A Foot Washing Attitude

At the time of Jesus Christ, there was a custom that we all know about. If you didn't know the New Testament, you wouldn't know anything about this custom. And it would seem strange. Guests would go to someone's home, and because everybody wore sandals, a leather sandal, when they would go to someone's home, their feet would get dirty just because there's no pavement. You know, it's now there's rock, there's stone roads, but most everything's dirt or stone, which of course isn't, there's still a lot of dirt and so forth, so your feet would get dirty. So when you go to someone's house, it was just common courtesy to wash their feet. Now you might, if you had a servant, the servant might wash their feet. The wife might wash their feet. Very seldom did the man in the house wash the servant's feet. The wife might wash their feet, or many times you just gave them a basin with water. That was common courtesy. They could take their sandals off and wash their feet. And you and I wouldn't think much about that custom except for all those who will be keeping the pass over here in a couple of nights, we'll be washing each other's feet. Which if you told that to your neighbor, most people would say, are you some kind of cult or something of washing each other's feet? And yet we're going to be following the example of Jesus Christ.

That he used foot washing on the Passover to teach an entire attitude towards life. And that's what I want to do today. We'll go through this a little bit on Passover, but we won't have time to go through it in detail. I'm going to go through in detail what Jesus Christ is doing. Why does He have us do that? I mean, taking the bread and the wine as symbols of His blood, embodied, sacrificed for us, that makes perfect sense. Washing feet, sometimes it's like, well, what exactly is He teaching us? So let's go to John 13.

I tried to go through some sermon, some message about foot washing every few years. I was looking, I realized it had been five years since I talked about this in a sermon. Well, we need to go back sometimes and review some of these basic things. But, and John is, it's interesting, John is the only one. It gives this story, he tells it.

John had the ability, of course, he was inspired by God, too, but just his personality, to see the details of what Jesus was doing that was really important in teaching tools. That's why he stresses more than any of the others who Jesus really is, that He's just not another man, who He really is, and how special that is. And then he would view or look at His teachings and add all kinds of details that the other ones missed. And, of course, He was very close to Jesus. I mean, He was close to all of His disciples, but there were a few that He was closer to. And that's what's fascinating when you look at their personalities, comparing John to Peter. Those are two different men, right? Two different men. And what they see in Jesus, and what they see Him doing is different. And so He records this. Verse 1, Now before the face of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come, that He would depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own, who were in this world, He loved them to the end. Now, John's making a point here. What He was doing next that would lead up to His taking of the bread and the wine, institution of the new covenant, and then His sacrifice, all this was because of He loves those who He calls. So what He's talking about next has to do with Christ's love towards His disciples, which all of us are disciples of Jesus Christ. And supper being ended, the devil, having already put into the heart of Jesus the scary and Simon's son to betray Him, and Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things to His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, and He said, I'm fulfilling what I'm supposed to fulfill. I've come from the Father. I'm going back to the Father. He rose from supper and laid aside His garments and took a towel and girded Himself. And after that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel, which He was girded. You think, okay, we know this story. Why read it again? We're supposed to read it again, and we'll read this again on Passover 9. Jesus gets down. Now, remember who He is. Paul said, God created all things. Anything that's created was created by God through the one we know as Jesus Christ. Every created thing. All things were created by Him. So this is the creator of the universe. This is the one through Him. God the Father created all things, and He gets down on His knees, and He begins to wash the dirty feet of the disciples. You know, I've heard sermons where Peter is really chided for what he did here. But understand, I understand Peter's viewpoint. Peter isn't being rebellious because Peter says to him in verse 6, Lord, are You washing my feet? And Jesus answers and said to Him, what am I doing? You do not understand now, but You will after this. And Peter said to Him, You will never wash my feet. Now, he's not doing this out of some kind of pride. It's, I know who I am, and I know who You are, and it is wrong for You to wash my feet like some servant.

And Peter said to Him, or Simon, Jesus said, If I do not wash you, you have no part with me. Simon Peter said to Him, okay, he gets it. And it just shows he's not rebellious. It's like, okay, if this means that I'm with you, scrub me down head to foot, wash my whole body, if that's what means I am with you. And Jesus said to Him, He was bathed, needs only to wash His feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not all of you. For He knew who would betray Him. Therefore He said, You were not all clean. Remember, Jesus is scary and is still with Him. He would leave before the institution of the new covenant, the bread and the wine, but He's still there, which means that Jesus gets down and washes the feet of the man He knows who's going to betray Him.

That is one of the most remarkable things of this, to think that through. He washes the feet of the man He knows who's going to betray Him. So when He had washed their feet and taken His garments, He laid down again, and sat down again, He said to them, Do you not know what I have done to you? You call Me teacher and Lord, and you say, Well, for I am. Jesus says, I am your Lord. I am your rabbi. That's who I am.

For I have given you, if you, then your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you 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. Most assuredly I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who has sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. And so we're going to wash each other's feet. Because why? Jesus Christ said, I've left you an example. But the example here He's leaving him, or leaving them and leaving us, is a whole lot more than the ritual of washing feet. Now we should do this because it brings us in the context of what Jesus is doing. Because Jesus is washing your feet and my feet through each other. There's something remarkable that happens here as we participate in what He said to do. But also He uses us to wash each other's feet. To teach us, if I can be the great teacher and I can wash your feet, should you not wash each other's feet as a lifestyle, this isn't just about the simple ceremony we'll do. This is Him teaching them a lifestyle. If this is what I will do for you, this is what you do for each other. More than one night a week, I mean a year, one night a year washing each other's feet is still teaching us a lesson. It isn't the completion of the lesson.

It has to do with understanding Christ's example as servant and what we must do as servants.

You know, it's interesting in the Bible, in the New Testament, there's lots of parables about servants. And they have to do with the servants of Jesus Christ or the servants of God. But there's three different words used and they have meaning and there's reasons they're used. One word that's used is hireling. Now a hireling is someone that was hired. When we look at a servant, we'll see he had a different meaning. It was someone who simply hired themselves out to do something. So you hired this person. This person worked for you because you were going to pay them. In other words, a hireling is motivated by the pay I'm going to get, the reward I'm going to get. So I come, I do work. I mean, some of you have jobs you may hate, right? And you only go do them because you get paid. And there's days that, I don't care how much you love your job, you may have a day where it's like, I didn't like today. But you didn't quit, right? Because tomorrow will be better and besides, you need to paycheck. Well, hirelings work for one reason.

Not to do the best work, but to be paid. And he talks about hirelings. Let's look at John chapter 10. So we're going to look at all these places where Christ uses, or not all the places, but a few of them, these examples. John 10 and verse 11.

He says, Christ says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. And that's not just the one-time death. It is his life. What is Jesus Christ doing today? He's working with his sheep. He is the shepherd. He takes care of the people that God calls. He's intimately involved in the lives of the people that God calls.

But a hireling, someone who just does it for money, is he is not the shepherd who does not own the sheep. In other words, he's not taking care of the sheep because they're his. And though sheep means something to him, he does it because someone hires him to do it. He sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees. And the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling, and he does not care about the sheep. He's only there to get paid. He's not there to be in danger. So some wolves come around. He leaves the sheep because, well, you know, I'm going to put my life on the line for these sheep. But the owner of the sheep does.

I am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep, and I am known by my own. As the Father knows me, even so I know the sheep, and I will lay down my life for the sheep, and which he did, and which we will commemorate at the Passover. He laid down his life for the sheep. He stood up and conquered Satan, the wolf that wishes to take the sheep.

What happens with a hireling is that they'll do good work as long as they get the money they think they deserve. They'll never go the extra mile. They'll never do something for free, and they won't sacrifice. They won't sacrifice what they think is important to them for the sheep. So there's a hireling, and Jesus is teaching his disciples at the Passover about what real service means. And the question is, do we sometimes approach our service to God, which we will see also means our service to each other, our service to God and to Christ and each other? Do we approach that as I do this for reward? I do this because I get something out of it. Or do we do it for the good of each other?

Matthew 20. Matthew chapter 20. We're going to go through a lot of parables today. Matthew 20.

See, it's a lifestyle we're learning because we're watching Christ as an example of a lifestyle. His sacrifice wasn't just that night. His sacrifice is applied to us all the time. His intercession for us is constant. His service to us constantly still happens. He hasn't abandoned us.

He's constantly still taking care of us as the Father directs him to prepare children. Matthew 20 verse 1. For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. Now, he uses, once again, the hireling concept here. So he says these people are coming in and they're coming in for pay, only for pay.

Now, when he agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, that's a day's wage, he sent them into the vineyard. And what happens is you read through this, and you've all read it before, is that the work isn't being done. There's just not enough workers. So he goes, hires more workers. Then a few hours later, he goes and hires more workers. Then it's almost quitting time, and he goes, hires more workers. And he brings them in, and he finally gets the work done. What he wants to accomplish is accomplished. And all the hirelings now come together to get paid. They have come to work to be blessed by receiving something for their work.

Verse 8, So when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his servants, call the laborers and give them their wages, beginning with the last of the first. And with those who were hired about the eleventh hour, they received a denarius. But when the first came, they supposed they would receive more. Of course. Wow. He's giving a day's wage to someone who worked three hours. We've been here all day long. We've worked maybe 10, 12 hours. Wow. He's probably going to want to give us time and a half, double time. What's he going to give us? And they each get a denarius. Verse 11, When they had received it, they complained against the landowner, saying, These last men have been working only one hour, and you made them equal to us, who have borne the burden on the heat of the day. You treated them as equal. Now this isn't, by the way, about any kind of—it's not a teaching about any kind of economic system. He's just using what's happening in daily life there, because this is how a lot of—if you worked, you know, there wasn't a company to go work for in most cases. You had to go work like I've seen in Texas. I mentioned before, you go to the small town, and the town square will be just filled with migrant workers. And guys would come up and pick up trucks, pick out six or eight, put them in, and off they'd go. And the rest would be just huddled around, hoping that before very long, they'd all be out working. And usually they were. And the next morning, they had to show up again. And if they finished one guide's field, he may not be there the next day to hire them. They're hoping somebody else will hire them.

So of course this would be normal to think that way. It would be normal to treat people that way. So the question here is God being unjust, because this doesn't seem to be just.

But he answered one of them and said, friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me? Is it not proper for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good? And so we have a summary here of what he was teaching. So the last will be first, and the first will be last, for many are called, but few are chosen. The point here is, I've heard people say, oh, if God would you just called me a little later, I'd have had so much more fun. No one after a certain age thinks that way, but you can be young enough to think that. Or you're kidding me. Christ comes back and I've been in the church for 50 years, and here's somebody who's been in the church for six months, and they get an equal reward. Yeah? Instead of, look, brother, we're all going to be there together. This is great. See, there's two viewpoints here. One is, I'm glad you're along. And using the response is, I'm glad you're here before me to help me along, right? And we all arrived there together. That's sermonhood. Hirelings don't think that way. Hirelings are in it because I get more than you. And I hate to bring this up again because I have a couple times, but I remember years ago in the church, and fortunately no place I was growing up, but other people would tell me, the minister would tell them, the job you have in the church now will determine your reward when Christ comes back. So there was always competition for who gets to be in charge of setting up chairs. And then who gets to be the deacon, and who gets to be the elder. And sometimes people were serving not for the love of God, not to serve Jesus Christ as the head of the church, and not to serve the brethren. They were serving because I will get a bigger job than you in the kingdom. And we became sort of a, in certain church areas, it became sort of a capitalistic corporate structure of let's all fight for jobs. That is not what Christ teaches.

What Christ teaches is, look, just work together, let's all get there. He'll take care of the greater rewards. The greatest reward is eternal life in the kingdom of God. That's the reward. Now, he does say he's going to give different rewards to people for what he's developed them for. Whatever God's developing for you for, you know, we're going to talk about what we do in the millennium. Whatever you do in the millennium, it'll be because God developed you to do that. I remember having an engineer come to me once and saying, I'm dreading Christ coming back. I said, why? He said, because I don't want to be over any cities. I said, I doubt if you are.

That's not your makeup, but I bet you'll be designing things. He says, good! Wow, I'm looking forward to it now. I bet you'll be designing things. Because that's who you are. I said, I don't particularly want to be over cities either, so I probably won't.

Whatever we're designed for, whatever God works, that's what we'll do. So don't worry about rewards. Worry about being there. And everybody stands before Christ because we're there. That's what matters. Harlings can't see that. Everybody gets what they deserve, and I deserve more than that person. So, we have a harling. The next is the servant. Now, the servant was different. A servant could be a hired hand, but many times in the ancient world, a servant could be an indentured servant. In other words, they owed a debt. And basically, to pay off the debt, they had to go become a servant. Sometimes they were slaves. In the Roman world, and we find even in the early New Testament church, there were Gentiles who came into the church, and they had slaves.

And now you have a problem. What do you do with that? Of course, it's very interesting. I think I'll give a sermon at some time. When you read the New Testament instructions on slavery, it destroys slavery. When you're told you have to treat your slave as a brother, and you have to obey your master as you obey God in the physical things, man, that just destroys slavery right there.

But, and slavery at the time of Abraham's time wasn't the same as slavery in the Roman Empire, either. But when you're a servant, you have a relationship with the master that's not like, okay, I'm a day worker. He picks me out of the crowd. I go work in the vineyard all day long, go home. I may never meet the owner. You know, some foreman came and picked me out. And tomorrow, I'll be working somebody else's vineyard. That's what migrant workers are, and that's what the system was them, not necessarily migrant workers, but people who just worked in agriculture, hired themselves out as day workers. Remember, there's day workers.

But a servant, you had some kind of relationship with the owner of the house or the company, or the company, they didn't have companies, but they did have, I mean, there was free enterprise. You could own a business, small business. Although in Rome, they figured out a way to cut prices. They didn't have to worry about minimum wage. The really big businesses decided, you know what? We can do this with slaves. So you just get rid of all your workers and buy a bunch of slaves and make them do the work, which put people out of work. That's one reason for the Coliseum. There were so many free people out of work, they had to keep them entertained because they replaced them with slaves, especially the farmers. Anyways, I don't mean to get off on that. So a good servant is very concerned about his master, his boss, whether he's owned or not, his master's livelihood. In other words, this relationship means he's working for more than just his money. You know, if you work for someone and you care about that person's business, you're going to keep your jaw most of the time, right? Because if you own a business and you have someone that cares about your business, they go over and beyond. They know what you want. They work really hard to achieve things, and they're not doing it just for money. They're doing it because they want you to be successful. Well, that's what a servant, a servant had a different relationship. Look at Luke 12. Luke 12. And verse 35.

Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning, and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master when he will return from the wedding and when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately. Now, this would have made sense if you were a servant in someone's house.

Maybe a hired servant, indentured servant, even a slave. Because if your master went, has gone, to get married, that means sometime after that wedding and all the things they did, they had a big party. I mean, weddings back then were a big thing. After that wedding, you are, you wait for him to come back with his wife. He's bringing his wife into her new home because you've gone and built a home for her. You've prepared a place for her. And so they're coming. He's bringing her home to her new home, and you would be expected to have everything perfect. You would be expected to be awake, help them come in, help them with luggage or whatever, not luggage, but well, maybe hers, her luggage, right? Her stuff would have to come into the house. You would be there to maybe make sure there's some kind of food for them. You would be there to serve them. And he uses that analogy to say that this is how his servant should be. Because verse 40 says, Therefore you also be ready for the Son of Man is coming in an hour you do not expect. Now, I know that, you know, we give different kinds of sermons because there's all kinds of subjects we're supposed to cover in the Bible. And sometimes when we give prophecy sermons, some people are all excited because they love prophecy. And other people like prophecy doesn't, I don't understand the reason for prophecy. There is a reason for prophecy. It is that you were watching for the coming of your master. That's the reason for prophecy.

Not to know everything because we don't, but it is to know the context of it so that we are watching for the coming of the master and we're prepared for the coming of the master. And it's interesting, he uses servants here. He doesn't use the word harling because the harling isn't even thinking about what's important to his master or his master coming. All he's caring about is giving my money. Okay? Give me my money.

But the servant is preparing. The servant's always waiting. What does my master want? I love my master. I want to please my master. I want to be prepared when he comes.

So, servant is used differently by Jesus than harling. That's on purpose. Luke 17. Luke 17 is an odd parable because it's a response to a request from the disciples. And it seems like the response has nothing to do with the request.

Verse 5, Luke 17. And the apostles said to the Lord, increase our faith.

Help us to have more faith. So the Lord said, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry bush, be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea, and it would obey you. In other words, God responds to just the smallest amount of faith. Sometimes we don't have much faith, but God will respond to our faith. But He doesn't stop there. He now talks about doing things. He's like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Increase our faith. Okay, do things. So He continues. And sometimes we separate those two verses from the rest of what He says as if they're two different things, but they're not. It's all happening at one time. And which of you, verse 7, having a servant, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, come up once and sit down to eat? He says, you know, your servant's out there working hard and working all day for you, and it's supper time. So He's finished working and what happens? Verse 8, but will He not rather say to him, will you, He not rather say to him, prepare something for my supper and gird yourself up and serve me to I have eaten and drunk, and afterwards you can eat and drink? Isn't this normal when things are done? If you have a servant, he gets his time off after he's done all his work. Now this is the context, how can I have more faith? And the answer is, well, to get all your work done. That seems like a strange answer, right? How do I have more faith? Get all your work done.

And He's making a point here, if you're waiting for the pay, you're missing the point. The reward comes when the work is finished. That's when the reward comes. Does He thank that servant? Verse 9, because He did the things that were commanded to Him? I think so. Likewise, you, when you have done all these things which are commanded, say, we are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do. He said, God wants more from you. You do all the things you're supposed to do. But we'll see in a minute what He wants. He actually wants something more than us. He doesn't want us to be harlings, but He wants us to be more than good servants. Remember, the whole purpose of the foot washing is to show us Jesus serving us and how we're to live that as a lifestyle. So, okay, He must want us to be servants. Yes, but He says not. You have to go beyond that. You have to go beyond being a servant. That's what makes it so remarkable, and I won't go there in Matthew 25, when remember, He gives His prophecy about how Christ returns. He separates the sheep and the goats, and He says, all of you who followed Me by loving Me when I was in prison, and loving Me when I was sick, and loving Me when I was poor, come. And He'll say, well, when do we do that? He said, because you did it to my brethren. Now, there's other places He talks about how we are to care for people in the world outside the church. That is His brethren. It's people in the church. He said, when you serve each other, you serve Me, which is what foot washing is all about. When we serve each other in that little ceremony, we're serving Christ. And in a very real sense, if Christ is in every one of us, He's serving us. This is profound.

So He said, when you serve each other as a servant, you're not a harling, but He says, the motivation still has to be, you do this because you love Me, and you can't help but love each other. We love each other because we love Christ and because Christ loves them. That relationship is all tied together, and that's what God the Father is doing.

That's the whole purpose of the church.

It's for Christ to reign over the church, and for this relationship to happen with the Father through Christ, and then He does this stuff with the church. He's the head of the church. And so we have to understand that being a servant isn't more than just doing our duty. It's doing it because we love God and we love each other.

And sometimes that does mean going against what you want to do. We all have to serve others sometimes by doing things we don't want to do. You change the baby's diaper, not because you feel, oh, I love you so much. It's because I serve you because I love you. I'm not going to leave you that way. It's not a feeling, right? It's not because you want to do it. You don't want to change the diaper. I just have real experience and tell you that I didn't want to change diapers. Until my wife finally asked me not to. Because we had cloth diapers and I never got them on right, and they always fell off. So, no, I didn't do it on purpose. It was, I just couldn't get them on. Huggies came along and, oh, that was a little easier. I could do that.

You don't always do it because you feel like it. You do it because you love the person. Remember those at that, at the resurrection, he says, I don't know you because you didn't serve my brother. You didn't serve me. Remember, he puts it together. You didn't serve me. And I said, we didn't know you were in prison. We didn't know you were sick. We didn't know you were you were hungry. He said, yeah, but you didn't do this to the least of my brethren.

And it didn't mean you always wanted to. You did it because you love them. Remember, love is a choice. That's the whole reason we have free will. Love is a choice. And that means sometimes we have to do what our human nature doesn't want to do at the moment. But we do it because we love them. It's a choice we make. Jesus chose to be the sacrifice and he chose to wash their feet. He didn't enjoy, I don't know why you would enjoy washing their feet, except he knew what it meant. He didn't enjoy being sacrificed. We know that. He says he didn't. He was afraid. He was in pain. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I feel alone in all this. He didn't enjoy it, but he did it because he chose to love. That's who he is. Being a servant, we're taking, we've moved beyond harling. We're beginning now to choose to love our Master and to follow that example in the way we treat each other.

There's actually another category. It's not mentioned too much, but it's a steward.

A steward was a servant that had become so good at being a servant because he loved his Master so much that his Master puts him in charge of his resources. He puts him in charge of his resources. And there's a couple parables where Jesus talks about being a steward. This is the one whom he makes a steward. He actually lets him participate and give responsibility inside the kingdom when Christ comes back. Oh, I want a reward of power. The reward is responsibility. It's not necessarily the same thing. The reward is that you now have shown yourself willing to simply do whatever the Master wants you to do. You'll just do it. But being a steward isn't enough. These are all like steps in the process we're going through. Let's go to Galatians 3. In God's plan, what Jesus is showing us is a step in growing beyond being a harling and becoming a servant and becoming stewards. All of us will learn and should learn to be stewards because when Christ comes back, we receive the blessing of eternal life. And we also receive the blessing of, He'll give us things to do. We're going to have things to do in serving Him, in changing the world. That is a remarkable concept. People want to change the world.

Every generation wants to change the world and make it better. You know, so many of the young guys, young girls and guys I grew up with, we all wanted to be hippies and change the world. They didn't change the world any.

In fact, I saw a list the other day. A couple of the guys I went to school with were dead, one of them probably from drugs. I just started to look through the list. I said, man, most of many of them died early in life. We didn't change the world much. But I do remember as a kid thinking, but I can someday because Christ will change the world. And somehow we can be part of that. You know, that'll keep you young. You want to stay young, think a lot about how God's going to change the world when Christ comes back, and you get to be part of that. Galatians 3, 29.

He says, And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and it errs according to the promise. Now, two things here. He's making the point that Abraham's seed—he makes it here, Peter makes it another place. The promise that all the nations of the earth—and I brought this out in my talk about covenants recently—all the nations of the earth will be blessed through Christ, it shows that—and the Bible shows that—there's certain blessings to Israel that is given specifically to them. Then there's blessings that come to the whole world that are given through Abraham's seed, who is Christ. So because he is Abraham's seed, that blessing now—those blessings extend out to the world, and it doesn't include land and a temple and sacrifices—it now is what it is to be in a different relationship with God.

Now, I can say that the heir—because you're now an heir. Think about that.

An heir—you know, you may have lots of employees. None of them are your heir. You know, you don't say, oh, I'm going to sit down and make out my will, and everything I have goes to the manager of my, you know, my head accountant. I just like the guy, and I'm going to give him everything I have. My kids, my grandkids—forget them. Right? That's not how you give it to your family, to your children. That's why Abraham was so—in Genesis 15—was so upset when he told God, I don't have a son, and my heir is my head servant.

My steward, the one I have in charge of everything who's not part of my family, he's my heir. Because back then, slavery, you were part of the family, but you weren't born into the family, and he was just—he was distraught over that. Aires are children. You were called to be a hireling, obviously. You were called to learn to be a servant. You're learned to be called to be a steward. But those are training for what God wants you to be. You were actually called to be an heir. An heir. A family member who receives what the family receives.

Verse 1 again, chapter 4, Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave. Through his master of all. That's true. Children, you might be the one who's going to grow up and be the head of the family, but when you're a child, you're treated like a slave. You're told what to do, when to go to bed, what to eat.

In fact, in a rich Roman family—and he's writing here outside of Judea, where it's didn't have slaves for the most part. There were a few, but not much. Slavery was so common throughout the Roman Empire. Even poor people, some of them owned slaves. You know, you hire a slave to be in charge of your children. You know, so teachers were sometimes slaves. They said, the child is nothing more than a slave. But it is under guardians and stewards, the Lord's stewards, until the time appointed by the Father. Even so, we, when we were children, were in bondage of the elements of the world.

But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption as sons. Interesting here, he's talking predominantly, not entirely in Galatians, two Gentiles. And he says, you were redeemed, you were under the law. Under the law, the problem with the law is, unless you keep it perfectly, you're cursed by it. There has to be something more than the law in our relationship with God, right?

There has to be something more than the law. He's not saying the law was evil. That would mean that it's okay to steal. Or, as I heard a politician just say last week, that if there were some men that they had led out without bail who had committed murder, and his comment was, why should we punish men for something they've done in the past?

We should now teach them to be good men. Wait a minute, they just arrested them for committing murder a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, but that was in the past. You know, if you don't believe in moral law, you can come to those absurd, crazy, insane concepts. And they are. They're insane. So he's not doing well with the moral law. The problem he's saying is, if you're born under the law, you're convicted by the law. And because you are sons, okay, he uses the word adoption here.

That's very interesting because in the Jewish world, there was no concept of being adopted by God. You were God's sons because you were the sons of Abraham. So this is what he tells the Gentiles, okay, you may not have been born the same way a Jew would be into this relationship with God, but you now into this relationship with God, in which, by the way, he would show them that most Jews were didn't.

This was beyond that. This is the church. And because you were sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, father. Therefore, you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son and heir of God through Christ. Some things that's used to do away with moral law, and that's a ridiculous viewpoint. And all you have to do is look at other places in Galatians and definitely in Romans, and that's not true. But the point is being made.

You have moved beyond, he's telling the people in Galatia, Jews and Gentiles, you've moved beyond hireling, servant, steward. You used to be under the stewards. Now, you have moved into a relation with God as child, as child. Now, once again, I don't want to get into this deeply, but, you know, it's ridiculous to say, oh, I'm a child of God now, I can steal. I'm a child of God now, I can lie. That's a ridiculous concept. But the point being, though, here is the relationship has changed. The relationship has changed. We're going to celebrate or commemorate, and in any way it is a celebration. I mean, there's a joy to the Passover. It's a very solemn time, but there's a joy because we realize something. Without that event, you and I are lost. We're doomed. Without that event, we're doomed. And I can't produce enough good works to earn salvation. I just, I can't, I got too many bad ones. I can't, you know, you can't even this out. You can't. So this event brings us back to where we are. Learn to be servants.

Don't be a harlot. Learn to be stewards. And then it reaches a point we really begin to understand, because we've entered into the new covenant, symbolized by the bread and the wine.

We're actually heirs, or children, of what God is doing.

That there is nothing more important in the Bible than this.

There's nothing more important than this.

There is one more thing I want to mention, because we're commanded to do so, and I probably don't do it enough. John and Mark, Matthew, all give the story, how Jesus, and you have to put them together to get the whole story. Jesus is in the house of Lazarus and Mary and Martha, who you find throughout the New Testament, or the Gospel accounts. And they know He's going to be, they don't know exactly what's going to happen, but He has told them that He is the Messiah. They know that much. And Mary comes and anoints Him with oil, and then washes His feet with oil, and then dries it with her hair. Of course, the disciples are sitting there gassed at this. In fact, Julius Iscariot is so upset. He says, why are you even allowing this? And besides, that's really expensive. We could sell that and give it to the poor.

And Jesus says, no, she's anointing me for my death. This is a good thing she's doing. I don't think there was a man in the room, or a woman in the room, who understood how this was good, except maybe Mary, because it didn't make sense. So let's go to Matthew 26.

Because I was thinking about foot washing, and I thought about this event. And I thought about, you know, the Passover, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the what this means, and how it should motivate us to obey the law. It should motivate us to obey God, to love His ways, not just in the letter, but inside the core of who we are. Inside the core of who we are. Matthew 26 verse 6.

Now when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, now we know that Lazarus was there because of the other accounts, and Mary and Martha, a woman came to Him having an alabaster flask of very costly, fragrant oil, and she poured it out on His head as He sat at the table. And when His disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, why this waste? For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor. But when Jesus was aware of it, He said to them, why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good work for me. For you have the poor with you always, but for me you do not have always. And in pouring this fragrant oil in my body, she did it for my burial, and the other account says she washed His feet with it, and dried His feet with her hair. I mean, that is an expression of humility that's hard to even understand. I am nothing before you. Drying your feet with my hair is a privilege. It's interesting that this would happen not long before He would institute foot washing. It's humility she had before Him. Verse 13, Assurely I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached, in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.

I have to admit, I preach the gospel to millions of people over the years.

I haven't very often told this. And yet we're told that we're supposed to... this is part of the gospel. The recognition of who Jesus Christ was and her humility before that. So wherever we tell the story of how God created humanity, how humanity was deceived by Satan, who became the God of this world, wherever we tell the story about how God has intervened throughout human history to bring about a final culmination of it in the first and second coming of Jesus Christ. He's come the first time and died for our sins. He's coming the second time to save the world. This is the gospel. It's all about mighty things and great works. The Israelites going through the Red Sea. Peter and John and Paul raising people from the dead, healing people. But this is supposed to be told too. A foot washing.

A foot washing.

When we do the foot washing, it should affect the way we see each other. Not only the ones we're with today, but all those who do this. It should also affect the way that we see Jesus Christ. It gives us a glimpse into the compassion of God as we follow the example of the Master who shows us how it's done. He shows us really what it's all about.

And it helps us as we learn to say, okay, the simple service we do for each other, the little things, they matter. They matter to God.

It's how He wants His family to be. As heirs and fellow heirs, the little things we do to eat for each other, to help each other, the words we say, must come out, not come from us, not because we desire a reward or recognition. It comes because we know what it means to have Jesus Christ wash our feet.