Real Love Sacrifices Self - John 13:31-38

Have you ever seen dominoes set up by the thousands (or even millions) and after they're set up someone tipping over the first one which sends them tumbling one by one?
A lot of planning goes into something like that. The whole thing has to be designed, mapped out and then set up. It takes hours, days, even months.
When the dominoes start falling, we witness a chain reaction which leads to a glorious finish.
Glory is one of those words we hear quite often and never really gets defined. It's a word that contains a lot of emotion or wonder. It gets used when we experience something that has a big Wow factor. Such as, "Oh what a glorious view!" or "That performance was glorious!"
Jesus uses the word glory four times in our passage today. As we reflect on what Jesus had to say, what is the Wow factor Jesus was talking about? What is the glory that Jesus was talking about?
Judas left the room with his mind made up. His decision to betray Jesus now final. If Judas' decision was final, then Jesus' decision was also final. The events which lead to the crucifixion of Jesus were set in motion, and would very soon find their end.
The dominoes are tumbling toward the climax of Good Friday, the climax of Jesus presence on earth. As Michael Card sings, "the climax of the cross, the moment our hope was born." The cross certainly had Wow factor, but not in a normal way.
According to John's testimony, Jesus final words from the cross were, "It is finished." The dominoes have fallen and the glory of God in Jesus is on display for everyone to see. That's the glory Jesus was talking about as he began to speak to his disciples that astonishing night.
It was also on this night that Jesus reclined with the Twelve to eat the feast of Passover. They all would have looked to Jesus to fulfill the fatherly role to answer the questions that the youngest children are taught to ask about the importance of the Passover meal and what the different foods represent.
But on this night the disciples' role is unique. They witness the answers Jesus provides which bring out the new meaning of this night that centers on Jesus suffering on the cross. We see more Wow factor here, I think.
But before we can go any further, we have to deal with the question that jumps off the page at us from verse 33. Where is Jesus going that the leaders of the Jews and his disciples cannot go? Peter asked him that very question, "Lord, where are you going?"
The answer, Jesus is going to the cross and then back to his Father.
Both the Jewish leaders and the Twelve were kept from seeing the importance and glory of the cross because of their hardness of heart and spiritual blindness.
It was the relationship of the disciples with Jesus and his devotion to that relationship that enabled them to be brought back to faith after Jesus returned from the grave, risen from the dead.
It was also the stubborn, unreasonable, hard hearts of the leaders of the Jews that kept them from turning to Jesus in faith and to a new relationship with God the Father.
It's the Wow factor in Jesus relationship with his disciples that I want to focus on today.
In verse 34, Jesus gives a new command that is based on the disciples' relationship to him and to one another. He said, "So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other."
This standard is not something completely new. His disciples would be familiar with this law of love as it is given in the Law of Moses.
Deuteronomy 6:5 says, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (ESV)
Leviticus 19:18 also says, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the LORD.” (ESV)
"Love one another," says Jesus, "as I have loved you." Wow!
If Christians love each other the way Jesus showed his love, then it will be unmistakeable!
Jesus did not simply say, "Love one another." Jesus was very specific about the kind of love his disciples must learn for each other with those words, "just as I have loved you."
Jesus love is unconditional, limitless. The unmistakeable Wow factor is in the cross! That Jesus suffered and died for the greater joy of rescuing believers from sin and death, that Jesus sacrificed himself out of love for us, Wow! That is glorious.
That is the point of Jesus' famous words to Nicodemus. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16
"Love each other," Jesus said, "just as I have loved you."
Real love sacrifices self.
One hundred years after John wrote his gospel, Tertullian, a famous early theologian, reported that the non-Christians of his day said of Christians, "See how they love one another!" & "How ready to die for one another!" (Tertullian, Apology, quoted in F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John & Epistles, p. 295)
The message that real love sacrifices self is up-side-down and backwards when compared to the message of Western culture.
Today's culture is obsessed with self. It says, "Put yourself first, please yourself & gratify your desires, always follow your heart, if it feels good do it." These are the messages we hear in the mass media every day.
But the message of the cross is something completely different. Real love, according to Jesus, sacrifices self. If that isn't a message with Wow factor, then I don't know what one is.
You know, there is something no culture ever seems to lose and that is a hunger for heroes. Heroes wow us. We can look at a heroic act and say, "Wow!" or "Glorious!"
People love heroes, be they superheroes or every day, ordinary heroes, but let me ask you something. What could be more heroic than self sacrificing love?
Palasan of Stepanava, Armenia rushed into the local school immediately following the earthquake of 1988 & saved 28 children from the crumbling building before he perished in an aftershock that brought down what was left of the building.
A young woman, while paying for her education, saves every penny so that she can support a half dozen sponsor children so that they can have the same opportunities she had for good nutrition, health care, clothes, shelter, education, as well as, being introduced to Christ and his church.
Those are some extraordinary examples, but what does every day, ordinary (if we can call it that) self sacrificing love look like?
Do we face situations that would give non-Christians/un-churched people the idea that we really do love each other? What would cause them to say, "See how they love one another!?" & "How ready to die for one another!"
Where do our hearts and minds need to be every day if we are to become that kind of people? If real love sacrifices self, then how should it look?
For starters, it should look like joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness gentleness and self-control. These qualities are the evidence that God's love & the Holy Spirit's presence is in our lives.
When was the last time I exercised self-control & did not get angry by responding to an annoying situation with kindness & gentleness?
The Bible says, "Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry."
Young people, when was the last time you joyfully went and did a chore or something a parent asked you to do? Joyfully?
The Bible says, "Be joyful always" and "Do everything without complaining or arguing."
What about the next time you drive by your elderly neighbour and she's out shoveling her driveway, why not stop and show her the simple kindness of doing it for her?
The Bible says, "Take care of orphans and widows in their distress."
Am I willing to sacrifice a job with big pay and long hours for the sake of raising a family that knows and loves God, or is it acceptable for me to be a workaholic, money driven, absentee parent?
The Bible says about its commands, "Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up."
Just what exactly are we willing to sacrifice to show our love for Jesus to others who love Jesus?
The Bible asks, "If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion--how can God's love be in that person?"
If we see someone in need and we have the ability or the means to meet that need, then it is our responsibility to meet it.
For us to love each other with real self-sacrificing love our very natures need to undergo massive changes.
It must become our highest goal, our number one priority, to learn how to love like Jesus loves.
As wow and as glorious as all this is, I think verse 35 packs the most Wow factor, the most glory of all.
Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.(NLT)
When we really do love each other, the world takes notice and exclaims: "See how they love one another! How ready to die for one another!" It's then that the world is ready to hear about Christ.
Showing each other real Christ-like love, shows the world we are really like Christ.

Luke 22:14-20, New Life in Christ, 6 The Lord’s Supper: Remembering Christ

·         In the 1989 blockbuster film, Batman, a scene unfolds in which the ruthless criminal sociopath Jack Napier, the soon to be Joker, raises his pistol, aims it at a double crossing crooked cop and exclaims, “Hey Eckhart! Think about the future!” and immediately guns him down.

·        I raise that violently poignant example to bring the future to our attention.

·        Someone said, “We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.”

·        How often do we think about the future?  Is the future frequently in our thoughts or in the high pace of daily life do we give the future any thought at all?  Where would I find you on that continuum? Where might you find me?

·        Why are our thoughts about the future so important? The future holds what awaits us.

·        The future holds the mysterious unknown and unknowable hour of each of our demise, our death.

·        The future also holds something the Bible reveals we can know: our eternal destiny.

·        Death is not something about which most of us typically plan.  We don’t plan to die.  We plan to live. But that is a denial of reality.

·        Hebrews 9:27 tells us, “Each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgement.”

·        If we are thinking about the future, then we’ll be thinking about our death and the coming judgement.

·        The future weighed heavily on the mind of Jesus on the night he was betrayed while he ate the Passover meal with his disciples.

·        Jesus knew what we cannot know, the means and the hour of his death.  Jesus knew that night he would be betrayed, falsely and illegally tried, humiliated, handed over to Roman authorities, severely beaten, rejected by his people, and crucified.

·        He knew the manner of his death and he knew it conformed to His Father’s salvation plan.

·        He also knew his eternal destiny; that he would rise from grave, defeat death, prove his resurrection to his disciples, ascend, and one day return.

·        Jesus reclined with his apostles for the feast of Passover, and all these things were in the forefront of his mind as he began to speak, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” (v. 15)

·        His death is on his mind, but he is focused on his apostles, on eating the Passover meal with them.

·        Jesus was about to share a significant meal that is the turning point of his life and ministry, a meal that told his disciples, “It all comes down to this.”

·        Then he said, “For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” (v. 16) Shortly afterward, he said to them, “For I tell you I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” (V. 18)

·        Jesus is still thinking about the future.

·        The future in the kingdom of heaven, when the church’s role is complete and people of every family and nation of the earth are gathered at that great table for the greatest celebration feast ever. 

·        He told them, “I’m not going to eat a Passover lamb or drink Passover wine again until that day comes.”

·        Jesus was looking to that future and he was clueing his disciples into that future as the foundation of all their hopes.

·        Just as Jesus wanted his apostles to be future thinking, he wants the same to be true of us.

·        Jesus wants us to remember that in the future everything will be fulfilled because God’s kingdom will come and we will sit at the great banqueting table of heaven with everlasting joy.

·        Jesus also wants us to remember his sacrifice.

·        Luke tells us, ‘And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."  And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”’ (vv. 19-20)

·        Only Luke uses the words, “given for you” and “poured out for you” highlighting the personal nature of Jesus sacrifice for each one of us.

·        Jesus wants all of his disciples to remember, both personally and as a community of believers, the full cost of our freedom from sin and death was paid by his humiliation, suffering, crucifixion and death that he bore in his body and shed in his blood.

·        Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”  He wants us to think not merely about what we get out of it, how his death benefits us.

·        No, Jesus wants us to think especially about him, the man, the person, Jesus.

·        Jesus is a human being unlike any other.  He is, “one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15, ESV).

·        Peter wrote about Jesus, “He never sinned, nor ever deceived anyone” (1 Pet. 2:22, NLT).

·        No one else I know has ever done anything like that.

·        Jesus is human in all the right ways God intended human beings to be.

·        He is the best friend you could ever ask for.  He is the closest confidant. 

·        He was always getting invited to parties. Why? Because he was never fake.  Jesus is always genuinely interested in what’s going on in your life. 

·        Jesus is the perfect king, a man who willingly spends time among his people, whose hands are healing hands, whose words carry plain authority without being domineering, who sees through the hypocrisy of those who are merely selfishly manoeuvring for power and position.

·        Jesus is always connected to his Father and so does whatever is on God the Father’s agenda for him to do.

·        He is the one who is ready to suffer and die for you in order to save you and he did.

·        He asks us to remember him, to remember his future coming again, and to remember his sacrifice.

·        When we gather and the bread and cup are given out, we are gathering to remember.

·        Do we believe we are actually eating and drinking the body and blood of Jesus?

·        No, the bread and the cup represent the body and blood of Jesus given and poured out for us and remind us to look to the future when he will come again to judge the world.

·        The Lord’s Supper is all about remembering Jesus.

·        Henri Nouwen relates the following story. “Bob, the husband of a friend of mine, died of a heart attack.  My friend decided to keep her two young children away from the funeral.  She thought it would be too hard for them to see their father put in the ground.  For years after Bob’s death, the cemetery remained a fearful and dangerous place for them.

·        One day, my friend asked me to visit the grave with her, and invited the children to come along.  The elder one was too afraid to go, but the younger one decided to come with us.  When we came to the place where Bob was buried, the three of us sat down on the grass around the stone engraved with the words, A KIND AND GENTLE MAN.

·        I said: “Maybe one day we should have a picnic here. This is not only a place to think about death, but also a place to rejoice in our life.  Bob will be most honoured when we find new strength, here, to live.”

·        At first it seemed a strange idea; having a meal on top of a tombstone. But isn’t that similar to what Jesus told his disciples to do when he asked them to share bread and wine in his memory?

·        A few days later my friend took her elder child to the grave, the younger one having convinced his sister that there was nothing to fear.  Now they often go to the cemetery and tell each other stories about Bob. (Fresh Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching)

·        We gather around the Lord’s Table to remember Jesus, his life, his teachings, his body given for you, his blood poured out for you, and his future coming again.

·        At the Lord’s Table, remember Christ’s sacrifice for you and remember he’s coming for you.

A Call to Pray for Renewal

If you're looking for this past Sunday's sermon, it's still on the site. Just clink on January on the right hand side of the page, then click on Acts 4:32-37.

The Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches President, Mr. Doug Schofield, has called upon our churches to pray for Renewal in the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches.

He has asked us to pray for three things:

1. Pray for spiritual renewal in our churches throughout Atlantic Canada.  Pray that Atlantic Baptists would humble themselves and pray for personal and corporate spiritual renewal.  Pray that Atlantic Baptists would seek God’s presence and turn from the sins that hinder our effectiveness.  Pray that Atlantic Baptists would claim God’s promise to “heal our land.”  “Part of our tradition is that we regularly change our tradition.” - Teun van der Leer (Dutch Baptist scholar, from his address to the 400th anniversary celebration of the Baptist work)
   
2. Pray for guidance in the reorganization plan for CABC’s Senior Staff.  Pray for discernment and wisdom for the Executive Minister and CABC Council as they develop a plan for organization of Senior Staff that will allow us into the work more effectively in the future.  Pray for active engagement by our church family in the review process.  Pray for a spirit of openness and creativity as we seek to minister more effectively to the people around us. 

3. Pray for the CABC family to unite together under the new Incorporated Operating Bylaws.  Pray for an open, honest and balanced evaluation in local church meetings on the issue of joining together as part of the incorporated CABC.  Pray for a sense of gratitude within our family of churches for our shared history and ministry during the past 105 years.  Pray for an attitude of anticipation for what the Holy Spirit wants to do among us as we surrender to His will.