Thank you for listening to this message from
Lifehouse Church. just for a brief period of
time. Renowned leader and expert John Maxwell
says this, leadership is influence. Nothing more,
nothing less. Leadership is influence. John Maxwell
emphasizes that leadership is not based on titles.
It's not about hierarchy necessarily, but rather
your ability to influence other individuals through
relationship, through character, and through
added values into somebody's life. Maxwell says
that leadership is not a position thing, right?
Not a title thing, but it's actually an influence
thing in somebody else's life. Another leadership
guru, Robert K. Greenleaf, you may or may not
have heard of him before, has an additional take
on leadership. Greenleaf coined the phrase servant
leadership. In Greenleaf's 1970 essay, The Servant
as Leader, this former AT &T executive proposed
the primary motivation of leadership should be
a natural desire to serve others first rather
than a desire to lead. Greenleaf says leadership
is servant plus leading and not the other way
around. And I believe that both John Maxwell
and Greenleaf were only borrowing these leadership
concepts from the greatest leader of all time,
who is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the greatest leader
who ever graced this planet. If you want to understand
leadership, if you want to know what it is to
lead in your home, if you want to know what it
is to lead in your context of life, study Jesus.
If you want to understand it in its purest form,
You want to watch and read and look at what Jesus
did. Undefiled leadership should look like how
Christ led while he was on this earth. Study
it, read it, look into it. He valued what he
valued and what he did not value because Jesus
is the original influencer. How many know there's
lots of influencers on social media? How many
know there's a lot of people that shouldn't be
influencing on social media? Come on. He taught
and modeled servant leadership. If you want to
know what it is to lead in your home, in your
work, in your profession, if you want to know
what it's like to lead in your community or even
in the world at large, look at Jesus. Amen. If
you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to John
chapter 13. Jesus teaches in this passage a foundational
principle, a truth about leadership. And as you
turn, I'm going to pray. Father, I thank you.
God, for each person in the house today, I thank
you those who are joining us online this morning.
And Lord God, I'm just asking right now that
you would touch our ears, our hearts, and our
minds as we dive into your word. God, let it
be a lamp to our feet, a light to our path. God,
let it speak into our spirit and change who we
are because that's the power of your word. It
is living and powerful. And we just give you
praise and glory in Jesus' name. And everybody
say it together. Amen. Amen. John chapter 13.
Now let me give you just a little preview coming
up to John 13. It's Passover. It's Passover in
Jerusalem. Jesus is about to leave his disciples,
his trainees, the men he's been training for
three and a half years. It's not because he's
going to the next town to minister. It's not
because he's going to do healing or preaching
or teaching in another location. He's getting
ready to go to the cross. He's getting ready
for the final journey up to Golgotha and die
and be placed in a tomb, raise up from that tomb
and be seen by over 500 witnesses and then ascend
to the Father. This is soon going to take place.
And this is the plan of God to bring us back
into relationship with God. But before he goes.
Jesus is teaching his disciples at the last supper,
at Passover for the last time. And he's doing
it with a towel, right, and a meal. He's teaching
them leadership. A towel and a meal. And I brought
a towel with me. This morning I'm just going
to hang it here so that you can see it. How to
lead. Some of his final words before he left.
And he didn't have a power meeting with the disciples.
He didn't pull up a PowerPoint. He didn't get
out a whiteboard and say, boys, when I'm gone,
this is what I want it to look like. He didn't
do any of that. He gives them a living illustration
of what it really means to lead. John 13 once
says this. Now, before the feast of the Passover,
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. At supper being ended,
the devil, having already put in 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 come from God
and was going to God, rose up from supper, laid
aside his garments, took a towel. Say a towel.
Took a towel and girded himself about that. And
he poured water into a basin and began to wash
the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the
towel with which he was girded. Then he came
to Simon Peter 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. And Jesus
answered me, if I do not wash you, you have no
part with me. Simon Peter said to him, Lord,
not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.
Peter's like, he backtracks. Jesus said to him,
he who is bathed needs only to wash his feet,
but is completely clean. And you are clean, but
not all of you. For he knew that he would, who
would betray him. Therefore, he said, you are
not all clean. So when he had washed their feet,
taking 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 I am. For 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. If you know these things,
blessed are you if you do them. What was Jesus
teaching these men about leading? What did Maxwell
and Greenleaf borrow from Jesus as they taught
about leadership? It's this, that there is only
one position. There is only one posture. There
is only one platform if you follow Jesus Christ
to lead, and that is servant leadership. Servant
leadership is the only leadership style for a
Christian. There's only one posture that we can
get in if we're going to lead in the body of
Christ, if we're going to lead in life. There's
only one position that we can lead from, one
view, one lens that we look through, and it is
servant plus lead. It is servant plus lead. There's
no other position, attitude, and particularly
platform, like I'm standing on today, to lead
from when you're following Jesus other than servant
leader. And this idea runs counter -cultural
to the world that we live in. It really does.
If you study leadership in the world that's around
us, you're going to find out that there's lots
of labels for leadership. You're going to find
out there's transformational leaders, right?
That's the type of leader that will inspire positive
change and motivate people to innovate. This
is kind of some of those influencers I'm talking
about. They get on social media and they're trying
to inspire and they're trying to jazz you up,
get you stirred up right in your spirit and to
develop you. And this type of leadership is dependent
upon my ability or somebody's ability to inspire
you to positive change of some kind. How many
of you have ever... inspired your teenager to
take out the trash? Anybody ever try to do that?
How well did that go? How many of you don't inspire
teenagers very easily, right? But this is an
inspirational. It's more like a bribe with a
teenager. Like, come on, I'll do this if you
do that kind of thing. And actually that kind
of leads into the next thing, which is a transactional
leader. It's another type of leadership. This
is one who focuses on supervision, structure,
and a system of reward and punishments to meet
the goal. Amen. How many have done that with
your teenager? Yeah. Yeah. I will let you live
if you take the garbage out. You will get to
eat tomorrow. All right? Tomorrow, we're talking
about this. And there's nothing wrong with systems.
When I'm talking about these things, understand
systems are in place all over. We have systems
in our business. We have systems in our government.
We've got systems in church. You probably have
a system in your home. I can guarantee you have
some kind of system. Whether it's written down
or not is irrelevant, right? How many know there's
just things that run a certain way in your house?
You've got a certain role. Certain things happen
a certain way. There's systems. There's autocracies.
leadership, right? That relies on personal expertise
to make decisions with little input from subordinates.
We don't like this one very much. This is authoritarian
in nature. It's my way or the highway. I don't
know if you've ever been under a leader like
that, but it's my way or the highway. Maybe that
was your parents growing up. You didn't get to
say so. You didn't get into discussion. It was
just this way and that was it. There's democratic
leadership that encourages collaboration, which
is complete opposite and involves people coming
together to make decisions. And we collaborate.
We get together and do these things. There's
bureaucratic leadership. There's charismatic
leadership. There's coaching leadership. There's
all kinds of leadership that you can study out
in the world. But Jesus illustrated and instructed
his disciples, when it comes to leadership as
a follower of Jesus Christ, it must begin, it
must come off of a platform of a servant, servant
leadership. And you might be thinking, why? Why
did Jesus just highlight this one style of leadership
as the platform? You know, because he could have
been, he could have really, and honestly would
have fit very well. He could have been the authoritative
leader. He really could have. He was God's son.
He commanded demons and they obeyed. He called
on the wind and the waves to stop, and they listened.
He caused a group of fish, a school of fish,
he commanded them to jump into a net, and they
filled the net. He could have spoke and said,
this is how it is. It is my way or the highway.
He really could have. But Jesus modeled servant
leadership. He put on a towel. over his arm and
knelt down and began to show. And I believe he
did this because he was teaching his disciples.
He was teaching us something foundationally that
we have to know. It has to start with a platform
of servant leadership, because I believe he knew
that if we didn't start with a platform of servant
leadership, we would get it all messed up. If
it was all about being the authoritarian, how
many know what power hungry goes to our heads,
right? He knew we would mess it up. He knew we
would get it all jacked up if we didn't just
start off with a servant, with a towel in our
hands, with a towel. It's our platform, servant
leader. I can get very tempted to manipulate
somebody, right? We all can if we don't have
the towel. If you learn to lead, you can come
off sounding right, but you're manipulating and
you're trying to twist things. Greenleaf even
discovered this in secular circles. To lead long
-term, to do it the right way, it has to be servant
first, leader second. Servant first, leader second.
Tao first, lead second. Towel first. Before I
lead, I got to be willing to put on the towel.
I really do. I got to be willing to bend down
and wash somebody's feet. It's an incredible
living illustration. God's son, the Messiah,
the most powerful individual to walk the face
of the earth. He takes a towel. And while his
men are getting ready for supper or following
supper, he kneels down. And he begins, he takes
a basin of water and a towel and he kneels down
and he begins to wash their feet. All the grime
from walking in the streets of Jerusalem. And
God understand back then it wasn't paved. There
were animals and there were, you know, and what
animals do, right? That food goes in one end,
stuff comes out the other end. It's in the street.
You know, all that stuff is on the streets of
Jerusalem and it's on their feet. And Jesus kneels
down and he takes a towel and one by one he begins.
And Peter is so humbled in the middle of this.
He says, Lord, no, no, no, no. This should be
the other way around. And Jesus said, if you
don't let me. me do this. You have no part with
me. It was servant leadership. Servant leadership.
We cannot kneel before somebody and wash their
feet if we have pride in our life. If you resent
that person, you will never kneel and wash their
feet. If you have jealousy, unforgiveness in
your heart of some kind, you won't wash their
feet. You won't bow to the ground. You won't
become subservient in front of them. You won't
be willing to get the dirt on your hands and
on your knees and on your clothes. Leadership
in the kingdom of God has one platform. It is
servant first and lead second. It is Tao first
and lead second. It has to start there. Let the
world lead however they choose. Whatever platform
they decide to make their main platform to lead.
But if you're in the kingdom of God, Start off
with serve, towel first, lead second. If I will
not grab the towel and bend down and serve first,
I got it wrong. I'm getting it wrong. Jesus knew
exactly what he was doing with those men. He
knew what he was teaching them. He knew what
they would need going forward. They would lead.
These were the 12 men that would change the world
with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And while we
do this, we've got to make sure that our motives
are right while influencing or leading someone
else. We've got to make sure. You've got to make
sure you never lay down the towel when you're
leading or influencing. You can't lay it down.
It can't be up one minute and the next minute
like, you know, I don't think this fits the situation
so much. I think this calls for a different kind
of thing, right? You can't lay it down. You've
got to make sure that you're carrying the towel.
You've got to make sure that it's strapped on
you, and you serve first, you come in as a servant
first, and then you lead. Never laying the towel
down is a way of keeping our motives in check.
If I remind myself, you know, physically, I know
you're not going to carry a towel over your shoulder
for the rest of your life. I get it, right? But
if you, in your mind, see this illustration,
if you remember, it's towel first, right? When
I'm at home, there's a dynamic. I talked about
a system in our house. The system in our house
works like this. Dixie is an awesome cook and
she's an awesome baker. So she cooks and she
bakes because I am with cooking and baking. I've
given it a shot recently a little bit and she's
been very kind and ate it occasionally. But the
reality is she's so much better than I am at
it. So she cooks and she bakes and I do the dishes.
And I feel like that's my way of contributing
for the meal and I'm happy to do that. So I do
the cleanup work. And usually when I'm doing
the dishes, not always, but usually when I'm
doing the dishes, if you're at my house, I'll
start washing and we got a washcloth and I'll
take the tea towel that I dry with and I'll throw
it up over my shoulder. And I'll just put it
on just like this because I wanna be ready to
go. You know, when I'm done washing whatever
by hand and some of it I stick in a dishwasher,
but some of it I'm washing by hand. If it's something
big, I want the tea towel ready. So I'll put
it down, I'll dry it up. right back over my shoulder
again. And that's what I'm talking about. You
can't put the towel down. You can't put it down.
You can't lay it down and decide, well, this
situation calls for this. Now, I understand that
some of you have charisma. I understand that
some of you are able to lead and get out front
and you use that gift in your life. But at the
core level, at the platform level, if you wanna
keep your motives right, if you wanna keep your
motives pure in this, you gotta put the towel
on first. And I got a white towel on purpose
today. I could have brought a really colorful
towel, but I wanted a white one because how many
know white stands for? purity, right? I got to
have pure motives when I walk in to serve. It's
got to be pure. I got to ask myself, what's the
end game? What's my end game when I'm going to
influence somebody? What's my end game when I'm
going to serve somebody else? Most everything
we do has an end game of some kind, right? There's
a purpose behind it. What's the end game as I
lead? What's the end game as I serve? Why am
I doing this? What's the motives behind what
I'm doing? This is a whole towel, white towel
serve thing that I've got to be examining all
the time. Many of us can lead. We can lead and
serve and do it with all the wrong motives. Do
you know that? I know that sounds like the strangest
thing in the world. You can go serve somebody
and have the wrong motives. You can go and rake
your neighbor's leaves. You know, your neighbor
gets laid up in the hospital. They broke their
leg. They got leaves on their yard. Their yard's
a mess. Or maybe it's springtime, like we're
in now, and it needs cleaned up. And you just
take your rake, you take your mower, and you
go over, and you're going to take care of their
yard. And you're, right? And then you can get
over there, and the whole time you're doing it,
you're taking selfies. Right? Posting on social
media. You know, I'm helping my neighbor out.
PTL, praise the Lord. Look at me, look at me,
look at me. Right? You can serve, and your motives
are all jacked up. This thing's all dirty and
a mess with it. We can come up with that kind
of dichotomy in our lives. It's kind of half
pure and half not. Right, it's kind of, that's
kind of like, do you know there's no such thing,
by the way, only in our minds there is. That's
kind of like getting a glass of milk and thinking
this is a healthy drink and putting a liquid
rat poison in it and thinking, yeah, come on,
half, this is half good and half not, right?
I'm gonna drink this down. How many know the
whole thing is garbage? Whole thing's gonna poison
you. Whole thing's gonna mess you up. Worship
team, if you'd come. You gotta make sure your
motors are pure. It's gotta be a white towel.
It can't be any other color. And this dichotomy.
In this thinking, we find it in Scripture. Luke
22, 24 says this. And this was Jesus' disciples,
by the way. This was the men that walked with
him for three and a half years. And, you know,
probably should have had it all right. But just
like us, don't get it all right. And you can
see this dichotomy. And when the disciples messed
this kind of stuff up, it always happened because
they would open their mouths and confirm it.
And that's what happens here. And Luke 22, 24
says, now there were also a dispute among. them
as to which of them should be considered the
greatest. The 12 disciples, the ones that Jesus,
he washed their feet. At another occasion, they're
all together, sitting together, and they're like,
which one's the greatest? I am the greatest.
And the other one's going like, no, no, no, no,
no, no. I am the greatest. How many know as soon
as you start saying that, rat poison in the milk
right there, okay? Right there. They say, and
Jesus said to them, the kings of the Gentiles
exercise lordship over them. And those who exercise
authority of 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. The Tao,
the white Tao. For who is greater? He who sits
at the table. Or he who serves. Is it not he
who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as
one who serves. Serves. This is one of those
hidden things. This is one of those places where
it's so easy to hide. It's so easy to have dual
motives in place, right? It's so easy. that the
towel can be on your shoulder and the motives
be all wrong, right? The towel's on your shoulder
and things are so messed up. Where are you at?
I'm gonna ask you to stand. I know for me, if
I can just be personal, as a pastor, this is
scary. It is so easy to tell yourself you're
doing the work of God and keep a little bit of
the praise back just for yourself. Right? Wrong
motive. Wrong motive. Can't be that at all. It's
so easy. It can be so easy to, you know, somebody
gives you a pat on the back and, yeah, well,
that was me. You're thinking in your mind, you're
like, oh, praise the Lord, PTO. And in your heart
and in your head, you're taking some credit.
I'm up here by the grace of God, period. You're
where you are by the grace of God, period. We
don't even take a next breath without him. Jesus,
the sinless one, the one who has every right,
every right to never pick up the towel. And he
kneels before 12 men who had it messed up so
many times. And he washes their feet, washes
their feet. There's only two ways I thought would
be great to recognize this. One would be foot
washing and we didn't, we're gonna do that sometime
here at LifeHouse. We'll have a foot washing
service. But the other was communion. And today
as you take communion, I want you to think about
the towel. I want you to think about purity in
our motives and what we're doing. There is so
much opportunity in this church. I can't even
begin to tell you all the stories we hear of
people in this church serving it. And it just
fills us with joy and good pride and those things
that... make us so excited that God's working
in the kingdom and you're doing it. And I know
so many, they're doing it from pure motives.
And I understand I can't see into your heart,
but it sure looks like it from the outside. And
we are so thrilled that God's doing that. We
just want that to continue in our hearts. We
wanna make sure that we're pure as we move forward,
that we're not doing, if somebody else takes
a picture of you, you're out in the lawn and
you're doing it and they're like, that's awesome.
And they take a picture of you, that's fine.
It's okay if somebody pats you on the back or
something, but just make sure your heart's right.
in it. Make sure you're doing it for the right
reasons. And I believe so many in this church
are. And we celebrate that in so many ways. But
I want to recognize the one, the one who knelt
and washed the disciples' feet. The one who is
King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The one who
right now is at the right hand of the Father,
waiting to return. He's coming back soon. waiting
to return as king and Lord. He's not going to
come back as a baby. Nobody's going to put him
on a cross again. When he comes back, he's coming
back as conquering king. Read the word of God.
It's true. He says the towel, white towel. Here's
what we're going to do. If your heart's ready,
and the word of God tells you this, I don't want
to miss this. If you're going to take communion,
There's only one requirement. You have to know
Jesus as Lord and Savior of your life. The word
of God says, don't take communion in an unworthy
manner. So I'm gonna do something right now.
Let's just bow our heads because somebody might
be here and need that opportunity. If you're
here in the house and you don't know Jesus as
Lord and Savior, I'm here to tell you the Lord
who knelt and washed the disciples' feet died
on a cross for you. He went into a grave. He
came out of that grave and rose from the grave.
And he did that to conquer death, hell, and the
grave. And most of all, conquer sin, which we
could not do on our own. You can't do anything
about your own sin. All you can do is give it
to Christ. Confess it before him. So the word
of God says you have to believe that he is the
son of God. You have to confess that sin to him.
And that separated you from God. It always has
you separated from God. And believe on him. And
the word of God says that you will be saved.
You got to commit to follow him. You got to commit
to doing it his way. If you are in the house
this morning, you want to do that this morning.
I'm not going to ask you to do anything other
than raise your hand. I'm going to pray one prayer
with you. So now's the moment. If that's you
in the house and you, if you're online listening,
you can type in the chat and the person that's
online will work with you and walk with you through
this as well. But if you're in the house this
morning and you want to know Jesus as Lord and
Savior and you don't, raise your hand up, put
it right back down. That's all you have to do.
All right, thank you. Church, if you'd look back
up, hearts and minds are clear. Thank you for
tuning in to this message from Lifehouse Church.
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.