Love like Jesus

For the past couple months, and I’m sure for at least the next couple months, I have felt burdened by the passages we’re looking at. These are very intimate and important words from Jesus Christ, on the night of before He dies. And what He says has implications, not just for His Apostles, who would be responsible to take the message outside of Jerusalem, but also for us as the present-day  church.

On the one hand, part of me wants to squeeze all I can out of these passages, because the teaching is so rich, but I also recognize that that would slow us down very much.

And as a pastor and a teacher in this church, my duty is not just to see that you learn all you can about the Bible. It’s to equip you to do the work Christ has called you to. To borrow the words of the Great Commission, I’m called to teach you to obey all that Christ commanded.

So I’m not just thinking about what the Bible says. I’m supposed to be thinking about where we are as a church and how we can, to a greater degree, walk in obedience to the Lord. With that in mind, the passage we have for today has tremendous implications both corporately, for our life as a church, and individually, for you as a Christian.

The passage we’re looking a this morning has sections, and they are talking about contrasting ideas. The first half is about love, and the second half is about hate.

Verse 12 is Jesus’ command that His disciples love one another. And then He repeats that command in verse 17. Love one another.

Then, starting in verse 18, Jesus talks about how the world has hated him and will hate His disciples. And down in verse 25, He says it’s the fulfilment of what the Old Testament says, “They hated Me without cause.”

Love and hate. Love and hate. Those two words, according to Jesus, describe the primary experiences in the lives of His disciples. Love and hate. Love is supposed to be what comes from inside the church, from one another. And hate is what the church gets from those outside, those who are in the world. You need to be ready for both.

You need to be prepared to love those inside the church, and, at the same time, face the rejection from those outside the church. It seems to me that a whole lot of the Christian frustration we see in the world comes from those who have got this idea flipped around.

They either view other Christians as enemies, so they have non-productive conversations, or they are wasting a ton of effort trying to get the world to like them. That will wear you out, because it’s contrary to the way God has told us things would or should be.

The way things are supposed to be is that the church of Jesus Christ, the group of those devoted to Him and to His truth, should be marked by love. Let me read verse 12 again. “This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.”

I looked in a couple dictionaries to see how they would define love, both as a noun and as a verb. And our culture’s basic idea of love, apart from meaning “zero points” in a tennis match, is that it has to do either with affection, enjoyment, or sexual desire. Our culture, by and large, defines love by how something or someone makes you feel. So you can love donuts. You can love the beach. When you cuddle with a puppy or a baby, that’s called love. When you hold hands with your spouse, that’s called love.

But according to the God, that is not the full expression of what love is.

I was impressed to find, listed by Merriam-Webster as definition number 4 of the noun “love,” this definition, which I think gets very close to the way God defines it: “unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another.” That definition was actually tied to more of a religious context. “Unselfish loyal and benevolent concern.”

Whatever definition of love you prefer, I hoped you noticed that Jesus isn’t calling His disciples to invent some definition of love for themselves and act in accordance with it. He gave them the standard. “Love one another, just as I have loved you.”

What kind of love is that? What is the love of Jesus like? That’s what I want to help us see in this first little section.

Jesus is going to unpack His love. And the first thing I want you to see is that the love of Jesus includes a personal investment. Love is a personal investment.

Personal Investment

An investment is something you give or sacrifice. You lay down some immediate pleasure because of a greater benefit at a later time. You give for a future gain. Another word for that is sacrifice.

In the Bible, love is linked to giving, to personally investing, to sacrificing. John 3:16—This is how God loved the world, He GAVE His one and only Son. Ephesians 5—Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and GAVE Himself up for her.

Biblical love is a decision to give something of yourself because it is for the highest good of the recipient. You give, you sacrifice, because it is for the benefit of the other person. And the more costly the investment the greater the love. And the greater the level of good, the greater the love.

Buying someone a fancy car might cost a lot, but if it doesn’t serve their greatest good, then it’s not a great example of biblical love. What is the greatest example of love? What are we supposed to be aiming at when we think about personal investment?

Hopefully, that’s an easy answer. The hard part, though, is getting out of Sunday School mode and thinking about the depth of that statement. Jesus gave His life for us. The spotless Son of God, let go of His heavenly glory, and came to save sinners. And our prayer should be like the song we sing: “Lord take me deeper into the glories of Calvary.” The glories of that hill upon which our Lord died.

Verse 13: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Again, in the context here we’re talking about love within the church, love within a community of brothers and sisters and friends.

Jesus gave His own life—not so that we would be comfortable, not so that we would have better health. He gave His life so that we would be united to Himself, reconciled to the Father, and experience eternal life rather than eternal damnation. That is the highest good we could ever attain, and Christ paid the highest price possible. There’s no greater demonstration of love.

Love, therefore, we can say, is godlike. To love in that sacrificial way, with a personal investment for another’s eternal good, is to be like God, like Christ.

Go back for a second to verse 9. I didn’t really talk about this last week, and I’m grateful that is brought up to me. Look at what Jesus says. Verse 9—As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Just pause and think about that. As the Father loves the Son, so does Jesus love His disciples.

And the love that originates within the Trinity itself, and then gets expressed toward us humans, is now the same kind of love Jesus calls us as His followers to give to one another.

Jesus doesn’t want us simply to sit back and admire Him for His love. He calls us to emulate that love toward one another. That’s His design for the church. That’s what the disciples of Jesus do. They follow after Him in love. That’s the message of verse 14: “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” You are my friends.

Jesus isn’t saying that if you’re obedient enough, He’ll love you and be your friend. That’s not the message. What He’s saying is that if we are truly Christ’s friends, if we love Him, we’ll obey His commands.”

Obedience is the expression of love for Christ. We’ve heard that already in this section. “If you love me, you will keep My commandments… He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me… If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word.”

Love for Christ is expressed in obedience, and obedience to Christ will mean we show His love to one another. Jesus even said that the entire law of God hangs on love. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Rather than act in self-interest, which is the default setting for us as sinners, we are to be marked by humble adoration and joyful obedience to God, and sacrificial love for one another. That’s what it means to be a friend.

And the fact that Jesus chooses to use this word “friend” leads us to a second component of His love. The love of Jesus includes personal investment, and secondly, it includes personal intimacy.

Personal Intimacy

The biblical idea of a friend is not someone who simply has access to what you post on social media. The biblical idea of a friend is someone you are intimately connected to in love.

That’s what Jesus came to bring. He came to bring us into an intimate and personal connection with the Father, through Himself.

In the Old Testament, both Abraham and Moses are referred to as a friend of God. Nobody else gets that designation. But now, in the New Testament, because of the work of Christ, we have been given access. We have been made friends. And if our culture has cheapened what it means to love, it has also cheapened what it means to be a friend.

By the way, never in the Bible is God or Jesus ever referred to as our friend. Nobody calls God or Jesus a friend. He’s too holy. He’s too different. But He has chosen to call some His friends. It’s an interesting dynamic, and what it does is place all the power and honor and grace on God, and yet highlights the intimacy He has with His people. We serve a Savior who is near to us, and yet whom we can never bring down to our level.

We have been called God’s friends, through the work of Jesus. And that’s what He wants to tell His disciples as they get ready both to see Him leave and then to become His authorized messengers in the world. “You are my friends,” Jesus says.

And continuing with that idea of intimacy, look at what verse 15 says: “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave 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.”

There’s a couple more components here for the love of Jesus. Number three and number four, the love of Jesus includes personal information and personal instruction.

Personal Information and Personal Instruction

The things Jesus spoke with His disciples about were not necessarily a secret, but it was a kind of insider knowledge. Jesus came from heaven. He came from the Father.

And in a sense, He has brought His disciples into that conversation, which includes information about Himself—about who Jesus really is—and instruction about what they are to do. That was the message of Jesus, right? Here is who I am (information) and here is what you are to do (instruction).

Jesus connects love with friendship. And He connects friendship with personal knowledge and with revelation.

You know, as a dad, there are some conversations I have with my wife, or with another adult, in which I deliberately do not include my kids, right? There are some conversations or topics I don’t expose them to yet. They’re too young. Or, it’s none of their business yet.

That’s how a king might treat his subjects. Obedience is expected with limited information and with a somewhat detached relationship.

But that’s not how Jesus interacts with His disciples. He holds nothing back that they need to know or that would help them in their mission.

Jesus came giving them, by example and by word, the fullest, most complete revelation of God. “All that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” That’s the friendship Jesus is giving them. He didn’t just drop off a user’s manual for life. He came and He personally lived it and taught it. It’s the gift of personal information and personal instruction.

And make no mistake; it is a gift. It is all by the mercy of God, who is under no obligation to tell us anything or to do anything for us. And so, being a gift, it was initiated by one side.

In human relationships, we talk about two sides becoming friends; they both took steps toward one another. But in our relationship with Christ, even though there’s a human component to it, Jesus reminds them that He has the ultimate responsibility for this relationship. He says to them, “I chose you.”

He chose them for salvation. And He chose them as His Apostles. That’s supposed to help them stay humble, and help remind them of His love for them. Jesus chose them.

To borrow the words of First John: We—the disciples—we love because [why?] He first loved us.

Look at verse 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.”

We have here the fifth and final component of the love of Jesus. It includes personal investment, personal intimacy, personal instruction, personal information, and number five, personal initiative.

Personal Initiative

Jesus wasn’t waiting around at some office in Jerusalem, hoping a group of guys would walk in and say they wanted to be His followers. Incidentally, that how many Rabbi’s did it at that time. They waited for the students to come to them. And I’m sure it had a big impact on their ego. But not Jesus. He went out and He chose these men. He took the initiative.

Why? Because Jesus Himself said, “I will build My church.” For what purpose? So that the church would bear fruit, to the glory of God. Jesus didn’t come just to create a community of people that love each other. He came to form a community that, unified by its love, would bear fruit.

That’s Christ’s purpose for the church. To bear abiding or lasting fruit. And, like we said last week, fruit isn’t just attitudes and actions, it’s the people that we reach with the truth of Jesus Christ. It’s the people we are instrumental in bringing to salvation. That’s fruit.

And if that’s what we’re after, people giving glory to the Father through Jesus Christ, Jesus tells them again, ask for whatever you want, and you’ll get it. The Father will answer your prayers. Because the Father wants fruit. That’s why He prunes us. And that’s why He calls us to love one another.

Love for one another is one of the vital ingredients for bearing fruit. John 13:35—By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Love for one another is a vital ingredient for bearing fruit. And bearing fruit is how we experience the joy of Jesus Christ.

So again, at the end of this section, we get the command one more time. Verse 17—These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

Love one another. Love one another, just as Jesus has loved us.

At the beginning of the sermon, I sort of gave you a preview for what the rest of the chapter is about, but we’re not going to cover that today. I think there’s enough here for us to pause and think about.

This is what you should have bouncing around in your heart this week: Love one another, just as Jesus has loved us.

Now, as you think about that, you need to keep something in mind. First of all, this is not some kind of generic command: “Just go out there and love people.” That’s not the idea here.

Secondly, this is not a command given for the nuclear family.  That’s not to say we shouldn’t love each other. We should. But what Jesus has is mind for His disciples in this very moment, is much more than a home with a loving husband and a loving wife and some loving kids.

This is a passage about the love within the new community of Jesus Christ. This is about the love between brothers and sisters in the church.

Look around you. Seriously. Look around. Today, the music team and I shouldn’t be the only ones who gets to see everyone at the same time. Look around.

If you are a member here, you are a part of our church family. And if you’re a visitor, we’re glad you’re here, and it is our desire that you would one day become a part of this local family or of some other church family that worships Jesus Christ.

But as you look around at the people in this room, and maybe as you think about the members who aren’t in this room, I want you to ask yourself this question: Do I love those people? Do I love them?

I think the default answer for most of us is, “Well, of course I do. I love these people.” Do you really? Are you using the same standard of love that Jesus gave His disciples? Do you love these people the same way Jesus loved His disciples?

With the time that we have left, I want to help you, not just evaluate your love, but grow in it. I like the way Paul said it to the Christians in Thessalonica, “You’re already loving each other, but I want you to excel still more.” And remember, this is about having a life that more faithfully serves Christ, and bears abiding fruit, and experiences true joy.

The first component we had for the love of Jesus was that it includes personal investment. So, how much do you personally invest in your brothers and sisters in the church? Are there sacrifices you make for one another?

We’re not going to die for one another’s sins, and in our own culture, it’s not very likely that we’ll die for them either. But what kind of sacrifices do you make for the wellbeing of others? What kind of personal investment are you making?

Don’t count giving church offering. That’s an investment in the church, but it's not a personal investment for other individuals. How are you giving sacrificially of your time and energy and resources for the benefit of another?

In the New Testament church, in the early chapters of Acts, we find that the Christians were so united in love, some were selling their property to provide for the needs of others. That wasn’t some kind of obligation. It wasn’t mandated by the Apostles. It was out of the people’s own free will. It was because they loved one another. And they valued their brother or sister in Christ more than their own comfort.

Don’t worry about what you don’t have. You can’t invest what isn’t yours. But think about what you do have. And consider how you can invest the lives of your brothers and sisters.

The second component of the love of Jesus was personal intimacy. That was talking about meaningful friendship. Even if you gave up all the extra bedrooms in your house to provide for others, it wouldn’t be a good representation of Christ’s love if there wasn’t some kind of friendship.

Jesus wants there to be personal intimacy between brothers and sisters in the faith. He wants us to be friends. Ephesians 3 reminds us, we are all united in Christ—one Lord, one baptism. And what is true spiritually should be expressed externally. We’re a family.

What would you think about someone who said, “Yeah, I have a couple brothers and a couple sisters but I can’t remember their names”? You’d think something was wrong, right? And yet, why would we be content to interact on a fairly regular with someone in our own church and not be sure about their name?

Don’t settle for that. Take whatever steps you can to develop personal intimacy, meaningful, God-honoring friendships. And be prepared, because in our American culture, that values privacy, it’s not easy to develop genuine friendships. It almost feels unnatural at times. We grow content with knowing people from a distance. But in the family of God, that’s not what He wants.

Jesus calls us to love one another. And we can’t love one another if we aren’t aware enough about each other’s lives. I think sometimes, we’d rather not know about other people’s lives because we don’t want to feel obligated to do something to help them. But that’s not Christ’s love. The love of Jesus moves us toward personal, meaningful friendship.

And in order to do that better, think about the next couple components. The love of Jesus also includes sharing personal information and giving personal instruction.

Intimate friendships don’t happen overnight. They take time. And they take a willingness to be open and sincere about your life.

That doesn’t mean we’re characterized by gossip or slander or complaining. But it means we allow others to get to know our heart. When someone genuinely asks, “How are you doing?” It means we don’t just say, “Fine. I’m good,” and then continue with our coffee and bread.

We want time to interact with one another. To encourage one another. To pray for one another. Hebrews 3 gives us this command: Exhort one another every day, as long as it’s called “today,” so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

How often does that say? It says every day. The picture we get of the New Testament church, especially in the book of Acts is that the people were meeting with one another every day.

Listen, we’re going to be having an FLG Leaders Meeting on Saturday. And in preparation for that, I spent some time studying what the New Testament says about these kinds of groups. And do you know what the Bible says about FLGs? It says absolutely nothing. There’s nothing there about programmed small groups.

That doesn’t mean they’re wrong to have. It just means that no church is mandated to have them. But didn’t people meet in homes in the early church? Yes, they did.

But when they did, it was either an entire church that met there, like in the case of Philemon house, or it was a voluntary meeting, driven by the desire of the leaders to teach or the people’s desire to see one another. They loved one another. Meeting in one another’s home was an expression of their unity and their love.

We could say that the early church didn’t need home groups, because they were already doing it themselves. And I think we could also say that the fact that some of us need home groups in order to spend time in someone else’s home during the week is an indictment. It’s a shame.

Local churches don’t typically have to program things that the people are doing anyway. Unless they want to coordinate it or organize it. But generally, we don’t structure things that most of us are doing anyway. There’s no ministry that helps you with your Sunday afternoon nap. You don’t need that.

But, sad to say, a lot of us might need Family Life Groups in order to interact with our brothers and sisters, and that shouldn’t be. Again, I’m not saying the groups are wrong or a bad idea. What I’m saying is that the groups are intended to be a foundation for something more, not a goal in themselves.

Our last session of groups just ended. And it’ll be a month until the new groups start again. What are you going to do in that month? How do you feel about that month? Do you think, “I can make some plans to have some church people over now”? Or do you just think, “Phew! I’m glad that over with. Now we get a month off.”

The church is having a month off from FLGs but that doesn’t mean you get to take a month off from pursuing the love of Christ in your own church.

So, moms or dads or young adults, maybe you can take some time to sit down with your spouse, and get out your calendars and talk about what you can do to step into one the lives of your brothers and sisters.

The New Testament church had it easier, I think. There were no vans to pack up. There was no traffic to battle with. There were no soccer games and PTA meetings to contend with. But that’s not an excuse for us. We should be fighting all the more opportunities to interact with, serve, and encourage our brothers and sisters.

Only you and God know how much you value that. But it’s not enough to say we value that, and yet not take deliberate steps to make it happen.

Be intentional about how you use our fellowship time with bread and coffee. Be intentional about how you use your morning time or your evening time. God wants us to live in community with one another—not just swapping smiles on Sunday morning.

And as we wrap up, I just want to remind you of the final component of Jesus’ love. The love of Jesus shows personal initiative. Don’t sit there thinking, “Well, who’s going to love me? Who’s going to invite me over?”

You think about this for yourself. Take the initiative. Make the first step in developing Christ-honoring relationships. Lay down the stuff that’s holding you back, and allow for and plan expressions of love within our church family.

If you don’t know where to start, get a copy of the members list. Start by praying through that list. And if you don’t know who someone is, ask around. Introduce yourself.

Our church, for many years, and by many accounts, has been characterized as a loving, welcoming church. And I pray that never changes. But I also pray, that in the grace of God, we love one another more and more, and as a result of our unity, we bear abiding fruit for the glory of Jesus Christ.