Jarek Berga - Washed & Sent

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Almighty God, you welcome you. [00:00:06] Speaker B: Hey there. If you're new to Restored Church, we want to welcome you and thank you for tuning in. You're listening to a portion of our Sunday worship gathering. We believe the church is not an event, but a family you belong to, so we would love the opportunity to connect with you. If you want to learn more about our church or if we can help you in any way, please Visit our website, www.restoredtemecula.church and click on Contact. With all that said, we, we hope you enjoy the message. [00:00:35] Speaker A: Excited to share a piece of scripture this morning with you guys and some things that have been just kind of stirring on my heart as I've reflected on it, as I've studied it, as I've chewed on it this week. It's a piece of scripture that's going to be pretty familiar to a lot of you. It may be new to some or maybe just something that you've read once or twice, but it is packed with meaning. And so I'm going to start just by asking you to pray with me that God would really open up our hearts, our minds to what he wants to say to us this morning. Because there is gold here. So join me, would you? Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for your kindness. Thank you, thank you for your goodness. Thank you for your mercy that you've poured out so richly on us. God, thank you that we as people are very ordinary in many ways. We live life, we make decisions, we live with our decisions, sometimes some better, some not so good. And. Even though our lives are ordinary, made up of a series, usually of very ordinary events, God, you have dignified us with extraordinary worth and value and dignity that expresses itself in everyday life. And I pray that this morning that you would give us a new way to see the everyday, a new way to see the routine, a new way to see how you meet us in the mundane. God, we love you. We're grateful to you. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen. Just a few months ago, I was in New York City. It's my favorite city. One interesting thing though was that I'd been gotten a chance to go to New York just over the course of my life several times. I lived in Puerto Rico when I was younger. I had family in New Jersey and so we would fly over to see them pretty regularly. And I loved being in the city. It was like my happy place. And interestingly, one thing I had never done was really be in the city after it had snowed a lot and if you've ever been in the city after it snows a lot, do you know what the city's like? Filthy. Filthy. And it's like mounds of snow that are taller than I am. Of all colors, yellow. Don't touch. Don't eat the yellow snow. But also blue. Like Windex, I'm assuming. I don't know how I wound up on the street and then lodged in every corner. Just dog poop everywhere you go. And it's like. Oh, it's like the same. No matter where you are in the city, it's like the same corner. It's the same story played out over and over again. And so I just want you to imagine what it's like when you're in the city walking over all this stuff, and then you step into an apartment. And as you probably know, cities in the apartment are hilariously expensive. It's what it is. It's just. It's life in the city. And you show up with your boots, your snow boots that are covered in Windex and dog poop. What are you likely to do when you show up? Let's say you're meeting someone there. What are you gonna do with those boots? [00:04:07] Speaker B: Why? [00:04:09] Speaker A: Because they're disgusting. Right. You don't want to attract that filth into the house. Is that fair? Are we in agreement on that? Okay, cool. I think that's a fairly normal human experience. We don't want to track filth into our house or other people's houses. Especially now. I want you to imagine for just a second that you are at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. How many of you guys have been there before? Most of the room. There's an area there that's called the petting zoo. As the name implies, you pet animals there. It's never been my favorite thing to do. And here's why. What do animals do? They defecate everywhere. Duty. If you're not familiar with what defecate means, it means you poop. And so I want you to imagine for a second that you are there in the petting zoo and you're wearing sandals. That's all you got? Yes. Some of you get where I'm going with this. I just want you to imagine that you don't have a choice. You just have to wear sandals. And there's goats. And goats, like all other animals. And like us, they poop. And so if you imagine if you're walking on dust for a long time, I want you to imagine it's really hot out. Like right now. It's like I keep getting the, I keep wondering, when is this heat alert advisory going to go away? They just extend it seemingly forever. Right now, even though it rained this morning, it's still going to be 100 degrees today. Doesn't make sense. But imagine that you're walking. What do you think is going to get on your feet if you're walking outside for hours and it's hot out? Dirt. And I want you to imagine that you're walking through the petting zoo. What are you going to get on? If you're wearing sandals? Yes. So you've got it now. You've got your feet completely caked in dust and dirt and it's like a surprise on your feet. And I want you to imagine that you are showing up at the most important event of your life and you're walking in and that is the condition that you're in. Keep that in mind. We're going to read John chapter 13. You've got a Bible, Grab your Bible. Turn over with me to John, chapter 13. In this life. As we go through life, we end up picking up a lot, don't we? We find ourselves in situations that we would never expect and we are affected by them. We're affected by people's choices, we're affected by our own choices and they tend to have an impact on us. And so what we're going to see here is how Jesus in the most incredible way deals with those things that cling to us that we would much rather not look at in our lives. The dirt and dust that gets caked onto our feet. And more as he deals with the disciples at the Passover festival. So turn over with me John 13. If you're not there, the verses will be up on the screen. We're going to start with verse number one, John 13. It says this is out of the Gospel of John, one of the biographies of the life of Jesus. It says before the Passover festival, Jesus knew. So this is Jesus had already been doing ministry. He had already been doing signs and wonders. He was already famous in the area that he lived in. And it says that he knew that his hour had come to depart from this world to the Father. Which just as a side note, how many people actually know when their hour is coming? Very, very few people actually know. We can have a sense of that if we're kind of at the end of life, if we've been battling long term illness or disease. But Jesus was a perfectly healthy 33 year old. He was probably ripped, actually. I don't know if you thought about this, worked with his hands out in the sun. Dude was probably yoked. Okay, yes, true. He's healthy, he's totally healthy. And yet he's going to die, which is a weird thing. I would say that he knows he's going to die. And it also says that he was going to depart this world to go to the Father, so he knew where he was going. It says having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. Verse 2. Now when it was time for supper and they were celebrating the Passover, they were getting ready to celebrate the Passover. And the Passover, if you're not familiar with it, is this great national celebration of God's deliverance of the people of Israel from the hands of the Egyptian oppressors. They were enslaved and God saved them. So they celebrate this every year. Then it was time for the supper. So this is the backdrop. It says the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas, Simon Iscariot's son, to betray him. So there's trouble brewing. Verse 3. Jesus knew that the Father had given everything into his hands, that he had come from God and he was going back to God. So he got up from supper, laid aside his outer clothing, took a towel and tied it around himself. Now this makes very little sense to us. On first, if you're familiar with the passage, I want you to imagine what it was like when you maybe first read this and didn't have this explained to you. This is pretty weird. Why would Jesus basically get down into like kind of bare minimum clothes, tie a towel around his waist. It says in verse five he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples feet and to dry them with the towel tied around him. So we just as I talked about when I opened these guys, if you can imagine living in the ancient world, in the ancient desert, you walk around with sandals, your feet are going to be filthy and absolutely disgusting. And so there was this kind of normal, very ordinary task that happened every day which was that someone washed either your feet. Typically it was done by a household servant. It was always done by the lowest. So if you had like a hierarchy of servants, this wouldn't go to the servants that are doing more like table service, this would go to the bottom servant, the slave effectively would wash people's feet. And if you didn't have a slave to do that or servants to do that, you would be given a basin and you would do it yourself. So clear something's happening here. It appears that they're in this house and there is no servant to wash people's feet. And so this question kind of arose of, like, what are we going to do? It probably was like an awkward silence of like, have you ever been in a scenario where it's very clear that something has to be done but nobody wants to do it? You know that feeling where everybody kind of. It's pretty awkward. It's weird. This is what you have seemingly here is you have this kind of moment of like, what are we going to do? And so Jesus takes it upon himself to actually take on the position of the lowest of the slave effectively and begins to wash the crud and the mud and the filth off of the feet of the disciples. Verse 6. He came to Simon Peter, who asked him, lord, are you going to wash my feet? So he had been. Clearly, Simon wasn't the first one. And so when he got around to Simon Peter, yes, I'm like, kind of like, what are you. Are you going to do this? Are we really doing this? Why do you think he might have said that? He was embarrassed. Yeah, I think he might have been embarrassed. In this culture, your teacher didn't do this for you. This was something that you did for yourself or somebody else did it for you. The fact that their teacher, their Lord, their rabbi was doing this really hit on something. And part of me thinks, and I've seen scholars that have said this, and I think it makes sense to me that he was probably fighting for Jesus honor, sort of like, this is beneath you. Why are you doing this? You're our dignified leader. Why would you take the position of a slave and do something that is beneath you? And Jesus answered him, what I'm doing, you don't realize now, but afterward you will understand. So Jesus basically tells him, like, hey, I know you don't get this. Give it time. Be patient. You're gonna get it. Peter, though, kind of impulsively, like, you're never gonna wash my feet. No. Like, this is not gonna happen. I'm not gonna let you do this. I don't know if you ever have these moments where you speak kind of like you don't really think about what you're saying. It happens to me semi regularly, and then afterwards, I always regret it. Peter seemed to have that deep within his makeup of just saying stuff. And the gospel writers tends to just capture what Peter said, oftentimes without thinking, like that one time that he's like, hey, here's Jesus and here's Moses and Elijah. Like, why don't we make tents for these Guys so that they can live here on top of the mountain. And then God was like, peter, shut up. He didn't literally say that, but effectively he's like, just listen to Jesus and stop talking. Right? So Peter just says stuff, blurts stuff out, but I think it's coming from a genuine shock and horror at what's happening in front of him. Jesus is doing something that he thinks is beneath him, Peter thinks is beneath him. And Peter says, you'll never wash my feet. And then Jesus replies, without missing a beat, if I don't wash you, you have no part with me. It's like, whoa, wait a minute. What are we talking about here? We just went from, like, dinner to relationship. How did that just escalate? How do we go from like a 2 to a 10? I think this would have been, like, sort of, you know, shocking. So what does this tell us about what's happening here? Is this just about foot Washington? This is about so much more. This goes so much deeper than hospitality, than an act of service. What Jesus is actually laying out is the conditions of being in right relationship with him. And so then Peter swings like a pendulum, like, back and forth. He's like, well, then you've got to wash my hands. You have to wash. What does it say? He says, not only my feet, but my hands and my head. So he's like, get all of me. Get out of me, Lord. It's like. And then Jesus has to like, hey, Peter, just shh. Just relax, man. The one who is bathed, Jesus told him, doesn't need to wash anything except his feet, but he is completely clean. You are clean, but not all of you. Oh, my gosh. There's so much going on here. I don't know if you guys ever watched soap operas back in the day. I didn't. I did. And this is one of those. I watched, like, the equivalent for teens, the voc. And this is one of those, like, dun, dun, dun. Kind of moments of like, whoa. Everybody pauses and kind of looks around. What is he talking about? Okay, I should give a little bit of context. There's so much that we miss as kind of 21st century Westerners. When people showed up for this Passover festival, they would have been clean. They didn't have, like, water coming through pipes into their houses. So getting a shower in was like. It wasn't something that they did every day, like you and I might take for granted. So they were actually bathed. They were actually, as it were, they had. They had cleaned up as part of the kind of the ritual to prepare for the Passover. So that's why I think Jesus on the storyline level is saying like, hey, you're already bathed, man. You don't need to wash except your feet, but you're completely clean. You are clean, but not all of you. Okay, so I think there's a deep kind of mixing of metaphors that's happening here because Jesus, I think what he's saying is there is a kind of outward washing and an inward cleansing, and they're not the same. So Peter and the disciples are technically bathed, which again, wasn't an all the time kind of thing for them. But then he says if you wash, everything is. You don't need to wash except the feet. But he is completely clean. You are clean, but not all of you. So there was an outward washing that was taking place, but an inward cleansing that needed to happen too. And it says in verse 11. For he Jesus knew who was going to betray him. This is why he said, not all of you are clean. So the reach of Jesus is extended to all of the disciples. He was willing to cleanse them all, as it were, wash their feet, but on the inside, not everybody received actually required receiving a deeper inner cleansing. That's what he was talking about. How do I know that? Well, they were all bathed, and as Jesus finished washing their feet, they were all clean, right on the outside, but on the inside that wasn't so. And then he goes on to explain the meaning of what he just did. Verse 12, When Jesus had washed their feet and put his outer clothing on, he reclined again and said to them, do you know what I have done for you? You call me teacher and Lord and you are speaking rightly, since that is what I am. So if I, your teacher and your Lord have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should also do just as I have done for you. Truly, I tell you, a servant is not greater than his master and a messenger is not greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. That's our passage for this morning. So just to recap, foot washing was very ordinary. It was necessary. One scholar, he kind of likened it to brushing your teeth as like just everyday kind of thing. But I think it's one thing to brush your teeth and then I think it's another thing to like clean up a sink after 10 people have brushed their teeth and they've left toothpaste and all that in the sink. Those are two different things, right? It's ordinary stuff, but it can be pretty gross in many ways. And so Jesus, that's basically what he steps into. He steps into this kind of gross situation. His disciples feet are filthy and he actually got down. There wasn't a servant around to do this. And so he did the job that the lowest, the person with the lowest status would normally do. And I think it's important to note this is the job that nobody wanted. This is the job that absolutely no one wanted. And then Peter Lord, are you going to wash my feet? And Jesus says, unless I wash you, you have no share with me. And those words really do tell us that this was about way more than dirty feet. Have you ever done something that you wish you could wash right off of your life? Have you ever said something that you just can't take back? Have you ever made a choice that you could not unmake? Right? You might apologize, you may try even to repair the damage, and that's a good thing, but you can't make it unhappen. What do you do with guilt that no amount of effort can cleanse? And here's my first point. Point number one, you must let Jesus wash you. You must let Jesus wash you. Notice something that Jesus doesn't tell Peter, clean yourself up. He actually says to him, unless I wash you. It's pretty remarkable. So Jesus is telling Peter like, you have to receive what you can't do for yourself. And this was in the hour that Jesus had been talking about. If you read John, he had been. The whole thing was building up to this hour. His hour had come, the hour when the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords was going to be enthroned. If you like, I want you to imagine what you, if you were to go to the house of someone prominent, of someone with a lot of power, a head of state, let's say. What would you imagine that would be like if you were able to sit down with them? Would you ever imagine a head of state pausing what he's doing to like unclog a toilet? I'd be like, wait a minute, just a second, we got somebody else for that. Can we just focus here? And what if the head of state was insistent that this is something I must do? It would be so weird. Don't you think that would be awkward and strange and bizarre? I think so. But it seems like this was what Jesus had in front of him. And this is what he used to show disciples, something that they had to learn. Peter himself had to learn this earlier in the story, if you know the story of Peter. Peter tells Jesus, I would I promise to die for you. I'm willing to die for you, Jesus. And Jesus is like, let me cleanse you, Let me wash you, let me serve you. Sometimes it's easier to promise to do big things for Jesus than to just stop and let Jesus do what he wants to do in our lives, isn't it? Peter thinks that discipleship begins with what he can do for Jesus. But really it begins by receiving what only Jesus can do for you and for me. I've got a quote from a scholar, his name is Michael Eaton. And he says, as he was reflecting on this passage, he says, grace has to be received. You have to allow Jesus to serve us. We have to allow Jesus to serve us. Grace is humbling. Grace is humbling. We have to admit that we are dirty. We have to admit that we can't wash ourselves clean. When Jesus cleanses us, it does not mean that we're never going to struggle or fail again. Peter is actually clean legitimately on the outside and on the inside. And do you know what he does soon after this? He denies three times that he even knows Jesus. Three times in the hour that Jesus needed him most. Peter was nowhere to be found, as it were. Or he was to be found denying Jesus. Peter's clean and yet he's going to deny Jesus soon. What does that teach us? That our belonging to Jesus rests on his work in our lives, on his cleansing, not on our flawless performance. What we need to do is bring our failures to Jesus rather than hiding them from him. Before Peter can even wash anybody else's feet, he has to let Jesus wash his. And there's a lot of people in this room that had been following Jesus for a long time, for years. Some of you started following Jesus here with us. Some of you have come already followers of Jesus. But here's a key thing, that no matter how long you've been following Jesus for, I think you have to understand Jesus before we can do anything for him. He has to do something in us before the command comes to do something. There is a gift to receive before we serve. He has to give us his grace. And if we get those flipped around, we're going to be in trouble. And here's the reality. This is a loving, hard working group of men and women and young people that we have in this community we serve. I think I'm blown away by the way that this community serves. I mean, every Sunday we're not a big Church. And it takes a lot to actually put this on. And we felt it last week because there was a lot of people gone, and some of you were doing double or triple shifts, which, by the way, amazing that we have that. But it's just a testament to, like, how much people in this community serve that. Sunday after Sunday, here we are. We meet at a school that we don't have, a property that we own. This doesn't belong to us. We rent this. This community works hard. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that and just to say, like, how proud we are of every single one of you for the ways that you serve Jesus and the church. But here's what can happen in that kind of environment. There can be a little bit of a slide that can take place where we would rather serve Jesus than let Jesus serve us. Because serving can make us feel useful sometimes, right? But being washed means that we have to admit that we are needy. And sometimes we don't feel that useful. Sometimes we just feel like needy messes. And Jesus, in this passage, makes that totally okay. It's totally okay to come in needy. So I just want to ask the question, like, is there any way in your life in which you're trying to make yourself clean enough for Jesus [00:26:03] Speaker B: or [00:26:03] Speaker A: letting Jesus do for you what you cannot do for yourself? What would be more true of you, maybe today? Because the truth is, Jesus wants to serve you. I mentioned the OC Earlier. How many of you guys watch that TV show Millennials? I'm speaking to you primarily. That's three of us. Okay, cool. 4. So I grew up in Puerto Rico until I was in the third grade. Then I moved to south Orange County. Culture shock. Culture shock. I'm still, as an adult, coming to a greater awareness of just how shocked I was when I got here and how much I tried to compensate for that in my life. I think I'm still unlearning and undoing some of that. If you don't know Orange county pretty nice. And it's not a monolith. I get that Orange County's not one. It's many communities. But I feel like we got in just on time because Orange county blew up. If you are my. If you're around 40 or older, you might remember that in the early 2000s, Orange county was, like, on the map. There was TV shows about Orange county, the hills, Laguna beach, but there was none quite like the OC I was a senior in high school, and I. You know, I grew up amongst bros. I probably was one to Some degree, or at least I was on the side making fun of the bros that I secretly wanted to be like. Either way, that was my culture. That's what I grew up in. Puka shells. You know, sleeping until noon for everything except surfing, that kind of thing. I was into that. Not exactly. Doesn't matter. I was there, guys. I was there. And so this TV show called EOC came around. And if you never watched it, don't. I cannot in good conscience recommend that you sit down and watch this TV show, except maybe for the first three episodes. There's stuff in those first three episodes that I cannot in good conscience sign off on. But there is something there that's really remarkable. The show is about this kid from Chino, which is not Orange County, I don't think. I think Chino is Louisiana County. Chino is its own thing. Chino doesn't have a county. Apparently he was from Chino. And he was really portrayed as kind of just trouble as this kid. And he got in trouble. His brother stole a car. He was there at the scene. He got taken to juvie, and his life was really kind of going nowhere. His family was falling apart. Dad's in prison. Mom can barely take care of herself. Her brother's going to. His brother's going to jail for a long time. And here he is, he's a minor, so he's. He's looking at juvie. And he gets assigned a public defender named Sandy Cohen, everybody's favorite TV dad, if you watch the show. And he comes in and he's an attorney, okay, so Sandy Cohen comes in, he is a lawyer, and he's a public defender. And so he takes up Ryan's case. And what ends up happening is Sandy, the attorney, he lives in Newport Beach. His wife makes all the money. He's a public defender. He doesn't defend her. He doesn't make much, but his wife builds McMansions. It's a great story. It's classic drama. It's a soap opera, effectively. And so, anyway, Ryan is in trouble with the law. Sandy is like, I can get you kind of in a better space legally, but you're going to have to. Your life's going to have to change, otherwise you're going to end up in trouble. And so Sandy gets kind of a glimpse of Ryan's life, and he realizes this is not going to be good. And his mom shows up, the son's mom, the boys. Ryan Atwood's mom shows up, and she looks like she's intoxicated, and he's Like, I can't. I can't stand by and do nothing. And so they end up taking Ryan into their home. The kid from Chino, kind of fish out of water. Story goes into the mansion in Newport Beach. What do you think the Newport beach community thinks when they bring in this kid? They don't love it. Why? Why are you bringing this into our community? Why are you bringing this into our community? This kid is trouble. This kid is trouble. And of course he was. Besides the stealing of the car, he burns down a house and knocks out the captain of the water polo team within a short. You know, I can't believe I'm getting into this much detail about the oc. There is a point to this. There's a point to this. So they're struggling with this decision, like, what do we do with this kid? He has so many problems. And we know that if we don't do something as a family, this kid's going to end up in the system, he's going to end up right back in juvie. Or worse, he's going to end up being a statistic. And so over the course of time, they decide that they want to. Mom can't take care of them. So they're like, we want you to become a part of our family. We want you here. And there's this really cool scene where he says, like, wait, but what happens if I fail? What happens if you change your minds? Because he knows his past, he knows his tendencies. He understands what he's actually like. He understands that what's inside of him isn't going to quickly and immediately and instantly be worked out. It's going to take time. And the parents have just the most baller response in my opinion of early 2000s teen drama. Dad just says, like, what do you mean? Like stealing a car, burning down a house, which he did in the earlier episode, or beating up the captain of the water polo team. Those ships have sailed. Like, we want you. We want you. They already knew the worst things about him and they still want him. And I think this is part of what is happening on a spiritual level in this story. Peter says, like, you're never gonna wash my feet. Ryan Atwood's response was like, I can't let you do that. I can't let you take legal responsibility for me. Both struggle to let someone else take responsibility for a mess that they can't clean up themselves. Grace is really difficult to receive because it places you into the hands of someone who already knows the worst about you but still wants you. Jesus, knows more about Peter than the Cohens knew about Ryan. Jesus knew that Peter was going to deny him. And he still takes Peter's feet into his hands and washes them. Isn't that remarkable? This is Jesus. So just know, man, whatever you've done, whatever's happened in your life, I also know that there's things that have been done to people in this room that have left you feeling defiled, maybe unclean. It's not just the stuff that we've done, but maybe the things that you've. That have happened to you, or maybe the things that you've been a part of. Just know. Jesus already knows. And he's basically saying, like, let me wash you. But it requires humbling yourself and letting Jesus do what only he can do. Why does he do this? Why does Jesus do this? The dirty snow that I started with, I want you to imagine, you know, coming into someone's house with the dirty snow covering your boots, right? You have to take those off. You have to take those off. But in the ancient world, they didn't wear boots, they wore sandals. You can't take your feet off. You're entering into a house filthy. And in the next chapter of John, which we're not going to get into today, but just I can fast forward with you guys there. Jesus actually tells his disciples something extraordinary. He says, I'm preparing a place in my Father's house for you. If you've read this passage before, oftentimes with 21st century Western eyes, we think that Jesus is preparing a mansion for us on the hill, which is pretty baller. Which basically is like, I want to live in Newport, but I can't afford it now, but I will in the afterlife. I don't think that's what Jesus had in mind exactly. The father's house, if you think about it from the perspective of a first century Jewish person, it was the household. And there's a head of the household that becomes responsible for everybody in that household. That's why there's so much conversation, if you read the Bible about inheritance, who's gonna inherit? Who's gonna inherit? That's because somebody was the head of the household who had to take care of everybody else. So that inheritance was absolutely key. But Jesus is saying to his disciples, guys, I'm preparing a place for you in the father's household. The father's the head of this household, but I am preparing a place for you in it. I'm getting you cleaned up so that you can be a part of this. I'm washing you, you can't enter the Father's house still covered in the dirt of the old world. But we can't wash ourselves either. The way in is that Jesus washes us. Jesus washes us so he can cleanse us and bring us home. And it is so personal. It actually says in the passage that the Father has handed everything into. He has put everything into Jesus hands. And what does Jesus literally take into his hands? The mess. He doesn't just enter into the mess, he holds it himself. It's remarkable. And so, second point I want to make this morning, if you're a note taker, is that Jesus himself washes every disciple. Jesus himself washes every disciple. He doesn't love humanity from a safe distance. He moves around the table one disciple at a time. Peter, who was going to deny him? Judas, who was going to betray him? Jesus. We have no reason to think that he didn't wash them both. Every disciple's feet, they're washed, but not everybody is clean. And this is the real tragedy of the story. Judas feet are washed, but his heart remains closed. Which tells us something pretty dramatic is happening here. This is soap opera level stuff that you can sit at Jesus table, you can hear his words and receive his kindness, and you can still refuse him. You can still refuse him. And he's willing to serve people that are going to refuse him. I don't know about you, but if I was on my. This was like my last night alive, what would you want? Pretty sure I know what I would want. Definitely involves steak of some kind. It's going to involve some kind of choice meat. It's going to involve the best drink. It's going to involve people that I love, people, people that I enjoy. I'm not inviting the haters, for lack of a better term. Hope you guys know what I'm saying. How many of you would genuinely, Genuinely. I don't think any of us would. Right. Nobody's gonna willingly spend the last day of their life with someone that's hurt them or that's causing them pain or that they know is going to do something terrible to them. But Jesus, he didn't come to the person, he didn't come to the person that Judas was pretending to be. He came personally to Judas as he actually was and washed him. But Judas chose to walk away. It's extraordinary. I don't know that I can properly. I can't do the story justice. Just know this, that there are plot twists in the story. And so if your story of discipleship involves plot twists with People, you're in good company because it does with Jesus, too. It does with Jesus, too. Now, there are all different kinds of plot twists in the story. There's certainly Judas, but it wasn't a surprise to Jesus. It was a surprise to everybody else, which, in and of itself, if you slow down and really think about that, that means that Judas was, like, walking and talking and doing all the same stuff as everybody else. There was no. Like, we have no indication that as soon as Jesus said that, they're like, I knew it. Judas. Nobody did that. He's like, is it me? In another one of these accounts of this, is it me? You know, like, who is it? They had to literally ask Jesus, who are you talking about? We can't discern the difference between this person and that person. So, again, if there are plot twists in your story of discipleship, you're in good company because it happened to the disciples who were personally apprenticed to Jesus. It happens. But there are other kinds of plot twists. Sometimes they go the other way. In my own story, when I was in high school, I went on a retreat that was really. I didn't realize how impactful it was then. I've been sort of unpacking just over the years, and it's something that I keep going back to. It seemed like just like an ordinary high school retreat. A lot of you have been on these before. Maybe you haven't, but it involved going up to a mountain. It involved being together with peers, and it also involved. There were adults who came and told their stories to us, and there were testimonies of people's journey of discipleship to King Jesus. And it was actually so rad that I got to do this because I wasn't a Christian. I wasn't a follower of Jesus at all at this time. But there were some important things that started to happen in my own heart when I went on this retreat. And here's the one that has stood out to me as I've been thinking about things this week, was that we heard personal stories from people. And in those personal stories, I discovered that Jesus was personally involved in people's lives. And that was something that was new to me. When I was growing up, I was involved in church stuff, but Jesus was never personal. It was never personal. It was something I did. So I showed up, you know, kind of did what I was supposed to do, and then I left and then carried on with my life. And that's all I knew was that this is something that you do for an hour to a week. And you, that's what it is. You do it to please mom and dad. You do it because it's the right thing to do or whatever. But these were people who actually went through really hard things. And Jesus, it's like rather than Jesus getting fuzzy, their view of Jesus getting fuzzy, he got clearer. And so they told their stories of Jesus. And it hit me like, dude, what if Jesus isn't only real, but what if he's personally involved in people's lives? Fast forward a few months. I'm in college, I'm a freshman, and I met these Christians. And I've said this before, but I'll share it again. I met these Christians who lived their lives as though Jesus was real and personally involved in people's lives. They set up a Bible study on my freshman floor. And There were about 15 to 20 kids from all different backgrounds. We had kids that were Muslim, we had kids that were Jewish, we had kids that were agnostic, we had kids that were atheist. We had kids from all over the world. At my university, we had kids from the Middle east, we had kids from all over the place. And we got together around a table and we opened up the Bible and we talked about Jesus. Absolutely extraordinary. It was messy. You can imagine something like that. It was really messy, but it was extraordinary. And that was the beginning for me of a five year journey that was full of starts, stops, really poor choices. And ultimately I walked away from Jesus because I couldn't handle what following him meant for me. I think I had a really strong sense of what following Jesus would cost me. Although sometimes I think it was over. I overestimated what it would cost me to follow Jesus in the sense that I didn't realize that once you get Jesus, you get Jesus. And so I was way more afraid of what I was going to lose if I followed Jesus. And then I'll never forget the day when, when I was driving through Point Loma and I had this question that changed my life, which was because I had walked away from Jesus, I had this nagging sense of I'm doomed. Where do you go from Jesus? If you're in and around people that know Jesus, that are calling you to follow him, and you walk away, there is nowhere to go. This is the guy, this is the king, this is the person who has the words of life. And I asked myself this question, like, would Jesus ever take me back? It was just a question. And over the course of the next several months, I was in torment because I really believed that Jesus couldn't take me back. But then one day that guilt and that shame kind of peeled back. It was like a storm that had blown through. And I don't know if you've ever been in a really gnarly storm, but eventually the, the clouds will part and the sun starts to shine. And I had one of those kind of moments where the guilt and the shame, it gave way to grace. And I knew for the first time in my life that Jesus, what he did on the cross was a mess because he identified with mine. I had watched the Passion of the Christ. If you've never seen it, it's rated R for a reason. It's so brutal. And they were criticized for the way they made the movie. It was almost a glorifying violence. I don't think it was. I think it was just trying to show this is what it was like, this is what it cost him. And by the way, that can be such a shaming thing. Like look at what it cost him. Right? But for me, it wasn't that. The way I experienced it was look at what he was willing to do. Look at how he was willing to identify with my mess. He was willing to identify with me. He was willing to serve me. See, because the foot washing was never just about washing feet. It was about a spiritual cleansing. And my life changed when I realized Jesus washed what I couldn't and he washed it away. And he didn't hold my failures over my head. And what I experienced in that moment was Jesus personally washing me. It was like my story. Now I had a story to tell, which is pretty cool if you think about it. I was not a Christian when I was hearing these people share their stories about how Jesus impacted them. And here I am doing that now. It was like what Jesus did through them, in them, he wanted to do through them. And I was the beneficiary of that because they were faithful. It was personal, but they were embodying something. That's my third and final point for this message, which is that Jesus calls us to wash one another's feet. Jesus calls us to wash one another's feet. Okay, the host did not normally wash his guests feet. A teacher didn't wash his students feet. A master of the house did not wash his servants feet. The highest person in the room in this case took the lowest place in the room. Took the lowest place in the room. And then he says, what I've done for you, do for others. Not as a ceremony. Although there's nothing wrong with foot washing ceremonies. It's more the pattern of life. It's the pattern of life that says I'm going to move towards another person's mess. It's the pattern of life that says I'm willing to cross social boundaries. It's the pattern of life that says I'm willing to do work that is unnoticed. I'm willing to do work that is low status because there's no person beneath our love and no loving task that's beneath our dignity. What does it look like to wash feet today? It may look like sitting with that person that no one wants to sit with. It may look like taking on the task that no one notices. It may be having the conversation that everybody avoids. Or it might look like. And this is something that really challenges me. I've heard this. I was listening to someone unpack some of Jesus parables. And he said, Jesus was interruptible. Who here likes being interrupted? Not me. I hate it. If anything, I'm like, shh. Like, I try to cut interruptions off. Jesus was interruptible. What if washing someone's feet today looks like being interruptible with your plans? What if it looks like noticing someone that's otherwise unnoticed? I remember I lived in Minnesota, Orange County, Puerto Rico. Orange County. I spent a year in Minnesota. Kind of the forgotten year, fifth grade. It's not really forgotten. It's just random. It's so random. Why did I move to Minnesota? Five Puerto Ricans in Minnesota for four seasons. It is exactly what you think it was. It was such a weird fit. But we were there in Minnesota. If you're a Puerto Rican who moved from California to Minnesota, you are an outside. You are a fish out of water. However, I found people to be really warm and actually very welcoming, and they included me in events. I got invited to people's houses. People in my neighborhood invited me during the summer to do stuff outside and play. It was actually pretty great in a lot of ways for me. And I felt great about that because I'm pretty introverted by nature. And so to find social connection works. It's awesome. And so my mom, though, was very involved in our classroom. She liked to volunteer in the classroom a lot, which means that mom can see what's happening in the classroom, which. That in and of itself is a fascinating. Can lead to fascinating things. If mom. If your mom is very observant and picks up on things, she's going to pick up on things in the classroom. And so there was one kid in my classroom that got picked on kind of a lot. And he. For a variety of different reasons, and he was basically within the classroom. He was in the group, but outside of it, if that makes sense. He was. He was physically there, but he was socially removed. And my mom, like, she picked up on it right away when she came to our classroom, and so she saw what was going on, and she's like, mm, mm, this is not gonna stand. And I was like, oh, mom, please. Oh, mom, please. No, not Ben. That was the boy's name. And she's like, yes, Ben. Siho. Ben. And I went through this interesting kind of golf phase when I was in fifth grade. It snowed so much, and there was so little to do during the winter that they had this dome where you could go and hit golf balls. And so that's what we did because there was nothing else to do during spring break. So I just went in and we started playing a lot of golf and got kind of into it. And she's like, you're taking Ben miniature golfing. And I was like, mom, you don't understand what happens if I take Ben miniature golfing. This. This is my life, Mom. It's my life, Mom. This is where the love for soap operas comes from, living one. And she's like, yeah, I don't care. Don't care. So we go miniature golfing. And it was as awkward and weird as you could imagine. So much so that we were putting, mind you, and he took, like, a full back swing and caught me in the face. And at that point, my pain outweighed my anger and stayed my hand from, like, taking a swing at him. It was really awkward. It was really bad in that sense. And because it's a small school, exactly what happened, what I knew was going to happen happened. Everybody found out. And so I don't remember, though, the kids, because he got made fun of. It was sort of like, I'm siding with someone. Does that make sense? Like, it's an awkward social dynamic, and I don't remember anybody's response. It's 30 years ago, I don't know. But I do remember one thing, which is that my teacher, as you can imagine, what it would be like to be a teacher in that classroom, the pain that you carry from seeing one of the kids in that classroom ostracized when she found out, she was in tears. She was in tears. And I think that's why I moved to Minnesota, to go through that experience. I think that was it on the surface, job change or whatever. But I think I needed to learn some things personally myself. My mom saw the pain and acted. And I was just thinking about how to protect my standing in the group. And she refused to let the social hierarchy of the situation decide whether this boy was worth moving towards. And, guys, I'd like to tell you that I got it right away. I didn't. I did not understand this lesson. I didn't get that love is messy and love costs something. I didn't understand that you can't be above someone and love them. You can't wash someone's feet from above. You have to kneel. I didn't get that. But my mom got it. And she, as moms can, as only moms can, she was like, this is your little enacted parable. You're gonna live this out. And here I am, I'm 41 years old, and I'm still thinking about this. I'm still working out the implications of what that was. And this boy, after that wasn't alone anymore in the class. He wasn't alone. Why does this matter? Well, I think every classroom, every workplace, every family, every church has an inside and an outside. And I think it's important to recognize love crosses the distance between them. And so I want to ask three questions as we process kind of through this message today. If you're a note taker, write these down. I think we're going to have them up on the screen. Three reflection questions for you. Do you think about what Jesus did? Did you think about what it means? Gotta ask the question, like what loving tasks, task or tasks feel beneath you? What loving task feels beneath you? Because check this out, Jesus took the lowest status and the lowest task and said, I'm not above this. And if we're to be like our master and our teacher, that means that we're not above anyone or anything. So I've got to ask, what loving task feels beneath you? What feels like an interruption that may be an invitation from God to actually serve? And you don't have to get. This isn't rocket science. Don't think too hard on this one. Whatever. The first thing that comes to mind is, is probably your assignment for this week. How about this one? Jesus was totally redefining social hierarchy in this moment. He was blowing it up. Who do you notice but hope somebody else will move toward? Remember how I told you there was this awkward silence when they show up? It was an invitation to move towards a need. And none of them did. Which makes me feel a little bit better about myself. My Ben story. None of the disciples recognized the moment for what it was and moved towards it. Only Jesus did. But as we desire, if you're in this space, I'm assuming that you want to grow, to become more like Jesus as we desire to become like our master. Who do you notice or what do you notice but hope somebody else will move towards it? Who or what comes to mind? Maybe it's the same. Could be the same answer to both questions. And last, but certainly not least, is there anyone that you're reluctant to associate with because of what it might cost you? Is there anyone that you're reluctant to associate with with what it might cost you? Check this out. You don't have to fix someone else's life. It doesn't mean that we throw wisdom out the window. It doesn't mean that all of a sudden there are no more boundaries. That's not what I'm talking about here. What I'm talking about is simply having the desire, in light of what Jesus has done, to move toward that person that God has already placed in front of you. That's what I'm talking about. Because he sends us, he saves us, he washes us, and then he sends us to do good work. The oc. That kid Ryan that showed up, very much in need of being welcomed and accepted into a home was. He was transformed by the love and acceptance that he received in that household. So by the end, you fast forward a lot of Flyover country on that show. Toward the end of it, you get to the last episode and he's an adult. And then he sees a kid. It's the very last scene of the show. He sees a kid who looks troubled, who reminds him of himself. And he moved towards him and said, hey, kid, do you need help? At that point, the kid that someone had moved toward had become a man who moves towards someone else. That is what grace does when it is received. Jesus washes us not so that his love will end with us, but so that it'll move through us towards someone else. I invite you to stand if you're able. I'm going to call the band up. Actually, I'll call the prayer team. If you're on the prayer team, will you come up to the front as well? Guys, this passage teaches us that the dirt, it really goes deeper than our [00:59:55] Speaker B: feet [00:59:58] Speaker A: that gets into our hearts. Grace comes uncomfortably close to the point of not just looking at you or being in the same room, but holding the message with care and love. But only if we'll let him love. It really does go lower than we naturally want it to go, as it were. And so I just have a question, and is there anything in your life that Needs cleansing. Maybe it's something that you have done, or maybe it's something that has been done to you. Is there anything that needs cleansing? And it may not even be this crazy sin. For most of us, it probably won't be. But it may be an attitude, maybe a way of looking at people, maybe a way of looking out for number one. When you're in a social setting and I'm like, I'm primarily thinking about me and how I come out of this with my reputation intact or a little bit higher up in the social rankings than I was when I walked in. It could literally be like a cleansing from an attitude that just doesn't reflect what Jesus is like, which we all have. The disciples did. They didn't get this right away, [01:01:18] Speaker B: but [01:01:18] Speaker A: the beautiful part of the gospel is that Jesus is so patient with those he cleanses. Check out Peter. If you go to the end of the Gospel of John, after Peter denies Jesus three times, do you know what, how Jesus restores him? He asks him three questions so that he can communicate and convey his love. Right where we fail, he faithfully restores us. But we have to be willing to be washed. We have to be willing to allow him to touch us right where we need Him. Touch our hearts and our lives right where they are in most need. So is there anything that you're carrying that either done to you or something that has. That you've done that you need washed? Maybe it's a washing of a mindset or an attitude. Maybe it's not that. Maybe it's just a part of God's call on your life, a commissioning where God's like, he's been stirring something up in your. In you. Maybe like a relationship or a person, maybe a service that's like, I think Jesus is calling me to this, but I'm reluctant and I don't know why. Or I'm struggling, I'm grappling with this calling. Or maybe it's like, it's just messy for me. Like, I know he's calling me to follow him in these ways, but I don't even know how to take a step. Or there's these things. There's this baggage that I have that I don't know what to do with that's keeping me from moving forward. If that's you, can I just ask you to not let today pass without coming to receive prayer? Because I think he wants to meet you in this. Let me pray for us. Father, thank you for the cleansing of Jesus, for the washing, the outward washing that comes through baptism of sorts, a real baptism, but that ultimately gets down into the heart and cleanses our consciences. And every day we come back, not to experience, like, the baptism again, but to have our feet washed and cleansed because we pick up all kinds of junk in life, all kinds of attitudes that don't reflect your heart. And so my prayer, Father, is that you would reveal those things to us today and that men and women, young people, would come forward or lift their hands in praise, thanksgiving, and gratitude for what you have done, or to maybe unpack some things that need to be addressed before they can move forward, either in cleansing or in a commissioning into your service, or into a fresh commissioning into new service, or just approaching the same service that's always been there in a fresh way, with a fresh sense of who Jesus is and what he has done for each of us. God, we love you. We thank you. Jimmy, Pray. Amen. Okay? So you can come forward and receive prayer. You can lift your hands in Praise, and about 10 minutes or so, Mike will be up.