2025
I Have Set an Example
Passage: John 13:1-5, 12-17
“The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who . . . are identified as ‘Christians’ will become disciples, students, apprentices, practitioners of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence.”
— Dallas Willard, The Great Omission
Sermon Outline:
- Are your feet washed?
- Who are you washing?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
When have you trained for a particular task or season? What did preparation look like and how did it help you handle the task or season well?
Read John 13:1-5, 12-17 . What challenges, encourages, or sparks questions for you in this passage?
Martin Luther described Jesus’s foot-washing “as a parable of the stooping of the Son of God to the self-sacrifice on the cross.” This scene is a picture of the gospel that Jesus died and rose again so that we can have life to the full. When you picture Jesus on bended knee before you, what hurdles have you faced in receiving Jesus’s foot-washing?
We cannot earn our rescue from sin by Jesus’s sacrificial death, but we can receive his gift with gratitude. What helps you remember what Jesus has done for you and cultivate gratitude?
In verse 15, the word for “example” can also be understood as “pattern.” Jesus wants us to follow the pattern he has set to live and love like him. Consider who else was present in this scene in John 13, as well as other stories from the Gospels of Jesus’s interactions with others. Share the types of people Jesus showed mercy to. In what ways is Jesus’s pattern set for us an invitation to be creative in loving others in our lives? How are we looking to live in the pattern of “my life for yours”?
As we discover ways of washing others’ feet, living out “my life for yours,” we are given great purpose in life, but there are challenges to persevering in this pattern of living. What has sustained you in this pattern and what challenges do you wrestle with in looking to the interests of others?
What from this passage and this discussion is something you want to put into practice or be more aware of this week?
PRAYER
Share with your group how they can be praying for you: what is weighing on you from this past week? What are you praising God for from this past week?
“Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them” John 13:17