Turn in your Bibles this evening, first of all, to the Gospel of Luke. Luke chapter seventeen. and as you find your place there, I'd just like to remind you that we're following the series of the New Testament Progressive Dinner. Now, we've had two courses already, and I hope you're getting your fill as we study these things, as we feast on the riches of God's word. I hope you're not getting fed up, though. You want to get your fill, but you don't want to get fed up. What an encouragement it is to be at the prayer meeting, and especially to have the young men taking their place. It certainly is a delight to our hearts. We trust we'll see more of that in every place. Now, in Luke's Gospel, chapter seventeen, I'd just like to read four verses there, beginning in verse seven right through verse ten, and then we'll turn to another passage of scripture. Luke seventeen verse seven. But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he has come from the field, go and sit down to meat, and will not rather say unto him, make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me till I have eaten and drunken, and afterward thou shalt eat and drink. Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, we are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do. Please turn to the Gospel of John this time, John chapter thirteen. And As you turn there, I will just mention to you again, there are some lesson outline sheets in the foyer. If you need one of those, be sure to pick one up. That'll help you to follow along with the menu of what we're looking at these days. John chapter thirteen, I'd like to read from verses one through seventeen and ask you to follow along as I read these verses as well. John thirteen one. 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 it 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. Verse five. after that 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, dost 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 whit, and ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him, therefore said he, ye are not all clean. Verse 12. 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 ye 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. Verse seventeen concludes our reading tonight with quite an exhortation. If ye know these things, happy are ye if you do them. Shall we ask the Lord to direct us into his precious word once again through prayer? Let's pray. Our Father, we bow our hearts in thy, in thy presence to ask once again that thou, by thy spirit, would illumine our hearts and take the things that we've read and apply them to our very lives. We pray, Father, that at this supper that we're looking at tonight, that thou would impress upon us at least one thing that would change our lives from here on out. Father, this is the purpose for which we've come into thy presence tonight. We do enjoy the joys of fellowship and the pleasure of visiting and seeing one another and being in our place. But Father, we've come to meet with thee tonight through our prayers, and we've come to hear from thee through thy word. Speak, Lord, thy servant, hear, for we pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. That very first supper we looked at was a supper of grace, where God's great invitation went out to his people, the Jews. You remember that they had excuses and refused to come to that great supper of grace. We spoke of it that very Sunday school morning, and we said, had we been in God's place to offer an invitation and be insulted the way that God has been insulted by his own earthly people, we would have had such a different response than the Lord had. We would have cut off the invitation right there and then, but that's not what God did. Instead of cutting off the invitation, he widened it wide as the whole world, and now the invitation goes out not just to the Jews, but as we saw also to the Gentiles, to whosoever will, come and let him taste of that supper. Now we saw also on Sunday evening that the supper given and served to the Gentiles, as it was at the home of Simon the leper, there with Lazarus sitting at the table as a guest of honor with the Lord. We saw in Simon the leper that we too were like an unclean thing, and we saw like Lazarus that we too were dead in our trespasses and sins, but God, who is rich in mercy, hath quickened us, made us alive, and seated us together with Christ in heavenly places. What a great supper that we saw that should be our supper of gratitude, how to say thank you for his great gift of eternal life. Now we come to our third course on this New Testament progressive dinner, and I'm going to call this a supper of greatness. Now, you remember what we said, you learn all kinds of things at the supper table. We've seen two different supper tables there in Luke chapter seventeen and here in John chapter thirteen, and both of these supper tables are going to teach the very same lesson, and that has to do with true greatness. If you want to be great in God's kingdom, learn to be the servant of all. That's going to be the main point. Now, I'm not going to close in prayer now that you've heard the main point, but that's going to be the main point that we want to see tonight. What does it mean to be a leader of God's people? Well, it means that we must be a servant of God's people. And whom will, will we learn this from? We'll learn this from the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. I would like you to see here in the setting of John chapter thirteen some very important things. The very first is that if we want to learn how to lead, the best way to learn to be a leader is to be a follower. A follower of the Lord Jesus. Now, if you go into a Christian bookstore, you'll find all kinds of books on how to be a leader. You find very few books on how to be a follower. But that's the real key. Do you remember David? The greatest king that ever lived on earth, that one day will reign again on his throne. Where did God pick him from? He took young David from following the sheep. Following the sheep? I thought you were to lead the sheep. Well, you don't lead the sheep till you learn how to follow them. And the same way is exercised among the Christians, the body of Christ. The best way to be a leader is to be a good follower of the Lord Jesus. The Apostle Paul, the greatest apostle that we've ever seen on this planet, he said, follow me, but he didn't stop there. As I follow Christ. So if you want to be a good leader, learn to be a servant, a follower of the Lord Jesus. Now, if we said that this dinner is going to be progressive, we started with the Jews, then we went to the Gentiles, I would have to say that we understand to whom we're speaking tonight, and it would have to be speaking to that early church in its transitional stage, speaking especially to the disciples, the followers of the Lord Jesus, who would be the leaders of this new early church in its embryo form, that they might learn to be proper leaders by being followers of the Lord Jesus. They had seen the leadership of the Pharisees. They had seen the leadership of the scribes and the Sadducees. And the Lord Jesus said, now don't follow their example, you follow mine. Let's see how this unfolds in John chapter thirteen. You notice in verse one it says, 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. We have to clarify a few things. To be a follower and a servant, you must have a willing heart. You've got to be willing. It can't be against your will. When my brother and I used to get in fights at home growing up, my dad would make us apologize to each other and ask for forgiveness. And we would say, I'm sorry, please forgive me, and then we would get a good spanking because we said the right words, but we didn't say it with the right attitude. You see, it's easy to fake it instead of faith it. We can act like a servant, but if we don't have a servant's heart, the Lord takes account of that, and he doesn't count it for our good. It's the same way the Pharisees did. He says, I want it to be real. And so you start in the very first verse, and the Lord Jesus shows you his willingness, first of all, his willing life. Just the fact that he was willing to leave heaven's glory and come down to earth, that should show us that he was willing to become one of us. That's great service. As we said, he came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. He had to have a willing life. You even read about it as he willingly limited himself to time. His hour had not yet come, but then when his hour had come, to space, he departed out of this world to go back to the Father. He was living here among us in a body. Destined time, space, just for a period of this life that he lived here among us, his willing life. Notice also, if you will, his willing love, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them, and the phrase is unto the end. I want you to understand what it means, for there's no end of God's love. It means to the very fullest measure, you can't get any bigger than the love of God. Even the children's chorus, they say, it's so high you can't get over it, it's so wide you can't get around it, it's so low you can't go under it. Oh, wonderful love. It's that big because it's a willing love. You can't force love. You know, we are so glad to have grandchildren. We pick them up on our knee, snuggle right in there with them, and they say, I love you. And it means so much. But if I took my little granddaughter and shook her and said, you tell me you love me, and she says, I love you, wouldn't mean a thing. The Lord Jesus had a willing love. If you want to be a servant of God's people, you've got to have a willing life, a willing love. And look also, he had a willing lowliness. Notice what you read in verses four and five: he rises from supper. He riseth from supper? Huh. I don't like to do anything at supper time, do you? I mean, when that phone rings, we like to say, let the answer machine get it. It's probably just you know who, she talks all the time. She'll have a long conversation. My potatoes and gravy is going to get cold. I- I'll- I'm going to eat first, and then I'll call whoever calls me, I'll call them back. Not so with the Lord Jesus. He didn't turn on his answer machine. When the time came to serve, he riseth from supper. He had a willing lowliness. We had a call the other day. I don't- I don't know if you have it happening in the Bahamas, but it's called telemarketing. It means they, through the telephone, will market a certain product. And when you pick up the phone, you are stuffed. They say, Mr. Trondon, and I wonder how did they get my name? Because I didn't recognize the voice. And they said, this is Bob Jones. I have a great offer I'd like to make to you. And I think, oh ho, I, I bit. I said, I don't have time for this, Mr. Jones. He said, well, it it'll just take a moment. Let me explain to you what I have. I got a call like that one time. It was on the answer machine. So I called him back. I said, Mr. Jones, this is Rex Trogdon. You had a call for for me. I'm just returning your call. He said, yes, Mr. Trogdon, I'm so glad you called me, and you're going to be glad you called me too. And I thought, oh no, here we go. He said, I've got a great deal for you. I thought, I'll bet. And he said, I can offer you a new job and employment and career that'll double your money. I said, I have no doubt about that, but I want to tell you, I am so happy at what I do. I don't believe I would change for anything in the world. He hesitated a little bit, and he said, got a second wind. He said, but Mr. Trogdon, I not only could double your salary, I could cut your time that you spend at work in half. And I said, well, I have no doubt about that either, but I enjoy my work so much I wouldn't want to change even if you cut my time in half and doubled my salary. I said, I got the greatest job in all the world. And finally, he bit. He said, what is it you do? I was waiting for him to ask me. I said, I have the privilege and opportunity and joy of telling people that Jesus died for their sins, was buried and raised again, and if they would put their trust in him, they can have the wonderful gift of eternal life. I said, now, isn't that a great job? There's this long silence on the phone. He said, yes, it is. I'm glad you're happy at what you do. Hung up the phone. No goodbye, no thank you. That's a good way to handle a telemarketer. That's worth getting up from supper just to have that fun and to tell someone about Jesus. Would you miss a meal to tell someone about the Lord Jesus? The Lord Jesus did. Do you remember there at the, at the well at, at Sychar in Samaria, when he spoke with that woman? The disciples, they went into town for food. They came back and saw him speaking to her, and they said, Lord, here's the food you've got to eat. He said, I've got food you know not of. They thought, who brought him something to eat? Did he call out an order or what? He would much rather bring a soul to him than to eat his supper. Here you see his willing lowliness, and there we come to our very first part on the disciples' part, and we see what we're going to call a great embarrassment at this supper of greatness. The embarrassment was there was no one to wash the disciples' feet. Now, you remember that in the upper room, it's a sizable room, big enough for them to be comfortable. It was a room that Peter and John had to go and to prepare ahead of time, and it would have been their job to prepare the place to eat, the food to have been in place, and also it would have been up to them to have a servant hired, not just a domestic servant, someone even lower than that, just a plain ordinary day servant that would simply wash the feet of the disciples when they arrived to celebrate Passover. They had forgotten to do it. It was a great embarrassment. It was so embarrassing that when they arrived, a dispute broke out. And I believe with all my heart that the dispute broke out because there was no one to wash the disciples' feet. Here's the way I would picture it in my mind, perhaps it's sanctified imagination, I hope, but think about it for a moment. They all get there, and you understand they don't sit at a table that's up high with their feet down below. Remember we said you learn lessons at the table, might be keep your feet off the table for the children? Well, there, even the adults would have to keep their feet back from the table because the table was not up high on legs, but it was down low to the ground, right there on the floor. And so when they would sit at the table, their feet weren't up close to the food, but they were actually folded back to the side. But you certainly wouldn't wanna sit at a table that close to your feet if your feet were dirty. It would be a shame and an embarrassment. That's why it was just the way you would greet somebody by shaking their hand and welcoming them into your home. They would wash their feet right as they came into the meal, but there they sat down with dirty feet. It would be worse than what your children do when they come in from playing and try to sit down without washing their hands before eating, because it was part of the culture and custom. It was part of the honor principle. And I bet as they sat down around that table, they looked at Peter and John and said, hey fellas, you forgot something. Where's the servant? You forgot to get the servant to wash our feet. Okay, Peter and John, you go ahead. There's the towel in the basin over there, you wash our feet. And Peter said, oh no. I have to do everything, he said. I'm the one that always speaks on behalf of our little band of disciples. You remember, on the road up to Caesarea Philippi, I'm the one that got you out when the Lord said, who do men say that I am, and who do you say that I am? I'm the one that had the right answer when I said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And the Lord even commended my answer and said, you've answered well, Simon. Flesh and blood have not revealed this to unto you, but my Father who is in heaven. And there on the Mount of Transfiguration, it was me again that woke up and said, Lord, that's good that we're here. I'm always doing everything. I'm not going to wash your feet. And then their eyes moved from Peter over to John, and John said, oh no, I'm the disciple whom Jesus loved. I'm not going to wash your feet. And I can almost hear Peter jump right into the conversation and say to Andrew, okay, little brother, you wash our feet. Andrew says, no way, I'm the one that told you about him. And Andrew says, how about Nathaniel? And Nathaniel says, nothing doing. I'm an Israelite in whom there is no guile. The Lord himself said so. You can just hear it, can't you? From one to the other, until finally, Luke just... surmises it this way. A dispute broke out, and you know what it broke out about? Over who was the greatest. What an embarrassment. What an embarrassment. And so the Lord, he takes that opportunity, as he always did, and from an embarrassment, he gives them an example. Uh, you know, that first supper we read about back there in Luke seventeen? it got right to the point. It said, you do what's commanded you, and after you've done what's commanded you, don't expect thanks. You just simply say, with an attitude of gratitude and humility, we're unprofitable servants. We've only done what's our duty to do. Now that's the right servant attitude. That was the teaching from Luke seventeen, but here in thirteen, the Lord Jesus, he gives an example. It's a blessed example. He actually gives an eternal picture in his example, and then he gives an immediate picture in his example. His eternal picture overall pictures him as the Savior. His immediate picture, right there and then, pictures him as the servant. Think of it, if you will. There you have his eternal picture beginning in verse four, getting up from supper. Now look at it with an eternal eye. As the Savior, he gets up from the Father's table, for he had communion and fellowship with the Father before the world was. Doesn't that set your mind on eternity? Not only that, but it says that he laid aside his garments. Look at it with an eternal eye, and you see him setting aside his glory, where we could not have stood seeing him in his true glory. He would have taken us right out of these bodies, and one day it will, praise God. Thirdly, notice the next phrase, and taking a towel, and he girded himself. Isn't that just exactly what he did from the eternal picture? Laying aside his glory, he took on a body of flesh and girded himself. He became one of us, except without sin. And in that eternal picture, we see him coming down to serve. It really is a striking picture, all about the Savior going so low to meet us in our need and to take away our filth of sin. Now, that's only part of the eternal picture. Verse twelve gives you the other side of the eternal picture with three more steps. We've gone down four, all the way down to serving as the Savior, but notice after, in verse twelve, he had washed their feet. Oh, he finished his work at Calvary. That's the eternal picture. And taken his garments. Father, glorify me with the glory that I had with thee before the world was. He took his glory back again. Now, he didn't give up the flesh. He'll always eternally be a man, but now he's the man glorified. We have one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. In his glory, there he is. He took that glory again, and notice the next phrase, and was set down again. Having finished his work, having gone back to the Father, glorified. Now he sits down at the Father's right hand, there on the throne of God. Oh, what an eternal picture it is, and how we see our Savior fulfilling all that, those seven snapshots of the great eternal picture presenting to us the Savior. But you and I are also concerned about the immediate picture, and that's what else we see here, as he presents himself as the servant, practically. Would you picture that for a moment with me? Twenty four feet, dirty, needing to be washed. He looks at those twenty four feet as he comes on the outside of that table and see- sees them all in their filth. Twenty four feet, Two feet that would betray him. Two feet that would deny him. Two feet that would run even without his own garments on. two feet that would follow behind to see what would become of him. sixteen feet that would all flee and run into the darkness and abandon their master. It was those twenty four feet that the Savior washed that night. What a servant. It's no wonder that Peter was completely shocked and amazed, appalled even, as the Lord Jesus, I don't know who he had washed first, but when he came to his feet, Peter said, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? You know what he meant by that. Just what he said, you're never going to wash my feet. And the Lord went right to his heart. He said, Peter, if I don't wash thee, thou hast no part with me. And Peter's never didn't last very long, did it? Lord, not my feet, but my hands and my head. And then the Lord said, you don't need a bath, Peter, you've already had a bath. You're clean every whit. Not all of you are clean because he knew Judas Iscariot was not clean. He was not one of his. He was a devil, possessed of the devil to do his dirtiest work. But Peter, you don't need a bath. You're clean every whit. All you need is your feet washed. You know, it gives us the picture, doesn't it, of the bath of salvation, but the basin to wash our feet of sanctification. We're seated in the heavenlies, clean every wit, but we let our feet drag on planet Earth and walk through this world, we get our feet dirty. Peter quickly responded, and he was willing for the Lord to wash his feet. Now, that immediate picture starts to show us the true servanthood by the greatest of all, the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me just ask you, as we consider this, if the Lord Jesus, God himself, the highest of all, would be willing to stoop so low as to do a servant's job, who are we to say, hell no, that's not my department. I- it's just like there in the upper room, surely there was a basin and a towel. The Lord Jesus used it. The problem was not a lack of facility, the problem was a lack of a servant's heart. You know, we find the same thing in our church today, don't we? We've got everything we need, we just don't have the manpower to put it to use. We've never had so much as the Church of Jesus Christ today. And yet, the harvest is still plenteous, and the labors are still few. May the Lord help us to do the work. That's what the Lord showed in his true example of greatness. One poet expressed it this way, just a simple little phrase, he said, Wouldest thou be chief? Then lowly serve. Wouldest thou go up? Then go down. But go as low as you will, the highest has been lower still. Who could ever compare in our service to what the Lord Jesus accomplished for us? Not just when he washed our feet, but when he went all the way to Calvary and served by laying his life down for us. Now, what kind of example would this be for those disciples who were going to be the leaders of this new group of people called the church? I want you to know it's the most powerful, most important example that the church could get in that day, and the church needs today. There is no doubt whatsoever about it. Look at the example they had, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes. The Lord had said, let no one call you rabbi, or not many call you teacher. Let no one call you father. You have one father who is in heaven, and yet you look at our religious world today and all of its pomp and all of its pride, huffing up those who seek to be ministers of God, when the word in itself, minister, means a servant. The Lord Jesus never had that in mind. That's what man has done to us. The Lord Jesus said, now I want to show you what it means to be the greatest of all. It's to be a servant, and that's the way he showed it. They had long seen the misleadership among the Jews. The Lord Jesus said, this is a different thing altogether. This is a body, a family, and you're called to be servants, followers of me. Oh, it's a wonderful example, isn't it? But you know, it started out as an embarrassment, it's followed up by an example, but here's the hard part. It's concluded by an exhortation. You know, the exhortation comes in a few different ways. It- exhortation simply means encouragement, uh, but some people need something different to be encouraged. Sometimes it's just a question. Uh, Nancy gives me exhortations every once in a while, like when I get dressed and put on what I think matches, she says, are you going to wear that? It was just a question, sounded innocent, but I know what she meant. I said, of course I'm not going to wear this. I was just putting it on, and uh, before I got dressed. Well, you know, you can ask a lot of questions. You can talk to your children, you give them exhortations. Uh, perhaps the way they clean up their room, and you say, you call that clean? And they say, uh, no, I'm still working on it. It's an exhortation. That's kind of an innocent one because it's a question. A question you don't feel so pressured about. You get a ch- you get a chance to respond, and in your response, you usually straighten it out. Well, the Lord started with a question, didn't he? If you'll notice it, please, in verse twelve. 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've done to you? Oh, now they could have talked about that for a long time. It really didn't require an answer, you see. It was a statement in itself. He had told them earlier, you don't understand what I'm doing to you now, but you will know when you hang your head in disgrace after deserting me, and you open your eyes looking down, you'll see your feet and remember they were clean. Clean because of the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then you'll know. You will know hereafter. And so he asked, do you know what I've done to you? Well, they knew. They knew he had washed their feet. But did they really know? Do we really know what was included and meant by that teaching? Listen to the next four statements of this exhortation. For right there in verse thirteen, he says, ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say well, for so I am. Now, that's not just his name, you. That's who he is. How is it possible that we can call him Lord and not do his word, and master and not fulfill his will? Oh, there's more to it than just what we say with our lips. It's how we respond with our hearts. We call him master and lord, and we say it well, but do we do it? That's really what he meant in that statement. Look at the next statement in verse fourteen. If I then, your lord and master, have washed your feet, here we come, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. Now he's speaking of a whole lot more than just getting some nice warm water and some soap and a towel. He's speaking of serving one another, forgiving one another, praying for one another, helping one another, encouraging one another, comforting one another, provoking one another, or stimulating, stirring up one another unto love and good deeds, doing all these things for one another. Why? Because you've seen me do it for you. Now you do the same. And look at the fourth one in verse fifteen. I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. And then here it comes, the servant. Verse sixteen, 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. Before we get too high-minded, remember him. The very highest has been lower still. You'll never get any lower than him, all the way down. How could we do less than give him our best? That really is a question worth answering, isn't it? I wonder, have I done my best for Jesus? Well, I know I haven't, but I sure should have a desire to. He finishes this exhortation in verse seventeen by saying, if ye know these things, and I'm afraid I've brought you all into a great place of responsibility tonight. You already knew them before I ever even came to the island, some of you before I was even born, others before I was born again. You already knew these things. But by way of reminder, if you know these things, happy are ye if you do them. That's really it, isn't it? It's the doing of it. And so there at supper time, they learn a lot. And in so doing, he says, when you've done all that was commanded you, don't wait for thanks. Now, we should be thankful. He didn't mean don't give thanks, but don't wait for thanks. Simply say, we're unprofitable servants. We've only done what was our duty to do. We're not looking for what we deserve. If we got what we deserve, where would we be? It's all by grace. Like a great supper of grace, all prepared and offered to the Jewish people. And the Jews said, no thanks, we're not hungry. Give it over to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles said, we're grateful for it. You saw that supper of gratitude. But now, starting into the church as we see this great plan unfold at this New Testament supper, the supper of greatness. May it be characteristic of our local church here in this assembly that we would be known as fellow servants of the Most High God. The supper of greatness. We have a lot to be thankful for. It's a privilege, isn't it, to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, taking nothing from the world, but just receiving everything from him and doing his will. What a great privilege. May God stir us to do it, and to do it with all of our heart. Shall we pray? Our Father, once again, we bow in thy presence, and we thank thee. With hearts overflowing with praise, that thou has given us, sinners, deserving of hell and undeserving of heaven, the privilege of serving thee on our way home. Father, help us to see opportunities and to take them and to make them count for thee, and help us to do what thou would give us to do with a joy in our hearts as we feast upon the riches of thy grace. Father, bless thy word to our hearts, we pray, and strengthen those who are weak in body and weak in spirit with the strength that comes from thyself. For we thank thee and bless thee for all these things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Feasting on the riches of his grace.