Truth For Life

Guest (Male): Do you realize how much Jesus loves you? We're going to consider that question today on Truth for Life as Alistair Begg points out how a simple humble act demonstrated Jesus' unconditional love for his people and provides an example that we should follow. We're looking at chapter 13 in John's Gospel.

Alistair Begg: You should note if your Bible is open that Jesus had left the crowd because, you remember we said last time, Chapter 12 is the end of Jesus' public teaching ministry. There is more that will be in the public in terms of his death and crucifixion and resurrection, but in terms of his actual instruction given to the crowds, there is a transition from 12 and into 13.

Jesus, if you like, has left the crowd with his words ringing in their ear. He has said to them, "I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world." People would have heard that. "I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness." Afterwards, as they were going home, as they sat in the evening at the meal, they may have said to one another, "I wonder what he meant about that? What does he mean that we wouldn't walk in darkness?" Someone else says, "Yes, I remember he said the light is among you for a little while longer. While you have the light, believe in the light that you may become the sons of light."

All of this Jesus has proclaimed in the company of the crowd and in the company of his disciples. Perhaps this evening as we come to the final of these "truly, trulys," we will be struck by the way in which his call to believe in the light while you still have the light runs in distinct comparison to the 30th verse and the concluding phrase when Judas walks away. John simply says, "And it was night." He had heard Jesus say, "Believe while you still have the light," and he chose to walk out into the darkness.

Well, as I say, the public ministry ends, and now he gathers with his disciples in order to prepare his disciples for the fact of his departure. In my notes, I said to myself, if I was going to work my way through this passage, I would want to make sure that I understood the things that we're told concerning Jesus' knowledge. So, for example, it begins in 13:1, "Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from the world and to go to the Father." Jesus was completely aware of this.

In verse 3, Jesus, again in his knowledge, "knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, that he had come from God, that he was going back to God," he then proceeds in the washing of their feet. In verse 11, "For he (that is, Jesus) knew who was to betray him, and that is why he said, 'Not all of you are clean.'" I noted that because it stood out to me in contrast to what he says to Peter in verse 7. When Peter characteristically begins to interact with Jesus in a way that none of the others do, which seems to be par for the course for him, when in verse 6, he says, "Are you going to wash my feet? You would wash my feet?" then Jesus says, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand."

And so I paused on that, and I want to pause on that for a moment and address it with you because what Jesus is saying to Peter in the express immediacy of all that is about to unfold in terms of the cross is actually true for each of us in all of our lives. There's not a person within earshot of me right now who is making their journey through life, professing as a follower of Jesus, and what Jesus says to Peter, he might realistically say to us. He might actually use our names: "Alistair, what I'm doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand."

Isn't that the case when the shadows come, when one wheel falls off, as it were, the wagon, when the times of joy seem to somehow or another be sprinkled with disappointment, with anxiety, with uncertainty, with the prospect of death, with the loss of loved ones, with the unanswered prayers for our children or for our grandchildren? Jesus says, "You may not understand right now, but one day you will understand." Peter wasn't unique in this; his colleagues didn't get it either. Jesus knows, and Jesus knows all about our troubles.

In fact, this is what makes quite remarkable the statement at the end of verse one: knowing that he's about to depart from the world and return to the Father and having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. I said to myself, well, there is something that I need to stop on as well because the disciples did not understand. Again and again in the Gospels, when Jesus explains to them that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer and die and on the third day be raised again (for example, you find this in Mark 8), Mark simply says, "But they did not understand what he was saying to them." Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. He loved them.

Do you know how much Jesus loves you? Do you believe how much Jesus loves you? That's what I wrote to myself because think about this: Jesus knew where he was going. Jesus knew what awaited him. Jesus knew that when he said to them, "Watch and pray so that you may not enter into temptation," they all decided to have a sleep, and he came back and he found them sleeping. Jesus knew that they would deny him. Jesus knew that one would betray him. But it didn't stop him from loving them.

He loved them to the end. How wonderful is this? We know all kinds of love: marital love, boyfriend-girlfriend love, affection, brotherly-sisterly love, and so on. But so much of my love, our love, is filtered because we tend to dispense the generosity of our affections largely in response to the well-being or the acceptable behavior of the one whom we love. But not Jesus. Jesus will never reject any of his servants because of our feeble service. That's a big encouragement. Because of our weak performance.

Everyone that he receives, he keeps. Those whom he loves at the first, he loves to the end. The love of God for us in Jesus is immense. He loved us before we knew him. He loved us before we had any interest in him. He loved us enough to pursue us. And having brought us, having given us, entrusted us to his Son, John 6, "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never turn them away. Never turn them away." You come through a bad week, feeble, floundering, forsaken? The devil comes and knocks on the front door of your head and says, "See, see, I told you. It would never work. You'd never continue." Tell him to go to where he belongs and turn your gaze to Christ, the love of Christ.

That is why, incidentally, when we studied Ephesians many years ago now it seems, part of Paul's prayer for the Ephesian believers was along these lines. I can't read the whole prayer, it's in Ephesians 3:18. He's praying that you would be rooted and grounded in love, that you may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. The love of Christ passes knowledge, passes knowledge.

Jesus' love for his disciples was not in evidence on account of their having met his expectations. Jesus' love for you as a follower of Jesus is not tied to your ability to meet his expectations. The cross is the irrefutable proof of the love of Jesus. It is an undeniable demonstration of the love of Jesus. And that is why the foot washing, which we will pass over briefly, needs to be understood in light of that to which the foot washing points. The foot washing served not only as an illustration of all that is about to take place on the cross, but it also serves as an example for the living out of the life on the part of his disciples.

And that is why when he says in verse 16, "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." He's arguing from the greater to the lesser. "If I then, being your Lord and Master, do this, you then must do this for one another." Jesus is their Lord and he's their master, and yet he took the lowest place. And what he's saying is simple. It is therefore unthinkable, he says, that you who are my servants should consider yourselves too great to follow the pattern that I have established. That's why it was so helpful that we had read for us in Philippians Chapter 2, perfectly revealing to us the steps down on the part of Jesus.

Peter does the same thing in his letter where he says to his folks in Chapter 5, "Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility." The word that he uses there is the word for an apron that would have been used by a servant in the act of foot washing. And they would take that apron and they would wrap it around themselves as they engaged in what they were doing. And so Peter says, "What I want you to do is actually metaphorically wrap that thing around yourselves and so serve." Somewhat ironic and wonderful, isn't it, that Peter should return to this when he himself didn't do such a great job on this occasion?

Now, I'm going to leave aside the question of whether the practice of foot washing should be a regular ordinance of the church. Those of you from a Roman Catholic background know that the Pope does this once a year, which seems to me not to be an immediate obvious application of John chapter 13. But nevertheless, some of the Moravians continue to do this, they see it as a rite of the church. I think for myself that I'm perfectly happy to wash your feet if you need that done, and I suppose you might be prepared to do it for me. But I also recognize that it is very possible to put a system in place which actually reveals nothing of the heart attitude that is necessary. I can still have a jealous spirit, I can be resentful, I can do everything, I can wash your feet and just, yeah, okay.

So I think it's an "as," that you should do as I have done, not what I have done. It's okay if you want to do what I have done, but what I want you to do is make sure you do as I have done. In other words, as servants you need to be ready to perform the lowliest of services. The menial tasks are not to be beneath us. Now, this, of course, is something that Jesus emphasized. You find it in Matthew, you find it in Luke, and he even refers to it again in Chapter 15 if you turn over a page where he's talking about if the world hates you, it hated me and so on. And then he says, "Remember the word that I said to you: a servant is not greater than his master."

What brings this home with such a punch is the fact that when you read in the Synoptic Gospels, for example, when you read in Luke and in Chapter 22, Luke tells us that in this very context, a dispute had arisen. So Jesus is now demonstrating the lowliness of his persona, which is going to be magnified, dramatized in the cross. And in that context, in that supper, as they're all laid out, on their left-hand arms with their feet hanging out the back in a U-shape, eating, they've got an argument. And what is the argument? A dispute arose among them so as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. It's good, isn't it? I think I can identify with this better than the foot washing.

It's as though Jesus decided to address that issue by doing the unthinkable. That he would do that which they would be unprepared to do for one another. Bishop Ryle says, "Well would it be for the church if the truth of verse 16 was more remembered and real humility was not so sadly rare." Pride is the elemental human sin. Pride. If you think about it, jealousy is just pride because we think we should have something else. You can trace it all to there. Ryle goes on, "Perhaps there is no sight so displeasing in God's eyes as a self-conceited, self-satisfied, self-centered, stuck-up professor of religion." Perhaps there is no sight so displeasing in God's eyes as a self-conceited, self-satisfied, self-contented, stuck-up professing Christian. Boy, it rings, doesn't it?

It's interesting that Ryle should write in this way because using Ryle's expository thoughts, which he's done on all of the Gospels, I was struck this week and I went back to check on this. I was struck by the way in which Ryle says this is a bad thing. So I said, well, I wonder how Ryle was, because he's dead now, he's been dead a long time. We get an insight into people in the way in which they write and so on. And in his preface to his expository thoughts, he writes to say, "I am very sensible that I have often failed to hit the mark." Really? "I have not been ashamed in many places to confess my ignorance." Really?

Aren't you supposed to say, "I'm Bishop Ryle, I graduated from Cambridge, I'm incredibly clever, and I'm sure everybody's going to just fall at my feet and marvel at the erudition that is represented in my expository thoughts"? Well, that's what he's talking about. No. "Competent critics will probably detect in the work not a few errors and mistakes. I lay no claim to infallibility, but I can honestly say that I have never handled the word partially or deceitfully and have done my best to show the thing as it is. On the whole, I cannot help hoping that in spite of many deficiencies, the notes will be found helpful to thoughtful readers."

And then he quotes, "The conclusion I arrive at after a diligent examination of many commentators is always one and the same: I trust none of them unreservedly. The book now sent forth is sent with a deep conviction in the author's mind that it contains many defects, inaccuracies, and blemishes. But with an earnest desire and prayer that it may help some readers to a better understanding of one of the most interesting portions of Holy Scripture."

You see, the disciples failed to understand what we are tempted to miss and it is this: that the fact of greatness is measured by a different yardstick than the yardstick that is used in our culture. The yardstick that is used in our culture will have to do with either your height, your width, your skinniness, your intelligence, your forcefulness, and so on. The yardstick that is used in the New Testament is the yardstick of humble service, and that hadn't registered with his disciples.

CS Lewis talks about how when he first became a Christian, he says, "When I first became a Christian about 14 years ago, I thought I could do it on my own by retiring to my rooms, reading theology, and I wouldn't go to the churches. I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on, I saw the great merit of it because I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education. And then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns which were just sixth-rate music were nevertheless being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew. And then you realize that you aren't fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit."

For a moment, let us pray. And Jesus said, whoever knows these things, whoever knows the right thing to do, must do it. And James says, whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him or for her, it is sin. Look upon us in your mercy, Lord, we pray. Set us free from ourselves and our own selfish preoccupations. Surely it's pride that wrecks a business office, a group of lab technicians, a baseball team, a family, a pastoral team, an elder board, a church. Meet us where we are, gracious God, and grant to us forgiveness for our sins and the fullness of your spirit so that we might increasingly become like Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. We've been learning that in Christ we are deeply loved and securely kept. That's the message of the gospel that we love to tell at Truth for Life. If you share our passion for spreading this good news, can I invite you to partner with us? Our radio program, our podcast, all the free online teaching, it's all funded by your financial support, particularly the month-to-month giving that comes from our Truth Partners. It's these consistent donations that enable Truth for Life to make investments in channels that distribute this program.

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Thanks for listening. If you are a believer, do you realize that you're called to be an ambassador for Christ? Tomorrow we'll consider what's involved in a calling like that. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the learning is for living.