Laid Down His Life (4-5-12)

1 John 3:18 - " By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren."

Just hours before His trial and ultimately His crucifixion, Jesus made this statement in John 15:13 - "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." And John tells us that just as He laid down His life for us, we also ought to lay down our lives for one another. This doesn't merely mean being willing to die for one another, but also being willing to live for one another. To put our own interests aside and pursue what is best for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Shortly before making this statement, Christ gave us a very practical example of what laying down our lives looks like. John gives us an account of what happened on the night that Jesus was betrayed, and this is what we read in John 13:1-5 - "Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself. Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded." Just hours before Jesus was delivered up He was washing His disciples feet. He wasn't looking out for His own interests, He wasn't worried about what people might think of Him. He didn't consider Himself to be too important to wash their feet, or anything else that I would tend to think, He simply, out of a pure love and care for His disciples, took the place of a servant and laid down His life in a very practical way. What a thought! Their Creator was sitting on the floor girded with a towel and washing their feet. In John 13:12-17 we read - "So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them."" Just as Christ laid down His life, both by putting aside His own interests, as we see in Philippians 2, and by physically dying on the cross and bearing the sins of the whole world, we also ought to lay down our lives for one another in very practical ways every single day. Matthew 20:28 - "just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

1 John 4:11 - "Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."