One Another; Love
One Anothers • Sermon • Submitted
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As I worked though our One Another series I wondered which injunction would fit best for Mother’s Day. I concluded the injunction to Love One Another would fit the best. Here’s why.
My Mom has been with the Savior for a number of years now but I still remember her love. The love I felt when i woke up in the middle of the night from a bad dream or having thrown up my dinner in my bed. I remember her love when she played catch with me in the yard, when she baked a chocolate cake for my birthday and stood strong in her four foot something frame before my school principle when I was sent to the office for saying “Yes Mam” and “No Mam” during my first year in a “northern” school. I remember when she sat with me when my heart was broken by my girl friend whom I believed I loved. She loved me when she begged me not to join the Air Force
because I was her only son, and then stood lovingly and proudly by me when I graduated from Cedarville College.
I also remember Mom telling me when I would become angry with one or all of my three sisters that I needed to love them, “remember,”she would say, “They are your sisters, family, you will want them to be there when I can’t be and no body else will.”
Mom through all that taught me how to love others and prepared me to love my wife. Oh Michele, you can’t blame mom when I haven’t been as loving as I should have been.
Mother’s teach and guide us in love so it is only fitting that we consider the Love One Another command this Mother’s Day.
Turn to 2 John verse one and read along with me
1 The elder to the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in truth; and not only I, but also all who know the truth,
2 for the sake of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever:
3 Grace, mercy and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.
4 I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we have received commandment to do from the Father.
5 Now I ask you, lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another.
6 And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it.
This letter begins as is typical with letters of its time. The author introduces himself (“The Elder” = John) and then the recipient(s) by name ( “Chosen Lady” and her children = church and its members) or by marks of identification (chosen; in truth). And then greets them .
John loved this church as did “all who knew the truth.” There admiration, fondness was based upon God’s truth, which lives in each believer. Christian love is not mere emotion, sentimentalism or human compassion. It unlike humanistic love, is driven by a knowledge of the truth as seen in Christ Jesus.
John told the dear lady and her children that if they maintained truth and love, they would experience favor (charis - “grace”; compassion (eleos- “mercy”) and inener harmony and tranquility (eirene - “peace”) .
To walk in the truth, John said, is the same as being obedient to the truth. Seeing some of "her children’ walking in obedience to the truth was very encouraging to John and he desired that the whole church would walk the same way.
What he was writing to the church was not some new expectation or requirement but he was reiterating something they already knew from the beginning.
7 Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard.
It is the command that we love one another. But What does it mean, to “Love one another?” John defines Christian love as obedience to God. Love that is not directed by the expressed will of God is susceptible of becoming unadvised sentimental activity. John says in verse two that believers who are “walking in the truth,” living in obedience to God’s directives, love each other. What we refer to as brotherly love is a part of God’s revealed will.
The last half of verse 6 is grammatically difficult in the original language. By his wording John was affirming that obeying God’s commands meant adhering to what had been commanded in the form in which it was expressed from the beginning. Stated in this way, the writer’s words were designed to warn against any “reinterpretation” of God’s will. And if we were to continue studying the later half of this epistle we would see his warning expanded as false teaching is a key subject in His teaching to the church (vv. 7-13).
But I want to stop at this point and help us focus on the command, “love one another. Another important passage on the subject is
34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
35 “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John in his presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ often includes the words of Jesus. One such instance is here in Chapter 13 where Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you… (13:34-35 NASB). Verse 35 provides
the answer to the question, Why are we to “love one another?” Here we discover the purpose for this love, that “all men will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Our love is to identify us as followers of Jesus. We are to emulate the Lord in our attitudes, actions and words. He loved us, so I must love others.
Our love thus serves as a testimony to the person and purpose of Christ. He gave them a new commandment, a new one, different than the one they previously understood.
They had known the law, the Ten Commandments, which was designed to make people aware of their sin and to seek a way to escape, ultimately leading them to Christ. When Jesus came, He gave a new commandment, a new means of leading people to God, making them aware of their sin and the answer for that sin.
That new command, to love one another, was to help identify those who were Christ’s disciples, His followers, and that their love would raise interest in Christ. Christian love and fellowship are the means by which one is drawn to Christ. But....,
What does loving one another look like?
Jesus said, “as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”
First off we read in
2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
Therefore loving as Christ involves self sacrifice. Later in the same chapter (5:25) Paul reiterates that truth when he tells us, husbands you are to love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. And the Apostle John repeated the same concept in 1 John 3:16, when he tells us that we know love in that Christ laid down His life for us and therefore we are to do the same for fellow believers. But few of us are called to make that ultimate sacrifice for another believer.
16 We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
The setting for John 13 is the Jewish festival of Passover. It is the perfect picture of God’s plan of redemption. The passover is a remembrance of Israel’s deliverance from slavery and its escape from the judgment of God that saw death coming upon the first born in Egypt.
Jesus had already shown His love for His disciples in that He called, taught, protected them and met their needs. Just the fact that He made himself like them and dwelt among them was a demonstration of Christ’s love. But did they truly understand it, could they grasp the full significance of the cross?
SO while his disciples are fighting over who is the greatest among them, Jesus further demonstrates his love for them.
Remember they lived in a culture where most people walked everywhere in shoes that provided little to no protection from the dirt and filth on the road ways. The custom of the day was for the host to provide a servant to wash the feet of his guest. But Jesus and the disciples were a private group in a borrowed facility so there were no servants. However there was a basin of water and towels.
Do we read where any of the disciples volunteer to wash Jesus’ or the rest of the groups feet? No, but Jesus whom they call Master, Teacher, humbled himself and washed their feet.
Not only does Christian love look like self sacrifice, but is also looks like service. Paul admonished the church in Philippians 2:5-7
5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
to have the same attitude among themselves that Jesus had when He made himself nothing taking on the form of a servant and humbling himself.
So what does serving look like in the 21st century? What are we doing to love as Jesus did in the day to day routine of life?
Think for a moment about your relationships. What are you willing to do for those in you say you love? Jesus loved his disciples unconditionally even when they were impatient, proud, selfish.
In what ways do you demonstrate selfishness? - Do you prefer being served over serving? - Do you have to be first as opposed to last? - Do you prefer being honored to being the one doing the honoring?
- Are you looking for opportunities to serve? - Am I willing to become involved in other christian’s lives? - Am I using my material possessions to minister to others? -Are you actually reaching out to establish friendships with non-Christians? -Do you make an effort to meet new people - Christians and non-Christians?
How will people know that Jesus loves them since He no longer dwells on the earth?
Remember His love is to be seen through you and me, His disciples . That was Christ’s plan. Non -Christians were to know His love through proper, God honoring relationships with one another. We are Jesus reflectors. We shine the light showing people the way to Jesus. Just like the small lane reflectors in the blacktop on the highway. Our love is to guide the Non-Christian to Christ.. So how do we reflect His love today?
Servant leadership. The leadership of the church must love one another and demonstrate that love to others. This is why multiple church leaders are so important. One spiritual leader cannot model the love of Christ any more than one disciple could have.
Serving together. The leadership has to love and serve one another, but Christ desires that the whole body serve together. Serving includes things like working in the nursery, teaching children the word of God, leading or hosting a small group/bible study, taking meals to families in need, mowing a lawn, taking care of God’s house, being part of the leadership team, leading in worship, greeting, praying, showing hospitality, setting up and tearing down an event or service, dealing with the technology needed to get the Word out clearly and many other things.
As a Unit we are to love as Christ loved, sacrificially, unconditionally and in serving others. When we love others in that way we reflect Christ to the world around us. People who truly love one another attract attention. It is that love for one another that helps to draw people to Christ and then to the church. A body that is not growing is not what Christ desires and is not pleasing to Him.
While Gandhi was a practicing Hindu, Christianity intrigued him. In his reading of the Gospels, Gandhi was impressed by Jesus whom Christians worshiped and followed. He wanted to know more about this Jesus that Christians referred to as “the Christ, the Messiah.”
The Rev. Pattison tells the following story: One Sunday morning Gandhi decided that he would visit one of the Christian churches in Calcutta. Upon seeking entrance to the church sanctuary, he was stopped at the door by the ushers.
He was told he was not welcome, nor would he be permitted to attend this particular church as it was for high-caste Indians and whites only. He was neither high caste, nor was he white. Because of the rejection, the Mahatma turned his back on Christianity.
With this act, Gandhi rejected the Christian faith, never again to consider the claims of Christ. He was turned off by the sin of segregation that was practiced by the church. It was due to this experience that Gandhi later declared, “I’d be a Christian if it were not for the Christians.′ ”
In Buddhism there is a saying, “Don’t confuse the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself.” This means the finger pointing at the moon teaches us that although someone points to the moon to show us the truth of its luminosity, the finger pointing is not the moon itself.
Likewise, the practitioner of a religion doesn’t always practice the religion the way it was originally taught.
Following Dr. Getz’s lead let me ask you. Where are you right now in this ever-growing experience? How committed are you to Jesus Christ and the members of His body? If we claim to be Christians and yet do not care about other Christians or worst yet do not love our fellow brother and sisters in Christ, then we are disobedient and do not love Christ
10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
What evidence is there in your life that you are loving other Christians? (outside your immediate family) Here is an application.
This afternoon after you have lunch with Mom write down 5 things you have done in the last 2 weeks that reflect the love of Christ, that would fulfill the command to love one another.
Write down one step that you are going to take to either start loving others as Christ loved you or take that love to the next level (growing that love.)