Love is a word that is so overused in the church today that it has practically lost all it’s relevance to Christian life. Ever since the Beatles sang “All you need is love,” the church has tried to tie Christian love to the world’s definition of love. Perhaps it was an attempt to woo the world to the church, by taking away any offense of the gospel and dumbing it down to a one word description which the world would find appealing. The result though has been very destructive to the life of the church. Because the Bible makes it clear that love is to be the defining characteristic of the church, but if we don’t really know what love is, then it’s unlikely that we can manifest it.
In today’s passage, we are continuing in our study of Jesus’s Upper Room discourse. There are five chapters in John which are dedicated to this one final evening of Christ’s ministry. Five chapters of last minute instructions before Jesus is crucified the next morning. So far, we have looked at the Lord washing the disciples feet, which I called an animated parable about Christian love. Then we looked at the personification of those that reject God’s love, which was the defection of Judas. Today, we are going to look at the commandment of love which Jesus gives to the church. This new commandment is found in vs.34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”
And as I see it, this passage is broken down by John into three segments. First, is love manifested, second, love commanded, and thirdly, love rejected. Or you could say, what love looks like, what love does, and what love is not. Let’s look at them in that order. First love manifested. Or what love looks like.
When Judas leaves the supper and goes out into the darkness, Jesus says in vs.31, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately.” Notice first of all that 5 times Jesus says the word glorified or a variant of it, glorify. A logical question then is what does Jesus mean by using the word glorified?
Well, we talked about this a few weeks ago, because back in chapter 12:23, Jesus had said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” And if you will remember I pointed ahead to today’s passage as a means of answering that question - what is meant by the word glorified? And as I pointed out then, Jesus was not talking about receiving glory from the Jews, but He was speaking of the hour of His death. He was looking forward to His death in a few days, realizing that His ministry coming to an apex, and that his crucifixion was the means of His glorification.
How bizarre it is to our human ears to hear of death and glory being correlated. We tend to think of being glorified as being lifted up, exalted, praised, adored - that sounds like our version of glory. But Christ saw His death as the means of glory. He was lifted up, but He was lifted up on a cross, to bear our sin in shame and reproach, that He might redeem us from the curse of death. That He might buy us back. Glorification then was Christ magnifying God’s attributes in a visible way, which was accomplished on the cross.
So that act of self sacrifice is the manifestation of divine love. God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son to die on the cross for our sins. Christ’s death manifested the magnificence of God’s love. God displayed His love for the world by hanging on a cross atop a hill in Jerusalem.
So as the church seeks to define Christian love, we should look for our example at the cross. It was there God defined love. Jesus said in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” God displayed His great love by sending Jesus to die on the cross. And Jesus displayed His great love, by willingly laying down His life for the church.
That act of sacrifice manifested Christ’s love. And Christ’s love manifested God’s love. That is what Jesus means when He says, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.” That is how Jesus can tell Philip in the next chapter that if you have seen Him you have seen the Father. Jesus glorifies the Father because He does the works of God. And then Jesus goes on to say that God will glorify Him in Himself, that is by God Himself, and will do so straight away. God’s love for the son will be revealed in Jesus’s resurrection, and exaltation. So God was glorified in Christ by his death upon the cross in obedience to his Father’s will.
Christ’s love teaches us that obedience is always tied to Christian love. Jesus says in the next chapter, 14:15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” And John says in his epistle in 1John 2:4, “The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected.” So you see that love is manifested or glorified by obedience.
Empty praise, or words of affection for God is simply not enough. It is meaningless unless accompanied by deeds which manifest such love. And even God’s love for the Son is predicated upon the Son’s obedience. Hebrews 5:8 says that Jesus learned obedience from the things which He suffered. The late theologian John Murray said, “God has forged an inseparable link between sufferings and glory.” He went on to say “My life has the chisel of God upon it.” As we share in the fellowship of His sufferings, we are being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, and that glorifies God in Christ Jesus.
So then, the glory of God is revealed in the love of God which is manifested in the suffering of Jesus Christ. He laid down His life for the church. He was obedient even to the point of death. He laid aside His privileges in order to offer Himself as our substitute, for our benefit, so that we might be reconciled to God. He is our example of love. There is no better example, or more complete example of love than that of Christ Jesus. And from His example we learn that Christian love is sacrificial. It is humble. It is putting other’s needs first. It is obedient to God’s will. And that kind of selfless love was displayed most majestically in the glory of the cross.
Secondly, let’s look at love commanded. Or what we must do. First let’s notice the reason for the commandment. And that is because Jesus said He is going away. He is returning to the Father. And He says that they cannot come. They are going to have to stay here on earth and continue Christ’s ministry. They are going to build His church and be the shepherds of His church. So He gives them a new commandment, a mission statement for how they will carry on His ministry without Him. He has just finished giving them a new ordinance in the Lord’s Supper. And as was customary in the Passover meal celebration, the father would explain the meaning of each item of the meal, and at certain times would instigate questions for the children, so they might learn the meaning of the celebration. So it is in this meal with Christ, acting as the father administering the ordinance, He calls them His “little children.” He is instructing them in the significance of the New Covenant in His blood, which is symbolized in the Lord’s Supper.
So even as the Old Covenant was accompanied by commandments, so the New Covenant has a corresponding new commandment. And the new commandment is that they are to love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
Remember when Jesus was questioned about the law, and asked which was the greatest commandment? Jesus gave them two laws which encompassed all the Old Testament commandments. In Luke 10:27 Jesus answered, “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” All of the commandments of the law were fulfilled in those two.
So in a similar fashion, Jesus gives us just one commandment in the new covenant, and all the commandments are fulfilled in this one. Love one another. Notice, He says it twice. Love one another. That is the commandment. But then in an echo of what we just explained from the previous verses, He says love one another even as I have loved you. We love one another as Christ loved us. As Christ laid down His life for the church.
Ephesians 5:25 tells us we are to love our wives “as Christ loved the church and laid down his life for her.” That’s the standard for Christian love. Laying down your life is not simply being willing to die, but willing to lay aside your prerogatives in life, laying aside your career, laying aside your rights, laying aside your dreams of fulfillment for the sake of someone else. We love others because He first loved us. Like Christ; We love those who cannot reciprocate, we love those who are unlovely, we love even those that hate us, who treat us badly, even our enemies. Those are all manifestations of Christ’s love for us.
There are two attributes then of this love towards others that Christ commands us to do. First, you will love one another as Christ loved us, and second, you will be known by your love for one another. Since Jesus is going away, He will be manifested by our love for one another. He will be served by our love for one another. We must be to the church what Jesus was to the church. We carry on His work, His ministry. And so we do that by loving one another even as Christ loved us. That means we put other’s needs ahead of our own. That means we serve one another as Christ served us. That means we sacrifice our prerogatives for the sake of a brother or sister. Christian love is not sappy sentimentalism, but sacrificial. I like Vernon McGee’s quote, who said, “I’m tired of sloppy agape.” The world’s view of love, and unfortunately too often imitated by the church, is that of sloppy sentimentalism that masquerades as love.
But Paul gives the right perspective of love in 1Cor. 13:4, “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Compare that for a moment to John Lennon’s version from his song titled “Love”, which I would suggest is the world’s view of love. He sings, “Love is real, real is love, Love is feeling, feeling love, Love is wanting to be loved, Love is touch, touch is love, Love is reaching, reaching love, Love is asking to be loved.” Now that is sappy sentimentalism. If I were to draw a distinction between the world’s view of love described by Lennon, and that of Christian love described by Paul, I would say that Lennon’s love is characterized by getting, but Christian love is characterized by giving. The common or worldly view of love is all self directed. Love is how I feel, how it makes me feel, it’s all generated towards myself. Thus when it ceases to satisfy me I can so easily turn away from it and look elsewhere for satisfaction.
But even the mystics and the Greek philosopher’s agreed that the greatest end of man is to help others, and not just help oneself. It is what is known in Latin as the “summum bonum”, the highest good. To live for oneself is to descend to the depths of narcissism. And a narcissistic society is the ruin of any civilization. Unfortunately, you need look no further than the Facebook craze and the accompanying selfie fixation of modern society to recognize that we are on the downward slide of civilization as we know it.
But Christian love, agape love, is the characteristic of the saints, who are being made in the image of Jesus Christ. We are a new society, a new civilization, looking for a better and abiding country.And Jesus said as we exhibit that kind of love to one another, we will be known as His disciples. This kind of love exhibited towards one another, becomes a testimony to the world that we are transformed, we are different by design, that we are God’s children, and we are the image of Christ. Our sacrificial love becomes our testimony.
Then finally, let’s look at love rejected. Or what love is not. In vs.36 Simon Peter *said to Him, “Lord, where are You going?” Jesus answered, “Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.” Peter *said to Him, “Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You.” Jesus *answered, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.”
I’ve said before that I believe Peter loved the Lord. But I think his love for the Lord was a worldly type of love. I think it was a passionate, impulsive, emotionally based love. And so consequently we see Peter always acting rashly, without thinking. That kind of passion without the tempering of truth resulted in errors in judgement.
You can see evidences of that in this dialogue. Peter is impatient, he is impulsive. His love for Christ is passionate, but lacks temperament. He wants immediate gratification. He doesn’t want to wait for the Lord’s will. He wants to conform Christ to his own will. We saw that in Matthew 16, when Jesus declared that He was going to die, and Peter said, “O no, Lord. That will never happen.” And Jesus said, Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man’s.”
At the crux of Peter’s problems is his superficial love for Christ. When it comes time to count the cost of what it means to love Christ he fails the test. So it was that when the persecution came upon Christ that Peter’s passionate, but superficial love for Christ was exposed, causing Peter to desert Christ, and then coming back only to stay at a distance, and then to deny Him three times. The trial revealed the shallowness of Peter’s love for Christ. When it came time to count the cost, to lay down his life for his Lord, his faith turned to fear. His love went cold.
So it is with many Christians today. We say we love the Lord, we say we love His church, we say we love one another when the sun is shining and everything is going our way, when there is no price to pay. But when things turn nasty, when the hour belongs to the power of darkness, when we stand to lose something dear to us, then our love of self takes over. Christ takes a backseat, and we take over the steering wheel of our lives again. Our love for Christ is revealed in the difficulties and trials of life. Love is tempered in the fire of trials. And “God” said Spurgeon, “gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.” That is where love is tempered through selfless obedience in suffering.
That’s why when Christ sought Peter out after His resurrection, and He wanted to bring Peter back into usefulness after his denial of Christ, Jesus asked Him three times an achingly poignant question. “Peter, do you love Me?” “Peter, do you love Me?” “Peter, do you love Me?” And Peter is almost beside himself in agony that Jesus keeps asking him if he loves Him. But each time, Jesus answer is virtually the same. “If you love, then feed My sheep.” What was Jesus saying? “If you love Me, love My sheep.” That is what Peter needed to understand. And that’s what we need to understand. Love is obedience. Love is sacrificial. Love is humble. Love is suffering for the sake of others.
Love one another, even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. “Love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” That is our mission statement. That is our testimony. Let us lay aside our lives for one another even as Christ laid aside His throne for a cross.
I want to end by reading part of the letter from Paul to the church in Rome found in Romans 12, where he speaks of laying our lives down as our worship to God. Laying down our prerogatives, laying down our rights for the sake of Christian love. Listen to this admonition from Paul; this is the kind of love we need to have that the world might know we are Christ’s disciples.
“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and [e]acceptable and perfect.
3 For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. 4 For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6 Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; 7 if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; 8 or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; 11 not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; 12 rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, 13 contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. 16 Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. 17 Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. 19 Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
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