(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] Good morning. We're in John chapter number 13. John chapter 13, and the Bible reads, Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him. Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God and went to God, he riseth from supper and laid aside his garments, and took a towel and girded himself. After that, he poureth out water, he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon Peter, and Peter saith unto him, Lord, does thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith unto him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every wit, and ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him, therefore said he, ye are not all clean. So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me master and lord, and ye say well, for so I am. If I then, your lord and master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord, neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If you know these things, happy are ye if you do them. I speak not of you all. I know whom I have chosen, but that the scripture may be fulfilled. He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me. Now I tell you before it come, that when it is come to pass, you may believe that I am he. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him that he should ask, who it should be of whom he spake? He then, lying on Jesus' breast, saith unto him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the sop, Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly. Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake unto him, for some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus said unto him, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast, or that he should give something to the poor. He then, having received the sop, went immediately out, and it was night. Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him. Little children, yet a little while I am with you, you shall seek me. And as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come. So now I say to you, A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that you're my disciples, if ye have loved one to another. Simon Peter said unto him, Lord whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards. Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice. Let's pray. Dear Lord God, I just thank you for this church and for our pastor. I just ask that you would fill in with your Holy Spirit now, and please just meet with us here now this morning, and bless the preaching. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. Okay, we're in John chapter 13 this morning, and the title of my sermon today is Jesus Washed Feet. Jesus Washed Feet, and of course we're looking at John chapter 13, and the majority of the sermon I'm gonna spend explaining what this is all about, what is the purpose of John chapter 13, and the subject or concept of washing the disciples feet. But before I get into that, I'm gonna get into a little bit of my introduction of how I was inspired to come up with this sermon, and that is that there's a really stupid Super Bowl commercial last Sunday, I don't watch football, I don't watch the Super Bowl, some of you obviously know what I'm talking about because you do, but you know there's a Super Bowl commercial that came out, and it was sponsored by, I think, I don't remember the other company, but one of them was Hobby Lobby unfortunately, but of course you know Hobby Lobby is not necessarily a fundamental Baptist organization, but they do consider themselves a Christian organization, and they came out with a commercial called Jesus Didn't Hate, He Washed Feet, and essentially what the commercial was, if you know what I'm talking about, it was a series of images, AI generated images, they were placed on the screen, and what they were is basically a display to people who were in obvious opposition culturally, politically, religiously, and one of the parties was washing the feet of the other, okay, so when you think about people who are in opposition culturally, or at least that's what the narrative is telling us, you see that the police officer is washing the feet of the black guy, you see that the white Republican is washing the feet of the immigrant, okay, and quite frankly when you look at all these images, and you see the washing of the feet, honestly those images don't really bother me, okay, and the reason why it doesn't bother me is because of the fact that I'm not politically driven, you know, I don't really have a dog in that fight, it doesn't really bother me at all, it's dumb to try to use the Bible to try to justify that, however the last image is the one I have an issue with, and that is the minister, the Christian, who's washing the feet of the sodomite, okay, and it concludes with that image, and it says Jesus didn't teach hate, Jesus washed feet, he gets us, okay, that's what it said, now why did they put out this commercial during the Super Bowl, well it's obviously an attempt to blame Christianity for racism in our country, hatred towards immigrants, police brutality, and pretty much every cultural conflict in America, and quite frankly we're not responsible for all that stuff, Christianity and the Bible is not responsible for that, now we'll take credit for the fact that we are antagonistic and have animosity towards sodomites, 100% because the Bible's against it, God is clearly against sodomy, and for those of you who don't know what sodomy means, I mean people who are gay, all right, that's like the modern term, this is a Christian Church, this is a fundamental Baptist Church, this is a church where we believe the Bible, and you know what, I'd be lying to you if I said that Christianity and the Bible doesn't teach to hate sodomy, and yes, even sodomites, and you know any church that tells you that that's not true, they're lying to you, they're not telling you the truth, they're not showing you their true colors, let me just show you the true colors, this is what we believe is what the Bible teaches, okay, and so yeah, you know what, they were right about that last slide as far as the opposition is concerned, but you know what they're trying to do is make Christianity the antagonist by implying that all these attitudes stem from Christian doctrine, so the hatred towards the immigrant, the hatred towards the person of color, you know the hatred towards someone who is in poverty, oh yeah, all that comes from the white man's religion, you know, it comes from Christianity, and that's why Christianity is doing it, so you know the people who are sponsoring this commercial, they're implying, they're trying to teach us Christians, because that video was for us Christians, you know, they're implying, oh Jesus didn't teach hate, he washed feet because he gets us, and what they're insinuating is that Jesus would approve of the abominations of this land, he would, he wouldn't be fighting against them, he would not be trying to tell people to change, and he would not be preaching against sin, and against people who are involved in sodomy, and that which is filthy and disgusting, but obviously it's completely wrong, they don't know what they're talking about, and let me just point out a couple things by way of introduction, because most of the sermon is not going to be about this, it's actually going to be about John chapter 13, and what it actually teaches, but let me just go off on this for just a bit, okay, first of all when they say Jesus didn't teach hate, they have no idea what they're talking about, okay, because in the New Testament Jesus literally said, you know, if any man come after me and hate not father and mother, you know, why don't they mention that verse, yea his own life also the Bible tells us, and those are the words of Jesus Christ, now here's the thing is that virtually every teaching in the Bible can be associated with Jesus Christ by mere proxy, why? Because of the fact that he is the Word of God, therefore even if it didn't come straight out of his mouth during his three and a half year ministry, it can still be associated with Jesus because he is the Word of God, when he calls himself the Word of God he's referring to everything that's in this book, so any single teaching against reprobates and sodomites and fornication and murderers and pedophiles and that which the Bible clearly condemns can be associated with Jesus Christ, it's not like Jesus was just kind of doing his own thing and he's teaching something completely different than what the Bible teaches throughout the Word of God in the Old Testament, you know, Jesus, the Bible says that Jesus, or Jesus himself said, I came not to destroy the law and the prophets, okay, so he's not coming to discredit them, to contradict them, to preach against them, and in fact he's in 100% agreement with the Old Testament law because he's the one who inspired them to write that, he's the one who sanctions those teachings, he is the Word of God, okay, and so we could associate every teaching in the Bible to Jesus Christ simply by proxy, another problem with this, if you can hold your place there in John chapter 13 and go to go to Psalm 58 if you would, Psalm 58, we're gonna come back to John 13, so Jesus didn't have a different view of the Old Testament, it's not like, you know, oh man, now Jesus is on the scene, he's a nicer form of God, he's nicer than his Heavenly Father, you know, and he's here to just completely contradict Old Testament Levitical teachings of moral laws and what the Bible says about corruption and rape and murder and sodomy and bestiality, he's not coming to approve of those things, okay, he's in complete agreement with the Old Testament says, but also folks let me just remind everyone here that the media shouldn't be teaching you the Bible, first and foremost, you know, the media doesn't know the Bible, they shouldn't be teaching you the Word of God because they don't know the Word of God, okay, now here's the thing is that when the media ever gives scripture or tries to teach the Bible, aside from the fact that they always butcher it, they never really give the whole entire scope of that teaching, okay, because I'm gonna give us the entire scope of what the Bible actually teaches about the washing of feet, but let's just take like what the entire Bible says about it, okay, because here's the thing is that, you know, John chapter 13 is not the only passage that teaches regarding foot washing, okay, and keep in mind what's the message of that commercial, he gets us, right, that's what they said, they said he gets us, as if like Jesus sides with them and not with us, okay, because we don't get Jesus but he does get them, okay, now let me give you, because we're still in the Bible, what the Bible also teaches about foot washing, okay, this is still about foot washing here, look at Psalm 58 verse 10, the righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance and he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked, that's another teaching on foot washing and what it's referred to is that one day God will strike vengeance on the enemies of God and those who have persecuted the righteous and he's gonna allow the righteous, this is obviously in the millennial reign, he's gonna allow the righteous to wash their feet in the blood of the wicked, you say why would he do that, let me tell you why, because he gets us, he gets us, he gets us, and you know that might bother you a little bit but if it does then you need to believe the Bible and you're brainwashed by the media and you start reading the Word of God and recognizing that God, he's not just a God of love folks, he's not just a God of compassion and mercy, he's also a God of vengeance, he's a God of justice, he's a God of righteousness, and there's a reason why he constantly has to tell his people vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay, you know because people look at us like hey you know we're supposed to be passive you know vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay, and I agree with them but they seem to forget that he's saying vengeance is mine, meaning that God is going to execute vengeance upon them, now why would he do that, because he knows human nature, human nature has the desire to avenge themselves over the wickedness that's been done unto them, the injustices that have taken place, things that we have no control over, the evils of this world that we can do nothing about, and God is telling us don't worry your day will come, for he will avenge the righteous and you will wash your feet in the blood of the wicked, you know why isn't there a Super Bowl commercial about Psalm 58, let's give a balanced view here, Psalm 58 is still about foot washing folks and you're like well you know that's in the Old Testament you know and that doesn't really count, well Jesus Christ quoted the book of Psalms multiple times and nowhere in the New Testament does it say that the book of Psalms is negated in the New Testament or the teachings or the doctrines and in fact the Bible specifically commands us to sing the Psalms in church, so you know what you could actually make a song brother Eric out of Psalm 58 and God would approve of it because nowhere in the Bible does it say that we shouldn't and in fact it commands us to because it helps us to remember that God is a God of justice and of vengeance, why? Because he gets us, and so don't learn the Bible from the media, don't allow the media and people who hate the Lord to try to dictate what your beliefs are, to try to school you on Christianity, to try to school you on what the word of God says, we're Christians, we have the mind of Christ, you know who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him but we have the mind of Christ the Bible says, okay, and no unsaved person who has never read the Bible, they reject Jesus Christ, a single one of them is never going to tell us in our church what the Bible says, okay, why? Because at the end of the day we have the Spirit of God dwelling within us and the Bible tells us that God says unto the wicked what is out to do to declare my statutes and that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee, so God is saying like who do you think you are trying to quote my Bible, my word, when you actually hate the Bible and in fact you disregard the word of God, you have no right to do that and so Christians need to stop making apologies and obviously we don't know exactly who's behind the commercial or if there's like a wicked person at Hobby Lobby who wanted to do it, it might be just some watered down Christian who you know has been taught by the media and thinks they're doing a good job and they just want to reach out but folks that's not the right way to do it, you know compromising God's word is never an option when it comes to reaching people with the word of God and teaching them this false doctrine, it's really nonsensical. Now here's another thing that I want to say before I get into the actual sermon itself, you know the concept of foot washing in the commercial, they're making it like a political thing, a cultural thing and they're relating it to Jesus saying that Jesus would wash people's feet but you know Jesus in the Bible only washed the feet of his disciples though. Do we have an example of Jesus washing the feet of the Pharisees? How about Herod? How about anybody who like gnashed at him with their teeth and persecuted him? There's actually zero examples, if you really want to get specific about it, there are no examples of anyone who is essentially in direct opposition to Jesus Christ where Jesus said let me wash your feet and in fact there's more examples of people who humbly came to Jesus and washed his feet, right? People who were sinners, people who were in need of salvation, humbling themselves before the God of the universe and washing his feet with their tears but yet we're supposed to believe well you know we're supposed to submit and wash the feet of all of these people who according to the media we hate them and look let me just say this I don't hate immigrants there might be some Christians who do but they're not right with God if they do because we're not supposed to hate immigrants and let me just say this I don't hate black people either in fact I love black people why because I love Mexicans I love Chinese people I love anybody of any type of skin color because at the end of the day we're all part of the human race and you know what for God so loved the world okay and so you know don't pin that stupid doctrine on me and on Christianity and on the Bible claiming that that's what we teach or something like that okay and so and here's the thing when you look at a commercial it's just like so what are you saying we should do you know and another question is why isn't the immigrant washing the feet of the Republican? Why isn't the black person washing the feet of the police officer? You know why is it why is it only the conservatives who are washing the feet of the so-called liberals of that of that commercial right it's not like a mix it's not like oh you know you have the woman who attends Planned Parenthood who participates in Planned Parenthood has gotten abortions washing the feet of the conservative who is against abortion no it's actually the other way around you see what I'm saying so it's a bit hypocritical to put out a commercial like that because what it's implying is that the conservatives are the enemies the conservatives are the mean-spirited ones the conservatives are the ones who have no love in their heart the conservatives are the ones who are pushing this type of ideology of racism and hatred towards immigrants and all these things folks that's not what the Bible teaches you know and if you find a Christian that believes those things they're just not right with God they don't know the Bible they're not right with God okay and look I know that there's churches out there that are like that for sure there's churches and there's Christians out there who hate you know Palestinians and they hate the Mexicans build the wall and all this stuff and you know they just hate people in general but you know what you can't say you got that from the Bible though okay and in fact they're giving Christianity a bad name because the Bible doesn't teach that and so you know I didn't watch the Super Bowl because I was in church but I heard about that commercial and I thought to myself like man this is like and I guarantee there's a lot of Christians out there like man that's so true you know we're the problem folks Christians are not the problem churches are not the problem we're the reason why God hasn't judged this nation in fact we're the answer to all of society's ills the unfortunate thing is that they're lumping us with these so-called right-wing extremists they claim to be Christian but they're not really Christian are they because if you were to talk to them individually and ask them what they believe about salvation they would give you a completely wrong answer if you actually ask them what the Bible says on a particular subject they wouldn't know what the Bible actually says they only use particular Bible verses to promote and you know to promote their agenda they just look for a particular verse that seems to have a political ideology mixed with it and that's it but they don't know the Bible they don't love the Lord Jesus Christ let it be anathema you know it's an apostate the Republican Party and the Conservative Party is an apostate Christianity religion okay so anyways you know just let me just say he gets us and I the irony about that particular commercial is that you know it finishes off with the sodomite and it says he gets us and I thought to myself yeah he will get you he's gonna get you all right go back to John chapter 13 and I know we got visitors today but you know what this is what the Bible says I rather tell you the truth and at least you know what I believe right off the bat and you know that you know I'm not gonna lie to you and try to just you know oh I don't want to offend this person because I want them to stay in our church you know I want you to stay in our church because you love the Bible and because you want the truth and so you know we should want people around us that are real with us right not a bunch of fakes and phonies insincere individuals and pastors and churches that are not willing to actually tell you what the Bible well doesn't the Bible say this you know pastors like well you know you gotta understand the cultural context me I'm just like yeah that's exactly what it says yeah for sure and you believe that yes cuz I'm a bible-believing Christian and you think that's right yes next question you know it's it's wild that people would be astounded at the fact that Christians believe the Bible isn't that what we're supposed to do but now we have a new generation of Christians who make excuses for the Bible because they're so afraid of offending people but they need to be afraid as offending God by being ashamed of his word and so I'm not ashamed of the Bible you bring any Bible verse to me no matter how extreme and offensive it is I will embrace it with open arms and say I believe it from head to toe every fiber my being believes it and I preach it and I will not make any apologies for it because it's the law of the Lord is perfect all right let's go on to the actual interpretation of John chapter 13 now that I went off on that ramp now let me just say this by way of introduction of these three points is that this is not an example of what we should be doing in church as far as foot washing is concerned okay that's important because believe it or not there are churches out there that will actually take this literally and they'll wash each other's feet now number one you don't see this exemplified throughout the New Testament or even in the book of Acts and number two I'm not gonna wash your feet because you know I got corns and you know who knows what people got you know athlete's foot or whatever this is symbolic of something else now it is a cultural context in John chapter 13 but how do we know that though we know that because of the fact that in the Middle East people don't have you know Tesla's and origami looking Tesla cars and you know and and vehicles and bikes and such they're walking everywhere right and they're wearing sandals you're in the desert in the Middle East well if your main form of transportation is your feet well your feet is gonna accumulate dirt and filth and so when you are visiting family friends you know whoever may be it is it was customary to wash your guests feet because they got dirty feet just a nice thing for them for people to do and so we don't have to do that now because obviously we have shoes and we have socks or whatever and we're not walking everywhere so our feet and our toes are not looking as far as we know I'm just gonna assume everyone here you know they're not looking like disciples feet and toes you understand and in those days they probably had some pretty ugly feet because again they're using it as a form of transportation to get them everywhere they need to go it's in the Middle East and so it was very customary culturally not just here but just in different places around the world to wash the feet as a service to your guests when they would come over to your home that it was a customary thing but Jesus is obviously using this customary act to illustrate a very important spiritual truth here so let's talk about Jesus washing the feet of his disciples what does this signify well number one washing the feet illustrates listen to this the process of sanctification okay look at verse number six of chapter 13 it says here in verse number six then cometh he to Simon Peter and Peter saith unto him Lord does thou wash my feet Jesus answered and said unto him what I do thou knowest not now but thou shall know hereafter Peter saith unto him thou shall never wash my feet Jesus answered him if I have if I wash thee not thou hast no part with me now what's going on here Jesus is bowing himself he's girding himself to wash the feet of his disciples his first disciple there that he's washed the feet of is Peter and Peter is astounded that his Savior and Lord would take on such a humble position to wash his feet so he's like you should never wash my feet basically implying like I should be washing your feet right and Jesus responds by saying well if I don't wash your feet you have no part with me and I'm explaining what he means by that particular phrase with there now Peter's the type of guy that the pendulum always swings extremely in the opposite direction so first he's like you should never wash my feet well you'll have no part with me look at verse 9 Simon Peter saith unto him Lord not my feet only but also my hands in my head so he's like you should never wash my feet well if you if I don't wash your feet you don't have a part with me oh make sure you don't forget the hands and the head then he's like wash everything okay look at verse 10 Jesus saith to him he that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet but is clean every whit now what is this referring to here well he's basically the the spiritual application that he's giving here is salvation because when he says he that is washed he's referring to a person who has been saved that is a symbolic nature there and he's saying that if a person is saved they don't need to keep washing except for their feet and then he says but is clean every whit now what does that phrase clean every whit mean well if you're washed according to what he's saying here every nook and cranny has been cleansed basically okay and this is a great way to explain salvation because when you're saved you're saved completely you're not just saved halfway you're not just saved 25% of the day you're not just saved today not tomorrow folks you're clean every whit when you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation you don't have to add anything to that to make up the difference so you can stay saved the bible says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved the bible tells us he that believeth on the sun hath everlasting life he that believeth not the sun shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him the bible always describes salvation as a finality right that you're saved meaning it happens once and for all and in fact when the bible is illustrating one of the ways that the bible illustrates salvation is by being born and in fact john chapter 3 says that you're born again that's a great way to describe it because once you're physically born you're like you exist now it's not like you don't exist now people are going to die but at one point they existed right well the same thing with salvation is when you're born again it basically means you are a child of God you are a son of God and you can't be unborn and then get born again and then unborn and unborn again no you're clean every whit and the reason is describing it as cleansing is because of the fact that when we get saved Jesus Christ cleanses us he cleanses our sins completely totally okay now so what's the point of washing the feet if we're clean every whit because if you look at the verse he says he that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet in other words if you're cleansed the only thing you have to wash is your feet but then it seems to contradict itself because it says but you're clean every whit so why would i have to clean my feet if i'm already completely clean well when it comes to salvation yes we're saved eternally but God actually expects for us to wash our feet on a day-to-day basis now what does that mean well you think about it you know from a spiritual perspective if we're saved from head to toe so to speak this body has to remain in this world until we go home to be with the Lord and as we're in this world we're walking through this world we are accumulating the filth and the sin of the world on a daily basis you go to your high school you're accumulating filth not just from the teaching but maybe from some of your friends some of the conversations that you're listening to you're with your family who are they're not christian you might be accumulating some dirt and some filth you know you're going to your job you're around certain people as you go folks this week you're going to accumulate filth on your spiritual feet and so as christians what do we need to do we need to cleanse our feet on a daily basis even though we're clean every whit he said well if i'm already saved completely then what's the even the purpose of that why should i even bother cleaning my feet i'll tell you why because God commands you to because it's the right thing to do and yeah you know what if you choose never to clean your feet and never to get sanctified and never clean up your life you're still clean every whit according to verse number 10 you're still saved you still have salvation but let me just say this you're gonna have some ugly feet your feet are gonna be disgusting and you know what everyone's gonna know it they're gonna stink you're gonna have athlete's foot you're gonna get gangrene right the accumulation of sin in your life will give you gangrene and you know what ultimately your feet are gonna be cut off so yeah you know what you have the choice of washing your feet or not but you know what God commands us to be cleansed every single day every single week because of the fact that as we walk in this world we're accumulating dirt we're accumulating sin and therefore we need to be cleansed now go with if you would to second hold your place or go to second corinthians chapter six if you would let me finish reading as you're going to second corinthians from john chapter 13 it says he that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet but it's clean every whit and he goes on to say and ye are clean but not all so this is proof that he's referring to salvation and the feet washing of sanctification because he says you guys are all clean but not all now who is the not all that he's referring to judas iscariot because judas iscariot was not saved and so he's not saying like i know all 11 of you took a bath but i know one of you didn't because i can smell you or something like that that's not what he's saying he's just saying like i know that you guys are all justified but there's one who's obviously not justified they're not cleansed and it says for he knew who should betray him therefore said he he are not all clean we'll get into that later on in the sermon let before you get into second corinthian six let me read to you from ephesians five how are we cleansed as christians well the one of the ways that we're cleansed is by the word of god like you don't know right now but i'm basically showering you right through the word of god i'm cleansing you through the bible because the bible says in ephsians five and verse 26 in context of marriage but it still applies it says that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word that he might present it to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing that it should be holy and without blemish you see god's will for your life is that you are cleansed on a day-to-day basis and you and then you finish your life cleansed you understand what i'm saying obviously god wants you to be saved but even after salvation he wants you to stay clean until you meet the lord why because it's an honorable thing to do so that's why because even though when you die and you go to heaven you're cleansed you're justified you are right in the eyes of god you know it would please the lord if you attempt it to live a life that's pleasing unto him while you're here on this earth you know what there's a lot of christians that don't care about that but we should care about that though a lot of people just want to live whatever life that they're living and just keep living in sin and disobeying god and not serving him but you know our desire should be to serve god though he's been good to us our master is good to us he's blessed our lives he's not only saved us from the flames of eternal damnation but he's given us an abundant life you know he's worth our service and so it's for that reason that god wants us to be cleansed by the washing of the water of the word so that at the end of our lives we present ourselves glorious without spot and without wrinkle the fact that we attempted to live a sanctified life but the point that i'm making there is that the word of god cleanses you now here's the thing is that i'm kind of only using like a water hose right now so to speak and i'm spraying you know the sermon is just like you know and here's the thing not everyone's going to get it and you say who are the ones that don't get it the ones who are thinking about lunch and you know the ones who are just thinking about other things right now they're like everyone's just kind of straightening up right now they're just you know you know whoever's not their mind's not in the sermon they're not going to get cleansed but you know there's certain people that do get cleansed because they're actually listening they're being not only hearers of the word but they're being doers also so therefore it's important that you bathe daily what does that mean you actually go home and read your bible okay and this is a church that emphasizes the importance of reading the word of god every single day i hope you're keeping up with your bible reading hey we're about to finish up february it's time to start catching up hey you still got some more months to come along you can still finish the word of god in a year span if you pick it up again today okay don't be these christians that you get discouraged because you fell behind on your bible reading and you're just like oh man i guess 2025 will be my year or something like that pick it back up again hey read the bible not devotionals read the bible listen to it on audio uh you know stop spending so much time on social media and instagram and facebook and tik tok and actually allocate some of that time to your bible reading and you will be able to catch up and in fact you'll probably be able to finish early if you do so you say why should i do that to cleanse you because the way we get cleansed on a day-to-day basis is by the word of god okay and let me just say this is that reading the bible daily helps us just to have the right mentality we easily strain our mentality don't we we strain our mentality because we're in the world and you know depending on what you're listening to and what you're watching you know the world is constantly trying to mold you into a brainless idiot that doesn't know anything so you could just be controlled so we have to constantly like revisit the word of god and read the bible and listen to the bible to have our minds renewed by the word of god and cleanse you know we got to wash our feet constantly spiritually speaking because we're accumulating dirt look at uh you're in second corinthians chapter six look what it says in verse 14 so what's another way of being cleansed well according to the bible is by living a separate life too it says in verse 14 but being not unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness and what communion hath light with darkness and what concord hath christ with belial belial satan or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel and what agreement at the temple of god with idols this is why god is not in support of ecumenicism because we have no fellowship there's no dealings there's no concord there in fact god finds it extremely disrespectful when christianity compromises when a church compromises and begins to make excuses for other religions that reject jesus christ hinduism buddhism and even sects of so-called christianity that are apostate like the jehovah's witnesses mormons catholics and so forth god says we have no agreement with them okay we're not trying to kumbaya with everyone and say well you know we're all working our way to the same god no you're working your way to hell is what you're doing if you don't believe on jesus christ and here's the here's the proof he's saying there's no agreement like oh man that sounds so divisive well you know what jesus said i came not to bring peace he says he didn't come to bring peace what did he come to bring a sword right he came he came to divide people into pieces is what he's coming to do he's like i came not to bring peace but a sword meaning that he's here to divide people so while the the world is looking to kumbaya jesus is like i don't want to kumbaya with anybody you know jesus is just like no i'm not trying to like agree with everyone you have to agree with me that's what he's saying because he says i am the way the truth and life no man cometh unto the father but by me he says verse 16 what agreement hath the temple of god with idols for you are the temple of the living god as god had said i will dwell in them and walk in them and i will be their god and they shall be my people wherefore come out from among them referring to the unbelievers the unrighteous the darkness the crowd of belial the infidel the the temple of idols he says wherefore come out from among them and be separate saith the lord and touch not the unclean thing and i will receive you and he goes on to say there and i will be a father unto you and he shall be my sons and daughters saith the lord almighty so what is he saying there well you know what as christians we need to make sure that we're distinctly different from everyone else because that's what god expects for us to be and in fact he calls us a peculiar treasure okay and when christians begin to compromise and try to fit in with other sects of religion because we don't want to offend but there that religion is in complete contradiction to the bible then you're you're getting dirty okay if you are fellowshipping with buddhists and hindus but you're not trying to win them to christ you know eventually you're gonna get dirty and look if you if you have a buddhist or a hindu as a friend we should want to win them because we love them we don't want them to go to hell we want them to come to the saving knowledge of jesus christ but here's the problem when you have fellowship with the world without the intent of winning them to christ they actually end up influencing you you understand and you end up accumulating filth and dirt which is why he says you know touch not the unclean thing what does that mean don't agree with them don't fellowship with them you know don't just be the best friends with some pagan religion if you're not trying to win them to christ look at chapter seven verse one having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of god what is this the process of sanctification when you're justified brother geo come on up stand right here don't don't stand on the platform because you're too tall when you're justified you're saved okay you have salvation nothing can change that and thank god for that because we fall short all the time we sin every single day we're not perfect there's none righteous no not one and so perfection is by the righteousness of jesus christ geo saved right but then you know come over here uh christian christian stand in the middle now but here's the thing is that god now wants you to be sanctified too though he wants you to get cleaned up okay he wants you to clean up your life get rid of your sinful habits get rid of you know the things that are contrary to the word of god he wants you to be clean through the word so he's reading the bible daily he's going to church he's getting rid of bad associations you know instead of going out on friday nights and drinking with his buddies and smoking pot and fornicating around and just living a wicked life he stopped doing that because he wants to actually please god what is he doing he's living a life of sanctification now whether the christian does this or not he will always be justified though because to him that worketh not but believeth on him to justify the ungodly his faith discounted for righteousness but you know what let us go on into perfection though okay and let's get sanctified can i get a witness okay let's get sanctified let's get cleaned up let's start living a righteous life that's pleasing unto the lord so that number one he doesn't judge us but number two so we can be blessed by god too and then ultimately john come on up here you know ultimately you get glorified okay don't get all proud john all right sometimes you got to use whatever illustration you got you know what i mean no illustration is perfect no i'm just kidding so glorification is when we're in heaven you know we're in millennial reign completely absent of sin just perfect okay but you will never reach this during this time but we should do this as if we could though you understand what i'm saying now here's the thing is that if this was never around and you got saved everyone who saved will one day be glorified because that's the promise that god gave unto you and so every single person who's justified will be like a light bulb here right but the wattage really depends on the sanctification part so you might be just a really dim light you understand but the goal is to live a life that's so pleasing unto the lord that we're just like it's like when you turn up the the light on your iphone at night you know what i mean you turn it just like whoa you know you just be blind people that's the goal and so these are the three stages of a christian you understand and what jesus is talking about when he's talking about washing the feet he's referring to the fact that we need to wash our feet through the word of god by coming to church on a weekly basis reading the word of god on a daily basis and keeping ourselves separate from the world so that we're not touching the unclean thing we're not uh fellowshipping with unrighteousness we're not becoming friends of the world we're actually in opposition to the world you understand good thanks guys have a seat and so that's what he's referring to there now go back to john chapter 13 now let me give you one last way that you can be cleansed on a daily basis and that is by confessing your sins daily the bible says if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to cleanse us from our sins uh to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness so it's important that we as christians are keeping short accounts with god right that when we do wrong we get it right with the lord and we confess it unto the lord and let the lord know you know i i've wronged you i want to get this right forgive me for this and you can move on with your life with that keep short accounts with god and make sure that you're confessing your sins uh regularly now let me see if i'm missing anything here all right the next point here that i want to make so washing the feet when he begins to wash the feet of his disciples he says you're clean every whip salvation 100 you have it you're completely cleansed you know you're washed you're sanctified but you're justified in the name of our lord jesus christ the bible says in first corinthians chapter six right he says you're just completely clean because the blood of jesus christ is not an insufficient atonement it is able to pay the totality of our offenses and clean us every whit okay but the example he's giving here is that we need to make sure that we're washing the feet you know i don't want to get nasty here but you know no toe jam in the feet amen that there's no ingrowns that the feet are being taken care of you need like a spiritual manicure every once in a while or is that a pedicure how do you know that that's interesting brother alex he's married that's why all right yeah pedicure sorry you know you get a spiritual pedicure you're you're taking care of your feet and by the way a great way to keep your feet clean listen to this listen to me is by preaching the gospel too because the bible talks about having the preparation of the gospel of having your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace and in fact the bible says how beautiful are the feet of them to preach glad tidings so god views the feet of them who uh in uh invest time and preach in the gospel to the lost as having beautiful feet okay and so that's another way to cleanse your feet go to verse 12 of chapter 13 so the washing of the feet illustrates the process of sanctification why are you here today because you're being sanctified you're seeking to just have reset buttons and to fix maybe a certain way you're thinking maybe you're discouraged maybe you're feeling depressed maybe you are feeling disillusioned maybe you're just feeling sinful and worldly so it's good to just come to church because when you come to church you know maybe you're feeling envious of the wicked right but when you come to church you understand their and you realize what is the right way to think what is the proper way that we should uh be thinking about just different things in our lives that is sanctification so you know what people who just stay at home and watch church online they're not really being sanctified you know and it's always funny it's just like why watch online and i read the bible oh do you read hebrews 10 have you gotten to like hebrews 10 yet where it says forsake not the assembling of ourselves together you know this is what this is a prime example of when the bible says that they're hearers of the word uh and not doers and that they deceive their own selves because who in their right mind would say that they're right with god they're reading the bible i don't go to church i just read the bible at home i listen to preaching but then they read hebrews 10 and they just don't do it and they convince themselves that they're still right with god you see what i'm saying and so don't minimize the importance of being in church because aside from the preaching of god's word that sanctifies you you know also you have a church other christians that can exhort you on a daily basis when you're not feeling a hundred percent and you don't really feel like giving it your all you have a brother sister in christ kind of helping you to to get that weight up amen you know one of the best things you can do when you're hitting the pr under when you're squatting or deadlifting is having someone just screaming at you saying you got it as long as they're telling the truth you know if you're not that thing's not even coming off the ground like oh it's almost there you know it's like that's just a lie okay that's what liberal churches do okay but like if you're really halfway there you're just struggling you're grinding out and you have someone like push you got it it's done you know it kind of like motivates you to get it up you know and that's how church is when you just you're just like feeling down you don't feel as committed you need people just pushing you said you got this you're already here you've obeyed the lord by coming to church reading the bible we love you the church loves you let's go sowing let's spend time together we need that okay that helps us to be sanctified look at verse 12 washing the feet also illustrates in john chapter 13 being a servant it says in verse 12 so after he had washed their feet and had taken his garments and was set down again he said unto them know you what i have done for you ye call me master and lord and you say well for so i am if i then your lord and master have washed your feet ye also ought to wash one another's feet for i have given you an example that you should do as i have done to you verily verily i say to you the servant is not greater than his lord neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him if you know these things happy are ye if ye do them turn with me if you would to matthew chapter 20 hold your place here in john chapter 13 now again this is not an instructional guide on how to perform pedicures on your fellow brethren okay this is not because he's not saying like i did it to you so you got to make sure you do it for someone else now how do we know that because they never did this hereafter and if they did the bible didn't highlight it you understand what i'm saying it's like when people want to say you know or when catholics say oh the lord's prayer that's what we should be saying because the lord prayed that but you never find an example of anybody quoting the lord's prayer thereafter it's never an example so obviously you know there's another meaning behind it so when he says that he's done that unto them and he wants them to do it to each other he's obviously referring to the acts of service humility lowliness the fact that you would esteem others better than yourself because you know what's the most lowly thing to do than to get on your knees and take off the shoe of a fellow brother so to speak and you know it it's the foot i mean that's it's not necessarily the most comely part of the body and then but you're watching it's a very humble type of thing to do what the bible's teaching us here is humility okay and in order to be a servant you have to be humble because prideful people can't serve prideful people only want to be served whereas servants want to do the serving and they have that mind of humility to do so for example you know you have in first timothy chapter five when addressing the widows and it talks about in verse 10 if she have washed strangers or the saint's feet it's referring to the fact if she's served has she been a blessing to the people in the church she would qualify for this okay that's what it's referring to look at matthew chapter 20 verse 25 here's another way of putting it this is but jesus called him unto him and said ye know that the princes of the gentiles exercise dominion over them and they that are great exercise authority upon them but it shall not be so among you but whosoever shall be great among you let him be your minister and whosoever will be chief among you let him be your servant even as the son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many so he's saying you know in the world it's a dog eat dog type of world where people in order to get on top will walk over people run over people lie and deceive and be unethical and unjust in a lot of areas and he's saying why well because of the fact that they want to exercise authority upon others it's important for them to have a position to tell people what to do and to be the most important whereas the system that god has instituted in order to be great because he's not condemning the desire to be great he's condemning the system of the world that gets you to be great he's saying that if you're going to be great you got to be a minister you got to be a servant you got to have that type of mentality and then he gives himself as an example the fact that jesus christ who is the greatest he created the universe he created the stars and the planets he created everything that exists is created by him he is worthy of all admiration and acclamation and worship yet he came to serve you he came to give his life a ransom for many and to serve you and in fact to this day in heaven he's still serving us by advocating on our behalf and praying for us he is serving us this is the attitude of the savior and he's saying this is the attitude that we should have so if jesus christ who's the greatest of all can have that attitude how much more should we have this attitude and we're not great at all like we're there's nothing special about us you know income if we're to compare ourselves to jesus christ you know we're not all that and i know this is a 90s phrase but we're not all that in a bag of chips if you don't know what that means look it up and in the history books or whatever and you i guess you'll find out what it means you know the bible tells us let nothing be done through strife or vainglory but in lowliness of mind what does it mean to have lowliness of mind well think about like a lowly a low mind lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves it says let this mind be in you which is also in christ jesus who the bible says uh it tells us let this mind be in you which is also in christ jesus who being in the form of god thought it not robbery to be equal with god but made himself of no reputation he took upon himself the form of a servant was obedient unto death even the death of the cross it's basically telling us like that's the kind of mentality that we should have is a life of sacrifice for others so what is jesus trying to get across when he washed the feet of his disciples he's trying to tell us like hey we should have the mentality that when we come to church where we fellowship with the brethren that we want to serve the brethren that we would esteem them more than ourselves and that's hard to do because everyone just kind of likes themselves everyone just likes themselves so it requires you know supernatural virtue to esteem others better than ourselves to think upon others and what how others would feel to think upon how your service would affect others you know that's what he's referring to there okay the bible tells us to mind not hide things but condescend to men of lowest state be not wise in your own conceits and so the the subject that he's trying to get across here is the importance of just being a servant you know what one of the greatest those of you who want to be pastors you want to be a leader here's the best way to do it serve be a servant be a blessing accumulate a reputation of someone who just loves people right loves people wants to serve people has people's best interest in mind and not their own they don't mind their own things but they mind the things of others how it's going to affect others what is their spiritual well-being what is their physical well-being this is the mentality that he's getting across here when you wash the feet of his disciples go to go back to john chapter 13 if you would john chapter 13 now here's the last thing that really it illustrates and this is the new commandment kind of goes along with the second point but look at verse 34 it says a new commandment give i unto you that ye love one another as i have loved you and that ye should also love one another by this shall all men know that you're my disciples if you have love one to another now let me make something very clear regarding john chapter 13 the specific teaching of john chapter 13 is to love the brothers the brethren now obviously the bible teaches us that we should love lost people right of course it does we can point to various scriptures that where god commands us to love lost people by giving them the gospel or just in general to love your neighbor as yourself right but there's a reason why he says this is a new commandment and the new commandment is that you love one another and he says your brother now what is a brother in this context it's not referring to like a sibling it's not a relative talk about a brother in christ someone who is saved when the bible mentions a brother more often than not in the new testament it's referring to someone who is a believer so you know those of you who are new here you might hear us saying hey brother geo brother christian you know we don't really say like sister because that's i don't know why we don't do that actually like i don't like sister kelly some of you do but you know in general even the women will call the men brothers it's just like brother john brother marcos and what it what it's referring to is the example that we see in the new testament book of acts where when they would address christians christians addressing other christians it would say brother saul it's referring to the fact that they're in christ okay and so what he's trying to get across here is that there should be a special kind of love for christians amongst other christians okay and think about it you know the bible commands us to love lost people but there's a lot of times in the new testament where the bible commands us to have fervent love one toward another though you know you know i want my kids to get along with the neighbors i want them to be kind unto their neighbors kind play kindly with other children and be nice to them but i want them to love each other fervently though you understand like i want my sons to love each other i want my daughters to love each other i want them to have fervent love one for another because that's their family you know they should have in other words and i don't want to sound strange about this but i want them to favor their brothers more than other people not at the exclusion of other people but i want them to favor each other because they're family but in a more important sense this is basically what got to say like you need to favor each other not at the exclusion of the lost but favor each other enough that people know that you're my disciples you understand what i'm saying and another way of of of illustrating or another way of describing this is unity in the church and think about it he says by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another you know the worst thing that the world can see in a church is disunity just people backbiting each other they hate the pastor they hate each other it's just like why do you guys even have a church then like why are you guys even going to that church you know and there are churches out there that are like that right aren't there churches where people are just constantly fighting each other in church they don't like the pastor they don't like the pastor's wife you know they have someone's got beef with someone over there and they got clicks and they're just constantly fighting with the leadership and there's all kinds of criticisms that are taking place there it's weird it's kind of showing that they don't have love one for another now again this is not at the exclusion of loving the world the people of the world you know because we want to get them saved but there should be a special kind of love that we have for the brethren though and there is an issue when christians have a tendency to get along with unsafe people more than they get along with safe people because the bible actually tells us here that by this shall all men know that you are my disciples you know you you'll hear about churches it's just like you know i can tell there's a lot of love there because they just they're very unified you know what i mean they have a lot of love one for another what are they're saying those are like the disciples of jesus christ okay and so the the practical application that we can get from that is that hey start loving on each other okay show love one for another esteem one another and you know if you you think to yourself well you know i just have all these friends out in the world and you know and they're not christians or whatever well you gotta ask yourself like what do you have in common with them right what is the common denominator that you have with the unsafe and in my opinion and i think i have the bible to back it up is the fact that the purpose of our friendships with people anywhere ultimately would be to win them to christ you're like well then how are we ever going to just have friends if it's just you know if i'm just trying to win them well right here like here i'm not trying to win anybody to christ because everyone's already saved so i don't have to constantly check like hey you know i want to be your friend because i'm trying to get you saved it's just like we actually get along because we're christians and you'll find that the friends that you make within a church within christianity it's very fulfilling because you have a lot of common ground i mean some people make friends out in the world because they work at the same job right or they have the same hobby interest or something like that but in christianity we have so many things that are in common and and it the relationship is so much deeper in christianity because the most common denominator is salvation through jesus christ and then even deeper than that is like we agree on these doctrines we have the same uh world view we have the same biblical doctrines so then anything on top of that is like a cherry on top you know if you both agree on christianity and salvation and the bible and you both like to go to the gym oh man it's like a match made in heaven you know it's just like oh that's even better or you both like to hike you know whatever hike or run you know brother jose you know hey there's hikers in our church brother alex you like to hike too see why aren't you guys loving each other you know it's like yeah he likes to grill too you see just find yourself a new best friend what i'm saying is this is that a lot of the associations that we have in church are built on top of the most important foundational things that we believe which makes our relationships deeper and i don't think i'm the only one to say this because i think it's true with a lot of christians is that sometimes we'll say like i'm closer to people in my church and sometimes even my own blood family because my blood family just doesn't like the bible sometimes you know or they don't agree with me or something they don't want to hang out with me you know you know they're just that's just how it is now luckily for some of us we have our blood family in church like my mom is right there you know she comes every sunday and she listens to me yell at her for an entire hour i'm getting her back for all those times no i'm just kidding but she's there listening to the preaching and so now it's just like my mom and i aside from the fact that we are relatives i'm her son she's my mother we have christ in common we have church in common so now i would say my relationship with my mother is deeper than it has ever been since the time that i was born up until i got saved because now we have christ the most common denominator and the thing that really brought us together even more i've spent more time with my mom now than i ever have because she comes to church and now she like does her own now she's like sowing and she's going with like people and like she's like not with me and stuff and she goes with the group she's like she tells me like i'm gonna go sony with uh brother mori's team and we're gonna go out to eat and stuff all right fine i guess you know no i love that i like that my mom is making friends in church you know what i mean and in fact even though i'm like close to her in church we're there's a distance in church i still feel even more close to her because of the fact that now she's serving my christ which is also hers you see what i'm saying so there's a far more deeper relationship in christianity and it's it's not like the shallow friendship you don't really find shallow friendships in church shallow friendships are outside of church because you might have one thing in common and that's it but at the end of the day the most the deepest relationships you will ever experience is right here in church and let me just say this like the deepest love sometimes that you ever experience is in church with other christians we're not talking about romantic love or whatever i mean that could be the case you got something going on here you know they found each other and all that but i'm just saying like just the love of a christian for another christian you know i find myself thinking about the brethren and thinking about our church members and how much i love them deeply and and i'm so thankful that i have them in my life why because of christianity you know and so uh this is what he's teaching he's like this is the new commandment i want you guys to love one another and and he's well for how long well it says at the very beginning of the chapter that he loved them until the end now obviously we know that he's still loving them so this is obviously referring to a practical type of love because till the end meant till the day that he died and was crucified and so um you know this is exactly what he's referring to here the importance of loving the brethren favoring the you know the bible says as we therefore have opportunity let us do good unto all men hold on a second though especially those of the household of faith though just keep in mind that it says especially those of the household of faith and don't twist my words i'm not saying at the exclusion of anybody else because we can do both but there's a special love here amen and so you know don't wash each other's feet you know don't start grabbing basins and start washing each other's feet and stink up the whole auditorium or whatever you know obviously it's a spiritual application that number one we should be going through the process of sanctification because we're clean every whip but we need to wash our feet on a daily basis to cleanse us from all the filth of this world but also that we should have a lowly mind that we should have a desire to serve one another when we come to church or even outside of church right and then ultimately the desire to obey listen to this that new commandment so don't ever just treat church as like oh i'm just going to church because i got to get that out of the way you know i'm just here for the preaching i'm here to learn i'm not here to do all that extra other stuff and uh sorry my friend here's a new commandment for you that you love one another so get rid of that stoic attitude you got going on there well you know i'm just i'm just here to win souls that's how i express my love well the bible says you should love your brother and fervently have you done that fervently that means like with passion right so part of the responsibilities that we have as a christian is that when we come to church it's not just preaching it's not just fellowship but to actually love one another yeah that's what the bible teaches amen and so no he doesn't get you world he doesn't he didn't understand that commercial it made no sense to him because that's what happens when the unsaved try to interpret the bible let's pray father we thank you so much for your word and thank you for the example that we have in john chapter 13 help us as your people to continue to be sanctified on a daily weekly monthly and yearly basis throughout our lives lord that we would live a life that's pleasing unto you and that we would have a mind of a servant lord to be lowly in mind to serve others and esteem others better than ourselves and ultimately of course to continue to obey and fulfill the the new commandment of loving each other lord and i pray that you bless us as we go on our way we love you we thank you pray these things in jesus name amen