Love

Welcome Fit 2 Serve family:

Designer clothes are known by their trademarks or designs. You can know if it’s a Tommy Hilfiger or a Ralph Lauren. They have trademarks that make them very visible and very identifiable.

Those who hold an office of a unique kind can be identified by their attire. You can know a doctor by his attire or a policeman by his attire or a judge by his attire.

God has sent forth something as irrefutable evidence that we are close to God—an irrefutable test by which you can measure your own spiritual growth.

In fact, so awesome is this trademark of God that He said it would be the major declaration of your faith.

Jesus put it this way.

He said, “By this all will know that you are My disciples,, if you have love for one another.”

Today we are moving up the Fit 2 Serve Method Pyramid and today we will be looking at the Faith side.

We started with Believe, then Humility, and this morning we will look at Love.

Our Sermon Title: Love The Way Jesus Loves

This Morning: We will look at

3 Qualities of how Jesus demonstrated His Love

Will you turn your bibles to John 13:31-35

John13:31-35 So, when he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. 32 If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately. 33 Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I say to you. 34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Introduction

We are on the Thursday evening before Jesus is crucified, at the event known as "the Last Supper".

Jesus is alone with His disciples in the upper room.

He has just washed their feet, giving them an example to learn how to love and serve each other.

Though He continually reached out to Judas, Judas rejected Jesus' love, has now been possessed by Satan, and has left to make final arrangements for Jesus' arrest.

:31-33 The time for glory

:31 Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him.

It seems a little strange that the moment that the betrayer leaves to do his dirty work, Jesus announces that He is being glorified.

Shouldn't being glorified be more like having a parade, or receiving presents, or having multitudes bow down at your feet?

Yet for Jesus, His whole purpose of coming to earth in a human body was to go to the cross and pay for the sins of the world in death.

What would seem to be the most horrible and humiliating of actions was actually the greatest deed ever done.

Lesson:

It seems God's priorities aren't always the same as ours.

Oh that our priorities could be so completely overturned!

Instead of looking to have Ed McMahon knock on our door ...

How thrilling it is when Jesus knocks on our door!

Instead of winning a gold medal in the olympics ...

How about winning a "Well done, good and faithful servant" from God Himself!

32.If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately.

God will in the future glorify Jesus by raising Him from the dead.

:33 Little children

He doesn't call them His little group of cowardly, yellow-belly traitors.

Which would be true.

He calls His disciples his "technia", His little children.

teknion - a little child; a term of kindly address by teachers to their disciples.

This is not some kind of put down on the disciples.

It is meant to express kindness, tenderness, affection, understanding, and sympathy.

Lesson:

Do you sympathize with the weaknesses of those who are looking to you for leadership?

Or do you look at them with scorn?

The apostle John, who called himself "the disciple whom Jesus loved" picked up on this.

He uses this term 7 times in 1John, like:

1 John 4:​​4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Also, 2:1; 2:12; 2:28; 3:7; 3:18; 5:21

:33I shall be with you a little while longer.

Hey guys, I'm only going to be around a little while longer.

You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I say to you.

Jesus spoke several times to the Jews about His going away:

John 7:32-36 The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things concerning Him, and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take Him. 33 Then Jesus said to them, “I shall be with you a little while longer, and then I go to Him who sent Me. 34 You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come.”35 Then the Jews said among themselves, “Where does He intend to go that we shall not find Him? Does He intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? 36 What is this thing that He said, ‘You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come’?”

He spoke of it again in John 8:21-22

Jesus is talking about His death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven.

:34-35 The new commandment

:34 A new commandment I give unto you,

The commandment to love others was not a new commandment.

Moses actually commanded the people to love:

(Lev 19:18 NKJV) You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

What was new was the way in which we are to love.

:34 that you love one another;

This is aimed at His disciples, learning to love each other.

The focus is on how believers will treat other believers.

The verb is in a "present tense", meaning continuous action.

It's not just loving them once and stopping.

:34 as I have loved you

This is the new standard by which we are to love each other.

It's no longer just the old standard in the law where we love others as we love ourselves.

Truthfully, we don't always know how to love ourselves.

Instead, it's to love others in the same way that Jesus loves us.

Lesson:

Treat others like Jesus would

I've been thinking a lot lately about how many of our relationships would change if we were to all learn to love others like Jesus loves us.

In particular, I've been thinking about marriages.

The Scripture doesn't have a whole lot of stuff to say to marriages, except the basics -

Wives submit to your husbands

Husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church ...

But when you get to thinking about how much the Bible shows us of how Jesus loves His church, then you find that the Bible is actually FULL of help for marriages, and ALL relationships.

Here's three qualities of Jesus' love for us:

Lesson:

1. Serving

In the same evening, Jesus has demonstrated this to His disciples.

He gave them an example to follow, He washed their feet.

He took the role of the humble servant.

Paul wrote:

Philippians 2:3-7 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it [b]robbery to be equal with God, 7 but [c]made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.

Illustration:

A farmer was out plowing his field one spring morning. The spring thaw had just occurred and there were many muddy valleys in the field. Through one particularly wet place his tractor became stuck in the mud. The harder he tried, the deeper he became stuck. Finally, he walked over to his neighbor's to ask for help. The neighbor came over and looked at the situation. He shook his head, and then said, "It doesn't look good, but I tell you what. I'll give it a try pulling you out. But if we don't get it out, I'll come sit in the mud with ya!"

2. Sacrifice

1John 3:16 By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

Love is not about what you need from the other person, it's what you give.

Illustration:

Chuck Colson

Consider just a snapshot of this truth. In 1978, during President Carter's attempt to reinstate draft registration, newspapers across the country carried a photo that I have carried in my mind ever since: a young Princeton student was attached to a poster with the words, "Nothing is worth dying for."

To many this seemed a noble celebration of life.

But if nothing is worth dying for, is anything worth living for?

We have turned into an incredibly selfish society.

REMEMBER WHAT…….Jesus said:

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.

It's not about demanding your rights, it's about laying them down.

It's giving up your parking space for another person.

I love how the parking lot works at Church everybody is polite to each other!

It's not about having earned a little respect, it's about going to a cross.

3. Forgiveness

Eph 4:32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

If we love like Jesus loves us, then we must turn around and forgive others.

Illustration:

Rabbis in Israel invalidated a 1982 marriage between Shoshana Hadad and Masound Cohen because, rumor has it, a Tunisian immigrant ancestor of Shoshana Hadad had illegally married a divorcee around the year 580. That "sin" took out the entire family line, making it illegal for any Hadad feminine seed to marry a Cohen, because Cohens are considered descendants of the ancient Hebrew priesthood and must follow strict rules regarding marriage. The Bible teaches that the sins of the fathers extended only to "the third and fourth generations," not so many centuries. After all, 580 was a long time ago. By the way, that was 580 B.C.!

-- Liberty Magazine, March/April, 1995, p. 5.

How long will it take you to forgive?

We all need graciousness and forgiveness ...

Illustration:

There's a Spanish story of a father and son who had become estranged. The son ran away, and the father set off to find him. He searched for months to no avail. Finally, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper. The ad read: Dear Paco, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father.

On Saturday 800 Pacos showed up, looking for forgiveness and love from their fathers.

-- Homemade, Vol. 17, No.1, January 1993.

Are you loving others like Jesus?

Are you serving? sacrificing? forgiving?

:35 By this all will know that you are My disciples,

It's when we learn how to love each other in the same manner that Jesus loved us that people will recognize us as being disciples of Jesus.

In fact, Jesus says the ALL men will know we're His disciples if we love each other like this.

Illustration:

Tertullian, an ancient historian, said that the heathens would say when they saw the Christians pass along the streets, and meet and express their affection to each other, "see how they love one another":

But this is all kind of shallow when we don't really allow ourselves to get very close with other Christians.

A trend I find very disturbing in the church today is that people don't want to get too close.

They like going to the big "mega-churches" because they can get lost in them and never have to have any real contact with the same people from week to week.

Perhaps they've been abused or hurt by a particular church, and are kind of hesitant to get too close to another group of Christians.

But if you never allow yourself to get close enough to other Christians to love them like Jesus loves you, then how is the world going to know about Jesus' love?

Questions: How do we show love by serving others? How do we show love by sacrificing?How do we show love by forgiving?