Washing Each Other's Feet

John
Written By Steve Estes

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: John 13:12-17, 34-35
May 15, 2022

John 13:12-17: When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

John 13:34-35: A new commandment I give to you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

Sermon Outline

1. Does Jesus want us to literally wash feet?

  • I can't prove he doesn't, but I suspect not

    • Reason #1: Jesus often uses figurative language

    • Reason #2: The Bible is sensitive to people's culture

    • Reason #3: The literal meaning is easier than the figurative meaning

2. Christ teaches me to wash other's feet by becoming a slave

  • John 13:34 = "Be a slave of other as I have been your slave."

    • "Slave" in this case is a Greco-Roman slave, who was treated almost like a member of the family, not like chattel, as in the Antebellum South

  • I'm to be a slave even if I hold a high position

3. Jesus calls this a "new command."

  • Not totally new (Leviticus 19:18), but a new importance was given to it

  • A new reason was given for it

  • A new degree of self-sacrifice is given in it.

4. As a slave, whose feet am I to wash?

  • I'm to wash the feet of Christians I'm familiar with

  • I'm to wash the feet of Christians who are different from me

5. 4 questions to ask myself:

  • Where do I sit in church?

  • Who do I talk with?

  • Where, and for whom, do I pray?

  • How do I use my home?

Caution: We don't serve in order to be washed. We are washed in order to serve.

Steve Estes

Steve Estes has been senior pastor at Brick Lane Community Church in Elverson, Pennsylvania, for over thirty-five years. 

Steve’s books and other writings began with his longtime friendship with Joni Eareckson Tada. As teenagers, they grappled with why God allowed Joni’s paralysis in a swimming accident in the Chesapeake Bay. Steve left for college . . . they kept in touch . . . she liked the style of his letters. When her 1976 autobiography Joni spawned thousands of reader responses, she asked Steve to join her in crafting a follow-up. The result was A Step Further in 1978.

Later, Wycliffe Bible Translators commissioned Steve to write the biography of former college friend Chet Bitterman, a Wycliffe linguist who was kidnapped and murdered by political terrorists in Colombia in 1981. Other books and articles followed, including When God Weeps (with Joni) and A Better December (a giveaway book for non-Christian friends at Christmas.)

Steve was educated at Westminster Theological Seminary, Columbia Bible College and Jerusalem University College in Israel. He has taught homiletics at Westminster and is a board member of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation.

But Steve would say his most significant life achievement was persuading college classmate Verna Stoltzfus to marry him in 1974.  They now have eight children and more grandchildren than can fit in a van.

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