Love One Another
John 13: 34-35
34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
Let’s go to the Lord in Prayer!
Yesterday when I probably should have been working on some things around the house or perhaps I should have been working on my sermon and the bulletins I done neither. I spent the day with my grandson James.
We took the garbage out to the road, and then we went for a walk down the road. When we came back I sat and rested while he road his bike for a while then we went out in the pasture, as we call it, and filled up my deer feeder. After that we walked around in the pasture for about 45 minutes. When we came back to the house he road his bike for a while and I cleaned out my truck between bouts of working on his bicycle for him. And then we went in the house and I watched him play computer games for about two hours. Then because Donna wasn’t feeling too good I took him home.
My point is that I maybe should have done some other things but instead I, in some people’s eyes, just wasted the whole day. But that would not be true because I spent the whole day showing James that I Loved him and wanted to do things with him and be a part of his life!
This was Jesus’ new command to the disciples and to all of us that we love one another. This may come as a surprise to you but this is truly a new command for nowhere in the bible, in the old or new testaments, prior to this does it tell us to love one another!
It tells us to love our enemies and to love our neighbors but it doesn’t tell us to love one another. And you may ask yourself why this is so important?
It was important enough for Jesus to tell it to his disciples on the night that he was to be betrayed by one of his closest friends and disciple.
He goes on to give us one very important reason for this in the very next verse. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
All men shall know that you are Christians by this one act of loving one another.
But notice in verse 34 what he says about this love. That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
Look right in the middle of that sentence and see Jesus say as I have loved you. As I have Loved you! How had Jesus Loved us or his disciples?
For an answer to that question look at verses 3-15 of this chapter.
3 Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God;
4 He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself.
5 After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.
6 Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet?
7 Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.
8 Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.
9 Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
10 Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all.
11 For he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean.
12 So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you?
13 Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.
14 If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.
15 For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.
So Jesus has given us an example of what we should do. Do you realize what this example truly meant? In Israel at that time just about everybody walked where ever they went. The roads were covered in dust and mud and animal dung, and all of this was caked to the traveler’s feet and they were filthy. So filthy in fact that the task of washing ones feet was usually given to the lowliest servants. And yet we find Jesus washing the disciple’s feet and almost immediately afterwards he is telling them that he has given them an example and then telling them to love one another as he has loved them!
The 13th chapter of First Corinthians is known today as the Love Chapter because in the New International Version of the bible it talks of love. Let’s look at what it tells us Love does in verses 4-8.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
And even though these verses shows us what love is or does I think some of the greatest Verses about Love and without a doubt The Greatest Example of what Love Does is told in the last few chapters in each of the four gospels but is stated plainly in First John 4 verses 8-12.
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
You see I am talking about the fact that JESUS took all of our sins upon the cross with him and died for us and rose again that we might all receive his grace and mercy. This is what Jesus meant when he said as I have loved you! As a matter of fact a little further over in John in chapter 15 verses 12, and 13 we find JESUS again talking about the new commandment. Look at those verses with me.
12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends
Greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for his friends and this is just what JESUS done! But I am sure you are asking yourself where does that affect our church today? Well I am going to try to give you some answers and see where it takes us.
First let me tell you about a survey of 8,600 people from congregations in 39 different denominations that measured their `love quotient’. The conclusion was that growing churches are more loving to each other and to visitors than declining churches. Loving churches attract more people regardless of their theology, denomination or location. So if we as a church are more loving then we are more likely to be a growing, vibrant church that is reaching sinners or the lost for Christ.
It is so hard for us as humans to love as God has loved us. He showed us what is called as Agape Love. Perfect Love. A love without flaw. Pure and never ending.
Jesus is our perfect example of unconditional love! Everything that he did in both life and death, demonstrated Agape love. When he took the spear in the side, love. When they placed that crown of thorns on his head, love. When they beat him and spat upon him, love. You see, he did not have to allow this, he could have simply called out, and an army of angels would have came to his defense! But he didn’t! He loved us. We as “Christians” need to be more Christ like. To show this love! But it is co very hard to do this. How do we do this?
I am guilty, as are most people of not sharing this unconditional love with others. Oh sure, we can love those that we know and have become used to. To those that are of like thinking and status as ourselves. But what about the others? What about the murderer and rapist on death row? What about the mother that leaves her 4 year old child in the car while she prostitutes for drug money? What about the man who strikes his wife out of anger? What about those Terrorists that took the lives of over 5000 people on September 11th? Would Jesus love these people just as much as us, his people? I think that we all know the answer. He most definitely would!!! He came to save the wretched and the poor. The sinners!! You see, all sin is the same in the eyes of God. He loves you no more or less than those people.
First John 3: 23 says “And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.”
You see as Paul understood our task, our mission, our goal in life should be simply to show or tell others about Jesus Christ and how he died on the cross for our sins and then rose again on the third day that we might all live in him! But Paul also understood that the easiest way to do that was to Love the sinners just as JESUS did.
Do you think Paul and Silas would have stayed in the dungeon after the earthquake and witnessed to the jailer who had been instrumental in their beating or flogging if they didn’t love him as JESUS would. And by doing so the jailer and his whole family were saved!
Listen to a story about LOVE that is like that of JESUS.
On the morning of September 11, Jeannie Braca switched on the television to check the weather report, only to hear that a plane had just hit the World Trade Center. Jeannie’s husband, Al, worked as a corporate bond trader for Cantor Fitzgerald. His office was on the 105th floor of Tower One.
Al had survived the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and had even helped a woman with asthma escape from the building. Jeannie knew that Al would do the same thing this time, “I knew he would stop to help and minister to people,” she said, “but I never thought for a minute that he wouldn’t be coming home!”
A week later, like so many others who were in that building, Al’s body was found in the rubble. Al’s wife, Jeannie, and his son Christopher were devastated! Then the reports began to trickle in from friends and acquaintances. Some people on the 105th floor had made a last call or sent a final e-mail to loved ones saying that a man was leading people in prayer. A few referred to Al by name. Al’s family learned that Al had indeed been ministering to people during the attack!
When Al realized that they were all trapped in the building and would not be able to escape, Al shared the gospel with a group of 50 co-workers and led them in prayer. This news came as no surprise to Al’s wife, Jeannie. For years, she and Al had been praying for the salvation of these men and women. According to Jeannie, Al hated his job and couldn’t stand the environment. It was a world so out of touch with his Christian values, but he wouldn’t quit. Al was convinced that God wanted him to stay there, to be a light in the darkness, and although Al would not have put it this way, to be a hero! Al was not ashamed of Christ and Christ’s words…and he paid the price of taking up his cross daily. Al shared his faith with his co-workers….many of whom sarcastically nicknamed him “The Rev.”
And on that fateful day…on September 11, in the midst of the chaos, Al’s co-workers looked to him—-and Al delivered! At the same time, Al too tried to get a phone call through to his family. He asked an MCI operator to contact his family. “Tell them that I love them,” he said. It took the operator more than a month to reach the Bracas, but the message brought them much-needed comfort.
“The last thing my dad did involved the two things most important to him—God and his family,” his son Christopher told a writer for Focus on The Family.
“He loved to lead people to Christ. That takes away a lot of the hurt and the pain.”
You know I can think of no better epitaph to appear upon a tombstone than that. “He Loved To Lead People To Christ”
How about you what will they someday put on your tombstone?
I know what I would like on mine.
“He Loved just as his LORD and SAVIOR did and now like his saviors tomb his is empty as he went home to his FATHER and BROTHER! Well done thou good and faithful servant enter into the rest of the LORD!
Join me in Prayer!
