Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through John 13:34-35, where Jesus commands His disciples to love one another as He has loved them. He emphasizes that this love is not merely an action but a self-sacrificial commitment that reflects Christ's own love. The practical application is that believers are called to demonstrate this love in their relationships, especially during difficult times, as a testament to their faith and unity in Christ.
Housekeeping and Introduction
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms. Great job, young people. Appreciate you leading in service today.
By you leading, it means I didn't have to lead, which was a blessing. And I appreciate that.
If you have your Bibles this morning, we'll be in John chapter 13. John chapter 13 is where we'll be at.
And like they said, if you have a young person that wants to go to Children's Church, that is there for you at this time. And I want to thank you for being here. I know with everything going on, it's a choice to be here.
And I'm thankful that you made that choice this morning to be in the Lord's house. And so we are starting a new series. We're going to be in this for several weeks.
We're going to start this morning, John 13. And then over the next couple of weeks, we're going to transition to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. And we're going to be looking at what is love and what that looks like. And so hopefully you will join us for that.
I do want to mention, I don't know if they mentioned I was back changing today. We'll still have the funeral for Bill Walker.
And that will be visitation at 2 and the service at 3 right here at the church. And so if you can be here for that, I know the family would appreciate it. But let's stand.
We're going to read just two verses this morning. Jesus' command here to his disciples on what his disciples were going to look like when he leaves this world. He starts out by saying in verse 34, A new command I give you,
love one another as I has loved you. So you must love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.
Lord, we love you. We thank you for what you've done. I know in this time of heartache, in this time of grieving, in this time of struggle where we weren't really expecting what we had got this last week and this weekend,
we know that you're sovereign over all. We know you're in control of everything. And we pray, God, that your will be done. We know that this is done for a reason.
Lord, and we know that we have the opportunity to shine bright for you, brighter than we ever have. I bend your hands and feet. Lord, we love you. We thank you for what you've done. In your name we pray. Amen. As we think through, someone stole my bottle of water up here.
Definitions of Love
As we think through, it fell. Okay. As we think through love, this morning, I did just a couple of definitions for us because I think it's important for us to know these different things. The world's view of love is this. Love is love.
It's a feeling that comes and goes with the wind. Whatever you think in your mind and in your heart is right and true. We said this a couple of weeks ago in our Sunday school lesson.
We were talking about love and what this looks like in the world. And I made the statement,
Oprah has said that you do whatever you want to do. You do you. And that's what the world has come to view love as, is whatever you feel is true, whatever you feel is right. If you think that the sky is green, then your truth is truth.
And if you think the sky is purple, then that is true and no one can tell you otherwise.
But I believe that the definition of love that we get from the Bible is this, a caring commitment in which affection and delight are shown to others, which is grounded in the nature of God himself.
In his words and actions and supremely in the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, God demonstrated the nature of love and defines the direction in which humans love in all of its forms and should be developed. When we think of love, our mind should go to Jesus.
Our mind should go to what Jesus has done for us on the cross. And the Bible says in 1 John, we love because he first loved.
We don't love in and of ourselves. We love because Christ has loved us and shown his son to die for us on the cross. And because of that, and because of Christ showing his love for us, then we get to go out and be the hands and feet of Jesus everywhere we go.
Piper said it like this, and I want to read this paragraph. It says this, love is this. At a great expense, you made yourself my glory and my boast. The cost was infinite by which you made yourself the treasure of my life. You sent your son,
the blazing center of your beauty and your love. You gave him the mockers, betrayal, thorns, the whip, the rod, the fists, the nails, the shame, and death. For what?
To swallow up your wrath, to satisfy your righteousness, and to bury all of my sins as far as the east is from the west. In the deepest sea, so that I might come home and see the glory of what you have created.
This is your love of God, not to make much of me, but to do whatever must be done, so that I awaken the joy of making much of you all throughout eternity.
This is the summation of love of Christ coming and bearing our sins upon himself. This morning in the back, I was talking with Roy about their trip to Niagara,
and the wonderful time they had, and the amount of walking, and how they had to sit out a couple of times about some things.
And it brought me back, and I said, Roy, I can remember when I was in Israel just a couple of months ago, back last year, two years ago, when I was there. And I said, the hardest day for us that day was when we started on the top of the Mount of Olives.
And the top of the Mount of Olives, we saw down, we saw all of Jerusalem, we saw where Jesus was going to come in, we saw the eastern gate, and I said, that day we walked down to where
Jesus had made that proclamation, where he cried over the city.
And then we went down to the garden, and we prayed at the garden, and then we crossed over where Jesus would have walked in a week earlier of the crucifixion, where the donkey would have been, he would have
rode in on the donkey there with the palm leaves there in the middle of the city, and then we made our way up the hill. I said, it was a long day, it was eight or nine miles of walking, and we walked up to where the Via Dolorosa's at,
where Jesus was beaten, where he was tied to the stone, where the cat of nine tails was taken out and he was beat, where he was punched in the face, where he would have been mocked as he walked through the city,
of all the people that he was going to give his life for.
And I was telling Roy that, he started tearing up, and I started tearing up, and we just got to thinking about what Jesus did for us, and in that moment, I'm reminded again that he did all of that for me and for you.
He didn't do it so that he could be lifted high, so that he could stand back and say, look what I did for humanity. He said, I did this to reunite a relationship with human beings, so that we can worship with him.
And Jesus is telling his disciples here, I'm about to leave you.
I'm about to be gone, and I'm giving you something to now transport into your life.
And he says, while I'm away, this is how you're going to carry on my work, by loving one another. I want you to imagine it's like this. You're as a parent, you're about to go on vacation, or you're about to go somewhere.
Maybe you're going to go out to eat if you have young kids, and you maybe got a sitter coming over. Maybe your child's old enough to watch the kids, and you say, hey, I'm going to be gone. I need you to be good.
I need you to listen. I need you not to get in trouble with you and your sister, or you and your brother, and I need you to get along with one another until I come back. And we all know as having kids, or maybe a kid yourself,
you didn't quite listen to your parents. Right? You disobey, you got in trouble,
you picked on your brother or your sister that you wasn't supposed to. I'm one of five, so this was a daily occurrence for us. And parents come back, and they're a little disappointed.
But Jesus is saying here, I'm going to go away, and while I'm gone, this is what I need you to do.
The Command to Love One Another
Love one another until I come back. And so three things here that we're going to look at from this passage. The first is the very first part of the command here. A new command I give you to love one another. We have a charge given to us.
In what sense the question should be asked, is this a new commandment? And how is this even a new command? He says a new command. But we see in Leviticus chapter 19, verse 18, I think I have this passage on the screen here. Do I have that there, guys? Leviticus 19, 18?
I may not, but it says a command that we give to one another in Leviticus 19, 18. I'm going to turn to it, because I've got it written down. Normally I have all these down in me because my fingers don't like to work. 19, 18.
It says, Do not take revenge or bear grudge against another, but love your neighbor as yourself, for I am the Lord your God. And so Jesus is not giving us a new command. He's repeating what was already been said and what was already done.
In Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 5, this is what we call the Shemach. And they would quote this every day of their life in Deuteronomy. They would say,
as we turn to this passage as well, you may write this down, Deuteronomy 6, verse 5. The Israelites would get up in the morning and they would say this, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.
And these are the words that I'm giving you today that it should be in your heart. So Jesus is not giving us something that we haven't even heard before.
These Jewish people would have got up every morning and they would have started out by saying, Today I'm going to love the Lord with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength. And everything I'm going to do, I'm going to do for the Lord.
And so when Jesus says, I give you a new command, Love one another, at first I think they would be scratching their head. And saying, Jesus, how is this something new? Well, we know this.
Our parents taught us this. Our rabbi in the synagogue has taught us this. How are you giving us something new? And Jesus is laying the foundational work of the new example that he's going to give.
You see, before this, love would have just simply been an action of serving or doing something for someone. And Jesus says, I am creating a new standard,
a new community of brotherly love. Not merely by being yourself, but by doing what Jesus has done. The new measure is this, self-sacrifice.
The self-sacrifice of active love, of being patient, of being sympathetic, of being practical toward one another. Not simply toward our friends.
Because as the Jewish people would have read this, they would have read, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. Well, they would have said, my neighbor is my Jewish neighbor. And of course I'm going to love them.
But Jesus is saying, no, we're going to break down the bonds of Jew and Gentile. And I want you to love everyone. And this was a radical new statement that they would not have liked.
They would not have done because this was something that was out of the ordinary for them.
And so we have to ask ourselves, what is the charge and how is this charge to us in a way that we can serve those that are around us by showing the love of Jesus in everything that we
do? I wrote down just a couple of illustrations to help this point out a little bit. And we're going to be looking through the charge over the next couple of weeks. The first one is this, when you're wronged.
It's often the hardest to love someone when someone has done wrong to you. And the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6, verses 6 through 8, instead, brother, when he goes to court against another brother, it is before unbelievers.
As it is, to have legal disputes among you, one another is already a defeat of you. Why would you rather, why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?
In verse 8, instead, you yourselves do wrong and cheat and you do this to your brothers and sisters. You see, we go through life and because we're fallen humans and we've sinned and we've done wrong, we're going to wrong others.
And others are going to wrong us and we're going to ask this question of why are these things happening to me? This past week, this past weekend,
we're talking through with our family. We still have yet to have got power back. We probably won't get power in our house until Wednesday and so we're living, little house on the prairie style, hanging our clothes up outside,
taking cold showers. It's great. We're roughing it a little bit. We've got some battery backup and we're doing good. But the kids will begin to say something and maybe they'll start complaining about,
well, why don't we have this or why isn't this on? And I'll look at them and I'll say, you know, I'm sure the kid up in Asheville or in Ashe County is saying, why don't I have a home right now? Why don't I have running water?
Why don't I have even fresh water to drink out of a water bottle? And it brings that perspective back to where we're at. It brings that back and it brings us into the statement of saying, when you've done wrong, you've probably wronged someone else.
You've probably done something to someone else that you shouldn't have done. And when Jesus gives this charge, he says, when you've been wronged, love your brother. And when other people have wronged you,
just as I am about to go to the cross and be beaten for your sake, I'm going to love those people. And Jesus was giving something radically different in this statement of how we should love one another.
The second thing he says that I pointed out was in James chapter four of when we're being selfish or when selfish.
When selfishness happens, when selfishness comes in our life, this is a time where we can serve others.
Look at what James says in James chapter four, verses one through three. What is the source of wars and fights among you? Do they not come from the passions that wage wars within you? You desire to have and you do not have.
You murder and covet because you cannot obtain. You fight and wage war and you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and you don't receive because you ask with the wrong motives so that you may be spend it on your own pleasures.
Every time I read through the book of James, it's one of my favorite books. I don't know why it's one of my favorite books. But every time I read through the book of James when I get to this chapter, it is such a convicting chapter because I read through it and I say,
you're asking with the wrong motives, James.
You're not going to get this because you're spending it on yourself. You're only doing this to buff yourself up because we are selfish people.
As hard as that is to say, as hard as that is to proclaim this morning, myself, front of the line, will stand up here and say, we are selfish people
and we want what we want because it's going to help me and no one else. And Jesus is saying here when we have this command of loving one another, selfishness must be taken out of the equation.
We must take selfishness and we must remove it and say, what can I do for the people that are around me? What can I do for the people that are suffering around me?
What can I do for the people that are hurting around me? What can I do for the people that I can just simply show the love of Jesus to that are around me?
Because when selfishness is in the picture, the love of God is removed from the picture. And we must take away ourself and put Christ in the center of everything we do. We must put Christ in the center of our actions, our motives, everywhere we go, everything we say,
everything we do must be about Christ and Christ alone. But also here, the third thing I looked at was in Galatians chapter 5.
When fulfilling the desires of the flesh, we have a charge given to us when we fulfill the desires of the flesh. In Galatians 3, I wrote these passages down for you so you can look at them at a later date, but I'll read them as well. For you were called to be free,
brothers and sisters. But don't use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but use this freedom to serve one another through love.
Consequences of Not Loving
For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement. And then he begins to repeat Jesus. Love your neighbor as yourself.
But if you bite and devour one another, watch out or you will be consumed by another.
See, church, when we begin to love one another and we get rid of the desires of the flesh, when we begin to get rid of the desires of our own self, as we looked at last week in our
Sunday school of removing self from the equation and putting Christ in the middle of that equation, when we run from our fleshly desires and we desire Christ and His will, that is when Christ is ultimately lifted high and people begin to ask the question, why are you loving me?
Why are you doing this? You don't have power, you don't have water, but yet you're coming and you're giving of things that you have in order to serve someone else.
And ultimately, this is so that Christ can be lifted high because Christ says, love one another. I often think,
if I were to give a final statement to my kids and I knew that I was about to die, I knew that my final minute was coming up on life, what would be my final statements to my kids? Jesus knew that His final statements were happening.
He knew that He was about to go to the cross. He knew that He was about to suffer the pain and agony and anguish that was going to happen on the cross. And He says,
this is going to be my final talk to you. He didn't say that to them, but He says that looking back that this was His final talk. And His final talk, He begins by saying,
a new command I give to you. Disciples, you're going to go through some things that are going to be hard, that are going to be difficult.
You're not going to see the end of it. You're going to think that this whole life was in vanity.
You're going to think back to Ecclesiastes of Song of Solomon where He says, the days of days are vanity of vanities and there's nothing here for me and I need you to remember this, love one another when those things happen. Don't be stuck in those selfish mindsets.
Don't be stuck in the desires of your flesh, but put your life in the position where I'm telling you to be at and to love one another even when things are going hard. Because then in the last part of verse 34, He clarifies His mission. He says, as I have loved you,
so you must love one another. You see, He gives this massive clarification of how we are to love. When Jesus is no longer with us, we must love the people who remain.
And this is what He's saying to His disciples. He's saying, listen, I'm about to be gone
and now you're going to have to step up and begin to do what I've been doing. You're going to have to step up and begin to be my hands and feet.
You're going to have to step up and begin to do the things that I've not done. And in 1 John 4, verse 20 and 21, He says this, if anyone says I love God and hates his brother and sister, he is a liar.
For the person who does not have love for his brother or sister whom he has seen
and cannot see the love of God and whom he has not seen. And we have this command from Him. The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.
You see, Jesus is giving this new command because He's going to define this command with His reason of love.
Christ's Example of Love
He's going to define this reason of love by His own sacrifice.
People will often ask me, they'll say, Pastor James, in giving, oftentimes we think of giving, right? We think of money and monetary gifts. The beautiful thing about the New Testament is there's no specific amount that we should give. Jesus gets up and He says, if you're going to love me, give everything.
See, we like 10%. I like getting up and saying 10%, 10%, but Jesus says sacrifice is 100%. He didn't go 10% to the cross.
He went all the way to the cross. And if we're going to love and we're going to give, we must give as Christ gave and we must live as Christ lived and it is 100% for Christ,
on Christ, every day of our life. When we are called to love upon others, it is first based on forgiveness and it is first based on the cross.
It is what Christ has done for us and how we will love one another. And when we begin to understand this love, it will change the fabric of your being because you will no longer love yourself, but you will be loving Christ. You see, when we're distracted in life, love is taken away.
But when we remove the distractions from life and we focus on Christ, that is when our mission is brought to full life. To live as Christ lived, to love as Christ loved, and to be the hands and feet of Jesus.
You're going to hear me say that probably 100 more times. To be the hands and feet of Jesus in this world.
Jesus is giving us a new nature by which we can live, by which we can love. The new nature is the law that's written on every single heart of every single believer when we come to know Jesus Christ.
Before we have that moment of baptism that we just saw, the Holy Spirit indwells us, the Holy Spirit writes a new love on our life that we should love one another by sacrificing, by loving, by being there for them. And the first way we see this in this verse is a sustaining love.
Jesus makes the statement, love one another as I have loved you. And the question we have to ask ourselves when we ask ourselves the sustained love is, when will Christ's love end? It never will. Christ's love will never end. Christ's love is endless. It is forever. There is no beginning, there is no end to Christ's love.
And when Christ says, as I have loved you, so love one another, if Christ's love never ends, then our love for one another should never end either. As he was speaking to his disciples and as the young person came to him and said,
Jesus, master, teacher, how often should I forgive my brother? And we've seen this on church before. He says, if a brother wrongs you, the law says forgive them seven times. But I'm telling you, forgive them 70 times seven every day.
490 times and what he's saying here is, forgive them until you can't count anymore. When you lose track of how many times to forgive someone, continue to forgive someone. Continue to love them. Continue to show them love. Because that's what Christ has called us to do.
Verse 1 of chapter 13, I want to read it real quick. It says this, before the Passover feast, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world to the Father. And having loved his own who were in this world, he loved them to the end.
Look, Jesus, in this statement here, is saying, I'm coming to the end of my life.
I know that I'm coming to the end of my life and I'm going to love them to the end of my life. No matter what happens, I'm going to continue to love.
No matter what circumstances come upon my life, I'm going to continue to love. I'm going to continue to love because that is the nature of Christ. Love is to love to the very end.
That is a sustaining love that we don't have in our flesh. That's why we have to get rid of the desires of the flesh, as I just talked about, because the desires of the flesh are this, you hurt me, I'm going to hurt you back. You did wrong to me,
watch out, buddy. I'm coming after you. And Jesus says, someone wrongs you, love them to the end. Someone takes something from you,
love them to the end. Me and my wife, we like watching crime shows and documentaries and critical thinking shows where she's doing forensics right now in school and one of her electives, and so we've been watching some different crime shows, and oftentimes, I'll
watch an SVU or some type of show and you'll see a mom or a dad whose child was taken from them. And they're grieving and they're hurting and the culprit is brought to justice and they're standing before the judge and the judge issues that proclamation of life sentence in jail.
And that mom, it blows my mind, will stand up every once in a while and she'll walk over and she'll give that murderer a hug. And it blows my mind that someone can love someone like that who has taken their very flesh and blood from them and they'll say,
I'm sorry, but I love you. When I see those moments that happen in real life, I often wonder, is my love from Christ that strong?
Is the love that Christ has given to me that I am to show other people, am I able to show them the love and to the end no matter what?
And oftentimes I think, back to James chapter 4, I'm selfish.
I've got those own wrong motives. I'm going to spend it on my own pleasures. And we have to ask ourselves, are we showing the same love that Christ showed to us when he said, I know that you're going to betray me. I know that you're going to deny me
before your friends in school. I know that you're going to curse my name. I know that you're going to forsake everything and go fishing on a boat and I'm going to have to come find you. But my love is still there for you.
There's a sustaining love, but Jesus then goes on to say there's a sacrificial love. He says, I have loved you so you, he doesn't give a question mark. He doesn't give a if you want to. He says, so you must love one another.
It is a command from Christ from on high that says, if I'm going to love you and you're going to say that you're part of me, then you must love one another. There is not a question mark here.
There is not a statement of maybe if you want to. It is only because I love you, you're going to love others. And it is a command from Christ on high.
He clarifies in a super clarification manner that we are going to love because of this reason.
John 13, if you look back just a couple of verses, verses 14 and 15, it says, so if I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, so you ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you also to do just as I have done for you.
And I think I made a mistake in your notes there.
The first one is John 3, 14 and 15. The next one is 1 John 3, 16. But I want you to understand this. He is saying this. I am washing the feet of the people who are going to betray me. Judas was sitting at the table.
Judas was sitting there before all this happened. Judas had already paid the price and had already declared in his heart that he was going to betray Jesus. And I imagine Jesus coming around taking off his outer garment, getting down on his hands and feet and saying, Judas, I'm going to wash your feet real quick. Judas, I love you.
Judas, you're going to betray me with a kiss in a couple of hours. But I love you. I imagine next he sat down beside Peter's feet and said, Peter, I love you. And Peter looked back and said, Jesus, you can't wash my feet.
Jesus said, if I don't wash your feet, you won't have an inheritance of the kingdom. And he said, then wash my whole body, Jesus.
I want to do everything. I'm not going to deny you. I'm not going to run from you. And he said, no, no, no, just washing your feet is all I have to do. Peter, I love you.
Peter, there's going to be a time when it's going to be really hard for you to love me back. But I still love you.
I imagine him, he's going through every disciple and he's doing this to every single one of them. He goes to John, the disciple he loves, and he says, John, I love you. And John looks at him and says, oh, Jesus, I love you too. I'm the disciple that you love, right?
I'm the beloved disciple. He said, there's going to be times where you're not going to love me.
I imagine John going, no, Jesus, come on, man. Bro, come on. I'm going to love you to the end. You just said that. And Jesus said, there's going to be a time when you don't. But just know that I want you to love others because I've loved you.
And in those moments after that where all the disciples left and John probably remembered this moment and he said, I've got to go back to Jesus. And he's the only one standing in the crowd.
He's standing beside Mary and he's watching his teacher be crucified and Jesus looks up and he sees one disciple left of the 12 that he spent last three years with. And he said, I'm sacrificing for all of them, but John, love my mom.
John, take care of my mom in this moment. You see, because in this moment of foot washing, the actions of Christ were saying, I'm going to the cross and I'm going to sacrifice for every single person in this room, the best one of them and the worst one of them.
And we can look at all those disciples and we can say, I'm the doubting Thomas. I'm the betrayal of Peter. I'm the one who betrayed Jesus as Judas.
I'm the one you can put yourself in that picture. And Jesus said, I washed all of their feet.
I sacrificed for all of them just as I'm going to sacrifice for you. And in first John 3 16, it says this, and this is how we have come to know love. There is one way that we know love that he laid down his life for us,
that we should also lay down our lives for our brothers and our sisters.
This sacrificial love is not just the love that Jesus has shown to us, but it's the love that we show to everyone else, everywhere else.
It is the greatest command that has been given from Christ and it's the command that he charged us to give.
But then we begin to see the consequences of if we don't do this. The consequences of not loving this way.
He said this, by everyone will know that you're my disciples if you love one another. John 15 verse 18 and 20 says it like this,
this is the same passage, the same setting where Jesus is teaching his disciples, nothing has changed, they're still in the upper room and he makes this statement, if the world hates you, understand they hated me first. And if you were of the world, the world would love you as its own.
However, because you're not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. And remember the word I spoke unto you, a servant is no greater than his master, and if they persecuted me, they will persecute you. But then these blessed passage of scripture, scripture,
but if you keep my word, they will also keep you.
This new command, this new covenant that he's given the disciples was a new brotherhood and a new relationship among men that no one was going to see any other time in history or any other time since then of
the Christian church and the Christian brotherhood of brothers and sisters that stand there for one another and love one another.
But you say, Pastor James, there's a consequence here. What is the consequence? The consequence is simply this, the evidence of our salvation. He says, everyone will know you're my disciple if you love one another.
The opposite of that statement, the negative of that statement, everyone's going to know that you're not my disciple if you don't love one another.
So what's the definition of a disciple? What's the definition of someone who loves Christ? Someone who has the evidence of Christ, which is the love of Christ, that loves when people wrong them, that loves when they're trying to be selfish,
that loves when the desires of the flesh come up, that loves when things aren't going the way they want them to go, we're still showing love. And we look at our life and we examine our life and we say, is that the definition that's in my life?
If I were put in Christ's moment, if I, let's just take, let's take Christ just one step away, if I were put in Paul's life, where Paul was shipwrecked,
we don't have a lot of love, but we have faith in Christ and our love begins to grow.
We have faith in what Christ has done for us, our love begins to grow. And no matter what happens in our life, no matter what situations come in our life, our love for Christ is greater and so our love for others is greater because Christ says, my love was the greatest expense ever
given for the glory of God. And we must ask ourselves, what is the greatest treasure of your life? Would you be willing to give that up for a murderer?
God looked down upon heaven and said, the greatest treasure of heaven is Christ and I'm going to sacrifice Christ for Barabbas.
I'm going to sacrifice Christ for me. I'm going to sacrifice Christ for the entire world and the sin of the world to be placed upon him for the redemption of mankind if they believe. Is that the same love that we have? Because Jesus says that the greatest command is loving one another.
As Terry comes and plays and we begin to wrap up, the disciples responsibility was to love one another. Just as Christ had loved them, they would certainly need this love in the hours to follow. Their master would be taken from them. Their spokesperson, Peter, would fail them.
He would run away. He would be gone. The chairman of the deacons, you can put it like this, would abandon his faith and run away. And in fact, all of them would fail. And the only thing that would bring them back together was the love of Christ and their love for one another.
The word love is used 12 times in John 1 through 12.
The first half of the book of John is 12 times. From John 13 to John 21,
the second half of the book, when Jesus gives his farewell sermon to his disciples, the word love is used 44 times. 44 times Jesus says love, love, love. love. In his high priestly prayer in John 17, 26,
the word love is used over and over and over again. Why is it? Because Jesus knew in his death we would need more love than in his moment when he was here with us.
The Call to Humble Service
And in his departure, when he's not going to be here, the hardest thing for us to do is to love one another. Why? Because I'm going to go back to us being selfish. selfish.
The word new does not mean new as we think of it. It means new in this time because love has been the importance to God's people from the Old Testament. It means a new in experience of freshness.
It's the opposite of worn out. It's not a worn out love. It's a new love. It's a fresh love. It's a love that would take on a new meaning and a new power because of the death of Christ on the cross. And when coming through the Holy Spirit,
love would be the new power that we have in our lives to love one another. As I said earlier, this section begins and ends with love.
It begins by saying, having loved this world, he loved them to the end. And then it ends by saying, we must love one another.
One of the first Christian writers that we can come to, his name is Tertullian. He wrote this about the first generation Christians. Christians. The very first church,
he was there, he got to witness it, and he wrote down some historical facts about it.
And I think, church, if we're going to be a church that is going to do something for Christ, we have to get back to what the first church was doing as close as we can get to them. And this is what he wrote. He said, I see how they love one another.
I see how they have an evidence of love that I don't have. By doing what Jesus did, they laid down their lives for one another.
They laid down their lives for the brethren. And this way to start is by getting down and washing one another's feet in a sacrificial service.
He said, they just didn't do that. They lived that. They just didn't say, yeah, Jesus washed my feet. Look how good I am. Yeah, Jesus washed my feet.
I'm pretty, I'm a pretty big deal. Did he wash your feet? Nah, he washed my feet. No, they said, I wasn't even worthy of Jesus to wash my feet. How can I serve you? I'm nothing.
I'm nobody. What can I do for you? And as Paul writes in Romans 12, 16, he says, live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud. Instead, associate with the humble.
Do not be wise in your own estimation. Paul, the greatest theologian that our church has ever seen, says, do not be proud. The person that could be proud, who God used to write half of the New Testament,
Closing Thoughts and Response
said, don't be proud. Be humble. Love one another. Live in harmony with one another. Because unity always wins.
And unity in the church is where it must begin. And if we can't be unified in this building, this little square building here, how can we be unified in the world? How can we go out into the world and love them if we can't be loved here in this building?
Church, this morning, the greatest command that Christ gave was to love one another and love the world as he loved us. Sacrificially.
We're going to deep dive into this study of love because I think it's such a vital thing that we need to be looking at in this day and age. I had planned to preach this
topic of love months ago before there was ever a hurricane on the path, before I could ever look at a calendar and say, when's the hurricane's going to come?
And I think that's God's providence of saying we need this moment in this time to redefine who we are, to redefine what we do, because sometimes we get things out of line. So let's stand and you respond as you see fit as Terry plays. Lord, we love you. Lord, we, as I read,
we love because you first loved us. It's nothing that we've done, it's nothing that we've said, it's nothing that we've heard, but it's all because of what you've done. And that's why we love.
I pray, God, that you would be with us this morning. Lord, again, be with those who were without a church home this morning. Churches wiped out, pastors, houses wiped out. Communities completely destroyed, so close to home.
Lord, help us to be your hands and feet of Christ. It's in your name we pray. Amen.
Thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio of Pleasant Grove. Please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week.
Auto-generated transcript · 7,336 words. May contain errors. Select a timestamp to play from that moment.
More from What is Love? Love is not...
View all
What is Love? The Preeminence Of Love - Week 10
What is Love? the Permanence of Love - Week 9
What is Love? Love In All Things - Week 8
What is Love? Love is not... - Week 7
What is Love? Love is not... - Week 6
What is Love? Love is not... - Week 5
Listen to this sermon