From Resistant to Receptive [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. That Jesus is insistent on this saying, if I don't do this, if I don't wash you, if I don't serve you, then you're going to have no share with me.

And when he says that, it stuns Peter and it really gets his attention. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, Life of Peter, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire broadcast, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you this special offer available today. Contact us at pastoralan.org.

That's pastoralan.org, or call 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. You ready for some good news? Though most have believed as a Christian and most preachers have essentially preached it, the Christian life is not so much about you serving God as it is about God serving you. It is a strange thought, and it is one that turns upside down so much of our thinking about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. For we know that God is the King, He is the Master, and we are not the King, and we are not the King, and we're not the Master.

So how could it be that indeed the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve? And there's something about this revelation that is so, so important that I could say with certainty you'll never receive fully from God until you get this, until you embrace this. And so we continue today in the life of Peter as we come to the famous scene of Jesus washing His disciples feet in John chapter 13. We've been learning from the life of Peter the transitions and transformations that are taking place in his life. Peter, the one whose name was Simon, and he was like shifting sand, and Jesus called him Peter, which means rock, the solid one. And he would say he would build the foundation of the church upon Peter and his confession of faith in Christ.

But what we keep seeing in Peter is that he slips, he falls, he stumbles, and he is on the path towards something. And today we're going to look at how Peter is making this move from being so resistant to Jesus serving him to Peter being receptive to Jesus serving him. We're going to learn today about receiving from God, and it's John chapter 13 verse 1. John chapter 13 verse 1. Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. And 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, taking a towel, tied it around His waist. And 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'm doing you do not now understand, but afterwards you will understand. Peter said to him, You shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I do not wash you, you shall have no share with me. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and my head. Jesus said to him, The one who is 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 is why He said, Not all of you are clean. And when he had washed their feet and put on his outer garment and resumed his place, he said, Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for I am. If I then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you. Our son Bennett is a junior now at Baylor University and has been rooming with the same young man the whole time, a good friend of his named Daniel Thomas. And the thing you need to know about Daniel Thomas is he is one of the brightest, most articulate, confident, humble, really special young men that I've ever gotten to know, and we've counted a great privilege their friendship. Daniel is a debate champion, and he came in on full scholarship, academic scholarship to Baylor, and he is the most disciplined young guy you might ever see, unbelievably disciplined, and just the kind of person that you know is going to succeed at whatever he does and loves the Lord very much.

Well, I say all that so this story will make even more of its point that in his freshman year in the freshman religion class that he was required to take. On the opening day, the professor in Daniel's class stood up and made a startling statement. He said, I'll tell you what I'm going to do today.

He said, just make you a deal. He said, I'm going to pick out somebody. And he just seemingly, just randomly, he didn't know Daniel Thomas.

Nobody else knew Daniel Thomas in the class. He just picked out Daniel. And he said, Mr. Thomas here, I'll be my designated student for this. And he said, I'm going to make you a deal. He says, anyone in here could take me up on this deal if you just would agree today that whatever grade Daniel makes in this class at the end of the semester will be your grade.

And if you want to, you can take me up on that deal today. And what this means, he said, of course, is that if Daniel makes an A, you get an A for the class. If Daniel makes an F, you get an F for the class. But what it means is that if you'll trust Daniel to be your grade, you don't have to even come to class, you don't have to study the whole rest of the semester. You won't have to take any of the exams because you get... And everybody's just looking at him and saying, does he really mean this? And he's like, no, I really mean this. You can get Daniel's grade. And the class just kind of sat there, dumbfounded for a while.

And he said, so how many people want to take me up on this? Well, nobody did. And here was the irony of it, was if they had known who Daniel was, Daniel was pre-med. Daniel was like, he's going to make straight A. He's going to do whatever it takes to make an A in his freshman religion class. I guarantee you there was nobody in the class more likely to make an A than Daniel.

I can tell you that right up front. But they didn't understand that. So nobody took him up on the deal. And when nobody took him up on the deal, the professor made his point.

He said, here's my point. He said, you can't even trust somebody to substitute for your grade for freshman class in religion. This goes far to explain why it's difficult for people to trust in the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. That was a good point. If you're going to let someone make a grade in your place, you have to be confident in the sufficiency of their academic prowess. If you're going to be confident to let someone die in your place, you have to be absolutely confident in who they are.

It's difficult to trust in a broken world. And because of this, we struggle to truly receive everything that God came to give us in Jesus Christ. And in this scene where Peter is so resistant, you shall never wash my feet, Lord. What you see on display, symbolically, is what Jesus came to do.

And what you see also, symbolically, is how difficult it is for us to receive what Jesus came to give us. I want to just simply talk to you about why Peter was so resistant. Because if we can see that and understand the context and why he was so appalled at the idea of Jesus washing his feet, that'll help us then go to the second point, which would be, let's talk about why we struggle to receive from God. And then thirdly, I just want to show you how there's a picture of the gospel here and how when you really understand the gospel, it changes everything.

Let's first talk about why Peter is so resistant. Foot washing was not just something that was customary for the Jewish people. It was just something that was customary in the ancient world, certainly during Roman times. People lived in hot climate. They often, they generally wore open-toed type shoes, sandals, and they didn't have nice, paved streets. They had dusty thoroughfares and muddy paths and animal dung and all that.

If it would rain, it'd become muddy. And it was just people walking around with dirty feet. And so they would have a custom of washing their feet. And it was a very, very menial task to wash someone's feet. It's almost hard to describe how menial this is, except to say that if a household had a slave, then it would be the slave's job if you wanted to greet someone in a hospitable way, wash their feet, it'd be the slave's job.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Ever feel like the pressure's always on? Do you find it hard to say no, worried that you'll disappoint someone? The Bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship in paradise. They were naked and felt no shame. But as soon as sin entered the world, they became anxious, plagued with a gnawing question. What must I do to be accepted? There is only one solution, the grace of God that lifts our shame. In a new six-week video masterclass, Pastor Alan exposes the dynamics of shame and shows the path to freedom. Whether as an individual or in a small group, the video series is sure to bring healing and hope. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we'll send you the digital masterclass videos and study guides as our way of saying thanks for your partnership.

In a world so quick to say shame on you, it's time to let God's grace take the shame off you. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. In Jewish law, it's thought of as such a menial task that if you were Jewish and you had a Jewish slave, you could not ask that Jewish slave to wash feet. So it had to be a Gentile slave, and oftentimes it would be relegated to a Gentile female slave. Whatever was considered to be the lowest person, that's the only one that would be allowed to wash feet. In fact, there were really only three acceptable cultural situations where someone could wash another's feet without it violating all social mores of the culture.

The first, of course, as I just mentioned, is the lowly slave. So it was acceptable for a slave to wash a master's feet or a slave to wash a guest's feet who had come to the house. But there's a second scenario where it was acceptable for someone to wash feet, and that was it was acceptable culturally for a student to wash a rabbi's feet. So if you're a student and you had a rabbi, it's so different than what we think of as a teacher because you would essentially link yourself inseparably to this rabbi. It was almost like the student was a slave to a master. That's how close the alignment was of a rabbi and his students. But the student wouldn't wash the rabbi's feet because the student was like a slave, but because of the high, high honor and the deep, deep submission of the student to the rabbi. So the idea, to try to get through your mind, is the student is highly submitted to the rabbi who is teaching them the way of life. And so the act of foot washing was to posture yourself in some deep, deep submission. There's an interesting note I ran across in some of the Jewish writings that describe the case of Jishmael, a rabbi in 135 BC.

And this little story will convey to you just how strong the cultural norms and mores were in the mind of the Jewish people and how much they thought about this. One day this rabbi, he returned home and he wanted to wash his feet. Oftentimes, most times people would wash their own feet.

There'd be a basin of water and you could wash your own feet. But as he came into home, the rabbi's mother insisted that she wash his feet and she wanted to express her respect to her son, the rabbi. Well, Jishmael refused since he was afraid if he let his mother wash his feet, that he would be breaking the fourth commandment and would have the sin of not honoring his mother. And so he wouldn't allow his mother to wash his feet. Well, the mother then went to another rabbi to report the disrespect that she was shown she felt by her son for not allowing her to wash her son's feet because he was a rabbi. And in the end, the other rabbi ruled that her wish should be granted and she was allowed to wash her son's feet. The reason I tell you that story is just to see that in our culture, especially today, it seems like these cultural norms and mores are all just up for grabs. And everybody just, you know, we don't live like that.

But in this culture and in the Jewish culture, it's almost like law to them, right? A guest comes to your home. Here's what you do. Someone's feet need to be washed. Here's who can wash those feet.

That's the way it was. In Luke chapter seven, there's a Pharisee that has invited Jesus and this Pharisee's name is Simon, not our disciple Simon Peter, but a different Simon, a Pharisee. And when this rabbi, this Pharisee, rather, greets Jesus, he calls him rabbi. So he's acknowledging that Jesus is rabbi. But a sinful woman comes in and washes Jesus' feet. And Simon, this Pharisee, says, if Jesus knew who this woman was, he wouldn't allow it. And reading Simon's thoughts, Jesus then speaks back to him.

And in that, interestingly, he rebukes the Pharisee. He says, I came in here and you didn't wash my feet. He's saying, you called me rabbi, but you didn't wash my feet. And then he applauds the woman who did wash his feet. Again, just highlighting this social cultural influence that is so prevalent, a student could wash a rabbi's feet, but a rabbi couldn't wash a student's feet.

A slave could wash a master's feet, but a master could never wash a slave's feet. There's one other instance which it was accepted in this culture to wash feet. And this was a wife was allowed to wash her husband's feet, not as an act of slavery, but as an act of intimacy and something that's very personal.

The Jewish culture for women, they're very modest. And so there's some things, even if you had a number of maids in the household, still only the wife would change the linens on the bed. Only a wife would wash a husband's feet. So you could have a slave wash feet as a husband came in. If he was a rabbi, a student could wash his feet.

But otherwise, it was something that was just for a wife, a very personal thing, people that were married. So Peter is reclining at the table and he sees Jesus get up and start washing feet. And Peter is completely appalled. In the first instance, Jesus is violating every cultural norm. This is Peter who has had this growing revelation of who Jesus is.

And he sees him doing this. He says he doesn't fit any of those three culturally acceptable instances of washing feet. He's certainly not a gentile slave. He's the rabbi, not the student.

And he's certainly not so personal with us like a married couple would be. And so he's reclining at the table and his feet are back away from him. This is the way they would eat. So you lean on your low table, lean on your left elbow, your legs and feet back behind you, and you're eating with your right hand, fellowshiping around this little low table. And so what would happen sometimes in this setting is that if there was a slave in the household, that servant might, while people reclined at table, come around and graciously wash the feet that are back away from the table. But in that instance, it's like the slave is just anonymous. So you're not even paying attention to the fact you're eating in fellowship and somebody comes over and washes your feet behind.

You're not even paying attention to it. It's not unlike the fact that when you go out to eat, sometimes somebody will come and they're serving your table and hopefully you are generous-spirited toward them and leave a good tip and you're kind to the people that serve you. And if not, please don't leave them a Christian tract. But anyway, my wife worked at Shoney's when she was young. She said Sunday was the worst day.

She'd get coins and a Christian tract on the table. Don't do that. But anyway, when somebody's serving at your table and when somebody's serving my table, a quarter of them, you want to say thank you to them in the appropriate way, but you're not there to develop a relationship with them, right? At least I'm not. So sometimes you just, it'll come to the table, hi, I'm Samuel.

I'll be your server today. And I'm guilty sometimes. I can't even remember later what they say their name was because it's not because you're being mean. You're just, that's their role, right?

So that would be the normal setting. If someone's gonna start washing Peter's feet while he's reclining at table, it would be an anonymous servant. And therefore it's not intimate. But as soon as Jesus did this, it became intensely personal. And so Peter's like, you can't do this. You're not the slave and you're not the student.

So it would only leave one other situation that would make you understand. And that would be that you're doing something very, very personal. And that feels too close to me. And he says, you shall never, ever, ever do this. And so it is that Jesus is insistent on this saying, if I don't do this, if I don't wash you, if I don't serve you, then you're gonna have no share with me. And when he says that, it stuns Peter and it really gets his attention.

So Peter is resistant because it doesn't fit his picture of who Jesus is. And it is so upside down and it's so personal to come and wash his feet. It's one thing it's an anonymous slave, but it's something else when it's your teacher, he's gonna come and wash your dirty feet. And they're dirty. We used to go barefoot as kids, you know, play all day in the summertime. And by that night, your feet look like a different color. And sometimes you didn't take a bath that night and you'd play all day the next day with those dirty feet. I mean, it's like, who has stained these feet a different color? I mean, feet are dirty.

It's the point of contact with the earth. And there was some things like, I don't want Jesus getting that close to my dirt. We struggle on several levels to really open up and receive from God because we're like little children and we don't know what God knows. Alan Wright.

And boy, that's the truth. Today's teaching from resistant to receptive. And Alan is here in the studio back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and today's final word. Ever feel like the pressure is always on?

Do you find it hard to say no worried that you'll disappoint someone? The Bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship in paradise. They were naked and felt no shame. But as soon as sin entered the world, they became anxious, plagued with a gnawing question. What must I do to be accepted? There is only one solution, the grace of God that lifts our shame. In a new six week video masterclass, Pastor Alan exposes the dynamics of shame and shows the path to freedom. Whether as an individual or in a small group, the video series is sure to bring healing and hope. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we'll send you the digital masterclass videos and study guides as our way of saying thanks for your partnership.

In a world so quick to say shame on you, it's time to let God's grace take the shame off you. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastoralan.org. So Alan, I want to go back to the way we concluded the teaching today. There's a struggle in ourselves a lot of times to being open and being receptive. And if somebody is listening right now and they identify they've been here, maybe they are here right now, what do you have to say to that? This is one of the most radical stories in all the Bible, if you think about it. When Jesus wants to wash Peter's feet, his reaction to Jesus at first, we would think, would be the noble religious reaction. No, you're not going to serve me, I'm your servant. But Jesus is saying, if you don't let me wash your feet, how are you going to let me do something much greater? And that is wash you of all your sin. So I would say to listeners, Daniel, understand that the gospel, while you are called to serve and be obedient and all of that, that it begins with and is pervaded by a greater act of servant, and that is Jesus dying for you. So to be a Christian means to learn to receive from God what you could never have given yourself.