Now I ask you to remain standing in honor of God's Word as we read it together tonight. If you would please turn with me to John chapter 13, we're going to be looking at verses 31-35. The scene is the upper room on the night before Jesus' crucifixion. Judas has just left to go off and betray the Son of God, and Jesus is alone with the other 11 disciples, so he takes the opportunity to prepare them for what's about to happen.
We pick up the story in verse 31 of John chapter 13. When he, Judas, had gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I am with you, you will seek Me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, Where I am going, you cannot come. 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. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. Father, you love us, and it's an incredible love that you would love sinners. We who deserve eternal rejection have not only been forgiven by you, but we've been adopted by the very one that we were at enmity with.
And the means by which you have adopted us was the painful, excruciating sacrifice of giving over your only begotten Son to die an accursed death. Lord, your love is indeed amazing, and it is that love which transforms us into something that's brand new, that creates a new creation. You change us from darkness to light.
You make us new. You give us new commandments, and you give us the capacity and desire to obey those commandments. So Holy Spirit, would you please take what Jesus Christ, the Son, has done in us, and what God the Father intends for us, and apply it to our hearts and minds, and transform our lives by it. Teach us how to love as we've been loved. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
You can be seated. Maundy Thursday is a strange sounding name, isn't it? The word maundy comes from the Latin word for mandate or command, and is a reference to the new command that Jesus gave to his disciples in the upper room on the night on which he was betrayed.
We just read about it. I want us to spend some time tonight thinking about this new command. What was this new commandment?
Why was it new? What was the context in which it was given, and how should we respond in obedience to it? These are some of the questions that I want us to try to answer tonight. Now our text that we just read sort of builds up to the commandment. Jesus begins by setting the stage for what's about to happen, and it's in light of what is about to happen that he gives this new commandment that we love one another. It's in the context of this setting that that commandment becomes necessary in a new sense.
So let's begin by investigating first the setting, and then we'll work our way to the new commandment specifically. In our text we're going to see a bad thing leads to a good thing. Then we're going to see a good thing leads to a sad thing, and finally we'll see that the sad thing leads to a new thing.
So that's our direction. First Jesus tells his disciples that a bad thing leads to a good thing. We see this in verses 31 and 32. Verse 31 says, when Judas had gone out and he was going out to betray Jesus, Jesus said to the disciples that were still in the upper room, now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. So Judas's departure from the upper room to go and betray Jesus to the religious authorities would set in motion a chain of events that would lead to the Son of Man, which is a reference here to Jesus, being glorified and God the Father being glorified.
What was the chain of events that Judas's betrayal of Christ would trigger? Well, it was the arrest of Jesus, right? Which led to the trial of Jesus, which would lead to the conviction and crucifixion of Christ, after which he would die and be buried.
Of course the sequence doesn't end there, does it? As we know, Jesus would be resurrected on the first day of the week and 40 days later he would ascend back to heaven where he would be given a name that is above every name. A name that would lead to the universal confession of all people that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. That was the chain of events that Judas in his sin set in motion. And that was the chain of events that would result in the glorification of God the Son and God the Father. Judas's betrayal would lead to God's glory.
A bad thing leads to a good thing. But don't think that it's just the end of the story that brought God glory. God would be glorified through all of these events, even through what to us are the bad parts of the story.
The victory of the resurrection is impossible and in fact meaningless without the reality of the death that led to the resurrection. And so part of the glory Christ is going to receive lies in the grueling torture and death that he was about to undergo. What kind of glory is this? Well, it's the glory of a sacrificial hero. It's the soldier who draws the enemy fire so that his brothers in arms can advance safely.
It's the glory of a mother hen spreading her wings to protect her chicks whom she loves so much. Christ's glory did not consist merely in his victory over death and sin. It included his becoming sin for us. A bad thing led to a good thing, a glorious thing, an awesome, overwhelmingly beautiful thing as Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, eagerly and wholeheartedly absorbed God's wrath against sin for the sake of sinners. So what Judas intended for evil, God intended for good. It reminds us, does it not, of the fact that God's sovereignty is always in the driver's seat. Even at this darkest moment in all of human history, the death of the Son of God, God is undeniably at work behind the scenes, bringing about his perfect pleasure. And I can't help but think that if Romans 8.28 is in play in this blackest of moments, then Romans 8.28 is in play at every moment of history, including the worst circumstances you or I could possibly ever find ourselves in. If God can take the wickedness of a Judas betraying his only begotten son to the death, then what trial, what temptation, what hardship could possibly derail or circumvent God's good providence?
There is nothing and no one in all of creation or through all of history that can prevent God from taking the bad things that sinners do and that sinners experience and turn them for good. Verse 32 then makes the point that whatever glory Jesus Christ would receive through his atoning work, God the Father would also receive. And verse 32 reads a little awkwardly, doesn't it, because of all the pronouns. So let me read the verse without any pronouns.
Instead I'm going to substitute the person being referred to by each pronoun just so we can be clear on what's being said. Verse 32, if God the Father is glorified in God the Son, God the Father will also glorify the Son in God the Father and glorify the Son at once. This verse only makes sense if we read it through the lens of the Trinitarian nature of God. God exists in three persons, right? Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
These three persons are distinct from the others, but they all share the same substance. They're equal in power and glory, our confession says. This means that the three persons of the Trinity never operate or function out of step with each other. Their purposes and actions are always perfectly consistent with each other. It's not as if Jesus wanted to save sinners because he's all love, while God the Father wanted to punish sinners because he's all wrath.
No. Jesus' willingness to go to the cross is an indication that it was also God the Father's will that he go to the cross. Which means that any glory Jesus Christ would receive for this incredible act of love also belongs to God the Father.
And we should acknowledge also to God the Holy Spirit. The adoration and amazement that Christians have for Christ is increased when they realize the magnitude of what he did on the cross. Jesus is glorified, surely, in his atoning work. But God the Father is also glorified as Christians begin to realize the sacrifice God the Father made in sending, in giving over his only begotten Son to the world.
So, like Father, like Son, both are glorified in the atoning work of Jesus Christ. And then that last statement of verse 32 which says God the Father will glorify the Son at once simply means it's going to happen right away, right now. Jesus has been with his disciples for three years and he's been preparing them for this very moment for three years. Well, the years have turned into weeks, the weeks have turned into days.
Now the days have turned into hours and the hours are turning into minutes. It's time for these horrific events to take place. But the horrific events will lead to a glorious recognition of God's great love for sinners. So in God's economy, bad things lead to good things.
But notice secondly in our text that a good thing leads to a sad thing. In verse 33, Jesus says, little children, yet a little while, and I'm with you, you'll seek me. And just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, where I am going you cannot come. So the good thing that was about to happen, the atoning work of Christ that would culminate in Christ's ascension and coronation meant that he would be leaving his disciples very soon.
The glorification of verses 31 and 32 would of necessity lead to the separation of verse 33. So where was Christ going that his disciples could not go? Well, he was going to the cross. He was going to hell and back.
He was going to paradise. And this departure would introduce a fundamental change in his relationship with the disciples. Once they walked out of that upper room and made their way to the Garden of Gethsemane, their relationship with Jesus Christ as they had known it, the daily interaction physically in the flesh in time and space that they had enjoyed with him and that had transformed their lives beyond their wildest imaginations was about to suddenly joltingly come to a stop and would never be the same for the rest of their earthly lives. That jolt of separation would come just hours away in the form of intense grief as the disciples witnessed the unjust and cruel arrest, trial, and crucifixion of their master, their teacher, their friend. But that grief would give way to incredible joy and relief at the sight of their resurrected Lord three days later, but then their emotions would swing yet again to a place of homesickness and longing like they had never experienced as they watched Jesus ascend through the clouds and out of sight. I can't even imagine the longing they must have felt in their hearts as they stood there gazing at the sky, scripture says.
They had just experienced the most phenomenal three years in all of human history and now it was over. Jesus was gone. They couldn't eat supper with him anymore. They couldn't touch his wounds or ask him questions.
They couldn't laugh with him and cry with him. He was gone. It was over. It's interesting, isn't it, that the very next thing we see the disciples doing after Christ's departure is to return to that upper room in Acts 1 13 where Jesus had told them, I'm going away soon and where I'm going you cannot follow. They returned to the room where Jesus had told them, let not your hearts be troubled.
If I go and prepare a place for you, I'll come again and will take you to myself that where I am you may be also. So the glorification of God necessitated the departure of Christ. A good thing led to what for the disciples was a sad thing but it was a hopeful sadness, wasn't it? It was hopeful because Jesus had prepared them for this very hour by reassuring them that if he left, he would return. Have you ever said to yourself, I wish Jesus would come back right now?
The older I get, the more frequently I hear myself saying that. Every time we say something like that, every time we feel the sense of longing for the presence of Christ in the flesh, we're doing exactly what Christ said his followers would do. We're seeking him but we can't follow him to where he is gone yet. Of course, the day is coming when he will return and he will change us so that we can go with him where he goes.
What an incredibly happy day that will be but it's not here yet. Now, we live by faith, trusting and resting in what we cannot see. By the way, do you know what Christ does for us to fill that longing which his absence has created in us? Do you know what he has given to us to satisfy the yearning we experienced to just be with him? It's this very sacramental meal that we're about to enjoy together.
The Lord's Supper is the closest we come this side of Christ's return to getting to experience his presence and be with him. Have you ever been homesick? Have you ever been separated from someone you love and all you can think about is wanting to get back to them? I suppose the most homesick I feel is when I'm overseas across an ocean on a mission trip, thousands of miles away from home in a foreign culture. I enjoy the experiences of that but there comes a point where I just want to go home.
I want to be with the people that I know and love and miss. I remember during our engagement, Laura and I had to be apart from each other for about a month leading up to our wedding day. I was down in Louisiana fulfilling ministry responsibilities, getting things ready for the wedding and I just wanted to be with her. For some reason, I had a cotton ball in my coat pocket that she had given me for a headache or something before she left and it had lavender oil on it and that aroma. I would take that silly cotton ball out and it was like Laura was suddenly right there in the room with me. I associated that smell with her presence.
I don't know what the Louisiana's thought about me sniffing cotton balls and I really didn't care. It was the closest thing I could come, the closest I could come to being with the person that I missed the most. Church, the Lord's Supper is that. This is Jesus Christ though absent for a time coming to us and saying, I'm with you. I'm here. My love for you is just as real as this bread. My death for you is just as real as this cup and I will come again.
So eat and drink and remember I'm with you even to the end of the age. Our time in redemptive history is a time of walking by faith not sight, of remembering what was, of looking forward to what will be and in a sense it's kind of a sad melancholy sort of time but it's a hopeful time because the very event which necessitated this physical separation between Christ and his bride guarantees that he will return for his bride. The grand and glorious ascension of Christ to the right hand of God the Father has led to the yes sad but hopeful situation in which we find ourselves. Ours is a time to fight for God's glory and take the world for Christ and to wait in faith the return of our Lord and that era of fighting and waiting and remembering and hoping began right there in the upper room as Jesus told his followers that his imminent glorification meant there would be a time of separation between him and those he loved.
A good thing would lead to a sad thing. But finally we discover in this conversation Jesus has with his disciples that a sad thing leads to a new thing. A new thing Jesus says in verse 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 by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. And this is where I want us to just camp out for a few moments here tonight this is really the center the climax of our text this new commandment to love each other.
Now I suppose the first matter of business we need to take care of in thinking about this command is to ask the question what's new about it. The Old Testament had already established the moral obligation of people loving other people. Leviticus 19 18 had already been written and it says you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.
So there it is. Over half the Ten Commandments in fact are commands are they not that essentially obligate us to love each other. So how can Jesus say this is a new commandment.
Well there are a couple of features of verse 32 that I want to draw your attention to. First is the word new. In Greek conveniently there are two words for new. They're both translated as new in English but they're different meanings in Greek. One of these Greek words describes something that did not previously exist and it's new in terms of its very existence.
If God had never said love one another prior to this upper room conversation with the disciples then this command would have been new in this sense of the word. But the other Greek word for new describes something that has not been previously used or known. It may be very old in the sense that it's been in existence for a long time but it's new to the user. I've never owned a new car in the first sense of the Greek word and yet whenever I replace my old car with a different one I refer to it as my new car even though it may have a hundred thousand miles on it. It's new to me.
We speak this way about a lot of things. A new house, hand-me-down clothes, an old bottle of wine, sometimes husbands and wives who have navigated a difficult patch in their marriage but have sorted things out say things like we have a brand new marriage even though they may have been married for 20 years. And this is the word Jesus uses when he describes the command to love one another as something that is new. It was a command that had been put on the shelf.
It was unused, untapped, neglected, forgotten, misunderstood. But now on the eve of his death it was time to take this ancient command off the shelf again, dust it off and put it into practice in a fresh new way. The other feature of verse 32 that I want us to take note of is that part of the newness of this command was not the command itself so much as it was the context in which this command was going to be reintroduced. Something of incomparable significance had taken place that would cast this command to love one another in a whole new light. That something is that God had come to earth and lived among us and we had beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth. Christ's disciples had just enjoyed the privilege of spending three years watching God incarnate demonstrate and model what true godly love looks like and does, how it thinks and feels, how it speaks, how it keeps silent. They had learned what love is from the eternal God who is love itself. And in light of this new and perfect example of love which they had the privilege to witness, Jesus tells them, love one another as I have loved you. So this command was new in the sense that the disciples now had a much fuller understanding of what loving others ought to look like. They had seen it modeled perfectly in the life of Jesus.
Not only did they have a perfect example of what love ought to be, they were about to lose their visible daily access to that example. And so even though the commandment itself was not new, the context in which they were going to have to obey this command was new. A huge paradigm shift was about to occur as Jesus who had been visible and physically accessible would be taken away for a time. And so this old command would take on new life as the disciples began modeling in the absence of Christ what they had learned from Christ. What I want to do then with the remainder of our time is to think about this new commandment and what it means in light of this new paradigm in which we find ourselves in light of our time in redemptive history. You see, verses 34 and 35 were not spoken in a vacuum.
We can't just pull them out and isolate them and think about them in a vacuum. Jesus said these things in a particular context and so we need to read them and understand them in that context. In other words, we need to read verses 35 and 35 in light of Jesus' previous statement that he would be leaving. What Christ is doing is this, he's linking our union with him to our union with his people. He's connecting the love we have for him to the love that he has for us by demanding that in his absence we love each other in the same way that he would love. This isn't just some generic command to love people.
No, it's Jesus telling us to love people in his absence in the same way he would love them if he were present. I remember when I was very young, my parents were going out for the evening and a babysitter was coming over to watch my sisters and me while they were away. Before my parents left, they sat us all down in the living room and said, we're going to be gone for a while and you'll be asleep in bed before we return. If anything happens that shouldn't happen while we're gone, we will find out about it and there will be consequences in the morning. This was a regular occurrence when my parents went on dates. My parents were making it clear that just because they wouldn't be physically present, their authority still reigned over our home.
Their law was still the law even in their absence. And so the love that us siblings were expected to demonstrate to each other while our parents were out was a very tangible demonstration of the honor and love we had for our parents. Jesus is saying, Christians love each other while I'm gone because in loving each other you're loving me.
He's saying, if you truly want to express your love to me in my absence then love each other as I've loved you. You see what a huge priority this place is on the love we have for each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. You see how important Christian love and unity becomes given Christ's absence. We could say it this way when we love other Christians we are loving, imitating and serving Christ.
Let's think about this for a minute. Loving other Christians is loving Christ. There will come a day when the history of this world will reach its end. There will come a day when the same Jesus who told his disciples those many years ago a little while and I'll be with you no more will return and be with his people forever.
And on that day scripture says that Christ will say to those who belong to him, come you who are blessed by my father inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me." Then the righteous will answer him saying, Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you?
And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the king will answer them, truly I say to you as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers you did it to me. When we love those for whom Christ died we are in fact loving Christ. But not only is loving other Christians a demonstration of our love for Christ, notice also that loving other Christians is imitating Christ. Jesus said love each other as I have loved you in the same manner, in the same way that I have loved you. And how has he loved us? Philippians 2 makes it very clear. After telling us to stop being selfish and conceited and ambitious and trying to get our own way, Paul says in Philippians 2 have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus.
Though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross. This is hard in part because while Christ is perfect other Christians are not perfect. Christ deserves my love but Gertrude over here annoys me.
Billy Bob is rude and self-absorbed and Matilda the church matriarch thinks she's God's gift to the church but doesn't even know her Bible. And these are the people that I'm supposed to love as Christ has loved me. When we struggle to love the bride of Christ, you know what we need to remember? We need to remember Romans 5 that while we were still weak Christ died for the ungodly. That while we were still sinners that's when Christ died for us.
That while we were enemies of God we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. If Christ loved us when we were still shaking our fist in his face can we not love the saints who were not yet glorified? We're never acting more like Jesus than when we sacrificially lay down our lives for each other. Loving other Christians then is imitating Christ. And finally loving other Christians is serving Christ.
We see this in verse 35. Jesus says by this, by what? By your loving each other sacrificially all people will know that you are my disciples. The world can't see Jesus but they can see those for whom Jesus died.
They can see those who claim to have been radically changed by Jesus Christ. The quality of our love Jesus says for each other is the litmus test to the world of the genuineness of our faith. Now they may or may not be convinced by that love to bow the knee themselves but they certainly won't be able to deny the sincerity and genuineness of our faith in Christ and love for Christ when they see us laying down our lives for each other. We're called to serve Christ by heralding his gospel to a lost world and we herald that gospel the loudest and the clearest when we are loving each other as Christ loved us.
It's an act of service and worship to the Lord. As we close tonight I want to acknowledge that this new commandment to love one another has been put to the test in an intense way these past few months at Grace Church. And because of that I suspect that we're all in a pretty vulnerable feeling spot with regard to this command. I suspect we're feeling our inadequacies at at this very point in the Christian walk. I suspect that Satan and his hordes are capitalizing on that sense of inadequacy and doing all they can to keep God's children wallowing in guilt and frustration.
And so as we approach the Lord's table tonight I want to point us to the only hope and consolation we have in this life. You see we don't conjure up love for others by pretending to enjoy difficult people. That's insincere. We don't increase our love for the brethren by relying on our own grit and resolve. That's pride and self-sufficiency. What I'm trying to say is that we cannot obey this new commandment by looking to ourselves to do the loving or by looking to others to be lovable.
We are not by nature loving and others are not by nature lovable. The one we look to for the desire to obey this command and for the ability to obey this command and for the forgiveness we need when we fail to obey this command is Jesus Christ. See everything Jesus said in the upper room that night must be received and believed and obeyed in light of what happened next.
And what happened next? Jesus sang a hymn with his disciples and then he went out and died for those disciples. And in that death he erased our lack of love for each other and he gave us credit for the love that he has shown.
The only way to love others like we ought to love them is to love and be loved by Christ. Lord Jesus who is sufficient for these things? None of us. But you are sufficient. You are worthy.
So we look not to ourselves but to you. The one who has sat down at the right hand of God. The one who is coming again. Even so, Lord Jesus, quickly come. Amen.
