Take The Old And Make It New

Alba 6-23-2024

TAKE THE OLD AND MAKE IT NEW

I John 2:7-11

Last Sunday we looked at I John 2:3-6 and found three things that help us to answer the question, “Do You Know Jesus?” There we found that keeping His commands, exhibiting His love and walking like He walked are markers that will define how well we know Jesus.

Today, we will take a deeper dive into that one about love. Love is a theme of the apostle John. When he and his brother accompanied Jesus during His ministry on the earth, Jesus called them, “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17). But John mellowed over the years. John learned the importance of love and he encourages every Christian to realize that fact. Obviously being with Jesus made a big difference in his life. Spend time with Jesus and it will change anyone!

John not only writes about love, he practices it as well. Many times when he was speaking to the believers he used terms of endearment such as “Beloved” or “Dear little children.” John had great love for his spiritual family.

In I John 2:7 (our text for today) he writes: “Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning.” He is talking about love. So he is saying:

1. It's an Old Commandment: So Remember What You Have Heard. (vs. 7)

The command from God to love Him with all of our being is not a new command. Way back in Deuteronomy 6:5 the Lord gave the commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

And the command from God to love everyone is not a new command. The commandment to love others is also in the Old Testament. In Leviticus 19:18 God commands, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. These are the two commands that Jesus gave in response to the question, which is the greatest commandment? (Matthew 22:36)

Even non-Christians seem to be aware of the command to love your neighbor as your self. Wouldn't it be great if more people would remember this command and then act on it. Our current world situation shows little of the love that would solve many problems.

Countries go to war with their neighbors in an effort to increase their borders and power. And they do it by blowing up everything in that land, and don't care how many people are killed. It is one thing if you are defending your own land. It is another if you are the aggressor. As the old song goes, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.”

As Christians we have had the command to love from the beginning. We have heard it from the beginning. It shouldn't surprise us that we are called to love one another. We are called to take this old commandment and make it new in our lives. Because even though this command has been around a long time:

2. It's a New Commandment: Because of the Example in Jesus (vs. 8)

In verse eight John writes, “Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.”

At first it may sound like John is contradicting himself. He says that this is not a new command but an old one, but on the other hand it is a new command. What we are being told here is that, yes, the command to love is old. But the command is new when you see that love lived out in Jesus Christ. John says that it is “true in Him.” So when we look at Jesus, we will see this command in a new way.

In fact in the Gospel of John 13:34 Jesus told the apostles: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” The newness is not in the command, but in the carrying out of the command. Love is the willingness to die to self for the benefit of another.

Jesus shed light on the old command to love one another by His demonstration of love... in His life, and on the cross. No one had ever seen God’s love demonstrated in such an incredible, sacrificial, and wonderful way before Jesus Christ went to the cross.

He did that for you and for me. Romans 5:7-8 tells us, “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He went to the cross to pay the penalty for your sins and mine.