Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to John chapter 13. John 13. Our Lord knows the great trouble
that's coming. It's about to go to the cross.
And He knows what's coming and He's preparing His disciples.
And He first told them that what they're going to see in all His
suffering and all the rejection of the Pharisees, that this would
be His glory. And it would be Him glorifying
the Father and the Father would glorify Him. And then knowing
how troubled they would be when they saw Him crucified and when
they were scattered, He says to them, verse 33, He says, yet a little while I am with
you. You shall seek Me. And as I said unto the Jews,
whether I go, you cannot come, so now I say to you." And then
He knows that when they are scattered, they're going to be troubled,
there's going to be some doubts entering in where they're going
to doubt one another, and there's going to be trouble. It's just
going to be a hard time that they're about to go through.
And so He gives them a commandment that they're going to need. that
they're going to need. He says here in verse 34, a new
commandment I give unto you, that you love one another. As
I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall
all know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another. This congregation, you here,
have been known for being a loving congregation. Every time we have
visiting preachers come in, they always have commented to me on
what a special blessing the Lord's given us to have such a loving
congregation. And it's been that way for a
while. And the apostles had experienced
that. They had walked with our Lord
for three and a half years, and they had experienced peace, and
they had had love amongst them, and a very peaceful time. But
wherever God gives faith, wherever He's created love in the heart,
God's going to try that faith. He's going to try it. And it's
going to happen here in a very short time with these apostles. Now, it's going to be manifest
that the faith He gave them is genuine and the love He's put
in their heart is of God. It's going to be manifest because
Christ is going to sustain it in them and keep them. He said,
Peter, Satan has desired you that he might sift you as wheat,
but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. And that's
why Peter's faith didn't fail. The Lord is going to keep His
people. Christ proved that their faith and their love was of Him
by Christ keeping them, believing Him, and loving one another.
And that's what He'll do. Charity never faileth. Not because
you and I never fail. For a time, love appeared to
have failed when Peter denied the Lord and went back to his
former occupation. For a time, it appeared like
love failed. For a time, love appeared to have failed when
Abraham and Lot parted ways. And Lot chose the well water
plains of Sodom rather than submit to Abraham and stay with his
brethren. For a time it appeared like love
failed when Barnabas and Paul parted ways. It's not that we're sufficient
of ourselves to think anything of ourselves. That includes our
faith and our love. Our sufficiency is of God. But
the good news is charity never fails because Christ never fails.
Charity never fails because Christ never fails. Faith won't fail
because Christ is going to keep faith in the heart of His children.
And we're going to see that here. The faith and love that Christ
puts in the new man is going to be sustained by Christ. It's
going to be sustained. That's the one way Peter's faith
didn't fail. When our Lord was using Cyrus
to picture Christ, He said this of King Cyrus, but He's speaking
of His Son. And this is what He said in Isaiah
44, 28. He said, He's my shepherd. He's my shepherd, and shall perform
all my pleasure, even saying to Jerusalem, thou shalt be built,
and to the temple thy foundation shall be laid. And God's people
know this. This is our confidence. You know,
if we don't have confidence in our flesh, where's our confidence
then? It's in Christ. And that's why Paul said to the
Philippian brethren, I'm confident of this very thing. He which
hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day
of Jesus Christ. It's God which worketh in you
both to will and do His good pleasure. God said of His Son,
He will do all my pleasure. And He's God working in you that
which is well-pleasing in His sight. Listen to the Hebrew writer.
He prayed, God make you perfect in every good work to do His
will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight
through Jesus Christ to whom be all the glory forever and
ever. He's going to get all the glory
for our faith and our love and any fruit that's in us because
He's the one that produces it, He's the one that sustains it,
He's the one that's going to keep us believing and trusting
and loving one another and loving Him. So verse 34, He says, A
new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another. As
I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall
all know that you're My disciples if you have love one to another.
This is a new commandment. He said, a new commandment I
give unto you. It's new because it's given by
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's new because it's given by
the captain of our salvation. It's given by Him who is our
head, who's made us part of His body. This is the one who's given
us a new heart and made us willing to want to serve Him and to please
Him. So it's altogether new. It's
a new commandment given by Christ. It's a new commandment because
it's written on the heart. The law was written on tables
of stone. This new commandment is written
on the heart of His people in the new birth when He gives you
a new heart. Faith and love are of God. They are of the Spirit.
They're created in the heart by God. John said, and he got
this from Christ over in 1 John 4, 7. He said, Beloved, let us
love one another, for love is of God. And everyone that loveth
is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not
God, for God is love. Whosoever shall confess that
Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.
That's how we believe. That's how we confess. He's the
Savior. God dwelleth in you and you in
God. And we've known and believed
the love that God has to us. That's where this love comes
from. Beholding His love to us. And he said, God is love. And
he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. How do
you start to dwell in love? How does that happen? comes to you and gives you life
and makes you to know you are dwelling in Him. God is love. And when you're dwelling in Christ,
you dwell in love. You dwell in love. And it's because
You dwell in God and God dwells in you. So this is the commandment
we have from him, John said, that he who loveth God loveth
his brother also. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God and everyone that loveth him
that begat loveth him also that's begotten of him. Now so this
love's created and given by God and sustained and kept by God.
He's not given us fear. He's not given us fear. He brought
us out of that bondage. and he's not going to bring us
back into it. He's not giving us the spirit of fear, but of
power and of love and of a sound mind. And as Paul prayed, the
Lord make you increase in love and abound in love one toward
another. Our Lord teaches us here to love
our brethren. Now he told us before to love
all men. Everybody in this world came
from one father, Adam. That means we're all brethren
in a natural sense. God made us of one blood. So
in that sense, we're all brethren. So we're to love all men, all
men. The Pharisees had changed that.
They had said, love your brethren and hate your enemy. Christ said,
no, I say to you, love your enemies. If you only love those that love
you, he said, what is that? We're to love those that consider
us an enemy. So is we to love all, but what
he's talking about here is being born of God and loving our brethren
with brotherly love. That's what he's talking about.
Loving one another with brotherly love. Each of us being born of
him, we're members of one body. If we could really get how true
this is, Christ is our head and we are members of one body. and members in particular of
that body. That means our brethren are members
of our own body. If your fingers sore, you know,
the rest of your body can be well, all you can think about
is that sore finger. And that's how it is with God's
saints. If there's one member that's suffering, that's the
only one you can think about, is that one that's suffering.
He says whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.
Or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.
Now you're the body of Christ and members in particular. Now
Christ didn't love us as male or female. He didn't love us
as rich or poor. He didn't love us as being American
or German or whatever. He loved us as brethren. as those
God the Father chose and gave to Him who are His brethren.
He loved us as Him being the firstborn, the firstborn son
who God has put over the whole house. And He loves each of His
children, His Father's children as His brethren. And we love
Him as the firstborn. He's the elder brother of the
whole house. It's under His rule and under
His dominion. He's faithful to rule this house.
So we're members of the same heavenly family. We're of the
family of God. We're of the household of God,
the scripture said. This is why we love one another.
We're one family. Members one of another. Be kindly
affection one to another with brotherly love in honor preferring
one another. Brotherly love is the spirit
that exercises goodwill and confidence and mutual helpfulness to one
another. Christ said, Behold, I send you
forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. We are a little flock
of sheep surrounded by wolves in this world. and the world
will criticize us, they'll call us fanatics for the gospel, they'll
call us too straight, they'll call us uncompromising, and then
they'll turn around and they'll call us hypocrites and sinners
and unfaithful and everything else. Spurgeon said, there's
plenty to find fault, but let it be the enemy rather than you
who belong to the same family. But this enemy that surrounds
us, it only makes the sheep huddle closer together and love one
another more strongly and more deeply because we're all we got
in this world. We're all we got in this world.
It's a great gift God's given us to have each other, but we
are all we have in this world and there's not very many. There's
a remnant in every generation. It's a very precious thing. Marvel
not, my brethren, Christ said, this is what John recorded. Marvel
not, my brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we've
passed from death to life because we love the brethren. He that
loveth not his brother abideth in death. Now secondly, this
commandment's new because of the pattern that we now have
to follow. Our Lord said, A new commandment
I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you,
that ye also love one another. Moses gave the law at Sinai and
it said this, Leviticus 19.18 says, Thou shalt not avenge nor
bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself. I am the Lord. That's not the
commandment the Lord gives us. The Lord Jesus gives us this
commandment, that we love one another as I have loved you. That's greater than love your
neighbor as yourself. That's how he tells us to love
our neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself. Do to them what
you'd want them to do to you. But when it comes to brethren,
he says, you love one another as I have loved you. That's greater. That's greater. How has Christ
loved His people? How has He loved us? How has
He loved you who are born of Him? How has He loved you? Well,
He loved us by preferring our good over His own. He preferred our good over His
own. He made Himself of no reputation. And He took on Him the form of
a servant. You talk about Lovingness. Talk about loving. You know,
usually if somebody is elevated to a high position, they forget
their lower friends. Christ was in the highest position
there could be. He's at the right hand of the
Father. He's with God from eternity. And He came to where we are and
didn't make Himself a reputation. He took the form of a servant. to put away our sin, to create
us anew in righteousness, to purify our hearts, to believe
Him and follow Him and trust Him. This is what He did. He loved us. Now remember this
too. He loved us when we couldn't
give Him anything. What are you going to give God?
What is there you and I are going to give? We're the creature.
He created us. Everything we have, He gave to
us. You don't have anything to give
to God. We couldn't add anything to him,
we had nothing to give him, and we could give him nothing. We
were even unworthy of his love. Because we failed, we sinned
in Adam, our hearts were enmity against him. We're unworthy of
his love, and yet he loved us when we didn't even believe him.
When we hated him, he loved us. But here's the thing, he loves
us now when we don't believe him. He loves us now when we don't
believe Him. Peter flat out, here's a believer, Peter flat
out said it. He declared it. He did not believe
Christ when Christ said, you'll deny me three times, Peter. He
said, no, I won't. What is that? That's not believing
the Lord. He just flat out did not believe
the Lord. Flat out, didn't believe him. John the Baptist, who the
Lord sent before to preach the gospel. John the Baptist, when
he's in prison, he sent two disciples to the Lord and said, Are thou
he that should come, or do we look for another? That's John the Baptist. What
about Philip? Look there at verse 8. Philip
said unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth
us. Jesus said to him, Have I been
so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me? He that has seen Me has seen
the Father. How sayest thou then, Show us
the Father? They saw all His works. They
saw all the works that He did. He said to them over here in
verse 10, Believe it or not that I am in the Father and the Father
in me. Look at chapter 14 verse 10. He said, the words that I
speak to you I speak not of myself. The Father that dwelleth in me,
He doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father
and the Father in me. Else believe me for the very
works sake. Do you know how slow we are to notice good works? We didn't, we didn't, nobody
worked as good at works as Christ did. And they saw miracles that
he worked. Raising the dead, they saw him
raise Lazarus from the dead. And Philip stands here and says,
Lord, if you'd just show us the Father, we'd believe you. We
believe that you're really the Christ. Is that not slow to believe? Are we not slow to believe? What
about Thomas? Thomas flat out said, I won't
believe he's risen. Our Lord said, Thomas, reach
hither your finger. Behold my hands. Put your finger
in my nail prints. Reach hither your hand. Put it
in my side, Peter. And be not faithless, but believe
it. And yet, the Lord kept teaching him and kept declaring what he
would do and kept, what's he doing? He keeps loving him. It
didn't change him. It didn't alter his love, whatever.
It didn't make him waver in his love for them whatsoever when
they didn't believe him, when they weren't showing love to
him. It didn't change him. That's how he says for us to
love one another. Not because you get in love in
return. Not because somebody's recognizing anything good you've
done for them. When they don't. When they don't. How has Christ
loved us? With constant pity and compassion
and patience and grace. That's how He's loved us. Have we always loved each other
that way? Patience. Patience. Not hardly. Not hardly. But our Lord was so compassionate.
At Lazarus' tomb, He saw their sorrow. He saw their hearts breaking.
But while He saw their hearts breaking, you know why their
hearts were breaking? Mainly because of unbelief. That's mainly
why. And He saw that. He knew that.
And our Lord wept. He wept. When His disciples said
and did wrong things, When they argued over who would be the
greatest, and they got so worn out from arguing over who would
be the greatest, when he said, watch and pray with me, they
fell asleep. Is that us? That's us. He loved them. When they denied him, when they
fled, he loved them, he was gracious to them, he restored them. And
think of this now, think of this. You and I only have hindsight,
that's all we got. And it's very limited. You and I might know of one another's
past outward sins, but he knew not only the outward
sin, he knew every sin of their heart. Now get this, John would
cry, he said, when some didn't believe, he said, Lord, you want
me to cry down fire from heaven? And our Lord said, John, you
don't know what spirit you're of. That's of the devil. And
yet the Lord loved him. He loved him. He knew that. He knew what was in his heart.
He saw the devilish sinfulness in his heart when he said that.
And it didn't alter the Lord's love for him. But get this now,
he not only knew the outward sins and the sins of their heart,
past and present. He knew the sins they're going
to commit next hour. He knew the sins they're going
to commit tomorrow. He's telling Peter here, Peter, you will deny
me three times, it's coming. He knew that. Imagine, you think
it's difficult knowing the sins of your brothers in the past?
What if you knew every sin they're going to commit in the future?
Would you love them? It'd be hard, wouldn't it? You'd
almost have to be a perfect, righteous, holy man. And that's
what Christ is. That's who He is. Like as a father
pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.
He knows our frame. He remembers we're dust. We're just dust. There's no greater
gift short of Christ Himself than brethren. It's the greatest
gift to be able to share our mutual woes with each other,
to be able to confess that we're sinners and we're just fumbling
through this wilderness. We're ever dependent on our Lord.
And to be able to share those mutual burdens with one another
and to share those woes with one another, that's the greatest
gift God's given us short of Christ. But know this, brethren, there
will always be much to be overlooked. Always. Always. And there will be many offenses.
Always. That's why he put us together.
That's why he chose to save through the preaching of the gospel.
One of the reasons is to put us together in a body to teach
us grace is not just a theory. Forgiveness is just not a theory.
Reconciliation is not just a theory. Being long-suffering is not just
a theory. It's what Christ must work in
our hearts. And when he works this, he teaches
us something about what it is in the experience of it as he's
bringing it to pass amongst our brethren. Our brethren doing
it to us, being long-suffering, being patient. That's what he's
doing. Even when we're unworthy, that's
what he's doing. Look for the good in your brethren
rather than faults. Look for the good in them. That'll
be better for your own heart. Certainly we'll listen. Finally,
brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things
are lovely, whatsoever things of good report, if there's any
virtue, if there's anything to praise, think on these things.
Think on these things. Think on the good. Think on the
good. Our Savior loved us so much. Now here's the ultimate thing
right here. He loved us so much. He sacrificed Himself for us. How did He love us? He loved
us to the point that He gave His own body to be broken and
His own blood to be shed for you who are His. Listen to this.
Walk in love as Christ also has loved us and has given Himself
for us. An offering and a sacrifice to
God. God wasn't going to receive lambs.
He wasn't going to receive lambs. They butchered those lambs for
years. They butchered them. Their blood
spilled out. If you could have walked into that tabernacle courtyard
and just seen the blood everywhere, it had probably turned your stomach. Christ had to bear that. He gave Himself to be butchered
on the cross in place of these people. That's love. That's love. It's the greatest love with the
preeminent degree of self-sacrifice. We wouldn't even understand this
love if all we had was the Lord's Sinai. You wouldn't understand
it. We only see this love looking
to Christ and what He did for us on the cross. When the law
found us guilty, Christ said, take me and let these go free. Pour out wrath on me and let
my brethren give them my righteousness. That's what he did. That they
might be justified before the holy judgment seat of God. You're going to bear reproach.
The devil is going to slander you. His seed is going to slander
you. You're going to bear reproach. Christ said, I'll bear it. I'll
bear it. Let my brethren go free. You're
going to bear the shame of their sin. You're going to bear their
sin. It's not enough. You're not just going to go there
and charge them with sin and point out their sin. No, you're
going to go there and take their sin and be made sin for them
and bear their shame. He said, I'll bear it, to put
it away forever, to give them my righteousness, make them accepted
of God. But you're going to have to bear
the cross after you've borne the shame, after you've been
made fit to pour out wrath. You're going to have to bear
the full brunt of the wrath of God in that place. This is love. He said, I'll bear it. Send me to an eternity of hell
on that cross so my brethren won't have to suffer it. That's
love. That's love. As I've loved you,
He condescended to our feet on a cross from the highest height
to the lowest low, and He washed us clean in His own life's blood. He gave up all, all, all He had
for His people. This is why when that rich young
ruler came confessing, bragging about all that he had done for
God, the Lord said, You're just missing one thing. Sell everything
you got and follow me. Give it to the poor and follow
me. He couldn't give up all. He was covetous. He gave up all
the members of his body. All the members of his body.
Broken. He gave his own soul. I don't even understand that.
I can't even enter into what that is. But he made his soul
an offering for sin. Hereby perceive we the love of
God because he laid down his life for us. And we ought to
lay down our lives for the brethren. You know, by His Spirit, God's
people are a loving, giving, self-sacrificing people. They
just are. I was amazed when we were looking
at this building and all the offerings that came in just kept
coming, just kept coming from all these sister churches. No
fanfare, no looking for recognition. just brethren doing what they
could to help. And they helped a lot. A lot. When Brother Tom Harding's house
flooded, and more recently when Brother Larry Chris' house flooded,
crews of brethren just showed up to help. And when one crew
would leave, another crew would show up to help. And here's the
thing, it wasn't that they all got together and started calling
each other and saying, we got to all do this, we got to all,
the church needs to do this. They just individually, constrained
by Christ's love for them, what can I do to help? What can I
do to help? You know, religion has to, the
whole church has got to be prodded into doing stuff, you know, together. I remember Somebody came to one
of the preachers one time and said, you know, I believe the
church ought to be doing this. And he said, well, aren't you
the church? Go do it. Go do it. That's the love. It doesn't try to make others
do things. That's what Pharisees do. The
love of Christ just makes you say, I'll do it. And you don't
look for any anything, you know, most of the
time people don't even know what you're doing. And lastly, let
me be quick here, this commandment's new because Christ teaches us,
this is how all shall know we're his disciples. Verse 35, by this
shall all know that you're my disciples if you have love one
to another. Now this is not to make us inspect
one another, that wouldn't be love, that wouldn't even be love. It's how your brethren will know
you are born of God or not. That's the attitude. It's not
the attitude of, I don't think that one's born. It's, this is
how they're going to know this about me. This is how they're
going to know this about you. And it's how the outside world
would know. They probably won't recognize
it and they probably wouldn't dare say it to give you any credit
as being a child of God. The Pharisees never saw a good
thing Christ did. They just didn't. And if they,
what good works they did recognize as good works, they sure wouldn't
say they were good works. They sure wouldn't commend Him
for being the Christ. They wouldn't do that at all.
So don't expect the world to do that to you either. But our
Lord said, this is how my people are going to be known. They're
going to be lovers of one another. We know that we've passed from
death into life because we love the brethren. He that loveth
not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother
is a murderer. And you know no murderer has
eternal life abiding in him. One time, back in the early 90s,
I went up to Madisonville, Kentucky to hear Brother Mahan preach,
and he was preaching for Brother Maurice Montgomery. And Brother
Maurice introduced Brother Henry, and Brother Henry got up and
he said something that just stuck with me and I thought was the
kindest, most complimentary thing that could ever be said. He got
up there and he told how long he and Brother Maurice had been
friends. long, long time. Known each other a long, long
time. Been seeing lots of trials, lots
of troubles, lots of things come and go. And this was what Brother
Henry said. He said, in all those years that
we've been brethren and known each other, he said, we've never
had a ripple. Never had one ripple. Meaning,
never been anything, any kind of negative thing between us. Just love. Just love. And he
said, and one reason is, we never listened for anything that would
cause a ripple. He said, we never went trying
to turn over stone to find a stone to throw to make a ripple. And
he said, we just loved each other. Isn't that a kind thing to say?
Wouldn't you want to be known as, have somebody, your brother
say that about you, we've never had a ripple. Never had a ripple. None can create this but our
Savior who is love. He's the only one who can chain
hatred into love and turn warring sinners into peacemakers. The
only one. And his love toward us is irresistible. We love him because he first
loved us. That means that just overcomes
you. You just can't resist it. When
you see how he loved you and how he laid down his life for
you, you can't resist it. It's what makes you say, I'm
going to be merciful because he's merciful to me. It's what
makes you love because you see how he's loved you as unworthy
and black hearted and undeserving as you are. Not as you were. As you are, and it makes you,
it's irresistible. You can't hold grudges, you can't
harbor malice, you can't hope for vengeance to cry down fire
on your brother. You just have to love one another,
even if they don't love you. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. And everyone that loveth him
that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. Our Lord
said, By this shall all know that you are my disciples if
you have loved one to another. Love is the eternal rule. It
is the eternal rule. It is the rule we are under and
it is the eternal rule. When we don't have faith anymore,
we don't need it. When we don't have hope anymore,
when it has become reality, will still love, eternally love. Let's go to Him. Our Father, we thank You for
Your unconditional love in sending Your Son, loving us in Him, making
all the conditions to be in Him and according to His finished
work. And Lord, we pray that You would
increase love in our hearts. We know we don't love as we ought.
But Lord, keep us seeing Christ's great love for us. Keep us seeing
His love for us. Make us see it for each of your
people individually, personally. And Lord, make us each personally
be concerned about our own love. and how we love others. Lord, thank you for never wavering,
for everlastingly loving your people. And how we do thank you, Lord.
You've been so gracious to us here and blessed us and given
us something so very special. Lord, as you bring us through
the In trying times, we pray that You would keep love in our
hearts and keep us looking to Christ and pointing each other
to Christ and reminding one another of His great love for us. We
could show each other no greater love than this. Help us to do
this, Lord. For Christ's sake, for Your honor,
it's in His name we ask it. Amen.