Love One Another

Today we turn our attention back to the gospels and the story of Jesus. However, we are still focusing on unpacking what it means to be a forever family of God. Over the next three weeks we will be looking at what it means to be a loving, generous, and hospitable people. So while we are going to the book of John, we are breaking from where we are in the footsteps of Jesus to focus on a lesson taught to his disciples. Tet’s turn over to John chapter 13.

This section of the book covers what is happening between Jesus and his disciples in the upper room the night Jesus was arrested. He and his disciples are sharing in a final Passover meal. Jesus already washed his disciples’ feet and predicted his betrayal. He knows the next step is the cross and his disciples know he is about to leave them. They do not fully grasp what is about to take place, but they know they are about to move into a new chapter of life without their master. It is in this time of final instructions Jesus gives them this command.

John 13:34–35 NASB95

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

When Christ called his disciples, he created a new community tied to one another by their mutual faith in him as the Savior of the world. He was preparing to depart from them, so he is providing instruction to prepare them for the next phase in their lives. He emphasized the importance of loving one another. Today I want to take a look at what loving one another means.

Love for one another must be modeled, not just spoken.

The command Jesus is giving is only three words: love one another. The very next phrase answers the question of how. He says love one another even as I have loved you. The way in which we love one another has already been modeled by Christ. When we look to loving one another we must look to Christ as our example of how to love one another.

Remember, Jesus lived life on life with these men for about three years. They went everywhere together. He invested his life in them. He just washed their feet, modeling a posture of humility. He trained them to preach the gospel, to evangelize the lost, and to serve others. Jesus is the model of what perfect and sacrificial love looks like. So when we are commanded to love one another, the statement is qualified by providing the example, which is Jesus himself.

Did you know if you search the New Testament for every reference commanding us to love one another you will find thirteen of them. Of these thirteen references, ten of them are found in the apostle John’s writings, of which four of them are quotations from Jesus himself in john’s gospel. If you do a search for all the references of how Christians are called to love one another, you will find about 56. Some of them are repeated multiple times, but it is worth your while to search the scriptures to read these references for yourself in the contexts they are set in. If you would like a list of all these references, I have made copies available in the foyer on your way out.

I would like to provide a few examples from that list for you. We are called to:

Be devoted to one another (Rom. 12:10)

Be of the same mind (Rom. 12:16)

Build up one another (Rom. 14:19)

Serve one another (Gal. 5:15)

Show tolerance for one another (Eph. 4:2)

Speak truth to one another (Eph. 4:25)

Be kind to one another (Eph. 4:32)

Bear with one another, forgiving one another (Col. 3:13)

Comfort one another (1 Thess. 4:18)

Confess sin and pray for one another (1 Peter 4:9)

This is the heart of our Lord. He modeled perfect love for us, and we are commanded not to merely speak love for one another, but model it based on Jesus’ model.

Our love for one another is a testimony to who Jesus is.

Jesus goes on to say that that this type of love for one another will testify to all men, that is all people, that they are his disciples. That means that when we love one another according to Jesus’ model, the world takes notice. God has a way of taking an imperfect people striving to live out perfect love and displaying his power, his glory, his mercy, and his grace to the rest of the world. When we model the love of Christ the way Christ modeled his love for his disciples, it is visible, tangible, and infectious.

Everyone on the planet wants to be loved. Everybody ought to be loved like Jesus loves them. Loving one another the way Jesus loves us is a testimony to who he is because love is caught when it is expressed in tangible ways. There is a song that communicates this very well. The song is called Live Like That by Sidewalk Prophets. I enjoy this group a lot. Here is what the song says:

Sometimes I think

What will people say of me

When I'm only just a memory

When I'm home where my soul belongs

Was I love

When no one else would show up

Was I Jesus to the least of those

Was my worship more than just a song

I want to live like that

And give it all I have

So that everything I say and do

Points to You

If love is who I am

Then this is where I'll stand

Recklessly abandoned

Never holding back

I want to live like that

I want to live like that

Am I proof

That You are who you say You are

That grace can really change a heart

Do I live like Your love is true

People pass

And even if they don't know my name

Is there evidence that I've been changed

When they see me, do they see You

I want to live like that

And give it all I have

So that everything I say and do

Points to You

If love is who I am

Then this is where I'll stand

Recklessly abandoned

Never holding back

I want to live like that

Everything we say and do ought to point to who Jesus is. Our love for one another is a testimony to who Jesus is, because it is modeled after what Jesus did.

Words and actions absent of genuine love are worthless.

Saying the right thing and doing the right thing absent of a genuine motive for those things ends up being the wrong thing. Consider what the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13. This passage is popular to read during wedding ceremonies, but we must remember that Paul is writing these words to the whole church in Corinth, which is probably one of the most dysfunctional churches he ever planted. Look at what he says:

1 Corinthians 13:1–3 NASB95

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

In other words, no matter how eloquent or how artistically you are able to produce words from your mouth, if there is no genuine love behind them, it is just noise. The next part is hyperbole because nobody has all mysteries or all knowledge or all faith, but even if someone did, but lacked a genuine love that supported those things, it is nothing. Even if one gives all they have to the poor and dies for their faith, yet there is no love of Christ that motivates them, it is of no value. Saying and doing the right things without the right motive is worthless.

Rather, Paul goes on to explain further what biblical love is:

1 Corinthians 13:4–8 (NASB95)

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,

does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails;

Love is patient. It is never in a hurry, but takes its time. Love is kind. It is not cruel. Love is not jealous. Genuine love for one another does not include me being jealous of my brother or sister, wishing I had what they have. Love does not brag. If you constantly tell everybody about the good you do, that is not love, it is pride. Love is not arrogant, it is modest. Love is not rude or self-serving, but sacrificial. Love keeps no record of wrongs. We do not hold each other’s mistakes over each other’s heads. Love does not delight in unrighteousness, but delights in truth. It bears all things. That is it protects all things, it trusts all things, and perseveres all things. This is the kind of love that never fails.

Our love for one another is more than words. It is action. But it is not words or action absent of a genuine motive for doing so that is for the other person, not for yourself.

Years ago, I came across an ad that illustrates this perfectly. It came from an unlikely source: A Thai Life Insurance company. It is called Unsung Hero. Take a look.

Play Thai Life Insurance Commercial: Unsung Hero

This company is not Christian, but even they were able to capture the essence of what a sacrificial love looks like. When we say we value loving one another as a church, this is what we ought to strive for. This love is not solely for us in this room, but a love modeled to the outside world.

Sometimes I think

What will people say of me

When I'm only just a memory

When I'm home where my soul belongs

Was I love

When no one else would show up

Was I Jesus to the least of those

Was my worship more than just a song

I want to live like that

And give it all I have

So that everything I say and do

Points to You

If love is who I am

Then this is where I'll stand

Recklessly abandoned

Never holding back

I want to live like that

How might God be calling you to display a more biblical love within the family of God and to the outside world?