31st July 2026

31st July 2026


Pray (ACts)


Read (John 13:1-17 focus v12-17)


Message (Alan Burke)


I’ve got a wee problem, now before you say to yourself “Burke, you have many problems” and start to list them all, would you relax a wee bit? My problem, my wee problem, is actually a big stinking problem, and you have it too; it’s my sinful heart. Many people get on their high horse when you try to tell them about their problem with sin, how every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart is only evil all the time. I seemed to have put a few noses out of joint recently when I said such a thing, even though that’s the Lord’s verdict (Gen 6:5). Because of my sinful heart, how every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart is only evil all the time, I’m not very good at doing what we are taught here by Jesus. He’d just washed his disciples’ feet, and he asks them; “Do you understand what I have done for you?” These disciples had vied for position, they had spoken and acted out of their own misconceived ambition and pride. They were looking for a place in the kingdom, expecting it to be like the kingdoms of this world, but now they were confronted with the fact that in the kingdom of God and his Christ, things are not like the kingdoms of this world. 


What Jesus had just done was a powerful lesson in servanthood, driving the point home that if he, being their Lord and Master, was willing to wash their feet, stooping before them, performing a task that would have been left to the lowest servant, how much more should they, his followers, who are for one another and for all? He then commanded his disciples to wash each other’s feet to serve one another in love according to the example he set. To refuse to serve others, to refuse to humble themselves, no matter how high their position, was to place themselves above Jesus. He had exemplified to them his love, his humility, his servant-heartedness. He was the example to follow, even though his disciples had been told they are still unaware of the full gravity of what lies ahead. For his disciples, the humility of Christ should be the pattern for their lives; that is as true for those there in the upper room as it is for us here today. Instead of aspiring to dominate, we must be eager to serve. Head knowledge, intellectual understanding, is not enough but must be backed up by a commitment of life. It doesn’t mean that our works are the basis of our acceptance by God but that they are the evidence of a true faith; they show where our hearts lie. For faith and obedience are inseparable. 


The problem is that this isn’t how the world works; it isn’t how our sinful nature is wired. We’re not being taught here that we have to start literally washing each other’s feet but that we are to serve those in the body of Christ. We serve one another. Just think how it would be if we were those as the church in this place who, desiring to bring glory to God, put aside our big heads, personalities, our self-serving attitude, and follow the example of Christ our saviour. What a witness that would be to the community around us, that we serve one another, that we leave aside our own ambition, and we are those who love each other and serve each other, that we stop getting our knickers in a twist and don’t hold on to things that were said, we don’t take offence, that we are patient with each other, forgiving as we have been forgiven through Christ Jesus.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q27 Wherein did Christ’s humiliation consist?
A. Christ’s humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross; in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time.