John 13:31-35, Real Love 1, Real Love Sacrifices Self

My apologies for not publishing this message sooner...it was from 2011. DSL
 ¬Has anyone here today 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 shovelling 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.