They Will Know Us By Our Love

Introduction:

John 13:31–35 ESV

31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. 33 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.’ 34 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. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Pray

1. The Preface (vv. 31-33)

John 13:31–33 ESV

31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. 33 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.’

Jesus is about to go to the Father and no one can follow Him at this time

Jesus uses the title from Daniel (Son of Man) - Messianic title

We see the oneness of God on display, and yet the distinction in the persons of the Trinity

2. The Command (v. 34)

John 13:34 ESV

34 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.

They already had a command to love one another that summed up the Law and Prophets

Leviticus 19:18 ESV

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.

I’m not implying there is a problem with God’s commands, but if you were to try to find a way that man might try to have a loophole with this command, what would you say it might be?

The problem with this command - we don’t love one another perfectly. Not even close.

3. The Qualifier (v. 34)

John 13:34 ESV

34 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.

A Qualifier in English is:

A word or phrase that modifies another word, often limiting or specifying its meaning. For example, in "some people," the word "some" is a qualifier that restricts the number of people being referred to.

“As I have loved You”

How has Jesus loved us? John 13:1

John 13:1 ESV

1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

4. The Indicator (v. 35)

John 13:35 ESV

35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

When you are driving down the road and the dashboard lights up, you know that something is wrong. That is unless some of you have had lights on your dash lit up so long that you thing they are supposed to be like that.

However, if you remove the tape that you put over the light, you will notice that there are certain indicator lights on the dashboard to tell you when something is wrong.

We have one of those permanent lights now that is on our dashboard: tell story of tire indicator light.

Indicator lights do just what the name implies. They indicate something.

Well as Christians, God has given us indicators that show that we belong to Christ. They indicate not only to ourselves, but to others as well.

John carried on this idea of love being an indicator in his 1st epistle.

1 John 3:14 ESV

14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.

1 John 4:20 ESV

20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

Conclusion

John just keeps coming back to this theme of loving one another and even loving our enemies over and over again. I wonder why?

Might it be because Jesus loved us while we were his enemies?

Again, we so often forget that Jesus loved Judas too.

Jesus love for us is not based on our performance. It is based on His choice of us. He loves His own to the end. He will complete His work in us.

God has not commanded us to go out and show others that love so that they can see that it comes not from within us, but from above.

Our job is to do what Jesus started this passage saying He was doing. It is to glorify the Father by acting like the Son.