Are We Known By His Love? (John 13:34-35)
GIST: We’re expected to love like Jesus and be recognized because of His love.
This morning, we were going to wrap up our Summer in Psalms before transitioning back to Homecoming next week and then jumping back into Revelation the week after that. However, another verse has been echoing in my heart all week. In fact, I ended up outlining two sermons for this week and didn’t decide until yesterday which one we were going to actually dig into this morning. I guess that means I have an outline ready for May when we get back to our Summer in Psalms because today we’re going to take a few minutes to walk through John 13:34-35. Let’s read that, and then I’ll tell you why these verses have been stuck in my heart this week.
“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.”
Last week, I felt such an outpouring of God’s love from you guys, and this verse kept coming to mind. I know sometimes I’m not great at expressing gratitude as much as my heart wants to, so before I go any further I really want to say: thank you. Thank you for loving Jesus and loving my family more than we deserve.
That being said, loving like Jesus should be the norm in churches, right? We’ve just spent two weeks walking through a psalm that gave us a picture of what our lives should look like if we are living in God’s presence—and reflecting the love of Jesus is 100% part of that picture. Unfortunately, we all know love isn’t always the first word people think of when they think about churches. In fact, I had a student ask me this week if I thought churches were cults ☺️. Apparently, that’s what an adult in her life told her churches were. There are other words: greedy, grumpy, petty, exclusive, hateful, discriminating… We could keep going. Some of these are the product of deliberate misrepresentation. Some, though, come from churches not carrying the love of Jesus like we should. So, let’s take a few minutes this morning, and I really will try to keep this to a few, to talk about… love. Here’s our gist: We’re expected to love like Jesus and be recognized because of His love. Let’s dive in!
I. We’re Expected To Love Like Jesus
“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 New Standard. Jesus had just been telling his disciples He’d be leaving soon—as in going to Heaven after rising from the dead…not going on a trip. If you’re familiar with the New Testament, any time Jesus brought this up, it wasn’t received super well by the disciples. Understandably, they didn’t want Him to go. In this section, He tells them, “I’m leaving, and I’m leaving you…a new commandment”. Now, this idea of loving each other isn’t new in the sense that it wasn’t expected in the Bible until this point. It’s new in its application because the standard has been clarified. We’re not just called to love. We’re called to love like Jesus. We’re going to camp out there for a bit, so I’ll come back to it. First, let’s recognize this is→
A Commandment. This isn’t a suggestion. It’s an expectation. Christians are supposed to love each other as Jesus loves us. Which should immediately lead us to ask, so→
How Does He Love? Well, the short answer is… perfectly ☺️. We won’t. However, He has set the standard for us, and we should strive after it. When I think of passages that describe the love of Jesus, several come to mine. I think of the beautiful passages like John 15:13 and Romans 5:8 that describe His sacrificial love, His love that took on Hell for us and rose victorious over sin in our place: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13); “... God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8).
The depths of God’s love are so deep, we could flip through passages all day to talk about it. However, probably the most condensed picture of the love of God is given to us by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13—the classic wedding passage. And even though I love (no pun intended, but appreciated nonetheless) reading this passage at weddings, it’s not describing romantic love between a couple, but the transformative love of Jesus in our lives. I’m going to read verses 1-8a because the first few verses in that chapter are just too beautiful not to read, but we’re just going to break down the list Paul gives us.
“1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends…” (1 Corinthians 13:1-8a)
Ok, so how does Paul describe the kind of love meant to define us? That love→
Is Patient. Does that immediately convict you as much as it does me? I actually think about patience all the time. Maybe it’s because my Dad always jokes about not asking people to pray he have patience ☺️. But I also think it’s because every time I think about patience I feel like I need to apologize to my kids. See, in most settings, I’m a pretty patient guy. I teach high schoolers all day, and I’m a pastor ☺️… and it still takes a lot to get me riled up. Unless… it’s with my own family. As a church, we’re a family too, and I think sometimes we’re least patient with those we’re closest too. I get it, but I also know that’s not how God defines love. Likewise, love→
Is Kind. Patience is a way of showing kindness…so is just not being a jerk to people ☺️. Love looks to treat other people the way we would want to be treated. It→
Does Not Envy. It’s not full of jealousy. It doesn’t get upset when other people get things we want or get recognition when we feel we deserve it or have the lives we thought we would. Love isn’t about us. It→
Does Not Boast. The next two words are connected. The idea behind this word is connected to bragging. Fluffing up ourselves. Trying to get the praise of others. Love won’t do this because it→
Isn’t Arrogant. It isn’t self-focused. It’s hard to be focused on ourselves if we’re trying to model the self-sacrificing love of Jesus! Oh, and love→
Isn’t Rude. Our world is. We all can be. That shouldn’t define us. The NASB translates this as “does not act unbecomingly”. Being rude is lacking compassion. Now, that doesn’t mean you’ll always agree with everyone. You won’t. You don’t have to. In fact, when it comes to people living in ways that dishonor God, you shouldn’t. However, even when disagreeing, love should never be mean.
Does Not Insist On Its Own Way. Again, because love isn’t all about us. We’ll have opinions. We’ll stand for what we believe is right. But we should never just bulldoze our way through life with a “my way or the highway” mentality.
Isn’t Irritable. Ouch. Let me just be honest. When I wake up, I’m pretty irritable. It takes a bit of time to get this motor going. Because of that, I know I’m more likely to be on edge in those moments. I don’t like that feeling, so I have to try (though not always successfully) to fight against it. How miserable would it be to be irritated all the time. Life is too short to let things constantly bother you.
Isn’t Resentful. Love doesn’t hold grudges. Forgiveness is hard because it costs us something. It means we are suffering when someone else did wrong. Because of that, we don’t usually forgive well. We want to hold on to that hurt because we feel justified in doing so. However, when Jesus forgives us, He casts our sin as far as the east is from the west and remembers it no more.
Doesn’t Rejoice At Wrongdoing. Love doesn’t get excited by sinful stuff or the downfall of others. Love isn’t a gossip and doesn’t get all pumped up about the bad things happening around us. Yeah… that one probably hurts too.
Rejoices With The Truth. Love does get pumped up by Jesus stuff. Seeing God work in the lives of other people. Watching His movement…even if it’s happening somewhere else with someone else, should bring us joy and cause us to rejoice. This might be a side-rant, but I think it’s worth saying. As Christians, we can’t look at other churches as competition. We can’t be jealous if we see them growing or exciting things happening there. I saw it put like this before, and I LOVE this. We’re part of the same family; we’re not rival gangs!
Bears All Things. This phrase can mean to bear as to put up with, it can also mean to cover of hold up like a protective shield.
Believes All Things. Not literally. Love isn’t gullible ☺️. But it assumes good intentions. It also→
Hopes All Things. That means it looks forward to future good instead of dwelling on present pain! Love also→
Endures All Things. It stands strong…even in the storms of life…because→
Love Never Ends. True love isn’t something that comes and goes. It’s eternal.
And this is what we’re commanded to do… ☺️→
II. And Be Recognized Because Of His Love
“35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
That first part was long, so let me try to break this down quickly.
You are supposed to be known by His love.
That means the love of Jesus is something all people will see. It isn’t something you keep hidden outside of your “church time”.
And it’s something people will notice. Loving like this is radically different from what comes naturally to our sinful hearts.
We will be recognized as followers of Jesus IF we love each other as He loves us. Are people surprised when they find out your a Christian? Better yet, if you were using this as your gauge, and you really took seriously this call to love, and you looked at how you’ve been living, would you recognize yourself as a follower of Jesus?
Ok, let’s hit three quick→
TAKEAWAYS
Know the love of Jesus. Make it your life’s pursuit to know Him more. We can love like He loves if we don’t know how He loves. We can’t love like He loves, if we haven’t been rescued by His love. If you are reading this and do not know Jesus as your Savior, PLEASE, talk to Him right now. You don’t need magic words. You just need to believe Jesus is your God who really came and really died and really took Hell in your place and really rose again to save you—and ask Him to do that. He promises He will. Then→
Focus on the love of Jesus. I know I’ve quoted this song I’m about to quote like a bazillion times and made this statement a bazillion times…but it’s so true. Even this week, I was reminded that too often we see brokenness so much more clearly than His love. When God is active and moving and changing lives, our excitement and focus are drawn for a moment—but when there are complaints or frustrations or any other “new or rehashed negativity” we’re magnetically drawn to it. It fixates us! Instead: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus/ Look full in His wonderful face/ And the things of earth will grow strangely dim/ In the light of His glory and grace.” And→
Spread the love of Jesus. This is how we show the world we’re His.
[J
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