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Sermon 2019-09-08 Ross Woodhouse
Love One Another
Today we commence a short 4-week series on “One Another’s”, there are 50 plus, One Another references in the New Testament that are commands, exhortations, postures, attitudes regarding how we are to conduct ourselves toward others. There are many more, “one-another’s” as I’ve said but the four I believe the Lord would have us take a closer look at are Love one another, Serve one another, Forgive one another and Encourage one another. All are interconnected, all are affected by our love for Jesus himself and how we see ourselves as loved by Jesus, or not.
The words “love one another” are from Jesus himself, they are a command for Christians. The apostle Paul affirmed the importance of love in 1 Corinthians 13 in saying we can have all these other things (tongues, prophecy, knowledge, give to the poor, etc.) but without love we “gain nothing”.
The reason we start with Love One Another is because we’ll only be able to deliver on the other 3 when we Love. Love is the governing attitude/posture we’re to have toward each other.
Love One Another Described
John 13:34-35
“My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.”
John 15:9-17
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
We know that John had a particular interest in God’s love, writing extensively about it even though other writers have plenty to say about the matter of loving one another. As we only have limited time I am content to stay predominately with what John says and teaches which I think gives us a clear and accurate picture of Jesus’ love for us, the love we are commanded to have for one another and what this looks like.
So to appreciate the full meaning for loving one another let’s go back to where Jesus gave the command, the scene of the disciples gathered in John 13. It is the night before Jesus was to be crucified, Jesus had washed their feet, then had said that someone in the group was about to betray him. John was the one who asked “Lord, who is it?” (13:25). Jesus responds: The one who dips his bread in the dish as I do (13:26), and John is a witness to what happens next. Judas does as Jesus predicts then leaves as Jesus says (13:31) “now is the son of man glorified and God is glorified in him”.
John is the one fully exposed to all that is going on at this moment. Judas the betrayer over here – the friend and companion, the one trusted over these last 3 years, and over here Jesus – the Lord, betrayed. And John is aware that Judas is off at that very moment completing his plan that begins the process of Jesus’ going to the cross.
Despite this Jesus says (v. 33f) “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. “A new command I give you: Love one another…
What is Jesus saying and what is John (and the others) hearing? He’s saying you have followed me, “my children”[1], these last 3 years, people throughout our travels have been a witness to this. We’ve talked about loving God, and others as yourself, loving your enemies. I have had a physical presence with you, but because I am going now, discipleship will no longer be about my physical presence.
Your discipleship and love for me will now be proven in your love for one another as a reflection of how I have loved you. This is the “new” command. A high calling. The new mark/new standard of Love for one another is that all men will know that you are disciples of the Lord Jesus.
Love one another is not a new command[2], so what’s new about it? John explains in 1 John 2:7-8.
“Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. 8 Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.”
“Its truth is seen in him” – It is a new command of love because love has now been demonstrated by God through Jesus’ sacrifice and death on the cross, the ultimate expression of love.
“Its truth is seen…in you” – It is a new command of love because love for one another is an act of worship and obedience to God because of Jesus’ love toward us.[3]
Betrayed by one of his own, that sets in motion the path to the cross, with everyone present but John paying particular attention (“Lord, who is it”?). Why would Jesus choose this pivotal moment to give this command? Because Jesus wanted to send the message that to Love One Another is not dependent on nor determined by circumstances, it is not conditional…it is a command![4]
We can’t move on from Describing Love One Another without something of an understanding of Jesus’ love for us? Why is that? How I love others is directly related to my acceptance of Christ’s love, through, faith for me.
I want to suggest we cannot authentically love one another, with a Christlike love if we: have not accepted Christ as our Lord and Saviour; have not accepted Jesus’ love for us; fail to believe and accept he can forgive our sin; are not full of the Holy Spirit; and, we think his grace is only for me and not for others.
Perhaps there’s someone here today and you either don’t know or believe in Christ’s love, let alone daily experience it…if that’s you, I’m going to ask you to be open, be expectant, of receiving his love for you, by His Spirit, today.
Simply put, there are 3 ways we understand Jesus’ love:
Firstly, the cost.
Jesus is God’s only son, yet God the Father chose, as scripture explains, to send Jesus, as a man, who in obedience went to the cross, to make salvation, forgiveness of sin and relationship with the Father possible for every human being on the face of the earth.
1 John 3:16. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us….
What was the cost? Everything. He “gave his only son” … (John 3:16)
A few years ago I recall reading in the news about a grandfather who successfully had rescued his mokopuna from drowning up in Northland, by keeping their heads above water until further help arrived, an act that ultimately cost him his own life, because he could not be revived, he gave everything. Real love forgets self. Real love knows no danger. Real love accepts the cost. The Bible says, “Many waters can’t quench love, neither can floods drown it” (Song Of Solomon 8:7)
The second way of understanding Jesus’ love is by realising how undeserving we are. Romans 5:8. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Even though in history we have failed God because of sin and disobedience, and continue to…he demonstrated his love for us by giving his life. Our sinfulness makes it impossible to be in God’s presence and to experience his grace and mercy, without Jesus…we were/are, undeserving of what he’s done…yet he still offers us his grace, no matter what you or I have done!
Thirdly, we’re made children of God.
Not only, did it cost God everything, and he offers us his grace even though we are undeserving, when we accept Christ as Lord and Saviour, he makes us his children, we become part of the family of God, we belong to God. How great is the love the Father has lavished (given, bestowed) on us, that we should be called children of God![5] 1 John 3:1.
Appreciating the enormous cost, understanding Jesus’ love for us, as incomprehensible as that is, and knowing we belong to God are factors in Love for One Another. The kind of Love God intends is not something we can switch on like a tap and hope it will just be there, because it’s his love, it’s birthed in the Spirit, we can’t will it from nowhere.
Some practical application shortly but for now, how does this go beyond a concept and an ideal, to experience, expectation and sharing? The key is in opening ourselves up to the Holy Spirit, only he can help us and guide us. Ask the Holy Spirit to confront you with the cost, remind us of our undeservedness and to help see yourself as an adopted son/daughter of God; as belonging to him.
Love One Another is a challenge. But it’s Jesus’ command. It is not optional.[6] If I claim to love God, I love my brother and sister. This means I do everything – just as God gave us everything in Christ – to avoid toxic attitudes and gossip and resentment toward others, in order to love.
John 13:35. “By this, all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.” Which means if there is an absence of loving one another as God intends it messes with our ‘salt and light and our ability to reach out to others, which is our core business. If that’s the case, we’ve got problems!
Jesus has called us to something that for many of us is foreign territory. But by his Spirit he wants us to go there.
Eugene Peterson wrote, “Every day I put love on the line. There’s nothing I am less good at. I am far better in competition than in love; far better at responding to my instincts to get ahead, than at figuring out how to love another. I’m schooled and trained in getting my own way. And yet I decide every day to set aside what I do best, and attempt to do what I do very clumsily – open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride.”
Love One Another Defined
As said earlier John was profoundly impacted by Jesus’ love, through his experience at that last supper. So much so he wrote extensively in his following letters. Think of these passages as his commentary on why we are to love one another. Listen carefully to his heart…
1 John 3:11, 16-19, 23
“This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another…”
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth…”
“And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.”
1 John 4:7-12
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”
1 John 4:19-21
“We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
A practicum on why we are to love one another. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. Love comes from God. He loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. His love is made complete in us.
To love God is to love our brother and sister. To not love fellow Christians, to hate, is to not love God (1 John 4:20). We might say well I don’t hate my brother, but I don’t love him either. God says if you want to love me, love him!
The love that John speaks of is not an emotional or sentimental love, but an ‘agape’ love, a sacrificial love that exists for the benefit of others.
Love one another then is about pursuing a life of servanthood (like his example in the foot washing) and sacrifice, even to the point of death (see 1 John 3:16b)[7].
He gives this command because there is a part of every one of us that resists the idea and the practice of unconditional love. Despite the example that we have in Jesus’ undeserved and unconditional love for us I want to suggest there is a part of us that draws a line and says, “That’s how much we are prepared to love the next person, that’s how far we are prepared to do good for someone else, or it’s only certain ones we are prepared to love”.
We are comfortable with this selective kind of love. But this kind of love is not what Jesus was talking about here when he said, “Just like I have loved you; you also love one another.”
During the Korean War, a young Communist officer ordered the execution of a Christian civilian. When he learned that his prisoner was in charge of an orphanage and was doing a great job in caring for small children, the officer decided to spare his life…but kill his son instead. The 19-year-old boy was shot in the presence of his father.
Later, when the tide of events changed, this same officer was captured, tried, and condemned to death for war crimes.
But before the sentence could be carried out, the Christian father pleaded for the life of this Communist officer who had killed his son. He admitted that if justice were followed, this man should be executed.
But since he was so young and blindly idealistic, he probably thought that his actions were right. “Give him to me,” the father said, “and I’ll teach him about the Saviour.”
They granted the request. That father took the murderer of his son into his own home. As a result of his self-sacrificing love, that Communist became a Christian pastor.[8]
He didn’t draw a line and say that going beyond that line was too much to ask. His love knew no limits. How he commanded us to love is to love willingly, sacrificially and, unconditionally. Lastly, let’s look at …
Love One Another Demonstrated
What can we practically do that fulfills Jesus’ command?
- Study God’s word. Go back and look at these verses I’ve shared today – and others like 1 Corinthians 13 – and sit with these passages until you believe you have a renewed appreciation for Jesus’ love for you and for others.
- Be SURE of God’s grace. Renew your appreciation for Jesus’ sacrifice for you, and for his grace given to you. Grace shown to you is grace you now show to others by loving them.
- Self-evaluation. Do some honest self-evaluation before God about your relationships with others. Be honest where you have resisted the Holy Spirit. He will show you any area of your own heart you need to put right. And if necessary, put things right. The enemy will use any means to drive a wedge in our relationships. Let’s not make it easy for him!
- Speak the truth. “Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” —Ephesians 4:15.
This is giving wise and loving counsel to a brother or sister who has “wandered from the truth” (James 5:19). We use words of truth that build up[9] and draw people toward Jesus.[10]
- Set a Love-One-Another goal – love one person a week…
- Spend time listening to someone’s needs
- Visit someone
- Call someone, take…coffee…offer to pray with them
- Invite someone to church and even offer to pick them up
- Share the Gospel with a stranger
- Allow yourself to be LOVED by others. This may, in fact, be the hardest one here. Why? You’ve tried, you’ve opened yourself up and you’ve been stung and you won’t try again.
In his book “Love, Acceptance & Forgiveness”, Jerry Cook describes a church in Washington state that grew in 14 years to more than 4,000 people. The book includes a commitment the people of that church made to each other. It says: “You’ll never knowingly suffer at my hands. I’ll never knowingly say or do anything to hurt you. I’ll always, in every circumstance, seek to help and support you. If you’re down and I can lift you, I’ll do that. If you need something and I have it, I’ll share it with you. If I need to, I’ll give it to you. No matter what I find out about you, no matter what happens in the future – either good or bad – my commitment to you will never change. And there’s nothing you can do about it!”
Closing
What could it be that Jesus is saying to us as a church this morning?
1 John 3:16. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.
All that we do begins with Jesus. Loving one-another begins with accepting what he has done for us. The love of the Father is what compelled Jesus to the cross. Jesus didn’t kneel in the garden of Gethsemane and say, God, this is too hard. No, he went willingly to the cross. I would suggest the absolute minimum we do in response, therefore, is to Love One Another.
[1] John uses the term “dear children” – see 1 John 2:18; 2:28, etc
[2] Leviticus 19:18
[3] See 1 John 2:8
[4] Jesus chose the moment of betrayal for this command
[5] Romans 14:8. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
[6] Even as Jesus’ betrayer was on his way out the door, Jesus was saying these words: Love…
[7] And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
[8] https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-19-why-we-must-love-1-john-47-11 (“Our Daily Bread,” April 1980)
[9] 1 Thessalonians 5:11
[10] A wrong response: Not your job to tell me where I’m going wrong, the Holy Spirit will show me and until he does I’ll keep doing what I’m doing.