Clearly the Best

Jim Clements · Tidal Church Moncton · May 10, 2026 · The Chosen series

Jim Clements looks at Mary pouring costly perfume on Jesus' feet in John 12. Because Jesus is clearly the best, He deserves our very best: our time, our resources, and our humility, offered with wholehearted devotion instead of leftovers.

More from Jim Clements · The The Chosen series

Topics: Money & Generosity, Discipleship, Worship

Transcript

[0:00] You'd have to live under a rock to realize that today is, if you missed it, Mother's Day. But just right out of the chute, I just want to acknowledge that today, we can tend to forget a lot of things. We can tend to forget with it gets celebrated and the advertising. Today's actually one of the top food service days in restaurants. They do more business today than any other day. They sell more flowers for Mother's Day than any other time that they do. It's pretty commercialized when you think about how much of that stuff goes on, and we tend to lose focus and look at what the world tells us today is, right?

[0:45] And yes, we want to honor our moms, and we do that, but we also have to acknowledge that not everybody had that good legacy or that good situation with their mom. That there are times that were difficult in mothering situations, or even that some moms have lost children, or some people have lost their moms during this time. So while we celebrate, let's always acknowledge the fullness of moms and what they go through, and not the Hallmark Channel kind of moms, right? Because there's so much more to it. Even when I look at my own life and I reflect, and most of you know this. I was born to a teenage mom.

[1:32] She had to figure it out. It wasn't that easy, I'm sure. And I look back on it, it's kind of colorful. I was raised as her brother for the first five years of my life, and then figure that out after she finishes school and gets married. And then even for Gisèle and I, a lot of you don't know, our first child, we lost our first child. And so Mother's Day brings up things, but I had an incredible mom, the relationship. Gisèle's incredible with our children, but it doesn't mean there's not sorrow. So I just want to recognize for those of you that are here today, we have not forgotten you. And we know that today, when it brings joy of picture and celebration and food, we do know that there are hardships within that, too.

[2:19] But the thing that I want you to know, that every time that you do come, and you come in and God draws you to Tidal Church for Him, not for us, is that we will always share what is clearly the best. And what's clearly the best as we share today is Jesus. And we're going to get into a story that's happening and continuing to show that no matter if you were pushed, pulled, dragged, bribed, whatever got you here today, that when you leave, you will clearly understand that Jesus is clearly the best for all situations. Today, we're going to enter into a powerful story in scripture where some friends are sitting at a table, and they're having dinner and supper.

[3:06] And a lot has happened. Lazarus is there. Martha's there. Mary's there. And it's just happened just not long after Jesus did something just incredible when He raised Lazarus from the dead. See, when He did that, He turned grief to joy. He took a funeral, made it a celebration. He took what was lost and now gave it life. And there's reason to celebrate. It's more than just a meal. It's an expression of gratitude and wonder and love that is being shown because of the relationship and all that Jesus has done. So let's read in the Book of John. It says, "Six days before the Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus, the man He'd raised from the dead. A dinner was prepared in Jesus' honor.

[4:00] Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with Him. Then Mary took a 12-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from the essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus' feet with it, wiping His feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance. But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray Him, said, 'That perfume is worth a year's wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.' Not that he cared for the poor. He was a thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples' money, he often stole some for himself. Jesus replied, 'Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for My burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have Me.'" It's a great story. It's a great representation of what's happening in that moment, we think, as she takes that and pours it over His feet.

[4:59] The expense, and you see the fragrance fill the room, and they begin to cover their noses. But I also think beyond the fragrance of what she's pouring onto His feet is the fragrance of worship, of her humbling herself before Him. Such an extravagant way to show her love and her worship of who clearly is the best and deserves our best. Let me ask you a question. When was the last time you did something wholeheartedly for Jesus that others may have called it extravagant or over the top? Because when He deserves our very best, He expects it, and He truly should get our very best. Jesus is clearly the best and deserves our very best.

[5:51] This biblical story, as it unfolds, it has different components to it, it has powerful actions as she walks into the room, and discussions that are happening. There's different reactions by the people that are in there while it's happening, after it happens, and tension begins to grow in this powerful scene. But it's one act of worship that creates several reactions, but it only has one defining truth, and that is that Jesus is clearly the best. Mary's not trying to impress anybody. She's just responding to what Jesus has already done for her and in relationship. He's displayed true friendship. He brought her brother back from being dead. He changed her grief to joy, and He displayed His power over death.

[6:48] When someone changes your life like that, you don't calculate your response to them. You just love in an extravagant way. And the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords that we serve, that has saved our lives, that have released us so we can have freedom and the grace that only comes from Jesus, deserves that response from us each and every day. There was a time in my life in 1999 when I wasn't so smart one time. I won't say it was just one time. And we were preaching a series on prayer. And at the end of that week, it was three weeks, and at the end, on that Sunday, I stood much like this, and I said, "As long as I have family praying for me, as long as I have friends praying for me, as long as I have a church that's praying for me, I can survive anything."

[7:47] And I said, "Satan, take your best shot." Ninety minutes later, we lost everything we owned in a house fire. And as I laid there trying to salvage things on the deck with a water hose squirting in, I pushed the storm door back to open the door, and I'm spraying in, trying to save earthly things, to try and stop the water. Because where we lived, it was volunteer firefighters, so they had to go to the station first and then come back. One stopped on his way, telling me he would be back as I was there, and I'm lying on this wooden deck with flames coming out of the door, and eventually somebody grabs me. I don't remember who it was. One of the firemen pulls me up out of that space, and they proceed to put the fire out. Furniture's coming out through windows to get rid of fuel as they're doing it, and Gisèle and I and our two kids are watching everything that we thought we valued leave.

[8:44] And as I looked where I was laying, that aluminum storm door had completely melted from the heat, but went straight down behind me and never touched me. Behind that storm door that was now melted was my grill with a 20-pound full propane tank on it. Even when you don't see Him, He's working. Even when you don't feel it, He's working. And in that moment, He put His hand in a spot that protected me from my own stupidity and said, "I value you. Do you value Me?" And as we got up from that and the firemen all left, and we're standing, looking at a smoldering house, I did what only was the response that I knew to do for our family.

[9:43] And with borrowed shoes and a T-shirt that made me look like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in ways you don't want to see me look like, we went to Sunday night church. We wandered in the doors smelling like charred building. Because He's simply the best, and it doesn't matter what's happening in your life, in those moments, He deserves your very best each and every time, no matter the hardship, the challenge, the barrier you're trying to overcome, the stupidity in the decision you may be making, like me lying down. But He deserves it, and we're not to hold back our gratitude to Him. Mary did not hold back her gratitude.

[10:30] We don't want to measure what our response would be. It would be easy for me to go, and even still today to go, "Oh, I don't have the right clothes to go to church." I was in shorts and a borrowed T-shirt that smelled like smoke. When we walked in, people knew something happened. I got to go get clothes. I got to go do this. I got to go do that. Be easy. But the King of the universe just saved my life, and He deserved to be worshipped. And that's what we did. Mary is not random in her act. It's rooted in her relationship that she has with Jesus, and it's a response to the person of Him in her life and the work that He is doing. What has Jesus done in your life recently that deserves your gratitude that maybe you have not given that to Him, and you've been holding back the response or measuring it?

[11:26] See, because when we forget why we're here, and we're here to be disciples of Jesus Christ, that makes disciples of Jesus Christ, that makes disciples of Jesus Christ, and we're not here to just kind of go through life Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday, show up at church Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. We're here to be disciples of the King. That is what we're called to. And when we forget that, our worship becomes small, our life begins to drift, and our focus moves away from celebrating who He is in our lives. And the world begins to fill those spaces and clog our time and clog our wants and clog what is in competitiveness for our attention. But when we remember, our worship overflows.

[12:17] Our alignment with Him becomes tighter and laser-like because He clearly is the best. She takes this perfume. It's not a small jar. It talks about how many ounces it is. She could've put it on a cloth. She could've rubbed it on His feet because it was so expensive and spared it. She took the entire jar and poured it on His feet because He is clearly the best. He deserves it all. It's not for anyone else. This act of love is towards Jesus and Jesus only, and there's not going to be anything left for anybody else to take. Even Judas comes and picks it up and it's like, "Where did you get the money?" He knows how expensive this is. She doesn't sprinkle it.

[13:03] He simply and clearly is the best. As we live our lives out and everything we do, every word we say, every action we do, every relationship we have, do we have in our minds that this is all for Jesus and not for us? If I haven't said it to you before, and if I have, I say it again. It can't be all about us. It's got to be about those that need to understand the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Then she does something even more shocking. She uncovers her hair, she lets it down, and she begins to wipe His feet with her hair.

[13:52] See, servants clean the feet of other people. Mary is taking a posture of servanthood to say, "You are the best. You are clearly the best. I submit who I am and everything to You by putting myself to this lowly position and elevating You to the lordship that You deserve." That is what she is doing when she does this. The humility that is in her heart to think, the focus. I love the video because it captures so much stuff that we think in our minds, but just the focus. She was laser on what Jesus was doing. Even like when one of the disciples go, "Maybe it's a personal problem," when he's getting up to go.

[14:40] But we don't want it to be a personal problem. We want to be so focused like Mary, not casual, not convenient when it fits for us, not calculated like how much is this going to cost me? Because it was costly, and she had to humble herself, and it was very personal. Mary sees Jesus as the best. She sees Him as worthy. There's no doubt in her mind when she does this. And when we elevate Jesus to that spot in our lives, we will have that same experience that Mary had. Let's think about it today. What's that look like today? If all of a sudden somebody said, "You know what? I just took my total savings and I'm giving it to this missionary over in this foreign country to do God's work." We would think, "That's crazy.

[15:31] That's extravagant." But they're just like, "I just want to follow after Jesus and what Jesus is doing." Or if you say, "You know what? I'm going to clear every Wednesday, and every Wednesday I'm going to go downtown in the city of Moncton and just see where I can help people that are in vulnerable populations to see where I can make a difference, and I'm just clearing that and I'm giving a whole day to do that." That's crazy. That's sacrifice. That's humbleness. Because that's what Jesus is calling us to do. Sacrifice outside of our comfort zone. Jesus is worth it. He deserves our best and not what's left. And in a society today, if we don't figure out what's best first, then all we get to give away is what's left.

[16:16] And we don't want to be good followers of Jesus, we want to be great followers of Jesus. There's a great book called "Good to Great," and it says that the enemy of great is good. And as disciples of Jesus, we don't want to be good, we want to be great. And we want to make sure that as disciple makers, we are helping other people move. Judas actually measured, "This could've went to the poor. This could've been sold to support the poor." And Jesus goes, "You will always have the poor." Written in Scripture thousands of years ago. "You will always have the poor." It's 2026. Guess what? We still got the poor because we're selfish in design.

[17:05] Because we don't take the time, the energy, the resource. We can't fix it all. But Jesus knew the way the world will move and the way society would move, and that we would always have them and not Him. We have to be aware to not be like Judas and measure our response in that way. He stole from the disciples for himself. You know what? He makes it look all spiritual. "You can give that to the poor." Yeah, dude. You know what he was thinking? "Did you get the money from the coffers of what I keep track of, and now there's less money for me to take from there for myself?" That's what he's thinking.

[17:51] He's trying to make it seem like it fits when in reality it doesn't fit. And even today, we can get in dangers. I have conversations and I tell people, "Man, you need to give your life to Christ. You got this going on in your life, I'm telling you, the first thing you got to do is get your life straight with Christ. You got to accept Him as your Lord and Savior. This is how you do this." And then one of the first questions I get, "Well, is it worth it?" Well, let's see. Eternal death or eternal life. That seems pretty worth it to me. Right? Are you willing to make that sacrifice? Well, and then you say, "Well, this is what it means to live like that." Well, that's too much. I got to what? So in order for me to become a disciple, I have to spend time getting discipled, and so then you want me then to help other people become disciples, like, well, okay, the Habs game starts at 8:00. Right?

[18:51] He's clearly the best, the living King, the Lord of Lords, King of Kings, deserves our very best all the time, without a doubt. And we humble ourselves so that we can make a difference, and we're measuring it. And then this is another question that you've heard, I know. What do I get out of it? Man, you get to walk with Jesus. Is there anything else better than that? You get to lead people to Christ and watch freedom and sin fall away. Is there anything better than that? That's what you get out of it, but we tend to want to measure it and make it about us, coming up with some kind of calculation to figure out where it all fits. I don't even really care for the disciples' reaction. They didn't even help her.

[19:39] They didn't do anything. They kind of said... Maybe they were trying to figure out the practicality of it. Maybe they were confused. Maybe they just didn't know all that was happening. Maybe they felt... Like sometimes we feel uncomfortable, right? But hey, we live in a world right now where instead of helping somebody, somebody's videotaping it and posting it. And I don't even know what's true anymore. I'll stand up here. I know I'm getting old, but I don't even know what's true anymore. But the thing is, there are people in need in our communities, in our neighborhoods, in our workplaces, in our relationships, in our interactions that we have, that need to know and experience the love and truth of Jesus Christ through your example of the life of how you live. Talk to them, interact with them, and share life with them each and every day, because Jesus is clearly the best, and He's only the best, and He wants your best, and He wants the best for them, and that's the bottom line of how He wants us to live.

[20:31] It's not an option. Well, you can pick the option, I guess. But the disciples just sat there. Regardless of when the moment comes, you'll be faced with decisions to allow society to crowd out your worship. You'll pick efficiency over devotion. Sometimes you'll even pick what you think makes sense over what honors Jesus. And those are tough choices. Jesus' reaction is what is the truth, and He says, "Leave her alone. She has done a beautiful thing for Me."

[21:19] Jesus receives her worship. Jesus receives her devotion. Jesus receives her sacrifice because He knew what it took on her part. Jesus will receive what you have as you give it to Him. Something is happening, and Mary recognizes it and shows others in a way that is just crazy and says, "He is clearly the best."

[22:07] How do we become more like Mary? Three simple things. One is offer your best time and attention to what Jesus is calling you to, and not your leftovers. It's got to start somewhere. Be intentional about it. Don't be rushed. Don't squeeze it in. Make it fit intentionally. About seven or eight years ago, I realized I stopped using the word multitasking. There's no such thing as multitasking, just so you know. It's called split focus, and anything that you split your focus on doesn't get 100%. And guess what? It doesn't get 100% done well. So if you really want to be intentional about your relationship with Jesus Christ, then intentionally pick a time where you're going to sit down, spend time with Jesus, read your Scripture, pray, wherever that is, and be totally soaking in the moment of where Jesus is and not split focused.

[23:02] Give Him your best time and attention. If you don't last long up late at night, then don't start late at night. If you're good in the morning, do it in the morning. If you're a 2:00 in the afternoon person, 2:00 in the afternoon. You know what your best is. He clearly deserves your best. Second thing is offer your best resources. Generosity is not an obligation. It's not just an obligation, and it's a way that you give in different ways. And a lot of times when people hear generosity, they think about finances, and that is one way, but it is one way that you display through your generosity of time, talent, and finances what you really feel the value of the relationship that you have with Jesus Christ is, on Him getting your best.

[23:47] Even your skills that you have, He wants for the kingdom. He wants for others to help. It's not enough to be bystanders and going by anymore, but we give in different ways that it's going to cost you something. I always thought my dad would say, "If it doesn't cost you anything, then did you really give anything up?" And so we got to ask ourselves, what's the value we put on it? The final thing I would say is offer your best vulnerability and humility. Not a fake facade. You all have a story. Every one of your stories have intersected into this place in Tidal Church with the story of Tidal Church and the journey we're all on, and your story is unique to you.

[24:35] And on this Mother's Day, you'll celebrate story of generations, of family connections, but it's good to remember the stories that come when you share them. Not only the funny and the humor and the inspirational, but the spiritual journey that you've been on. And that sometimes means being vulnerable. That sometimes means being humble. And that sometimes means letting God use your story in someone else's life. Now let me be clear, I'm not saying be wasteful, reckless. I don't want to get calls from people looking for bail money from me tomorrow because they did something crazy, went out of their way.

[25:21] There's a difference between being wasteful and sacrificial. Waste ignores the purpose. Sacrifice honors the value. May we be sacrificial when we honor Jesus, who is clearly the best in our lives. Knowing that you were created, inspired, living, and someone else is counting on you to share the faith of Jesus Christ with them from your areas of life into their areas of life. So today before we continue, I ask you, in a crowded world, in a crowded day, in a crowded life, where does Jesus fit?

[26:14] My mom wrote in her journal. She died at 50 years of age, way too young, and as I went through her stuff and I had her journal, I was reading, and there's a line in there that said, "I lived long enough to see Jimmy answer God's call for his life." You can't call me Jimmy. That's a mother's love. She didn't say to get married, she didn't say to have children, she didn't say to be rich, she didn't say to own a house. To follow God's call on my life. That is the wish of every dying person who dies to themselves so that Christ can live, is you just fill in the name of who it is relationally.

[27:09] So I just want to say one last time, Jesus is clearly the best, and He deserves your very best. And in the times when it's difficult, the times when it's tough, just say it. "I'm not giving You my best right now, and I need You to help me figure out how to do that." Because we're all on the journey together. And the enemy would use shame to back you into a corner so you don't know it, and don't let him do it. You are created by a King that has such plans for you that you can't even begin to imagine what He's going to do in your life if you totally surrender to Him.

[27:54] Because He is clearly the best. So as you celebrate moms today, remember Mary's sacrifice. Remember the sacrifices of your moms if you've had a great legacy, but remember maybe the sacrifice you're doing in making a new legacy. I'll just... Bonus, just come to my heart. When we have difficult situations in life that don't line up where everybody else is celebrating, and it's not as good as what it was for us, you can become a legacy breaker of that, and then be born new as a legacy maker of a new legacy.

[28:42] Don't let the enemy tell you that you're stuck there. Father, we thank You for Your love. We thank You that as we celebrate moms today, that there's so much legacy involved in there. There's good, there's bad, there's challenges, there's all kinds of things that enter in that we think of. But even in a day when we celebrate, may it not be like a Hallmark celebration. May it be a legacy, may it be generational, may it be a love, may it be stories of spiritual guidance and leadership shared that shows who You are in those stories, that You are clearly the best.

[29:29] Father, may the lives that we live be like that bottle of perfume that we just pour out on the feet of Jesus every day, to honor You with our lives, our words, and our actions. And it's in the mighty name of Jesus that we pray and ask this.