Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: Peter the big fisherman, the one Christ called away from his nets and said, "Come after me and I will make you to be fishers of men." In the study of Peter, we've found that it was ordinary symbols, ordinary things in his life, that fashioned him into the man that God wanted him to be: boats, fish, rings (speaking of his partnership with his wife), and the home that they opened to Jesus and the world, the hurting world of which they were a part.

Today, it's going to be towels, the symbol of servanthood. We're going to be looking at a passage where Peter learned a lot because one day Jesus washed Peter's feet. So, I'd like you to find John 13, and we'll be reading a little bit about that and the incident that's going to teach us about a servant lifestyle. You know, Peter was to learn that a servant spirit was his Savior's spirit. "I am among you as one that serves," Jesus said in Luke 22:24-27. Another place: "The Son of Man comes not to be served, but to serve."

It's an interesting little side light that in Luke's gospel, chapter 12, verse 37, when Jesus is talking about the coming King, in fact, why don't we just turn to that for a moment? Luke's gospel, chapter 12, verse 37. Jesus is saying in verse 35, "Be dressed and be ready for service, keep your lamps burning like men who are waiting for the master to return from a wedding so that when he comes and knocks, they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes."

Now, we know this passage; it's very familiar to us. Yes, yes, Jesus is coming as Lord and judge and mighty King. And when he does, we his servants are to be found serving, our lamps burning, oil in our lamps, alert, waiting, watching, busy, occupying till he comes. But look at the next verse: "I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve. He will have them recline at the table and he will come and wait on them."

The amazing thing to me is this is the second coming, after he's come. It shows us that God in heaven sitting on his throne, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, never changes, for he has a servant heart or the heart of a servant. I have never noticed that verse in that context before, that when he comes in glory, waiting and hoping to find us serving, our lamps burning, running around doing his will, being involved in his purposes, what will be the first thing he does? He will prepare, the Bible says, the marriage supper of the Lamb. Then he will dress himself, gird himself as a servant, and serve us. Incredible verse.

Peter was to learn a servant spirit was his Savior's spirit, that the order of the towel was the order of the day. He was to discover this and learn it in the most dramatic way possible. It was at the Last Supper, wasn't it, that the lesson on servanthood was learned. For this, we need to turn to John's gospel, chapter 13.

Just before the Passover feast, Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray 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, 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. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" 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." Jesus answered, "A person who's had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his 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 everyone was not clean. When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place.

"Do you understand what I've 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. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is the messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, oh, you will be blessed if you do them."

What a lesson Peter learned that day from a towel, and what a lesson we too can learn. First of all, we learn that a servant spirit is a sad spirit. Here we see Jesus, the servant of Jehovah par excellence. Who else can teach us how to serve but Jesus? With a sad spirit because you're not always going to be happy if you're serving, and that's how it is. That's one of the problems that stops people getting into servanthood these days. "If I'm not going to be happy doing it, I'm not interested," because the whole of our society is telling us, "Only do those things that are going to make you happy."

A servant spirit is a sad spirit because it's a knowing spirit. Did you notice how many times? Look at verse one: "Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world." Verse three: "Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, that he'd come from God and was returning to God." So, he got up. In other words, the motivation for that servant act was the fact that Jesus knew something. Now, what did he know? Well, of course, he knew everything because he was God, he is God.

What he knew in this instance was that the time had come for his life to be through. He was 33 years of age. I don't know how many of you are 33 years of age. I remember the day I was 33 years of age. My husband gave me my birthday present and then quite soberly he said, "You have now had as long as Jesus Christ had." That's quite a thought. 33 seems so young. And Jesus knowing he had come from God and was about to go back to God, knowing his time was up, had a sad spirit because a servant spirit is a sad spirit.

Knowing what God's purposes are might sometimes make us sad because to be wrapped up with the purposes of God can have a very sobering effect on one. "I came forth from the Father when I came into this world; again, I leave the world and I go to the Father," he said in John 16, verse 28. You know, it's knowing that we come from God and that we go to God. It's knowing theologically that God has given us so many years to spend down here that should make us very careful how those days are spent.

If you think how carefully you spend your money, let me ask you: do you so carefully spend your days? When you get to the end of today, how will you have spent it? How will you have spent it because it might be the last one. The disadvantage we have that Jesus didn't have is that we don't know today is the day that we came from the Father and go back to the Father. He happened to know that, and yet not knowing it makes us feel sometimes that we are immortal and that we have perhaps many days. Knowing that my life is committed to him and therefore wrapped up in the purposes of God, how am I going to spend my days? How am I going to spend today and tomorrow and this week and next week? Very sobering.

But a servant spirit is a knowing spirit in those areas. We know we only have one life; 'twill soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last. And age lends an urgency; I think age should lend an urgency to the spending of our days and hours. Now, we know because God has told us his plan and purpose, we have a chance to be co-workers with him, to be involved in it, serving God's purposes. Should remember David? They could have described David in the Bible in many, many ways. David was a great king, David was a great poet, David was a great psalmist, David was a great warrior. When it came time for him to be described in the Acts of the Apostles, it says this: "David served God in his generation and then he fell asleep."

I'd love somebody to say that about me when it's all through. Jill served God in her generation, because we can't serve God in somebody else's generation. We only have our own generation to serve him in. And one of the things in this generation, of course, is the media: the radio, the television. I'm quite sure the Apostle Paul would have made full use of it if he'd been around today. So we are to serve, but the servant spirit is that knowing spirit, the knowingness that we have but one life to live and we come from God and we go back to him.

A servant spirit is a loving spirit. John 13:1 says here, "Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love." This does not mean that by washing their feet he showed them the full extent of his love. The washing of the feet was part and parcel of the events that were leading up to Calvary, very important part and parcel of it. But when he talks about being about to show them the full extent of his love, this in a sense is definitely talking about the cross, the cross. So having loved them up to this point, he is going to love them to the end, the end for Jesus being the cross of Christ at Calvary.

Showing the full extent of his love involved trying to get over to them this servant spirit, this attitude he wished to see in their lives before he left and went home to heaven. Jesus must have got very, very discouraged because he didn't see too much servant attitude in his disciples, even though he'd lived with them, even though he'd worked with them for three whole years. A loving spirit serves to the end. A loving spirit loves to the end and serves to the end. To the end of what? Well, to the end of a difficult relationship.

Perhaps you're looking after an old parent who is getting very sick, and when you get very sick you get very grumpy, and you don't appreciate what's done for you. Can we say that I will serve and love to the end? That is a servant spirit. Jesus having loved up to this point when everything was fine, loved them to the end. And to the end meant beyond their denial, which he knew was going to happen. To the end meant beyond them all forsaking him and fleeing. To the end meant to the end. Love loves whether it's ever going to get anything back in return.

So a servant spirit is a loving spirit. If I love, I'll serve. "I lay down my life for my friends; greater love has no man than this, than a man lays down his life for his friends," said Jesus. Paul said, "I die daily." This is a philosophy that people would not have us look into. The first act of discipleship is to surrender yourself. The first act of discipleship is to surrender yourself: self-centeredness at the foot of the cross and exchange it for Christ-centeredness, for God-centeredness. "Thy will, not mine, be done."

I got a very angry letter, in fact, I have it here with me, from a young lady who is in a divinity school and is finding all sorts of theology that she's running after and believing that I do not believe is evangelical Biblical theology at all. She was very angry with me for suggesting the sort of things I'm suggesting with you, and she wrote me a long letter (this is just part of it). Some of the places I've underlined and really struck me when I was thinking about what I'm telling you: "For most women, the servant role is a norm, and this is the attitude that binds them and cripples them from experiencing wholeness in their relationships. You have been part and parcel of encouraging women to have this sort of attitude, this servant attitude. You would be supporting your own sex more instead of always setting them up for the nurturing role and the serving role, etc., etc."

And so she's trying to tell me that what I had to say, and actually I met that young lady in Holland too (it was quite a trip even though she's here in the United States), she was trying to tell me that it's not helpful to tell people to serve others, to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to labor and not to seek for rest, to toil and not to ask for any reward save the joy of knowing that we do his will, as that beautiful Anglican prayer puts it. Servanthood is not popular even in some church circles today. But a servant spirit is a knowing spirit, a servant spirit is a loving spirit that serves.

But it's a sad spirit because a servant spirit is a suffering spirit. Jesus loved them to the end. He called Judas friend through their denials. John 13:37 and 38, for they were to deny him. Peter said, "Lord, why can't I follow you now? I'll lay down my life for you." Jesus answered, "Will you really lay down your life for me, Peter? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows you will disown me three times." Denial. What does it mean to deny Christ? And what can we do when we do deny him, when we do fail? Will God forgive us? Will he give us a second chance?

But here, Jesus knowing was suffering through that knowing. God is about to smite the shepherd for your sake, and the sheep will be scattered, he said to them in this particular time, in this particular place. Peter learned his lesson, but not till after all these events. In fact, Jesus said, "What I'm going to do to you now you're not going to understand, Peter, but you will understand later." And Peter did understand later. 1 Peter 4:12, Peter says, "Dear friends, don't be surprised at the painful trials you are undergoing as though some strange thing were happening to you, but rejoice that you're particularly blessed to be partakers in the sufferings of Christ that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed."

And so, Peter came to know that a servant spirit is a suffering spirit. He became the servant of the church. He became the servant of the lambs and the sheep, even though he was Lord and master and teacher. That makes no difference to the attitude and the action of servanthood, for we are to be servant leaders, the Bible teaches. And it is a privilege, not a punishment. Might feel like a punishment, and when it feels like a punishment, you say, "This is the privilege of this particular punishment," because sometimes servanthood does punish our bodies or our minds or our time or whatever it is. But it is a privilege in the end. "Unto you is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe in him but also to suffer for his sake," it tells us in the book of Philippians.

I well remember Bishop Festo Kivengere, and when I was first converted, I met him. He doesn't know it, but I sat at his feet and I learned from him. He was involved in the Kikuyu uprising in Kenya. He was involved in any uprising, I think, that's been around. He's there ministering, serving the church. And he came to England and told us what was happening: how the Christians were being tortured and literally burned out of their villages and killed in hundreds of thousands, and that particular uprising was against the Christian church, how the missionaries had been driven out. In fact, the girl that led me to Christ was involved in all of that as a missionary nurse.

And Festo was telling us about a particular family who came back to the village and found that everybody was dead. He'd been away hunting, and he came back and found that everybody was killed, just bodies strewn around everywhere. And that those that had been taken as captives, just a handful, were in the local jail. And it was this man (and I've heard this story all over the world from different places) who followed the trail of the killers and came upon this little group of people that were huddled in the jail left alive to become slaves to the people that had attacked them.

And he walked right up to the jail and demanded to be let inside and be part of their suffering. He said, "Put me in jail. Count me worthy to suffer for his sake. Put me in jail, count me worthy, don't leave me out of it." For I know that a servant spirit is a suffering spirit, and he wanted to minister to those little handful of people that were left.

Now, if you want to see the servant spirit as a suffering spirit, you can turn to Isaiah, for Jehovah's servant who was Christ, who said in his own synagogue, "This day is this scripture" (which scripture? Isaiah's scripture) "fulfilled in your ears." The scripture that says he was the suffering servant come to suffer. "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." Jesus claimed to be Jehovah's servant, the suffering servant who would somehow bring about the redemption of the world. And if you ever wonder if a servant spirit is going to cause you to suffer, then read Isaiah 53, for here it depicts the suffering servant in magnitude, with a magnitude of words.

So, a servant spirit is a loving spirit, is a knowing spirit, is a suffering spirit. It's a humble and gentle spirit. Jesus washes the disciples' feet. Now the story is very simple: the disciples have come from a journey from Bethany. Their feet in sandals are dirty, hot, smelly, and uncomfortable. Usually, the host saw to it that a servant washed their feet. There was no host, apparently, in the upper room; there was no servant. This was the most menial of tasks for the most menial of servants. And there were a hierarchy of servants who dressed in different ways and who performed different duties.

Some were bondservants, some were born in the master's house and therefore belonged to the master. Their children belonged to the master even if the slaves went free. And this, of course, lent itself to families serving forever because they didn't want to leave their family behind even when the chance came for them themselves to be free. Slavery was a whole system that we just do not understand here in the West, never having experienced it in our lifetime. But there were hierarchies of servants, and this particular washing of the feet was either done by a slave or a woman who was considered to be in the same area as the lowest of the slave.

There apparently was not a servant, there was not a host, there was not a woman around to do this menial, menial task. Hence, the disciples should have been willing to do it. Now, a few moments before this passage, they had been arguing about who was the greatest. If you look in Luke 22, verse 24, we find that they are arguing the toss, verse 24: "A dispute arose among them as to which of them was considered to be the greatest."

Jesus begins to deal with them. Look at the bottom of that passage, verse 27: "I am among you as one who serves. Who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves?" Jesus was constantly getting on the disciples about who is greatest. They were walking along the path, and Jesus said, "What were you talking about along the way?" He knew what they were talking about. They were arguing who was the greatest, who was the most important.

And just before they sat down at supper, this was very relevant: who was to sit where, you see, because that was very important in that culture because the person who sat next to the guest of honor was the most important person. And actually in the upper room, just before Jesus was about to go to Calvary, what were they doing? "Who's the greatest? Who's the most important?" Pushing each other out of the way. They were not in an awed little group around the master, sitting in a servant attitude. They were saying, "Hey, that's my place. Why should you sit there? I want to sit next to him, and you always sit next to him, and I'm the most important." This is recorded for our benefit.