A Servant's Heart Part 1

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

It's a paradox. Everyone likes a servant, but few want to be servants. Let's chart a new course, the course of becoming like Christ and then making a difference in our spheres of influence. Today, grab a towel for lesson number one in developing the heart of Jesus.

From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, take us to the upper room and outline where we're going in this encouraging series. Dave, you know, I'd like to see the expression on the faces of the disciples as Jesus himself does what they should have been willing to do, namely to take that towel and begin to wash their feet.

What an amazing story. What an amazing story of the humility of Jesus Christ. Now, after he's done that and instructed them, this series is going to emphasize what he told his disciples in the upper room, as you mentioned, what he told them just before he died. I can't think of any passage of scripture that is so heartwarming. At the same time, it is also a lesson in reality. Jesus predicts that a time is going to come when people are going to be persecuted for his name's sake.

The world is going to hate us. It's a story actually, and of course it's a true story, of how Jesus is preparing the disciples for a new future, a future with many temptations, a future with much persecution, and a future that for them is very unknown. How do we face our own struggles? How do we face our own future, which for us is very unknown? Well, there are lessons in this passage of scripture in the upper room for all of us for all time, because we always need the encouragement and the insight of Jesus.

That's why I'm so excited about this series of messages. I hope that you will listen carefully as we introduce Jesus with the disciples in the upper room. God on his hands and knees. Seems to be something strange about that, that the creator would bow low to wash the feet of his creation. The story is in the 13th chapter of John's Gospel and in a moment we're going to read some of the verses.

But first of all, I want us to understand the significance of this event. Nowhere else in history, either in Jewish literature or Greco-Roman literature, is there ever an account of a superior washing the feet of an inferior. You remember the story as it opens in the 13th chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus and the disciples come to what we generally call the upper room.

The disciples had been arguing as to who would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And even as they come into the upper room, no one takes the role of a servant because not even peers generally wash the feet of peers. That was something that was relegated to servants and servants had the responsibility of washing the feet of those who were above them in society. I don't think they'd have had a big problem washing Jesus Christ's feet. But when he pushed back from the table and walked over to the basin and poured some water and took off his outer garment and then put on a towel around his waist and began to wash the disciples' feet and began to wipe them with a towel that he had, it was at that time that they felt very shame faced.

And as we shall see in the next message, Peter especially did not like it and began to react. But why is it that this is so important for us? Why does this story have so much significance?

A couple of reasons. First of all, because it shows us the path to greatness. It is not wrong for you to want to be great. As a matter of fact, greatness is encouraged. But Jesus said, he who will be great, let him learn to serve. So it's not a matter of greatness being wrong. It's how you expect to get that greatness.

That's the question. There's another reason why it is important, and that is that if you and I want to see our homes changed, if we want to see our churches changed and our culture changed, we're going to have to learn to be servants. And that's a difficult lesson for us to learn, so difficult that maybe some of us have not even begun to learn what it really means. When we look at this passage, why is it that we should be surprised to see Jesus on his hands and knees? Well, first of all, considering where he came from. He came from the glories of heaven. When you read the sixth chapter of Isaiah, where the angels are around the throne and Jehovah is around the throne and the angels are singing holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. Remember that the person sitting on that throne is Christ. You say, oh, well, that's Jehovah. Yes, but Jehovah is Christ. John chapter 12, he makes it very, very clear.

John says that these things Isaiah said, and it's referring to chapter six, when he saw Christ's glory and spoke of him. Here is Jesus around the throne in all of his glory. And he could have stayed there. He could have stayed there simply to receive worship and praise and honor and adoration and bask in his relationship with the Father. And throughout all of eternity, God could have simply remained beautiful and left us in our sins. Jesus came from the highest.

That's one reason why we should be surprised. The other reason is considering how low he came. Think of how far down he came. In heaven, no one needed to ask his name. He was always glorious.

He was always adored. Now he comes to earth and he has to carry an ID and people shout at him, move it, Jew boy, get on with it, and then eventually they will spit on him. And he laid aside his garments, the text says.

That is to say, he took off his outer garment. And some theologians have seen in this a picture really of the incarnation. As he lays aside his glory, his visible glory, and he comes to the earth, he still has all of the attributes of God. He has the glory of God, but it is veiled, so no one sees it.

So he looks very ordinary in some respects. And he comes to this earth and lives as one of us. Here is the one who has all omnipotence, all power is under his command, and yet look at him there as he is weary on Jacob's well. Here is the one who has omnipresence. He can be everywhere simultaneously and is everywhere simultaneously, but yet we read in the gospels that he stayed two extra days away from Bethany when he heard that Lazarus died. Omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, and yet he limited himself and said that he did not even know when the Son of Man would come.

He had all of the attributes, but he said I refuse to use them, I'm going to live as man. Consider how far down he came. Someone has said that when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, those hands that created the worlds, those hands would now have to be held.

The tongue that spoke the worlds into existence would now have to learn Aramaic, and the feet of the one whose goings forth have been from of old and from everlasting, those feet would now have to learn how to walk, and the eyes that have penetrated the universe and have seen all things, those eyes would now have to adjust to the dim light of a stable, and the ears which have heard all things throughout all ages, those ears would now have to adjust to the language of Aramaic and other expressions that would be given and popular in that time. Think of how far he came. We can't grasp it, can we?

Because you and I are so accustomed to hanging on to prestige and power and money, we hang on to it until our knuckles turn white. So it's hard for us to visualize Jesus coming from the glories of heaven, even, as it says in Philippians chapter 2, to the shameful death of the cross. Think of how low he came.

No one has ever come from that high and descended that low. How did Jesus do it? Well, at this time we are going to read the text of scripture. John chapter 13, and this is the beginning of a series of messages titled When Jesus Has Your Heart. And today we're going to talk about the heart of a servant as we go through this passage of scripture.

John chapter 13, 14, 15, and 16, usually known as the upper room discourse. Well, I'd like to suggest that the reason Jesus could do that and be a servant is because of what he knew. He knew three facts that little word no occurs twice here in the text, and we'll see what Jesus Christ knew.

It was just before the Passover feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave the world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.

It's a wonderful expression, the full extent of his love. The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, wrapped a towel around his waist.

After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. What did he know? Number one, he knew his time. He knew his time. He knew that his time had come. I like the other translations at this point. He knew that his hour was come. That's a literal translation. Into that hour was compressed the darkness of Gethsemane, the treachery of Judas, and the cruel, painful death of the cross, and now the hour had come.

It was here. What did that signify? Three times before this in the Gospel of John, we read that they tried to take Jesus but could not take him because his hour was not yet come. It signified, first of all, the protection of God. There was no combination of men and of demons that could ever possibly put Christ on the cross until God says, it's time. There was no way that Jesus Christ could die young.

Oh, he died at the age of 33, and that's young, but he could not have died as a teenager because his hour had not yet come, and he had to fulfill the will of God, and Jesus knew that. So it reflects the protection of God. It reflects the approval of God and God's good pleasure in Christ. You see, before Jesus stepped out of eternity into time at Bethlehem, he and the Father already prearranged what would happen here on earth. It was like writing a symphony.

Maybe you're in a room somewhere, and you're writing it, and you put it together, and then it is played at a later time on the instrumentation that you have worked out for it. In the very same way, the Father and the Son agreed as to what was going to happen, and the Father said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, and part of that will of God was this moment to wash the feet of disciples who apparently were too self-directed to do it on their own. Jesus received the approval of the Father.

Father, whatever this hour involves, since it's from your hand, I accept it. You say, well, Pastor Luther, but we are different than that. Number one, Jesus didn't commit any sin, which is true.

He did not. We sometimes sin. We mess up. We leave scars behind us.

We leave a dirty trail behind us, and Jesus never did that. But I want you to know that as we ask God's forgiveness and as we put the past behind us, there's a sense in which we also then come again within the protection of God and the approval of God and the knowledge that we are in God's hands and not subject to the randomness of fate or even violence. There was a woman in Michigan whose husband was cruelly put to death, murdered. She was a Christian lady, and he was a Christian man. She was telling me how she struggled with this. She could never accept it.

She could not possibly see how this is something that you need to put behind you in some sense. Of course, there's a sense in which it will never totally be put behind, but she struggled with that because how could this possibly be God's will? These are cruel, evil people. And she read something that I had written on this topic in which I mentioned that if Jesus Christ, the victim of violence, could die under the hand and the providence of God, why cannot believers who are held in the same hands whose purposes God also has for his own glory, they too die within his providence? Their hour comes and they cannot die before their hour comes. Now it's true, you and I don't know our hour, do we?

This next week, Rebecca and I are going to be attending a wake for a friend of ours who died while walking in the back of a yard and suddenly put up his hands and had a massive heart attack and was gone. His wife was with him, but he could not be revived. He did not know when his hour was coming. But listen to me very carefully. The fact that we don't know when our hour comes does not mean that our hour is in any way less planned, less significant, less under God's protection than that of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We too have an hour before which we cannot pass. Let's go on number two. He not only knew his time, he knew his mission. What was his mission? Well, I want us to see here two phrases together and this is why it's so important that you bring your Bibles and open them. I want you to see these phrases. You'll notice it says in verse two, the evening meal was being served and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. So you've got the work of the devil going on. Later on, the devil actually enters into Judas that he might do the ghastly deed of betraying Christ. So you've got that going on, but notice that that statement stands directly in relationship to this one. Verse three, Jesus knew that the father had put all things under his power.

Do you have a problem with seeing those two statements together? Here's the devil who put this into the heart of Judas, but here is Jesus who knows that the father had given him everything under his own power. He simply could have squashed the devil. He could have squashed Judas.

Let me read the words of Don Carson. With such power, we might expect him to defeat the devil in an immediate and flashy confrontation and to devastate Judas with an unstoppable blast of divine wrath. Christ could have spoken the word and the devil would have been put away and Judas would have been incinerated and gone. What does Christ do instead? He takes this basin and he begins to wash the disciples feet and he washes the feet of the traitor. Why did not Jesus call those 10,000 angels? Why does Jesus not exert that awesome power that he has, all things under his feet, including the devil?

It is because in this instance and in others as well, if I had time to explain I would, in this instance it was because there was a different agenda going on. He said in the book of Luke as the people came to catch him and capture him in the Garden of Gethsemane, he said this time this hour of darkness is yours. Right now you win.

Win permanently? Of course not. These are but stepping stones to greater victories and to greater glories and Jesus, his mission you see, was not that he might be able to be exempted from the cross. His mission was that he might come to die and Judas and the devil was a part of that plan. It was a part of the purposes of God. You'll notice it says in verse one, what a lovely statement at the end of the verse, having loved his own who were in the world he showed them the full extent of his love and the full extent of his love involved the cross.

Like the person said I asked the Lord Jesus Christ how much do you love me and he stretched out his arms and died. Now I want you to notice that Jesus then knew his mission. It was to demonstrate the love of God and that was to go to the cross to demonstrate the love of God. It was also to glorify the father and what he was saying in the previous text even in the previous chapter is now is the son of man glorified.

Why? Because God was going to get glory because Jesus died. Your responsibility and mine by the way is parallel.

It's the same thing. Why do we exist? It is to give glory to God. Later on as we study this marvelous passage of scripture we'll come to the 15th chapter where Jesus said herein is my father glorified that you bear much fruit so shall you be my disciples. How do we glorify God by being fruit bearing Christians? And he says ask and you shall receive that the father may be glorified. When Peter was about to argue with Jesus about John in the 21st chapter of the Gospel of John you'll recall that Jesus said Peter the time is coming when you're going to go places that you don't want to go because others are going to take you and carry you where you don't want to go.

And then the text says this he said signifying the death by which Peter would glorify God and it is said as you know in tradition I don't know that we can prove it that Peter was crucified upside down because he did not think he was worthy to be crucified in the same manner as his Savior. Do you understand what God is doing in our lives? He's clearly not committed to our happiness in the sense of giving us all the happiness we possibly can.

He's clearly not committed to simply taking away all the detours and all the roadblocks that we find in life and giving us health and wealth and all of the other things. We heard today these missionary reports about people living in great poverty and obviously we should be helping them in their need but God isn't in heaven just simply saying now I wonder how I can make my creation happy or I wonder how I can make the church happy happy happy. Listen carefully Jesus changed the world but he did not change it by his miracles.

He changed it by his suffering and it is in suffering that we glorify God and Jesus knew that that was his mission and washing the disciples feet was a part of the divine program. Well my friend we don't like that word suffering do we? It's a word that we try to avoid in every possible way that we can and sometimes we suffer because of health issues we suffer because of financial issues relationship issues all kinds of suffering. In the upper room discourse Jesus Christ predicted that there would be suffering that would be endured for his name's sake. I've written a book entitled The Church in Babylon. I wrote this book to try to help us understand the culture and the way in which we should suffer in the midst of it for the cause of Christ. It deals with all kinds of issues. I'm just looking at a chapter now entitled Five False Gospels Within the Evangelical Church. There are compromises that are being made. I'm looking at another chapter on transgenderism another chapter by the way on Islam immigration and the church. I believe that all of these issues are ones that we should be involved in and if there is suffering for the name of Jesus Christ we have to learn to endure that and to endure it well.

We have to consider it as a badge of honor. For a gift of any amount this book can be yours. It's entitled The Church in Babylon.

It's actually much of it is based on the book of Jeremiah but it goes much more beyond that to various issues that are the ones that we confront in contemporary culture. Here's what you can do go to rtwoffer.com that's rtwoffer.com and I'll be giving you that info again or if you prefer you can call us at 1-888-218-9337. Thanks in advance for helping us. We want to encourage you on the way to the heavenly city so that you make it all the way to the finish line. Go to rtwoffer.com or call us right now at 1-888-218-9337.

Thanks in advance for helping us because we're making a difference. You can write to us at running to win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard Chicago Illinois 60614. Jesus turned the world on its head when he stooped to wash the disciples feet. Superiors don't serve inferiors do they?

In the kingdom of God they do. Next time on Running to Win more on doing what he did and that is to practice servant leadership. Running to Win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race of life. For Dr. Erwin Lutzer this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.