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.