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08/02/2026 - Matthew Destry

While the world still stands: Serving a Lord who stoops to serve

Reading – John 13:1–14 (ESV)

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet,[a] but is completely clean. And you[b] are clean, but not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

Movement 1 – The setup: love that goes all the way to the bottom (v.1)

“He loved them to the end.”

Movement 2 – The action: the Lord takes the lowest place (v.2–5)

Movement 3 – The protest: when pride dresses up as reverence (v.6–11)

“You will never wash my feet. Not as long as the world stands.”

Movement 4 – The explanation: clean, but still dusty (v.12–14)

Application – three movements of response

1. Cleansing: where have your feet been this week?

Questions:

• What has clung to your soul lately?
• Where have your reactions been sharper than your character?
• What attitudes have become normal that should be confessed?

1. Example: if Jesus is Lord, pride cannot be my posture

Questions:

• What task do you secretly hope someone else will do?
• Where do you avoid inconvenience because it feels beneath you?
• Has following Jesus made you more interruptible, or more important?

1. Commissioning: washed people become sent people

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news… who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’” Isaiah 52:7