Cleansing

About 15-20 minutes to allow lots of time and room. The Gospel of John chapter 13 and let's start to read just a few scattered verses. Verse number 4. This is a lovely event that took place.

The Lord Jesus, first time, the only time you read of him washing anything. So a few things I've been enjoying from this. John 13 and verse 4. He rises from supper and laid aside his garments and took a towel and girded himself.

After that he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon Peter and Peter said unto him, Lord does thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shall know hereafter. And that's very true in Peter's life.

Verse 8. Peter said unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou has no part with me. I want you to get your mind around that.

If I wash thee not, thou has no part with me. Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus said unto him, He that is washed.

Now the word washed is changes. This is the word for a full bath. The other word was a partial, just a little area washing.

Verse 10. Jesus said unto him, He that is washed needeth not. So that's a reference to salvation.

Needeth not save, but to wash his feet. But is clean every wit. And ye are clean, but not all.

For he knew who should betray him, therefore said he, Ye are not all clean. Verse 12. So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you.

Now let's turn to first John for just a couple of verses. First John chapter 1. I don't think they fully understood what he did, and I don't think we fully enter into it. I know we all appreciate it.

I'll show you that in a minute. Let's go to first John chapter 1, well-known verse, verses. Verse number 6, verse number 5. First John chapter 1, verse 5. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. Not saved. Verse 7. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with the other, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just. Now that word just means he's right.

It's a right thing for God to do this. That's what I'm really enjoying. If we confess our sin, he is faithful, faithful to his word, and he's just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Now verse, chapter 2, verse 1. My little children, these things I write unto you, that ye sin not, and if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Now that's all we'll read. We'll look to the Lord just to give a little help in the 15 minutes that remains.

What I am really thinking about this afternoon is something that afflicts every single Christian, and that's sin, and our confession of our sin. A lot of people might not want to admit it to you, but as face answers to face in water, so the heart of man to man. There is not a day that goes by that I don't have to confess sin, and a lot of it is very defiling, and it grieves the Christian, and you long for the day when that wicked old heart will be eradicated and gone.

That's going to be a wonderful day. Now what I'm thinking of is, just to back up for a minute, John chapter 13. I think everyone knows the setting.

It was a custom that when people came in from outside, and before they ate, the servant would wash all of the people's feet. Now if you look at your Gospels, you're going to find out from Luke that the disciples were arguing over who was the greatest. I honestly think none of them wanted to wash the other fellow's feet.

Sometimes you and I are shamed into doing something because no one is doing it, and we end up doing it what no one else wants to do, and we do it with kind of a bitter spirit. Now the Lord Jesus was not shamed into washing their feet. You know what I appreciate from John 13? He wanted to wash their feet, and he enjoyed it.

Now that's a picture to me of something. He's actually going to give us some of the information in John 13, because what comes in contact with the world speaks of defilement. He clearly illustrates that to Peter.

No, no, you don't need to be fully washed. That's what happened the moment you trusted Christ as your Savior, the blood of Christ. I stand before God in Christ, completely accepted in the Beloved.

Wonderful truth. It's wonderful when we can take that positional truth and bring it into our everyday living, and live in just the absolute wonder of it. That I stand before God, totally, 100% accepted, seen in all the graces of the Lord Jesus.

Wonderful truth. Now there's contact with the world, and that's what he tries to illustrate with Peter. Peter, he says, listen, if I don't wash your feet, you have no part with me.

That's the idea of communion. Now what happens to you and I as we walk through this world? The devil, the world, the flesh, they want to break that communion. They can't break that link.

That's eternal, but the enjoyment of that link can become broken, harmed, shut off, whatever you want to call it. Recently what has happened is, I was sitting last week, week and a half ago, with a young man in my trailer. I was out there studying, and the young man, he's not out of the assembly at this point, thank God, but he fell into sin.

And as I was talking to him, of course, what do you and I not want to do when we fall into sin? We don't want to read. We feel like we can't pray, and every second that that goes by, it gets darker and darker and harder and harder and harder. So I took him to the Word of God, and we read 1st John chapter 1. If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.

That's where he stopped. That's not where the verse stops. And to cleanse us.

Do you know what I think that is? That's guilt for the sin. See, sometimes in our life there is the sin, and I bring that to God, and then after a while I feel guilt, and I keep bringing this up to God that He's already stated in His Word, it's forgiven. I choose not to remember it.

I'm not gonna forget it. I choose not to remember it. It's out of my mind, and the flesh is in the background, and it doesn't want to see that link enjoyed.

So it starts to work. And have you met believers that are under the weight of guilt? Oh, the sin is forgiven, but then they go into this phase where they beat themselves, and they whip themselves, and they feel that they've got to somehow plow their selves into the ground, feeling this tremendous remorse and guilt, and oh, and finally it'll come to a point where it'll just, all of a sudden there comes the dawn of a new day. The flesh will never let that go.

It will try to drive us into the ground, and keep us away from the Word of God. So I'm speaking to this boy, and something that happened three years ago in his life that was a major thing. You know what he told me? There's not a day that I don't think about what I did, and I can't get away from it.

That guilt, that whole complex, whatever you want to call it, that just led into what he's into now. You say, what are you really trying to get at? Listen, back in John 13, the Lord Jesus wanted to wash their feet. The Lord Jesus wants to maintain, to encourage, to keep that communion clean.

Do you know why? Because Jesus Christ enjoys you. That's why. And when I fall into sin, I mean, it's a tremendous thing to think of.

When I fall into sin, and I want you to listen to this. If you've got ten ears, I want you to listen. When I fall into sin, the very beginning of a consciousness of it, the very moment I start to feel the desire to come to God and confess it, acknowledge it as wrong, that is the work of the advocacy of Christ.

I cannot left to myself bring myself to confess sin. That is an evidence when I do, that long before that moment, the Lord Jesus has started to wash. He started to apply the towel.

You know what he's trying to do? He's trying to encourage. He's trying to get us out from under that guilt, that complex, that feeling of, look what I've done. I can't come back into his presence.

Look at how defiled I am. Yes, there is defilement that comes from sin. I'm trying to separate the sin, the thing that we do, from the defilement that comes from it.

Not only has the blood of Christ made provision for the actual sin, dear child of God, but the same Bible that tells me if I acknowledge this as wrong, I don't have to go asking for forgiveness. No, I just acknowledge that what I did is wrong. The same Word of God, the same blood of Christ that takes that away.

Keep reading the verse, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, the guilt. Now, how many people are still living under guilt, and the flesh loves it? Almost like a, like a, I was trying to contrast my mind. You go back into the Old Testament under law.

People fell into sin. What happened? Sometimes they were out of the camp for a day, two days, three days, seven days. Listen, you get none of that in the New Testament.

Nowhere do I go, do I find in the New Testament where God says, okay, you acknowledge what you did is wrong, now I want you to beat yourself. I want you to do some form of self-penance, because it's almost like, well, this is not enough. You've got to do your little part to remove it.

No, you don't. That is why I love reading about the advocacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, such, dear child of God, such is the present value of His blood, His person before the Father, that when there comes sin into my life, and some of it can be awful grotesque.

Some of it is so private that no one knows, but me and God don't allow the devil, don't allow the world, don't allow the flesh within to, to not let you go on beyond it, to keep almost the minute you go beyond it, he pulls you back and you fall right into that trap. Instead of just exercising faith, God said, if I acknowledge it, it's forgiven. I choose not to remember it.

He's also said that the word of God just cleanses. See, the very thing that we need when we sin is the very thing we don't want to read. That's the work of the flesh.

The very thing that we need prior to talk to God is the very thing that we need. So here I am today. I'm trying to encourage us all.

It's wonderful in the context of the chapter. If we walk in the light, you know what happens? Don't think for one minute, the older you get, the purer you get. I've not discovered that yet.

Do you know what I've discovered? The more I read this Bible, just like this light here, the more it illuminates what's in there. That's not a good sight to see, but thank God at the same time, I can see something of the Lord Jesus. What is the advocate? Just to be quickly, when this morning in our Bible study, which was very, very enjoyable, we mentioned that there's the offices of the Lord Jesus, the prophet, the priest, and the king.

And those are wonderful offices to look at and to enjoy. We can read about the Lord Jesus as the intercessor. There's all these lovely areas that the Lord Jesus works at.

And the advocate, sometimes, and this is where I'll disagree with some people, and sometimes they say an advocate is like a lawyer. And I've done something wrong, so therefore Christ is in heaven, and on my behalf, he's pleading my case to the Father. Now, I don't think anything has to be pled to the Father.

The Father is well aware of who Christ is and what he's done. If I understand the advocacy correctly, if I go and follow where this word is used in the upper room ministry when the Lord Jesus used it four other times, here's the disciples and they're all bothered. He's going away, and he says, another comforter.

That is the word. Do you and I not need comfort when we sin? Yeah, we do. Do you know what I understand from the use of the advocacy? It's one who draws alongside, puts his arm around, and draws back in.

I've sinned against him. I'm at my lowest as a Christian. I've literally gone against him, and I've sinned.

And to think that with the Father, I have an advocate, one who at the lowest point of my, as a believer, he comes alongside. Do what he wants. Come back in.

I miss your communion. I miss your fellowship. Isn't that wonderful? That's why we can read in Psalm 23.

You notice it? I told this young man to go home and find out from the Psalm, who is it that restores you? He restores my soul. Isn't that something? I think that is absolutely tremendous. I want to encourage all of God's people here today, if you are living under guilt, yes, the sin has been forgiven.

It's been acknowledged. Maybe you've acknowledged it a thousand times to God. Could I tell you from the Word of God that the last 999 times, God has no clue what you're talking about.

Do you understand that, dear child of God? Such is the present value of the blood of Christ, the person of Christ, the power of the Word of God, that here I am. I commit a sin, and I acknowledge that God is wrong. God says, I will remember it no more.

Five minutes later, I bring up, oh Lord, I did this. I know what you're talking about. I have no idea what you're talking about, but the flesh says, oh, go back to it.

Go back to it. As long as you keep doing that, the flesh loves it, but God doesn't like it. So, for a believer, with this I'll have to sit down.

For a believer, just like back at John 13, it's wonderful to apply the Word of God. That's the water to me. That's the forgiveness.

But then we often don't talk too much about the towel. That's the cleansing. That's the guilt.

That's the complex. So, dear child of God, if you're here today and there's things that are only known to you and your God, and you're under a tremendous weight, yes, apply the Word of God, but don't forget the towel, and let the Word of God just wash away the guilt, so that you can once more just enjoy full communion with your Savior.