MAR 23 2025 | Road to the Cross: The Upper Room S1E1 | Resilient Love

Sea Change Church · MAR 23 2025 | Road to the Cross: The Upper Room S1E1 - Resilient Love
John 13:1-17
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

But afterward You will understand Peter said to him You shall never wash my feet Jesus answered him If I do not wash you You have no share with me Simon Peter said to him Lord, not my feet only But also my hands And my head Jesus said to him The one who is bathed Does not need to wash Except for his feet But is completely clean And you are clean But not every one of you For he knew Who was to betray him That is why he said Not all of you are clean When he had washed their feet And put on his outer garments And resumed his place He said to them Do you understand What I have done to you?

You call me teacher and Lord And you are right For so I am If I then Your Lord and teacher Have washed your feet You also ought to wash One another's feet For I have given you an example That you should do Just as I have done to you Truly, truly, I say to you A servant is not greater Than his master Nor is a messenger Greater than the one Who sent him If you know these things Blessed are you If you do them This is the word of the Lord Last time we met Was a low-lit room We were as close together As a riding room We ate the food We drank wine Everybody having a good time Except you You were talking About the end of the world Wow Jeff Credit to you, man That video was awesome That was really good That's fun I have That made me like U2 more That made me like U2 more I've never been a U2 fan I think when they Forced their album Onto my phone That one year You guys remember that I was like I'm not for these guys I don't like this It kind of made me like them more I'm into it So, well, welcome to church My name is Harry I'm the family pastor on staff And it is Youth and Family Sunday And that's why you're seeing the news With Zelda Jenkins And Chet Chetterfield And we have some youth volunteering today So thanks for joining us And we are beginning a brand new series In the Gospel of John Looking at the Upper Room Discourse And this event is a It's a scene that takes place On the Thursday before Jesus' death He's going to be arrested Thursday night He's going to be crucified on Friday But before that happens He spends this time Celebrating the Passover meal With his disciples in this Upper Room And the Gospel of John Is unique in several ways But one of the ways Is that it takes several chapters To really zoom in On this Upper Room Discourse Chapters 13 through 17 Zoom into this conversation And so that's what we're going to be looking at For the next few weeks As we build towards Easter And as they celebrated the Passover Some Passover themes Should be in our mind As our text today reminds us This is Passover time So themes of Passover Should be fresh in our mind As we go into the Scripture Themes of the New Exodus Exodus from being freed from slavery Of Egypt And being led into a promised land Themes of a Passover lamb A lamb that was sacrificed The blood of the lamb On the doorpost of a home The consuming and eating Of the Passover lamb All of these themes Should be in our mind Right now in this story And as we build towards Easter Pastor Joe Brandy Is currently doing a study In Exodus right now So if you have more Exodus Passover questions He is available day or night You can call him at 858-242 Just kidding So with that being said It's pretty amazing That all of this by the way Happens It happens Jesus is about to go be The new Passover lamb Lead us into a new Exodus And a new promised land And all of that happens During the commemoration Of Jewish Passover Which is incredible timing It's almost as if God has planned this whole thing He has So let's go into Thanks Joe Joe liked that one That's good Let's go and let's read Verses 1-5 together It says It says During the feast of the Passover When Jesus When Jesus knew That his hour Had come to 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 When the devil Had already put it Into the heart Of Judas Iscariot Simon's son To betray him Jesus Knowing that the Father Had given all things Into his hands And that he had come From God And was going back to God Rose from supper He laid aside His outer garments And taking a towel He tied it around his waist Then he poured water Into a basin And began to wash The disciples feet And to wipe them With the towel That was wrapped around him So the first thing I want us to notice Is this statement About the longevity Of Jesus' love It says that he loves His disciples To the end And he doesn't love them Because of how Lovable they are Because of how Just wonderful they are Quick reminder Of the things Jesus had to put up With his disciples One they rarely Understood his teachings They always needed him To re-explain What he was teaching What he was talking about They secretly judged him When he was talking To a Samaritan woman At the well When children wanted To come and see Jesus They sent the children away When Jesus would have Wanted them to be welcomed They desired to send To call down fire From heaven To destroy A few Samaritans And they worried About not having Enough food Even after witnessing Jesus feed a group Of 5,000 people With some loaves And fish And lastly They spent plenty Of time bickering Amongst each other About which one of them Is the greatest And so Jesus Yet in spite of all this He loves them To the end His love for them Endured their shortcoming And their failure And their sin His love for them Endures And I think Sometimes we can get Caught up Thinking that love Is best defined By a heightened Emotional experience But I think we see In the Bible That love is more Accurately measured By how it endures By how resilient It is By the resiliency Of that love My wife and I Have been married For almost eight years And she would be The first to Oh I'm going to Talk about that later But thank you She's a Spoiler alert She's going to be Yeah she would be The first to come up here And publicly proclaim That I am just a delight To be married to And it's just been A treat to be my wife And there's nothing She's had to endure There's been no challenges I mean it's just She wakes up every morning With butterflies In her stomach And Shakespeare On her tongue Just for Her great love For her husband Right You're laughing Because you know You know it's not true Right You know that's not The reality And no My wife has had to endure And one of the things We've lived in our Current apartment For two years One of the things She puts up with Is I still don't know Where anything is Like I have no idea Where anything is And if my wife Asks me to grab Like a measuring cup I have to go on A full blown expedition I am like Indiana Jones Trying to find The lost ark I'm like I have to get my hat on And I'm pulling I'm opening up All the cabinets And the drawers And I just I just I can't I've not learned Where anything is And yet Which is I imagine Is pretty annoying To have a husband Who's so unfamiliar With his own home But yet She's been patient with me She's been kind with me And there's many more examples I could give you like this And I won't Mostly to not remind her Of these things But What I've known And what I've seen The way I know That she loves me In spite of these things Is that her love Has endured for me It's endured the things We've gone through together And it's endured sometimes Just me And I put in your notes That love is not defined By the intensity Of its emotion But by the depth Of its endurance And maybe you're here today And you just need to know That you're loved You just need to know That Christ That God Loves you And that his love For you Endures It endures your shortcoming It endures your failure It endures your sin It endures your impatience It endures all these things His love for you Will endure Till the end And maybe you just Haven't known That kind of love Maybe the love You've experienced Has been short-lived Self-serving Runs and flees When things get tough Maybe that's the love You've known And it's not the love Of God It's not the love Of Jesus Jesus' love Will endure For you And it's always More than just Words With Jesus Jesus always Puts his love Into action And in our story He demonstrates This love By the washing Of his disciples' feet Which may seem Strange to us I think that's a I was just talking To someone today They're like Oh what do you What do you They knew I was preaching But they're not really Familiar with church And they were like What are you What are you talking About today I was like Oh Jesus washing The disciples' feet They're like What?

That's weird Like it's a strange Story if you're Unfamiliar with it And if I invited you Over to our Two-bedroom apartment For dinner And was like Hey Come on in You know Take your shoes off Make yourself at home And let's get Those feet washed You'd be like I'm gonna I think I'm gonna Leave now This is not the Dinner I was expecting And But foot washing For them was A very normal practice That the majority Of people walked Wherever they went They wore sandals And so naturally Their feet got very dirty And many homes Actually had a bowl Of water in front Of the house So that you wouldn't Track mud and dirt Into the house And if you were A guest at a house And the home Could afford servants It was customary That the task For the lowest servant Was to wash the feet Of those entering the home And in our story The disciples' feet Likely would have been Very in need of washing Because some of the things About the disciples Right One they spent That's what they did Was travel around by foot Like that's what they did The last three years With Jesus And now They're in Jerusalem During Passover time And the streets Would have been Very crowded As every Jewish person Would have been Making their way To Jerusalem With cattle With donkey Coming in And so the streets Would have been crowded Kicking up dirt Animal droppings They would have been They likely would have Gotten to this Dinner And their feet Would have really Needed washing And yet there's No servant present To do that washing And clearly Nobody has elected To do it None of the disciples Have offered And in fact The gospel of Luke Tells us that This is actually The time at this Dinner table This is at least One of the times Where they were Bickering about Which one of them Was the greatest So none of them Were eager To assume the position Of the lowest servant Because they were eager To talk about Well who's Who's the best Who's going to be The greatest In the kingdom Of heaven And so in the midst Of this whole scene Jesus Takes the role Of the lowest servant And he washes The feet Of his disciples And by doing so He gives them An example Of what true Greatness looks like In the kingdom Of God And he does this Even while knowing He washes their feet Even while knowing These are the same feet Some of these feet Shortly after Are going to get up From the table And they're going To go betray him Some of these feet When Jesus is arrested Are going to take off Running and hide Some of these feet When Jesus dies They're going to go Into hiding Fleeing from the Pharisees He knows all this And yet he becomes Their servant He washes their feet And I think It's incredible To know That he actually Washes Judas' feet I think Even the most Humble of us In this room Would have been Too petty To wash Judas' feet Knowing he was About to be betrayed For a couple Pieces of silver But that's That's the love Of Jesus And I love this too Because if you remember Jesus taught One of the core Teachings of Jesus Is what?

Love your enemies Jesus says Love your enemies And then he washes The feet of his Betrayer Judas He washes all Twelve of his Disciples' feet And I always Pictured this Happening kind of Quick for some Reason You read the story And it kind of Moves quickly Right? He's washing the feet He gets to Peter Like it looks like It's happening fast But this probably Took some time Right?

That's twelve Disciples That's twenty-four feet It's a hundred and twenty Toes It's a lot of It's a long time Like why did we need To know how many toes You don't You don't need to Know that My wife actually Is really grossed out By feet And so I thought Some more descriptive Language would be Good for her to hear When she listens back It's like immersion Therapy for her But he takes this time To patiently Wash each Disciple's foot And I put in your notes A quote from Dallas Willard One of the great Christian authors He says this He says love Is the readiness And willingness To secure The good For the other It's the readiness And willingness To secure The good For the other Love is never About what I can get But it's always About what I can Give And Jesus Willingly Gives himself Away to secure Our good And this moment Of foot washing Is actually A beautiful Foreshadowing For what Jesus Is about to go Do on the cross What is Jesus Going to go do On the cross On the cross Jesus is going To be crucified He's going to hang There And on that cross All of the sin Of anyone Whoever would Put their faith And trust in him All their sin All their filth All their shortcoming All of that Will be put On the person Of Jesus He's going to Wear that And he's going To be punished For that And in exchange I receive The perfection The beauty The righteousness Of Christ This is a theological Term called Imputation My sin My ugliness My filth Imputed to Jesus His glory His beauty His righteousness Imputed to me That's the That's the gospel Right That's what happens On the cross And this scene I want you to picture it Because it's actually A beautiful Foreshadowing To this moment And I think This is why John Uses Very intentional Language When he describes This scene You see Jesus Take off his Outer garment He wraps a towel Around his waist He uses that same Towel to wash The feet Of his disciples And you get An image Of Jesus Becoming Progressively More filthy As which Each foot That he washes The towel He uses the towel That's connected To him To wash The dirt And the grime Away With each foot That he does That he progressively Becomes more filthy While those he loves Become more clean And you can see It's a visual Image It's a visual Depiction Of the gospel Work that Jesus Is about to go do The next day And this is why When he gets to Peter And Peter Protests And Jesus says to him You don't understand What I'm doing This is more than Just washing your feet You don't really Get this yet But later You're gonna get it Later you're gonna Understand it Let's go there now Actually in your notes Let's go to Verse 6 through 11 It says He came to Simon Peter Who said to him Lord Do you wash my feet?

Jesus answered him What I am doing You do not understand now But afterward You will understand Peter said to him You shall never Wash my feet Jesus answered him If I do not wash you You have no share with me Simon Peter said to him Lord Not my feet only But also my hands And my head Jesus said to him The one who has bathed Does not need to wash Except for his feet But is completely clean And you are clean But not every one of you For he knew Who was to betray him That was why he said Not all of you Are clean So in spite of I mentioned my wife's Dislike of feet In spite of that It was her idea On our wedding day To do a foot washing ceremony And Pastor Adam Did our wedding Almost eight years ago And it was special And so we did this Foot washing ceremony Because she wanted us To communicate to each other In marriage That we're going to Serve each other Sacrificially And humbly And I had someone Tell me after the wedding That it was a really Striking image To see a bride Look at cute Kalina By the way Pixie cut Kalina Come on That is like It's just an era In a picture It's so good But they said Man it was a really Striking image To see a bride In her wedding dress On her knees In the dirt Washing the feet Of her soon to be husband And it was a really Hot summer day And my shoes Didn't breathe well Like I'm sure It was a task But she But she She does this And it's It's kind of a Striking image To look back on And if that's striking Then how How much more Striking is it That the Lord Of the universe The one who knows you Who loves you Who knit you In the womb The most beautiful Loving Kind Powerful being In all of existence Takes the form Of the lowest servant To wash the feet Of his disciples It's a striking image And it's why When It's why When he gets To Peter Peter Protests And says Lord Do you wash My feet You'll never Wash my feet Because Peter Has some idea About who Jesus is Right When Jesus says Earlier in the gospel Story He says Who do you say That I am It's Peter Who says You're the Christ You're the son Of the living God Like Peter Peter has Some depth Not the full image But he's got Some depth Of knowledge Of who Peter Is Or who Who Jesus Is And Jesus Says to Peter Yeah God Revealed that To you So now When he goes To wash his feet Peter's Uncomfortable With this He's like You're too Beautiful For this You're too Glorious For this You're too Wonderful For this This task Is beneath You You'll never Wash my feet You're too Lovely For this But Jesus Says I need To wash You Because if You aren't Washed If I do Not wash You You can't Share With me You can't Have a part In me You can't Share in Relationship With me You can't Continue To experience What I'm Doing He wants He insists On the Washing And I put In your notes That there's No part Of your life Too filthy Or too far Gone For Jesus To be Willing To cleanse But you Must allow Him Into that Space So that You can Be washed See we Need to Present The shameful Filthy Secret Things To present Them to Jesus And allow Him to Work And allow Him to Wash Heal And cleanse And this Is all about What he Does He doesn't Say in Order for You to Have a Parton With me You need To have Great Church Attendance Or you Gotta Have a Really Just be Super Generous Or all The bible Knowledge He says I have To wash You This is Something I Have to Do I put in Your notes Having a Portion with Jesus Is not About something I just Lost it Where'd it Go It's my First time Preaching on This ipad Here Okay Technology Is really Scary All right Having a Portion with Jesus in Your notes Is not About something I achieve But something I receive Not about Something you Go do It's about Something that You receive So Peter Quickly changes His tune He goes From you Will never Wash me You're not Going to Wash me !

You're doing Too much To you're Not doing Enough Wash my Wash my Hands My head My feet Like I Love that Peter goes From one Extreme To the Other And then Jesus Clarifies For him He says The one Who has Bathed Does not Need another Bath The one Who has Bathed Need only Wash his Feet And that Might sound Like strange Hygiene Advice From Jesus You're like I don't I don't Understand That What he's Saying to Peter Is Peter You are Already Clean You've Been You've Been My Disciple You're In Relationship With Me You're In This Faith Based Relationship With Me You've Already Been Washed Clean So You Don't Need Another Salvation Experience You don't Need Another Full Washing But This Is One Of The Ways The Savior Loves Us As We Walk Through The World On A Daily Basis And You Encounter Sin And The Fallenness Of This World And Your Own Failure And Your Shortcoming As You Walk Through This World One Of The Ways That The Savior Jesus Loves You Is By Continually Cleansing You By Washing Your Feet From Each Day's Journey This Is An Important Part Of The Christian Experience It's The Ministry Of Renewal As Jesus Cleanses Us From The Dirt Of Each Day's Journey So We Should Present Ourselves Then Every Day To Jesus And Ask Him For Washing For For Cleansing None Of Us Should Carry Yesterday's Burden Yesterday's Dirt Yesterday's Sin Into Today His Mercies For You Are New Every Morning And He Washes You Clean Each Day We Can Let Go Of Yesterday Because He Washes Your Feet He Cleanses You From Your Past Now Let's Keep Going Let's Look At Verses 12 Through 17 It Says When He Had Washed Their Feet And Put On His Outer Garments And Resumed His Place He Said To Them Do You Understand What I Have Done To You You Call Me Teacher And Lord And You Are Right For So I Am If I Then Your Lord And Teacher Have Washed Your Feet You Also Ought To Wash One Another's Feet For I Have Given You An Example That You Also Should Do Just As I Have !

Done To You Truly Truly I Say To You A Servant Is Not Greater Than His Master Nor Is A Messenger Greater Than The One Who Sent Him If You Know These Things Blessed Are You If You Do Them Jesus Says To Them Do You Understand What I've Done Do You Get This You're Arguing About Who Is The Greatest Among You Yet The Greatest Among You Has Chosen To Serve ! You He Says This Is Your Example Go And Do This Go And Do As I Have Done For You Go And Be Humble Loving Servants Of Others This Is His Call To Us And To His Disciples And Then Jesus Says !

If Actually Isn't Enough It's Not Enough If You Want The Blessed Life Then It's Not Enough To Just Show Up To Church And Gain Some Knowledge About Jesus And Then Do Nothing Differently Outside These Walls It's Not About How Much You Know But The Blessing Is Actually In The Action You Are Blessed If You Do These Things So We Are Not Just Called To Know About Jesus But To To Do As He Did To Do What He Told Us To Do I Was This Week My Wife We Had An Interesting Week With Jude Jude Was Just You There's Just Some Weeks With The Baby That You're Just Like Wow You're Crazy And He Had A night This Was Friday Night And He Woke Up At 2 AM I Didn't Hear Him At All Till 3 30 I Woke Up Like In The Living Room And No One Knew I Was Awake And So I Was Like I Was Awake My Wife Doesn't Know So No One Has To Know This At All And So I Get Back To Bed I Go To Close My Eyes And I Feel The Guilt Of Knowing What I'm About To Preach About On Sunday Just The Hypocrisy Starting To Wash Over Me lifting and I was like well Lord I have to focus on my sermon like I need a good night's sleep right I got to focus on my sermon and so I was trying to kind of debate this with the Lord and finally I heard like the gentle impression of the Holy Spirit say to me blessed are you if you do them and I was like dang it because more more than I need to have to have the you know really focused sermon and great recall for you guys on Sunday I need God to bless me up here because nothing happens unless the Spirit of God moves through my words into your hearts and minds I need the blessing of the Spirit so I can I can be as prepared as I want but if God does not bless me and you right now nothing happens in these walls at C-Change Church I need the blessing of the Spirit so I heard blessed are you if you do them and I got out of bed because I want that blessing I love my wife too I want to serve her too but I also want to sleep and he was up till 6 a.m. that poor child so she would have gotten me up eventually it's good I got up I uh I hope that this week you get the subtle inconvenient impression of the Holy Spirit this week this is blessed are you if you do them I hope it I hope that inconveniences you this week and I know that you're like that sound that's mean Harry misery loves company okay and I hope I hope that happens to you this week where you are just it's the thing you don't want to do and and some there's some that God has presented some opportunity at the at what feels like the worst time and I hope you get that impression this week as the Spirit of God leaves you to love and to serve others sacrificially if you want to be blessed we've got to love others in actionable and sacrificial service I put in your notes that blessing is bestowed as a byproduct of love in action this is this is the blessed life a byproduct of love in action the blessed life looks like being loved by Jesus and loving others like Jesus loved us it's that simple that's the blessed life and there's no act of service or ministry that is beneath you there's no there's no act that's like oh I'm too good for that I'm too experienced there's nothing that's beneath you I think of pastor pastor Jim has a degree from Harvard and he once a month dresses up as a shepherd I mean when you have that beard and voice you kind of have to but uh he dresses up as a shepherd and he goes and he teaches our preschoolers and our first graders once a month do you think that's beneath his Harvard degree but he chooses to right because he's just loving and actionable service and there's no action there's no way you can be called where you're like well that's kind of beneath me uh you know that's I think of a pastor Adam just went to a conference in D.C. and and he still make he still will make time for for the small things hospital visits coffee discipleship I think of Chris Harrell we we asked her a month ago as she also just led in D.C. we asked her a month ago to lead uh worship for 10 high school kids on a Wednesday night to drive from Oceanside and she did it right this is you have a humble leadership here this is this is what it's like there's no there's no like oh that's beneath me now I've got to this new level now like we never achieved that place I got invited to preach at a um little chapel a uh it's like a little private Christian school probably eight middle school kids will be there is that beneath me talent wise absolutely but am I gonna but look I'm humble I'm humble and I'm gonna do of course I'm gonna do that I'm humble my wife hates those jokes by the way I don't know she she does not find it funny but I find it funny some of you find it funny uh but she doesn't like what I joke about how humble and awesome I am um I put in your notes uh this is a great quote by one of the great 19th century preachers Charles Spurgeon he says this he says covet humble work and when you get it be content to continue in it there is no great rush after the lowest places and you will rob no one by seeking them are you seeking after any low places right now are you eager to love and serve however God calls you are you imitating the counter-cultural love of Jesus or are you like the disciples reclined at the table focused on your own greatness your own achievements and the things you think you deserve and I'll invite the worship band to come back up as I share our main idea this is a main summary main idea to take away for the day this is summarizing everything we talked about it's this Jesus's love is an active and resilient love and it asks two things allow that love to wash over you every day and engage in reciprocal love with Christ and the father and then number two extend that same humble love to others as he has to you that's his call 2,000 years ago to his disciples in the upper room and it's our call right now today in this church amen amen there's some practical takeaways in your notes so you can look through as well they are going to lead us our band in a time of response if you'll stand with us and then I'll come up and close us oh is you you you you Jesus All hail Lord of heaven and earth All hail King Jesus All hail Savior of the world All hail King Jesus All hail Lord of heaven And earth All hail King Jesus All hail The Savior Of the world I want to invite us Today To engage in the kind of love That you've received from Jesus And maybe you're here And you're just You haven't received that love And you're tired of love That fades You're tired of love That's based on your performance And you want a love That endures And lasts Even your shortcomings That's available for you today And I want to invite up Our prayer team And our prayer team Would love to pray for you If you want to pray To know Jesus For the first time Come and be prayed for If you have more questions About Sea Change Church Or anything going on On our campus We've got a next steps table In the back And we also want to bless And send out Nicole And we have a custom Bible For her In the back