New Commandment

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. Hello, I'm Josh. [00:00:25] Speaker B: And I'm Gabriel. [00:00:26] Speaker A: And today on reading the Gospel, we are studying the event, a new commandment. This is found in the Gospel of John, chapter 13. And we're going to be reading from 31 through 38. Follow along with us. [00:00:41] Speaker B: When he had gone out, Jesus said, now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I am with you, you will seek me. And just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, where I am going, you cannot come. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another just as I have loved you. Ye also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. [00:01:31] Speaker A: Simon Peter said to him, lord, where are you going? Jesus answered him, where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward. Peter said to him, lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you. Jesus answered, will you lay down your life for me? Truly, Truly. I say to you that the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times. So this event takes place just after Jesus the. The Last Supper, where Jesus has said that one of the disciples is going to betray him. And they're leaving that room and heading to the Garden of Gethsemane. And he has this exchange with the disciples, that where I'm going, you can't follow. Again. We need to get into their mindset that they're thinking Jesus is about to take his earthly throne. He's about to become the Messiah that they think overthrow the Romans, set up a government. And so this language that he's using. [00:02:40] Speaker B: Is very confusing, especially when Jesus told Judas, what you have in mind, what you are about to do, just go and do it. Yeah. And the disciples thought that maybe Judah is going there to do something to prepare the way for the Messiah. [00:02:59] Speaker A: Jesus says it's a new commandment. But is it really a new commandment? [00:03:04] Speaker B: In a way, it is. Because in the Old Testament, the same commandments to love was a little bit different. It says, love your neighbor as yourself. That was the highest standard. [00:03:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:22] Speaker B: And now Jesus Christ revealed an even higher standard of loving. Love others the way I have loved you. [00:03:32] Speaker A: Now, in the English language, we use love for many different things. Like the love I have for my wife is with same word as the Love I have for my bicycle and the love I have for apples. And, you know, we use all that. Is it the same thing with the Greek and Hebrew language? Is there only one word for love in Greek? [00:03:53] Speaker B: There are multiple words for love. At least three are being considered in the New Testament. There is a natural love for your family and friends, for your children. Children. There is a passionate love that has a romantic connotation. And there is a love in principle, which many times is considered divine love that comes from above. And if we tie this new commandment of Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter five, when it says you have to love your enemy, to bless those who curse you, to talk to those who look the other way, and so on, you realize that this love is not something that is being produced in our human heart. It is a gift that comes from above. It is beyond our capacity. Yeah. [00:04:51] Speaker A: And so instead of loving others as we love ourselves, the commandment is now love others as God loves us. And it takes us from this phileo, brotherly love to this agape, godly love that we have to step up, step out, and honestly, we can't do it. It is humanly impossible to fulfill this command. Is that a true, fair statement? [00:05:22] Speaker B: Yes, it is. And I like to go back a little bit to the context of this commandment. Now, is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him? What was Jesus talking about? If you connect this to the end of the Gospel of John, Jesus Christ is using the same language about glorifying God all the way to the end by offering your life. So Jesus Christ glorifies the Father by his death. [00:05:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:57] Speaker B: And maybe we should pause for a moment and ponder, what does it mean? Is this just about Jesus Christ? Is it something that is required from us? Because this theme is recurring. It comes back. The Apostle Paul said, I am ready to die if necessary. To die is gain. He says, yeah, and also I'm ready to live for Christ. And he said, in either one of them, I have the same purpose to glorify God. I've seen some people, especially in the second century, the third century, they are looking to become martyrs to glorify God. And sometimes that is easier because it's quite quick. But to glorify God through a lifetime of service and love, that is more complex. And this is how Jesus Christ ties this commandment, love one another as juxtaposition to glorifying God quickly by your death. And by contrast, to receive the love of God from above every day, to be able to help those who don't deserve it, to be able to reach out to those who cut your way, those who are really trying to take all the benefits that you deserve, you work so hard for. [00:07:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And Jesus says by this, if you love one another, by this, all people will know you are my disciples if you have love for one another. So it's not the. If you preach a good sermon, if you have a big church, if you have enough bumper stickers on your car, if you sing enough praise songs. It's not that. The way we know Jesus disciples are by those who love others. And that's a powerful statement. What if the Christian world really lived up to that? What would this world look like if Christians really tried to love others and serve others and put them first? Because I think in many ways we're not doing that. [00:08:16] Speaker B: And not only loving one another, but loving at that high new standard, new commandment, as I have loved you. [00:08:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And so we then get into this statement where Peter's asking, where are you going, Lord? I'll go with you. I'm not going to be separated from you. I'm going to go wherever you go. He's not understanding what Jesus is saying. And Jesus calls him out and says, yeah, you're going to deny me before the rooster crows, you're going to deny me not once, not twice, but three times. [00:08:53] Speaker B: On the other side. I want to say that Peter understood a little bit from what Jesus said, because Peter said, lord, I love you. Why do I see that in verse 37? I will lay down my life for you. So that is the highest form of love. Jesus Christ himself said, there is no higher love than to give your life or a friend. And Peter is ready to do that. But that is coming from inside. It is his own initiative. It is not that gift you are talking about that comes from above. Because that gift that comes from above pushes us beyond our human boundaries and to behave in a way that amazes people. So, wow. I mean, these disciples are really loving each other. [00:09:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, just like you said earlier, going back to your conversation, in some ways it's easier to lay down our lives than to live a godly life. You know, if we were to die right now, a plane dropped out of the sky and landed here, or have an accident, whatever, if we were to drop dead right now, I don't have any more decisions to make. And so if I've given my life to God, I'm good, right? But for me to stand up for God when everyone around me is going the other Direction for me to stand up for God. When, when even godly people are, are claiming something else or doing something that I know is not what the Bible calls. That's where it gets hard. And this is what God, Jesus is calling out Peter for. He's like, yeah, you might say you're going to lay down your life, but you're going to deny me. You're not even going to make it through the night. [00:10:50] Speaker B: I'd like to continue your thought and to build on it. That was amazing. Look, somehow we learn to get along, to help, to pray, to bless, let's say to love even those who don't love us. But if you really love God, it is a little bit harder to love those who hate God than to love those who hate you. How do we get to that point? [00:11:22] Speaker A: How do we get to the point of loving God and being able to love those who hate. [00:11:26] Speaker B: Who hate God? [00:11:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I think this comes through that daily relationship that as we spend time with God, as we realize our value to God, as we realize what he did for us, what Christ did on the cross, as all this comes into view, we are changed. We're changed into a person that starts caring more for what is around us. As Christ lives in our heart, he changes our desires. And so this is something that naturally comes in a Christian's life when their eyes are focused on God. [00:12:09] Speaker B: And we see people through this perspective as being the image of God created by God, having the same basic features that God wanted to imprint on us. From our uniqueness to being social human beings, to being creative, to be able to know and to be known, to understand and to be understood. So also looking at people through the eyes of the cross that Jesus Christ died for them. And sometimes we cannot love people's behavior right away. And loving doesn't mean approving a behavior, but we can love what God has in store for them. That image of God which was lost, but God is in the process or has the purpose to restore it. In cooperating with God in that direction, that is how we manifest our love. Yeah. [00:13:15] Speaker A: This story always struck me. I had a pastor whose wife. When his wife was two years old, she was kidnapped and dumped down a well. And the whole town went out looking for her. And, you know, everyone's looking, everyone's going through. And a farmer finds her in a well in his field and they pull her up and they, they save her. Her life has saved everything. We, those stories break our heart. And we hear about them where someone's lost in the mountain. Everyone goes to look for that, the search parties that go out, the millions of dollars spent. If we're doing that to save people's life here on earth, how much more should we do to save people's spiritual lives? You know, how much more should we be concerned about our neighbors, our friends, our co workers who don't know Jesus? What kind of burden should we have for them? And putting those two concepts together, the amount of resources and time we'll spend to find someone who's physically lost or physically trapped or hurt in a place versus spiritually is quite shocking. Let us pray. Father God, I pray that you put in us the heart of Christ. [00:14:39] Speaker B: Amen. [00:14:40] Speaker A: That we can love others as Christ has loved us. That Father, the burden will be there to see others succeed not just in this life on earth, but see succeed in. In eternal life. [00:14:55] Speaker B: Amen. [00:14:57] Speaker A: And Father, we want to be like Jesus as we interact with those around us. To love them as he loved them, to care for them, to provide, to be present with them. And so I pray that you give us that heart. [00:15:14] Speaker B: Amen. [00:15:15] Speaker A: And give us that desire. In his name we pray. Amen. [00:15:18] Speaker B: Amen.