Matthew Poole: Good morning. Thank you team for leading us in song. It's beautiful and wonderful. Thank you. Let's pray for God's help as we get into his word. Would bow with me? Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a God that is so good, so merciful, so kind and gracious. A God that comes into our world. Our world of brokenness. a world of darkness, a world of sin and shame, and you come in with light. We thank you, God. We pray this morning. We pray for grace that you would reveal your glory to us, that we would see your glory, and we would be transformed. God, we ask that you silence our hearts and our minds from the distractions of this world, that we may behold you for our glory, for your glory, and our eternal joy. It's in your name that we pray. Amen. Fall is finally here. Praise God. That means some cooler weather. That also means football is here. We got some football fans maybe in the room today. We live in a hotbed of university rivalry, schools, competition, and football is peak season for all this. Right? Each team, there's three major teams around here. Each of these teams has a mascot. They have a mascot and they have colors and they take on this sort of culture characteristics that define these teams. You have NC State. What is NC State defined by? There's the wolf pack right there. Red and white. Then you have, yep, some of this going on. Then there's UNC. The ramps. Woo, wow. White and baby blue. I can say that. I went there actually, so I appreciate all this. And then there are the Duke University Blue Devils. Dark, there we go. Right. Dark blue is their color, right? These teams have these characteristics about them. Now, at the end of the day, the mascot is pretty irrelevant to whether the team wins or loses, right? If we were to jump out of football for a minute, consider baseball, I consider the Savannah Bananas. Who came up with that? Right, there's no bearing from the mascot on whether the team actually wins or loses. But here's my question, if we were to compare this to the church, what would the church mascot be? What are the church colors? What do think it might be? I think what we see in our text today is the cross defines the people of God. And for us, when we think about our mascot and our colors, it's not irrelevant to whether we win or lose. It actually is critical to our success. When you consider that, what if the colors we wear, the culture that we have and embody, what if that is the difference between winning or losing? And we're opening up John chapter 13 today. Jesus is giving last words to His disciples. This is His farewell discourse. He's going away to be with the Father, and He's giving them last words, and these words are important. These are words that are meant to shape them as a people. Jesus is creating a new type of people on the earth that have never existed before. These words are meant to shape them and shape them into the cross. That's where He's going and that's what He's saying is going to define them. The is, okay, if the cross defines us, what does that mean? If the cross is to shape us, if it has implications for how we live and move, what does that mean for us? And we need this text this morning because the disciples and us today, we don't naturally go. We're not naturally drifting into a community that's defined by the cross. We're drifting into other stuff. Community is represented by the stuff of the self and the world. Jesus wants to radically redefine what defines us as a people. We're challenged here, we need this, we don't naturally go there, yet it is what is most critical for our joy as a people. So what defines us as a church, the cross, or how does the cross then define us as a people of God? That's where we're going this morning. And the first thing that we see here is the cross of Christ defines the glory of cross of Christ defines the glory of God, starting in verse 31. When he, this is Judas, the one who has already left the room, he's going off to betray Jesus. When he had gone out, Jesus said, now, now is the Son of Man glorified. And God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I am with you, and you will seek me. And just as I said to the Jews, so now I will also say to you, where I am going, you cannot come. So in these first two verses, Jesus uses the word glorify five times. It's a bit of a theological mouthful and brain twister. The glorification of Jesus is what's on display. The glory of the Father being glorified in the Son, the Son being glorified by the Father, it's one big glorification happening here of the Godhead in Jesus Christ. But the context of this, Judas has just left the room to go betray Jesus. Jesus is about to go to the cross. That's where that betrayal is leading. One of his closest friends to betray him is now going to cross a cross that has been calculated to inflict maximum pain and maximum shame on Jesus. what the cross is going to do to him. And yet Jesus saying, now? Now, the Son of God is glorified? Like, Jesus, have you lost your mind? Have you lost your mind? This is what glory is? We should consider that for John, when John uses glory and glorified for Jesus, he's uniquely, apart from the other writers, he's uniquely talking about the revealing. The glory, the glorification of Jesus is the revealing of Jesus. It's like John Piper says, the glory of God is the holiness of God going public. It's what you see. It's what gets manifested is glory. The essence is coming through glory. Or consider Superman for a moment. Does Clark Kent bear the glory of Superman as Clark Kent is walking around and sort of stumbling around? He's this anxious, this anxious civilian who kind of doesn't do anything helpful. He's not powerful, he's not doing anything of real importance. Is that where you would say the essence of Superman is on display? Anybody? No. Where does his essence get put on display? When he goes into the phone booth. and he comes out and he's wearing a cape and he flies around and he saves people. You would say at that moment, there is the glory of Superman. It is on display. We might have missed it before, but there it is. We get that, right? This is what's so counterintuitive and challenging about Jesus. Because Jesus is saying, hey, I'm about to be glorified. My essence is going on display. But it's not happening as I'm flying around in the clouds. It's happening as I'm raised up on a cross of pain and shame. That's where my essence is being revealed. And this is where we pause. the sovereign one who knows no beginning and no end, the Word of God made flesh, Creator God knows everything in full control, supreme and sovereign over all. And this is how he's choosing to reveal himself. on a cross? betrayal and shame and scorn and weakness. Like those things don't mix, right? They're like oil and water. Glory and shame. Weakness. Pain, sovereignty, sovereignty, supremacy, as low as you can get. We think, how does glory and a cross go together? I think for John, his answer is, What holds the glory of God and the cross together? Love. John has uniquely said in the beginning of chapter 13, he said, and Jesus having loved them, he loved them to the end. Talking about the cross, saying at his very last spill drop of blood, he loved all. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son. For John, Jesus is giving himself out of love. Or 1 John, says, he will say, God is love. But then he says, in this is love, not that we have loved God, but that God loved us and gave his son, sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins. That's love. And to be clear, the glory is not in the sun. It is not there only. Or put it this way, it is not in the suffering as long as the suffering is detached from what it is accomplishing. There is no glory in suffering for suffering sake or evil for evil sake. None of that detached from what is accomplishing. On the cross, love is accomplishing something. It's doing for the people of God what they cannot do themselves, bearing the wrath of God in their place, cleansing them, forgiving them of their sins, giving them new life, adopting them into the family of God. giving them an inheritance that is in the fellowship of God and His people forever and ever. This is what Jesus has accomplished in the cross. So we never disconnect the cross from the glory and all the inheritance that's coming. John is not doing that, although he is uniquely saying, here is the glorification of Jesus. It involves all the other glories. They're all flowing from the cross and pointing to the cross. So for John, it's also inconceivable when he uses exaltation, he is using it in the context also of resurrection. Jesus being exalted on the cross is one in the same for John as being exalted to the right hand. This is the one glorification of Jesus. The triumph of God for the people of God to do for them what they can't do themselves. So then the cross becomes the lens by which we see the full panoramic, beautiful vision of salvation and all of its glory. We see it all through the lens of the cross of Christ. Right, there was a glory in creation. Absolutely. When God spoke the heavens and the earth into place and put the stars out in the expanse of the skies, that's glorious. There's glory when He created the mountains and the rivers and the seas and the animals and the birds and humanity. That's glorious. There was glory when He showed up to Moses in the burning bush. And he led the people out of slavery to Pharaoh. There was glory in Mount Sinai and the giving of the law. There was glory in the clouds and the pillar of fire that led them through and established them in the promised land. There was glory there. In the tabernacle and in the temple. You better believe there was glory there. There was glory in the incarnation of the Son of God coming through Mary. There was glory in the Sermon on the Mount. There was glory. as he taught and as he healed and delivered in all of his miracles, casting out demons, calming seas, multiplying the loaves and the fishes, there was glory there. Here, John says he was. Here on the cross, his full essence is revealed. Whereby all of those other glories point to this one like a shadow points to its substance, as Calvin would say. They were all pointing here. full revelation of God on a cross. Question this morning is, you treasure this glory? Here it is. God has revealed himself to you. as a wrath-bearing substitute for your sin to serve you and to wash you and to give you life with Him forever. That's the revealing of who God is. Do you treasure that? The flip side of glorification is the revealing, and then there's our glorying in, which is now the flip side of it is we magnify. As we glory, we glory in, we magnify, we make much of. We make much of the revealing of God in the cross of Christ. Do you make much of the cross? Or is a God hanging on a cross for post-50? I always say in Romans 1, I'm not ashamed. not ashamed of the Gospel. Because I'll tell you, what the devil wants to do is make you ashamed of it. To think it is weakness and foolishness. But to those who are called, we know there's nothing foolish about it. There's nothing weak about it. The cross of Christ is the wisdom of God and the power for salvation for anyone who would believe. It is the grandest display of God that man has ever seen. The most beautiful thing. We can lay our eyes and our hearts on it. That's we know God. Do you treasure it? Or are you treasuring this morning? things of this world. Treasuring your own sin, your own idolatry, not willing to see the gift of God and revealing of God. Now this has, so the cross of Christ defines the glory of God seen to us. That's massive difference in how we now vertically relate to God. How might that now cause us to relate to one another? And this is where Jesus, or John, takes us next. The cross of Christ defines our love for one another. Verse 34, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. God has already told the Israelites that they are to love. This is all throughout the Old Testament. So what is going on here that is new? It's a new definition. It's a new standard. There's a new clarity here that's given to what it actually means to love. It's like your old fuzzy television, black and white, scrambled, know, satellite, little antenna things not working right, and that's your TV that you have to look on. This here is whatever we're up to now, 8K, ultra high def. Here's what love looks like. If you were always confused and you had no real clear image, here is the image. This is it. Here's the clarity that we're being pointed to. 1 John 3, 16, by this we know love. By this, that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. How has Jesus loved us, loved these disciples? He's pointed them, he's just given them the foot washing, which was anticipating the cross. This is the revelation of love. As I have loved you, and in the commandment you are to love one another. You are to love one another. And this is where we get our definition from. We aren't getting our definition from Instagram or Disney or the culture or the school system. We're not getting our definition of love there. We get our definition from God who is love. And he's not grabbing love off the shelf somewhere trying to, he's not searching for something to try to find. that then he can attach to himself, say, here's love, I found it over here, and now I've attached this, and I'm using this to describe myself. No, this is the actual revelation of God's love. And anything we might grab is just trying to point at that reality. Love is who he is. He's the one defines it. It's his definition that matters. Definitions you might get out in the culture are things like, Well, love means to give people unconditional affirmation with complete disregard to any moral good or objectivity. Without any regard to somebody's actual good and any sense of morality. That's what love is. You're just to affirm unconditionally. Tell people they are good. based on what morality, I don't know. And it's never clarified. But we're meant to just take that as the definition, or love is just a feeling. There's no action that's really necessary for love, or you are to love people as long as they love you. As soon as they stop loving you, it's okay to not love them anymore. It's okay to move on. That's why we have these things called term marriages and stuff. At some point, hey, we're just not going to scratch each other's backs, or we're going to leave and be out of the relationship. None of that is what the cross is about. So, so far fall, fallen short of that. These things fall short of the vision that Jesus is handing us for his community. He defines love. And I might try a stab at how John and Jesus defining love in the cross is this, a genuine desire for the good of others that leads to sacrificial service to the glory of You want to know what cross love is doing and how it's defining our love. It's to have a genuine desire, right? So it's not disconnected from relationship. There's actual desire. That desire is doing something. It's sacrificially serving others, not in a vacuum and not for no purpose. But that love is defined by how we're trying to lift people up and give them their greatest good. That we know has to be to the glory of God or it's not their greatest. way we love and manner that we love and the end of our love for other people is their good to the glory of That's how the cross defines it. This absolutely challenges us on every front, does it not? We aren't a people that like commitment. We don't like commitment in relationship. We like to isolate. We like to guard things and create buffers in our lives and don't let life get too messy. We have our own mess and we don't want anybody else's mess to mess with us. not the community that Jesus is establishing. This confronts the sort of me and Jesus movement that's out there. It's just, hey, I'm good. Me and Jesus are good. I can be a faithful Christian. I don't need anybody else. I don't need the local church. I don't need anybody else. Just me and Jesus. How do you do to love one another part in that? This also challenges casual attendance at a service. And there's no Commitment anywhere. Right? We just sort of come in, we get what we want, go down the buffet line, then we leave. Nothing asked of us, not serving anybody, not burying the burdens of anybody else. Galatians 6, so fulfilling the law of Christ. This is one reason of many that we take membership here so seriously. Not because we care about having a club, but so we can be faithful to the type of people that Jesus is creating. That we can be faithful as a covenant community, committed to wash each other's feet. It's not a killjoy to be in a committed relationship. It's not a killjoy to be loving one another. Any more than it's a killjoy to get married. Is it easy? Absolutely not. Probably one of the hardest things you'll ever do with your life. But is it full of glory? Absolutely. Absolutely it's full of glory and it's full of joy because this is what you were created for. We were created to be members of the body of Christ in committed relationships that are loving one another. If you're not a member this morning, I encourage you, consider, prayerfully consider this church or another church. Join in. Join in to where you actually are joining into a committed relationship. Yes, can be scary. I'm not saying it can't be. But take that step. I believe it's where the Lord is leading. I believe that's where more, the Bible says that's where more and more of your joy is and more of your faithfulness can be expressed. And for members here, praise God for you. Praise God for every act, the thousands and thousands of ways you love one another day in and day out. Praise God. Praise God. You are living it out as the body of Christ, one member loving another. May we also be challenged in this and exhorted. Keep going. Keep running in this direction. The relationships are getting hard. The service is getting hard. The bearing with one another is getting hard. Keep going, church. Don't stop. Don't throw in the towel because it's getting hard. Keep going for the glory of God, the edification of His people, and the joy of your soul. Keep going. And maybe ask a challenging question. Whose feet are you washing regularly and intentionally? I'm using that metaphorically, I think, as we looked at a couple weeks ago. That means who are you speaking the Word of Christ to and who are you living and embodying the Word of Christ to? Regularly, intentionally. Who are their names? Who are their names of those that you're loving? have two, three, four, five people that you are committed to love. Let's pick up that mantle of responsibility and joy and carry it out. We're going to take our joy seriously. We have to take our call to love one another seriously. But there's also, this doesn't just impact us, this impacts others. There's so much opportunity here. Look where Jesus then goes, verse 35. He says this, by this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. By this, all people will know this joy is not just for you. You're not a cul-de-sac. You're not a swamp. You're a river. You're a river. The water, the life of Christ is coming into you. It's filling you and the community with joy, and then that is spilling out to the world. Tons of opportunity here. It's the sacrifice. of love, loving service towards one another. Listen, it marks the people of God off from the world and it witnesses to the world. Think about that. Why does it witness to them? Because they don't have it. They don't know. They've not seen God who is love. They don't know covenant love. They don't know it. And it is our joy to share. what God is like and he's doing it through us loving one another. The amazing thing is that they do notice, church. They do. They notice. They can't not notice. While they are not impressed with our Bible knowledge and they are not impressed with our political activism or whatever social causes we may take up, they are impressed here, even if they can't They cannot argue with the love that we have for one another. They can't understand it. It is a head scratcher. It's a head scratcher for them. They may see it, they may see our community as weak and foolish, they cannot argue for what's happened. The gospel then, or this love then, becomes a beautiful apologetic or a defense of the truth of the gospel to the watching world. It works. I think that's what he said. The gospel works. You can argue with our theology. You cannot argue with the loving community that the theology is creating. What else creates a community of forgiving foot washers who could care less about themselves and just seek to serve each other? What does that? Nothing does that except the power of God through the cross of Christ. And this is beautiful. The gospel creates a loving self-sacrificing community that cannot be ignored by our world. So we cannot also miss the fact that we are the sent ones. We're gonna see this later in this farewell discourse. We are the sent ones. We live as the sent ones in this world. We are a community that is sent. We exist inside of this area and carry our to you as sent. Called by God, commissioned by God to be the light into the world's darkness. Do you see this morning, do you see yourself as a sent one? Do you consider your neighbors? consider your coworkers, your classmates. consider those that you run into, you bump into at the gym or out in the community, do you consider, or I'm asking you to consider, that God has providentially put them there in your path that you might. to see them that way. we just run past. Might we pause? God, what would it look like me for take a step and washing these people's feet? Not expecting anything in return, just desiring to image our God who came and died on the cross for us as a servant of the lowliest. What would it look like for you to take a step this week? In living sense, in living that somebody might see the heart of Christ lived out through word and deed. Take a step, linger out in the yard when you get home or go out in the mail, get mail and can get in conversation with your neighbors or hang out around the office or invite somebody over for dinner or coffee. Take a step, get to know somebody beyond the very surface level. How are you? How was your week? It was great, whatever, good. And then you move on. Ask them something else. Get to know them so you can bring Christ to them in a meaningful way. God has given us his love. It transforms our community. This love is spilling out into the world as we glorify God, carrying his love to the world. And maybe that means we do look like a foolish little group of people. Maybe you wouldn't even say this more. Well, this all seems pretty silly. This seems as silly as the savanna bananas. And I don't want to be a part of it. I don't think it's good. I just want to encourage you, yes, from our fleshly perspective, it seems foolish. But what are we doing here? But from God's perspective, it is full of glory. It is full of the revelation of the Godhead. I'm not overstating that. It's literally what the scriptures are saying. Jesus is leaving. No one can see me anymore because I'm going to the Father, but you know what they can see? Me and you. Me and you through the community walking this I mean, you want a vision for your life? Get in tune with that. It doesn't get any bigger. It doesn't get any more glorious. It doesn't get any more holy or sacred. And it doesn't fill you with any more joy. Nothing else does. But okay, so it's glorious. But where in the world does the strength come to do this? Because if you're like me, I mean it's like failure all over the place. Where does this come from? Where does the strength come from? And that's where we go next. Lastly here, the cross of Christ defines our source of strength. Verse 36, the Psalmist Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going? Jesus answered, where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow me afterward. Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you. Pause there for a second. Peter bypasses completely the call to love. Not interested in that. Jesus, where are you going? Peter is fixated on where Jesus is going. He wants to go with Jesus. He's like, right, so you're leaving. Well, you're not leaving without me. I'm going with you. I'm ready to do everything for you, Jesus. Let's go. But Peter has a lot to learn. He has a lot to learn about himself, about his Savior, and about how life administers. Jesus responds tenderly, I think firmly. Verse 38, Jesus answered. Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times. Edward Clink, New Testament scholar, comments on this passage beautifully. says this, the irony is stark. It is Jesus whose life is to be given on behalf of Peter. As much as the disciples are servants of Christ, giving their lives to the service of the Lord, they are first and foremost served. who gave his life on their behalf. Listen to this, to reverse this is to misunderstand the gospel. Not only will Peter fail to offer his life on behalf of Jesus, he will even do the exact opposite. He will give up Jesus to save his own. Let's not think this morning that you and I are any different. We have all in our own way rejected the glory of God on the cross. We have said, I don't need it. I will get my own way into heaven. I will rely on my own strength to serve. Peter is falling into self-reliance and we do the same thing. We've also rejected the call to love one another. Every single one of us. We've gossiped, we've slandered, we've harbored bitterness, unforgiveness, we've not served, we've served ourselves, we've treated each other as stepping stones for our agenda and our ambition rather than serving people until where they need to go. We've done all this. We've not loved others the way that we would want them to love us. No, we've been selfish. We deserve judgment. God forgive. God forgive us for our selfishness. And forgive us, he does. Praise God. Praise God he forgives us. The point I'm trying to make here is, as sailboats never graduate from their need for wind, so we as Christians never graduate from our need for we are always in more desperate need of grace. In fact, I think the older we get, the more desperate we become. We're growing as we grow in Christ, we're growing in our absolute depravity without Him and our desperation for Him. And we see the need that we actually have for Him, not just to start the Christian life, but to finish it. Praise God, never tires of dispensing His grace and mercy to us. In fact, He delights to. He delights to. We are those served by Christ, first and foremost. This is the gospel. Our God has washed our feet. He has stooped down to wash our feet. He did that on the bloody cross for us. coming out of the grave, giving us new life. This is grace that is at our backs. It cannot be stopped. It cannot be changed. It cannot be forwarded. It is sealed in the blood and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Grace is yours, church, forever, now and always, to the glory of King Jesus. We're not robbing him of any grace today by trying to operate in our own self-strength. It's not going to get us anywhere. We tether ourselves to him. We raise up the sail and let him Blow, let him blow the winds where we need to go. Somebody might say, hey, great sailboat, we respond, it's a great wind. It's a great wind, let's get this straight. We magnify the grace of God. This grace is all powerful for us. It is what catalyzes us on our best days, and it is what carries us on our worst days. And this type of grace does not lead to passivity. It does not lead to passivity. True apprehension of the grace of God never does. It trains us, tied us to, to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions as we wait for our hope, carrying out the good works that God has prepared before us and for us in Christ Jesus. This is what grace is doing through us. There's nothing passive about it for us. And I want to ask this morning, For the God who, because of the God who has gone all in on us, what is holding us back from going all in? He's gone all in to serve us. Would we respond in like kind? Not that we're saving Jesus. We're responding appropriately because He has saved us. Just like Peter will. Peter will give his life as tradition tells us. Peter will make it to the Father in glory. He's just not doing it on salvation since like Christ. Our call is to lay down our lives, pick up our crosses, and to follow our Savior. What's holding you back this morning? Is it guilt? Jesus' blood washes guilt away. It's gone. Is it shame? You are accepted now before the Father forever. Shame is gone. Is it weakness? Christ's power is made perfect in weakness. The cross has effectually taken away every excuse we can have. I'm afraid of missing out. The cross is secured in an eternal inheritance in a new heavens and new earth. That excuse doesn't work. Every excuse has been taken away. The glory of God compels us forward. It's not a gamble. There is no risk for us to give our lives to King Jesus and to make much of him in the community and in this world. It's not a gamble. It's a sure investment that bears 30, 60, a hundred fold and on and on and on. It's a sure investment. Let's give ourselves in honor of our sovereign King who has become the suffering servant. Let's give ourselves to him, to him who has revealed God to us. who is forming us into a loving foot washing community and who lavishes us with the riches of his grace now and forever. Church, may we wear our colors well. May we lift high the cross knowing that in the lifting of the cross as a community of the people of God, that is our victory. Our mascot matters. Our symbol matters and it is the cross, the death and the resurrection of God. for us to give us eternal fellowship forever. Let's wear it well, church, to His glory and our joy. Father, thank you for your grace and your mercy this morning. God, that comes to challenge our conception of what true glory is, that challenges us in our selfish lives, and that challenges us for where we look for our strength. And we see this morning, glory is in the cross. Glory and love is in the people of God loving one another. And the cross gives us grace. to do what you call us to do. God, may we trust you. May we worship you. May we live to make much of you. God would harvest church, honor you in such a way that we'd love one another and the world look at us and say, those people must belong to Jesus. Those people love Jesus. They have to be his disciples. Look at the way they God, may we give our lives, may we lay our lives down in response to you as we look forward to that great day when you will come in another type of glory on the clouds with the new heavens and new earth. We look to it, God, and we praise you that the cross as the centerpiece of history has done for us what we could never do ourselves. It's in your name we pray, amen.