John Chapter 13:4-10

See, that's a mystery when somebody says, Can you be a Christian and do this? Can you be a Christian and go out to a bar? Can you be a Christian and drink a 12-pack? Can you be a Christian and smoke dope? Can you be a Christian?

And the whole philosophy behind the question disturbs me, to be honest. It's not, What can you get away with now that you're a Christian? I should turn around and go, Jesus, since you forgave me of all my sins, what can I do for you? Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of The Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today in the studio, we have one of David McGee's associate pastors, D.A.

Brown, with us. D.A., have you ever washed anybody else's feet? Actually, I have, Bob. Tell us about it.

Well, in more ways than one. Practically serving others in their place of need for the glory of Jesus is washing their feet. It doesn't mean just literally always washing someone's feet. It could be seeing a need that they have, meeting that need, so that in return, maybe that person will begin to follow Jesus. If Jesus is your Lord, then you allow Him to tell you what to do, not the other way around. Today, Pastor David helps explain the importance of obedience as he continues in the Gospel of John chapter 13.

This is a special teaching from David McGee. Here's part two of his teaching, A Servant's Heart. In John chapter 13, verse four, he rose from supper and laid aside his garments and took a towel and girded himself. 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're 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 servanthood, but that's the place that Jesus placed himself. It says he came to be a servant, the Greek word dikoneos, where we get our word for deacon from and to give his life for ransom for many. Now, 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 servanthood for us beautifully in this chapter. And the next life lesson is when we serve others, we're acting like Jesus.

When we serve others, we are acting like Jesus. Let me ask you a question, and this might be a cutting question for some of you, but what if, in your service, what would this church be like if everyone served like you do? What would this church be like?

Maybe some of you are going, oh, praise God, rock on, man, we would just be happening. Or, I don't know, they probably wouldn't have people to greet or help in the parking lot or help in children's ministry. What would this church be like if everyone gave like you do? Would the church be able to fund more missionaries? Would the church be able to do more things? What would this church be like if everyone attended like you do?

Would we need more room, or could we just keep that rotational kind of thing going on? Jesus says, you know what, you really don't know what I'm doing, but you will after this. Oh, that's encouraging to me. You know why? Because sometimes Jesus will do something I don't understand, and I go, what are you doing, Lord? And sometimes he doesn't answer.

I need to be okay with that, because what happens is after a while, after a season, I become aware of what he was doing. And see, it encourages me that this didn't slow down Jesus. Jesus didn't say, you know what, you guys aren't going to get it, so just forget the whole foot washing thing.

You guys are just going to confuse you. That's not what he said. He said, look, I'm going to do this, and at some point in your life, you'll understand what this is about. And I guarantee you, every one of these disciples looked back and remembered what it was about, serving others.

It's a beautiful, beautiful picture, beautiful model. Verse eight, Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered, and if I do not wash you, you have no part with me. I love Peter, and I think we all identify a lot with Peter, and I refer to Peter as ready, fire, aim Peter. Because Peter, a lot of times is saying things when it's kind of like, oh boy, he wasn't really thinking about that before he said it. And this is one of those times, and you know what's a mystery?

What's a mystery here? He's calling him Lord, and then he tells him what he can't do. Is that just me or is that a little, not so Lord, no Lord. Okay, let's clear something up. If he's Lord, he tells you what to do.

It's not backwards. Well, he's Lord, so I'm going to tell him what to do. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

No, no, no. He's Lord, so he instructs us. You see, it's interesting. I went through, and this was before computers. Well, I mean, they had computers, but I didn't have Bible software.

I went through the Strong's Concordance because I was curious about some. It refers to Jesus in the New Testament as Savior 24 times. That's pretty many times, but it refers to him as Lord 714 times.

It's important. It's important for him to be Lord, and when he becomes Lord, he tells us what to do. The next life lesson is if Jesus is your Lord, then you allow him to tell you what to do, not the other way around.

See, that's one of the signs of a maturing Christian. Oh, Jesus wants me to do this. Oh, great.

Now that you've explained it, I'm there, man. I want to do it. Now, I don't know.

Do I have to? See, that's a mystery when somebody says, can you be a Christian and do this? Can you be a Christian and go out to a bar? Can you be a Christian and drink a 12-pack? Can you be a Christian and smoke dope? Can you be a Christian?

And the whole philosophy behind the question disturbs me, to be honest, because it's not what can you get away with now that you're a Christian. If you've asked the Lord to forgive you of your sins, that should turn around and go, Jesus, since you forgave me of all my sins, what can I do for you? Because you died for me. What can I do for you? Because when I understand that, when I understand what Jesus has done for me, there should be nothing I wouldn't do for him.

Nothing that I shouldn't do for him. He says, and I'm reading in the New King James, I study in the King James and look at all sorts of amplified and new living translations. But it says, in the New King James says, if I do not wash you, you have no part with me. The New Living translation says, but if I don't wash you, you won't belong to me. Wow. That's pretty strong words, isn't it?

Pretty strong words. If I don't wash you, you won't belong to me. Let's take a deeper look at this, because see, there is a misconception in our society today, and I'll admit it, I am getting ready to be politically incorrect in what I'm about to say, but I am going to be scripturally accurate. We have this concept, and I've heard people say, we're all children of God. It sounds nice, warm, fuzzy, doesn't it?

But it's unscriptural. If you remember John 8, the exchange Jesus had after the encounter with the forgiven woman, some people call her the adulterous woman, we call her the forgiven woman here. He's having this exchange with the leadership, and he says to them, you are of your father, the devil. So evidently, there are some people who aren't children of God. As a matter of fact, I wonder, does scripture point out to us who are children of God and who are not? Oh, you betcha.

You betcha. It tells us in John chapter 1, verse 12, it tells us who can become children of God. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name.

Oh, wait a minute. So this is saying you need to receive him and believe in him to become his child. These aren't my words, guys. This is what the Bible says. If you disagree with this concept, you're disagreeing with Jesus. Now you disagree with me and you'll be fine, probably, but you disagree with Jesus, that's not good.

This is what Jesus said. There's no way that we can be children of God because we have a problem. There's no way we can will ourselves to be children of God because we have something we cannot overcome. In and of ourselves, there's no way.

There's no way. There's a problem there in the relationship, and the problem is sin. Now, no matter how nice you act, how good you act, that's still a problem.

Even if from this point forward, you never sinned again, you still have the past. That's a problem. That's a problem. Imagine, if you will, the Grand Canyon.

That's huge. What if you stood on one side of the Grand Canyon and I said, look, I need you to do something for me. Yes, sir, what do you want me to do? I want you to jump over the Grand Canyon. What would you be thinking?

Well, you'd probably be thinking a lot of things when you're crazy, but you would know you can't do that, right? The canyon that exists between us and God is bigger than the Grand Canyon. It's bigger than the Grand. It's not something in human effort we can cross that gulf. This is where some people really get confused on the basics of Christianity. The basics of Christianity, it's not like, hey, well, you know, maybe if you got a big running start, you could make it over the Grand Canyon. Because some of us look, well, maybe if we try hard enough, we can do away with this thing called sin.

That's not it. Friend, if you could do that, if you could live a sinless life, understand, you would have changed history itself. Because, see, if somebody could live a sinless life, that would mean that it could be done.

God would have looked down and thought, well, you know, Chad in Kernersville, he's pulling off the whole sinless thing. I don't know how he's doing it, but he's doing it, you know, so other people can do it. No, that's not what happened.

Jesus looked down and said, you know what? There's no way. There's no way. There is no way these guys can cross that gulf because there is no bridge from one side to the other.

So I'm going to die to be that bridge, to fill that gulf between them and God. There's no other way. Not our goodness. That's not going to do it. Not our works. When I say works, I mean your own good efforts.

That's not going to do it. It's only through the forgiveness of Jesus Christ that we can cross that gulf. That bridge is Jesus. And I'm not going to complain that there's only one bridge and say, well, that's narrow-minded that there's only one bridge. I'm grateful there's a bridge.

I'm thankful that that bridge exists in the form of Jesus Christ. Some people actually try to paint Christianity as being exclusive. That's an amazing thing because it tells me they've never read the Bible. Because you know what the Bible says?

Whosoever, anybody can believe. Isn't that an amazing thing? Isn't that an amazing thing? God is so merciful.

God is so graceful. There's no sin that we have committed that grace cannot cover. That's why they call it the good news, isn't it? That's why they call it the good news. Jesus died to provide these things.

He is the solution. And keep in mind, too, this is not a bridge that we build. It's a bridge that's given to us. Why am I saying that? Because you know what? You can't cross the bridge and say, oh, thank you, Jesus, for being that bridge and then look back and go, oh, yeah, it's a nice bridge. Built this bridge.

Pretty nice, isn't it? You can't take pride. And yet, some of us have driven people away from Jesus because we've taken religious pride in the fact that Jesus has turned our life over. When we had control of our lives, when I had, I'm getting you all in a lot of trouble. Let me talk about myself. When I had control of my life, I did a lot of bad things.

I did a lot of stupid things. And so now that Jesus has control of my life, things are going well. It's not me.

It's Him that's working in me. And I don't want to ever paint the picture to somebody. You know, if you try hard enough, if you do this long enough, then you know what? You can be a godly person.

No, no, no. The fact is you got to be forgiven to be a godly person. And Jesus wants to do that. That's the amazing thing. Jesus desires to do that in your life.

He desires to wash you and clean you up. What an amazing thing. What an amazing thing. 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 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 and 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. Now, there's another washing that takes place in the Scriptures here. And that's the washing of the word. And it's referred to in several places. John chapter 15 verse 3 says, you are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

That's interesting. It speaks of the word and cleaning or washing. Psalm 119, 9 says, how can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heat according to your word. Ephesians 5 verse 25 says, husbands love their wives just as Christ also loved the church.

Ladies, you can put your elbows down. I'm not going there. And gave himself for her, verse 26, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word. See, this is what Jesus wants to happen in the church is that we are washed by the word of God. That as we hear the word of God, we are cleansed by it.

Now, there's something supernatural that goes on here. And perhaps you're sitting there and go, wait, wait, wait a minute. We're forgiven of our sins by being saved, not by being in the word. Yes, but you know what? When you accept forgiveness, when you're born again, you want to be in the word.

And when you're in the word, you want that forgiveness. So the two things go hand in hand. And if you imagine all the input that you take into your body through television, through the internet, through radio, all these different things.

There are billboards, advertising, all this stuff. So much of it is going against what you should be behaving like as a Christian. It goes against those things. And what the word of God does is it focuses you back again and washes us and reminds us. And that's part of the reason that we focus on the word of God here. Verse nine, Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. So again, we see that kind of all or none thing going on with Peter. You know, Peter goes, you don't wash me, don't touch me, I don't want to do that. And then Jesus said, well, if you don't do it, you're not gonna wash my whole body, Lord. It's your head, feet, everything, hands, feet, heads, feet.

That was weird. So, and in verse 10, Jesus said to him, he who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not all of you. He's referring to Judas and we're going to get into that more next week. But what Jesus is saying, it's interesting what he's saying. And I like the way the new King James puts it in the bathe and wash because there's the King James, he who's been washed doesn't need to wash. And it's kind of a little bit obscure in the meaning, but if you've been bathed, you just have to wash your feet. What does that mean? A lot of people when they are born again, and understand what the phrase born again, Jesus came up with that.

That's not something we invented or somebody else invented. Jesus came up with that phrase. And what he means by that is when you ask the Lord for his forgiveness and you begin to follow him, that's being born again. We have that experience, I believe scripture is very plain that you have that experience once in your life. But if you only ask the Lord to forgive you of your sins one time, something's wrong.

Something's wrong. Now it's not that, and I know some would argue this, it's not that you're getting saved again, you're asking for forgiveness again. Okay, there's a difference.

There's a difference. Every time you sin, you don't need to get saved or be born again again. What you do need is forgiveness. And let me ask you a question. How often do you stop and ask the Lord to forgive you of your sins?

How often? When I was a young Christian, I had some really weird concepts about forgiveness and repentance. And when I would mess up, I would think, well, there needs to be a period, there needs to be a season before I can ask the Lord to forgive me. I got to feel bad enough for long enough.

Some of you are probably familiar with that. I don't want to just do something wrong and then ask for forgiveness. But if you think about that, that's kind of weird. And my experience over time showed me that, you know what, when I mess up, as time goes on, I don't get more and more likely to ask for forgiveness. I get less and less likely to ask for it. As a matter of fact, I begin looking back and go, well, you know, it wasn't so bad. As a matter of fact, the only reason I said that is he said that and that happened and, you know, I began to apply logic to whatever went wrong. And pretty soon, I don't even see that as sin anymore.

That was just a little something that happened. We should repent often. You know why? Because we sin frequently. Every one of us.

I still struggle with sin. Last 24 hours, somewhere, I've messed up. You can, I mean, I'm not sure exactly what, you can ask my wife. She'll probably tell you where I'll, you know.

All right, I got a list here. But we mess up. We mess up. And we need to go back and ask the Lord to forgive us. And we need to turn from our sin to him. That's what repentance means. Changing our mind. Changing our focus and our direction.

And you know what? As Christians, we need to repent often. Because too often we think, oh yeah, yeah, you know, a couple weeks ago, a couple years ago, 20 years ago, I went forward and I asked the Lord to forgive me of my sins.

Awesome. What are you doing now? Are you keeping the slate clean? Because in order to keep the slate clean, you got to go back to Jesus again and again and again and again. John chapter one, verse eight and nine tells us, if we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. You understand, these verses can apply to each and every person that's in here today, this morning.

If only. If only you'll do it. Let me encourage you in doing this. Let me encourage you because at some point you will stand before the Lord and you will give an account of your life. You better believe as a pastor, that is a sobering thought to me.

It's a thought that guides me in decisions and things I do and things I don't do. And this morning, whether you've been born again, whether you've never asked the Lord to forgive you of your sins, you can have a clean slate, a fresh start. For some people, it's a second chance.

For other people, it might be a nine hundredths chance. But the Lord is here, ready to give you that clean slate. Notice it doesn't say that, and since you're faithful and just, he will be faithful to forgive you of your sins.

No, no, no, no, no, no. Friend, loved one, he is faithful and just and will forgive you of every sin. The only sin that cannot be forgiven is the one that's not asked forgiveness for. And we get into this unpardonable sin and unforgivable sin and I'm not going to get into that, but the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin to reject that ministry of the Holy Spirit and not to ask for forgiveness of our sins, that's the sin that will not be forgiven. And if you think about it, the people that are separated by that gulf, they're not necessarily just separated by what they've done, they're separated by what they refuse to do now. They refuse to ask the Lord to forgive them of their sins. And in that refusal, they look at God Almighty, a righteous God, and say, you know what, I don't want your help. Friend, I hope that doesn't describe you this morning.

I want to tell you a story I heard years ago that I think is a beautiful representation of the gospel. This guy, this attorney came to a guy that was in jail and said, you know what, I've looked at your case and I want to represent you and I know that if you let me represent you, you'll be declared innocent. The guy said, you know what, I don't want your help and I can't afford an attorney. The guy said, no, I'm willing to represent you for free.

The guy said, no, I don't want your help. Day after day, this went on with the attorney coming and going, let me represent you, you'll be declared innocent. And day after day, the guy in jail said, no, I don't want your help. Well, the day of the trial came and the attorney got a call from the guy that was in jail and he said, you know what, I've kind of rethought this thing and actually I'm thinking that I actually want you to go into the courtroom with me today. The attorney said, oh, you know, day after day, I ask you to let me represent you. Day after day, you refused me and now you asked me to be in the courtroom with you. I'll be in the courtroom today, but not as your attorney.

You see, I've been appointed judge in your case. You get to decide, guys, if you want Jesus to stand with you and defend you or you want to stand on your own with him as your judge. Let me encourage you to ask him to forgive you of your sins this morning. 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. 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, D.A., 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.