Where are you today? Do you want to solve the biggest questions of the universe or are you just trying make sure you can get to work tomorrow? Or is it something in between?
Love as Jesus Loves
John 13:34-35
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
“God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you, Lord Jesus.” ~ Jim Elliot
“Live every day as if the Son of Man were at the door, and gear your thinking to the fleeting moment. Just how can it be redeemed? Walk as if the next step would carry you across the threshold of Heaven. Pray. That saint who advances on his knees never retreats.” ~ Jim Elliot
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” ~ Jim Elliot
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If you were dying or knew you were in your last days….what would your last words be? Especially to those you loved? Would it be bitterness or love? Would it be regret or encouragement? Would it be instructions?
In his last days Jesus gives us wonderful instructions on what to do…how to live..how to love.
This passages begins what’s called the Farewell Discourse. Jesus final instructions to his disciples.
John 13:21-38
One of You Will Betray Me
[21] After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and testified, “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” [22] The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. [23] One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ side, [24] so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. [25] So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, “Lord, who is it?” [26] Jesus answered, “It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.” So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. [27] Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.” [28] Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. [29] Some thought that, because Judas had the moneybag, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the feast,” or that he should give something to the poor. [30] So, after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.
A New Commandment
[31] When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. [32] If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. [33] Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ [34] A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. [35] By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Jesus Foretells Peter’s Denial
[36] Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.” [37] Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” [38] Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.
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Betrayal (vv 21-30)..NOTE: Jesus is troubled
It’s time. Judas will betray Jesus. It’s been coming. Judas is one of the saddest characters in the whole Bible. Why him? Ultimately it seems that he regrets it, but before you think too highly of him, remember he’s upset with Mary for using the expensive ointment on Jesus and it says not because he wants it spent on the poor, but because he liked to take from the moneybag. So he’s a liar and a thief. Now he will betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Have any of you ever been betrayed? Judas is not innocent here. Think of the best, nicest, sweetest person you know getting betrayed by someone….maybe think of those predators who try to take what little money a retiree has by lying to them….what about a family member stealing from another? What about someone selling a little girl into slavery? It is pitiful…but it’s not innocent and it’s not an accident. Judas is not an example for anyone and he’s actually someone to be the opposite of.
“Judas was as perfect an actor, as accomplished a hypocrite as one can find. Theologians surmise that he was a man of more education and higher social standing than the rest of the apostles. He was not from Galilee but from Kerioth, a much better address. Dr. Ironside said, “Judas was the real gentleman of all the teachers.” He had class compared to the rest. Today Judas would wear a Brooks Brothers suit and a Madison Avenue smile. He would know all the right hymns—when to sit down, when to stand up, when to inject the most persuasive cliché, how to ingratiate himself with the power leaders of the church. No one would suspect him of being a traitor, and they did not then either.” – Harry Ironside
Denial (vv 36-38)
Another player in this scene is Peter. Good old Peter. One of the first to follow Jesus. Peter had been with Jesus a while. He’d seen the miracles, he had walked on water with him, he saw him on the mount of transfiguration. Peter is so brave in the garden that he chops off a servant’s ear as they try to get Jesus….but when the pressure is at its greatest, he folds and does exactly as Jesus says here….he denies Jesus 3 times. That will all get set straight later.
Commandment/Love (vv 31-35)
Who is glorified? Why?
“In death itself Jesus was glorified. In giving his life for sinful humans the glory of his gracious character was most clearly seen. And it did not stop there, for Jesus said that when the Son of Man was glorified, God also would be glorified in him. In Jesus’ self-sacrificing love for human beings the glory for God was revealed, for the Father loves the world, and this led him to give his one and only Son so that those who believe might have eternal life. In the giving his Son, the Glory of God’s own self-giving love was revealed.”
So God is glorified. He is worthy. He loves us this much. God the Father does and God the Son (Jesus) does.
Then our command or the other point of the three. Love
Jesus said to his disciples, A new command I give you: Love one another. This is the first of two instances (13:34; 15:12) in which Jesus commanded his disciples to love one another, but only on this occasion did he refer to it as a ‘new command. In the OT the Israelites were commanded to love their neighbor as they loved themselves (Lev. 19:18), but Jesus said to his disciples, As I have loved you, so you must love one another. This raised the ante considerably. The
measure of love for their neighbor was no longer their love for themselves, but Jesus’ love for them. The Fourth Gospel speaks of Jesus’ love for the disciples in three places (1; 15:9, 13), a love that led him to lay down his life for them. Now he said they should love one another in the same way (cf. I John 3:16).
1 John 3:16
[16] By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
Jesus’ love command was ‘new’ because it demanded a new kind of love, a love like his own. A new measure of love.
Jesus highlighted the importance of the disciples’ love for one another by adding to his command the explanation By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. This was not the reason they should love one another, but was rather the outcome of their love. People would be able to recognize them as Jesus’ disciples by their mutual love. Knowing the truth about Jesus is vital, but so also is believers’ love for one another. This love is not sentimental, but real self-sacrificing love by which they place other believers’
needs above their own. Lovelessness among believers nullifies their witness to the world, and reveals them as hypocrites.
Left to ourselves, generally we seek our own. Celebrities marry celebrities. Doctors seek out doctors. Middle-classers seek out middle-classers. Country boys seek a country girl. Look at where we go to church. But when Christ comes, that changes. In the church, we discover that the people we love and with whom we fellowship are different from us. The more there is of the love Christ commanded us to have, the love for one another…….. the church will draw more people to Jesus.
If, through Christ, we are making friends and loving those whom we never would have before we met Christ, ——-the love of Christ is working in and through us! The measure of this love is, “as I have loved you.” Here we see the command’s radical nature, for while it is admittedly difficult to love your neighbor as yourself (as the old commandment demanded), it is far more difficult to love others as Christ loves them. That is sacrificial love. On this occasion it was defined by Jesus’ dealings with Judas. When Jesus said, “Men, love one another as I have loved you,” the disciples naturally thought of Jesus’ love, his consistency, his washing their feet. But the disciples were at a disadvantage. They could not then know how Jesus was even loving Judas. Though Judas was his enemy, the Savior reached out to him. That’s how we are to be Christians. We are to love one another. This is the greatest example of Jesus changing us. He is in the business of changing people.
2 Corinthians 5:17
[17] Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Where are you today? Do you want to solve the biggest questions of the universe or are you just trying make sure you can get to work tomorrow? Or is it something in between?
What would all of this mean? Today’s sermon in the midst of these questions? What does it look like to believe?
Trust…love…change..sacrifice
just as I have loved you
