John Chapter 13:1-7

Every person in here at some point in their life will stand before God.

Now, one of two things is going to happen. Either you will be seeing Him for the first time, or you will have met Him before. I may highly encourage you to meet Him before that day. Because if you meet Him while you're on earth, you invite Him into your heart, it's going to be a wonderful thing, that moment.

But if you don't, that moment is not going to be so wonderful. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina.

Today, Pastor David will be teaching in John chapter 13, and one of the things he brings up is, do you realize that we will all meet God at one time or another? In the studio with us, we have D.A. Brown, one of David McGee's associate pastors. D.A., welcome to the program. Hey, Bob. I'm glad to be here.

I'm excited people are tuning in and listening. No matter who we are, the truth is, one day we will meet Jesus. In fact, all of us will meet Jesus. The question is, how will we meet Him? Today, Pastor David discusses this meeting with Jesus as He continues in the Gospel of John chapter 13.

I'd love to find out how this works, so here's David McGee with his teaching, A Servant's Heart. We're in the Gospel of John. Now, the reason it's called the Gospel of John is John writes about the good news of Jesus Christ, and this is an incredible Gospel. Some people say it's the best for a new believer to read.

I believe that. It was also actually the last Gospel that was written. Matthew was written about 45 to 50 A.D., Luke about 58 A.D., Mark between 50 and 70, and then John probably between 75 and 90 A.D. So these things were written just a few years after the death of Jesus. If anyone has ever told you that they were written hundreds of years after the death of Jesus, they're just wrong, okay? I mean, it's not a matter of opinion because we found pieces of the Gospel of John in Egypt in 125 A.D., which was a copy. So for it to travel that great of a distance and that short of a time shows that it was written early, early. Now, some of the Apocrypha and some of the other Gospels that are not included in the Bible, they were written 200 and 300 years after, and that's one of the reasons that they're not included in here, such as the Gospel of Thomas and things like that.

So these things were written pretty quickly after that. Now, let's pray and then we'll jump in. Lord, thank you for your Word.

Thank you for the treasure that's in our laps. And Lord, we ask that you would take the written words on this page and that you would write them in our heart. Lord, that this book would change us. Lord, because this is a supernatural book.

This is like no other book that we have. These are your words to us. And so, Lord, we ask this morning that you would open up our hearts to your Word and open your Word to our hearts. In Jesus' name.

And everybody said amen. So John chapter 13, verse 1 says, Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come, that he should depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved him to the end. There's so much stuff in this verse.

Let's take a few minutes with this. Notice he loved him to the end. Now, that's significant when it, notice it says, Jesus knew that his hour had come and he loved him to the end. And what are some of the things that he was getting ready to endure? He's getting ready to endure his crucifixion. He was getting ready to endure the behaviors of the disciples. And he's wanting to encourage the guys.

And so that's what we see over the next few chapters is this, some people refer to it as the upper room discourse. And Jesus is sitting with his disciples. He's not speaking to the Jewish leaders. He's not speaking to the Romans. He's speaking to his disciples as he's getting ready to depart. Because he knows what's getting ready to happen is really going to rock their world. And he wants to encourage them and see them hold the chorus.

And that's, you know, that's a good word for us. In Luke chapter 18, verse one, then he spoke a parable, Jesus did, then he spoke a parable to them that men always ought to pray and not to lose heart, not to lose heart. That's important for us. That's important for each person in here not to lose heart, to stay encouraged and stay committed. Now, do you, are you aware that there's an awesome ministry that awaits every one of us in that realm? See, if you come in here on Sunday morning, you can actually look around sometimes and you can see who needs the ministry of encouragement.

Maybe somebody comes in, they're a little bit down, you know, the look they kind of, you know, they kind of shuffle in and around. How you doing? I'm fine. You know, what's wrong, man? Can I pray for you?

What do you mean? Ask somebody if I can pray for them? You betcha. Pastor David, that's your job.

No, that's our job. And chances are I might not see them. I might not notice that they're coming in despondent and down, but if you see it, say, you know what, can I just pray for you? Can I pray for you for like 15, 20 seconds?

Real quick, real quick prayer. And you can pray and say, Lord, bless this person. Encourage them with the fact that whatever they're going through, they're going through, they're not going to stay in at some point in their life. They'll stand before you and all this won't matter. In Jesus name, amen. You can pray for them just like that and encourage them. Because if you see that, then God has set that opportunity up for you to see that so that you can encourage them. And not to lose heart. And can you imagine the disciples and all that they're getting ready to go through, the level of commitment that they maintained.

Oh, I know they struggled. I know they stumbled, but there was a commitment there. And that's something that we need in our lives, isn't it? We need a commitment to Jesus. We need a commitment to the church. I mean, what if, you know, if you're married, what if you treated your marriage the way that you treat Jesus sometimes? Think about that.

Oh, Jesus, I love you. I mean, what if I called my wife, you know, after a service and she wakes up tomorrow morning and I'm not there and she goes, where are you? Well, I just, you know, I didn't really feel like coming. I mean, he didn't feel like coming.

I just didn't feel like coming home. I just, you know, kind of hanging out. What do you mean you're just hanging out? Well, you know, I mean, honey, I'll come see you, you know, like Easter, Christmas and that kind of thing. But, you know, I mean, don't expect me like all the time.

How long do you think that's going to last? And yet we treat our relationship with the Lord like that, don't we? We actually kind of get the mentality of, you know, I'm going to go to church and just bless God. Well, God is blessed that you're here.

Don't get me wrong, but you know what? You're the one that gets blessed in coming. And just coming twice a year, well, God's, yeah, well, I appreciate you being here twice a year. Don't expect huge life changes when you come twice a year because it's a deeper work that the Lord is wanting to do with you. And he says, Jesus says, now before the feast of the Passover, understand, this is saying that literally it was before the feast of the Passover. This is not saying, as some critics have said, that this whole upper room thing is not happening at the time of the Passover.

Even the Talmud records that it was happening at the Passover. You'll hear two words that are important that you'll hear in Judaism and you probably ought to understand what they are. One is Mishnah. That's a Hebrew word for repetition. And basically the Mishnah is a portion of the Talmud.

Now, you may have heard these words on the Discovery Channel. Talmud means study or learning. The Talmud was a huge commentary written on the Old Testament, on what we refer to as the Hebrew scriptures here.

And what happened, it was huge. I mean, volumes and volumes and volumes of commentary on the Hebrew scriptures. And this is where all kind of some of the weird laws begin coming in. Some of the weird laws regarding the Sabbath. Remember when the Pharisees and the Sadducees and all these people were accusing Jesus of things, they never accused them of literally, except for blasphemy, of breaking God's law. They were saying that he was breaking the Talmudic law, the rabbinical law, the law the rabbis came up with. Now, why is that important? Because what they had done is they had elevated tradition up on the same level as the Bible. And they got into a lot of trouble because of that. That's kind of convicting.

We better move on quickly. No, you know what? We run the same risk today, don't we? There are things that the church does that, you know what? That we've elevated tradition on the same level of scripture. So we don't want to get caught up in the tradition because they got so caught up in the tradition that they lost sight of Jesus.

And that's happened in the church today, I believe. The tradition has gotten the way of Jesus. Now, the Passover, before we move on, I know I'm spending a lot of time in this verse, but there's a lot of stuff here. Talks about the Feast of the Passover. Some of you may have, what's the Feast of the Passover? The Passover was back from the book of Exodus when the Israelites were set free from the land of Egypt.

And the angel of death came and passed over those who had their doorpost marked. Now, we celebrate Passover every year here. And it is such an incredible thing because you see so much in scripture that you've never seen before. We have a meal and Bible teaching and music and different stuff. And it's just really, really cool.

As you see the sights and the sounds and the smells, it's kind of like the original multimedia, if you will. And it's the longest celebrated holy day, holiday in human history. For about 3,500 years, people have been celebrating Passover. Now, perhaps you're sitting here going, well, Passover?

Are you Jewish or something? Well, according to Paul, I've been grafted in. That's what the book of Romans says, that we've been grafted in.

So I'm not converting back to Judaism, but I know, as the Bible teaches, that Christianity is the completion or the fulfillment of Judaism. And again, if you're curious about that, go to the book of Romans. Read Romans 10. Read Romans 11 and what Paul has to say about Christianity and Judaism.

Verse 2. And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son to betray him, the devil, oh, come on now, everybody knows the devil's not real, right? Apparently, he is real. And apparently, he has his buddies, his minions, other fallen angels we refer to as demons, and they are very real. It's shocking the percentage of people that don't think the devil's a real entity or a real being. So we have to understand that he is. He is real.

He's referred to here. And some people go, wait, you know, there used to be demon possession. There used to be these things with demons.

Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Show me the verse that says these things used to happen and they no longer happen. Well, I've looked for it. It's not in there.

It's not in there. So I believe that just like in this time, there are evil manifestations of spirits. And I know this sounds weird, but you know, the Bible is a supernatural book. And I think the tendency for people is to either deny their existence at all, which leaves them in error, or to blame them for everything that happens, which have this healthy, unhealthy preoccupation with them.

And I think both those leave you in error. But acknowledging that they exist and acknowledging that greater is he that's in us than he is in the world, I think is important to have a healthy view of Scripture. We'll be right back with more from David McGee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from associate pastor D.A.

Brown. Hey, Bob, we're excited about Pastor David teaching verse by verse. And we want to pray for some listeners in these cities in our audience today.

Parsons, Tabeka, and Wichita, Kansas, Bowling Green, Covington, Glasgow, and Louisville, Kentucky. God, we thank you for the listeners tuning in today in these cities and the surrounding areas. Lord, we pray that they would be reminded that you can heal them if they've been going through some physical stuff. Lord, that they would put their trust in you, maybe even have communion today. Lord, we pray that those that are not saved would put their trust in you today for the forgiveness of their sins. And God, we pray for revival in all these churches in the surrounding areas. And Lord, that the pastors would stick to teaching your word, perhaps even verse by verse, line upon line, chapter upon chapter. And God, that you would bless it as they honor your word, and your people are encouraged in their faith. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse 3, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God.

He had a confidence, Jesus did, and that he had come from God and he was going to God. And don't miss this, this again speaks to the eternal nature of Jesus. See, a lot of people think that in Bethlehem, Jesus was actually born or created at that time.

No, that's wrong. You see, that was the point where Jesus showed himself to the human race in a fleshly, bodily form. But he was in existence before that. That's plain from this verse that he had come from God and was going to God.

Now, this is important to understand. It says he was going to God. Do you understand that Jesus was going to God? Do you understand that we are going to God? And some of you are going, well, yeah, well, I'm not sure.

You don't know me, and I haven't said that little prayer that you talk about so much. So how can you say that I'm going to God? Because every person in here is going to meet God.

Every person in here. Every person in here at some point in their life will stand before God. Now, one of two things is going to happen. Either you will be seeing him for the moment, or you will have met him before. I may highly encourage you to meet him before that day. Because if you meet him while you're on earth, you invite him into your heart, it's going to be a wonderful thing, that moment.

But if you don't, that moment is not going to be so wonderful. You see, because God himself will be standing in front of you, and you'll have to explain to him why you rejected his son, why you rejected the death of his son that could provide forgiveness for your sins. So that's the first life lesson. The first life lesson is everyone will meet Jesus. Everyone will meet Jesus. So when you're talking to somebody, understand this, they will meet Jesus. What you're trying to do is to prepare them to meet Jesus. See, because I don't want to be in the position where I'm standing before God and going, you know, God, I believed in you and everything, but I didn't get into that whole Jesus thing.

I didn't get into that whole forgiveness thing. Can you imagine if you gave your son what that would feel like? What if your son had died to offer up an organ for transplant? And then the recipient of the organ said, ah, no thanks.

Ah, no thanks. What would you feel like? What would be going through you? So nobody, no one wants to stand in front of Jesus like that. I certainly, friend, don't want you to stand there on that day going, I rejected you.

Because everyone will stand in front of Jesus. Verse four, he rose from supper and laid aside his garments and took a towel and girded himself. Now there's some kind of unfortunate translation things going on here from the original Greek. Basically it says he took a towel and probably the picture is he put it over his shoulder. I know that the NIV says that he took off his, basically his clothes and took a towel around his waist. And that's, that's really not the picture here. The picture is he took the towel and put it on his shoulder and he girded up his garments, kind of tightened up his inner robe to where he could move about with his legs.

Now this is interesting to me too. The dynamics, the time spent with these things because here we are, we're in John chapter 13. John has 21 chapters. And from chapter 13 to 21 is all about the last week of the earthly ministry of Jesus. As a matter of fact, when you add the chapters of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, what you see, it breaks down like this. The birth and first 30 years of the life of Jesus takes up four chapters. The birth and first 30 years of the life of Jesus takes up four chapters. The first three years of ministry in the life of Jesus takes up 57 chapters.

But the last week of the earthly ministry of Jesus takes up 28 chapters in the four gospels. One week takes up almost a third of the writings that we have. This is intriguing and you know what? I think we can see something in here. We can see that the way you end up is incredibly important.

See, because you know what we do? Sometimes we think, well, you know, I wish I'd done this and I wish I'd done that. And I wish, you know, that I'd been walking with the Lord, but I wasn't when I should have been building a foundation and a relationship with him. And we go, so, you know, there's not a lot I can do now. Oh man, there's so much you can do. It doesn't matter at what point in your life you meet Jesus or at what point in your life you begin to follow Jesus. The Lord can do so much with your life if you allow him, if you allow him. Because sometimes we write off any potential for ministry because, well, you know, I'm older, I can't do this, I can't do that. Oh, you can make a huge difference.

You can make a huge difference. And you know what's interesting too? This whole book, if you consider what's written in this book, do you understand that the creation of the sun, the moon, the earth, the planets, the solar system, the creation of man, the creation of woman, do you know it occupies two chapters in this whole book? See, that's not necessarily the part that God spent the time and his word on. But from that point forward, understand all of it is pointing to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the fact that he was going to die for our sins. And if you think about it, the rest of the Old Testament, the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures point forward to the gospels.

The early part of the gospels point forward to this event and then afterwards all the epistles, they point back to the event and then you have the book of Revelation which tells of the victory because of that event. It's consistent throughout this book. The book summed up is that God created man, man rebelled and fell into sin, and God spent the rest of the book pursuing man and implementing a plan by which that relationship could be restored. That's what the whole book is about.

So it naturally goes that there's an amount, a lot of time spent on this last week. At verse five, after that he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with a towel with which he was girded. Then he came to Simon Peter and Peter said to him, Lord, are you washing my feet? And Jesus answered and said to him, what I am doing? You do not understand now, but you will know after this.

Now, understand something. They, at that time, they had these leather flip-flop kind of things. They were much more simpler than what we have now, but their feet got dirty as they traveled. And what would happen is they would have people who worked in the house, and it was always the lowest servant, the new guy, if you will, who would need to clean the feet of the people. It was not a position of honor. It was a place of servitude, of servant-hood, but that's the place that Jesus placed himself. It says he came to be a servant, the Greek word decanios, where we get our word for deacon. Jesus placed himself. Look at the contrast. Look at the contrast between Judas, who was doing what he wanted to do, and Jesus, who was serving others.

Let me ask you a question. Who do you want to be like? Do you want to be like Judas, who does whatever he wants to do?

Some people, that's the way they define their Christianity. Or do you want to be like Jesus, who serves others? I want to be like Jesus. Jesus modeled servant-hood for us beautifully in this chapter, beautifully.

And you know what? And the next life lesson is, when we serve others, we're acting like Jesus. When we serve others, we are acting like Jesus.

When we serve others, we are acting like Jesus. It's an amazing thing. If you come early on Sunday morning, you'll see something that is just awesome.

I know Disney claims to be the happiest place on earth, but I'm thinking it's here, actually, on Sunday morning. I've never seen anything like it. And you know what else I've never seen? I've never seen anybody go, I've got to be here. I can't believe I've got to be here. I can't believe they put me on the schedule today. I'm not saying it never goes on, but you know what?

I've never seen it. What an amazing thing. You know why? Because those people are acting like Jesus. They're acting like Jesus because they're serving others. That's what's supposed to happen. What we see happening here, that's what's supposed to happen. Most churches have about 5% of the people that attend that church that serve, about 5%. There's something wrong with that picture. Here, I think we're in the 35% to 40% of the people that attend here are serving in a ministry presently. That's an awesome thing. Now, I think there's a lot of reasons for that.

One of the reasons is that people are being fed the Word of God. And I think another reason is I encourage people from the platform to get involved and start serving. Now, perhaps you're sitting all, no, you're talking about serving again. I want to encourage you in serving. And if getting you to serve means you get somewhere in the process a little uncomfortable, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that because I want you to encourage, I want you to be encouraged in the next area of discipleship. And I think the church for too long has not understood serving and hasn't painted an accurate picture of how important it is.

I don't get, and if this convicts you, then praise God. I don't get how somebody could be here for months and months, drop their kids off, see that we need help in the children's ministry and never offer. Now, guys, I've heard, I was going to call them reasons.

There are some reasons maybe for not serving, but there's a lot more excuses. Well, I'm just too busy. I'm too busy. I got too much stuff going on. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Do you think the people that are serving, they're just not busy? And here's what disturbs me.

And I'm just going to share from my heart and be real honest. Here's what disturbs me about those comments. When you say I'm too busy, you understand what you're really saying?

Because we're all given 24 hours in a day, folks. What you're really saying is what I do is much more important than any of those people serving in there. That's not a Christian attitude. That's an un-Christian attitude. And when we serve people, we act like Jesus. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. Jesus said He would not turn anybody away who comes to Him.

And He came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous. So congratulations, friend. You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. You know, the Bible tells us that the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. But it does cost for us to come and bring that message to you and to others in your neighborhood, through radio, through the internet, and through the mobile technologies that God has gifted us to be able to use. So if you'd like to support this ministry, please go to crossthebridge.com, click on the donate button, and ask God how much He would have you give, either on a one-time basis or a continuing basis each month to help ensure that the teaching of God's Word continues to go out through Cross the Bridge.

Thank you so much. Well, DA, before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God, with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the Gospel of John.