The Eleventh Commandment - Part B

Jesus doesn't just love people who deserve to be loved.

God's love is not just poured out to people who perform to a certain standard or meet a certain mark or are worthy of a certain kind of affection. His love is sacrificial. His love is unconditional.

His love is never-ending. His love is non-reciprocal. So how should a husband love his wife in a sacrificial, unconditional, never-ending, non-reciprocal way? What kind of love should parents have for their children? Sacrificial, unconditional, never-ending, non-reciprocal. How should a Christian brother love another Christian brother?

Sacrificial, unconditional, never-ending, non-reciprocal. We've all heard of the Ten Commandments, and most of us have seen some sort of a statue or plaque with them written on it. Skip Heitzig has reminded us that the Ten Commandments are more than wall art. They're vital to living the lives the Lord meant for us to live. And today we'll be finishing out our series titled God's Top Ten.

But before we begin, we want to let you know what we have for you this month in the Connect with Skip Resource Center. Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China, said, It is possible to move men through God by prayer alone. Ian Bounds, who authored nine books on prayer, said, God shapes the world by prayer. The more praying there is in the world, the better the world will be. And Billy Graham said, To get nations back on their feet, we must first get down on our knees.

Here's Skip Heitzig. You know, the Bible says that we will experience God's peace when we pray, and it tells us to pray about everything. We want to help you know how and what to pray and what to expect. That's why we're offering Lord, Teach Me to Pray in 28 Days by Kay Arthur. When you give to support this ministry, prayer is meant to up the game of peace and joy in our hearts. Lord, Teach Me to Pray is our thanks when you give $25 or more today to help keep this ministry on the air, connecting you and others to God's Word.

Call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. We'll be in John chapter 13, verses 34 and 35 to look at the 11th commandment. So I hope you'll join in there as we begin with Skip Heitzig. Is that how you measure love? I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

I get it. Or do you measure love by a kiss? The world's longest kiss happened two years ago.

Two Londoners broke the record. They locked lips for 31 hours and 30 minutes. And they could not separate. That was the rule.

They have rules to these things. That's gross. Is that how you measure love? I kissed you longer than anyone ever. I've written I love you. I love you.

I love you more than anyone ever. What is the standard? What is the benchmark? Our Lord gives that benchmark to us right here. Love one another.

Here it is. As I have loved you. I would say he raises the mark. He raises the standard.

He raises the bar higher than writing I love you or kissing for a long time. Love people like I love you, Jesus is saying. Not love people in your own way. Love people as you see fit. Love the one you're with. You see, if we didn't have this standard of comparison, then love would be nebulous to us. We wouldn't be able to know exactly what Jesus means. And our society is already confused as to what love means.

Listen to how we use it. We say, I love sports. I love my wife. I love God.

I love chocolate cake. Same word for all of those things. Like the little girl five years old, she was punished by her parents, sent up to her bedroom without dinner, and she wrote this note, Dear Mom and Dad, I hate you. And she signed it, Love, Nicole.

And she signed it, Love, Nicole. Well turn with me to John chapter 15. This is elaborated on. It's the same night.

It's the same upper room. It's the same message to the same disciples. And Jesus elaborates on this new standard of love modeled after his own love. In chapter 15 verse 12, this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

Now that's past tense. Now he turns in the next verse to the future, anticipating his sacrificial death on the cross. Verse 13, greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you.

So there's the standard of comparison. Here's the renewed commandment. Here's the unprecedented fresh commandment.

It's greater than all of the other commandments. Love. Well how? Love people like I love you.

That's the standard. And what does that mean? Well, how did Jesus love his disciples? With a sacrificial love, number one. A sacrificial love. Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

I love you guys so much. I'm willing not only to live and impart my words and spend time with you. I'm about to go to the cross and sacrifice my life for you. That's how I want you to love people. With that kind of love, sacrificial love. Second thing about his love, it's not just sacrificial, it's unconditional.

There's no strings attached. It's not the kind of love that just treats people who treat us nicely in a kind fashion. It's unconditional. When Jesus was put upon that cross, what's the first thing he said? Father, forgive them.

They do not know what they're doing. A third aspect to his love is not that it's just sacrificial, if that weren't enough. It's not that it's just unconditional. It is never-ending, non-reciprocal love. That is, Jesus will often love the very worst people who don't always love him back in any capacity.

And it's ongoing. In Romans chapter 5, Paul writes, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And he describes in that paragraph his love.

Here's the point. Jesus doesn't just love people who deserve to be loved. God's love is not just poured out to people who perform to a certain standard, or meet a certain mark, or are worthy of a certain kind of affection. His love is sacrificial. His love is unconditional. His love is never-ending.

His love is non-reciprocal. So, how should a how should a husband love his wife? In a sacrificial, unconditional, never-ending, non-reciprocal way. What kind of love should parents have for their children? Sacrificial, unconditional, never-ending, non-reciprocal. How should a Christian brother love another Christian brother?

Sacrificial, unconditional, never-ending, non-reciprocal. Okay, I've got your attention. And right about now you're thinking, that's impossible. I'm not God. I can't do that.

And you would be absolutely right in thinking that. You can't do that commandment in your own power. It requires a power greater than yourself for you to pull off the command. That's why we've been given the greatest power to do it, the Holy Spirit living in us. Which means every one of us can do it. Again, Romans chapter 5, the fifth verse, God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

So, we have the capacity to do it. That's why John writes in 1 John, Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. You've heard the old saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I bet one of the greatest things for God to hear or see is one of his children saying, Lord, I choose to love that person because I want to be like you. I don't feel like it. I don't even like that person, but I'm going to visibly, cognizantly demonstrate love toward that person because I want to be related to you.

Not that you earn anything by it, but it simply shows that, as we'll see. Which takes us to our fourth and final look at this eleventh commandment, as I call it. It is a substantive commandment given by Jesus himself. It is the superlative, greatest commandment. It's a comparative commandment. We're not just to love any way we see fit, but as Jesus loved us. Finally, it demonstrates something about us. It indicates something about who we are when we choose to love this way.

And what does it indicate? Well, to ourselves, it's an indication of new life. We prove to ourselves that we're saved. If you ever have any doubts of your salvation, and I believe when you're saved, you're in Christ, you're kept by Christ, but a lot of people have doubts. I knew I was saved yesterday.

I don't think I'm saved today. Do you love God's people? John writes this, we know that we have passed from death into life because we love our brothers. So here you have a visible, tangible evidence that you can look at and go, yes, I love God's people. I love them.

It indicates new life. Isn't it funny, though, how sometimes it's easier to love people you never see than those that you see every day? You know, we can have this nebulous, I love everybody, but this person I live with, I just don't really love that person. But I love everybody. It's like Linus in the Peanuts cartoon. He said, I love the world.

It's the people I can't stand. But ladies and gentlemen, if a Christian cannot love another Christian, how in the world is that Christian going to love the lost? Or love his or her enemies, as Jesus tells us to. If we can't love our brother, so it indicates that we've passed from death into life. Second, it indicates something to the unbelieving world who is watching.

It indicates that we're following a new direction. It shows the unbeliever that we're real. Look at the last verse in chapter 13 that we looked at. Verse 35, Jesus says, by this, that is by love, by this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. They're looking, they're watching, they're scrutinizing, they're examining, and if they don't see us loving one another, they go, it's not real. But if they see us loving one another, they know it is real.

By the way, this isn't a one-time deal. In the original language, it's in a tense called the present active subjunctive, which means, I'll translate it, by this the world or all will know that you're my disciples if you keep on having love one for another. So that love is the constant billboard that we keep holding up, keep holding up, keep holding up to the world so they know we're real. How else are they going to know?

How else are they going to know? Jesus didn't say, by this shall all men know you're my disciples, by the bumper stickers you have on your car. Honk if you love Jesus, that'll tell everybody. Not by this shall all men know you're my disciples, by the cool Christian t-shirt that you wear. I'm not opposed to Christian t-shirts, but I am opposed to anybody wearing a Christian t-shirt or having a bumper sticker who doesn't show love. So we show love to one another.

We show the world that we are real. There was a little boy in front of a store. He was pressed up against the store window. His shoes were frayed. His toes were showing.

It was very cold. He huddled, looking through the window, and a woman walked by and said, what are you doing? He said, I was just standing here asking God for a pair of shoes. Well, she quickly took the young boy into the store, washed his feet, bought six pairs of socks, two pairs of shoes, was paying for it at the register. And as she was turning and ready to leave, she felt a tug on her coat.

She looked down. It was a little boy with innocent eyes said, are you God's wife? You know, what you just did reminded me of something God would have done. We give away our relationship when as an act of our own will, apart from how we may feel, we choose to give sacrificial, unconditional, never-ending, non-reciprocal love. Now note something.

It's very, very important. We're not speaking nebulously here about love. In fact, Jesus doesn't even say, the world will know you're my disciples if you love the world, if you love them, if you show your love to people, strangers.

He didn't say that, does he? It's specifically, the world will know you're my disciples if you as my followers love my followers, if you love one another. It's Christian to Christian love.

That's how they'll know. Did you know that in the early church in the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire was suspicious of the church? They were gathering in these groups. The Roman Empire didn't know why they were gathering. They thought this new group might be subversive to the Roman government, so they sent spies into the assemblies. Tertullian, one of the church fathers, says that a spy came in to an early Christian assembly and gave this report back to his supervisors. These Christians, he writes, are very strange people. They meet together in an empty room to worship.

They do not have an image. They speak of one by the name of Jesus who's absent, but whom they seem to be expecting at any time, and my, how they love him, and my, how they love one another. That'd be a great report from a unbelieving spy coming into the assembly, watching how we walk in, how we park our cars, how we greet one another, how we prefer one another, how we prefer one another, and they go, my, how they love one another. So love is not 1,875,000, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. It's not a 31 hour and 30 minute kiss. It is the love of the will, and the will drives the train of the emotions. I want to close with this story.

It's a story that I read some time ago and it always impacted me every time I did. It's written by a surgeon, a facial surgeon, who had to operate on a woman and he accidentally, not accidentally, he had to by the nature of the surgery, sever a facial nerve. His name is Dr. Richard Selzer, and after the operation he said, I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face post-operative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be this way from now on. This surgeon, meaning himself, had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh, I promise you that.

Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve. Her young husband is also in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, very private. Who are they, I ask myself. He and this wry little mouth that I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, so greedily.

The young woman speaks. Doctor, will my mouth always be like this? She asks.

Yes, I say, it will. It's because the nerve has been cut. She nods, but is silent. And then the young man smiles. I like it, he says.

It's kind of cute. All at once, I know who he is. I understand and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god.

Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth and I am so close that I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works. Now, which would you rather have and call love, a 31 hour and 30 minute kiss in London or this kind of a kiss of a husband who sacrificially and unconditionally loves a wife who will forever have a palsy on one side of her mouth, but he will accommodate his kiss to show her their kiss to show her their kiss to show her their kiss still works. Well, Jesus said love like that. That's the new commandment. That's the icing on the commandment cake.

That sums it all up. Of course, the ultimate demonstration of love would come several chapters later when Jesus would go to the cross and for the entire world provide a way that every man woman and child throughout history could have a relationship with God as an innocent victim as a sinless victim giving his blood to pay for our sins. As John said in the beginning of his book, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life.

What that means to you is that God knows everything about you and he loves you anyway and will give you life and forgiveness if you let him. I love that hymn that we sang at the closing of our time of worship musical worship this morning. The love of God. I love that verse. It was the last one we sang.

Listen to it again. Could we with ink the oceans fill and were the skies of parchment made? Were every stock on earth a quill and every man ascribed by trade to write the love of God above would drain the oceans dry nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky. It's unfathomable how much God loves us. But I didn't get a new car and I prayed for one. But I didn't get healed and I asked him to. But all of that aside, you can spend forever in heaven redeemed. That's the greatest miracle, greater than any healing, greater than any new car.

Heaven, forgiveness, eternal life. Do you have that? Have you experienced God's love? Are you living in God's love?

Is it a daily part of who you are experiencing it? You know, in order to do that, you have to receive it. God never forces himself on people. He always waits till he's invited. If you ever wonder, how come God never hangs around these parts?

Have you ever asked him in? Jesus said, Behold, I stand at the door and knock, but he won't kick the door and go, I'm here and I'm taking over. He'll wait for you to open the door to invite him and then his love will flood your life. You know, God's love is ready and waiting for all of us. And if you're a believer in Jesus, you've already experienced that.

And as Skip reminded us, if you haven't received that gift today, he won't force it upon you. But you can learn about our relationship with Jesus when you visit connectwithskip.com and click the Know God link. The teaching you just heard was part two of the 11th Commandment, the final message in our current weekend series, God's Top 10. You can get your copy of this helpful series at connectwithskip.com. We put all 17 teachings together on an audio CD package for only $39 plus shipping.

Get all the info at connectwithskip.com or by calling 1-800-922-1888. Would you like to take your daily study time with Skip a little bit further? Well, you can when you add the Skip Heitzig channel to your Roku device. Study through the Bible with Skip and be sure to keep your computer handy as you take notes to follow along.

That's the Skip Heitzig Roku channel available now at connectwithskip.com. And come back next weekend as we start a series Pastor Skip is entitled, The Edge of Eternity, right here on Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, a presentation of Connection Communications. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection, a connection, a connection. Connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.