[Mr. Andy Duran]: Well, brethren, we're about one week away from another Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread season. You know, as we get closer to this season each and every year, there's always a multitude of topics that we can discuss and get together with one another and have good discussions with and go over different things to consider different things so that we can prepare for the Passover in a proper manner each and every year. You know, as we get closer, of course, a lot of us will start to prepare our homes physically, we'll remove leaven from our lives. Once we get into the Days of Unleavened Bread, we'll remove leaven from our diets. We'll stop eating leavened baked goods and start eating unleavened treats and bakes and breads. And as we get closer, there's different things that we need to do. You know, of course, we need to prepare, examine and do some self-reflection, make sure examine our lives, see where we maybe fall short or where we've done better for maybe previous years in a positive attitude, in a positive light, so that we can do better and continually strive towards the Kingdom, continually striving to get better year by year.

Along with that, there are many other topics, you have the new covenant Passover, the symbols of the new covenant Passover, you know, what are they? What do they mean? All sorts of things we can discuss and we can talk about, and we can consider the life, the sacrifice, and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Passover Lamb. Truly a wonderful topic and something that we can dwell on and think about before we get to Passover. You know, hopefully, and the list goes on. There's many topics you can think about. Hopefully, we've done this. We've thought about different topics, we've thought about different things, we've contemplated ourselves, we've self-examined. I know during messages over the past several week, we've hit a number of these topics. But hopefully, we've done that on a personal level. We've taken time to personally devote to study and self-examination. If you want to turn over there, we'll look at John 13 today. As a way of introduction, we're going to read a block of Scripture here as we get into the sermon for today. You know, we'll see John recording some events on the evening before Jesus Christ would die. So, as a way of introduction, let's go ahead and read in John 13, we won't read the whole chapter, but we will read the section that deals with the foot-washing ceremony.

All right. So, John 13, as we get in here, let's go into verse one. It says,

John 13:1-17 – “Now before the feast of Passover, when the Jews knew that His,” -sorry- “when Jesus knew that His hour had come, that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. And supper being ended, the devil having already 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 hand and that He had come from God and was going to God. He rose from supper and He laid aside His garments. He took a towel and He girded himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel of which He was girded. And then Jesus came to Simon Peter and he said to Him, ‘Lord, are You washing my feet?’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know, after this.’ Peter said to Him, ‘You shall never wash my feet.’ Jesus replied, ‘If I do not wash you, you have no part in Me.’ Simon Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head.’ Jesus said to him, ‘He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet but is completely clean. And you all are clean but not all of you,’ for he knew who would betray Him. Therefore he said, ‘You are not all clean.’ -We'll continue on here- “So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord and you say, well for so I am. If I, 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 he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things blessed are you if you do them.’” We'll stop reading there, just gives us a context of where we're going today in the sermon. But maybe as we read through this section of scripture many questions come to mind. You know, as we think about ourselves of as a group, maybe this is the first Passover for some of us. As we come here this next week. For many of us, this is not our first, maybe years, maybe 10th or 20th or 30th, maybe more. But as we read through this section of Scripture, we can ask what's going on here? What's going on with this foot-washing ceremony? What is this all about out?

I remember when I started understanding the New Testament Passover and understanding some of these elements of the ceremony, I had wondered myself, “Why do I need to wash another member's feet just to keep the Passover?” There was elements of it that I just, that wasn't right with me. I didn't quite understand, there were far moved. I didn't understand the history, I didn't quite get the context. Sure, maybe we understand the theory of the theoretical, the educational side of it, but I hadn't experienced it yet. If you look out in the churches around us, there are some churches that still do foot-washing ceremony in different aspects. You know, looking at a different research, I believe, even the Catholic church still does some aspects of this. I think they do it more from a leadership aspect there, I believe the Pope, and then some of the priests do it to members. But it's an interesting concept, the foot-washing ceremony. And so that's what I'd like to take a look at today. You know, because there are many lessons we can learn from this section of scripture, from the ceremony of the foot-washing. But let's take a look as a, for the sermon time, let's look at lesson we can learn from the foot-washing ceremony. Different things that we can pull out and apply to our lives as we take the Passover this year.

So, first and foremost, as we begin today, one of the first lessons we can draw out is that we can see through chapter 13 of John, a lesson of discipleship -- a lesson of discipleship. Let's reread a little section in verse 12. Jesus says,

John 13:12-15 -- “So when He had washed their feet,” or He's not saying this. “Jesus then says, ‘Do you not know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord and you say well for so I am. If I, then your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet for I have given you the example that you should do as I have done to you.’” He starts with possibly a rhetorical question. “Do you know what I'm doing? Do you understand?” He's about to give them some answers, give them some concepts, but obviously, you can see from Peter's response and another section of scripture that we’ll go to a little bit later, that they didn't quite understand what was going on. Not being critical of the men that were there, but definitely, there wasn't a full understanding that was coming from at this time. But as we look in verse 13, we can get this idea of discipleship, disciples and their teachers. Here He says in verse 13, “You call Me Teacher and Lord.” Now you can break down these two words and get different aspects of what Jesus Christ was saying. You know, John is recording this and it's written in Greek, but the two words that John uses in Greek for teacher its didaskalos, which is translated all throughout the Bible as master or teacher or leader. Kind of giving this idea of someone who teaches, especially in this context, it's a teacher of godly things, a teacher of godly things, things that have to do with godly character or moral concepts.

If you want an equivalent, sometimes in the Hebrew, the rabbi word would be used. This would be the Greek equivalent to that type of concept, a teacher or a master. And He says, “You call Me teacher,” and He says, “Lord.” Lord would be that Kyrios, which is translated all throughout the New Testament as master or lord. Sometimes it's just simply sir, or owner, you know, sometimes people use it for non-divine beings. Like, yes, sir. They'd maybe say yes, lord. But here clearly in a divine concept, Jesus Christ was Lord. He was Master, sovereign above all. We see many other scriptures, all authorities have been given to the Son except the Father, right? So, He is above all, it, and also it gives a context of he to whom a person or thing belongs. So, a master or a lord. And He says, “You call Me these things and you do it well,” because He is. Jesus Christ is Lord, and He is master. And in verse 14 and 15, He says, “I'm showing you the way, you ought to do what I have done.” You see, our Teacher and our Master, He put aside that prestige, if you will, in that sense, because during the time a lot of teachers would've had great honor, great respect and He did too. But He put that aside for a moment and got down to a kneeling position to wash the disciples' feet, to get down into a lowly service attitude and to wash their feet. And He did so as an example so that we were to walk in His footsteps. We should be following after our Teacher, our Master. We should be disciples of Jesus Christ. You know, the complimented teacher would be disciple or pupil or student, somebody that learns from the master or from the teacher.

We may even be a little bit removed from this concept in today's society. Like you, maybe a lot of you, or like me, a lot of you have probably been students throughout your life. You know, maybe elementary school, junior high, maybe even university, and like myself, I've gone through this situation and I've had many teachers over the years. But I don't quite say that I would've been a disciple of those teachers, just a student. I'd go to class, I'd learn from them a little bit, but then I'd leave. I probably wouldn't talk to the teacher anymore. But a disciple and a teacher setting back in the day, would've been someone that follows closely behind the teacher. Even, theoretically or hypothetically walking really close to feel the dust kicked up behind their feet, following closely behind the teacher, walking as they walk, talking as they talk, following their examples, following after them. It's truly a wonderful relationship between a teacher and a disciple. Let's turn back to 1 Kings 19. In the 19th chapter of 1 Kings, we have recorded an example that a lot of people refer to as a model of discipleship.

1 Kings 19. If you're familiar with this section of scripture we have here, just for little context, we have the prophet, Elijah. Now, Elijah is revered by many as one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament since, you know, calling down fire from heaven, raising people from the dead. And here we have Elijah just finished destroying different prophets, false prophets of Baal. And he hears of a threat against his life again from Jezebel. I think it starts off in chapter 19, referring to this threat against Elijah's life. Elijah then fears for his life and he runs away. And he hides, he drops his servant off at town, Beersheba. And then he even goes further in a journey and goes into the wilderness. Let's pick up the story in verse, is it 19? Yeah, let's pick up the story in verse 15, excuse me.

1 Kings 19:15-18 -- “Then the Lord said to him, ‘Go return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive anoint Hazael as king over Syria. Also, you shall anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi as king over Israel. And Elisha, the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah, you shall anoint as prophet in your place. It shall be that whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill. And ever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. And I have reserved 7,000 in Israel in all whose knees have not bound to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him.’ So he departed from there and he found Elisha, the son of Shaphat.” Let's stop there.

So first we see here a call to action from God. God finds Elijah. He's running away from his fears against Jezebel about the threat of his life. He finds him and He gives him a call to action, “Go back and anoint these different things. Anoint some kings, anoint the successor to what you've been doing,” and let's continue in verse 19.

1 Kings 19:19-20 -- “So he departed from there and he found Elisha the son Shaphat, who was plowing with 12 yokes of oxen before him. And he was with the 12th.” So, here we see that Elisha must have been part of a family that was well to do. They had a ton of oxen and they were plowing the field, getting ready for planting or different things that they would've been doing. “Then Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle on him. And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and he said, ‘Please let me kiss my father and my mother and then I will follow you.’ Elijah then says back to him, ‘Go back again for what I have done to you.’” Simply responding back, “Yeah, go back but think about what I've done to you.” This is a calling from God, signifying, throwing his mantle over him, signifying a call discipleship or a call to be his servant or steward of types, his successor. You know, throwing his mantle or coat or tunic over him. Would've been an awesome opportunity and Elisha turns and asks him, “May I go back?” Let's see what Elisha's response is here in verse 21. “So Elisha turned back from him and took a yoke of oxen and slaughtered them and boiled their flesh using the oxen's equipment and gave it to the people. And they ate, then he arose and followed Elijah and became his servant.” It's an interesting response that Elisha goes through. He puts his whole heart into it. It says that he took a yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. Took two oxen out of the play, killed them, boiled their flesh, used the farming equipment for fire and firewood, giving it all to follow after Elijah, putting it all in, taking time to slaughter those things, and putting his post-life behind, his past life, completely behind him. We can see this being an early model of discipleship, dropping all and coming to his teacher or his master in this sense. Learning, and then living with that master, with Elijah. You see, as we take part in the foot-washing ceremony, we can remember this idea and this concept of discipleship. That we too should be leaving our past life behind. We should be leaving all behind to follow after Christ. Leaving our previous lives behind.

Let's look at a parallel concept to this that Jesus actually talks about in Matthew 16, Matthew 16:24, we see a related story about leaving all behind to follow after Christ, Matthew 16:24 says. Verse 24 says,

Matthew 16:24-25 -- “Then Jesus said to disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.’” We can stop there. Or excuse me, we can read on, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul, or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man will come in the glory of His Father with all His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works.” Here we see a summons called cost of discipleship, what Jesus Christ calls for to follow after Him. You know, Christ being the example, being the one that we try to emulate after, putting on as Paul refers to it as the mind of Christ or the close of Christ in different aspects. Paul even says, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” You know, this could hearken back to that model of discipleship. Being behind the master, following after Christ, learning and living what the teacher does and gives.

So Christ here is saying, “If you desire to follow after Me, you got to put it all behind you. You got to give it all up. If you want to be My disciple, if you want to mimic Me, you want to follow in what I teach, if you want to be under My care, you must deny yourself.” We must deny ourselves. We must have no acquaintance or connection to that former life of when we were called. It harkens back to the symbolism of baptism and the old man or the old person going under that watery grave. We don't want that person to come up anymore. We leave it all behind to follow after Christ. This idea of this deny here is a very strong term. You cut off, forget about that oneself. It's used, I think 13 times all throughout the New Testament, or at least in the gospels, a lot referring to how Peter denied Christ. If you remember the story of how Peter denied Christ, it was a strong thing that was happening. Here we see a positive aspect that we are to deny our former selves, deny ourselves following Christ, even on death, as it says, the death of the cross. We need to follow after Christ. I can't help but think about the connections maybe not Matthew was making, or that Jesus Christ was making, but when we're reading through it, I can't help but think of the connections with Elijah and Elisha. You know, killing our oxen, our very own tool for farming, killing oxen, getting rid of your farming equipment and just giving it all up and following after the master, a full stop on my life, a formal destruction of my former life.

You see this denial is something that we should have. It should be a selfless, a total submission to God, a total submission to this way of life. And a total lowering of our one selves and not having too much pride in our own selves and getting under the teachings of a master. And this really can lead us into a next lesson that we can learn from the foot-washing ceremony. Let's turn back to John 13, we'll read a couple more verses or a couple verses again. John 13. So, as we looked, we can see a lesson of discipleship when we read through and when we take part in the ceremony of foot-washing each year is that we are to be disciples of Christ and we are to be God's children, following after the example given to us. Another lesson we can learn is a lesson of humility and service, a lesson of humility and service. Let's reread verses 3-5. Verse 3 says,

John 13:3-5 – “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands and when He had come from God and was to God, He rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took on a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with a towel with which He was girded.”

If you can kind of see this scene playing out, you know, maybe it'd be very similar to a dinner we're having, maybe not. Maybe it'd be more relatable to a Roman dinner at the time, maybe a shorter table. Some scholars discuss and some archeology support this idea of smaller tables and maybe couches around the table that people would come and maybe lean in to eat their dinner, and their feet would be leaning out around the outside of the table. Maybe Jesus Christ gets up in the moment, takes off His outer garment. He puts a towel around His waist and He starts going around the table, washing each of the disciples' feet. At least one or two, while at least one before getting to Peter. He's washing the disciples' feet one after another. The cultural significance of the act that He was doing would've been huge. You see, foot-washing was a common thing in this culture and society. Hospitality and foot washing were revered. If you were to be a good hospitable person, that was a good thing to look up to. You see, a lot of times long-distance travelers, their main mode of traveling was walking, maybe running. Now they could have animals and so, but when you get to your destination, if you had a good host, a hospitable host, he would provide water for you to wash your feet so that you could clean your dirty feet from the road. Because you would've most likely wore sandals, open toe or open-top sandals and the roads were dusty. They were dirty. They weren't paved cement like we have today. Well, even our roads, some of them are pretty dirty, but they would've been a lot dirtier. And some scholars even suggest a lot of roads would've had human or animal waste on them.

Now, maybe not likely where Jesus is at keeping the Passover, those streets would've probably be cleaned, all scholars agree, but it would've been more common in other Roman and Greek cities that have even that waste on the road. And so either way, their feet would've been very dirty, whether is just normal dirt or dust, or even human or animal waste. However, what was maybe not so automatic was that the host were to wash the guest's feet. That wouldn't have been so automatically assumed. You know, some attribute this washing of the feet to a servant or a slave. We do have examples of that, where somebody would voluntarily wash other servants' feet. You can reference if you want, 1 Samuel 25:41, you can think of the story of David and Abigail. And she even says, “I'll wash my Lord's servant's feet.” So it could be attributed to somebody that would be of a servant class or voluntarily washing your guest’s feet. Other Jewish scholars and works for their time discuss how, if you had Hebrew slaves or indentured servants, and you were a Jew or Hebrew, you weren't allowed to do that. You weren't allowed to make your Hebrew slave wash the guests' feet because they wanted to keep the dignity of the human Hebrew. Now you could let Gentiles do it. That was fine. And you would've seen that.

That was common practice for wealthy Romans or Greeks, you know, Gentiles of the time, they would've had slaves and they would've made their slaves wash the people's feet. You could volunteer for it. I'm not saying it was illegal for Jews. You could volunteer to wash your feet. A lot of times, maybe the wives of the host, or even, I lost the word, like how stewards or stuff would wash the guest's feet. That was a common practice. But it's interesting to know that this was a job of a lowly, something of a lowly importance. It was getting down to the lowest part of the body and washing the person's feet. It says that Jesus Christ took off His garment. It was a sign of humility. He was putting off His garment and He was putting on the clothes of someone to serve. And it says, “He is Lord. He is the Master. He is the Teacher. He's a great master, and yet He got into that servant position.” That was His whole life, He came to serve. And we should model after that. As disciples, we should serve one another. It's a wonderful example we have to serve one another. It's also interesting, the Greek words John uses to record these events of taking off and putting back on, there's a lot of Greek words that can talk about taking off or putting down or dropping. But John uses specific set of Greek words that he also uses earlier in account where Jesus Christ quoted saying, “Nobody takes My life from Me. I lay it down.” It's the same Greek wording. Just adding to that imagery of voluntarily doing something, maybe foreshadowing His future death and sacrifice of His own life. Voluntarily giving it up. It was no doubt a voluntary act, an act of humility and service for the people He loved.

So, it's good to see these things. As we go through this chapter, He wasn't forced to do this. It was a voluntary act. And so can we see this picture as we're going through John 13, Christ getting up, removing His garment, and girding Himself with a towel. The major lesson of humility definitely comes to mind here. And we get to take part in that year after year, washing one another's, growing closer to one another in service and love. You can think about it even in today's society. It's not too far removed. If you've traveled a lot around the world, I haven't, but I've heard of, like, other places, specifically like Asian cultures, maybe Thailand, the foot is still the lowest part of the body. And it's very rude thing to do in that culture to do a lot of things with your feet. You know, in America, we cross our legs a lot, which is no problem. But culturally in Thailand, I believe you don't cross your legs and show the person your bottom of your foot. Or you don't want to raise your feet above another person because that's incredibly rude. That's the lowest part of the body. You know, I think they tuck their legs underneath the chair so that they don't do that. So they don't offend one another with the lowliest part of their body. And their head being sacred, being the top, the highest part of their body. It's the other cultures as well. But it's an interesting to parallel with a modern-day example of that. Let's continue reading in verse 16 it says,

John 13:16-17 -- “Most surely I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things blessed” -or simply it could be happy- “are you, if you do them.” You see, the servant isn't greater than the master. Yes, there is authority, there is authority in different things. However, as servants, even as leaders, especially in the Church of God, we must serve one another. Now, how can we ever think? Hopefully, we never think, “No, that job's just a little bit too low for me. I don't want to do X or Y. I'm a little bit above that.” You know, as true disciples of Christ following after God's character, we should be willing to lower ourselves and do those works of service. Let's turn over to Philippians 2, a wonderful section of scripture that deals with humility among other things, Philippians 2:5. Philippians 2:5, a very famous memory scripture.

Philippians 2:5-8 -- “Let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ, Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking on the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men and being found in appearance as a man. He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” Starts out by saying, “Well, let this mind be in you.” But it says, “Being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.” Oh, Jesus Christ was God in the flesh, before His fleshly existence, He was God in the Spirit, He was equal with God. He didn't consider it robbery. He didn't think it was something stealing. He was God. He didn't think being divine in the spirit was something to be prideful of.

He was willing to give that up in that sense, to come down in the form of flesh, into a man. God, in the flesh, a real human being. He would be born in fleshly man, born of a virgin. He would humble Himself in this concept all the way down to a fleshly human being. He emptied Himself of that form, you could say, becoming a fleshly man, keeping His divinity. He was still divine. He was God in the flesh, but becoming flesh, becoming man. It can help us to remember passages like this if we ever get those attitudes or there things in our mind about, sorry, I lost my train of thought. We can keep that in mind when we ever think about something that's just, we may think is too beneath us, that I can't do that job like I mentioned before. You know, we can think of Jesus Christ being equal with God, emptied Himself of that concept, and became a fleshly man, God, in the flesh. He humbled Himself to that level. We can remember that Christ put off those concepts. You know, as the Word as John 1:1 talks about -- eternally existing. He became and “born of a man, form of a sinful flesh,” it says. Being humiliated, broken, and bruised and crushed and scarred. You know, He didn't have to do those things. That was a voluntary act. He chose to do those for us because of Their love They have for us. And He would die to become the firstborn.

Let's turn over to 1 Peter 5, a very traditional humility verse. 1 Peter 5:5. Peter writes,

1 Peter 5:5 – “Likewise, you younger people submit yourselves to your elders. Yes. All of you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility. For God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” This is a traditional humility verse, a submission to everyone, understanding that I'm not greater than you, you're not greater than me. Let's put aside human prideful tendencies, young to old, even to authorities submit ourselves to one another, not giving seat to prideful ambitions. I don't think we read it, but a couple of verses before and Philippians 2 talks about esteeming one another as better than our own selves. I think that was right before what we read in Philippians 2. You know, we should take care of one another. If we do have roles of leadership, not lording them over each other, but esteeming each other greater than ourselves. This ties well with how we treat ourselves in relationships, especially when maybe somebody's done something wrong against me. We should definitely consider our relationships before Passover. Do I have a good relationship with my family or with my spiritual family? Ties well with ideas of reconciliation, wrongs that have been done either against us or what I've done to other people. Really pairs well with apologizing and forgiving one another, but having an attitude of humility, understanding that we're not better than one another, and get rid of that thinking. Some of those attitudes that, “I'm better than you, or you're better than me.” But that we should serve one another.

Let's go to Luke 22. We'll look at an idea that definitely was something that disciples struggle with at their times, and no doubt do we struggle with this in our modern times. But in Luke 22, we get a picture of an event and our account of something that happened with the disciples' life, Luke 22:24. I mentioned this a little earlier, we'll talk about maybe the timing of this shortly. But Luke 22:24 says,

Luke 22:24-30 -- “Now there was also a dispute among them as to which of them should be considered the greatest. And He said to them that ‘Kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called benefactors, but not so among you. On the contrary, he who is greatest among you let him be as the younger and he who governs as he who serves. For who is greater, he who sits at the table or he who serves? Is not he who sits at the table? Yet I'm among you as the One who serves, but you are those who have continued with Me in My trials. And I bestow upon you a Kingdom just as My Father bestowed upon Me that you may eat and drink at My table in My Kingdom and sit on the throne judging the 12 tribes of Israel.”

So we see here Luke recording an event, it starts on verse 24 talking about now there was also a dispute among them. If you read right above it is talking about the bread and the wine of the New Testament Passover. And so some people debate the timing of this. The Greek would support the idea of, instead of now, there wasn't a dispute among them, but rather there had been already a dispute among them. Because you think about the timing of this, if this was right after the foot-washing, right? If they had the foot-washing and then the bread and wine, how could you argue then about who's the greatest? And that would definitely tie in with them not for only understanding the lessons of the foot-washing. Again, not criticizing the disciples, but thinking about it I would personally want it to be before the foot-washing so that they did get some elements or some scholars even talk about this could have been the event that led to the foot-washing. That Jesus Christ does anything haphazardly, but nevertheless there were of these arguing, they were arguing about who was going to be the greatest. We see other examples of that through the other gospels, right? The sons of some mother, the disciples came and said, “Who's going to be, my sons to be on your right and your left hand,” right? And we see them murmuring about who's going to be greatest. We see them arguing about this all the time, but instead, we should have attitudes of humility, understanding rank and importance. It's an interesting thing about what Luke is recording here.

You see, leaders in God's service are commanded to work for the benefits of those they serve, you know, not to the benefit of the leader, not to benefit themselves, not with selfish games, not to have lordship over one another, but out of service and love for one another. Again, of course, there's authority in the church, you know, there's authority given from God to a leader, but it's leading not out of selfish game, but leading for... not leading for themselves, but service to one another. And it's a wonderful thing we can think about, instead, having mutual love and respect for one another. You can think of other memory scriptures like Micah 6:8 talking about walk humbly before God. It's a good attitude we need to take on before Passover, obviously all year round, but it comes to our forefront during Passover season. These ideas of humility and service to one another. So that's a second lesson that we can learn from John 13. Let's turn back to John 13. During the foot-washing ceremony, we can think of some of these lessons. And like I said, there's many more we can glean from this section. But if we think about these concepts as we go through the ceremony, definitely beforehand, as we're preparing to come to the service, we can think about these ideas of lessons and ideas of discipleship and humility and service.

Another lesson that we can keep in mind during this time is a lesson of spiritual cleanliness, a lesson of spiritual cleanliness, not just physical cleanliness. Let's look at verse 10.

John 13:10-11 -- “Jesus said to them, ‘He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean,’”-speaking of Peter- “‘But not all of you.’ for He knew who would betray Him therefore He said, ‘you are not all clean.’” So, we read through this at the beginning of the sermon, the context here, He's referring to a conversation back and forth with Peter about “no, you won't wash Me. Okay. Wash my head in my hands also.” All these different ideas. But He's saying to them, “You who are clean need only to wash your feet.” Now, definitely he wasn't talking about physical cleanliness as Mr. McGee pointed out earlier, it's not just a shower, but it's about spiritual cleanliness. It's talking about, Christ is giving the analogy that if you're bathed, you know, if you're bathed the baptism water, if you've been baptized, you are clean at least for a moment, you have been washed clean symbolically through that act, right? We're washed clean by the shed blood of Jesus Christ, Christ’s sacrifice cleanses us.

And so it says, “If you're bathed, you need to only be reminded of washing your feet.” You see, there's this analogy here, as we walk through life, our feet get dirty and there's parallels that with sin in our lives that we need to continuously wash clean, but not our whole body, as He says here. You see many scriptures point and show this idea of following God as a walk or as a way, a way that we walk, walking to follow our leader. You can look at - we have time. We can go to Psalm 119, Psalm 119:1. We see some of these ideas of our life being paralleled with a walk, or walking through life. Psalm 119. We definitely don't want to take the time to read the whole chapter, it's a long chapter in the Bible. But Psalm 119:1 says,

Psalm 119:1-3 – “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart. They also do no iniquity, they walk in His ways.” There's these analogies and these parallels that we are to walk the way Jesus Christ walked, walked in the way it says the law of the Lord. You know, we are to walk now with a small number of others until this way of life becomes a highway for all those that have ever existed. Can we picture that time in the future when all people will walk the same direction in the same way? You know, it's pictured as being a narrow way, but a lot of people are going to walk it one day. It's a tremendous thing that we can look forward to and we are to be - there's parallels of running our race. Paul talks about running the race.

Life definitely is a journey. We can look at Psalm 94. Another idea with this concept, Psalm 94:18, excuse me, Psalm 94:18. Here we see this idea of, slipping. It says,

Psalm 94:18 – “If I say my foot slips, Your mercy, oh Lord, will hold me up.” Paralleling that walk with, potentially sinning or slipping, falling out of the mark or falling off the way the narrow path, spiritually representation of sin. And it says, “Your mercy holds me up.” And so we can look at this analogy of walking through life and sin dirtying us, dirt on the feet of a traveler and the foot-washing reminds us our need for spiritual cleansing to have that sin removed. Obviously, we don't just wait yearly to ask for forgiveness and to be spiritually cleansed. We do that daily when we have sin, we come before God and He's merciful and loving and He'll forgive us, but it's a reminder to us yearly. There's even comparisons with Old Testament concepts of rinsing and physical washing ceremonies, ritualistic cleansings. If you look back to, you don't have to turn there, but like in Exodus 29 talks about Moses even washing, consecrating the future priests. But I don't know if it says it in that section, but potentially washing their heads and their hands. These parallels back to ritualistic cleansing. It's always been this analogy or this theme through the Bible about being physically clean, but representing spiritual cleanliness. This need for being spiritually clean.

It's also interesting to, you can maybe parallel that concept. Moses is being the mediator of an old covenant, we have Jesus Christ here being the mediator of a new covenant, and He washes the feet of His disciples. Very similar concepts, connections to maybe those Old Testament washings, maybe. We can look at another section here in Hebrews 9:14. Hebrews 9:14, because we should remember that cleansings should lead us to service, harkening back to the point before. Hebrews 9:14, so speaking of sacrifices, blood of bulls and goats, let's start in verse 11 for context, it says,

Hebrews 9:11-15 – “But Christ came as a high priest of the good things to come, which is greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands that is not of this creation, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood, He entered the most holy place once for all having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and with ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more then shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit, offered themselves without spot to God cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” -And it goes on- “And for this reason, He is the mediator of the new covenant by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance.”

We're cleansed from that sacrifice of Jesus Christ, I mentioned that earlier, but this idea of blood washing away, even cleansing our consciousness here from dead works, works that lead us to death, that death penalty, sinful attitudes and actions, coupled with this idea of slipping off the path. But not only that but also moving towards serving the living God. We need to serve God and His people, you know, both loving and serving one another. We can be reminded of this during the cleansing we receive every time God forgives us. Let's look at another scripture in Hebrews 10:19,

Hebrews 10:19-25 -- “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He consecrated for us through the veil that is His flesh and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and a full assurance of faith. Having a heart sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works.” It continues, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some but exhorting one another and so much more as you see the Day approaching.”

It's a wonderful context that we have here, but the point we want to draw out is that while washing each other's feet, it reminds us that not only do we have something to do physically, but we're not us alone. You know, we have our skin in the game, if you will, with others. Helping one another in their walk, helping one another by serving one another, by lifting them up in their times of need, as it says, by exhorting one another, and do this much more as you see the day approaching. We are washed, in that sense, pointing back to that baptism and concept, and we're considering one another, stirring up good works as it says. Not stirring up strife for envy or hatred with one another, but good works. We're with each other in this walk, in this way. Helping one another as a tight-knit family, exhorting one another, encouraging one another. It's this idea of strongly encouraging, remembering each other when we have troubles or when we have falls and coming to each other's aid. We're fellow workers in that same goal. It's truly remarkable that we can think of these things. You know, brethren, the final night of Jesus Christ's earthly ministry, John records this special event.

I find it amazing that John's the only gospel writer that does put the foot-washing in his letter or in his book. But nevertheless, the washing of disciples' feet by Jesus is a remarkable event, something that we get to take part in each and every year. And there's a plethora of lessons that we can learn from it each and every year. Looking through the history and the customs of the day, we can see many analogies and spiritual lessons for us today. Let's remember some of the lessons we looked at today. You know, we looked at these ideas and lessons of discipleship, following after Jesus Christ, following our true Master. Secondly, we saw that by washing each other's feet, we are reminded of being humble and keeping an attitude of humility and service towards one another. Lastly, we talked about being spiritually cleansed from dead works. Understanding that we are cleansed by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, reminded that we need to be cleansed daily from our sinful acts, cleansed whenever we repent going and then going forward. You know, hopefully, as we review these different topics and these different items as we come closer to the Passover and the days of the unleavened bread, we fully dwell on these thoughts and we think about what these lessons are. And we try to apply these in our lives, trying to follow after our Master and Teacher. You know, hopefully, as we review these items, we think more on them and we continue to grow in grace and knowledge. You know, putting on as Paul puts at the mind of Christ, serving as Christ serve and being disciples of Jesus Christ and ultimately children of God in the Kingdom.

[Mike Phelps] Oscar Schisgall, who is a corporate historian and a prolific contributor to Reader's Digest, wrote this in August of 1941 and this was published in the Reader's Digest magazine. It's entitled "Once there was a squirrel" by Oscar Schisgall:

“Fifteen years ago, when I was a young writer with a very uncertain income, I went into a quiet park to contemplate a serious problem. For years, she and I had been engaged but we did not care to marry. There was no way of foreseeing how little I might earn in the next year; moreover, we had long cherished a plan of living and writing in Paris, Rome, Vienna, London - everywhere. But how could we go 3,000 miles away from everything that was familiar and secure, without the certainty of some money now and then? It couldn't be done. At that moment I looked up and I saw a squirrel jump from one high tree to another. He appeared to be aiming for a limb so far out of reach that the leap looked like suicide. He missed - but landed, safe and unconcerned, on a branch several feet lower. Then he climbed to his goal and all went well. An old man sitting on the bench said, ‘Funny, I've seen hundreds of them jump just like that, especially when there are dogs around and they can't come to the ground. A lot of them miss, but I've never seen any hurt in trying.’ Then he chuckled. ‘I guess they have to risk it if they don't want to spend their life in one tree.’ I thought, ‘A squirrel takes a chance - have I less nerve than a squirrel?… A squirrel takes a chance - have I less nerve than a squirrel?’"

Sometimes in life, we find ourselves living in a tree that seems like a pretty nice place to live and consider doing something really big in our life like making that jump to another tree seems just too much for us to do, too far out of our reach. Just too much to consider and just too much to ask of ourselves. Many of us are aware of the term "all in." All in, it's a common term meaning that you are 100% into something, your whole heart and your whole mind is in it. You are going all out, no looking back. All your eggs are in one basket. In the card game poker, this is that card hand that you have that you feel is so good that you're willing to risk all of your chips to push them, the whole pile, whatever you have left, into the middle because you're going to play this one hand and it's all in.

So how can we apply this to our relationship with God? Can we take a giant leap and be all in for Him? In this message today, let's consider how we must be all in for God, how we must be all in for God. The Bible is full of accounts of people being all in for God and as we work through this message, we will turn to a few of them starting out today. So let's start off in 1 Kings 19. 1 Kings 19. And we will read starting in verse 19. 1 Kings 19:19. This is… some background, this is Elijah just before he's about to anoint Elisha as his next in line, the one who will take his mantle. So this is verse 19, “So he departed from there, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he was with the twelfth. Then Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle on him.” By throwing his mantle, this was a sign of you are next in line, “Are you willing to follow me?” It's as he was anointed to take on this role of being a prophet that prophet Elijah was. And so he gives him one of his most prized possessions. This was the thing that kept him from being out in the weather. It was that barrier between the weather, it would act as a pillow. They could pick up things, maybe carry some food in it. They would use it as a basket or as like a bundle at times. So this is that mantle that he passed on to him.

Continuing on verse 20, “And he,” this is Elisha, “left the oxen and ran after Elijah, and said, ‘Please let me kiss my father and my mother and then I will follow you.’ And he said to him, ‘Go back again, for what have I done to you?’ So Elisha turned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen and slaughtered them and boiled their flesh, using the oxen's equipment, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and followed Elijah, and became his servant.”

Plowing in a field, we found Elisha, not just with one plow, not just with one yoke of oxen, but 11 other plows, 11 other yoke of oxen. Elisha must have had considerable wealth or that he was going to inherit this wealth. It was most likely his and the state was his or would have been given to him at some point and he needed… had so much land that he needed this much livestock to work the land. So we see that this was not just some small work that he was doing and he was willing to leave it all. He was willing to leave wealth and the livestock. He was willing to walk away from his livelihood — most likely the only one that he'd ever known. He was willing to walk away from his mother and his father. And did Elisha know what was in store for him when he walked away, good or bad? I don't think he would have known. I don't think there's any way for sure that he could have known but we do know that he was willing to go all in for God.

Let's look in another account. Let's look at Mark 1. Turn with me to Mark 1. I have a bad feeling I'm going to be fighting this cough now. Mark 1:16. This is the account that if we read it in Luke, the two accounts are parallel but they give a little bit of a different information. In Luke, this is the account where they are out fishing and the boat is so… and they've been fishing all night, hardly caught anything. And so Christ says, "During the daytime, go out and cast your nets." And they're looking at Him pretty much like He's crazy because that's not what they did. They fished at night and that way, the fish couldn't see the nets coming through the water to catch them. And so He says, "Go do this." And then we know from the account that they pull in so much, they can barely get the nets in without them breaking to the point that they start sinking their own boats. That's how big of a load that they were trying to pull in and how much it weighed their boats down. But here in Mark 1:16, we have a parallel count. “And” it says, “as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.”

“Then Jesus said to them, ‘Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.’ And then they immediately left their nets and followed Him. And when He had gone a little further from there, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, who were also in the boat mending their nets. And immediately He called on them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with their hired servants, and went after Him.” In the account in Luke 5:11, chapter 5 verse 11, it finishes up saying, “So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all… they forsook all and followed Him.” Once again, we have an example of men who were willing to completely walk away from their profession. Two of them, to walk away from their father, to walk away from what they knew, to go a completely different direction, a whole new way of life, once again, having no way to know what the future would hold and they had no idea that going all in would cost Peter, Andrew, and James their life. And we have another example of a person who went all in for God, but this one did it differently. He went all in twice. Once to persecute the Christians and once to love and to care for them.

Let's begin turning to Philippians 3 as we start to describe this man. Philippians 3:4. Because this man was the apostle Paul. This is a man who at one extreme did all he could to stop the gospel message and he believed in it with all of his heart. He was all in to stop this message because it was heresy, it was wrong. It was not what he'd been taught up and trained. It's not what he knew to be right and he was all in to stop it. We get on the other extreme which we'll get to in a bit, we see how he went all in to move… to do his part to move the gospel message forward. And because of his knowledge, because of his training, here in Philippians 3:4, we can see why he was so strong in attacking, why he was all in for his beliefs against Christianity. Philippians 3:4. And this is him describing himself why he was a good Jew, why he was a good Pharisee. In verse 4, “…though I might have confidence in the flesh.” meaning in this mortal body, I might have confidence. “If anyone else thinks that he may have confidence in the flesh, I'm more so…” because he says in verse 5, “…circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is the law, blameless… blameless.” And if you’ll allow me to paraphrase Paul a bit, he's saying, "I was a really good Jew, I was a really good Jew. I mean when it comes to being a Pharisee, there's no one who topped it higher than I did. I pretty much nailed it, nailed being a Pharisee."

How good of a Jew was Paul? Let's look in Acts 8. Acts 8, Acts 8:1. “Now Saul was consenting to his death. And at that time a great persecution arose against the church…” and this is talking about Stephen. He was consenting to Stephen's death. “And at that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.” And let's look at Acts 9:1, “Then Saul, still breathing threats and murders against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest…” This is how good he was, this is how all in he was. He “went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.” But then if we kept reading, we would see that while on his way to Damascus, Saul has what is now commonly referred to as "A Road of Damascus Event," "A road to Damascus Event."

Saul sees a great light from heaven that shines all around him and he hears a voice that asks, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" And at that moment, Saul's conversion begins. Up to this moment, Saul was all in for persecuting anyone who was a follower of Christ. He did it with 100% conviction and 100% zeal, no looking back, full throttle ahead. But now, a change has taken place inside of him, a new mindset is starting to take hold. Eventually, but very quickly actually, we will see Saul go all in for Christ. Acts 9:19. Let's continue reading Acts 9:19, “So when he had received food, he was strengthened. Then Saul spent some days with the disciples in Damascus.” In verse 20, “Immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God. Then all who heard were amazed, and said, "Is this not he who destroyed those who called on the name in Jerusalem, and has come here to destroy those… and has come here for that purpose, so that he might bring them bound to the chief priests? But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ.” We see that swing now from 100% against Christianity, against Christ, to going all in for Christ and this was just the beginning.

Paul would go on to be persecuted for the sake of the gospel. He would write many letters to the churches speaking boldly against sin, against heresy, and against misunderstandings. He would travel for years at a time to share the gospel message far and wide. He would see the inside of prisons and the inside of his own house arrest. He would ultimately give his life for the belief of Jesus Christ. Let's turn to 2 Corinthians. As we see and detailed out what Christ did or what Paul did go through in the name of Christ. 2 Corinthians 11:24-27. 2 Corinthians 11:24, “From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned.” Okay, at this point, I'm all out. Think about it for a minute. I'm playing, but think about it for a minute. We're just three, four little things into it. Let's keep reading. “Once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbery, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, and in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;” In verse 27, “in weariness and toil, in sleepiness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.”

Paul went through just a little bit of persecution. He gave up just a little bit of his own independence, his own comforts, just a little bit. He left this message for us in 1 Corinthians 15:9 which shows his own feelings on both extremes that he was all in for God. Just turn one book back to 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Corinthians 15:9. “For I am the least of the apostles, whom am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace towards me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” And boldly preach he did, in all aspects of the gospel message of Jesus Christ and of unity within the church. And you don't need to turn there, you can put in your notes. Though in Galatians 3:27, because he continues and say, “For as many of you were baptized into Christ” and this is Paul saying it. Remember, he was the one persecuting, going after hardcore, yet we see the link that his conversion took and the link that he would go all in for God. And this is Galatians 3:27-28, “For as many of you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Imagine just hearing those words come out of his mouth, to think of the extreme that he went through. The all in aspect on one end of this… one end of the spectrum to the absolute opposite side to where he would say all these people are now all one in Jesus Christ. These are all powerful examples and there're so many more. The Bible is full of example after example of people going all in for God. But it's at this time that we shift gears a bit and go from example to action. And it's at this point we can ask the question, what have I gone all in for with God in my life? What have you gone all in for God in your life? Maybe it was your initial calling when you first heard and understood God's truth. Maybe you walked away from a career or a job at some point in your life. If you didn't have to ever do that in your Christianity in your calling so far, we all have examples and we know people who did. We all have a… so many of us have a personal friend that's no longer here in Cincinnati, they moved away, but he was a gifted helicopter pilot. He didn't know he was going to be gifted in this until he went to training because of something he always wanted to do. And we're not talking just like the small helicopters you fly around, we're talking the ones that they fight forest fires with out West. That's what he thought he wanted to do.

So he went to training and through it, he realized, "This is fun. I'm making changes, I'm impacting people's lives." And so, he continued his training and got certified to fly these huge big helicopters. But when do forest fires happen? Six days a week? They happen when they happen and many times, they last for weeks upon end. So he was being asked to work Sabbaths to fight these fires. And he at times went through some different feelings, different thoughts on it. But he said, "You know what, I can't do this." Something he was gifted in, something he was talented in, something that he had a passion for, he put on the line and then crossed it out. No more. He walked away from a career that he enjoyed and that he was good at because it interfered with God's Sabbath day. So we do know people who've gone through these types of decisions that they've had to make and we know others with similar stories. We just read of two examples of Elisha walking away from his career, of Peter, Andrew, James, and John walking away from theirs. So maybe you have walked away from a career, you've walked away from jobs, maybe you had to walk away from your friends or your family. The boys showing up on a Friday night saying, "Hey, let's go to the football game," or "let's go hang out with some girls and cruise the strip on a Friday night." Maybe you had to say, "I can't do that." Maybe you stopped playing sports because...

Maybe you could play baseball or you could play basketball in elementary school, in middle school because of games during the week but at some point, your skills got really… you got advanced in your skills. And then the varsity team is saying, "Hey, you're trying out this year, right?" And maybe you had to ask, "The games, they're not on Saturdays, are they? Or Friday nights?" And they look at you like you have a horn growing out of your head, right? Because you should know this, no, they're not. They're Friday nights when everybody's off school and can show up to the game or they're Saturdays when the tournaments are. Maybe you had to make that decision and that choice is I can't play. Maybe you didn't do that and you walked away or maybe you made a decision to no longer keep Christmas or Easter to say, "You know what, mom, dad, aunts and uncles, grandparents," grandparents, that's tough, "I can't come. I'm not going to come anymore. I can't do this. It goes against my conscience, it goes against my understanding in God's word." Maybe you've had to do this, maybe you've gone all in for God. Maybe it was your baptism. When you got baptized, you said, "I'm going all in for God."

You grew tired of fighting that losing battle of your will, trying to do the right thing, trying to take control and you giving into that will and saying, "I'm going to go with it," and then you stub your toe again and again and again on this thing called life and you get tired of it. You turn your whole life over to God and you said, "This is the way I'm going to walk." And you placed your hand on the plow and your hand has been on that plow ever since. Maybe you did go all in. These are just some of the ways that we go all in for God. What are areas of your life that you still haven't gone all in for God? Is there anything that you are still holding back at this time? Let's turn to Ephesians 4 while you think about that for a moment. It's a question I have to ask myself over and over and over again. This isn't a one time in your life question that you get to ask. What areas in my life am I still holding back from going all in for God? Let's read Ephesians 4:22. We'll start off in verse 22. Ephesians 4:22, “that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” I'll pause there for a moment.

The old man is gone, right? Or is he? Or is he? This is the person at the deepest level of who you are that you know still exists at the innermost part of your heart, of your core, that only you really know if that man is still there and what remains of him. Are there any aspects that we're hiding of the old man because you know what, maybe it's too difficult to deal with or maybe perhaps we don't see it as that big of a deal that he's still around in certain small little ways. Are there still deceitful lusts that are being harbored and protected? But the only thing that these lusts can do, even as small as they can be, that we think they are, the only thing they can do is to rot us from the inside out. Our old man says that these lusts feel good and that it's okay but they are poison to us spiritually. Our conversion starts from the inside and it works its way out. What is at our core must be made completely new in order for us to live a new way of life. As it says there, "be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and in holiness."

In Colossians 3:5, it reads, "Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness which is idolatry." This phrasing, "therefore put to death," literally means “to make dead. Not simply to suppress or control evil acts or attitudes, we are to wipe them out completely, to exterminate that old way of life, to exterminate that old man.” So are there any areas at your core that you're still holding back from going all in for God? Are there any areas of sin that you've possibly held back in your back pocket and haven't fully gone all in? Sometimes we can fool ourselves to think, "Well, these sins aren't that big of a deal. I mean, they're pretty small compared to a lot of that I see going on or maybe a lot to what I used to do, what I used to… the decisions I used to make." Maybe these little things are gossip, are just little white lies. Maybe that's some of it that we still haven't gone all in and we think, "Well, it's just who I am. It's just who I am. I don't think that this can be changed. I've tried, I've tried, and I've tried. It's just who I am." Is that our thought process? Are there any areas like this that you may be holding back from God? What about things in your life you haven't completely handed over to God to help you with? Maybe it's a difficulty that you're having with someone.

We all have those. Difficulties that we have with peers, with family members, coworkers, right here. But you could change. You could say, "You know what, I'm going all in. I'm going to eat my pride and I'm going to find a way for resolution. I'm going to seek out and I'm going to struggle to find a way that I can find peace with this person." Maybe it's a problem with the job that you have not fully given over to God. Maybe instead of continuing to try to keep it to yourself, you say, "I'm going to go all in and hand my job problems over to God. I'm giving it to him because I can't fix this. I've tried and I'm falling and I'm failing. So, God, you have to help me with this problem I have at work. You have to help me with this problem I have with my boss who's asking me to do things that I can't do, that I won't do. I can't fix this, only you can."

Or maybe you need to hand over a health trial that you just can't seem to completely hand over to God. It's one of those, it's too personal and you want to kind of keep that hand on just to know it's still there, just to know that I'm still involved. This one is something I know personally is the difficulty to hand some of these health trials over to God. But when you do, you realize I'm not in control anymore. I'm giving this to God because I can't fix this, I don't know the best way to go after it, I don't know how long I'm going to have it so I'm giving this one to God. Or maybe it's your baptism or the lack of baptism that you haven't gone all in for God. Maybe you've grown up in the church and you know this way works.

You've seen it in your life, you've seen it by those around you but you're like, "I don't know." Is it for me? I know His word, I know the Holy Days, I know all these things but it's that next step. Maybe you haven't gone all in with God for baptism to make those next steps. Let's turn to Ephesians 5:6. Actually, I think we're still there, Ephesians 5 and I'll start reading verse 6. Because you can go all in. We're told to contrast the light with dark as we heard in the sermonette, that there is the light that we are to try to emulate and to go after and the darkness that we're just to eradicate from our lives.

Ephesians 5:6, “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them. For you were once darkness,” And that is literally, you were once darkness, “you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light…” verse 10, “…finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.” Expose them.

One of Satan's greatest… and we'll pause here for a minute. One of Satan's greatest deceptions is making people believe that they can fellowship with evil but it won't hurt me, it won't affect me. Things of the entertainment industry, guilty! Movies, music. “Oh, I can listen to this song. I just won't sing it. I can watch this movie, but I won't think on it after I turn it off.” But you have to ask yourself, is it affecting you? Is this an area that you have not gone all in for God?

Let's continue on in Ephesians 5:13. “But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says, ‘Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.’" Christ will give you light. Wake up and Christ will give you light. You enter a room and what's the first thing you do if it's dark out? You flip on that switch. You flip on the light and assuming you have power and working light bulbs which I don't always have either of, but assuming you do, light flows into the room and what happens to that darkness? It's forced out. It disappears.

You went all in to flip that switch and in doing so, you allowed the power in the house to go all in and to eradicate that darkness. Paul is saying here in Ephesians, "To expose the unfruitful works of darkness, to go all in and allow Christ to work powerfully inside of you to rid yourself of that darkness." Sin and evil cannot masquerade as anything but evil. Sin and evil is just that. It's never something to play with. It's sin and it's evil. And when it's exposed to the light of God, it's got to go. The two cannot exist in the same room, in the same location. It can't exist in the same body. We can try to hide things from light or refuse to use the light but if you choose to use it, you will illuminate the sin. This is something Christians should do in every aspect of our lives, every aspect.

So what is it that's keeping you from going all in on something in your life? What is it that's keeping me from going all in on something in your life? We have recorded for an example in Luke 18, of an account of someone who was not willing to go all in for Christ. We've been looking at powerful examples this afternoon of men and we know there's many examples of ladies who went all in for God in this book but we're going to look at one now in Luke 18 of someone who wasn't willing.

Luke 18, and we'll start in verse 18. “Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, ‘Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ So Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not bear false witness,” “Honor your father and your mother.”' And he said, ‘All these things I have kept from my youth.’ So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, ‘You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’" Isn't it funny, there's another “follow Me.” We've heard that a few times already? “Follow Me.” “But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich.” Things that he had, things that he knew, he wanted. These are all ways that some of us who have not yet become baptized, we know the truth. You can't sugarcoat it. We know it.

If you haven't committed your life to baptism, you know this way works, you know that His word is true. This ruler could not commit himself to this change of life. The money, the wealth of the ruler, was something that kept him from going all in. What is it that we have? What is it that I have? There is a promise at the end of this account to those who will go all in for God. Let's keep reading with verse 24, Luke 18:24. “And when Jesus saw that he… when Jesus saw he became very sorrowful, He said, ‘How hard is it for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’ And those who heard it said, ‘Who can then be saved?’ But He said, ‘The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.’” They're possible with God. “”Then Peter said, ‘See, we have left all and followed You.’ And so He said to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parent or brother or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God,’” and this is the promise, “who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life."

There's a final aspect to going all in for God that I would like to review now and this is that God has gone all in for us. God has gone all in for us. Let's look at John 3:16. John 3:16, I'll read it. We know this one. If you've been to a Reds game or any kind of sporting event, you know this one. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” God has not held back anything from us, anything, ultimately giving us His own Son for me and for you.

Let's look at Romans 8:31. Romans 8:31, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” All things. He delivered Him up for us all. God has gone all in for us. As His children, He desires to give us all things. And like a good Father, He wants and He desires that we have everything that we want in our life. Everything that He has, He wants to give. There's nothing he desires to hold back from us, from all of us. As good parents, as we often do, are we not willing to go all in for our own kids, to give them everything that we know that would make their life better and profitable and happy?

Our kids know we love them but isn't it funny how sometimes we can still shock them by doing something so over the top for them that they just… they're sitting there in shock like, "You would do that for me?" And then we're kind of taken back like, "Yeah. Why wouldn't we do that for you?" And then you take a minute and you think back, and you're like, "Well, I guess it's a pretty big deal. Maybe it's a really big deal to them." But we've done that for our own children. How much more does God want to do that for us? And we never hesitated when the thought came to our mind to do this for our children. We love them and we would do just about anything for them.

So are we sometimes surprised when we think about the ways that God has gone all in for us? Are we surprised in some of the ways that He's gone all in for us? In Jeremiah 29:11, the prophet Jeremiah was inspired to write, this is Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope…thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Notice the words, “to give you.” To give you. To give us what? A future and a hope. What is it that you want to give your children? Physically, today, what would it be that you could give your children? A future and a hope? I do. It'd be pretty close to the top of the list.

There would have been too many other things because that encapsulates so much that we want to give our children and that would bring them so much peace, so much happiness. And our Father wants to give this to us, a future and a hope. God has gone all in for us. He's created an eternal plan that includes each one of us. He's given us a future. He's placed in our hearts a hope that isn't anything that can be found on this earth, a hope that is eternal and a hope that is sure.

All we have to do is watch the news, flip on the T.V., watch the news, and all we can see is people who are looking for hope. You turn on the T.V. shows, what are they based on? People who are looking for hope. This world, not to say this lightly, is hopeless. Where do they place their hope? What is there to place hope on that doesn't falter, that doesn't shatter beneath your feet, hope that doesn't then stab you in the back, hope that doesn't let you down? That's why this world so desperately needs hope and a future and God is going to bring that to this earth and he's brought it to you and to me today. This hope, this future is in our hearts and all we have to do is follow it. All we have to do is go all in for God. This is the reason why we struggled through difficulties day in and day out through life. We struggle because we believe in this hope.

Let's continue on Romans 8:35. Romans 8:35, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” Verse 37, “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am not persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Nothing, nothing can separate us, nothing can separate us. Paul is saying that God has gone all in for us and that He will not allow anything, anything to separate us from Him, nothing. And to secure this for you and for me, Jesus Christ laid down His life. Let's read in Philippians 2:5. Philippians 2, we'll read verses 5 through 11. Philippians 2:5, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider robbery to be equal with Him, but He made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of man. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”

“Therefore God has also highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and those in heaven and those on the earth, and of all… and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” It's at this time of the year that we pause and that we reflect in a very deep and sincere way of the person who Jesus Christ was when He was in the flesh, the example in life that He lived, and the pain and the torture that He went through in the life that He willingly gave so that you and I can have a relationship with the Father and that we can have the promise of eternal life with Him in the Kingdom of God. This is going all in. This is going all in. So we pause here now and we reflect on the ways that God has gone all in for us. And as we pause, we should ask the question, am I holding anything back or am I all in for God?