The Greatest Job on Earth: A Job of Distinction John 13:34-35 October 25-26, 2014 Introduction John 13:34-35 John 13 PP John 13:34-35

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1 The Greatest Job on Earth: A Job of Distinction John 13:34-35 October 25-26, 2014 Introduction How many of you have gone to a restaurant and were asked to fill out one of those evaluations of your experience? PP And how many of you actually fill out the evaluation? Not many, right? I mean, PP maybe if I get a free sandwich out of the deal thanks Chikfil-A or if my service was so good or so bad that I can t ignore it.but typically I m not wasting my time filling out the evaluation because my experience was pretty much like every other restaurant I ve visited nothing too distinct. And this doesn t just go for restaurants, it s the same way with almost everything: stores we go to, classes we take, hotels we stay in, etc. If you re anything like me, you typically don t bother to fill out evaluations for these things because there s nothing different about them they were just like everything else. They got the job done, but without distinction. There s nothing that would draw me back to them. Unfortunately, that s the exact same way many people feel about Christians and the congregations in which they worship PP we re indistinct, just like any other religious group of people. We don t stand out, we blend in Or worse, they think we re a bunch of hypocrites and frauds. And you know what? That s sad that s a travesty of tragic proportions because we re called to be set apart and different from the world because of our faith in Jesus Christ and His transformative power working in us and through us. Today, as we continue on in our series on discipleship the greatest job on Earth we re going to be studying John 13:34-35 and we re going to see the evaluation that the Lord invites the entire world to fill out for Christians an evaluation that consists of only one question: PP do they love one another? And we re going to apply this passage to our call to make disciples who know how to make disciples. As you turn to John 13, let me pray. PP John 13:34-35 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. See also 1 John 3:23 Refined Job Description (v. 34) Now, the past two sermons in this series were about having an all-in love for and submission to Jesus Christ submitting to Him as our savior and our Lord our Adonai, our master. o We learned that if we re going to be effective at making disciples who make disciples, PP we have to be all-in totally surrendered with our faith and we must teach our disciples how to be all-in with their faith as well. That we hold nothing back from our Lord. Page 1 of 9

2 This all-in approach PP sums up the greatest commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. See Deut. 6:5, Matt. 22:37, Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27 Now today, we turn our attention to the second greatest commandment PP that we love others as we love ourselves. This command was first given in Leviticus 19:18, and was repeated throughout the NT see Matt 22:39, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27. So it s critical that we see from the outset that when it comes to discipleship when it comes to our Matthew 28 call to go make disciples of all nations the second most important expectation of the job description to make disciples is loving those who we are discipling and teaching them to love one another. Let s read John 13:34 again, PP A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. o As you would probably guess, the Greek word for love here is agape meaning that we re commanded to love others in the same unconditional, selfless way that God loves us. o But what I want us to see from the outset is that Jesus PP refined the discipleship job description with this command. That s why He says it s a new commandment. o Now, as we already mentioned, this command was already given in Leviticus 19:18. So, Christ wasn t introducing a brand new idea, instead Christ is refining the command to bring it into better alignment with the new covenant that will be made through Him and the new expectations He has for His disciples. In fact, PP if you look at the Greek word for new here (GK. Kainos) it means fresh or remade. You ever put a fresh new coat of paint on a house or a car? The car or house isn t brand new, but that new paint refreshes it. It s the same thing here. Christ didn t invent a command that had never existed before He put a new coat of paint on an old one and presented it in the light of the new covenant expectations. o So, how did He do this? What was fresh about this command? We re going to focus on the three primary ways this was a refined commandment: The audience of the command, the object of the command, and the extent of the command. First, PP the refined audience of the command. Unlike the Leviticus 19:18 command, this new commandment is specifically given to the church of Jesus Christ it s made directly to his closest followers to those who are learning how to make disciples who can make disciples. Page 2 of 9

3 o Christ is in the upper room with the disciples and they re eating the Passover meal together, and after washing their feet He gives them this new charge. o But if you flip over to verses 30 and 31 of this chapter, you ll see that before Christ gives this fresh command, He sends Judas the betrayer away this command wasn t for him. It s only for the church for genuine followers of Jesus Christ. Why? Well that leads to the 2 nd PP fresh aspect of this command: it has a refined object. o In the Leviticus passage and all the teaching up to that point, the object of your love was your neighbor. And there was all kinds of debate about who is my neighbor. In fact, in Luke 12, Jesus has a discussion of this very question with a lawyer never trust a lawyer and then He tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. Well, we re still called to love our neighbors, but Christ revises this command and specifically states we the church PP are to love one another. Yes, we are to love all people but it is paramount that we love our brothers and sisters in Christ. So it s important that we see that this isn t a command to love and reach out to others in the community who need Christ there are other commands for that. Instead, it s a command that we love one another wherever we may be in this body, in the Congo, or wherever we come across our spiritual family. And as we ll see in a little bit in verse 35, if we truly love one another, the world will take notice and there will be opportunity for evangelism. Loving our neighbors flows out of our love for one another. Put the other way, loving one another leads to loving our neighbors. And that leads us to the third and most important fresh aspect of this command PP the refined extent of the command. o Jesus said, just as I have loved you, so you also are to love one another. Page 3 of 9

4 o The standard is no longer that you love others like you love yourself. No, the standard is now that we love one another like Jesus Christ loved us a way higher standard than before. o This point was made extremely vivid for the disciples in the upper room because if you look at the beginning of the chapter, Jesus their teacher and leader had just finished taking on the role of the lowest servant and washing all of their feet. An act of love and humility and service that none of the disciples would have dared to do for one another. In fact, if you look at Luke s account of this Passover in Luke 22:24-30 you ll see that the disciples were arguing with each other over which of them was the greatest. And in the midst of this argument Jesus gets up, washes their feet, and then commands them to love one another just like He loves them. o Of course, this wasn t the final example of Christ s love for His disciples PP in a few short hours, Jesus would be battered and beaten, spat upon and mocked, stripped naked and nailed to a cross all because of how much He loved those disciples, and because of how much He loves you and me. o In fact, two chapters latter in John 15:12-13 Jesus repeats this new commandment and specifically states that His love for us is expressed most fully in His willingness to die for us: PP This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: that someone lay down his life for his friends. See also 1 John 3:16 And you know what this is an impossible standard for us to live up to if we haven t experienced it for ourselves. Unless I recognize that Jesus Christ loved me so much that He died in my place and saved me when I couldn t save myself. o That because of His love He saved me from eternal death so that I could have eternal life with Him and joyfully serve Him and bring glory and honor to His name and His death in my place was completely unmerited I didn t earn it it was only because of His loving grace for me that I have life. o Unless I ve experienced that and I ve been transformed by that truth, there s no way I m going to be able live up to this standard. I cannot love apart from God s loving me first. Like 1 John 4:19 says PP We love because he first loved us. See also 1 John 3:23 Page 4 of 9

5 Why do you think the disciples were arguing with each other about who was the greatest? Because they hadn t yet experienced the fullest extent of Christ s love. He washed their feet and gave them a foretaste of what He was about to do but it wasn t until after Christ s death and resurrection and their truly experiencing Christ s love and being filled by the Holy Spirit that we see them living transformed lives of making disciples who know how to make disciples as they finally learned what it meant to love one another as Jesus loved them. Friends, we can t love like this unless and until we surrender to Jesus Christ and put our faith and trust in Him alone. And once we do that, He gives us the power through the Holy Spirit to be able to love like He loves. o Yes, our sinful nature will cause us to mess up but when we humbly submit to the Lord and love Him with all we are we ll begin to learn more and more how to submit to one another and love one another as Christ loved us. PP And this is so important that Jesus says our love for one another should be the mark of distinction by which the world knows we are Christians. And this brings us to verse 35 where we see that we re going to be reviewed according to our distinctiveness. Reviewed According to Distinctiveness (v. 35) John 13:35 PP By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Jesus states very clearly here that it s our love for one another that makes us distinct and the watching world is going to evaluate us on our love for one another. o We re not to be known by our wealth, or our education not by our fame or our position of authority, not by our good deeds to the impoverished world, but by our love for one another. o Now remember, this is agape love the unconditional, selfless love of God. Not some mushy gushy feelings driven eros type of love or even the brotherly philia type of love. It s the selfless agape love of God. Because the reality is that there are going to be some Christians who I don t get along with or spend much time with. I mean even Jesus seemed to get along with and hang out more with Peter, James, and John. And scripture says that it was John who Jesus really loved (John 21:20), who reclined on Jesus chest in a deep display of affection at the Last Supper. So it s ok not to be Mr. buddy-buddy with every Christian you come across. But even if I m not super close with another believer I must still love them I must still be willing to put my selfishness aside for them. I must be willing to die to myself for them just as Christ died for me. Page 5 of 9

6 C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, PP "Do not waste your time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less." o It s that attitude of love and selflessness for one another that shows whether we are Christ s disciples whether we are living out the call of Matthew 4:19 Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. My love for others shows if I m following Christ, if I m being transformed by Christ, and if I m living out the mission to make disciples who know how to make disciples. The early Christian church got rave reviews when the world turned in their evaluations. With ancient pagan writers saying PP Behold, how these Christians love one another! - Tertullian They love one another almost before they know one another. Caecilius The early church was distinct because of their love for one another. The question is: what would the watching world say today of the church how distinct are we? And we don t even need to look at the church as a whole. Let s look at this body of believers. Do we love one another like Jesus loves us? Do I put myself and my selfish desires aside for my Christian brothers and sisters in need? I mean, let s be honest now, when was the last time that you can point to that you went out of your way to love a brother or sister here like Jesus loves you? Figuratively speaking, when was the last time you washed one of your fellow believer s feet? Or how about the harder question; how often do you ignore the opportunity to love a fellow believer? o If you don t like the way you re answering these questions, then I have one word for you: PP Jesus. We ve got to get our eyes back on Jesus and be reminded how much He loves us and how much He was willing to give up for us. When we focus on Christ s love for us we can be spurred on to do the same for our brothers and sisters. It doesn t matter if you like spending time with them just love them like Jesus loved you. Because here s the truth: you and I are a lot less lovable then we think we are and Jesus still died for us. Praise God. Think about that it s my pride and my selfishness that keeps me from loving my brothers and sisters and yet it s precisely because I m a prideful and selfish man that Jesus died for me. He loved me in spite of my ugliness and died for me, and He gives me the power to put aside my sinful self and love others like He loves me. The power of the love of Christ through the cross is amazing. Page 6 of 9

7 o We ve got to get this and be transformed in this way because if we don t scripture says we re just pretending. PP We re just wannabes, fakers, posers who aren t fully devoted disciples of Jesus Christ. We re just deceiving ourselves with our church attendance and talking the Christian talk and throwing a couple dollars in the plate and saying I believe in Jesus. Well, great the demons believe in Jesus too but they don t have Christ s love. I ve got to display the love of Christ because if I don t love like Jesus loves and I probably don t really understand Christ s love for me and what it means to submit to Him. So all those nice Christian things are just pious platitudes that lead to death and hell. 1 John 3:10-11 PP By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. At my undergraduate university, students in a religious studies class were studying the life of Jesus. This is a true story. The professor put a note on the door of their classroom that said they re class was going to be meeting in another part of campus. And on their way to that class, the professor had an actor dressed up like a beggar to ask the students in the class for help as they passed by. As you can probably guess, none of the students stopped to help the beggar they really didn t get what they were studying did they? I wonder how well their evaluation from the professor looked The point is this: we can t hear Christ s call for us to love like He loves us, and then think we re ok not following it. Because if that s us, we really don t get Christ s love and we ll not only fail the world s evaluation, but we ll fail God s evaluation too. But when we do love this way, we ll be distinct, and the world will notice. PP And when they come to us and say how can you be that loving, that selfless? We can point straight to Jesus Christ and tell them about the love of our Savior and Lord, and how that same love is available to them. o As John MacArthur said PP The church may be orthodox in its doctrine and vigorous in its proclamation of the truth, but that will not persuade unbelievers unless believers love each other. Renewed Call to Discipleship But not only will the watching world take notice, but those who we are discipling should take notice as well. And that s the final point I want to make today about this passage, that in this command Christ provides for us a renewed call to discipleship. PP Jesus it telling his disciples to love one another like He loves them and that this love will show them to be His disciples. Knowing that, then, we as disciple makers have to not only Page 7 of 9

8 love one another, but we need to teach others how to love one another like Jesus loves them. So I just want to look briefly at a couple ways that Jesus loved His disciples so that we can know how to love our disciples and how we should teach them to love the disciples who they are making. Practically speaking, PP how do I love disciples who know how to love other disciples? We re going to quickly look at 5 ways we can do this: o First, as we ve already seen, Christ s love for His disciples was marked by PP selfless service to them. He put them before Himself, washed their feet, died for them, and constantly led them to God the Father. If we re going to love disciples, we re going to selflessly serve them and teach them to do the same to others. (See John 13:12-18) You see, discipleship isn t about what you get out of the relationship unlike what the rabbis of Jesus s day modeled, having a disciple isn t about their serving you, but rather your service to them. So if you want to be an effective disciple maker, learn to serve one another like Jesus served and teach others to do the same. o Secondly, PP Jesus loved His disciples by steadfastly and patiently bearing with them even though they just didn t get it. We see this throughout the gospels. Often times they just didn t get what Jesus was trying to teach them. I mean how many miracles did they have to see until they recognized Jesus was God? And even when they gave the right answer, they still didn t really grasp the depth of the truth. And when they lacked the faith to do what Christ was calling them to do, like when they tried to cast out demons in Christ s name in Mark 9, Jesus pushed past His annoyance and frustration and patiently loved them anyway. Jesus loved His disciples by patiently and graciously teaching them the truth, showing them the lies they believed, correcting their thinking, and building their faith and we ve got to learn to do the same as we become better disciple makers. o Thirdly, Christ s love transcended mere patience with their failings, PP it also meant His unconditional forgiveness for their sins against Him (Eph. 4:32, Col 3:13). Jesus had no bitterness or grudge against Peter when Peter denied Him, there was only love and forgiveness. And scripture says that Chirst loved all His disciples even Judas the betrayer until the very end (John 13:1) If we re going to be effective disciple makers, we can t hold grudges, we can t be bitter and unforgiving we ve got to release that and love those who have wronged us, just like Jesus did. Page 8 of 9

9 o But loving someone doesn t mean we let them do whatever they want without consequence. Fourthly, PP Christ s love for His disciples meant holding them accountable, and lovingly rebuking them and pointing out their sin; it meant calling them to repentance and walking with them to a place of right living and thinking. (Matthew 16:22-23) When Peter challenged Christ s statement that He would have to die, Christ called Peter Satan and told him to set his mind on heavenly truth not the worldly lies he was believing. Sometimes, loving others means confronting them in their sin and deception and graciously leading them to the truth (Gal 6:1) o Finally, PP Christ s love for His disciples meant meeting them exactly where they were and just living life with them. Jesus laughed and joked with His disciples, ate with them, comforted them and cried with them, and He prayed for them and interceded for their faith (Luke 22:21-22). So what does this look like? Well, it doesn t mean that every moment we re with someone we re talking to them about Jesus. It means we hang out and get to know each other and enjoy each other s company. It means, for example, that when someone gets a new car, I m happy for them and when that car breaks down I m the person they call to pick them up. It means when their struggling I m praying for them and encouraging them and when they re doing well I m genuinely happy for them. All of 5 of these things are examples of How Jesus loved His disciples and how we re called to love one another, especially those we re discipling. o Because at the end of the day, we re all going to be evaluated for our distinctness PP our lives are like that restaurant that asks for the world s feedback and the world is watching to see if it s even worth its effort to give an evaluation. Will our evaluation prove we can be distinguished by our love of one another? Does my life reflect the transformational love of Jesus Christ working in me or I am just like any other religious person out there? Do we truly love one another? That s what s going to get the attention of the world and show us to be distinct. That s what s going to draw people to Jesus. Amen. Amen. o 1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 PP May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. Page 9 of 9