Two Different Ways

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Good morning. Welcome. It's good to be here today. Another week that feels like a month, I don't know about for you. Just with the tragedy, I guess it was just last Sunday night, Monday morning, we woke up to the news here about Las Vegas. I would really like a week with nothing to report. So a lot of people are hurting, questioning, wondering what's going on in this world. I think I shared last week a quote talking about how we live in an apocalyptic age. That is, everybody feels like the end is coming, but they're not so excited about it. It just feels ominous right now, and I think that's the case for a lot of people. So I think we're here to share a hope that we have beyond just the here and now, beyond any technical or technologic or sociologic or economic solution. But we've got a God-sized solution to share. Let's go in prayer right now about that and get ready for God's Word today. Thank you, Lord God, that you already answered through your Son, Jesus Christ, all that he did. How he took on the evil of the world, took it into himself, died for it, faced the torture of it all, Lord, and through it brought us forgiveness and peace with you. We pray, Lord God, that through how you have suffered for us in our place, Lord Jesus, that we could share the hope with those who are suffering and grieving right now. We pray, Lord God, that more than that, that you do something beyond our expectation, through your people, through your church, that we show this world how to love one another, how to serve one another, how to be there for one another, not just when times are easy or good or when we get something out of it, but for the sake of what we have received from you, God. We pray, Lord God, too, that you would bless your church this day. May it be a day of renewal and transformation. And when your gospel goes forth through all of your people, that this whole nation is renewed and transformed. And not just here, but across the world. We thank you we're part of a worldwide church in many and various places, expressing our praises to you this day. So all these things we lift up to you in Jesus' name. Amen. So we are on the sixth week of our series, The Way. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, he said. And like Phil said before, the first name given to this movement of followers of Jesus post-resurrection in the book of Acts is called The Way, because they weren't sure what else to call them, but they had a way about them. They realized they did things a bit differently, that we have to be countercultural. We are countercultural. Our culture is going in one direction, it feels like. And Jesus is leading us in a different direction. So he is the way we are loved by God and the way to love. He is the way to life and the way to live. And we're looking at that today in this passage from John chapter 13, as we explore, as I put it, the way down. Henry Nowen, I think it's one of his most famous quotes. He was a Catholic monk that just died a while back. And he said, Jesus lived in a way that was downwardly mobile. You know how upward mobility is what everybody's into? He was into downward mobility. And I think that's the way of love that we're going to look at today. And so in John chapter 13, we get this passage. This is the beginning of a long discourse of Jesus. He's going to teach his disciples a number of things because this is his last chance, in a sense, before his crucifixion and before he's basically physically or visibly not present to teach them in the same way. And so what would you share in your last lecture? Have you heard of the last lecture before? It was a guy who was facing his own illness, dying, and he gave a last lecture to a bunch of college students and kind of famous. I think it even became a book. But in his last lecture, what does he do? What does he say? And if there was one action, one thing that you would do to try to, in a nutshell, say this is what I'm about and who I am, who I am for you, and what this whole thing is about, what would you do? Well, this is what Jesus does in John 13. So let's read this passage. Now, before the feast of Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of his 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 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, 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. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? Jesus answered him, What I a...