THE GREATEST LOVE
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
-When our kids were little, we would constantly read to them the book GUESS HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU by Sam McBratney, which is the story of Little Nutbrown Hare trying to show his daddy (Big Nutbrown Hare) how much he loves him: as wide as he can reach and as far as he can hop. But Big Nutbrown Hare shows that he can reach farther and hop higher, showing his big love for Little Nutbrown Hare. As Little Nutbrown Hare goes to sleep, he tells his daddy that he loves him right up to the moon, but after he's asleep Big Nutbrown Hare proclaims that he loves him to the moon and back.
~After reading the book, we and the kids expressed our love for one another and tried to outdo each other. I love you to Jupiter. I love you heaven. And whatever else we would come up with.
~Over the past few years we’ve jokingly/lovingly taken on the phrase that Tony Stark says to his daughter in Avengers: I love you 3000.
-All families take on different expressions of love, and the Bible itself talks about expressions of love. In John’s gospel, Jesus explains what it means to love him.
~Right after washing their feet, Jesus begins this final discourse which is last minute instructions on what it means to be His followers. And in these instructions, He makes it known:
John 14:15 (ESV)
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
-He expounds on this theme throughout the discourse, but in the passage that we are specifically studying today He really sums it up for them (and by extension, for us).
~He tells them that this demonstration of love for Him in keeping His commandments can best be exhibited through the command to love one another.
-So, this is the bottom line, we demonstrate our love for Jesus best by the act of love toward other believers. As we look at the verses, may we be led to live out this greatest love within our church. Look at v. 12:
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
-Earlier, Jesus said you love me when you keep my commandments (plural), but now He boils it down to one single commandment (maybe we could call it one core commandment for the church) which is: that you love one another.
-Jesus is speaking to the 11 remaining apostles (Judas had left to begin the process of betrayal). And so, when you consider the term “one another” Jesus is speaking to His loyal followers, which would then extend to future loyal followers. Believers in Jesus are to love all the other believers in Jesus.
-In no way does this take away from Jesus’ call to love our enemies. Neither does this take away from God loving the world. But at this specific time, it was important for Jesus to emphasize that outsiders would know that these insiders truly love Jesus by their love for one another.
~As one author described it:
Unity instead of rivalry, trust instead of suspicion, obedience instead of self-assertion must rule the disciples’ common labors.
-But what is the extent of this love? How far should we go with this love? Jesus says in this verse: AS I HAVE LOVED YOU! Well, how far is that? He answers in the next verse:
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
-That is the extent—laying down one’s life for others (more specifically, for other believers). It is sacrifice. It is death to self.
-Obviously, Jesus is first pointing to His own demonstration of love at the cross—He literally was going to lay down His life for those friends of His reclining at table with Him, which would also pay for the sins of the world. Jesus sacrificed Himself as a great demonstration of love. This is emphasized throughout Scripture:
Romans 5:7–8 (ESV)
7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Ephesians 5:2 (ESV)
2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
-I guess we could say that Jesus loved us to the cross and back. And so, the connection is made here between Jesus laying down His life, therefore we also ought to lay down our lives. John the apostle made this connection more explicit in his first epistle:
1 John 3:16 (ESV)
16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
-There is an unbreakable bond between it all. We are told to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; we love God by loving His Son that He sent; we show love for Jesus through our obedience, and our obedience is found by following this commandment LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU!
-Jesus does not tell us to love fellow believers from the vantage point of some moral / ethical / philosophical ideal, but as a reflection of the same love with which He loved us.
-That means when it comes to sacrificial love of our fellow brothers and sisters, the self is set to the side for the benefit of the other. I take my desires and opinions and I crucify them in order to love my brother or sister in Christ as Jesus commanded me to love them—not only in service, but even if it literally means that I die in the process. How many of us are ready to die for our brothers and sisters in Christ?
-This means that I am on a whole other level when it comes to love—this isn’t a mere affection; it’s not an earthly love where you love people only as long as they are useful to you. Rather, I give up myself for the benefit of another. Which means things like:
~I don’t call people names on social media because they don’t think like me. Instead, I love them and am willing instead to serve them.
~I don’t try to undermine other people’s life and ministries because they don’t do things the way I would do them. Instead, I pray for them and see what I can do to support them in their efforts.
~I don’t tear down a church because they wouldn’t let me do this or that, or I don’t like the preacher doing this or that. Instead, I put myself out there to minister in the church body so that my brothers and sisters in Christ are taken care of
-When you love like that, Jesus calls us his friends. And this is the way He describes His friends:
14 You are my friends if you do what I command you.
-Wow…to be called the friend of Jesus. That is not a word or name just thrown around lightly in the Bible. Only a select few are referred to as God’s friends. James tells us that Abraham was called a friend of God. And the Bible tells us in Exodus that Moses met with God like a man meets with a friend. But that’s about it until we come here.
-We can be friends of Jesus—but here again, it is only if we DO WHAT HE COMMANDS.
-Look, if you are tearing down your brother or sister in Christ behind their back (or in front of their face) you are not following Jesus’ command—how then can you call yourself a friend of Jesus?
~If you are doing whatever you can to cause a fracture in the church or you are trying to get people to pick your side about something in the church and causing division—how then can you call yourself a friend of Jesus?
~You do nothing to uplift brothers and sisters in the church. You come, you do the church thing, you go home, and you don’t do anything to bless the lives of fellow believers—how then can you call yourself a friend of Jesus?
-There’s a story about an elderly woman who was absolutely lonely, but then she went to her own church, and even there she felt lonely. She said this, "I sit in the pew next to a warm body every week, but I feel no heat. I'm in the faith, but I draw no active love. I sing the hymns with those next to me, but I hear only my voice. When the service is finished, I leave as I came in--hungry for someone to tell me that I'm a person worth something to somebody. Just a smile would do it, or perhaps some gesture, some sign that I am not a stranger."
-What are you going to do with her? How are you going to demonstrate that you are Jesus’ friends and still ignore her?
-Jesus has friends—they are those who do the command to love others as He has loved them. Notice it says DO. Not philosophize about it. Not do a bible study about it. Not tweet about it. DO IT. And Jesus says there is a benefit of being His friend:
15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
-Jesus does not merely bark out orders toward us, He invites us to come and join Him in what He Himself is doing. Even though we are His servants, He doesn’t treat us as mere hired help.
-If a person is merely a servant or a slave, the master gives the order and the servant or slave is expected to fulfill that order without questioning the logic or reasoning behind the order. When you are servant or slave, you merely do what you are told. You are not told the rationale; you are not told anything about what it is that you are working toward. There is no sense of working toward a greater cause or toward a higher purpose. You merely do the drudgery work that you are told to do.
~And, being a servant or slave, you sure don’t expect the master of the household to join you in doing the work. They are the master, you are the servant or slave—you do what you are told.
-But Jesus, in His kindness and goodness says that the relationship we have with Him is different, because if we are obedient disciples, we are His friends.
~Now, that doesn’t make Him any less the master and Lord, because that is exactly what He is. Earlier in John’s gospel He said to the apostles:
John 13:13 (ESV)
13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.
~You notice in the Bible that people are called God’s friends, but God and Jesus are never called anybody’s friends. Jesus never condescends below His status as King of kings and Lord of lords.
-Nevertheless, we are His friends when we obey His commandments, and this Master lets His friends know what it is that He is doing, where history is headed, and He joins us in the work. As one author stated it (to make a comparison):
An absolute potentate demands obedience in all his subjects. His slaves, however, are simply told what to do, while his friends are informed of his thinking, enjoy his confidence and learn to obey with a sense of privilege and with full understanding of their master’s heart. So also here: Jesus’ absolute right to command is in no way diminished, but he takes pains to inform his friends of his motives, plans, purposes.
-And being His friends who are called to obey, we are told:
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
-I know people become uncomfortable when we see that word choose in the Bible, and I’m sure not going to try and tackle the implications of that today. But at minimum, what it is saying is that Jesus’ friends are chosen with a purpose and they are appointed (or, literally, set aside or laid aside) for a specific reason—and that reason is that they are to go and bear fruit that abides or lasts or remains for eternity.
-This chapter of John is coming full circle. Jesus began this chapter saying that like a branch abides in the vine, so we are to abide in Him. You cannot bear fruit without abiding in Christ and His Word abiding in you.
~And yet, here we are, that we have been given the purpose of bearing fruit.
-But what is that fruit? Within the context of the chapter and passage it is at minimum active works of love toward other believers.
~Notice it says GO and bear fruit. It doesn’t say sit in a pew and bear fruit. It doesn’t say sit at home and bear fruit. It says GO—it’s active.
-But then we are told to ask whatever we wish of the Father in Jesus’ name it will be given. It is prayers for fruitfulness. Here again, we hearken back to the beginning of the chapter. We pray to the Father in need of help in fruit-bearing, knowing that it is by abiding in Christ that we bear much fruit. We pray in our need.
-And he concludes this section:
17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
-It ends as it begins. Vv. 12 & 17 form bookends in describing the greatest love that there ever has been and can be and ever will be. Christ loved us, and we so love our brothers and sisters.
Conclusion
Conclusion
-Paul described this command of Christ’s this way:
Galatians 6:2 (ESV)
2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
~Instead of seeing other Christians AS burdens, we are to bear their burdens for them—that is loving them.
-There was an American journalist who was walking down the streets of a Chinese city, and he took up a great interest in the children of the city. And he noticed many of these children were carrying smaller children on their backs, and managing at the same time to go where they needed to go, do their chores, play their games, all while carrying these smaller kids on their backs.
He started talking to one of these kids, and he said, "It’s too bad that you have to carry such a heavy burden!"
The young boy quickly replied, "He's no burden, he's my brother."
"Well, you are chivalrous to say so!" said the man, and he gave the boy some money.
When the American reached home he said to his family: "There was a little Chinese boy who has taught me the fullest meaning of the words, `Bear one another's burdens. and so fulfill the law of Christ."' He recounted his interview with the young boy, and then he added: "If a little Chinese boy can carry and care for his brother and refuse to consider him as a burden, surely we ought not to think it a burden to carry our little brothers and sisters, the weak and the needy ones, who look to us for help. Let us rejoice as we carry one, and say, by our actions, `He's no burden; he's my brother’ or ‘She’s no burden, she’s my sister.’"
-How are you loving your brother and sister? Are you loving or are you leaching? Christian, LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS CHRIST HAS LOVED YOU
-And for those who have not believed in Jesus, He so loved you that He laid down His life. There is no greater love…
