Love One Another, Even As I Have Loved You

Introduction

Ah. So again, what we’re talking about are things having to do with that. So let’s go to our main text for this morning in John chapter 13. In John chapter 13 and verse 34. Following his institution of the Lord’s Supper, following his commemorating the Passover with his disciples, and immediately following Judas’s exit, his going out into the night to betray Jesus. Jesus has talked about how he is going to glorify the Father. But then he turns his attention to his disciples and says to them in verse 34, a new commandment I get to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. That’s a relatively straightforward statement. It’s a statement that we are very familiar with. We want to take just a little bit closer look at it this morning to better understand what this means for our relationship with each other and how we continue to go on being devoted to one another and what it means to love.

1. A New Commandment in the New Covenant

First, consider what the disciples may have first heard. When Jesus says, a new commandment. Now, these are people that have grown up following God their entire lives. They know the commandments. They know all kinds of commandments. And Jesus begins by saying, a new commandment I give to you. You may begin to think, well, what new thing is Jesus going to say to us? What thing that God did not reveal through Moses and through the prophets? And now Jesus is going to give us a new commandment. And it’s not a new commandment at all. It’s a commandment that was encapsulated even in the Old Testament about loving your neighbor as yourself.

Now, we certainly understand when Jesus says a new commandment, there’s a it’s a new commandment from the standpoint of Jesus exhibiting what it truly means to love. But I think there’s something else there as well. What has Jesus been doing on this evening? Again, in John 13, beginning in verses 1 through 4, you read how Jesus had supper with his disciples. Supper is now ended. And of course, we know that was the Passover celebration, the Passover feast. And it’s within that context that Jesus instituted what we refer to as the Lord’s Supper. And you, of course, remember when he takes the cup and he passes it and gives it to his disciples, and he says, Take this cup, drink. This is the new covenant in my blood.

Now, what do we know about covenants? Covenants are how God forms his relationships with mankind. When God entered into a covenant with Abraham, that was a means in Genesis 15 of encouraging Abraham and letting Abraham know this relationship that you and I are in, it is a binding relationship. And the promises that I have made to you, I am going to keep those promises. When God brings Israel out of Egypt, and Exodus is the 19th chapter, and he brings them to Mount Sinai, he makes a covenant with them. Chapter 20, those ten commandments are the first stipulations of that covenant. Then you go to chapter 24, and you read in verse 3 how when Moses reads all the ordinances and the commands of the covenant, and the people say, All that God has said, we will do.

And again in verse 7, they repeat the same thing, and then the blood of the covenant is spilled and applied to the people in verse 8. God forming relationships with mankind. But those covenants, they carry with them stipulations. They carry with them commands.

Jesus has said to his disciples on this evening.

This is the new covenant. And this covenant comes with a new commandment. It’s not going to be the only commandment in the covenant. But just as in the old testament, you have those ten commandments, the prelude to the covenant, you might even say, in some ways, encapsulating so much of the entire Old Testament covenant. Now Jesus gives them one command, one new commandment in this new covenant. That you would love one another even as I have loved you.

If you and I are serious at all in being Christians, being followers of our God, this commandment has to be followed. Later on, John, we record in 1 John chapter 2. 1 John chapter 2, and beginning in verse 7. Beloved, I’m 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. On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining. The one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him.

Or the one who hates his brothers in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness is blind to his eyes. You see what John does in that passage? He equates your faithfulness to your covenant with God, whether you’re walking in the darkness or in the light to following one commandment. Again, we understand from the New Testament scriptures, there are many things involved in following God, but you cannot claim to be a follower of Christ without adhering to this commandment. You walk in the light when you love one another. The one who does not love his brother is walking in the darkness even now. But of course, we move further on in this commandment.

For that today, unfortunately.

2. Even As I Have Loved You

Not only is it a new commandment, but he bases his commandment on the fact that it’s how he had loved them. Even as I have loved you, he says. When you look at the status of God’s commands to love. And you look at how that commandment, even that old Testament commandment had been interpreted by the Jews of Jesus’ day, you begin maybe to see why Jesus makes this big deal about this new commandment and why it’s so important. You may remember perhaps in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5 and verse 43. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall love your neighbor yet hate your enemy. Well, of course, God had never said such a thing. And what Jesus goes on then to do is to show how you should even love your enemy.

Or maybe you remember in Luke the 10th chapter, beginning in verse 25, where a lawyer came to Jesus testing him and asking, What is the great commandment? And of course, Jesus responds, Well, you being a lawyer, you tell me. Well, the first commandment, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and the second is like unto it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You have said rightly, go and do likewise. And the lawyer wishing to justify himself asked, Who is my neighbor? They knew that God had said to love one another. They understood that was encapsulated in the old law. And yet what the Jews had been doing all along was to try to minimize that commandment by defying who our neighbor is.

And therefore, who should receive my love. Think of what Jesus has just done here in John chapter 13. John chapter 13 begins with Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, and think about who all was involved in that process. The immediate context before Jesus’ words here, Judas has gone out to betray him. Jesus washed his feet too. You go to the end of chapter 13 and verse 38. And even though Peter would protest and say he would never deny the Lord, Jesus says to him, You’re going to deny me tonight three times. Jesus washed his feet too. The other ten, according to Mark’s account, when Jesus is arrested in the garden, they all, down to the last man, forsake him and flee. Jesus washed their feet too.

Why are we to love one another? If I ask you to love me, you better believe I hope you’ll love me, not because of who I am and because of what I deserve. Because I don’t deserve much from you. And yet we sometimes think of love in that way. Yeah, I would love that brother or sister, but they just so rarely attend. Or I would do good deeds for that brother or sister. But what have they ever done for me or for God’s people for that matter? We base things very much on what they deserve. But Jesus is giving this commandment to a group of disciples that when you look at the immediate context and what they’re going to be doing, even that very night, they deserve nothing.

They deserve nothing from Jesus, and they don’t deserve anything from each other either.

3. The Extent of Our Love for One Another

But you love one another even as I have loved you. Here’s the reason you keep this commandment. Here’s the reason you be devoted to one another. Here’s the reason you love one another. Because Jesus loved you. But of course, that statement goes even further. The extent of our love for one another is also defined by that, even as I have loved you. Now we will understand, of course, in the context of John’s gospel and the context of the gospels in general, that Jesus’ love for his disciples culminated in his death on the cross. But that’s not the only way Jesus loved them. Jesus’ entire ministry had been loving his disciples. And in fact, when he said, even as I have loved you, the death on the cross hasn’t even taken place yet.

He is actually bringing their remembrance back to all the things that Jesus has done for them up until this point. Now, what has Jesus done for them? Well, he has taught them in the Word of God. He has been patient with them, even though time and time and time again they have demonstrated a lack of faith and a lack of understanding of who Jesus is and what his goal and mission was. He is even on this occasion of the 13th chapter, he has humbled himself and served them by washing their feet. In the next chapter in chapter 14, he’s going to begin that chapter by giving them hope, giving them comfort, even though they’re not going to understand everything that’s about to happen. Everything that Jesus did for them was in love.

Once again, in the book of 1 John. In 1 John chapter 3, in the beginning of verse 16.

We know love by this. They laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does a love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. There’s an interesting thing that the Lord does through John in that passage. Verse 16, you kind of start with the grand gesture. God loved us. Jesus loved us. He gave his life for us. And we ought to give our lives for one another.

We would do all kinds of big and wonderful things for each other. Take a bullet for one another. Your house is on fire. I’d run in and try to rescue you out of the blaze. Or maybe if you lost everything, I’d take you into my house, and you could live with me for weeks and months on end, you know, whatever you need. We would do those big and huge things. But here in this passage, John very quickly goes from the big, huge gesture to laying down your life for one another to the very mundane. So, how are you not going to give your possessions to help each other? It’s the mundane ways which we’re supposed to love each other that oftentimes we struggle with. We’d make the big gesture.

What about taking time out of my very, very busy schedule in the evening to encourage someone in some way? What about forgiving one who wronged me, even if they’ve wronged me many times? What about giving of my possessions? Even though I may wonder, even, does this person truly deserve my money? We are to love each other even as the Lord loved us. And he loved us in a variety of ways.

4. Fulfilling This Command Glorifies God

But finally, on this point, and our time is rapidly leaving us this morning already. Fulfilling this command is the way in which you and I are going to glorify God on this earth. Once more to John chapter 13, Jesus has made this statement in verse 34. But go back with what he says before this in the passage that the brother Paul read for us this morning. Verse 31. Therefore, when he had gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified. And God is glorified in him. Jesus had been looking toward his crucifixion for a while now. And he even understood that it was in this that he was ultimately going to glorify the Father. So back in the 12th chapter in verse 27, Jesus says, Now my soul has become troubled.

And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came out of heaven, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. Now once more in John 13. Now was the Son of Man glorified. And God is glorified in him. And if God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself. And will glorify him immediately. Everything about Jesus was about glorifying the Father. Understanding that even by glorifying him, by revealing truly who God is to man, and revealing the true forgiveness that is found in God in the cross, that God in turn was going to glorify Jesus, his son. That he was going to glorify him again with the glory that he had in heaven with the Father from the very beginning, even as Jesus prays in John 17.

Love one another even as I have loved you. You skip over to the 15th chapter, and he says in verse 8, My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. You make a comparison with that in verses 34 and 35 of chapter 13. Jesus here asked us to 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. The whole purpose of Jesus on this earth was to glorify his Father. And by glorifying his Father, Jes Himself was going to be glorified. And then He turns His attention to us and says, Now you love one another.

And by loving one another, you’re going to be my disciples. And how is it that we bring glory to our Father? By being His disciples, by bearing much fruit. By truly loving one another, even as our Father has loved us. Well, I hope that’s a good way of starting our series of being devoted to one another. We’re going to look at a couple of more of these this morning. But ask if you would at this time, let’s go to our great God and Father in prayer, and then we’ll consider ourselves dismissed for this hour.

Glory to your name. Father, your Son came and glorified you on this earth. He glorified you by loving us. He glorified you by giving his life on the cross, so that we who are sinners could be redeemed to you. Father, you have glorified your Son. And it is your glorified Son who sits at your right hand, who is now king over us, who has rescued us from the darkness of this world, and has lifted us up to be even in glory with you. Father, may we glorify you. May we glorify you by being disciples of your Son, by bearing fruit in his name, and by loving one another as you would have us to. Be with us, Father. May everything we do in this life be about bringing glory and honor to your name.

It’s in your son’s name that we pray. Amen.