Thank you for listening to this message from Life House Church.
Good morning, good morning.
Listen, this has been a little while since we got together, right?
We were out last week because of the snow.
So turn to somebody and say, Hey, I haven't seen you in a while.
Just turn right now.
Haven't seen you in a while, give them a high five, give them a smile.
Say it's been so long.
It's been so long.
All right, act like you mean it.
Hey, it's good to be back at Life House.
We were out for a little bit of vacation and it's good to be back home and spend time with
you.
Man, loved the worship this morning.
I heard you singing and worshiping God.
My heart's full this morning.
One, because Jesus is on the phone or on the throne.
He's not on the phone.
He might be a little later, but he's on the throne.
Man, it might be a long day, church.
He's on the throne and I have my three children, their spouses and my five grand babies all
in the house this morning.
So yeah, come on.
So we're excited about that.
That doesn't happen near as much as it used to.
So we're pretty excited when that all goes down and it's good to have each one of you
as well this morning.
So love it.
But listen, Zig Ziglar, how many know who Zig Ziglar is?
You ever hear him?
Good.
Some of you do, right?
He's a very motivational speaker.
He says this, it's your attitude more than your aptitude that will determine your altitude.
Okay.
That's a lot of stuff there, right?
It's your attitude.
Come on, say attitude.
Right.
More than your aptitude that will determine your altitude.
And Zig often said this because he liked to emphasize those he was speaking to the fact
that it's really your attitude that helps you get to a personal place of achievement
in your life.
Right.
He was essentially saying that attitude is more important than a lot of other things
in your life to get you where you want to go.
How high you're going to fly in any area of your life, right, can largely depend on your
attitude about that area of your life.
More than aptitude, right, which is your natural ability to do something.
It's your gifting of some kind.
More than your education, right, your formal training, the acquired knowledge that you
brought into your mind, even more than opportunities that might be presented to you, right, on
me, right, in any area of life.
It is our attitude that determines how high we fly.
And a lot of times where you're going to land, it's your attitude.
And this is certainly true of following Jesus.
It is certainly true about following Jesus.
So turn to someone right now, tell them we're going to tell, turn to somebody right now,
get them, look at them squarely and say cop an attitude this morning.
Just go ahead.
Tell them cop an attitude.
Cop an attitude, right?
Now listen, it's going to be the right attitude, right, a righteous attitude.
Some of you are like, I'll cop an attitude.
A Jesus, give you a Jesus dude, all right, not just any old attitude.
But Jesus spoke and he really modeled that there's really just one and only one right
attitude to pursue as people of God.
If we're following Jesus, if we're following him, if he's our Lord and Savior, if he's
the Lord of our life, if he's the one that's our all in all, right, our Redeemer, there's
only one attitude that we should carry.
So if you got your Bible this morning, I want you to go ahead and turn to John chapter 13
and we're going to go start off at verse one.
We're going to go down to verse 17 and I want you to get your Bibles out and I want you
to get your notebooks out.
I threw a curve ball to you, right?
I usually just say get your Bibles out and you might say, well, why get both?
Because listen, you need the Word of God.
I don't know if you know it or not, but it's one of your two weapons that you have as a
believer.
It is the Word of God that is your weapon and it is the Holy Spirit that is your weapon,
right, to go on the offense.
And two, you get a notebook out because your memory is not all that good, right?
Some of you are going to forget what I said.
Listen, God will speak to you personally this morning and you'll forget what he said till
you get out the door and get to lunch.
So get a notepad out.
Maybe you write in the margins of your Bible.
So while you're turning, I'm going to pray.
Father, we thank you for this day.
God, we pray, Lord, as we digest your Word.
God, as we take it in, God, that you would move in our hearts and our minds.
God, that you would, God, grow us up, that you would nourish us.
God, that you would increase in us your Word, Lord, that it might bring fruit into the kingdom
and we'll give you praise and glory in Jesus' name.
And everybody said together.
Amen.
All right.
John chapter 13.
So what's happening here in John chapter 13?
What's taking place in this spot in scripture?
And it's this, Jesus is with his 12 disciples, right?
The men that he's been training for three years and they are kind of out to eat.
How many are going to go out to eat afterwards?
Just go ahead and raise your hand.
All right.
Some of you going out.
All right.
They're out to eat and they didn't go to Arby's and they didn't go to Chick-fil-A because
Chick-fil-A is not open on Sunday.
They didn't go to McDonald's.
They didn't go to any of those places.
They were observing Passover.
They had a room set aside and Passover is a Jewish traditional meal that is celebrated
but has been celebrated by the Jews and you know, which were called the Israelites back
in biblical times for millennium.
And this meal is a time to acknowledge that Jehovah God delivered them out of Egyptian
slavery and they do this with great purpose and there's great meaning in it and they teach
their children about it.
But what the disciples don't realize is that this is going to be their last Passover meal
together.
They may realize it.
They may begin to realize it while they're there.
Jesus is soon to fulfill God's plan for his life.
He's soon to go to a Roman cross.
He will give up his life.
He will die on a Roman cross.
They will bury him and they'll put him in a tomb and how many know three days later
it all changed, right?
They place him in the tomb and three days later he comes out of the tomb.
He goes from death to life and because that weekend and Jesus raises up out of the grave
and he spends a limited amount of time with people at that point, but he's seen by over
500 different witnesses.
The word of God declares that and the disciples see him again and after this takes place over
this short period of time, he ascends to the Father in heaven.
But it's during this last meal together that Jesus teaches them everything they need to
know about copping a right kind of toot, right?
Not having the right attitude.
So John 13, one says this, now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that
his hour had come and he should depart from this world to the Father, having loved his
own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
It's talking about the disciples and those who Jesus poured into and supper being ended,
the devil having already put in his heart into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's
son to betray him.
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had to come
from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside his garments, took a towel
and girded himself.
And after that, he poured water into a basin and he began to wash the disciples feet and
to wipe them with the towel which with he had girded himself.
This is the last meal for those that he's closest to, those he's trained, those he's
entrusted, those who are going to carry the gospel message into all of the world, going
into Asia and across that parts of the country in their own country.
They're going to take it to the Jewish people.
They're going to take the message to the Gentile people.
And Jesus is spending this last meal with them.
And he begins to model the right attitude that all followers of Jesus Christ should
possess, right?
And it's the attitude of a servant, of a servant.
My attitude at any given moment in my life and in my Christian walk should be that of
a servant, right?
Before supper, during supper and after supper.
How many know that covers the whole deal, right?
Anytime before supper, during supper or after supper, my attitude, my heart should be servant.
My mindset should be servant, right?
My actions should be servant.
My demeanor should be that of a servant.
I serve God.
I serve you and I serve the world around me.
It's all encompassing.
My position, right?
My toot should be this.
Grab a towel.
Get ready to serve, right?
And some of you might be thinking, well, there's a whole bunch of other toots I'd rather have,
right?
How many know you can have some other toots out there, right?
But Jesus was showing them.
He was modeling this.
He didn't just talk about it.
He gets down with 12 grown men and takes out a towel.
He takes off his garment, his outer garment, and he gets a towel and he gets a basin of
water and he begins to wash the disciples feet one by one.
Man, he's called us to serve and we're not to do this, you know, in some kind of grudging
manner.
We're not supposed to do it out of compulsion or just a sheer expectation of some kind,
right?
It's not supposed to be a religious thing that we engage in on occasion, right?
Just so it all feels good and looks good.
God's son said, serve, serve.
And this is the son of God.
This is Jesus getting down and washing the disciples feet.
Jesus, who had the power to literally, he had the power to call legions of angels to
come and deliver him from mankind at any point in time.
And the father would have honored that.
I don't know if you realize it or not, but when he was on the cross before he was on
the cross and anytime in between, he could have called legions of angels, right?
Jesus, who one day was out on the water and commanded the winds and the waves to stop.
He spoke to nature and nature had to listen to his command, literally had to obey him
in the moment it dropped out of his mouth.
The words came out of his mouth.
It had to obey this same Jesus who would walk up to those who were demon possessed and literally
command demons to be quiet or remove themselves from the person and send them away.
The Jesus who healed diseases with the word, right?
Jesus who spoke and think and miracles took place.
Jesus who turned water into wine with the word.
He said, this is Jesus kneeling down to 12 other very flawed individuals and he's washing
their feet.
And he said, guys, I'm about to leave.
And this is the attitude you got to have 24 seven before, during and after supper.
You got to have this attitude.
It's serve.
It's grab a towel, right?
And it's not this.
It's not wait on me, right?
It's not pander to my every need, right?
It's grab a towel and it's grab this kind of towel, not one of those cute towels you
have in your bathroom, right?
They're all pastel colors and monogrammed and nobody can wash their hands on, right?
It hangs over.
How many of you got?
You're all laughing because you got them in your bathroom.
Don't touch those, right?
Don't wash your hands on those.
I thought that kind of towel he was talking about.
He said, grab a towel, grab one you can work with, man.
Grab one you can wash feet with, one you can hang and wring it out and go at it again,
right?
Get a towel.
It's your towel and wash feet, serve.
And this isn't the first time that Jesus has this discussion with these grown men, these
two, these disciples, these 12 disciples.
And matter of fact, there's two disciples named James and John.
Say James and John.
Okay, James and John.
And these two brothers were sitting there this day.
All right.
This is the Passover meal.
They were part of the 12th and Jesus, he had a discussion with these two jokers one day.
These two guys, they had the wrong attitude.
They had it all messed up and it's recorded in Mark 10 and you go to verse 35 and it says
this, then James and John, the sons of Zebedee.
Now you got to understand something about James and John before we go any further.
These are the only two people in scripture that Jesus gave them a nickname.
Isn't that cool?
Jesus, shows Jesus had a little bit of sense of humor.
All right.
He gave these guys nickname.
Who knows what the nickname was?
Anybody know what it is?
Say it out loud.
Yeah, sons of thunder.
Isn't that the coolest nickname ever?
Sons of thunder.
It looks like you're in a biker gang.
It should be on the back of your jacket, right?
Tattooed on your arm.
They were, they were, Jesus called them sons of thunder.
And he called them that because they had so much zeal.
They had so much fire in them, right?
That they, Jesus literally nicknamed sons of thunder.
These two brothers.
So it says then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him saying, teacher, we want
you to do for us whatever we ask.
How many know that's not a good way to come in?
That's not a good lead in statement, right?
Full of humility.
Humility.
Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.
And Jesus probably thought, well, here we go.
You know, there's probably bells going off, ding, ding, ding.
That attitude, right?
And he's probably thinking this is going to be good, whatever's coming next.
And Jesus, he said to them, what do you want me to do for you?
And they said to him, grant us that we may sit one on the right hand and the other on
your left in your glory.
But Jesus said to them, you do not know what you are, what you ask.
Are you able to drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with the baptism that I'm
baptized with?
And they said to him, we're able.
So Jesus said to them, you will indeed drink the cup that I drink.
And with the baptism that I'm baptized with, you will be baptized.
See, James and John, they didn't know at this point in time.
And if you study church history, you'll find out that almost every one of those men that
were sitting around that table, they'll be they would be murdered for their faith.
They would be killed for their faith.
They would suffer like Jesus did.
And James and I don't think James and John really knew what Jesus was talking about there
yet.
They were having this conversation and he and Jesus goes on to say, but to sit on my
right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but it is for those whom it is prepared.
These guys come in with a bold brazen request.
Jesus, when you come into your kingdom, when you sit on your throne, we want to be on your
right hand and we want to be on your left hand.
Listen, they're sliding in when the other 10 aren't paying attention, right?
Ten other disciples that are like, we're just going to come and talk to him.
We're going to get in.
We're going to get in on the ground floor.
We're going to get in before anybody else does.
And we want to sit on the right hand or on the left.
Those are places of power.
If you know anything about a kingdom and a king to be on the right hand and the left
side of the king, that is a place of power.
Right?
And first 41 says this when the 10 heard it.
Now the other 10 heard him talking, right?
They began to be greatly displeased with James and John.
James and John are positioning themselves, right?
They hatched this little plan to squeeze in beside Jesus when he's into his kingdom, right?
To grab a place of power, to grab a place of position, to grab a place where, you know,
they're going to be a place of honor, right?
And the rest hear it and they're getting ticked off because they all want to do the same thing.
Right?
They start to complain.
They start to cop a dude.
And it's right about that time.
Jesus says, guys, it's time for a family meeting.
How many know family meetings when you got straighten some things up, right?
He says it's time for a meeting.
And verse 42 says this, but Jesus called them to himself and he said to them, you know that
those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them.
Right?
And they're great ones exercise authority over them.
He's telling them, you know, the rulers of the Gentiles, how they rule with authority
and they crush and they persecute.
Right?
And he says this in 43, yet it shall not be so among you, but whoever desires to become
great among you shall be your what?
Servant and whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all for even the son of
man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life a ransom for many.
Only one response, only one right attitude, only one right heart, only one right position.
And it's that of a servant.
It's grab the towel.
Right?
James and John, sons of thunder, it's servant.
Grab a towel.
Right?
Kippen Dixie, Penrod, it's a servant.
Grab a towel.
Right?
Come on, say your name right now to yourself and say, grab a towel.
Good.
Thanks for talking to yourself.
All right.
Grab a towel.
Sir, get it in your spirit.
Write it in your Bible right now.
Put it in your notebook if you have to.
And I'm not a big proponent of I'm not telling you to go get tattoos, but if you've got to
servant on you.
Right?
You got you need to know you need to be a servant.
Grab a towel.
Get on your knees and serve.
And serve.
Right?
I can see Jesus going right up the line.
I can see 12 men.
Right?
Just kind of stunned him.
He's kneeling down and he's washing their feet.
He's kneeling before them.
Cloak removed.
Right?
And just him in a towel in a basin of water.
And I can imagine the humility that filled the room.
Right?
These guys are just the master of all.
The Messiah is washing their feet.
No pride.
No arrogance.
No, I'm the man.
No, I'm I'm God.
And you need to let none of that.
He just goes up the line.
And if you read through this portion of scripture and you can see him going with each one, even
the sun's a thunder.
And then all of a sudden he comes to Peter.
I love Peter.
All right.
Peter's awesome in scripture.
Peter is super passionate.
Right?
He's kind of he kind of leaps before he thinks a lot of times.
Right?
Peter's the guy.
Peter was the guy that jumped out of the boat when Jesus was on the water and said, Lord,
bid me to come.
Nobody else did.
Everybody's hunkered down in a boat.
Peter gets out of the boat.
He's just that kind of guy.
So you know when Jesus gets to Peter, he's just not going to sit there hot, quietly and
humbly and he doesn't.
Right?
It says this.
Then he came to Simon Peter.
He's washing feet.
And Peter said to him, Lord, are you washing my feet?
And Jesus answered and said to him, what I'm doing, you do not understand now, but you
will know after this.
Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet.
He's talking to Jesus.
Now, I don't think Peter was trying to be arrogant.
I don't think he was trying.
I think this was somehow Peter's way of being, you know, showing humility like Jesus, you're
Messiah.
You're not going to wash my feet.
Right?
And Jesus answered and said, if I do not wash you, you have no part with me.
And I love Peter's response because this is so Peter.
He isn't just humbly sit down and say, okay, Jesus.
Right?
Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but my hands and my head.
Right?
He gets super emphatic, like wash everything, Jesus.
Right?
Jesus said to him, he who bathes needs only to wash his feet.
But it's completely clean.
And you are clean, but not all of you.
For he knew who would betray him.
Therefore he said, you are not all clean.
Jesus is going one by one.
And Jesus talks about one that's not clean and he's talking about Judas.
Because Judas would be the disciple that would betray Jesus.
He would sell out for 30 pieces of silver.
And I could stop and preach here a while this morning because there's a lot of depth that
we could go into right here.
And I don't really have time or I'm going to get off subject of where we're going.
But I will say this, even when you're getting it right, even when you're serving, right,
even when your attitude is right, even when you got a towel in your hand and you're humbly
kneeling before others and you got a right to just to listen, understand that does not
exempt you from a Judas in your life.
That does not exempt you from a betrayer being somewhere amongst your ranks.
Okay?
Understand that that's part of it when you're following Jesus.
Keep the right attitude.
Keep the towel in your hand.
Don't get frustrated and walk away.
Don't stop.
You know, I'm just not serving anybody anymore.
Don't do it.
Just keep following Jesus.
Verse 12 says, so when he had washed their feet, taking his garment and sat down again,
he said to them, do you know what I've done for you?
You call me teacher and Lord and you say, well, for I 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 is he who
is sent greater than he who sent him.
You know these things.
Blessed are you if you do them.
The only right attitude, the only right heart, the only right action is serve.
It's serve.
It's be a servant.
And the only right motivation to feed our attitude is that we get to do this.
All right?
We get to do this.
It's the only right motivation to serve.
It's the only right motivation to feed my attitude is that I get to do this.
It's the only right approach in coming to be a servant.
Right?
It's the idea that he allows me to serve, that he commissions me to serve, that he's
asked me to serve, excuse me, that it's an honor to serve, that serving is the very minimal
response for the very maximum sacrifice that he made.
Amen?
It's true.
And that I am so grateful that I get to serve, that we get to do this.
Say it.
We get to do this.
It's the only reasonable response to the sacrifice that Jesus made.
It's the only reasonable one.
I get to do this.
Right?
Because beyond this, you know, to be beyond this, you're going to slide into pride and
arrogance if you don't grab this in your heart, if this isn't your motivation behind serving,
right?
An attitude of I get to do this.
And you got to understand something about motivation in your life.
Your motivation will come from a source.
And you know what that source is?
The source of your motivation is what you're speaking to yourself.
It really is.
What I tell myself feeds the motivation which sets for my attitude, which manifests in all
kind of actions.
Right?
What I speak to my attitude, my toot is an end product of my self talk.
It really is.
And if you don't believe this, I want you to sit down this afternoon and have an in-depth
conversation with a teenager about their parents.
Okay?
Sit a teenager down.
Right?
Anything, any teenager between the age of 13 and 16, sit them down, maybe 17, maybe
even 18.
Sit them down.
Right?
And I want you to have discussion.
Find out if you get a teenager who sits down and they really get to be honest and they
start to say that their parents are idiots.
How many know that that kid's going to have, how many know that a toot is going to be constructed
from that child?
Right?
They're going to, what they're saying to themselves will begin to be the motivation that will construct
an attitude of some kind.
And how many know that will manifest in your home in some way?
Right?
It's true.
How many know as a parent you're going to get the spirit of slap come over you?
Right?
In a half a second you have a spirit of slap.
I didn't say you're going to slap them, but the spirit of slap will fall upon you.
Right?
It's true.
It's what you're speaking to yourself.
You take that same teenager and they finally figure it out and they're like, well, my parents
love me and they're doing this because they want the best for me.
Right?
And they're telling themselves that kind of thing.
How many know the toot goes away?
Right?
And the spirit of slap leaves.
Right?
It departs from you.
It's true.
It's what I'm telling myself every day.
If you're going to work and you're on your drive to work or your commute and some of
you that's just from your bedroom to your computer.
Right?
And you're walking that direction.
You're thinking this is hideous.
This is horrible.
This is some kind of cosmic torture that I got ripped into.
Right?
Pulled into, sucked into.
You start telling yourself that every day.
How many know you're going to you are not going to get employee of the month.
You are not.
All right.
You're going to come in with it to what you're telling yourself is the motivation that feeds
your attitude and it will manifest in your actions.
It will.
And it's the same thing with God.
What I'm telling myself, if I tell myself I get to serve, even if I get abused, even
if I get talked about, even if I get smacked around a little bit, you know, and I'm talking
emotionally, not physically, right?
Whatever it is.
If I tell myself it's an honor to serve God, it's an amazing thing because it is because
we get to do this.
It changes your attitude and it will show up.
It will manifest itself in what you do.
You want a quick measurement of your attitude.
You want to get a quick way to figure out where your attitude is exactly.
Here's how you do it.
Just start to think about what your default response is to something.
All right.
Now I'm not talking about your plan response because everybody, some people respond, they
get some time to think about it and you know what you do instead of just respond.
You think about what's the right thing to do and what's the right thing to say.
I'm saying whatever your default response is to something, it will declare, it will
speak out what your attitude is about something, right?
The default, what's your knee jerk reaction when somebody says something?
When somebody, and you start to find out what you've been telling yourself, you'll start
to find out where your attitude lays.
You'll start to find out the motivation that's in your heart, right?
It'll all start to come to the surface and you'll know.
Is it servant or is it something else?
Zach, if you and the worship team would come.
What is my knee jerk reaction when somebody says something?
Because I can assure you whatever that is, that's because what you're telling yourself,
what you've been speaking to yourself and it's, and it'll manifest in a heartbeat when
you don't have time to think about it, right?
It's just an outflow of what's really there.
Now we can all formulate a response, right?
And you might be saying, well, pastor, are you telling me that every time somebody asks
me to serve, I should serve, I should say yes?
And my answer to that is yes, if it's the Lord asking, right?
If it's the Lord prompting you.
And you're saying, listen, you can tell me no, you can tell somebody else no, but if
the Lord's asking you to serve and he tells us to serve, if he's asking you to serve,
you serve, right?
And I'll go even a step further than that.
If somebody's talking to you and they're asking you to serve and what they're saying sounds
a whole lot like what Jesus is saying in your life to serve, you might want to pick up a
towel, right?
Because you get to do this.
You get to do this.
We get to do, come on, say it with me.
We get to do this.
Thank you for tuning in to this message from Lifehack.com.
We pray that you were impacted powerfully by this message.
If you have been personally affected by our ministry and you would like to partner with
us as we love God, love people every day, visit our website at www.LifehouseCOG.com.