Inwards - Service

0:00 Good morning. Thank you to everybody that's been involved so far this morning. In a moment, we're going to read together from a very familiar passage from John chapter 13, the story of Jesus washing his disciples' feet. And as with the stories that we looked at at Christmas, this is a story that is very familiar to us, and we can, in our familiarity, miss the opportunity for it to hit us and touch us in a different way. So let's just pray that that would be the case this morning before we read together. Father, as we do open your word now and contemplate, as we have been doing, your son, by your spirit, we pray that you would remove the scales from our eyes and our hearts, that we might see him more clearly today, more sharply, more brilliantly, more profoundly. Show us, Jesus, the radiance of your glory, the exact representation of your being. And as we behold him, his humility, his beauty, his love, his servant heart, we pray that you would change us according to your will.

1:23 Work in our minds, work in our hearts, work in our motives, work in our goals, help us to assess our lives in light of the true light of the world. We pray this in his mighty name. Amen. Let's read from John 13, verse 17 verses. It was just before the Passover festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the father having loved his own who were in the world he loved them to the end the evening meal was in progress and the devil had already prompted Judas the son of Simon Iscariot to portray Jesus Jesus knew that the father had put all things under his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God so he got up from the meal took off his outer clothing and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

2:33 He came to Simon Peter who said to him, Lord, are you going to wash my feet? And Jesus replied, you don't realize now what I'm doing, but later you will understand. No, said Peter, you shall never wash my feet. And Jesus answered, unless I wash you, you have no part with me. Then Lord, Simon Peter replied, not just my feet, but my hands and my head as well. And Jesus answered, those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet. Their whole body is clean and you are clean, though not every one of you, for he knew who was going to betray him. And that was why he said not everyone was clean.

3:14 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. Do you understand what I have done for you? He asked them. You call me teacher and Lord, and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor as a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

3:57 Let's just take a moment to focus on this story. The hour had come. Jesus knew that his death at the hands of the authorities was imminent. His beloved disciple John's deeply detailed account of what took place and what was said in the upper room that night spans over four long chapters which begin here and his opening lines in his opening lines we find these wonderful words having loved his own who were in the world he loved them to the end looking forward to the cross that was so close try to picture the scene the evening meal in progress this low table at the center jesus and his disciples spread around it sort of found out around it on thin mats each lying on their side leaning on one arm sharing a meal together jesus then their rabbi their teacher, their Lord, in the place of honor at the table. And I can't help when I read this, think about what must have been going on in Jesus' mind that evening. Imagine the pressure of knowing what he was about to go through bearing down on him.

5:20 Imagine two looking around the room, contemplating this group of guys that are sitting around you that you've taught and you've loved for three years. John himself, the writer of this gospel, and his brother James, who just recently, with the help of their mother, were jostling for position to be able to sit at the right hand of Christ in his kingdom. Peter, for all his seeming blustering loyalty, who Jesus knew would deny him three times in just a matter of hours later that night. And of course, Judas, who John makes clear here in verse two had already made the devil prompted decision to portray Jesus. Imagine all of that weighing on Jesus' mind as he looked around the room, as he contemplated what was about to take place. Yet, it's so interesting what John records here. For all that pressure, John tells us something significant, something significant about what Jesus knew. He knew, verse three says this, that the father had put all things under his power and that he had come from God and that he was returning to God.

6:36 Here was a truth that underpinned the next dark hours that were about to take place. With all of this pressure bearing down on him, still Jesus was completely and utterly secure in the knowledge of who he was, in the knowledge of what he'd come to do, in who and where he had come from, and in who and where he was going to. He had come from the Father, he was returning to the Father. He knew absolutely the sorrow and the pain and the horror that he was about to experience, but he knew what was beyond that too, and he knew what it was all about. He knew, John made clear, this chapter, yes, but he also knew how it fitted in to the grand story of God. And then notice the word, I emphasized it obviously as I read it earlier, in verse four that follows that. So, so, Jesus knew all this. He was secure in all this.

7:41 And so in that utter security in his identity and his destiny, what does he do? What would you do? Would you do what he did? Get up from the meal and he took off his outer clothing and he wrapped a towel around his waist poured water into a basin. And then he makes his way around the room slowly and carefully, washing each of his disciples' feet in turn. Imagine being in that room. Imagine you're John or James or Andrew.

8:30 Imagine the confusion, the shock as you start to see what is taking place. Your rabbi, your teacher, your Lord, the Messiah, steps down from his place of honor at the table, puts on, takes off, first of all, his outer robe, puts on the demeaning clothes of a slave as he wraps a towel around his waist. That would have signified that. And in this moment, he becomes your slave. As he kneels down in front of you, as he takes your feet in his hands, as he carefully washes off the disgusting dirt and mud and animal excrement, maybe even that those sandaled feet have picked up on the road that day before gently drying them. In one sense, given who it is doing this, it's an act that almost horrifies you, embarrasses you.

9:30 part of you wants to cry out for him to stop. He shouldn't be doing this, but you are stunned to silence. That's what seems to have happened with all of the disciples but one. And as I read this, I wonder, I wonder, did any of them break down quietly as Jesus did this? Because while they didn't really grasp what was happening, there could be no doubt that in this moment, I think they would be more aware of Jesus' love for them than they ever had been before. And after a brief interruption from Peter, which is a very interesting conversation, but not one we're going to go into today, Jesus completes this slave's task, missing no one.

10:20 No one. Leaving no one out. Not Peter, his denier, not all the others who would desert him very, very soon. not even the one who had already plotted and was on the path to betraying him. All 24 feet washed. All 12 disciples served. All 12 disciples loved. And then Jesus removes the towel, puts on his outer garments again, and once more assumes his place of honor at the table as their teacher and Lord.

10:58 this intimate act of loving service is complete. When we look at it with fresh eyes, it is a stunning story. And as we place John's account of the upper room that night at the heart of our focus on what we're looking at this morning of service, as we place these actions and these words, as we place the posture and the heart of Jesus at the center of our thinking, as we see him, as we see Jesus. There are five things I see here in this passage alone, and there's many more outside this passage, but five that I see here that call us, that draw us, that convict us to consider how we can give ourselves in loving service to others. But it's all done as we look at, as we see Jesus. First, and Heather's already mentioned this, and I'm sure it's been mentioned already in other ways, even in the interview, we're drawn to respond. We're drawn to respond to the immensity of how Jesus has served us. In the upper room, Jesus the Messiah, the King of kings and Lord of lords, that's who he is.

12:28 He stooped down and he became a slave. We need to get our heads around this. And he served his disciples by washing their feet. But of course, that act of cleansing service was pointing forwards, forwards just those number of hours to when those same hands that held those feet would be nailed to a Roman cross, a method of execution too reserved for slaves. On that cross, Jesus became a slave for us, following the same pattern as the night before. He, in Paul's words in Philippians, made himself nothing. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross, nails in his hands and his feet.

13:22 a crown of thorns pushed digging into his head flogged, beaten, spat at, mocked naked and disgraced to serve me and to serve you to cleanse me and to cleanse you so as we meditate on that room and as we meditate much more so on that cross how could we refuse to in those words from Paul to the Philippians how could we refuse to respond in humility how could we refuse to respond in choosing to value others above ourselves how hard must our hearts need to be to not respond to what he has done for us in looking not to our own interests, but to the interests of others. So first response. Second, and closely linked, of course, is this, we're called by Jesus to do this in obedience. It's very simple. It's very straightforward.

14:43 It's not very easy. How do you, I wonder, if somebody asks you, how do you spot a Christian? How do you spot a Christian? I think it's harder these days. Back whenever I was maybe a teenager, there were a few different ways. Maybe you might have a fish on the back of your car. I don't see many of those these days. Do you remember these?

15:03 Or whenever I was in school, lots of people had badges. Well, not lots of people, but some people had badges with Jesus saves on them. Do you remember those? Not many of those. about, or some people had a WWJD bracelet as well. Again, not many of those. I'm probably showing my age. Maybe more so today is wearing a piece of clothing with a Bible verse on it, or even more so today, wearing a tattoo with a Bible verse on it, or maybe your Instagram bio might have a Bible verse on it.

15:35 And while there's nothing wrong with any of these, and in fact, if you've got a full house. You ticked all those boxes. Well done to you. Holy points to you. Absolutely. But Jesus is pretty clear here. I have set you an example, he says, as your teacher and your Lord, that you should do as I have done, or you should do as I have done for you. The way to know a follower of Jesus, according to Jesus,

16:03 is that they are doing what I have done for you. They are self-sacrificially serving others in obedience to their teacher and Lord. They're acting out the command that follows later in this chapter that we talked about last week, as I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples. By this. Not by any of those things. By this. The way to spot a Christian, it's not a tattoo.

16:32 It's not a badge. It's not something in your bumper, nor is it your brilliant answers to theological questions or your mental-like knowledge of Scripture. The true mark of a Christian is your sacrificial service of others as if you were their slave. It's the posture you adopt. It's the willingness to step away from the places of honor and step down into the places humility and indignity and discomfort to imitate our Lord in obedience. So response, obedience, and then third, witness. We're drawn to serve one another in love because as we serve, we bear witness to the character of God. When I prayed at the beginning, I mentioned those words that just are sticking in my head from Hebrews 1 at the minute, which tell us that Jesus is the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of his being.

17:46 And the truth is this, whenever Jesus took off his outer robe, whenever he wrapped that towel around his waist and went to work as a slave, washing the disciples' feet, he was in no way deviating away from. representing God's glory. In fact, in that moment, in that act, he was absolutely radiating the glory and the character of God. In this act of menial, stooping down service, God's glory is revealed. God's character is revealed. It's manifested. And so too is the pattern of his kingdom that Jackie was talking about earlier.

18:31 The king is a servant. The first shall be last. The last shall be first. That's the pattern. And so when we choose to stoop low, to forget ourselves, to humble ourselves, to submit ourselves to serve those who cannot or who will not ever serve us back. We uniquely bear witness to the character of our king and to the essence of his kingdom. We communicate as we serve, this is our God. So response, obedience, witness.

19:19 And then fourth, and this may sound a little strange at first, but bear with me, we serve one another in love because we can. We're drawn to serve one another in love because we can, because we are free to serve. The disciples in this account are a good example of people who aren't. They're not free to serve. They could never contemplate doing something like this because they're so trapped. They're trapped by their desire for position. They're trapped, they're enslaved by their need to be someone. By their desire to prove themselves.

20:00 By their desire to move up the ladder above somebody else or above others. And so to stoop down. and to take on this role of a slave, it just would not even enter their minds. But as we've talked about already, where it says that word, so, it's because Jesus is completely free. It's because Jesus is completely free to do this. It's because he's utterly secure in who he is, in his identity, and where he's coming from, and where he's going to. As verse three makes clear, Jesus knew he was loved by the Father.

20:48 He knew that deeply. He knew he was accepted by the Father, and he knew exactly who he was. He knew what was happening. He knew the beginning, the middle, the end of the story. He knew where he'd come from. He knew where he was going to, And that absolute assurance, that absolute security of the Father's love and purposes and promises, they liberate him, they give him the freedom to go sew. I'm going to take off my other garment, I'm going to put a towel around my waist, I'm going to take your feet in my hands, and I'm going to scrub the dirt off them to show you what God's really like. And then I'm going to go to the cross and I'm going to give my life for you.

21:39 And the question is, who are we more like? And the answer is we should be closer to Jesus than we are to the disciples because of the knowledge we have, because of what we know. Like Jesus, we know exactly where we come from. Psalm 139. For you created my innermost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. Like Jesus too, we know who we are. Romans 8.

22:12 God's children. Adopted sons and daughters of our Abba Father. Heirs with Christ of his kingdom. And like Jesus, we know exactly where we're going. Revelation 21. to live with God forever in his redeemed, restored creation. Present with him fully, present with him fully, present with us in eternity. Our freedom to serve others in love directly, I can almost say that, correlates to our understanding of who we are in Christ.

23:03 That freedom. Because when we see clearly, when we realize we've been liberated from the need to prove ourselves because we're already fully accepted by Jesus. When we realize we've been liberated from the fight for validation because we grasp fully that we are already fully loved and nothing we can ever do can make that more or less or take it away. And we realize we don't have to jockey for position or climb any social ladders because we're already co-heirs with Christ and his kingdom and what are we ever going to do to top that? we are free we're free we're liberated we don't have to put all of our energies into those things and we're free to stoop down in self-forgetful service rather than trample up and over others in exploitation you my brothers and sisters Paul says to the church in Galatia is we're called to be free.

24:25 But he says, do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh, rather serve one another humbly in love. Jackie said, what am I saved for? We're saved for his kingdom. We're saved to serve him through serving each other humbly in love. Let's enjoy and take hold of that freedom that we've been given. And then finally, last one. Because according to Jesus, this is the truth. As we serve, we flourish.

25:05 As we serve, we flourish because serving is Jesus' downward path to blessing, he says here. And that's very different to our culture's story. Our culture's story of flourishing is the path of upward mobility. It's the path of accumulation. It's about more wealth. It's about more possessions. It's about more experiences. It's about more pleasure, more comfort, more status, more significance, more glory.

25:36 It's summed up in Paul's sort of quoting of the hedonistic motto, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. it's a story that says I flourish when I put my individual self at the center and then I carefully make every choice with the purpose of serving myself to the extent actually that even acts where I appear to be serving others they're just carefully calculated acts to come back to myself to serve me to self-serve and this story our culture our world tells us it's so persuasive and it's so pervasive that it draws us in stealthily even as followers of Jesus it stealthily shapes our goals our vision our lives and then of course it can even bleed into our discipleship and how we relate to one another within the church. If this is the story that has captured our imaginations, we might serve, yes, but we might only do that if that service serves us. If you get what I mean?

27:00 If we're seen, if we're honored, if we're serving people we like, if we're serving with people we like, if we're serving people who we'll know will serve us back, we're only doing it as long as that service comes back on us, if that service ends up serving me. Jesus makes it clear, this whole story, this whole narrative, this whole template, living according to it, that individualistic template does not bring fullness of life have to decide who we believe. Jesus tells us this, that it only brings ever-diminishing returns. It shrinks, and it distances, and it fades before it ultimately destroys. In his love, though, Jesus promises that his apparent path down, counterintuitively, is actually the way up. That his example of humble, sacrificial, self-forgetful service of others is actually the true template for life and for flourishing. Look at the last verse here.

28:23 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. You will be blessed as you seek and try to bless others. Or his words, just three chapters earlier, when he's talking about his sheep. I've come that they may have life and have it to the full. Jesus' path to life to the full is the downward one that follows him. His path to being someone is to make yourself no one. His path to contentment and satisfaction and peace and fulfillment is to forget thinking about those things for yourself and instead focus on those things for others through serving them in love and seeking or expecting nothing in return.

29:10 His path to honor is humility. His path to life is death in his kingdom. The way up is down. The last will be first. The humble will be honored. The servant will be king. I just want to finish with these words from Philippians 2 that just show us That path of Christ that we are to follow. Where Paul says, therefore God exalted him.

29:45 He exalted the one who made himself nothing. To the highest place and gave him the one who took the very nature of a servant. The name that is above every name. That at the name of Jesus. The one who humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Every knee should bow and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Here is Jesus' path. Here are the grooves that his footsteps have made ahead of us.

30:34 Obscurity to exaltation, humility to glory, death to life, servant to king. And he calls us then to follow where he has walked ahead. To trust him that this is the path that leads to blessing. As we forget ourselves and trip over each other to serve one another in love. I'm going to invite the band to come back up. I just want to earth this a little bit. There are all sorts of ways that we can serve one another. But let me make it clear, there are all sorts of needs in this church family at this time.

31:26 Mark, I wonder, can you pop up on the screen? Is it going to work? What is? It's not showing my screen up there, that's why. If you go onto our website, and you scroll down and go to opportunities to serve, these are all of the ways that you might be able to live something of this out right now in this moment, in places not necessarily of your want, but in places of need, whether that's stacking chairs, whether that's doing social media for IT, a literate missions team, whether that's serving our kids or youth in our causeway, whether that's serving refugees like Jackie's talked about and everything in between, the need within this church family. the need to serve Jesus and his gospel and the world in all sorts of ways through this family are great and I'd really encourage you to go away from today and prayerfully consider what place am I taking what role am I playing how am I responding to this king who acted as a servant and served by washing feet and ultimately by giving his life on a cross.

32:47 Let's pray together. Father, our prayer at the end is the same as at the beginning. We don't want to serve out of some sort of religious legalism. Or we don't want to serve out of some sort of begrudging duty. We want to serve because we see Jesus. We want to serve because we see Jesus. And we pray that by your spirit you will open our eyes right now. Open our eyes to see him in a way that maybe we haven't seen him in a long time.

33:34 and then see ourselves in his light. See ourselves clearly as we see him clearly. Show us your perspective on our hearts, on our motives, on our choices. Show us too, if we've lost sight of it, our identity in him that liberates us to serve. Because we don't need to get caught up in all of the stuff that the world is getting caught up in. Because we've got nothing to prove. We've got nothing to achieve. We are loved, accepted.

34:15 We are heirs with Christ for eternity. Father, where we need to see things differently by your Spirit, help us to see them today. And may you use the individuals taking their place in your body to serve you and your kingdom and your glory in mighty ways, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.