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Muskegon SDA Church

The Way of Love

Jason Sliger

The Commandment of Love

The Way of Love- Part 1

The Way of Love- Part 2

The Way of Love- Part 3

The Way of Love- Part 4

The Way of Love- Part 5

The Way of Love- Part 6

The Way of Love- Part 7

The Way of Love- Part 8

The Way of Love- Part 9

Loving Father in heaven, we are thankful that we can come into your presence and know that you have a blessing for each 1 of us.

And Father, this morning as we've Come away from the busyness of the week.

We pray, Lord, that you would speak to our hearts and draw us nearer to you.

If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to John the 13th chapter.

While you are turning there, John chapter 13 is where we find Jesus and his disciples in the upper room.

They are about to partake in what would be the last Passover that would have any significance to it.

Jesus has just been betrayed by Judas for 30 pieces of silver.

The transaction has already been laid out.

Judas has told them when and how and what he would do to betray Jesus over to them.

It's a couple of hours at this point before Jesus would be found in the garden of Gethsemane.

They're pouring out his heart to the Father in that prayer that we should pray, not my will but thine be done.

Shortly after that, we would find Jesus standing before Pontius Pilate, and then just hours after that, he would be hung on the cross.

And so in the upper room at this time, there is a lot that is weighing on the heart of Jesus.

He just has a few hours left with his disciples before he would no longer be able to freely interact with them because of his betrayal and crucifixion.

And while Jesus is there in the upper room looking at the dimly lit faces of his disciples, his heart is burdened with a message that he wants to share with them.

In fact, John 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 is all of this advice that Jesus is trying to condense down.

Those chapters happen between the upper room and the Garden of Gethsemane, and he's there pouring out his heart to his disciples.

But this morning, I wanna take 2 verses and pull them out.

2 verses that are relevant to our lives today, and of course to the communion service.

John chapter 13, verse 34, it's a passage that we're familiar with.

Jesus looks at his disciples, he says this.

A new commandment I give unto you, that you love 1 another as I have loved you, that you also love 1 another.

Some people refer to this commandment as the 11th commandment.

It's a new commandment, Jesus says, that he gave to them.

However, we know as we study the word of God that this wasn't something that was necessarily new.

It was found throughout the Old Testament, the concept of loving 1 another.

In fact, you find it all over the place in the New Testament as well.

About 19 times you find that phrase, to love 1 another, in the New Testament.

Mentioned by John, mentioned by Jesus, and also mentioned by Paul.

But here in the upper room, Jesus is weighed down with this sense of separation that's about to take place between him and his disciples.

These disciples that are bickering amongst themselves, who would be the greatest?

These disciples who 1 of them is a devil that is betraying him.

These disciples that are about to be the ones who are to carry the gospel to the entire world.

These disciples, Jesus feels burdened with the commission that he's about to lay upon them, and he says, love 1 another as I have loved you.

Now, of course, you know that prior to this, Jesus in his discourse with a young lawyer who came to Jesus and asked him, which is the greatest commandment?

You know, Jesus told him, thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor, what?

So he's already kind of laid this principle out.

And a Bible student will notice as they compare these 2 passages, Matthew 22 and John chapter 13, you find that Jesus, although they're similar, there is a very stark difference between those 2 statements.

He tells the lawyer to love your neighbor as yourself, but then in the upper room, he takes it up a notch and he tells the disciples to love each other as he has loved them.

Now, I'm gonna suggest to you this morning, out of the 2, the easier of the 2 is to love 1 another as we would want to be loved.

But I think if we're gonna be really honest with ourselves and introspective and search our hearts, we would actually find that we struggle with that 1.

To love 1 another as we would want to be loved, to treat each other as we would want to be treated.

Yet Jesus in the upper room is saying, no, no, no, no, no, not just that.

Now I want you to take it up a notch and I want you to love 1 another as I have loved you.

The love that we don't see very often, but a love that I believe the world is longing to see.

Jesus repeats this in John chapter 15, and then he gives an example of what it looks like.

Jesus again talking to his disciples right before he's about to go to the Garden of Gethsemane, they're making their way over there and Jesus says this in verse 13.

"'This is my commandment, that you love 1 another, ' and he says, "'as I have loved you, ' sorry, that's in verse 12, Now he says in verse 13, greater love hath no man than this, than that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Verse 17, these things I command you that you love 1 another.

Jesus is repeating himself and he always does that because he's trying to get something across.

He says, "'To love 1 another, "'to love each other as Jesus has loved us.'" And then he gives this example of what it looks like.

He says, greater love hath no man than this, than that he what?

Now listen, Jesus never asks us to do something that he wouldn't do himself.

And he's about to give this greatest expression of what this love looks like, that he would lay down his life for people who hate him.

That he would lay down his life for people who have sinned and caused him to go to the cross.

That he would lay down his life for a group of people who may not appreciate it the way they should.

And he's giving us this example of what it looks like to love 1 another as he has loved us.

Something that is worth taking some time to reflect upon.

I'm sad to say, it's sad to say rather, that I believe that this type of love is sadly lacking in our churches today, is it not?

You see, the concept of love has been cheapened in our society today.

And we've kind of gone to the point in our churches where if we put up with 1 another, we think we're doing a good job.

Listen, when we get to heaven, we're not gonna be putting up with 1 another.

Listen, when we get to heaven, there is not going to be a single person in the kingdom of heaven that you don't wanna hang out with.

Because all of our hearts will be so transformed that we will love 1 another as Jesus loved us.

There was nobody that Jesus didn't like hanging around with.

There was nobody that Jesus did not love from the lowest to the highest class in society.

But I believe that this kind of love is sadly lacking in our churches today.

We have a hard time maybe just putting up with each other for a couple of hours at church when we should really be loving each other as Jesus loved us.

I think this is the kind of love that the world is really longing to see.

A love that is not merely professed intellectually, but a love that is expressed among God's people.

You see, if we have a hard time loving 1 another here, how are we gonna do it out there?

If we have a hard time getting along with each other here, how is the world gonna think that our religion has done anything for us.

You know, Jesus makes a very interesting statement in the very next verse after Matthew 13, where he says to love each other as he loves us.

This has always been very gripping to me as I've read this passage.

He says this, he says, by this, by what, what is this?

By loving 1 another as Jesus has loved us.

He says, by this shall all men know that you are my what?

How is it that the world knows I'm a disciple of Christ?

Because I believe in the state of the dead.

Because I believe that I'm part of the remnant church of Bible, listen, I'm not knocking these things because we understand these are all very important.

God has given us his word so that we can find the truth.

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Series

The Way of Love

The Commandment of Love

Transcript

Parent Series

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