All right. Okay. All right.
Let’s have another word of prayer.
Lord, what a joy it is to even be on the fringes of Your great work. When we hear of Your faithfulness to Seth and, Lord, just the mighty way You do work, You care, You love each one of us, it brings worship to our hearts. We bless You, and we’re thankful for the privilege we have to even be standing with them during this time.
We want to stand and see the mighty salvation of our God and to hear of the glorious work that You’re going to do, all for Your honor and Your praise.
And Lord, we’re thankful we can continue in Your presence. We’re thankful You have not left us alone. You care about each one of us. You desire that we would break this bread of life, of Your Word, and truly feed upon it, to be nourished and strengthened for the days that we’re living in.
We’re thankful, Lord, for the anointing and enabling of Your Holy Spirit, to take what is written on a piece of paper and translate it in a way that brings life to our very being and transforms us.
Lord, we worship You. How blessed we are, such great recipients of the grace and love of God. We want to continue now in Your presence, opening the ears and the eyes of our hearts to behold You in a fresh way.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
As we started last week, what the Lord has put upon my heart is this matter of one of the keys to recovery. We said there are many keys out there, but one that’s been upon my heart is this matter of loving one another. We touched on that last week, and I’d like to continue this week with another little phrase in that verse where it says, “As I have loved you.”
“As I have loved you” is really going to be the focus. The verses that we’ve been considering are out of John, and there are three verses here. John is writing this as the Lord is speaking to His disciples. This is when the Lord is ending His earthly ministry. It’s a very intimate, precious time together with His disciples.
We’ll pick up in John 13:33:
Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek Me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say unto you.
What a precious thing: “My dear little children.” But to encourage them, He continues:
A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.
—John 13:34-35
I love how He adds that. “You love one another,” and He just doesn’t stop there. He makes this provision: “As I have loved you, that you also love one another.” Out of that loving one another, there’s a glorious testimony that goes forth: by this, all men will know that you are His disciples, if you have love for one another.
Now, last week, as we started this—I guess you can call it a series, or considering this together—we talked about the days of crisis that we’re in, even as Jack alluded to with the new book that’s coming out. These are days of crisis.
We’re thankful that the Lord has made provision for this day. He hasn’t left us helpless. He hasn’t left us as orphans, but He has made provision for us to go through—not even just somehow, but triumphantly in Him, through His all-victorious life.
Even though these are days of crisis, ever since the fall of Adam, our Lord has been doing a great work of recovery. He is the God of recovery. Today, He’s recovering that testimony of Jesus—the reality of His headship, the reality of His life lived out and expressed through His people, individually and corporately together.
It’s a testimony that is of Him, not of us. Thank the Lord, this is the work He’s doing today.
As we mentioned last week, the key for this recovery starts within the hearts of each brother and sister. It comes about in reality by our hearts being devoted and awakened, knowing Him—knowing His heart, His desire, and His purpose—that the Holy Spirit does an awakening within us. We say, “Lord, we want You to recover all that You’re after in these days.”
This is why we’re considering one of the keys: this matter of loving one another. We pray, as the Lord says in Revelation 2 and 3, that we would have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying. The call is going out to everyone. We want to be those who are responding.
We mentioned that when it comes to this matter of recovery, there are two essential aspects. There is the very personal, intimate relationship that we have with Him. We just spoke of how our hearts are awakened. This is that vertical relationship each one of us individually has with Him.
Then there is also the recovering of this love for one another, the horizontal relationship. As we have this love for one another, this is how the great building work of the house of God goes on—the strengthening of the body of Christ. This is the testimony that the world sees, and this is what prepares the bride for His soon return.
So it’s a great work that He’s called us into. It’s a great work that He’s doing in our midst, and we want to be those who are cooperating with Him.
We mentioned last week, too, when we talk of this matter of love, it’s really that God is love. We’re speaking of Him, His life. It’s His very character and nature.
Everything that He does—everything that God has done from eternity past all the way to eternity future—originates from His heart of love: a heart of love for His Son, a heart of love for mankind. Everything He’s doing is found in that.
We see displayed in this love a divine, self-sacrificing love, with His end always in view. We see that love displayed by a Father being willing to sacrifice His Son, and by a Son being willing to lay down His life for others.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
—John 15:13
Those weren’t just words merely to encourage ones. Those were words that were a testimony of a life lived out and laid down, seen in the very person of our Lord Jesus Christ.
As we continue on today, we want to look at the setting of John 13 through 17, because this is where it all starts. The Lord is leaving the ones He has been with, leaving His disciples and preparing their hearts.
John 13 through 17 is really a word of encouragement and preparation for His disciples to go through life—the crisis that was going to be ahead of them. I also think it can be very encouraging for us in these days too, for what lies ahead of us.
It starts:
Now before the feast of the passover, Jesus knowing that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own that were in the world, He loved them unto the end.
—John 13:1
Jesus knew that His hour had come—that hour of Calvary. He knew it was there. It wasn’t something that caught Him off guard. He knew it was a reality. He was going to depart out of this world, returning to His Father.
Having loved His own who were in the world, He had loved those disciples and loved so many upon the earth that He touched. The New American Standard says, “to the end,” but I don’t like that. I like “to the uttermost.” “End” means it’s like, at some point, His love came to an end. We know it doesn’t.
That’s why I like the other translations where it says He loved them to the uttermost. There is no beginning, there is no end to His love. It’s always there. It’s always all-sufficient. Praise God for that.
As we are considering these verses out of John 13, it’s always good to keep in mind that this is the last time the Lord is with the disciples before the cross. He’s getting ready to demonstrate that love to them at Calvary. Now, they’re not fully going to understand everything that’s going on, so He’s preparing them.
In the days we live in, there are a lot of things we don’t understand, but He’s preparing our hearts to be going through these things.
He tells of His keeping love throughout John 13 through 17. If you read through John 13 through 17, it speaks over and over again of how much the Father loves us, how much the Lord loves us, and how we love one another. Through all of this love, it’s a great building work. It’s so interwoven there.
All He shares is to prepare us for what’s ahead. He also shares, if you look at John 13 through 17, of the blessing that we’ve been brought into: the great blessing of being part of this grand fellowship of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
He uses different ways of describing it. Sometimes we’re in the vine with Him. Other times it’s talking about the Father’s love in Him, and He’s in the Father, and the Father’s in us, and we’re in Christ, and Christ is in us.
You can get all—if you read through it too fast—you get lost. You say, “What is all this?” But if you just kind of take your time and go through it, you see, “Wow, we have been brought into all this great reality.” It’s a marvelous thing.
As John 13 opens up, we see our Lord, the King of the universe, the Creator, humbly washing the disciples’ feet. They don’t understand. He says, “This is an example.” A lot of things, we see the disciples not understanding, but the Lord continues to show forth, knowing that eventually they’ll see and they’ll come into it.
Isn’t that the truth in most of our Christian lives? We see something, we hear of a truth, we learn of something, and you know good and well you don’t fully understand it. But you know what? You believe it.
You walk on as you’re abiding with Him, you’re walking with Him, and we start to see: “Oh, this is that. Oh, this is making a little more sense.” We’re starting to gain some understanding. Praise God, there’s a progression to this life.
He doesn’t expect us, when He shows us something, to instantly be, you know, an Einstein spiritually and understand everything.
You know, with the geniuses of the world, what’s always recorded is their great success. But if you look at any of the geniuses of this world—the inventors—their batting average isn’t too good. They failed more times than they ever succeeded. Through the failures that they had, they finally succeeded.
Sometimes in our Christian life, do we feel like that? It’s like we fail: “Oh, I came up short again.” But He still loves us, encourages us to keep going on, and we learn out of that. We keep going, seeing that it’s not I, but Christ, and we press on to all that.
As we said, He starts by washing their feet. Then it says the Lord is troubled in His spirit. That’s always amazing. He’s troubled in His spirit because He’s sharing with these ones that He’ll be betrayed. They didn’t understand that either. “What’s He talking about?”
At this point, Judas leaves the room. It’s significant that it’s recorded there, because our Lord had washed the feet of Judas. We’ll talk about that at another time. But it just shows His love for all and His desire for each and every one. Knowing good and well that Judas would betray Him, He humbled Himself and washed his feet.
Now He’s alone with these eleven remaining disciples, and He shares with them the theme verses that we read. He’s going away, they can’t come with Him, and they don’t understand that either.
Then, in John 13, after the verses that we read, it closes with Him telling Peter that he’s going to deny Him. “Peter, you’re going to deny Me three times.” Of course, Peter denies that. He says, “No, I’ll never deny You.” We know the rest of the story about how Peter ended up denying Him.
But as you stop and reflect upon the message there in John 13, we see that this was a very private, intimate time with the disciples. It’s been opened to all of us, but the spirit of that time was intimate and personal.
It’s so precious for us. This is the spirit in which the Lord is sharing this with each one of us. This is a very private, personal time for us to consider all that He’s sharing with us, to prepare us for the days that are ahead, and how much more of His life He wants to be seen through us.
As we said, the first thing He speaks to them—and as we have often said, that first thing is most essential, and it’s the main thing. As we mentioned last week, that main thing, as John reminds us, is to keep the main thing the main thing.
He gives them this precious spiritual treasure. It’s the reason He’s giving it to them. He says, “I’m giving you this to keep you from stumbling.”
Remember, at the beginning of John 16:1, He says, “I want to keep you from stumbling.” He knows that there will be temptations. He knows what’s ahead. He knows these ones. They don’t know themselves, as we see in a minute, but He knows them. He’s trying to encourage them and prepare them.
He knows us. So much of what He shares with us at times, through these verses, is to keep us from stumbling and doubting as we go through some of the challenges ahead.
As we come to this, it says:
Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek Me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say unto you.
—John 13:33
Then comes that special treasure about loving one another. We’re going to reflect on these verses. I wasn’t sure about how many times to put these verses up there, but I said, well, you can’t err on the side of excess with Him. If you don’t, I’m sorry for the repetition, but that’s okay.
Again:
A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.
—John 13:34-35
So precious, the treasure of these words.
As we see the opening here of John 13, we said John 13 through 17 goes together. It is one whole section within the Gospel of John. As we look at the end of John 17, we see the same spirit that we see from the very beginning, and it is summed up at the end.
He closes the time with that specific prayer. It’s called the Lord’s Prayer, or the High Priestly Prayer. This is really His prayer, what He’s praying for the disciples. Just as we know that the first things that are shared are so essential, also the last things are very vital, equally essential for us.
As we look at this prayer at the end of John 17, He’s praying to the Father:
O righteous Father, the world knew Thee not, but I knew Thee; and these knew that Thou didst send Me; and I made known unto them Thy name, and will make it known; that the love wherewith Thou lovedst Me may be in them, and I in them.
—John 17:25-26
These ones He’s praying for, He’s saying they know the reality. They know You sent Me. “I have made Your name known to them,” He’s revealed it to them, “and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
This Father’s love within them—that’s all that, just as the Lord and the Father are one—is really showing us in this panoramic view of John 13 through 17 how much this whole matter of love and unity goes together.
Love is, as we mentioned last week, that perfect bond of unity. You can’t have unity unless there’s love for one another. You can have a congregation; people can congregate together. You can have a team. But what’s the success of a team?
Team sports are won by unity. Team sports are won when maybe one guy denies himself a little bit so that others can come in.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but Stell and I go to Brazil pretty frequently. One of the things I’ve learned in Brazil is football, as they call it—soccer, as we call it. I never knew anything about it, but Brazil creates some of the greatest football players in the history of the sport. It still does.
Brazil has won its share of World Cups, but the biggest problem it has in winning World Cups is that it has too many stars on the team. Everybody on the team plays for clubs in Europe or other places, and they’re all making fifty to a hundred million a year.
You ask somebody like that to deny themselves for the other guys on the team, and you have a team of individuals running around. Whereas oftentimes, what you’ll see is somebody like France, or a team from there, come in and they play together. They win the game.
This is what the Lord is trying to get through our thick heads: the necessity of how we need one another. That “one another” is all-inclusive. It’s not just saying you need some of them. We need all of each other, and we need to be together in this.
This is the example the Lord shows us: the unity that they have in the Godhead. He wants that to become reality within our hearts and lives.
As we touch more and more of His heart and His life, we see the precious treasure we’ve been brought into. What we start to see, which we don’t see with our natural eyes, is the precious treasure in one another—the precious treasure in Isaiah. Just because he has a great name doesn’t make him special. But no, the treasure in that name, the treasure in him—what a treasure.
Each one has a treasure. Some of us have known each other for a good while. What a treasure there is within each one. Do we really value that?
It’s only then that that testimony can fully be recovered and expressed in this day and time. This is His heart’s desire: to see our hearts woven together in unity with His heart for the achieving of His return and purpose.
Really, what this is called is fellowship. The unity of fellowship we have been brought into with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It’s an amazing thing, what we’ve been brought into.
Without any caveats, He brings us into this place of fellowship, and He discloses that throughout John 13 through 17. It’s not like we’re second-class citizens. He says, “Look, all the Father has, I give to you. The Spirit of truth reveals everything to you. The Father’s in you. I’m in you. You’re in Me.”
It’s not like you’ve got this elite group—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Obviously, They are. But in this fellowship, He says, “No, we’re sharing back and forth, one with another.” There’s a place that you’ve been brought into.
Now, we don’t have the deity and all that. Don’t carry that too far. But we see how, in fellowship, there’s a union, there’s a oneness, there’s an unhindered access that we have to Him, and we want Him to have that unhindered access to us.
The hindrance in this fellowship doesn’t come from His side. It often comes from our side, when we’re not really opening our hearts and allowing Him to work the way He’s desiring to do.
God is so jealous that we know Him, and this is a recurring message throughout John 13 through 17. I’m actually up here doing an advertisement for John 13 through 17, if you haven’t picked up all that.
We’re doing the panoramic view, and I appreciate how some Bible teachers say, when you’re sharing, just give the panoramic view. But what you want to do is stimulate brothers and sisters to go back. From looking at this panorama, they say, “Wow, I want to see that detail,” and they can dig into this.
Throughout these chapters, He wants us to know this beautiful fellowship that we’ve been brought into. He wants us to know this absolute necessity of loving one another. It really is not an option. In order for us to really press on, this is an absolute necessity.
He wants each and every one of us—each one of us. As soon as we say “each one of us,” automatically, in some of our minds, we say, “Well, that’s not me, though.” But no, He wants each one of us to know how much the Father loves us, how much Jesus loves us, and how much the Holy Spirit loves us.
How much all three of Them are for us in this, to bring about glory and honor.
As we said, He wants us to know the person of the Holy Spirit. He hasn’t left us alone as orphans. He comes, and He’s left us with this Holy Spirit. Even in these few chapters, He talks about the Holy Spirit as the Helper, the Comforter, the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, on and on, to reveal Christ. This is what the Holy Spirit is after.
Oh, would we come into really seeing this recurring message. It reinforces within us the overall message of how God is a God of purpose. He’s doing this with an end in view. He’s doing this work of recovery through all of this.
He’s reminding us that He has made every provision for us in Christ Jesus. What a life we have. Whatever is in front of us, there is a place of complete security. He holds us in His hand. He never lets us go. He’s ever interceding for us.
He’s pleading, “Father, don’t take them out of the world, but keep them through the world. Hold them through the midst of the world.” He knows the evil of the world. He knows all of the challenges we’ll face. Hold them there, Lord, as they’re abiding in You and resting in You.
Praise God, He will return and complete all that He has begun. We’re thankful for that.
As I was considering these theme verses—I’ll call these three verses that we’re looking at the theme verses, just for reference—I was thinking, why is this the first thing shared with them? Why is He sharing this with them?
To me, there were three things that came up.
First, He knows the challenges that they’ll face when He leaves. He knows how their faith will be challenged: doubts, sufferings, fears, rejections, persecutions, denials, the feeling of abandonment—everything that they’ll go through. We see how the disciples experienced all of these.
So He’s preparing them. He doesn’t say, “Don’t have these.” He says, “When you have doubts, I love Thomas, and I’ll carry Thomas through when he’s doubting Me. As you have fears, as you reject Me, as you abandon Me—as one denies Me, at Gethsemane they all flee and abandon Me—I still love you. I’ve still got you.”
There’s a provision here for them. He’s trying to help them see in a fuller and greater way how much they need to stand together in the unity and oneness they have in Him, to overcome all of the challenges that they face ahead.
Brothers and sisters, this is the exact same reason He shares it with us. He’s sharing it with us because He knows what we’ll be facing ahead. We don’t know what’s ahead, but we know Who’s ahead, and He’s the One who carries us through.
This is the spirit of John 13 through 17. I’m not looking for a theological understanding of that chapter. It’s not a study of that. It’s a study of life, seeing His life that He was wanting to impart to us, to carry us through triumphantly.
The second thing I noticed is that He knows they don’t always get along. Can you imagine saints not getting along? I don’t know. I mean, look at us. We get along all the time. No problems, you know.
But He knows them, that they don’t always get along together. Remember the time when the mother of James and John went and asked for the preference: “Lord, in Your kingdom, let one sit on Your right hand and one on Your left hand.” What did the others think?
It says they became indignant. They were just really ticked off because they didn’t ask first. They were jealous.
“How come you get your mother working for you?” Oh, that’s a sucker punch, when you try to get the mother involved. Boy, you’re in trouble then.
But we see how they don’t know each other, and they don’t get along well at times. When the Lord tells them He’s going to Jerusalem—“When I go to Jerusalem, I’m going to be arrested, I’m going to be found guilty, I’m going to be crucified, but I’m going to be resurrected”—what do they do?
Do they start praying for Him? No, they’re arguing and talking among themselves: “Who’s the greatest?” If He’s going away, who’s great? “I’m going to be number one.” “No, John, I should be.” “No, I was the first one selected.” Each one has his own little argument about why he should be number one.
Also, it’s interesting: after the Lord’s Supper, after He washed their feet, after they had the Lord’s Supper, after He told them that one was going to betray Him, they were arguing again over who’s the greatest.
Brothers and sisters, He knows we don’t get along all the time, but He’s showing us a way through. As we argue over who’s the greatest, who’s number one, who’s this, or who’s better than so-and-so—“My apple pie is better than her apple pie. Why don’t people appreciate that? My butter chicken is better than her butter chicken.” I’ve got to work in some Indian things now.
We get jealous if everybody is bragging on what I make, this or that. So we see, it’s the same for us. We can become offended with each other. We can be upset. But He’s saying—He doesn’t throw them out.
You know the beautiful thing about this? You see how much He knows these disciples, and He doesn’t disqualify any of them. He’s talking with the eleven now. Judas is gone. He knew one would betray Him, and that was to fulfill the Scripture.
Judas was gone. These are the ones. He knows, He sees them, He knows them far better than they know themselves. He doesn’t say, “Y’all are all going to be disqualified. I’ll find another group.” No. He says, “You’re it.”
Brothers and sisters, we’re it. We’ve got to press on through. We don’t have those options.
Finally, as we said, He knows they don’t know themselves. He tells Peter that Peter is going to deny Him, and Peter says, “No, no, no.” Oftentimes, when we read this story, we stop with Peter saying no.
But if you look in a couple of the Gospels, what did all the others say? They agreed with Peter: “We would never deny You.” So really, all eleven said it. Peter gets exposed publicly worse than all the others, but they’re committed: “We’ll never do this.”
Then you remember James and John. What were their names? They were the sons of thunder. They were going to call down lightning upon ones who didn’t agree with our Lord, who didn’t receive Him.
It’s amazing how John ends up being transformed into the apostle of love. That’s a whole different topic. But He has this desire that they be kept from stumbling, because He knows that possibility.
Remember at Gethsemane, when they came to arrest Him, how many stood with our Lord Jesus there? None of them. They all fled. Everybody fled when they arrested Him—not just Peter and John; they all fled.
Yet, in this, He says, “Love one another.”
As we look at these verses, I think it’s helpful to see the Lord’s heart and purpose for them, and also the condition of these disciples. If we have a better perspective of them, I think it can help us relate to them.
Sometimes we can almost unconsciously elevate them. “Oh, look at these eleven. They were so special.” They were this or that. But they’re flesh and blood. They put on their pants just like we do. They walk, and they have issues and problems and all that.
But the Lord used them. They were His chosen ones. Brothers and sisters, each one of us is a chosen one—a chosen one with a special treasure. That treasure within us is desiring to burst forth.
He’s showing us the way for that treasure to come forth and to carry us somehow—not just through by the gritting of our teeth, but carrying us through triumphantly, overwhelmingly conquering through Him who first loved us. Praise God for that.
So let’s look at these verses now. John 13:33. The key phrase in that, that’s really upon my heart, is this little word at the very beginning: “Little children.”
“Little children.” Now, this phrase, “little children,” really means “my dear little children.” There’s an intimate, personal relationship there with these dear ones.
It’s the only time this word, this phrase, is used by our Lord Jesus. It’s the only time it’s used. It’s used by another person—His mother—one time when He was a child, and they find Him in the temple.
They had all gone to Jerusalem when He was a child, and they headed back to where they were from. Then they found out Jesus hadn’t been with them, so they had to go back to Jerusalem, and they found Him in the temple. When His mother speaks to Him, she uses this little word.
It’s a very specific, special word. It’s not a normal, common word. It’s the only time, really, it’s used by anyone throughout the Gospels. In the New Testament, it’s very rare.
John, because of being one of His disciples and that apostle of love, uses it seven times in his first epistle, 1 John. But this phrase, “little children”—just imagine now that He’s speaking this to you.
To each one of us, He’s speaking this to us. This isn’t just limited to them. He’s writing this to us. This is the relationship; this is His perspective of who we are.
He’s not being up there as God Almighty. He’s come down, He’s washed your feet, He’s died for you, and now He’s saying, “My dear little children, I know what you’re going to have to go through.”
He’s trying to get our attention through tenderness, this precious, tender word. He’s crying out to them to comfort and console them, because He knows through all of this, they’re going to need His protection, His guidance, His support, and His care because of who they are, because of their weaknesses.
We need that just as much because of our weaknesses. Lord, we need Him. We need Him every hour. We need Him every minute, every second.
He’s trying to let them know that He’ll never forget them. He’ll never leave them, never forsake them. That’s why He talks in John 14:
I will not leave you desolate: I come unto you.
—John 14:18
“You’ll not be left as orphans. I’m leaving you for a while, but I’m coming back. I’m not leaving you as orphans because I’m sending a Helper to you, and we’re of the same Spirit.”
Oh, what a love He has. We see this tender, affectionate, compassionate love. It’s a great word of comfort.
It’s interesting, in marriages or in families, generally most husbands or wives, fathers or mothers, have a tender word of affection that they address somebody by—one of the kids or their wife or husband.
It can be so unique. To somebody else, it doesn’t mean anything. It can be “honey” this or “honey” that. It might not mean anything to most people, but to you, between the two of you, that is a special connection.
“Wow, when my father calls me this, when my mother says this to me, when my wife or my husband says this phrase to me,” there’s a connection. There’s a heart-to-heart talking with each other.
This is what He’s doing. “You’re My special, dear little children.” He says that to each one of us. What a place of comfort. What a place of assurance and of experiencing His great love that He pours out to us as He calls to us through that way. Praise God for that.
Then, as He’s got their attention, as He shares this tremendous word of encouragement: “A new commandment I give to you, love one another, even as I have loved you; you also love one another.” What a new commandment.
You read this, “a new commandment,” and we’re thinking, “Wait a minute. In the New Testament, we don’t have commandments.” But we see this is a new, fresh way of Him expressing Himself.
This new commandment that He’s given comes from a new source. It’s a new nature, originating from a new center of life. There’s a newness of motive, newness of scope and testimony, and it applies something that is fresh, full of life.
It’s not stale, old, dried up, but there’s freshness. There’s freshness of life. It’s backed by a higher and purer example, and it’s His life.
What is this new commandment? What’s the source of this new commandment? It’s His life: Christ in us, His life expressed in us. It’s that source of life.
When He says, “Love one another, as I have loved you,” He’s not expecting us to do this in ourselves. He says, “Look at Me, as I have loved you.” Now that life is living within you, let that life in you be lived out as you love one another.
Sometimes, when we think about this new commandment, maybe we say, “Wait a minute, it doesn’t sound entirely new. I’ve heard some of this.” People asked the Lord, “What was the greatest commandment?”
He replied, quoting out of Deuteronomy and Leviticus:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the great and first commandment.
And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets.
—Matthew 22:37-40
As you compare this to what He’s saying, what’s the source of the Old Testament commandments? It is self. In the Old Testament, He says, “You shall.” In the New Testament, it’s, “He will.”
In the Old Testament, it was, “You shall do this. You shall do that. You shall do this.” In this one, He says, “You love one another as I have loved you.” I will do it. He will do it.
When He gives us these encouragements and all, He will do it. It’s His new source of life and everything. People in Israel were never called to lay down their lives for one another. You don’t see that being expressed.
What’s making this a new commandment is that it’s so much richer and has a new source. This new source is simply His life, that life of love—that agape life.
Not merely brotherly love—praise God for brotherly love—but that agape love that’s self-sacrificing: a life of One who loved us far more than He loved Himself. It’s not our natural love for our neighbors, but the way He displayed that love at Calvary for us.
Kenny mentioned a couple of weeks ago in Romans 13:10 how love sums up the whole law. This is what is summing it up; it’s completing it. There’s a way of living it out now. There’s a new way of living it out.
This new commandment always touches me. When we think of our Lord Jesus, He speaks of His love. He loved us so much, and we hear it so much that it loses the punch.
One brother was going to sleep. I just had to wake him up.
But we see how it loses the punch: that He died for us. He loved us so much, He was willing to die for us. Wow.
We hear it again every day, every time at the table. That’s the standard that we have. This is the One who died for us. Why? He died for us so that He could live in us.
That life could continue to live and bear fruit, bear much fruit, and bear fruit that remains for His glory and for His honor. His dying for us was not merely the end; it was so that we could enter into the joy of everything that He has for us.
I ran across this quote from an older brother from Scotland. He said, “His love is now to be seen through new vessels.” That’s us. “Reinforced by new motives,” as He works in us. We have new motives of caring for one another, and new obligations.
Now, obligations sounds like, “Ooh, that’s legalistic.” Paul, when he spoke of the love of Christ, said, “I’m controlled. I’m constrained.”
Sometimes, when you have to do something, it’s like, “Wait a minute, if that sounds legalistic, you have to do it.” No, it’s coming from some great love that you have to do this. There’s not an option.
I guess the option is, you can always say, “No, Lord, I’m not going to do it.” But within you, you say, “I’ve just got to do this. I’m obliged. I have to do it.”
We see it illustrated in life throughout history and throughout lives today. It’s obeyed in a new manner. There’s an obedience that is not from ourselves, but it’s from Him. His love is working in us to transform us and conform us into His image. Praise God.
We see this elaborated on and expounded on more and more throughout John 13 through 17. We see how this new commandment impacted Peter.
At the end of the Gospel of John, the Lord asked him—and we’re familiar with this—“Do you love Me?” using that word agape. Peter said, “No, I just phileo You. I can’t say that I have that agape love. I have a brotherly love. I’m very fond of You.”
But later on in Peter’s life, we see how he got it. Even in his death, he said, “I’m not worthy to be crucified like our Lord.” History tells us that Peter was crucified upside down. He was captured by this love.
We see this wonderful testimony in 1 Peter 1:22. I love how Peter expresses this, going from one who said, “Lord, I can’t say that I love You,” to now entering into the reality of it being not Peter, but Christ in Peter:
Seeing ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another from the heart fervently.
—1 Peter 1:22
Peter is encouraging them, in the days and troubles and trials that they’re going through, to really fervently love one another. We see it also impact the life of John.
John is called the apostle of recovery. It’s wonderful how the Lord used different ones of these apostles in different ways. Peter was the fisherman; he went out and brought those ones in. Paul was the builder; he was building things together.
Then, at the end of the first century, we see John being used to recover, to bring ones back to Christ—that great apostle of love. The apostle of love ends up being the apostle of recovery also.
We see he used agape thirty-seven times in his Gospel, far more than anybody else. Even in his three little epistles—you can read those epistles in less than a half hour, probably; I never timed it, but they’re pretty quick if you want to read through all three of them—over thirty times he speaks of agape there.
We see in his old age, John lived to be over ninety, which is getting younger and younger all the time, really.
But when ones would say, “Brother, would you share something? Would you share something with us?” all he would say was, “Little children, love one another.”
Oh, that “little children.” He had heard that over sixty years ago. The Lord had told him that in that upper room sixty years earlier, and it was still as fresh to him at the age of ninety as it had been sixty years earlier.
Wow. When God, when the Lord, speaks something to our hearts, that’s the freshness of love. That’s the freshness of His life. It was life to him, and he was conveying that to others: “You’re my little children, just as the Lord spoke that to me. No, you’re His little children also. Praise God. Love one another.”
I was going to pick a couple of verses out of 1 John to show how much he tried to reinforce this to them, but it’s hard to pick just a few. I probably could have just put the whole of 1 John up here. It would have been easier to read.
But I picked the ones related to loving one another. This isn’t all-inclusive either. John writes in 1 John 3:11:
For this is the message which ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
Still fresh within his heart. I love when a dear older brother or sister has the Word of God still fresh in their heart. They’re not testifying, “Oh, this happened to me many years ago.” Praise God, but it’s still fresh in my heart today: that you should love one another.
Then 1 John 4:21:
And this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.
Praise God. It’s from Him.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
—1 John 4:11
And the familiar verse that we have:
We love, because He first loved us.
—1 John 4:19
Praise God for that first love that He has touched us with.
Now, I mentioned it a little bit earlier, but we want to be clear: Jesus doesn’t say, “Love one another,” naively. He knows we can’t keep His commandments. Loving one another is from His life within us.
It’s not a commandment impelling us from without, but it’s the very fruit of Christ’s life in us. It’s the fruit of His life. That’s why in Galatians 5, we speak of the fruit of the Spirit. The very first one is love, because that’s the way it is.
He knows good and well man can’t do it. Man has never been able to do what the Lord commands us to do. We might get one or two right at a time, but then we’ll mess up. We’re just not able to do it.
But praise God, He never gives up on us. That’s the beauty we see in these ones: how He recovered Peter. His love for Peter. Peter was recovered and used as a vessel to say, “Loved ones, fervently from the heart.”
Oh, praise God for that. This is one who had denied the Lord, publicly denied Him, and yet was used in a mighty way. Oh, how He wants to use us.
We’re going to go ahead and stop here for now, but we want to build off of this, and I’ll be sharing next week also, Lord willing. I’d like to look at some of the practical outworking of Christ being in us, and as we see His love displayed in His life, how that gets worked out in us.
As we talk about the fruit of the Spirit, here comes your emotional moment. Oh. Okay. Oh, isn’t that so cute? Okay.
But we see the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Now, there are two ways that Galatians 5:22-23 gets interpreted. Some think that the fruit of the Spirit is all of those. That’s the fruit of the Spirit.
There’s another interpretation, since “fruit” is used—it is hard to know whether fruit is singular or plural—that the fruit of the Spirit is love, one thing. That’s it. The fruit of the Spirit is love.
Then that love displays itself in different ways:
What we want to be looking at are some of these “loving one another” expressions in more practical ways within our lives. We’ll start on that next time together.
So may the Lord encourage us.
You can go back and read John 13 through 17 again, if you want to.
I’ll tell you, I have fallen in love with those chapters. I’ve been reading them and reading them, and it’s amazing how every time I read them, it’s like, “Wow, I just read that an hour ago. I didn’t see that. Where’s this? Where’s that?”
The Holy Spirit is wonderful. There’s a richness there. Just thank the Lord.
Some people have asked about these slides, and Jack has graciously offered to put them on the CTM website, if anybody wants them. That’s where they are—not on the YouTube channel, but the CTM website.
As we conclude, as we try to pull this back together, what we’re always keeping in mind is that God is a God of recovery, and He’s recovering the testimony of Jesus. The reason we’re considering this is because of this big picture.
In this great day and time, He’s desiring for that testimony of Jesus to be strengthened, to be recovered, to hasten His return. It always starts with those captured hearts—those hearts that have been awakened, captured, and devoted to Him.
The key that we’re looking at is this: we said earlier, last time, that there are many different keys to recovery, but we’re looking at this particular one of loving one another.
Knowing from today the reality of this glorious provision that He’s made for us—the wonderful provision we have in being brought into this fellowship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—the unity we have in Him, the unity we have with one another, the love that we have from Him, the love we can have for one another.
May we really experience more and more of the fullness of everything that He has done for us: that life we have within us, that we would be those testifying in living ways that Jesus is Head, that He’s Lord over all things—not only individually, but for us as an assembly.
His life being expressed through us. Praise God for His love.
So we can close here for today.
Lord, we are ever grateful for Your wonderful love and mercy that You show to us. Lord, You are that God who has reached out and touched each one of our hearts, each one of our lives. You have brought us unto Yourself.
Lord, we just continue to desire to see more and more of Your love, Your heart, Your purpose, that we would be those who are captured; that, Lord, our hearts would be devoted to You.
May we see the blessedness of the fellowship we have in You, the blessedness of the treasure we have in being with one another. Lord, in Your glorious life, Your life expressed through us.
Lord, it all starts by You working in our individual hearts. We want to open our hearts to You, for You to have that great freedom and liberty to do what You are desiring.
In Thy name we pray. Amen.