Towel & Basin | John 13

welcome to the together on mission podcast where we seek to be with and we seek to be like jesus as we begin our conversations each day with jesus through scripture prayer and meditation and then we continue that conversation with him throughout the rest of our day your host is travis twyman the pastor at the inland vineyard church in corona california in this short season of the podcast we will be in the gospel of john where we'll be examining john 13 with jesus and his disciples in the upper room good morning everyone and welcome to new podcast series and we're gonna get back to the gospels back to the life of jesus back to really anything jesus said or anything that he did or even those kind of tidbits or off the beaten path aspects of jesus's life where we see his character and what he is all about and so i'm excited to be back in the gospels i just want to take maybe just this week and i want to meditate on john chapter 13 because one of the things i mentioned in my message and i'll continue to mention in the next few messages is that we really do need to meditate on john chapter 13 it's a seminal passage so much ink has been spilled and that's probably the wrong image that's somewhat of a negative image but so much ink has been used so many commentaries have been written on this passage alone and it's important that we just take it in just meditate on it because it is just essential not only to understand the life of jesus of nazareth but the understand what the life of a disciple is all about and so the title of the podcast this morning is simply towel and basin here's the question can you think of someone in your life that has genuinely genuinely served you not in order to get something not with any kind of a string attached not with any kind of an ulterior motive no manipulation just simply because they saw you as valuable and they wanted to communicate that by the little things by by regularly doing those little things is there someone that you would say you know what um they genuinely served me and think about that person for a moment and think about that the impact that person has made in your life in your heart in your journey and then one more question just to kind of turn it around do you think that someone might mention you if they were asked the question that i just asked in other words do you think you have genuinely served someone no strings attached right not to get anything no manipulation no ulterior motive just simply because uh you value that person you want to show them their value day in and day out whether it's a big task or whether it's a you know a menial task because really this according to john 13 this really is the stuff of life this is life to its fullest and so the beginning of john 13 well let's start in verse 2 the evening meal was in progress the devil had already prompted you to cisteria verse 3 jesus knew that the father did all things under his power and that he had come from god he was turning to god so he got it from the meal took off the outer clothes wrapped a towel around his waist and after that he poured water into a basin he began to wash his disciples feet drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him now there is nothing in ancient literature that even comes close to this certainly not with any king you know any philosopher anybody with any power in the ancient world nothing even comes close this is the first story of its kind and it says toward the end of verse 1 in chapter 13 that jesus loved to the end being used up being empty i spoke about this on sunday but it has not left me and i'll just be completely honest sometimes you know i do sermon series and i preach all the time and sometimes i'm just preaching and it's like okay it's another sermon series it's another sermon but sometimes i just get struck to the heart in a way that i don't always get struck and it's happened to me these last couple weeks with this passage particularly and uh the question i guess to be completely honest that i feel like the spirit god has been asking in the last few weeks is this travis is this the approach this approach that jesus takes with his friends travis is this the approach that you bring to all of your relationships and to me that's the question is this the approach the strategy the pattern the goal that we bring to all of our relationships in other words what is your goal in the relationships that are closest to you right are you trying to fix them or grow them or challenge them or avoid them you know or make them better i guess other than the avoidance one that i mentioned all of those are potentially good motives but but jesus is offering an approach that's an approach that leads to life to serve another to the end to empty ourselves and continue to do so and continue to do so and continue to do so no strings attached no ulterior motive no manipulation not to get something in return right jesus is saying the more i give the more i live the more i pour myself out the more i have life in my relationships and you know we may want to think for a moment about why it's difficult to live this way what keeps you and me from living this way you know i don't want to get walked on i don't want to be used you know i've earned my position i've worked really hard you know i've got a lot of things on my plate and i need to be served too you know and you know whatever it is but these are all ways to avoid the life that jesus is inviting us into like in verse 1 loving you know to the end in verse 4 and 5 getting up and washing the feet and it's a life of getting our hands dirty it's a life of saying yes to the little way the little things the lowly way so you know think about your relationships all of them you know think about how we interact with those closest to us with strangers with enemies and uh you know i'll just i'll just be honest maybe this is true for you we all want to be great we all want to have a great name right i want to be a great dad you want to be a great mom i want to be a great pastor i want to be a great manager you want to be a great you know leader i want to be a great grandparent someday you want to be a great grandparent today we all want to be great we all want our name to be great and jesus says okay but this is the route to greatness this is the road to having our name actually known ironically i guess we put it this way jesus is saying that the way up is the way down or the way down is the way up finding the menial task and doing it being willing to be interrupted doing those basic earthy things that path of self-sacrificing you know i love the story of john the baptist because john the baptist became famous by trying to make somebody else famous he became famous by serving someone else he says i need to become less so that you can become greater in john the baptist's name which of course we've heard he became famous for seeking to make somebody else famous and so it's time we meditate on this passage i think we're gonna do this you know throughout the rest of this week you know so you know one more time let's just think has anyone ever been fully and totally served no strings attached right no manipulation no ulterior motive just because the person felt like you were valuable and could that be said about you because we want that to be said about us so let's live let's just do it let's live in such a way that those that are closest to us could truly say that about us and we're not going to do it perfect but we're we've never been asked to do it perfect we've just been asked to do it so let's pick up the towel the basin and let's walk and talk with the one that you know refuses to fight for the throne but rather reaches for the towel and let's do likewise and we will talk tomorrow thanks for listening to this episode of the together on mission podcast we hope that you were truly blessed and encouraged by it today if you had any questions about inland vineyard our ministries 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