel? He feels joy. In fact, his joy increases to the degree that the sick come to him for help and for healing.
It's the whole reason he came and he rejoices to do the thing he came to do. How much more if the diseased are not the strangers but his own family? So it is with us and so it is with Christ. Jesus delights in doing this cleansing work. That's why he came.
He delights in having the opportunity to serve you as ridiculous as that is, but it requires us to humble ourselves and to let him do what he came to do and what we cannot do for ourselves. So if you're here tonight and you've not yet put your trust in Jesus, know that right now your sin will not be the thing that keeps him from pursuing you. But if you want him, it means you're going have to humble yourself and admit that you have no hope apart from him cleansing you. And likewise, if you're here tonight as a believer in Jesus, know that the call is actually the same. That Jesus stands ready to cleanse you, but it means humbling yourself and again confessing and repenting and letting him come to wash you.
He is God's gift to us for both salvation and for sanctification. And by the way, it's actually in receiving Jesus in this way that we're then freed up to follow his example of service. So Jesus served knowingly. For him, Jesus, it was knowing his identity as God's chosen one and knowing what God had given him that then freed him up to serve. Likewise for us, our call to service is also knowing.
We are freed up to serve when we know that we have been chosen by God and we know all that he has graciously given us in himself. One more time, we'll read first Peter two sixteen. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover up for evil, but living as servants of God. We finish our time tonight. Let's be quick to remember though that the pinnacle of Jesus' service is not this moment of washing feet as absurd as it is.
John thirteen one, we open up by saying, Jesus knew those who were his own in the world and he loved them to the end. Now, there's a lot of interpretations of what is meant when it says he loved them to the end. It can mean he loves us to the fullest extent. It mean he loves us with a love that will never end, or that he loves us to the end of his life. And I think all of those are in view there.
But thinking about the Greek word here, that word for end is the Greek word telos. I'm going to guess that that doesn't sound very familiar to you, but a number of you may actually know that word in another form. It's the same word, but another grammatical form is which we translate, it is finished. It's one of the final words Jesus breathed as he hung on the cross for our sins. You see, as Jesus went around that room that night washing the disciples' feet with water, surely his mind was already going forward to the next day, when it wouldn't just be the 12, but all of the world, and it was not a basin of water, but it's very blood that was about to be shed to cleanse all of the world of unrighteousness.
He loved us to the end. He loved us till his work was finished which was to destroy the works of the devil that he may ransom us back, sinners that we may be. See, at the right time when we are still sinners, Christ died for us. And there he does not just receive us in our uncleanness, but he actually takes it on himself that it may be crushed with him on the cross. Second Corinthians five twenty one, we read that for our sake, he who knew no sin actually became sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
And what do we bring to that equation? Nothing but the sin that makes it necessary. Yet, how does Jesus respond to us? Humbly and indiscriminately stooping load of service to receive us no matter what mess we may bring. He stands now ready in humility to receive you for salvation and for sanctification if only you will humble yourself and come to him for the only fitness he requires is to see your need.
May we go to him now in prayer. Lord, God, if I'm honest, it is humiliating to accept just how helpless and needy we are before you. Yet Lord, in your mercy, in your grace, in your kindness, you have sought us out. You have come to us and welcomed us to your table. Lord, receive us though we don't deserve you.
Serve us though that's something we should never have to ask. Here we praise you that in your grace you continue to do so. Draw near. Lord, you are our Lord and we praise you for the salvation that you give us. And we praise you for the cleansing you keep offering us.
Lord, thank you that your grace will not run out on us. And God, may we live in that grace in a way that would propel us forward to serve you and your people as you would call us. We pray this in the good name of Jesus. Amen.