Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] So I had a pretty weird and pretty amazing childhood. My parents traveled all around the world for business, all over Europe, Australia, New Zealand. And a lot of times I got to go with them. And that was really cool and cool places and kangaroos and all this stuff. But a lot of times I stayed home. I had school or soccer or whatever. And so staying home was kind of a mixed bag.
[00:00:21] Sometimes I was staying with my brothers. John's already laughing. I noticed I was staying with my brother some of the time. One of them is John. He's a deacon here. Really respected person in this church, actually.
[00:00:32] And with my brothers, they would say things to me very. I remember it vividly. My parents would be gone for like two or three weeks, and they'd be like, actually, Joe, I was probably 10. Like, you know, your mom and dad aren't ever coming back. In fact, good news, you'll get a new mommy and daddy. James, what are we on? My middle brother John would gesture to him. What are we on? Like, our third or fourth set of moms and dads and James, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I also have a semi repressed memory of one of them in a wig running around saying, I'm your mommy now.
[00:01:01] Could have been John, I don't know. But when I wasn't staying with John and James, which was kind of bad, I was staying with my Meemaw. And staying with Meemaw was awesome. It was so good. Some people might say that she spoiled me. That's fair. When I think back on it, I think of the memories, and the memories are like playing baseball with Meemaw, which meant I would stand at the home plate, she would pitch, I would hit a homer, she would go chase it, come back, and we would just repeat that over and over. And then when I got tired, I could go sit down on the couch. She'd bring me pizza rolls. She'd take the dirty plate away. I'm watching SpongeBob. She brings me mint chocolate chip ice cream, takes the dirty bowl away. I'm just kind of sitting there, you know, relaxing after school. And if I was ever hard up for cash with Meemaw, I could just go to the money tree.
[00:01:44] And the money tree, in case you didn't know, was where Meemaw would bury money from me. So I could just go dig it up. And then I would just have quarters galore under the money tree. I think I thought this is how the works. This is where money comes from. Comes from the roots of the money tree. But I could take those quarters And I could go to Jolly Time Arcade in the Richmond Mall. Meemaw would drop me off there. She would go to JCPenney doing Meemaw stuff, I don't know, buying blouses and things. And I was sitting in there. I was in Jolly Time. And Jolly Time was this amazing arcade. It was full of just sights and sounds and so many things. It was in many ways like the Garden of Eden, because there was. There were things you weren't supposed to do. So it was a paradise, but it was, There were, There were places you didn't go, things you didn't touch. So Mortal Kombat was one of those. I knew about Mortal Kombat, other people knew about Mortal Kombat. I'm pretty sure my parents knew about Mortal Kombat. I'm like, I cannot, I must not play Mortal Kombat. Of course I can watch it played in passing, you know, but I can't play it. But nobody knew anything about primal rage. Primal rage was like Mortal Kombat, a fighting game, very gory, very violent. But it was with giant dinosaurs. And as we all know, dinosaurs are for kids. And I thought, this is safe. I can do this. My conscience was clear. I played primal rage. And in primal rage just to kind of paint the picture for you. And I'm getting there, I promise, guys. Okay, so there's like 30 foot tall dinosaurs and they're, they're gruesomely fighting one another. It's in this post apocalyptic fever dream because there's little humans there too. And they worshiped the dinosaurs. And when you're engaged in this battle, you got these human worshipers. And if you need a little health boost, you can just reach down and scoop up some of the humans and eat them. And that. It helps you out a little. And the humans didn't seem to mind at all. They didn't slow them down. They're bowing and raising their hands. So again, I was developing these understandings of how the world worked. The money tree, that's where money comes from. Gods eat their followers. And it turns out I was really wrong. I was really wrong about the money tree, but I was kind of right about most gods. Right? If you look in the Old Testament, you see gods, or so called gods, like Moloch, who demands the ritual sacrifice of children. We look in our own continent at the Aztecs, and we can still go to these ziggurats today where they brought human sacrifices to the top of these ziggurats to sacrifice them with obsidian knives. And you may say, okay, yeah, but that's a long time ago. We don't do that anymore. But consider who the gods of today are. So many have said our hearts are like little idol making factories. And so our gods are what? I mean, lust, greed, power addiction. And do we not see people today sacrificing themselves to these same gods all the time? Now some of you are like, I thought this was the Easter series.
[00:04:37] And we're getting there, okay? Because when we come to Easter, we should ask ourselves, is that the kind of God we serve? Is that the kind of person Jesus was? A God who consumes us. But when we open our Bibles, especially this passage today, we see a Jesus who did not use and abuse his followers for his own gain. And that is so rare. We see someone who was in fact sacrificed for his followers. So unlike the gods of primal rage and of, of the gods all over the world who consumed the people that worship them. Jesus broke the bread and said to his disciples, take, eat. This is my body.
[00:05:23] So there are, there are two main points to this passage. Some of you guys are thinking this is probably going to be pretty short. That would be an erroneous assumption.
[00:05:32] There are two main points.
[00:05:35] Jesus washes our feet, so we must wash the feet of others. Jesus washes our feet, so we must wash the feet of others. And if you do, take notes, underline must.
[00:05:48] Jesus forgives us. This is point two. So we must forgive others. Jesus washes our feet, so we must wash the feet of others. Jesus forgives us, so we must forgive others. So we're gonna walk through this passage in three sections. And typical of Jesus, he acts and then he explains, and then we get the consequences of that. So read with me in John, chapter 13, verses 1 through 11. We see the action now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of the world to 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 afterward you will understand.
[00:07:06] 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.
[00:07:19] Jesus said to him, the one who has 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. So the context here is the Passover supper. And this was a really, really important Jewish holiday. It goes all the way back to the Egyptian slavery. In Egypt, where God sends plague after plague after plague through Moses, Pharaoh still won't relent until finally God sends the final plague, which is the death of the firstborn in Egypt. And the Israelites, being there, were under threat as well. And the only way to escape it was to do exactly what God had commanded, which was to sacrifice a pure and spotless lamb to cover their doorpost with its blood and to eat its flesh.
[00:08:10] And here we see that Jesus is beginning to show he is the perfect spotless lamb. That sacrifice was him all along. It was his blood that covered sins, his flesh that is consumed for forgiveness. So that's what they're celebrating and likely what we know from scholars and commentators. Everybody was probably around a U shaped table. Jesus would have likely been at the center, reclining on their elbows and eating with their, their right hands. So Jesus would have been probably the host. He, he was, after all, the leader. And so he would have been the one perhaps who would have arranged for things like foot washing, which always happened before meals in the ancient near east and Jewish culture, but very conspicuously hadn't happened. And all of this is taking place in this moment of really palpable tension. Plans to arrest Jesus are already well underway. Jesus is battling his own anguish. Satan's influence is already in the room and, and everyone's feet are filthy. The scene is backwards and uncomfortable in every way. But what does Jesus, the leader, what does he do even though he is hours from his own crucifixion? Well, the first thing he does, John tells us, is that he loves. He loves his own to the very end. He focuses outward, not inward. He also tells himself the truth, who he is, where he is from, where he is about to go. He doesn't give himself over to despairing thoughts. And finally he serves. He counts always the needs of others as more significant than himself. So then Jesus acts. He rises from Supper in verse four. And this is important because it suggests that people were already eating. Their feet were dirty, they had not been washed, and yet they had already started to eat. And the disciples would have undoubtedly been very uncomfortable with this and maybe a little bit grossed out as well. I was trying to think of how we can understand this today and put this in context. I was like, imagine we were having some kind of, like, rib fellowship. We like playing a church in Texas. And we're like, we're gonna do ribs now. We're gonna have the brisket hoopla. And so there we are. We got our huge plates of ribs set out before us. And, like, maybe Pastor Clay prays, and he's like, you know what? So many people here, some of you guys don't know each other. Our church is really growing. Let's get up and just shake hands for a good, solid five minutes. Try to touch every single hand in the room. It's fall flu season, and we do that, and we're like, all right, let's dig in, right? If you're like me, maybe I'm weird. I honestly don't know if it's just me, but I would just be looking at my hands just like, no, no, this cannot. This can't happen. And that's how the disciples probably would have felt. After all, their feet weren't hidden under a table like ours are, you know, wrapped up in shoes. They were out there in the open, spread all around this table. And even today, like, most of you know what it's like maybe to walk through a cow pasture. You can enjoy a nice meal after. You just walk through a cow pasture, right? That's just. You gotta take care of that first so that you can focus on what you're about to do. And Jesus, very intentionally, is letting all this tension marinate. He's letting this need for being cleansed be deeply felt. And then to the confusion, undoubtedly, of everyone in the room, he gets up and wraps a towel around his waist. And we know what's about to happen next, so we have to pause on foot washing. Okay? A lot of you, maybe some of you are already nervous because we're talking about foot washing today. I don't have a personal story about foot washing. That's something for which I'm very thankful. But it seems like everybody I talk to does everybody. Nobody's told me, like, man, it was a transformative experience. You know, Like, I came away from that changed, and it's just great all the way around. Everybody usually says it was very cringe it was very awkward. And usually we have to say, you know, maybe it was a well meaning pastor literally following the example of Jesus. And maybe some of these work out to be beautiful things, but very often it just doesn't seem to kind of like hit the way that we would expect it to. So I think we have to understand we can't overlay our understanding of what we think foot washing is directly onto the New Testament. We do have a little bit of learning to do. And so I want to make a few points. Foot washing, I don't think was as weird as we imagine it to be. So first, one thing to consider, in the ancient near east, most feet were visible. Most of the time. People were walking around in sandals. So to wash someone's feet, it wasn't so much like this uncovering of the foot. You would take a sandal off, the foot's there all along, boom, you get down to business. Second, this was a culture that was less sensitive to touch. Did you know I'm speaking to my Christian brothers in the room? Did you know that Paul commands us four times in the New Testament to greet our Christian brothers with a holy kiss? And so some of you guys need to search your conscience right now and think, could start today. This could be. You could get the consent of a Christian brother and give him a big kiss.
[00:13:12] But I think that's another example of something where we say, well, how do we emulate that today in our culture? Maybe a strong handshake, a pat on the back, a hug, a manly hug. But there was a lot more touch in this culture. People were less weirded out by that. Third, there's probably less touch in a lot of foot washing in the New Testament than you would imagine. Water was often said to have been poured over the feet from one basin into another and then wiped clean with a towel to remove any remaining dirt. Additionally, this was something that wasn't done as just kind of a spiritual ritual. It was a necessary practice. It was hot outside. People were probably sweating. It was a dry climate. The roads were dusty. They were walking everywhere they went. And you can imagine, you put this all together and people have really dirty feet. And you think today we're still very concerned about cleanliness, just in different ways. We think about invisible germs that we can't see on our hands. We can only see with microscopes. But these early first century Jews would have been way more concerned with the dirt they could visibly see all over their feet. And finally, this wasn't something you just do at like a Random Sunday night service and, you know, they're playing soft music. This was very common. We read instances of it all throughout both the Old and New Testaments. It's just a common expectation that this happens. And there are some, also, some really beautiful, exceptional instances, like the sinful woman washing Jesus's feet with her tears and drying them with her hair. Mary, the sister of Lazarus, washing his feet, Jesus's feet with an expensive ointment as this expression of overflowing thankfulness. So we have to understand, in the first century, foot washing didn't have the same awkward connotations as it does in the 21st century, but it was nevertheless a humbling and demeaning task for the person doing the Washington. To be frank, foot washing was slave work. This was a task typically reserved for slaves and particularly among Jews. For Gentile slaves, it was considered by many to be beneath even Jewish slaves to wash the feet of others. Yet here is Jesus, the one who multiplied the loaves, who calmed the storm with a word, who commanded the Lazarus to come out of the tomb, the son of God himself. And what is he doing? He's acting like a gentile slave, stooping to wash feet. There's a biblical commentator named Andreas Costenberger, and he says in his commentary on John, there is no other recorded instance of a superior washing an inferior's feet in all of Jewish and Greco Roman literature. This event is utterly unprecedented and uncanny and would have been deeply unsettling for his disciples. And it should be for you, too.
[00:16:15] Don't forget this is the descendant of David, who God promised in Psalm 110 would use his enemies as a footstool. This is the one in Genesis who God promised would come and use his feet to crush the head of the serpent. Think about John the Baptist. What did John the Baptist say? He on the scene. He has tons of followers. He. He's. He's kind of hot stuff in first century, you know, Judaism. And he says to his disciples, there is. And by the way, Jesus agreed, saying there was no one ever born of woman greater than John the Baptist. But John the Baptist says to his disciples, there is one coming after me, the strap of whose sandals I am unworthy to stoop down and untie. And I don't know for sure, but you know what? I think he's talking about foot washing. That's what you do before you wash someone's feet. So John, the greatest ever born, says, I am unworthy even to wash the feet of Jesus. And yet here the inverse is happening. Jesus is washing the feet of others. And all this occurs in the Gospel of John. This is a gospel known for what's called high Christology. If you ever look at Matthew, Mark and Luke and compared them to John, Matthew, Mark and Luke start off often with, like, earthly genealogies. This person was born, this person was born, and then Jesus was born. So it's kind of a centered view, centered on his manhood. In this one, John's Gospel, it starts off as we know. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So this maker of the cosmos, through whom all things were made and all things are held together, stoops down to wash feet. It should make us tremble. The banner over this whole Easter series is, do you see the glory? And John desperately wants us to see the glory, the glory of a God who is humble. So in verse five, with the towel around his waist, the disciples watching in confusion and undoubtedly dismay, the same creator God who in Genesis hovered over the face of the deep primordial oceans, stands over a small basin of water, this time not to create, but to recreate, to make new, to cleanse. John mentions twice here, and not by accident, I think that the towel is tied around Jesus's waist. And I think this is to be understood as a powerful visual of what is happening. Jesus is not only literally removing dirt from his disciples and placing it on himself. It's what he is doing spiritually, too. He is taking their uncleanliness onto himself. Paul writes, as many of you know, in Second Corinthians 5, for our sake he made him. That's Jesus to be sin who knew no sin.
[00:19:10] So at this Passover meal, the perfect, unblemished Passover lamb was here made blemished. The only one truly clean was made dirty for our sakes. In verse six, he approaches Peter. I think maybe we could understand this to be that he approached him first. And Peter is shocked and then scandalized. But if we judge him, as we often do, oh, hotheaded Peter again. I think it's because we don't fully understand the weirdness of this.
[00:19:43] Most of us have known for years that Jesus did this. And even if we've never deeply considered it, it probably ceases to surprise us. I was trying to think, how can. How can we shock everyone today? So I was thinking of Imagine just with me for a moment. Most of you know Pastor Jeremy and his wife Danae. Imagine you've had a crisis in your family, and through it all, there's been Pastor Jeremy and Danae calling you, texting you, they're there in the hospital room. Everything turns out okay. And they are rejoicing with you, celebrating with you, hugging you, crying with you. And you think, these people have. Have served me so much. I want to serve them. And so you host a lavish dinner in your house, and this is like the best one you can put on. You've been cooking all day, cleaning all day. You. You have, like, candles out for the first time. You're like, we're going to have. It's going to be candle lit. I don't know. That seems fancy. And so it's. You're putting out the last plate, and you realize your guests of honor, they're gone. Pastor Jeremy and Danae, their seats are empty. You and your wife, you're looking for them. Where are they? And you notice the door to your bathroom is ajar. And you see them in there on their hands and knees scrubbing your toilet, right? Just imagine that, okay? Like, you would say, what are you doing? Like, why don't do this. Let me do this. We should pay someone to do this. You are a guest of honor. Like, sit, eat, celebrate, and take that feeling you would feel and multiply it by infinity. That's how the disciples would have felt here. But Jesus nevertheless rebukes them. He makes it clear in verses 6 through 10, even when he is humbling himself, he is still in charge. We don't ever set the terms for Jesus. We don't ever fit him into the mold that we want him to fit into. That will never work. When a perfect God humbles himself and offers you cleansing, all there is to do is echo Peter's eventual cry, which is, lord, wash me.
[00:21:34] And Jesus does. He washes him. In fact, he washes everyone's feet in the room, even Judas'and. I think there are some things that we should take from that. One, that the humility of Jesus is truly unparalleled. But I think another point that we should take from Jesus, washing the betrayer's feet, is that there is no act that will save you. There is no baptism or donation that you can give, or communion that you can take, or laying on of hands, or cleansing ritual that will ever make you fit to stand before God. If Jesus were to wash your feet with his own hands, that would not do is Peter's faith, his expressed need for Jesus cleansing. That's what makes him clean the washing, not with water, but with blood.
[00:22:32] So we move into verse 12, into the explanation. After Jesus has done it, he's going to explain it when he had 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've 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. I'm not speaking of all of you. I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled. He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me. I'm telling you this now before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am He. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
[00:23:34] So this is our first major takeaway, and it very simply is, Jesus serves us, so we must serve one another. Jesus served notice even though he was greater than us.
[00:23:47] Therefore, we must serve our equals, and that's everybody here on earth. But what does that look like? Well, I think literally washing people's feet is something that often only leads to profound awkwardness. Not saying it can't be done, but I think metaphorically washing feet can lead to profound thankfulness and humility and holiness. And if you want to know what it looks like to metaphorically wash someone's feet, just keep showing up to this church and looking around. Because practical examples abound. People all over this church are washing people's feet all the time. When they stand in the snow to direct traffic or push cars out of the mud. When they open up their imperfect homes week after week to share a meal and conversations with friends or even strangers. When they teach my sons the Gospel every week. When they set aside their skills as leaders of multimillion dollar businesses to lead kids bridge or to mop up spilled coffee. When my wife spends her Saturday morning cleaning toilets for a BFG in a home with four little boys. When people. Some of you get that. When people who grind all week in a warehouse come to yet another warehouse to spend all evening for the sake of VBS kids. When they neglect their own troubles and devote their prayers mostly to the troubles of others. When they use their vacation time to stumble through another language in a foreign country. And when those same folks eat and drink Peruvian food and then suffer for days with travelers flu. When men make a room for mothers to nurse their children in privacy. When pastors with gifts that other churches with lots of money and lots of history and lots of buildings would love to have instead resolve to hold their hands to the plow and plod along in Richmond, Kentucky. Amen. When women who change dozens of diapers all week come to church early on a Sunday not to get the best seat and hear a sermon, but to change other people's kids diapers, they're doing it right now. When people who retired from decades of hard work come here to work for free. When women lose their own precious children in miscarriage, yet rejoice and host baby showers for those having children of their own.
[00:26:15] When men stand in the cold and rain to make sure the first thing visitors see is a smile and a door held open for them. When couples train and prepare and clean and put up baby gates so that they can foster children who come from homes of chaos and abuse and neglect when they become mothers and fathers to orphans. All these saints are washing feet.
[00:26:41] So look to Christ and look to Christians for examples of how to wash feet in your life.
[00:26:48] And it would be an amazing thing if we all resolved to do that more. And I hope that we will resolve to be more humble and more constant in our service. We should aspire to that. But I don't want us to limit what this passage is saying. I don't want us to get in our cars and think, what was that all about? A weird video game and random acts of kindness, I guess. Okay, that is not what I want. I don't think that's what Jesus would merely want. I don't want us leaving here and just abstractly deciding to just be more cognizant of occasional examples, to maybe serve someone else in a small way. To put it bluntly, I do not think that the Son of God left his throne in heaven to come to earth to get on his knees and wash the feet disciples, so that you will occasionally pay it forward at Starbucks.
[00:27:37] So, Christian, if you want to know what else I think this passage means, ask yourself what's the context? And the context is the cross. The cross is the ultimate act of service to others. And of course, the service performed on the cross is what it is. Forgiveness. Forgiveness. Remember here, what is the dirt symbolic of? It is symbolic of sin. When Jesus is washing feet, he wasn't just thinking about the physical dirt. He's thinking about the stain of sin, the deep filth of the human heart. And yet he Serves, he stoops, he forgives. And Christian, what greater service can you render to someone than to forgive them? Now, if you think I'm going off track here, I'm not the only one to think this. In fact, Augustine, who we consider to be one of the great early Church fathers, said this. Can we say that even a brother may cleanse a brother from the contracted stain of wrongdoing? Yea, verily. For if he who neither has, nor had, nor will have any sin prays for our sins, how much more ought we to pray for one another's in turn? And if he forgives us, whom we have nothing to forgive, how much more ought we who are unable to live here without sin, to forgive one another? Let us therefore forgive one another his faults and pray for one another's faults, and thus, in a manner, be washing one another's feet.
[00:29:03] You know what the Bible says about washing someone's feet through forgiving them.
[00:29:09] We're going to have really quick what I consider. I'm going to call this like a Nicholas Cage. If you see National Treasure, one of those type moments where it's like, how do we decipher this cryptic message on the back of the Declaration of Independence written in invisible ink? Oh, my goodness. The answer was on the $1 bill all along. We just never noticed it. It was hiding in plain sight. So I'm gonna read to you from a pretty obscure passage. Okay? It's from Luke, chapter 11. It's called the Lord's Prayer.
[00:29:38] Biblical scholars in the room perhaps have heard of it. You ready? And I'm gonna read it from the English standard version, Luke 11, 2, 4. And he said to them, when you pray, that's Jesus talking. When you pray, say, father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us and lead us not into temptation.
[00:30:07] Did you catch it right there? In the Lord's Prayer, all along is the absolutely essential condition that Christians must serve others. We must wash their feet by forgiving them. So I want us, and I hope I don't stray into too much controversy here, as he looks to Pastor Jeremy. I want us to rework in our mind what it looks like to be a Christian. Here's some hypotheticals. The missionary overseas who gave up all their earthly possessions, but is secretly still bitter and angry and unforgiving towards their nominally Catholic father, who is disappointed they didn't go to med school, isn't fully, fully following Christ. The older widow who has not missed a church service or drank or cussed or smoked once in her entire life, but who holds on to grudges with all the strength that her frail body can come up with. She cannot pray the Lord's Prayer with a clear conscience. And people who stand for every political cause that could be called Christian and who truly vote in the way that they think Christ would, yet who would withhold that same gospel from their political and ideological opponents, they don't have any real gospel to claim at all.
[00:31:32] If we call ourselves Christians, but we say with boldness that we are unwilling or unable to forgive, we may be those very people that Jesus warns about in Matthew 7 when he speaks of those who claim him but don't know him. I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Why? Because the work that the Father has given us here on earth is the ministry of reconciliation. His New Covenant and his law says that all can be forgiven in Christ. When we withhold forgiveness, the question is, what law are we holding to?
[00:32:12] The worst mortal enemies of Christ on this earth were the Pharisees. And what do they do? They notoriously minimize their own sin and magnified the sin of others. And they were utterly scandalized by Jesus continual offer of forgiveness to others. Listen to the Lord's Prayer. Again, just that part. Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. The word for is not there by mistake. You can essentially read it as because. And just imagine this Christian Imagine in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus said to us to pray, forgive us our sins, because we always clap three times before we go to bed at night. Guess what we would all be doing? We would clap three times before we went to bed at night. All across America, as Christians, you know, prepared to go to sleep, you could hear claps ringing out. Okay, but he didn't say that. He said, forgive us our sins, for we forgive the sins of others. Let us be people who are instead proclaiming forgiveness all around the world. But I want to make a really important point, and this is key. Please don't miss this. You will never earn salvation by forgiving others.
[00:33:20] In fact, we merely evidence our salvation when we forgive others. We're not forgiven because we forgive others. We show we are forgiven when we forgive others. In fact, I can't think of a more powerful evidence for a believer to exhibit than when they offer forgiveness. To me, it shows someone who truly understands that they themselves have been forgiven so much. But what does that look like Sometimes it doesn't. Necessarily look like grand acts of forgiveness. Sometimes it looks like overlooking mild annoyances of others personalities or personal slights or frustrating actions because Jesus did all that for us. And it should go without saying on a practical point, if someone mildly annoys you, don't go up to them next week and say, I just want you to know I forgive you. Just forgive them, okay?
[00:34:15] Forgiveness sometimes looks like not avoiding someone or holding them at a distance. Right. Just because they had some slight offense towards you in the past. We cannot claim, I think, with a clear conscience to serve the one that left heaven to wash our feet and yet move away from certain folks at fellowship time. Right? And in a church this size, engaged in this much work together, so much minor conflict is bound to happen and it must be matched by so much forgiveness. But forgiveness can also be immensely serious and grave and difficult. I can't say that I've been wronged like some of you have, but I definitely have had at least once a really bitter feud. And I brought it to my pastor's attention, Pastor Jeremy. And he talked to me. I told him all the reasons why I was so hurt, why I was so upset, why I felt so wrong. And he listened patiently. And then I remember him saying, he didn't say, here's a book you need to read or I'm going to pray for some kind of magical resolution to come to your attention and that'll work everything out perfectly. What he said was, you just have to forgive them. And I was like, well, he clearly didn't get it. Like I need to really explain the details. Like there's some stuff I've left out, there's some recent stuff he doesn't know about yet. So I say all that and he says, you just have to forgive. And I knew the Bible said I have to listen to my pastor and that's what I resolved to do. That's really. He said a lot. That was the only thing I remember him. Him saying. And so much joy and liberation followed that so often. It's resentment that feels empowering, isn't it? It animates us, it motivates us, it excites us. But that resentment, that refusal to forgive is actually a chain around your heart and it will drag you to hell.
[00:36:04] But there needs to be wisdom and forgiveness, and I want us to be clear on that too. Forgiveness can be really complicated for some folks. The Bible says we are to be as innocent as doves, but as wise as serpents. Some of you have suffered wrongs that I can't comprehend, much less Speak aloud. Some of you need to work out the practical aspects of forgiveness with the guidance of mature Christians and your BFG leaders and your pastors. Some of you need to forgive someone but then say, I will never again put myself or my children in danger. Some of you need to forgive someone that you need to report to the police and testify against in court. Some of you need to forgive someone that. That maybe your pastors will say you probably should not have contact with them again. I don't think forgiveness means that you have to re victimize yourself, but don't lessen what it means to forgive. If you want to know what it looks like to truly, radically forgive and what it how God feels about it, we don't have time to read it now, but read Matthew 18, where Jesus says you should forgive not seven times, but 77 times. He talks about a master whose. Whose servant owed him a great debt. And the servant pleaded, please forgive me, please forgive me. And obviously we know who the master stands for, right? It's Christ. We know who the servant is. It's us. Please forgive us this great debt. The master says, I forgive you. I have mercy on you. And that same forgiven servant goes to someone that owes him a small debt and he chokes them. He says, give me all that money right now. And when the master hears of it, Jesus says, the literal translation is that the master says to that unforgiving servant, deliver him over to the torturers. That is how seriously the Bible takes forgiveness. It should know no bounds for Christians in frequency or severity. And we can see examples of Christians living that out all over the world today. I just want to give you one. You may remember 10 years ago, a young man entered a manual African Methodist Episcopal Church. And after sitting with several of the congregants having a Bible study, he was there for about an hour when they bowed their heads to pray. He pulled out a gun and killed nine of them. And it was two days later, at his bond hearing where he appeared virtually via camera, that Nadine Collier spoke. Her mother, Ethel, was killed by that man who, by the way, they found in his manifesto his white supremacist views.
[00:38:28] And here's what she said.
[00:38:30] I just want everyone to know to you, I forgive you. You took something very precious away from me. I will never talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again. But I forgive you and have mercy on your soul. You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people. But God forgive you and I forgive you. Forgiveness is the heart of the Gospel. It's the hands and feet of mercy. It's the character of Christ, and we need to wield it with heavenly reverence and authority.
[00:39:07] We're going to wrap up in these final verses. Just a few more things to say. Verse 21. After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit and testified, truly, truly, I say to you, One of you will betray me. The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus side. So Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, lord, who is it? Jesus answered him, it is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.
[00:39:41] So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then, after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, what you're going to do, do quickly now. No one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought it was because Judas had the money bag. Jesus was telling him, buy what we need for the feast, or that he should give something to the poor. So after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.
[00:40:08] So this text takes a sudden and dark turn. The Gospels have often been described as crucifixion stories with extended prologues. In other words, it's all about the crucifixion. Everything slows down there, everything gets more detailed there. That's what we are mostly to pay attention to. It's all about the cross. And that's what John is shifting to here. So Judas is given this excuse to depart, and the rest of the room is left in confusion and disarray. And John notes ominously, and it was night. And so this beautiful passage ends in darkness and foreboding and gloom. Jesus will soon be betrayed, denied, rejected, spat upon, struck, stripped, whipped, dehydrated, humiliated, mocked, pierced, impaled, suffocated, killed. Yet as he hung from the cross in agony, physical, mental, spiritual, what does he do?
[00:41:11] He does what he commands us to do. He serves. He ministers to the man being crucified beside him, comforting him in his final moments with thoughts of paradise, he looks to his mother below him as he's being crucified and entrust her to the care of John. And he forgives.
[00:41:33] As he looks out one more time at the mocking masses, even those who drove the nails into his hands and feet, he prays, father, forgive them, for they know not what they do now. All this happened a long time ago, but you may as well be in the Last Supper with Christ right now in this building. Matthew 18:15 20 the context of Christians dispensing judgment and mercy, what we sometimes call church discipline. And Jesus says to them, for where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. Jesus left his disciples when he ascended to heaven with the authority to bind and loose on earth, and in so doing, bind and loose in the life after.
[00:42:21] Where two or three are gathered in his name, there he is with us. Jesus is here. And if he looked upon a crowd this size, he would say what he said to his disciples, not all of you are clean, and all that is left for you to do is to cry out, lord, wash me.
[00:42:42] Someday, regardless of what you say or do in this life, we will all find ourselves in the presence of the One who lowered himself so that he could be lifted up, lifted onto the cross, lifted from the grave and death itself, lifted up into the heights of heaven. But he will lower himself once more when he descends from the sky as a conquering king who will come not to wash dirt from feet, but to cleanse the world once and for all from sin. And so, while we wait for that day, let us do what the coming King has so clearly serve, forgive, cleanse and be cleansed.
