Love One Another

What’s New…

Preaching the Same Old Thing

The Holy Week challenge: To say something new, provocative, and catchy. That’s usually what get’s a Pastor in trouble.

Shedding Light on Ancient Truth, that’s were we really grow.

The same text as I preached last year, but a different message.

A New Command: one you’ve heard before, but hopefully, in the light of Christ, I shed new light on the ancient Truth.

The New Command - “Love One Another”

Nothing New about the Command given to the disciples.

John wrote in, 1 John 2:7, “Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning.

The old commandment is the word that you have heard.”

Leviticus 19:18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

6 of the 10 Commandments are about our relationships with one another - and the key to keeping those commands - love one another.

If I’ve said it once…

What’s new is the model, the standard of loving one another.

1 John 2:8 At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

What’s new is that the command to love is true “in him.”

Love finds its ultimate definition and illustration in Jesus.

John 13:34 “Love one another as I have loved you”

Jesus’ love for us, for those whom he came to save, is now the definition of love, the motivation for love, and the source for our loving one another.

What Loving One Another Looks Like

Genuine Love Seeks to Live in Harmony with One Another

Galatians 5:14–15 “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.”

If you bite one another - like a pack of wolves, first biting, won’t let go. Holding on to bitterness, envy…

If you devour one another - chewing, tearing apart the other, wearing them down

You will consume one another:

Conflict in the church is a kind of spiritual suicide. Sin is always self-destructive, and the sin of divisiveness inevitably leads to the destruction of the church. It means the death of Christian witness and fellowship.

Love seeks to be reconciled, to be at peace, and to put others before ourselves

Rom 12:9ff “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

Phil. 2:2-3 “Have the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

2 Cor 13:11 “Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace…”

Eph 4:32 “Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

We see this in Jesus -

Philippians 2 “He emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men… humbled himself by becoming obedience to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Mark 10:45 The son of man came to serve, not to be served Even as the nails were driven into his hands and feet -

“Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”

Genuine Love is a Redeeming Love

A shallow love hides from the truth

Going along to get along, even when we know that another’s choices, decisions, are leading to their destruction. I

s it loving to let a person remain in darkness, to withhold the cure from the sick, to keep the prisoner in chains?

Genuine Love delights in the truth

1 Corinthians 13:6 Love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”

We are called to speak the truth in love; calling, pleading with those who are caught in sin to repent and trust in Christ for their salvation

It is the nature of love to set the captive free, to bring healing to the sick, to call the sinner to righteousness.

Jesus revealed the righteousness of God and God’s mercy, he was full of grace and truth…

He spoke judgment to redeem not to condemn

To the woman caught in adultery in John 8, “Has no one condemned you? Neither do I. Go, and from now on sin no more.”

Only Christ’s love and work is truly redeeming, but as we love as Christ loved, we make his love known

1 John 4:12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

Genuine Love is Sacrificial Love

False love ignores the needs of others

It’s not my problem, they get what they deserve. Luke 10 - The Parable of the Good Samaritan; “The religious leaders passed the man left for dead; they claimed to love God, but had no concern for man

Different ways of Sacrifice

John 15:13 Greater love has no man but that he lay down his life for his brother

Eph. 5:22 - the call for husbands is to love like Christ, to lay down your life for her

1 John 3:17 Those who have the world’s goods, see a brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?”

Loving one another means meeting material needs, going without so that others may have

The love of the Macedonian believers - they gave first of themselves, then gave sacrificially

Christ gave his life for us

He gave His life, that we might live

2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

His sacrifice proved the Love God has for us.

Rom 5:8 - God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. What does such a love require from us

This is the love of Christ for us

Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.