Hey, good morning, Harbor Church West. Great to see you. I want
to invite you to go ahead and grab your seats. Welcome in. My
name is Mike. I'm one of the pastors here at the church. All
right. Well, we are in our Transform series. And in this
series, we've been going through the Gospel of John and doing
different stops in the Gospel of John as we see Jesus encountering
various people. And what we've been noticing is that as Jesus
encounters these people, they leave this encounter with Jesus
transformed. They leave changed. And so today we're going to find
ourselves in John chapter 13. If you're using the Bible under the
chair in front of you, that's going to be on page 956 of John
13. And here in this text, we're going to see how Jesus
transforms our idea of power and authority. He takes everything
that we know, everything that we understand about power and
authority, and he turns it upside down. Jesus takes power
from something to be used for personal gain, often at the
disadvantage or even oppression of others. And he takes any
transform, transforms power to be used for humble service
toward others. What we're going to see is that power in the
kingdom is measured not by the height of one's platform, but by
the depth of one's love. I think we all experienced someone who
used their power in hurtful ways. That could be a boss or
someone of higher rank or someone like a parent or a
teacher where they're in a position of authority. And that
position of authority was used to cause hurt, maybe to you
yourself, others maybe around you. Maybe you're here and
you're saying, "Well, okay, Mike, I hear that we're going to
be talking about how Jesus transforms power, but hey, look,
I'm not somebody who has power. I don't have any power. I don't
have any rank. I don't have any kind of status. I'm just
somebody who kind of shows up and they tell me what to do."
But what we're going to see is that power and authority isn't
just about rank and position. If you're a believer here today,
when we're talking about, as we talk about power and authority,
we're not just talking about a rank and position. Some of you
here are saying, "I don't have any power and authority." Some
of you here, you've been abused and affected by someone who had
power and authority. But when we're talking about power and
authority, this isn't something that you gain or you earn or you
climb the ladder to. Power and authority for those who are in
Christ is something that is given to us. It's given to us.
If you look up on screen, the Apostle Peter says in 2 Peter
chapter 1 verse 3, he says, "His divine power has been," what?
"Given to us and given us everything required for life and
godliness." 2 Timothy 1:7, "For God has not given us a spirit of
fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment." And then
Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 8 verse 11, in light of Easter,
resurrection Sunday that's coming next week, he says, "The
spirit of him who raised Jesus, the power of the spirit that
raised Jesus from the dead is living in you." Friends, if
you're a believer, power has been given to you. So the
question before us then is not, do we have power or do I have
any power? The question is then, what will you do with this
power? Will you deny it? Will you tuck it away? Or will you
surrender to Jesus? Will you surrender to Jesus and his
transforming work that he's doing inside of your life to use
you as a conduit of his power? So today from our text, we're
gonna be looking at transformed power and we're gonna notice
three things about transformed power. We're gonna see that
transformed power stoops. And then we're gonna see that
transformed power endures. And then we're gonna see thirdly
that transformed power glories in weakness. And then we're
gonna ask ourselves, so how do we get this power? How do we
get this power? So with that said, we go to our text. We're
gonna be in John chapter 13 looking at the first nine
verses to start. And so we're gonna see how transformed power
stoops. John chapter 13 beginning at verse 1. "Before
the Passover festival, Jesus knew that his hour had come to
depart from this world to the Father. Having loved his own who
were in the world, he loved them to the end. And now when it was
time for supper, the devil had already put it into the heart of
Judas, Simon Iscariot's son, to betray him. Jesus knew that the
Father had given everything into his hands, that he had come from
God, and that he was going back to God. So he got up from
supper, laid aside his outer clothing, took a towel and tied
it around himself. Next he poured water into a basin and
began to wash his disciples' feet and dry them with the towel
tied around him. He came to Simon Peter who asked him, 'Lord,
are you going to wash my feet?' And Jesus answered him, 'What I'm
doing you don't realize now, but afterward you will understand.'
Verse 8, 'You will never wash my feet,' Peter said. But then
Jesus replied, 'If I don't wash you, you have no part with me.'
So Simon Peter said to him, 'Lord, not only my feet, but
also my hands and my head.'" So here we see Jesus washing the
feet of his disciples. And for the Jews and for the Gentiles,
there was no lower activity. There is no more of a menial
task than to wash someone's feet. The task of washing feet
was reserved for those who are the lowest of the low because it
was dirty business. You're washing dust. You're interacting
with mud. And a lot of times you're interacting with poop on
people's feet. But here we see Jesus washing his disciples'
feet. And then Peter's reaction in verse 8 seems appropriate.
Seems appropriate that he would--he wouldn't allow Jesus
to degrade himself with such a lowly task. And I think some of
us might respond to Jesus as Peter did. If Jesus walked in
here and he started washing some of your feet and he got to you,
would you tell him, "Jesus, no, no, no. I wash your feet. You
don't wash my feet." Peter was almost embarrassed to have Jesus
washing his feet. In fact, he was embarrassed. He was
probably embarrassed for Jesus himself. But here we see how
Jesus transforms power and position by stooping down.
Often we see power as rising up. That power is something to be
elevated. But here Jesus, the King of kings, he stoops. You
know, in the ancient world, if you had to go see the king, you
had to go up. You had to go up the mountain. You had to go up
to the throne room. You had to rise up to go see the person of
power. Even today, you have to go up to see those in power. The
CEOs of great companies, their offices aren't in the basement.
It's on the top floor. You have to go up. Even in religion, to
get to the higher power or to get to the God, you have to
ascend. You have to climb up through your performance and
good work. You have to earn your way up and you have to earn your
way in. That's what religion says. But not Christianity. The
God of Christianity stoops down and he comes down to you. The
God of Christianity, Jesus comes down to this earth. He comes
down to the basement of our lives and he meets you right
there. He meets you...meets us right there in our messiness, in
our brokenness. And the reason Jesus is able to stoop is
because he knows to whom he belongs. We read it in verse
three, kind of scan back there in your Bibles. In verse three,
it says, "Jesus knew he had come from God and that he was going
back to God." And Jesus could suffer the indignity and
humiliation of washing feet because he was so secure in his
relationship with God. Jesus knew to whom he belonged. He
belonged to God. He came from God and he was going back to
him. He was so secure that he didn't need to grab onto power
and position. Jesus is so secure in who he is and to whom he
belongs that he transforms power by trading a throne for a towel.
Transformed power stoops. The second thing that we see is that
transformed power endures. It endures. I don't know if you
guys realize this but the year 2014 was a glorious year in the
land of social media. You know why? It's because that's when
Facebook gave its followers the ability to or its subscribers
to the ability to unfollow people. And man, I took
advantage of that so hard it wasn't even funny. But Jesus, he
was unfollowed by many, many people. And even in our text, we
see that Judas unfollows Jesus. In verse 10, as Jesus is
expounding on bathing, he says, in verse 10, he says, "One who
has bathed doesn't need to wash anything except his feet but he
is completely clean. You are clean but not all of you. For he
knew who would betray him." And this is why he said, "Not all of
you are clean." Jesus foreknew Judas would betray him. And then
look at verse 21. Jesus says, "Truly I tell you, one of you
will betray me." And the rest of the verses around that section,
the disciples start looking around at each other. And like,
"Is it you? Maybe it's you. Maybe it's me." Right? They're
a little confused. And so I love what Peter does. Peter motions
to John, the other disciple, and says, "John, try to ask Jesus
who is going to be. Go. Go. Ask him. Ask him." And so John, you
know, he's the beloved disciple. So he snuggles up against Jesus
as they're reclining at the dinner table. And they ask him,
"Lord, who is it? Who will betray you?" And in verse 26,
it says, "Jesus replied and he's the one that I give the piece of
bread to after I dipped it. And when he dipped the bread, he
gave it to Judas, Simon Iscariot's son. And after Judas
ate the piece of bread, Satan entered him. So Jesus told him,
'What you're doing, do it quickly.'" And then verse 30,
"After receiving the piece of bread, Judas immediately left
and it was night." And many of us know that later on, Judas
betrays Jesus and Jesus gets arrested. But you know what's
crazy about this? What's crazy is that Jesus still washed
Judas' feet. I don't know. If that was me, I would have skipped
Judas. Peter, I washed your feet. Andrew, yep. James, John.
Oh, not Judas. No, I know what you're doing, Matthew. It's
crazy. He still washed his feet. He knew what Judas was gonna do
and yet he still got down in between the toes. Here's what's
even crazier though. It's obvious that Jesus has the power
to foreknow the future but he doesn't use that power to escape
arrest or mount some kind of defense. No, he transforms his
power to endure. To endure the betrayal. To endure the
rejection. Later on in this chapter, Jesus predicts that
Peter's gonna betray him and reject him. And we know later on
that Peter does and yet Jesus, he doesn't use his power to
crush Peter. He uses his power to endure and then later on to
forgive and then restore Peter. So, Jesus shows us that
transform power endures and the only way that Jesus can endure
is because he knows that the betrayal and rejection that he
suffers is part of God's plan. It's actually part of God's
plans and sometimes that's surprising to us. How can that
be part of God's plan if it means that there's pain and
suffering and rejection and betrayal? But Jesus says in
verse eighteen, I'll put it up on screen. Jesus says, but the
Scripture must be fulfilled. In other words, what he's saying
is that is that God's plan must happen. And then he quotes
Psalm chapter forty-one verse nine where he says, the one who
eats my bread, keep Judas in mind, the one who eats my bread
has raised his heel against me. You ever have somebody raise
their heel against you? It's kinda like a MMA front kick. You
jab somebody with the the ball of your heel and you know what
you're doing? You're either trying to push them away or
you're trying to do damage. And Jesus says, he knows that this
is part of God's plan. The betrayal and rejection so he
will endure. But to be clear, Jesus doesn't just endure
unfollowers but Jesus, he endures death on a cross. Jesus
goes to the cross that week, later that week and he endures
death on the cross. For sure, it should have been rejecters and
betrayers on that cross like you and me. But it wasn't. Jesus
goes to the cross in our place. And then when Jesus was
arrested in the garden, you remember when Jesus was
arrested, he could have, he says, I can call on the father
and he would send thousands of angels to rescue me. Jesus is
telling the Roman guards and the chief priests and the Pharisees,
I can call my boys and they're gonna come down and they're
gonna get me out of this. But he doesn't. Jesus had the power of
God at his disposal but instead of using his power to escape,
Jesus trusts God's plan and uses his power to endure.
Transform power endures. And then thirdly, what we see from
this text is that transform power glorifies in weakness. It
glories in weakness. In verse 31, Jesus says, now the son of
man is glorified and God is glorified in him. The son of
man, he's referring to himself. Jesus is referring to himself.
The son of man is glorified but you know what's strange is that
this whole foot washing scene is part of the beginning of the
week as Jesus marches to his death later on that week on the
cross. The chapter before, Jesus entered into Jerusalem. That's
why we call it Palm Sunday. Today is Palm Sunday as they
were waving the palms, signs of victory, shouting out Hosanna,
Hosanna in the highest. God saves. But little did they know
that as Jesus rides into Jerusalem, he's actually on a
death march. He's actually going to the cross. And so, this
foot washing scene foreshadows the cross that's coming later
that week. The stooping of Jesus, the enduring of Jesus is
pointing to the coming crucifixion. Jesus knows it's
coming yet he says that he is glorified. That's so strange.
It's so strange that he is glorified on as on the last week
of his life. It's strange to our ears maybe because there was no
glory and power in the cross. The cross represented shame and
defeat. At the cross, all power is stripped away. Not just your
clothes stripped away but all power is stripped away. The
Jews, I think we know expected the Messiah to ascend to the
throne not descend to the grave. To their eyes and maybe to some
of our eyes, the cross isn't winning. It's losing. But Paul,
he helps us, right? Paul helps explain Jesus and in First
Corinthians chapter one verse eighteen, Paul says, the
message of the cross is foolishness to those who are
perishing. It's absolute foolishness. It doesn't make
sense. It's moronic. But to those who are being saved, it
is what? The power of God. In Colossians chapter two, again,
the apostle Paul says, Jesus has taken our sins away, nailing
it to the cross, and having disarmed the powers and
authorities, he made a public spectacle of them triumphing
over them by the cross. He's triumphant. How? By the cross.
Friends, the cross seems foolish and weak but it's the power and
glory of God. It's the power over your sin and mine. This is
why this Friday, we celebrate Good Friday. We remember the
cross. Remember Jesus' sacrifice and the power of the cross
to forgive sins. And then next Sunday, the twenty, the
twenty, the twentieth, next Sunday is is Easter.
Resurrection Sunday. Now, to be honest, every Sunday here is
Resurrection Sunday but that that's the moment in the church
calendar in which we all the Christians around the world
celebrate the beautiful, wonderful, most beautiful thing
to happen in history, Jesus coming out of that grave. And
it's there that we celebrate the power of Christ over the
grave. Paul says, second, in 2 Corinthians chapter thirteen, he
says, Jesus was crucified in the weakness yet he lives by God's
power. And friends, now by faith in Jesus, we also have
this new life and power. We also have it. The spirit who raised
Christ from the dead now lives where? In you. So, the question
is then, how do we get this power? How do we get this power
that stoops, that endures, that glories in weakness? How do we
get this? How do we get this power that you won't find in
Washington DC or on Wall Street or in any position or in any
rank? Well, it says right here in our text. It says you have to
be cleaned. You have to be cleaned. In verse eight, Jesus
says, if I don't wash you, you have no part with me. And this
washing and this cleansing wasn't a ritualistic cleansing
of different body parts. Rather, he's talking about the cleansing
of the heart through faith in Jesus. It's an internal
cleansing. It's a cleansing of the heart. And Jesus says,
without this cleansing, you can have no part with me. Friends,
it took the gory, grotesque, blood-soaked sacrifice of Jesus
for you to be washed of your sin. You don't wash yourself by
your performance or by your good work. You don't earn your way in
or up. Rather, it's through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.
See, without this cleansing, you could wash a thousand pairs of
feet and still have no part in Christ. The cross is the path to
power. And when you put your trust in what Jesus did on the
cross, he gives you new life and power. This is how we get this
power. We trust Jesus. We give our lives to Christ. And then
what this means is that now we can live a life of transformed
power. And this is why Jesus tells his disciples in verse 15
up on screen, it says, "For I've given you an example that you
also should do just as I have done for you." And what this
means is that we now have the power to stoop down and to go
low. We have the power to endure even in rejection and betrayal
and the pain that comes with that. We now have the power to
glory in weakness because when we are weak, Jesus is strong.
You know, business people, they're always calculating the
ROI. The ROI is return on investment. That is if I put in
this much investment, I expect to get this much return. But
transformed power doesn't calculate the ROI. It doesn't
calculate the return on investment. Transformed power
endures even when you get nothing back. We can love and
serve others without calculating the ROI. But here's the warning.
If you calculate the ROI, you will always be expecting some
kind of recognition, some kind of reciprocation, even if it's
just a small thank you. If you're calculating the ROI, you
will always need to feel important. Your acts of love and
service is a way for you to feel needed and maybe even get
noticed. If you're calculating the ROI and your love and
service, then there's no way. There's no way that you can
truly stoop. There's no way that you can truly endure or glory
in weakness because what you're doing is that you're leveraging
your acts of service and power to actually to really elevate
yourself. Your acts of service and love are there to actually
serve you ultimately. If you're calculating the ROI. But friends,
this is why we always have to preach the gospel to ourselves
and remember that by faith you are cleansed by Jesus. That is
you belong to him. You are secure. And because you are
secure in Christ, you don't have to calculate the ROI anymore.
You don't have to do any more math. You don't have to do the
calculations. And if I do this, will I get anything back? You're
free. And you're free because we belong to Christ. You belong to
Christ. You are secure. And what's secure for you is the
inheritance and riches of God's grace that already belong to
you. So you're free. You're free to love and serve others even if
you get nothing because you already have everything. You
already have it all. So we can love and serve others even if
that means we lose it all. That's a transformed power. At
the end of the passage, Jesus says in John 13, 34 and 35, he
says, "I give you a new command. Love one another. Just as I have
loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone
will know that you are my disciples if you love one
another." It's a new command, Jesus says. Sounds kind of
strange because haven't we heard that, you know, we're to love
God, love others, and other parts of the Bible. But Jesus
says it's a new command. And what makes it new is that now
Jesus upholds himself as the model of love in which we are to
follow. Jesus shows us that the way to power is through
sacrificial love. The way to victory, the way to world
transformation is through sacrificial love. And this is a
power and a love that the world has never seen before or since.
It's a power and a sacrificial love that doesn't make sense
because sacrificial love is a love from a position of
weakness. It's a position of weakness. Yet the power and
glory of God is shown through this love. Jesus says that by
this, meaning this love that you have for one another as you
receive my love and love one another, by this everyone will
know that you are my disciples. Everyone will know. In fact,
this kind of sacrificial love that we show one another puts on
display the power, the glory, and grace of God. It shows it to
a world. A world that is looking and grabbing on to power and
authority and love and in the way it knows how. But the ones
that show the true sacrificial love that can stoop, that can
endure, that can glory in weakness are the ones who have
been loved that way. The ones who have been loved by Jesus
that way. And now through the church, God makes himself known.
It's not through big conferences with smokes light,
smoke light and mirrors. Although those are fun and
great. Doesn't come through just big, huge tent meetings.
Those are fine. The way God makes himself known and this
sacrificial love known is through the local church. It's
through the local church. All these little local churches
meeting all across this state on this day. It's through that
that people see the sacrificial love of Jesus by the way we
love one another. You know, over the last, you know, over the
past history of all believers, the majority of believers or
I'll say it this way. There's millions of believers that have
come and gone in this world. They enter this world, they
live, and then they die. Millions. And of the millions
that have come into this world, only a tiny, tiny fraction of
those people are we aware of. Very tiny fraction, right? We're
aware of like the great apostles, Paul, Peter, John.
We're aware of those guys. Maybe we're aware of some great
missionaries, some amazing work of God in foreign lands. Or
maybe we're aware of, you know, great leaders like a Billy
Graham. But those are very, very, a very, very small
minuscule percentage of all the other, of all the believers
that have come and gone. The majority of believers, the
majority, which I think probably includes all of us in here, we
will enter this earth, we will live, and then we will die in
anonymity. People most likely will not remember our names. No
speaking gigs, no book deals, no podcasts. Just a life marked
with a long, steady, consistent obedience to love others as
Jesus has loved them. That's it. A life that has a long, steady
obedience to love others as Jesus has loved them, as Jesus
has stooped, endured, and glorified in weakness. Now we
can turn around and do the same for others, whomever that is,
and however that looks like. That's power transformed. So,
Harbor West, in Christ, we have the power to do the same, to
love others sacrificially because transformed power isn't
a throne. It's a towel. It's a towel. Amen? Let's pray.