I Give You a New Commandment
Download MP3If you would, open your Bibles to John chapter 13. It's also there in your worship guide. John chapter 13. I'm gonna begin reading in verse 37. Verse 27, sorry.
Joel Brooks:Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, what you're going to do, do quickly. Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that Judas had the money back. And Jesus was telling him, buy what we need for the feast, or that he should give something to the poor.
Joel Brooks:So after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out, and it was night. When he had gone out, Jesus said, now is the son of man glorified and God is glorified in him. So now I say to you, where I am going, you cannot come. And you command it. I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you.
Joel Brooks:You also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. This is the word of the Lord. Pray with me. Our father, we ask that through your spirit, you would open up our hearts and minds so that we might hear and receive from you in this place.
Joel Brooks:Lord, I pray for real heart change. Lord, that you would have your way in our midst. I pray in this moment that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. The Apostle John, he will spend the rest of his life trying to work out, trying to comprehend what he has just witnessed that we saw in this text. These events happen on what we would call Maundy Thursday, the night before Jesus was crucified.
Joel Brooks:And the events that we just looked at left they left John utterly stunned. He's having a hard time even trying to process what is happening. And John is likely the youngest of all the disciples. Perhaps he's even a teenager. He's one of Jesus's favorites.
Joel Brooks:He has a place of honor at the Passover feast. He he's even leaning into Jesus. And Jesus said, somebody's gonna betray him. And it was John who got to ask, who? And Jesus whispered in John's ear saying, it's it's Judas.
Joel Brooks:There they had Matthew, the tax collector. He was good with finances, but Jesus didn't trust Matthew. Jesus entrusted Judas with this. Faithful Judas. No, it couldn't be Judas.
Joel Brooks:In other words, if you're going to do it, In other words, if you're going to do it, do it, get on with it. And he sees Judas get up and depart. And now, he's just beginning to process these things opened the alabaster jar of perfume and poured it on Jesus' stupidity. Maybe the peculiar absences that that Judas had had. All these things he's beginning to piece together.
Joel Brooks:And John alone knows why Judas is a leader. The other disciples I think maybe he's just going to give to the poor. Maybe he's running an errand for Jesus. But John alone knows what is happening, Jesus saying, now is the son of man glorified. Once again, his head spins.
Joel Brooks:It's like, what are you talking about? There's betrayal. And now, Jesus is saying, now he's glorified. This glory we have been waiting for for 3 years waiting for and now at the moment he's being betrayed. He's being glorified.
Joel Brooks:And then Jesus uses this sweet endearing term, little children, But betrayal, glory, and then little children, it's time for me to say goodbye. I'm leaving, and you can't follow me. I'm leaving, and you can't follow me. And John, I'm sure his head is just spinning. His heart is just spinning.
Joel Brooks:And then he hears Jesus say, in a new commandment I give you as I leave. And it's this, love one another. It is not an overstatement to say that for the rest of John's life, he's gonna be working out what he just witnessed and heard here. He's gonna be replaying this scene over and over in his head. We know this not only because he wrote it down years later in this gospel, but when you come to his first epistle, that first letter he wrote, all it is is an explanation of this this text we just read.
Joel Brooks:That's what first John is. By far, the best commentary on the gospel of John is John's first letter. And it was many years later after chewing and chewing on this that he decided to write and unpack what just happened on Monday Thursday. And first, John, John uses the term little children again. It only occurs here in John 13, and then it occurs 7 times in 1st John.
Joel Brooks:It becomes John's favorite term for describing followers of Jesus. Little children. Nowhere else in the bible do you find the phrase, new commandment, except for in 1st John. We're over and over again, John is going to unpack what this new commandment is, that we should love one another. Just to give you a small sampling of 1st John, where you see these themes, these themes of someone in our midst betraying us and our call to to love one another.
Joel Brooks:Here are these words. 1st John 210. Whoever loves his brother abides in the lie. 1st John 3:10. By this, it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil.
Joel Brooks:Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God nor is the one who does not love his brother. John 314. We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. First John 3 16. By this, we know love that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
Joel Brooks:And whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. First John 410, Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. First John 4 21.
Joel Brooks:And this commandment we have from Him, whoever loves God must also love his brother. This is just a small sampling of 1st John, of how this new commandment to love one another just permeated every part of John's being. 46 times in that letter, he talks about love. 46 times in such a short letter. So you get the feeling that this this moment here at the end of this dinner left a deep deep impression on John for all of his life.
Joel Brooks:As there is betrayal outside, as there is darkness side, Jesus calls in this inner circle. He says, not among you. Love 1 another. Love 1 another. The backdrop to this command that we should love one another is that Jesus is leaving and his disciples are not gonna be able to follow him anymore.
Joel Brooks:And so the question is, how is it now that these people who have been left behind, these disciples, how can they follow Jesus? I mean, up to this point, it was pretty easy to know who followed Jesus and who didn't follow Jesus. Those who followed Jesus literally followed Jesus. They went from with him from town to town. They would sit at his feet and listen to him teach.
Joel Brooks:They would sit at the table and they would eat with him. They were always present with him. They were identified with Jesus because they were with Jesus. But what happens now? Jesus says he's leaving them, so they can't physically follow him anymore.
Joel Brooks:So what are they supposed to do? How are people gonna know that they follow Jesus? And what does following Jesus actually look like? This is an especially relevant text to us here in this room because we don't have Jesus physically here. So how will the world know that we are followers of Jesus?
Joel Brooks:And what is following Jesus actually supposed to look like? Jesus tells us in verse 35. Says by this, all people will know that you are my disciples. All people will know that you follow me. If you have love for one another.
Joel Brooks:There's a lot to, you can unpack and what Jesus says here. But as I kept reading over this, I was mostly struck by what Jesus does not say here. Jesus does not say that all the people will know that we are his disciples by our great acts of faith, by the miracles that we perform, or by the doctrine that we hold, or by our conservative moral values, or by the fact that we gather together every Sunday for worship and for prayer. Jesus doesn't even say they will know that you're my disciples because you profess love to me. He says you will know the world will know you're my disciples if you love one another.
Joel Brooks:It's really astonishing. Jesus is telling his disciples here that their deep lived out love for one another will be the greatest evangelistic force, the greatest missionary force that this world has ever seen. I once saw a bumper sticker on somebody's car that said, they shall know that we are Christians by our bumper stickers. I was like, that's pretty appropriate. They shall know that we are Christians by our Facebook post or rants.
Joel Brooks:They shall know that we are Christians by the political parties we align ourselves with. That's what the world thinks. He understood this. Paul, who had performed great miracles, who had really good doctrine. I mean, he did write he wrote Romans.
Joel Brooks:He understands doctrine. He knows what it means to follow Jesus. But listen to Paul's words to the Corinthians. If I speak in tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I'm a noisy gong or a clinging symbol. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing.
Joel Brooks:If I give away all that I have and deliver up my body to be burned but have not love, In other words, Paul is saying, it's not your spiritual giftedness bravery that ultimately matter. What matters is do you love
Connor Coskery:one another? That's the mark
Joel Brooks:of a Christian. It is do we love one another? Now, I will admit, as I was reading through this and hearing Jesus's words and Paul's words and thinking that our love for one another is really the greatest missionary force the world will ever see, or that love is better than moving mountains. Honestly, I thought, really? I mean, really Paul?
Joel Brooks:Really Jesus? I think if I were to go outside right now, display a great act of faith, heal a ton of people. Alright? I heal everybody who walks down, the street. Than if you were simply kind and forgiving to your brother or sister in Christ.
Joel Brooks:That displays who I am and who you follow. I am the triune God. I am a God who exists in an eternal relationship of love, Father to Son to Spirit. And if you wanna best show who I am and who you follow, reflect that. Love one another.
Joel Brooks:Love one another. As I began just thinking through this, I realized there there's a depth to the love of of God and to the love of one another that Jesus is talking about here that I don't understand. Now how can this all be true? How is it that love for one another can be so powerful? Oh, I think we get a hint at this very eclectic group, very different people.
Joel Brooks:You had people like Thomas, good old doubting Thomas, who's always brought out every Easter for us to look at. So you have doubting Thomas there who is who's skeptical. He's cautious. He's always questioning. And then you have the 2 of them together, polar opposites in personality.
Joel Brooks:And Jesus says, love 1 another. Zellit was, somebody belonged to a political party that was they were pseudo terrorist. They absolutely hated the Roman government and they believed that killing any Roman official was justified. Stab them in the back and then flee. And they felt fully justified in this.
Joel Brooks:And Simon was not just a zealot. His nickname was zelt the zealot. This is Simon, who is known as the zealot. He was so identified with that political party, that became his nickname. And then you have Matthew, also a disciple, who was a tax collector, who worked for the Roman government.
Joel Brooks:It would take a miracle from God for that to happen. That our love for one another is so powerful. It's what makes the world notice. You have these sons of thunder. I mean, can you imagine, just what they brought to the table if you're called sons of thunder?
Joel Brooks:We already know that they asked Jesus, can I be at your right hand and and he be at your left hand? They already had their mom arguing over who which one of them got to take this position of power. I can only imagine the fighting and the arguments, and Jesus is saying love one another. Everybody will know you follow me if you can just love one another. Now, confession, I have found that for me, it is often easier for me to love non Christians than to love Christians.
Joel Brooks:Honestly, there's times that Christians just really tick me off. I don't know if you've found this to be the case or not, but Christians often annoy me. I'll keep with the political analogy here. Suppose you have an unbelieving neighbor and they put up a political sign voting for some candidate in their front yard. You completely disagree with this.
Joel Brooks:You think the person's an idiot, but you're still gonna be kind and loving towards them. Then one of your friends, your church friends, who's a believer, puts up the same sign in their yard, and it just sets you off. Absolutely sets you off. You were so angry at them, and this anger is gonna manifest itself in a lot of unhealthy ways. You'll begin gossiping about them, saying, can you believe so and so is voting for this person?
Joel Brooks:Gossip. You'll begin seeing everything they do in a negative light. You will never give them the benefit of the doubt. You'll quickly lose patience with them. You will find yourself judging them, judging what they wear, judging where they go, judging their parenting skills, judging the way they dress.
Joel Brooks:Why is this? Why why is loving a fellow brother or sister in Christ sometimes so hard? And the reason is this, they're family. They're family. Loving family is hard.
Joel Brooks:Loving enemies is actually easy because you can love them at a distance. But loving your family is hard because of their closeness to you. They are so close to you, you can wash their feet. They're so close to you, you can see their filth and they can see yours. You know, you don't get to choose your family.
Joel Brooks:That's your choice. Here, Jesus hear this. Jesus made us family. He made us family. You didn't get to choose this family.
Joel Brooks:Jesus made us family. You did not choose me. I chose you. Now, your only choice is whether you're going to love this family. That choice is yours.
Joel Brooks:Listen, it's hard to love family. All of us have, you know, that uncle Rico or that aunt Barbara, you know, the person that's just so hard to love. I mean, I would go to some of my family reunions and I would just be embarrassed. I'd just be so embarrassed, as some of these relatives would come out of the woodwork. I had an aunt Louise.
Joel Brooks:She was a well, she wasn't sweet. She was just an old thing. I was about to say sweet old thing. She was just old. She's about 4 foot 8.
Joel Brooks:She'd been in the hospital, it seemed like 20 years. I just remember every time I went to church as a kid, I was like, aunt Louise is in the hospital again. You know, she was always on the prayer list. She she came over to our house for, I think, Thanksgiving one time. And, I just I did not like this woman.
Joel Brooks:And she is sitting directly across from me, just her head, because she's she was only 48. It was just it was just her head. She didn't have any teeth. She was old. And, she, she passed around her plate.
Joel Brooks:We were eating ham, and she had us all cut off the fat of our ham and put it on her plate. And I remember sitting across me just slurping it down without her teeth. And I had to leave. I just remember, I had to leave. I just got up, I just walked out.
Joel Brooks:My parents had had a talk with me. And I just remember they said, she's family. She's family. I wasn't born into I mean, I was born into this. I didn't choose this, but she's family.
Joel Brooks:So I don't get to choose my family, but I could choose how to act with my family. I could choose to love my family or not to love my family. Listen, you can have all the right Orthodoxy. You can have all the right morals. You can get up and read your bible and pray every single day, but Jesus clearly says that the mark of following him is if you have love for one another.
Joel Brooks:And what I have found over the years is that Christians love the church in theory, but they don't really love it in practice. They love the whole idea of we're 1 big family. We're all united together in love. But when it comes to the actual practice, love looks a whole lot like washing somebody's feet. We even we can even talk about washing another person's feet and say, we love that in theory.
Joel Brooks:We love the person's filth in theory. But in practice, Jesus' wash and love. Jesus is wash and love. Wanna clearly define what love is. And then in our last minutes, I wanna look exactly how this command to love one another is a new command.
Joel Brooks:So what is love? Love consists of 3 elements. There's a sacrifice made, a joy received, And all this is done with the aim of giving life and honor to the other person. All three elements. So there's a sacrifice made, a joy received, all done with the aim of giving life and honor to another person.
Joel Brooks:All three are necessary for love. You take out any one of these and you won't find love. So let's look at a sacrifice made. All love is sacrificial. There will be a cost to loving someone, whether it's a cost of money, a cost of time, a cost of energy, or whether it's a cost of your pride, a cost of giving up your personal honor.
Joel Brooks:So love can look like spending money, on somebody, or it can look like washing dishes for somebody if you're tired, or it can look like not dominating a conversation and always bringing it back to yourself. The greater the sacrifice you make, the greater the love that's demonstrated. Next, it's a joy received. Love is not just a sacrifice, but it's a sacrifice with joy. Love takes delight in giving these things.
Joel Brooks:Giving somebody a gift, giving somebody their time, giving somebody their money, giving somebody their energy, giving somebody their patience, giving somebody their kindness. Love takes a delight in that. And finally, it's all done with the aim of giving life and honor to the other. The goal of love is to bring life and honor to another person. Maybe another way of thinking about this is the aim of love is to bring out the fruitfulness in another.
Joel Brooks:The aim of love is to make another person blossom. The aim of love is to glorify another. All three of these things are necessary for there to be true love. You can't just have 1. You can't just have 2.
Joel Brooks:Love cannot just be sacrificed, for instance. And I know so many Christians who operate at this level, which whenever they talk about love, they all all they talk about is sacrifice. It's sacrifice. Sacrifice. It's sacrifice.
Joel Brooks:But sacrifice by itself is not love. Not at all. This is how sacrifice works in it. You're aiming for something. It's like, I want to aim to bring bring you life.
Joel Brooks:I wanna aim to bring you honor. And if I have to sacrifice joyfully to do so, I will do so. But it's not just sacrifice for sacrifice. If you're sacrificing without joy, Sacrifice can actually be quite selfish. Husbands, if you, if you wash dishes for your wife sometime, and she comes up to you and she says, you know, thank you so much.
Joel Brooks:You didn't have to do that. And you say, I know. I know. I didn't have to. And let me tell you what, it was a sacrifice.
Joel Brooks:It was hard work, but I but I did it. I didn't enjoy it, but I did it. And the reason I did it is because God told me. He said good husbands do this. Does your wife receive any honor?
Joel Brooks:No. You actually stole all the honor she could have had and you just kept it yourself. I did this because I'm an awesome husband. I'm so obedient. This is why I did this.
Joel Brooks:I made this sacrifice, but it wasn't for her. It was for for yourself. And you receive no joy in it. However, if your response was this, you're welcome, honey. It was my joy to do it.
Joel Brooks:She is honored. Same sacrifice, but now she is honored and you receive joy out of it. My wife's honor comes from the joy in my sacrifice, not just my sacrifice. Love is a sacrifice made out of joy in order to bring life and honor to another. This is the love that the father has shown us through his son, Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And this is the love that we are to show others. Jesus, who made the ultimate sacrifice and dying on the cross. Jesus who did so for the joy that was set before him, which is us, his church. And he did it in order that we might have life and honor, in order that we might be glorified. And now we're to show others this love.
Joel Brooks:Now how is this a new commandment, to love one another? Look at verse 34. A new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you. Now the commandment for us to love one another is not really a new commandment. Right about now is typically when people drop out of their bible reading plan, you know, or usually when they get around Leviticus.
Joel Brooks:If if you could just get over the hump of halfway through Leviticus, you'll come to Leviticus 19, and you'll read, love your neighbor as yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself. And then you'll find many, many other verses all throughout scripture that command us to love each other. So this really isn't a new command here. It's found everywhere.
Joel Brooks:So how is it new? 2 ways. 1st, Jesus adds the phrase, as I have loved you. As I have loved you. So now we know exactly what love looks like.
Joel Brooks:It's no longer just love and theory. We've actually seen it in practice. And love looks like this, being given all power, yet kneeling down, taking up a towel, and washing dirty feet. That's love. The second way is this, and it's found in 1st John 2.
Joel Brooks:It's there in your worship guide. Once again, 1st John is the best commentary we have on this section. 1st John 2 verse 6. Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard.
Joel Brooks:And the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light. And in him, there is no cause for stumbling. Now I'll admit it.
Joel Brooks:When I read this, I thought John made it about as clear as mud. Perhaps you you feel the same way. I mean, he says, I'm not writing you a new commandment. I'm writing you an old one, which is actually a new one. I'm like, what are you talking about?
Joel Brooks:John is saying that it is an old commandment because it's one that we already know. I mean, we just read it. Leviticus 19 and all throughout scripture. Actually, it's not even limited to the bible. Other religions have commands that we should love one another.
Joel Brooks:It's as old as man itself, loving one another. So that's been said before, but but it is new. It is new because of verse 8. It is now put in you. This commandment to love one another is now inside of us.
Joel Brooks:This is the first commandment that we have under the new covenant, to love one another. The night that Jesus was betrayed, this Maundy Thursday, he was initiating the new covenant. He was breaking bread and saying, this is my body. He he was pouring the wine in the cup. He says, this is my blood poured out for the forgiveness of many.
Joel Brooks:This is the cup of the new covenant. And what this means is, under the new covenant, we actually have the engine in us. We actually have the heart change in us. It's a We actually can love one another as we are being asked. We can obey it because we are now his children or as John would later say, that we are now walking in the light that he has brought to us.
Joel Brooks:It's a new commandment because it's now a new age that we live in. Is dawning and everywhere there's this light now shining forward. And wherever this light is shining forward, we are given this new power to love. Every time we forgive a brother who has hurt us, this is the light shining forward. Every time we show patience to a sister that exasperates us, This is the light shining forward.
Joel Brooks:Every time we don't take into account a wrong suffered, or we refuse to gossip, or we refuse to lash out in anger, this light shines forward. Every time we freely give our time and our money and our energy to somebody, this is the light shining forward. And every time we get close enough to one another that we can see each other's filth and we don't turn and run away, but are drawn to that person. This is his light shining forward. Listen.
Joel Brooks:Now through Jesus, what he's saying is you have become a child of God. And what he's saying is you have become a child of God, and you now have your father's eyes. You have your father's eyes. You have your father's eyes. You resemble him.
Joel Brooks:You have your father's eyes. You resemble him. And your father's eyes shines love. And that those eyes are now put in you. And where you go, you're going to radiate love.
Joel Brooks:People will recognize when they look you in the eyes and they see that love, they will know who you belong to. That you were my disciple. Pray with me. Jesus, when we love one another, we look like you. So help us to look like you more.
Joel Brooks:Thank you that you have put this word, this command in us, and that you are continually changing our hearts so that we might obey it. I pray that we would act like Your children. Lord, that we would indeed radiate the love that You've given us to everyone around us, and that we would love every person in here, that we would love one another well. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
