Saturday, November 28, 2020

“Making Disciples” –Part IV -Motivate – John 13:1-17

Ex-Quarterback and ESPN commentator Joe Theismann, allegedly explaining to his soon-to-be-ex second wife why he had an affair: "God wants Joe Theismann to be happy." What do you think about that? "God wants Joe Theismann to be happy." Does God want Joe to be happy? Do you think that ex-wife wants Joe to be happy?

 

Before you answer, let me read you another quote by another “fascinating” celebrity: Marla Maples. Ms. Maples is probably best known for being one of the ex-wives of Donald Trump. Now, don’t get ahead of me here. Our focus this morning is most definitely not on ex-wives (thank goodness). I just happen to have quotes that deal secondarily with that. Marla Maples was asked about her religious roots. She believed in the Bible, she told interviewers, then added the disclaimer, "but you can't always take [it] literally and be happy." C. Colson, The Body, p. 124.

 

What do you think about that? Can you take the Bible literally and be happy? Does God want you to be happy? For those of you that have kids, I think that answer is pretty easy. Do you want your kids to be happy? Of course you do. Just the same, God wants His kids to be happy as well. Now, as far as taking the Bible literally, can that make you happy?

 

Let me ask you a question. Is our happiness the goal of the Bible for our lives? If not, what is the goal of the Bible for our lives? I believe the goal of the Bible is to make us more like Jesus. From the Old Testament to the New Testament we see models for how to live our lives to ultimately become more and more like Jesus. Since that is the goal, then obviously happiness is out, right? I mean, we know that Jesus wasn’t happy. He died on a cross. He lived His life in poverty. Surely He wasn’t happy. Right? Wrong.

 

The Bible says over and over that He had great joy – even just before His death on the cross. Yet we know that joy and happiness are two different things so what did Jesus know about happiness? I’ll tell you by doing something I wouldn’t normally do. I want to read the last verse of our sermon passage this morning and I want to read it first.

 

We will read the whole thing again in just a minute so don’t worry if you can’t find John chapter 13, verses 1-17 in time. I want to read verse 17 first because to me it is fascinating. John 13:17 says, “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” Did you see that? The word “blessed “means “happy”. The King James says, “…happy are ye”. They mean the same thing. Jesus is telling His disciples – including us as His disciples – how to be happy.

 

Do you want to be happy? Sure you do. Everybody wants to be happy. So, how do you get happiness? If you listened to the TV, the happiest people are the celebrities with their big cars and fancy houses and beautiful faces. You know the ones I’m talking about. I mean the ones who commit suicide and get multiple divorces and go to rehab as often as most of us change socks. The world wants you to think those are the happy people.

 

But Jesus, like so often happens, says something just the opposite. He is concerned about your happiness and tells us the secret of it right here in John 13:1-17. Let’s read the whole thing right now. If you grab the Bible in the pew in front of you it is probably on page 763.

 

It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God;

 

Now, stop right there for a second. Stop right there and think about that last sentence. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so…

 

Now if you didn’t know the story what do you think might come next? Because what comes next; what comes after “so “will tell us a lot about the One being talked about here. If God has put all things under the power of Jesus; if He had come from God and was going back to God don’t you think the next words would be something like, “so He called out with a loud voice and the earth quaked and He called for a legion of angels to bring His royal crown! Then with just His voice He ripped the temple curtain in two and Satan Himself bowed down and worshipped Him!”? Wouldn’t you think that is how it should read? But let’s continue to see what it actually says.

 

So he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 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. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” 9 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” 10 Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean. 12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them.13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

 

I have an idea that the disciples learned more from Jesus on this day than most of the days put together. Poor Peter! He was constantly saying something or doing something wrong but can you imagine being in his place? He is sitting there watching the One he knew to be the Messiah washing the feet of the other disciples, making His way around the room and when He gets to Peter, Peter can’t bear it. Washing feet was the job of the most menial slave and here was the King of Glory making Himself low as the lowest slave.

 

The Gospel of Luke writes that just before Jesus did this that the disciples were arguing over which one of them was going to be the greatest in the Kingdom. Can you picture this? Here they are sitting around (or actually more like laying around) a table with Jesus and they are arguing about which one of them was the best. That’s like a bunch of bicycles sitting around the Ferrari dealership arguing over which of them is fastest.

 

The disciples were all about following Jesus. They were all about hanging out with Him and eating with Him and watching Him do amazing things. But they weren’t really motivated to do the hard work of discipleship. Do you remember what my definition of a disciple is? A disciple is someone who learns from Jesus and then teaches others with what they have learned.

 

These 12 men with Jesus were all about that first part. They enjoyed learning from Jesus. They just weren’t motivated to teach and encourage others with what they had learned because sometimes what we learn from Jesus is difficult. Sometimes what we learn from Jesus involves turning the other cheek. Sometimes what we learn from Jesus is that the first shall be last and the last shall be first or that we are to forgive, forgive and then forgive again. Sometimes He teaches us to give all we have and sometimes He teaches us to just be still.

 

Learning from Jesus can be fun. I love to go to Sunday evening service or Thursday evening Bible study and learn through others more about Jesus. I love to just be around my church family. Being at church is fun. We learn. We share our lives. We support each other. We make fun of each other. We jab each other with spoons while playing games after church. It’s fun and we do that because we love each other and our one common denominator is our love for Jesus.

 

The difficult part is having the motivation to teach others with what we have learned because teaching is not just the transfer of facts from one brain to another. It often means doing just what Jesus did through sacrificial love. That is how Jesus motivated His disciples. He showed them sacrificial love.

 

Most of you have no idea how much time and effort Morris spends up here every week. Most of you have no idea how much time and effort Morris has spent getting our audio / visual ministry in order. Morris stays behind the scenes most of the time and puts as much work in as anybody making our worship service able to be seen and heard on Facebook and he does it because we pay him so much money. Right, Morris? Maybe he does it for the glory or for the power. You think? No. He does it because he wants everybody else to be able to worship with us and hear the Gospel even if they can’t be with us in the building. Morris, come up here for a minute please.  May I wash your feet?  Sit down in that chair for a minute.

 

I believe that Jesus washed the feet of the disciples for a reason.  For one thing, I’m sure they needed to be washed.  They walked everywhere in sandals or even barefoot and their feet would get dirty pretty easily.  But this was not something one did for a peer.  This was something done by a slave and since there were no slaves with them, I’m sure their feet were dirty so Jesus washed them.

 

But obviously there was much, much more to this.  The great commentator Warren Wiersbe says:  “It is remarkable how the Gospel of John reveals the humility of our Lord even while magnifying His deity:  In chapter 5 Jesus says, “The Son can do nothing of Himself.”  In chapter 6 Jesus says, “For I came down from Heaven not to do my own will.”  In chapter 7, “My doctrine is not mine.”  Chapter 8, “I seek not my own glory.”  And in 14, “The word you hear is not mine.”

 

That is true humility.  That’s not faked.  It’s not ginned up or exaggerated.  Jesus had one goal and that was to make God the Father known.  Just like John the Baptist had one goal and it was to make Jesus known.  Paul had one goal.  Point to Jesus.  That’s the purpose of the New Testament and ultimately the whole Bible.  Point to Jesus.  That is our whole purpose as well.  We are to point to Jesus and we do that by showing sacrificial love.

 

Sacrificial love is not something that the world is known for and when they see it, whether they want to admit it or not, they know it is different.  When they see it in your life they know you are different and that is exactly what we are commanded by God to be is different, set apart…holy.  What makes someone holy?  Is it being pious, religious and holier-than-thou?  Or is it, as has been said, not thinking less of yourself but just thinking of yourself less?

 

That is exactly what Jesus did and that is how he perpetuated the disciple-making process.  He started by just attracting people and while that can be our most difficult part of this process we do it by meeting the needs of the people we meet so that they visit our church or come into our lives just long enough to say, “Those people aren’t so bad.  I think I’ll listen to what they have to say.”

 

Then while they are in our church or in our lives in any way we model, because we have seen Jesus model how we are to pray and worship and have faith.  Now, we are really starting to get somewhere with people.  They see that we are not perfect but that what we say starts to make sense and they want to know more so we start to teach them what we have learned from Jesus.

 

We give them the basic tools and set them up for success just like Jesus did for His disciples and if and when they fail, they learn a valuable lesson.  But they do it in the context of going and doing not just being and sitting.

 

Then because we have seen Jesus attract, model and teach, we are motivated by His sacrificial love that He not only showed to His disciples when He washed their feet but He also has shown it to us.  How has Jesus shown His sacrificial love for us?  Well, the Bible says that we are all sinners; that we have all done things that displease God (Romans 3:23).  It also says that the wages of that sin; what we deserve to get for displeasing God is death, meaning eternal death and separation from God and everybody else in Hell (Romans 6:23).

 

That’s the bad news and it is horrible, horrible news.  But the Good News is that Jesus showed us sacrificial love by taking the penalty for our sin and dying on the cross to pay that debt that we would never be able to pay.  He sacrificed His life; He gave it up to be THE sacrifice once and for all and just like He washed the feet of all 12 disciples including Judas whom he knew would betray Him, he died on the cross for every person, even those He knew would never accept Him as Lord and Savior.

 

So, we have Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23 that tell us the bad news.  But John 3:16 tells us the Good News that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  “Whoever believes in Him…”  That “whoever” includes you and all you have to do is accept that He died for you and that He will forgive all your sins if you will repent and turn away from those sins.

 

There is nothing more important in this world than for you to make that decision and if you have not yet made that decision then I will be right here, as the music plays, to pray with you about that or anything else that you need prayer for.

 

Invitation

 

Well, we did it!  We made it to the end of the disciple-making process.  We have seen how Jesus did it and now we can go through the process just like He did in our own individual ways and when we get to the end of the 4th step we can check that discipleship box as completed and we can relax and sing “This Is The Day” and go home with a job well done, right?

 

We know it is going to take a while to go all the way through the process.  It took Jesus 3 years to do it and we know we aren’t Jesus.  But when we get done we can just relax and let others go through the process.  That’s fair, right?  Well, while there is some truth in there it doesn’t mean that we are off the hook for making other disciples.  I know that because we got here because of what Jesus said in the Great Commission in Matthew 28.  Do you remember?

 

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

 

He says go and make disciples, not a disciple, but disciples plural and He says it in a way that we know He means continually and constantly.  Oh great!  That means that we have to do it all over again???  Yes, repeat!  (Write on board and draw arrows from each one to the next and back again.)

 

But wait, wait, wait!  This is a good thing.  Do you know why?  Sure, we want other people to have what we have.  We want them to have eternal salvation and eternity in Heaven but do you know what else we get and, in turn, what others get as well?

 

Do you remember how I started out talking about happiness?  Read verse 17 again.  “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.”  You will be blessed!  Jesus says you will be happy if you make disciples as He did.  Jesus was concerned about our happiness.  We want to point to Him and make Him glorified.  He wants us to be happy.  Repeat, repeat, repeat!  That sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

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