The Humble Love of Christ B

How are you blessed in your life? Grace to you with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. What does it mean when Scripture tells you to love one another? That you help your wife clean up a messy house?

That you let the other car take the parking spot even though you were there first? Or that you take your kids to the park even when you have a lot of work to do? Those acts of service are all wonderful, but the question is, how do those commonplace examples of showing preference for others match up with the radical love the Bible describes? Bottom line, are you fully reflecting the love of Christ in those acts of service?

Well, those questions are at the heart of John MacArthur's message today, part of a compelling study called Love No Matter What. And here's John with the lesson. I want you to turn to John chapter 13, and we're going to look at the opening verses of this chapter.

John 13, we call it the humility of love, and that is exactly what it is about. We're on Thursday night of His final week before His death and resurrection. He will be arrested early in the morning, really in the darkness of the middle of the night. He will undergo a false trial in the wee hours of Friday. He will be executed on Friday. He will die as the true Lamb of God, the Passover Lamb.

This is Thursday night, the night before. We pick up the scene in verse 1. Now, before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that His hour had come, that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. Selfless humility is the soul of love. Put it another way. Only humble people love, and your capacity to love is directly related to your capacity to humble yourself.

You understand that? That is a simple biblical truth and principle. Only humble people love. The humbler you are, the less interested you are in yourself, the greater your capacity to invest yourself in somebody else.

They are related to one another proportionally. The lower you go in self-concern, the higher you go in concern for others. The more you sacrifice for you, the greater you will sacrifice for others.

So as we look at this, just a few points to consider. First, His love stated, verse 1, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. That states His love, and that's John making that inspired statement under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He knows His hour is coming. He knows He's headed to the Father. He repeats it again in verse 3.

His glory is on the horizon. Yeah, of course, His death is imminent and immediate, but through that, out of the grave into glory at the ascension, He knows all of this, and He should be the one being honored, being exalted, being lifted up, being treated with courtesy, but He's not. So He puts His love on display to, listen, undeserving, weak, selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed disciples, who with that kind of an attitude aren't going to do a whole lot to advance the testimony of the church.

That doesn't help. If by this shall all men know that you're My disciples, you have love for one another, what are they going to think about you behaving like this? I mean, the apostles write about that later, about devouring and biting one another and not preferring one another in love. And if that is what's going on in your church, if there's contention and strife and factions, we know all of that is laid out by the apostles in the epistles.

If that's what the world sees, what is going to be their conclusion? Not that we've been transformed to manifest some divine kind of love that is unlike anything the world knows. This would have been a time when He might have rebuked them, when He might have just shredded them like He did the Pharisees that week. But He doesn't. He just loves them, and He gives them a model of how they are to love. He protects them. The last acts of Jesus stand out as acts of love, all the way through chapter 17. His love, no end or measure knows.

No change can turn its course eternally the same it flows from one eternal source. And eternal love, He loved them before they were ever born. He loved them from eternity into eternity. He loved them with an everlasting love. Loved with everlasting love, the hymn writer says, led by grace, that love to know.

By grace. By grace, He loved them. And He gives the fullest expression of this love. So that is love stated. Second point, love spurned.

Love spurned is in verse 2. And you say, why is this here? You say, why is this here? This incredible statement about love, which we considered last week, and now dropping in on it, during supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him. Do we really need that? I mean, we're just getting into this whole expression of love. What is this about?

This is ugly. This is disastrous for Judas. This is eternally damning for him. He had already put himself in Satan's hands. And now, down in verse 27, Satan enters him. Same night, Thursday night at the dinner, Satan enters him. And Jesus knew when Satan showed up. He knows what's in the heart of a man.

He can read thoughts. He certainly knows when Satan, the invisible slanderer, shows up. And Satan showed up right on time, right on schedule. And Jesus said to Judas, what you do, do quickly.

Go get it done. Go orchestrate the betrayal, because we've got a time clock going now. The clock is ticking to make sure that I am executed when the Passover lambs are being killed tomorrow.

Get the clock going. Here's a man given to Satan. Jesus said about him in John 670, he was a devil.

He was a devil. Why mention this here? Why? Because the contrast is stark. The contrast is instructive.

The contrast drops a black curtain behind the scene, makes everything in the expression of love stand out in bold relief. The blackest hatred contrasted with the purest love. Judas is a hater. Judas is a hater. And the more Jesus has failed to fulfill Judas' ambitions and greed, the more he has hated Jesus. Judas is self-interested. He is driven by greed, driven by ambition, driven by self-satisfaction, and he has no capacity to love. Pride can't love, self-interest can't love, and Judas can't love, but he can hate anything that stands in the way of his ambition.

So you just need to know what's behind the picture here, the hatred of Judas. The words of love, which Jesus gives in these verses and gives by this example, capture our hearts, warm our hearts, draw us to love him more while they cause Judas to hate him more. So love is stated in verse 1, and love is spurned in the life of Judas. Then finally, thirdly, love is shown. Love is shown. How did he love, and how is that love manifest? I told you that the nature of this love is self-disinterest. The nature of this love is self-disinterest.

It is completely consumed with the object of love, and it will humble itself. And that's exactly what Jesus does. And he gives us an example here of how to make the ultimate sacrifice short of death and love in a way that we can do our whole life long. Jesus, knowing the Father had given all things into his hands, he knew who he was. We don't want anybody to think that because Jesus does this, he's simply a man, and he's lowering himself because he is a man, and he wants to make it clear that he is to be humbled.

No, John is very clear. He came forth from God and was going back to God. This is a statement of his absolute eternal being and deity.

That is the whole point of his humiliation. He came from glory and stooped, and he stoops on Thursday night in that room. Got up from supper, laid aside his garments, taking a towel, girded himself, poured water into the basin, began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. Now remember, verse 2 says, during supper. They're already eating. They're into the Passover meal, and nobody has stepped up to wash feet.

Nobody. Jesus does what nobody else will do, what no one else would do. He rises from supper, takes off his outer garment, and is left just with an undergarment, which was typically worn, and he takes a towel and puts a towel around his waist, and then he takes the water out of the pitcher that was by the door of every place for foot washing, and he pours it into a basin, and he began then to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. He took his outer garment off to keep it from getting splattered and splashed, covered with dirt. It's a very humble thing to do. For a fisherman to wash another fisherman's feet is a small condescension. It's a small act of humility, but for the Creator to wash the feet of proud men who are sinful in their pride is indeed an amazing condescension. You might think that he maybe, maybe, it's a stretch, but maybe he would wash the feet of those who were somehow sacred or those who were somehow holy.

No. He washes the feet of those who are proud and self-interested, self-promoting and ambitious. It's just what he does. So Jesus goes to the door, prepares and washes their feet. They had such short memories. It had been that week that he said to them, whoever would be greatest among you, let him be your what? Servant, slave, fell on deaf ears, so with calmness, majesty.

He rises up, takes off his outer robe, puts on this towel, begins to wash. I don't want to speculate. You know I don't like to do that, but I know this devastated those men. You have to believe this is whoa, whoa, whoa.

This cannot be happening, and that's the buzz that is eventually articulated by Peter. This isn't right. They are shocked, sorrowed, regretful, convicted, as the Lord does what none of them were willing to do. And look, they knew that foot washing was the lowest thing on the sort of social ladder. It must have hurt deeply.

It was a profound lesson on the issue of pride because that's exactly how they were acting. So Jesus goes along washing their feet. He comes to Simon Peter, and of course by then the buzz has reached Peter, and he has his own feelings as well. So he said to him, Lord, Lord, and he's trying to make a contrast, Lord, do you wash my feet?

This can't be happening. Now look, Peter knew who Jesus was. He knew because he said, you are the Holy One.

To whom shall we go? You and you alone have the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that you are the Holy One. He said, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. He knew who Jesus was. The rest knew who He was.

There was no debate about that. And he also knew who He was, the same guy who had said, depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man. And he had a lot of reminders from the Lord Himself about his sin. In fact, it got so bad that the Lord had said to him not too long before this, get behind me what? Satan. So Peter is trying to make a contrast that makes sense to him. Lord, you wash my feet?

I am a sinful man. And he's speaking on behalf of the others as well. He's stunned. He can't let it happen. Jesus answered and said to him in verse 7, what I do, you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.

He's not talking about foot washing now. He's gone from the picture to the reality. He is saying, Peter, you still don't get my humiliation. You don't get it. Now remember, their view of the Messiah was He comes triumphantly. They had a triumphalistic view of Messiah. He comes. He establishes the kingdom.

He throws out the enemies. He reigns and rules over Jerusalem, over Israel, and over the world, all the things that the prophets had said. Everything promised to David, everything promised to Abraham, reiterated in the prophets.

They still had a triumphalistic messianic view. They still didn't understand this humiliation all the way to the cross. So he says, Peter, you don't realize now this humiliation. You will understand hereafter. Well, Peter validates the fact that he doesn't get it by saying this, never shall you wash my feet.

And the emphasis is on the pronouns. Never shall you, Lord, wash my sinner feet. Never. It's as if he said in the vernacular, cut it out. Stop.

You're not doing this. Really, this is a pretty brash guy. He's talking to the Creator by his own confession.

He calls Jesus Lord and acts like He's Lord. And the language here is extreme. The negation never is the strongest possible negation. It's like saying in all eternity, forever, no time, no way, under no circumstances will you ever wash my feet. This is a settled conclusion fixed in concrete.

Not going to happen. Jesus said to him, if I don't wash you, you have no part with me. To which Peter says in verse 9, then Lord, wash not only my feet, but my hands and my head. He goes from one extreme to another. You'll never wash me.

Wash everything. What moved him so far, so fast? He wanted more than anything else a relationship with Jesus Christ. Remember chapter 6?

Who do we go to? Jesus says, will you go away? Where will we go? You have the words of eternal life. I want a relationship with you, Lord.

If this is how I sustain a relationship with you, give me a bath. What did Jesus mean when He said, if I did not wash you, you have no part with me? Well, He was now out of the illustration into the reality. He was talking about the need that Peter had to be spiritually cleansed. He needed what Ezekiel promised in the new covenant, the washing, the washing. He needed what Paul wrote to Titus about, the washing of regeneration.

He needed spiritual cleansing. And Christ was condescending, humiliating Himself, going all the way to the cross to provide the means of that spiritual cleansing. Peter, you can't stop this humiliation. I'm going all the way down, past foot washing, way past foot washing to the cross.

You have to accept it. You have to accept my humiliation all the way down to the cross, because that is the only way you will be cleansed. That is the means of your cleansing. Peter was already saved, saved by what Christ had not yet done and wouldn't do until the next couple of days. But it had already been applied to him, as to all Old Testament believers. So Jesus says, nobody has a safe relationship with God unless that person has been cleansed by Jesus. If I don't wash you, if I don't wash you, you have no part with me.

Let me expand that a little. There is no salvation in any other name than the name of Jesus Christ. There is no forgiveness, no washing from sin, no redemption other than through Christ. No man comes to the Father, but by me. I am the way, the truth, and the life. You want to have a relationship with God? It comes through me. If I don't cleanse you, you are not clean.

You have no part with me. The only salvation is through Jesus Christ. So our Lord goes from this simple act to draw the spiritual truth, to lay it down for all generations, including us.

Well, when He said that, obviously Peter wanted the full treatment. And Jesus follows up on this spiritual truth. In verse 10, Jesus said to him, he who has bathed needs only to wash his feet. But it's completely clean, and you are clean. You don't need another bath. They would have bathed in the morning. They would have left and walked all the way to wherever this, whatever went on that day, and then finally to the upper room. They didn't need a bath. They just needed their feet washed.

This is so magnificent. He's saying, Peter, you don't need salvation. You just need some cleanup. He says, Peter, you are clean. You're clean. If Peter was thinking that was the greatest statement that had ever been made to him in his entire life, because Jesus just said to him, you're saved.

He just told him, you're saved. You've been bathed. You're clean. You don't need to be cleaned again.

You just need periodic foot washing. What does that mean? But as believers, what do we do? How do we live our lives? 1 John 1, we go on confessing our sins, and he goes on cleansing us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1, 9. Well, that describes a believer. A believer is a person who having been bathed, having been justified, having been regenerated, still picks up the dust of the world and goes on confessing and being cleansed of that. So, good news, Peter.

You're saved. Peter just had so many weaknesses, didn't he? Does that encourage you? I mean, if you see yourself like Peter and you wonder, he says, you're clean.

How could he think he's clean? Because he's been covered already by the righteousness of God through faith in Christ. But not all of you. There's a final point. Love is stated. Love is spurned. Love is shown in this incredible act of our Lord. Love is shown that it reaches down to the lowest level, does the dirtiest job, takes care of the simplest needs, sacrificially, selflessly. Finally, love summoned. Love is summoned here, or commanded, if you will. So when he had washed their feet, finished up, and taken his garments, put them back on, reclined at the table again, he said to them, do you know what I've done to you?

And he goes back from the theological realities of that whole act back to the practical application of love. You know what I've done to you? Of course they did.

Of course they knew. You call me teacher and Lord, and you're right. So if I then, the Lord and the teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet, for I gave you an example that you should also do as I have done to you, or I did to you. This is the lesson. Love like this. Love selflessly, humbly, in the most menial, simple necessity of life.

Start there, and all the more elevated things will come. Love at the lowest level of need. This whole lesson is all built around what Luke 22, 24 says.

They were arguing about which of them was the greatest. You know, a lecture might have worked, but he'd done that. This example must have shaken them to the core. So how do you teach people to love? By loving. They're going to have to teach the church to love.

How are they going to do that? With a lecture or by loving? So, verse 17, the NAS says, if you know these things, but it should be translated since because it's A with the indicative, and A with the indicative presents a statement of fact. Since you know these things, of course they know them because he just taught them.

Since you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. The second if is a different word altogether. It's aon, aon, and a different construction, altogether different construction. Aon introduces a clause with less certainty. The first statement is certain, since you know these things.

The back end is not so certain if you do them. That's where we live, isn't it? We know we're supposed to love each other like this.

If we do, since we know, if we do, what's the reward? You're blessed. Anybody want to cash in on that promise? Anybody want to be blessed? Anybody want God to open up heaven and dump blessing? How are you blessed in your life? How do you release heaven's blessing?

By loving sacrificially, unselfishly, selflessly, humbly, without any thought of personal gain, personal fulfillment, personal satisfaction, but completely committed to the sheer well-being, joy, satisfaction, fulfillment, and necessity of somebody else. Scripture says, how blessed are those who walk in the way of the Lord? How blessed are those who trust in the Lord? How blessed are those who hear the word of the Lord and obey it? If you do this, you're blessed. One of the blessings is you'll know you're saved. The other blessing is the world will know you're saved.

The gospel will be lifted up and Christ exalted. You're listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. The title of John's current study is Love No Matter What. Now, John, you've shown us about the love that humbly serves others. That's such a foreign idea these days, especially when we're told the most important person to take care of is me.

Well, yes. I mean, look at this generation of people completely narcissistic, completely consumed with themselves. The greatest love of all is loving myself, we're told.

Yeah, that was a popular song, the greatest love of all. Yeah, but it is the greatest human love of all, and it is the default position of human fallenness, right? I mean, because the greatest sin is pride. God hates pride.

He hates it whenever he sees it. And pride is manifest most easily, most readily in loving oneself. That's why we have to be commanded to love somebody else. You just have to get outside of the preoccupation and consuming overwhelming attraction of your own self. That's hard in our culture because our culture basically promotes self-love. I mean, to what degree does our culture promote self-love? To the degree that you should do anything, anything to satisfy the love of yourself, anything. There's nothing that you should not do if it satisfies you. So getting out of that is the challenge spiritually, and fighting against the flesh and against the culture.

We want to do the very opposite. We want to love others, take no thought for ourselves, no regard for ourselves, look not on our own things but on the things of others, as the Apostle Paul said. So we've been talking about that, and we're now wrapping up the study on love no matter what. We've looked at love not in terms of how we feel about someone or how we feel about ourselves, but how we act towards someone, how we serve them.

It's been a great study to go through, and it would be a great one for you to have on hand because you may come back to this time and time again, and you may find it helpful for others as well. So the series Love No Matter What is available right now on seven MP3 downloads. You can go to the gty.org website, and you can download all seven MP3s, or we can send you seven CDs.

They come in an album, same series, whatever format is best for you. Love No Matter What, that series available now only from Grace to You. Thanks, John. And friend, this study, Love No Matter What, will help you show heaven's love to others even when it's the last thing on earth you may want to do.

We all need to battle the self-centeredness that's inside of us, and as John mentioned, reviewing this study at your own pace can help. So download Love No Matter What when you get in touch today. You can download all seven sermons from Love No Matter What free of charge at gty.org. Also, as John mentioned, this series is reasonably priced on a seven-CD album, if that's better for you. You can order the CDs when you call 855-GRACE or when you visit gty.org.

That's our website, and while you're there, gty.org. Be sure to take advantage of the thousands of free Bible study tools available, including our sermon archive, where you can download any of John's more than 3,600 sermons. All of them are free of charge in MP3N transcript format, and as a supplement to the series John just wrapped up, look for the sermon in the archive titled Dealing with Problem People. It'll give you biblical principles to help those who are lost or anxious or overtly sinful. You can find John's message titled Dealing with Problem People at our website, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for joining us today, and be back tomorrow as John breaks from his normal verse-by-verse pattern to answer some questions from the congregation that he has pastored for 55 years. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.