John 13
Sermon Transcript:
Morning, everybody. Morning. I’d like you to take your Bibles to John chapter 13. We’re gonna be looking at John 13 this morning. We’re continuing a series that we’re in the middle of as we’ve uh, left the book of Acts. We’re gonna return to the book of Acts after Easter, but in the seven Sundays leading up to Easter.
We are doing a series on the passion of Christ. The Passion Week, 40% of the New Testament, at least of the gospels, is related to the last week of Jesus life. And we are looking at that, taking it day by day. Um, as we have gone through that particular series, uh, we’ve covered a number of days, and today we are up to Thursday of Passion Week.
There is not, um, uh, I don’t have slides for you this morning. Uh, well you have that one. That’s nice. Look at that. Um, and, uh, so you, you might have to listen today. Uh, we’re gonna be celebrating the Lord’s Supper at the end of our time and I didn’t put together. It gets worse though. Um, I actually, I’m gonna apologize right now to the engineers.
The, I was trying to think who I’m apologizing to. I’m trying, definitely engineers, probably English teachers, likely it people, people that live with order in their lives. I’m gonna mess up the sermon summary completely this morning. Uh, actually it’s a little bit off from what you have in front of you. Um, uh, actually it is completely blown up.
Um, there’re, I do have two points, , but that’s about all I love Notetakers. I don’t wanna discourage you if you’re a note taker, keep note taking, but this morning you’re gonna have to cross out and add some new stuff. I just, I was trying to focus on two verses in this passage because that is the thrust of this passage and actually the events of Thursday.
But I realized I needed to do a little wider, and so I’ve changed it a little bit. All right, we’re looking at John 13 verses 31 to 38, and I wanna read that for you and then we’re gonna dive into what’s going on here on Thursday and why we’re only looking at this short passage. To summarize the day, acts 13, verse 31 to 38, when he, and that’s 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’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. 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 one for another. Let’s pray.
Lord, I praise you this morning that we can gather in this room and as we gather here in Mount Laurel, as we gather here in Collingswood as some are gathering with us online. Lord, I ask that you might be our teacher and our guide in the truth in this little section. There is so much that our own hearts need to embrace and here about you and about ourselves in God.
I pray that you would teach us and lead us into truth this morning. In Jesus’ name, amen. We are going through the chronology of Passion Week. I just wanted to remind you of a few things. Sunday. The previous Sunday was the triumphant entry, the entrance of Jesus offering self as king to the people of Israel.
He had come in and a donkey had not come in as they had expected, as a a warrior king. He came in as a servant king. On Monday we saw him coming into the temple and he, he had actually visited the temple there on Sunday. On Monday he comes back. He has, he has seen what is going on there. And Monday he shakes, uh, the cages of the disciples in a big way because he starts turning over tables, taking on the religious establishment saying, you have made my father’s house of prayer into Aden of Roberts.
It become a place of commerce. And that even bilking people out of. he had left, and Tuesday they’d come back. And again, the disciples undoubtedly hoping things will now calm down. And, and we’ll get back to the adoring crowds which we had on Sunday. And Jesus actually enters into a full day of confrontation.
He has confrontation with the religious leaders. He has conversations with the Pharisees, the sades, take him on the Herodians, take him on the, the, uh, scribes, take him on all these different groups, the liberal Jews, the conservative Jews, the Romanized Jews, the the theological Jews. They all take him on.
And it’s a day of, of conflict and confrontation. And it’s undoubtedly exhausting not only for Christ, but for those that have embraced him. They go back over the hill, out of Jerusalem, traveling east, arrive down to, and the city of Bethany on the other side of that, of that mount. . And Wednesday, as we saw last week, is a day of silence.
There’s almost nothing recorded. It was obviously a day where Jesus just, and, and, and the boys. They cooled their jets. They had a day of quiet. The only things we really know from that day were the behavior of a woman named Mary of Bethany who washed his feet and sec and, and worshiped him in such a beautiful way.
And we contrasted these two responses last Sunday, the the worship of Mary, of Bethany. And at the same time, Judas was out selling Jesus out to the religious leaders. Now we come to Thursday, historically in the church, it’s called Mondi Thursday. The word mondi is actually, uh, the word manum. In the original, we get the word mandate from it.
It actually means commandment. It is commandment Thursday. And if we really understand what transpires on this day, because basically what happens, uh, the beginning of the day, Thursday, we see Jesus sending John and Peter to go into Jerusalem, find him a, a place to meet where they can celebrate the, the Passover.
It’s a place that he had already sovereignly, prearranged. They have gone, they have lined up this place. We now know it as the upper room because it was a second floor place. All the preparations have been made for Passover. The food has been gathered, the things have been brought together. And now we are at the Passover Supper.
And at the Passover supper, the most prominent thing Jesus does, theologically and historically is to give a commandment for his to his disciples. And so the historic celebration of Thursday, Mondi Thursday is to celebrate this commandment. And this commandment is found 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. What we’re gonna do is focus, and on this commandment this morning, as we look at it, we are gonna look at the basis for the commandment. And then we are going to actually see the, the definition, the, the reality, uh, of this commandment.
But I want you to look at the context. Verse 31 says an interesting opening phrase. Here’s what it says. It says, when he had gone out, Jesus started speaking the he is Judas. Jesus has given one last, uh, invitation to Judas to, to repent of what he’s about to do. Warning him saying, I know what you’re gonna do, but go now.
If you’re going to go, now’s the time Judas has gone. And it says, then Jesus began to speak. Judas has gone to the authorities, Jesus has gone to, to the prearranged moment where he is now going to bring the Roman, uh, the Jewish authorities with their soldiers to arrest Jesus. Jesus at this moment, recognizes they are nearing the end.
This he has moments left. The clock is ticking for Christ. When Judas went, Jesus began to speak. He, he begins to say things that you say. When you know your time is very, very short. When you think, what is it that I most want to tell the most important people in my life right now as I near the end of my life?
What Jesus says here is filled with significance. It’s his dying words, if you will, to his disciples. It is his final messaging to them, and we read two things here. First of all, the basis of the commandment that he is giving to them in verse 31 and 33 is the cross He talks about in verse 31 and 32, glory.
Glory, by the way. That’s the first point. The first point is the basis for the commandment is the cross, and five times he uses the word glory in two verses. Now, glory is one of those theological terms. It’s something about the glory of God, and, and, and we get it. When somebody peop when somebody says the power of God, well, you conceptualize power, the love of God.
You conceptualize love, faithfulness of God. These things we, we can sort of wrap our arms around, but the glory of God. What, what is the glory of God? What does it mean that Jesus is going to be glorified? Well, the glory of God, actually, glory is the word that means weight or value. It’s used in the, in the parables where it says, A man discovered a treasure buried in a field.
And then it says this, and when he found out its great value is how it’s translated. It’s the word glory. When he found out its great value, it says he went and, and, and took everything he had in his own estate, sold it to have the money to buy this field. Why? Because he knew in the field was something that was more valuable than anything else in his life, and he is willing to get rid of everything in order to get this prized treasure that was in the field.
So great was its glory. When we talk about glory, we’re talking about value and worse.
God’s glory, the worth and value of God is basically the revelation of all God’s attributes. , it reveals all that he is. It is is saying his weightiness, his splendor, his glory is in all that he is. So here’s a striking thing. Jesus says, now you’re going to see my glory more than any other moment in recorded history.
The glory of God. The glory of God, the Son is going to be revealed in the cross. But not only that, look at verse 31. It says this Now, when he had gone out, Jesus said, now is the son of man glorified. In other words, now it’s happening. Now it’s beginning. But then he says this and God is glorified in him.
God is the way Jesus always refers to God the Father. It doesn’t mean that Jesus is is lost his deity, but it’s his way of referencing God the Father. He said, the cross is not only where I am glorified, it is where my Father is shown in the weightiness and the splendor and the glory of who he is. This is the moment.
It is the moment of the cross. It is the anticipation of the cross. The son of man will now be glorified, he says, and so will the Father. It is the supreme moment in recorded history, not the creation of the world, not any other event that we can cite, not the Red Sea parting and all a mirror. This is the moment.
When the triune God is most seen in his weightiness, in his glory, in the wonder of who he is, it is shocking to realize that the moment when God is most seen in His glory
is when God, the Son goes to the electric chair of his day. When he faces the execution as a perceived heinous criminal, God’s glory is most revealed. How is this? So well track with me here. His holiness is seen. That God did not reduce the standard of holiness or the, or the, the criteria of the purity of his presence.
His law was upheld even in this moment when he was providing life and forgiveness for others. God held the glory that he is a holy God. His wisdom was shown. He was able to still be just the righteous judge, but at the same time, the justifi fire who declared acceptable, broken, flawed, rebellious sinners like us, the love and the patience, and the mercy are all seen in the event of the divine Son paying the penalty for the sins of rebels and betrayals.
Who had already spurned his love. The cross shows the glory of God. I’ve told this story before. It’s one of the greatest examples I’ve ever heard of what the cross is all about. It’s told by Billy Graham, the evangelist, he was driving through the south one time in one of the back roads, areas. He was speeding.
He got stopped by a patrolman and he got taken in. And if you ever watch Andy of Mayberry, you know, in those small towns back in the day, what they would do is they would immediately bring you, before the sheriff or whoever was the acting judge, and you would then have your penalty written out. And this guy was brought in and he was b brought before the judge.
Uh, this guy Billy Graham, was brought before the judge, and the judge said to him, do you contest the charge? He said, no, I, I was speeding. And he said, okay, this is the penalty, X amount of dollars. And then the judge left his seat and came around and stood next to Billy Graham and took out his checkbook and he said, thank you for what you do for our country.
And he paid the fine. The judge paid the penalty to his own court. He ma, he maintained the law right. He upheld justice right, but he himself paid the fine. This is the glory of the cross. God retained holiness. God retained justice, but God also revealed the glory of his mercy and his grace. He paid the fine at the cost of the electric chair of his day.
Jesus says to us here, the judge didn’t diminish his holiness. The God of beauty and goodness was not wa was most seen in his glory when he was being beaten to death. To the point that Isaiah says he was unrecognizable. This God’s glory, this God most His glory is most reveal when he allows himself to be immoral and to be killed when he allows himself to take on humanity and to experience fear and dread in the garden of what was to come when he chooses to endure all of it for the sake of, of those that have rejected him.
And as I’ve said many times, Who have sinned, which in the ultimate sense biblically, the greatest biblical vi visual of sin is what God constantly says about the people of Israel. He said they are spiritual adulterers. That’s the picture of sin, that we turn from the one who loved us most, who is for us, but we win our own way.
And yet the God who had to preserve holiness and holy standards came and paid the fathomless large fine, that it would’ve taken eternity for us to pay, but he paid it in our behalf. He says, you want to see the glory of God? Look to the cross. Now I will be glorified. It is with that backdrop that Jesus makes this commandment his manum.
The nature of the command. The second point, simply the nature of the command is love for one another in verse 34 and 35 at first swing. It’s kind of hard, you know, when you just glances what is verse 34 and 35? You know what it says about, you know, this is the commandment, you’re to do this. How does that tie back to verse 31 to 33, which culminates in verse 33 with this statement, little children, yet a little while I’m with you, you’ll seek me and just as I said to the Jews, so now I say to you where I’m going, you cannot come a new commandment.
I give to you the loved one another. How does all that tie together? I would suggest this way, and this is why I had to extend my sermon. You can’t understand. Verse 34 and 35 without verse 31 to 33, verse 31 and 32. He says, I’m gonna reveal, be revealed in my glory on the cross. You’re gonna see the glory of God in a way you’ve never been able to see it before.
But he said, now I’m leaving, but I still want my glory to be manifested. I still want the nature of a great God who is also a good God, a mighty God who is also replete with mercy.
You’re going to now be the visual for me. So what does that look like? And that’s why he says in verse 34 and 35, he says, this love one another. As I have loved you by this, all people will know that you are my disciples. If you have love one for another, they’re gonna know you’re associated with me because you’re gonna reflect what I reflect.
So what is he saying? Well,
he’s saying that people will see people while I was here, saw my love in the way I lived and in the way I died. I want them now to see that in you. He says, as I’ve loved you, I want you to love one another. And there are three giant ramifications of this commandment. Here’s what they are, at least to me.
Number one, if the world is turning away from Christianity, we need to look at ourselves.
Frances Schaffer wrote a book years ago called The Mark of a Christian. It was a commentary, short book. It’s a great book. It’s still a. Timely, timely read. It was a discourse on John 1334 and 35. He mentioned that if you’re a Christian, basically what he says in the book, if you’re a Christian, you are able to determine who other Christians are true followers of Christ by conversation.
You know, you can have, we do it all the time. You know, you get with someone and you’re, you’re sort of wondering, you know, where they stand spiritually and, and so you’re having a conversation where you’re free to talk about the gospel and, and, and you begin to, you know, talk about sin and how do they understand sin?
Do they understand the, the culpability, the, the, the culpability of their sin? That we are all sinners. And we need to repent and have our minds changed and turn toward Christ. That, that he’s the way to cri to God that we can’t get there by any other way, but by embracing him as our savior and Lord and, and, and, and turning towards him, even as we turn away from trusting in ourselves, that we really understand that the gospel is about not what we do, but what is what was done by Christ.
And we, we, can we talk about that? And you, and, and in conversation Francis Schaffer saying, I think rightly we can discern if someone else is a believer, but he says the world can’t do that. They don’t have that understanding of how a person is a fi in God’s family through Christ. They can’t do it by conversation.
They do it by observation. They do it by verse 35. They look and they watch and they wonder, and by the quality of the life of those followers of Christ, they ask questions, perhaps at least are processing and, and, and what Jesus is saying, this is what’s gonna happen. They’re gonna look at you and they’re gonna say, do they live differently than other groups of people?
Not that they’re sinless, not that they never screw up. Matter of fact, they’re very free to own. They’re flaws and they’re brokenness. That they’re broken people. They’re flawed people because there’s a humility of comes that when you realize, I’m free to embrace the ugliness in me because I am loved by one that is for me and says he’ll never let me go.
But do they look differently? Do they have a reputation for being forgiving of their enemies? Are they gentle in their treatment of others? Are they encouraging and welcoming to the outcast? Are they tolerant of those who are different? Jesus saying, you know, I was all those things. That’s how I lived.
What the cross is that, that I, I reached out to the broken. I was willing to, to sacrifice myself for them. He says, is the world seeing that in my people?
Our nation is not turning towards Christianity. It is turning away for Christianity. Every year, the number of people identifying themselves as followers of Christ is going down. Many of them turning to the nons, which means what is your belief? What is your faith? Non,
I don’t know where to put that. Except that when the world is not drawn toward Christianity, the problem is not with Christ.
In 2015 in South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, a young man named Dylan Roof went into the Emmanuel African Methodist, epi Episcopal Church, evangelical Church, uh, African American church went into a Bible study led by the pastor, actually a state senator, was there, number of other people, and he murdered nine people.
The pastor was killed, the state senator was killed, and seven other individuals.
Soon after the event, the pastor’s family, The church leadership and members publicly reached out to Dylan Roof and publicly acknowledged they forgave him. Fast forward two years ago, my wife and I were in Charleston Car, South Carolina on a trip just to get away. We got a tour of the Great City and Arturo Guide was a group of us in a little.
Van Arturo Guide was an interesting character. Um, pretty outspoken, pretty opinionated, uh, lot of facts, but interesting perspectives. Um, his in, it was interesting when he talked about the Civil War. He’s a lifer of South Carolinian and uh, he was really wanted us to understand that the Civil War for the South was not about slavery.
It was about state’s rights. And it was clear from the way he delineated life and circumstances that uh, he would not have been a civil rights activist, let’s just say it that way. He would come down on the other side, still frustrated with the change that had taken, still almost wanting a pre-civil war environment.
It just felt, and don’t mean he’s a bad man, but he was, uh, that’s where he is coming from. So we’re, uh, we’re driving around and seeing different fights in the city and we went by the African American, the Methodist Episcopal Church, the a m E Church, and we stopped there just for a moment and he said, this is a church.
You told a little bit about Dylan Ruff and Roof and what had happened. And he said, I gotta tell you, everybody here in Charleston. Has a lot of respect for the people in that church, for the way they responded to that shooting. I didn’t hear him speak with that kind of respect in the entire tour. Why?
What was different? Those people represented something bigger than race. They represented Christ. There was something about their response in forgiving and in doing what is supernatural, that pointed the way to Christ. And Christ says, how are people gonna know that you’re my people? You’re going to live differently.
You’re going to respond differently. You’re going to respond supernaturally. When the world is not drawn to Christianity. It may be because we don’t look much different. That Christians are angry. Christians are pushy. Christians are sectarian. Christians are partisan. Christians are rude. Christians are arrogant just like everybody else.
We talk the same way in the media. We, we respond the same way. We think the same way we’re us and then there’s them. And Jesus says, I don’t have those terms. I don’t live that terminology. I want you to love as I love. I want you to live as I lived. The second thing, love is the way to know if the gospel is transforming me.
Love for one another. Other Christians he’s talking about here specifically, there is a bond he says that supersedes everything else. I dunno if you’ve thought too much about the group of people that Jesus chose to be as disciples. Quite frankly, he was crazy . This is the worst group of individuals you have.
Matthew, a tax collector, who is the most hated group of people in Israel at the time. As a Jew. Not only is he making his money by taking taxes that the Jews feel is wrong for them to take, and he’s taking it for Rome, but part of his commission was in Bilking, the people they were hated. And then you throw in Simon Zel.
Who was a guy that was a part of the zealot group whose life calling was to destroy Romans, who actually were known. If you’ve seen the chosen film, you know Simon Zelt is shown there, and the little short knife he had the curve that was true. They had a knife. That was what they were known for. They had it under their gowns and they would kill Roman officials at every opportunity.
They were the most feared group of people by the Romans in the holy land. These two guys are doing life together, representing Christ. You say that’s not possible. There’s only one person that can pull it off, and Christ said, when people look at my group, they say, how do tax collectors and zealots coexist?
How do Gentiles and Jews and Samaritans coexist? How do they love each other? It’s supernatural. It’s crazy. It makes no sense. And Jesus says That’s the point. That’s the point. So he says to us today, there is a bond that supersedes everything else. Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones was a, in the 1920s, early 1920s, was a, uh, a young man, brilliant medical student who had been so proficient in his early practice that he had joined the practice and was now in the practice that served the royal family of England.
I mean, this guy was on the fast track to started him, started him in the, uh, I don’t know if that’s a word, started to being famous in the medical world. And God won his heart and he gave his life to Jesus. And after a while, staying in the medical practice, he felt called to the ministry. And his first pastorate was a tiny fishing village in Wales.
No real education, nothing. And he went there and Martin Lloyd Jones tells the story of one day he was just being assailed by the devil. Just saying, you’re not what you say you are. You’re a phony. You say you’re a Christian, you say you are a pastor. And and I just really hammering the accuser was accusing.
And Martin Lloyd Jones said, in the midst of this torment he had, you know, like this momentary epiphany, this, this, this sense of, of what’s real. And he said, I actually said out loud to the devil, why is it that I find more joy? Hanging with the lowies, uneducated fisher woman’s fisherman’s wife here than I do in the most intelligently founded conversations in a wood paneled office with my medical colleagues.
I have nothing in common with this woman except the one thing that matters most to me. We share Christ. And he said, that was what reminded me, that that’s what being a Christian is that you so love Christ. You can’t help but love his people regardless of intellectual background or social culture or ethnicity or, or race.
There is a bond that is more real, more compelling. Before you’re a Christian, your status, your salary, your exploits, something else defines you. But when you embrace Christ as your savior, those things become less in their hold. When Christ becomes your center and you embrace then people of different economic strata or ethnicity or race or political affiliation, because the compelling reality of unity for you is Jesus Christ and those who love him.
The third thing here, and we gotta examine our own hearts on this, right? If Christ is my sin, I delight in diversity. I delight in, in not defining. There’s us, there’s them. I, I’m more comfortable here, not there. Third, loving all God’s people spills out to loving everyone. Now this passage highlights loving one another, right?
In the household of faith, it can sound a little bit like this is, you know, this is the insider thing, you know, I mean, we don’t love other people. I mean, it’s, it almost sounds somewhat partisan against what you even say, mark, do we only, those love those who believe as we do value as we do. This is what I would say actually, because Jesus kingdom includes people of such a vast cultural, political, racial, ethnic diversity.
If we love one another, we will love everyone else. Jesus commands us in his teaching. Not only to love one another, but the expression outgrowth of that is he says, love your neighbor, which he defines in Luke Tennis, who is my neighbor? Somebody says, who is my neighbor? That’s a question that was asked, that was the basis for the Good Samaritan sermon.
That guy says, who is my neighbor? And he says, well, let me tell you a story about a good Samaritan. And he blows their minds because he tells this story about this Jewish guy that was beat up and left for dead by robbers. And the the Jewish priest go, comes and goes. The other side of the road goes by another Jewish nobleman goes by, and a Samaritan who the Jews called the dogs came by and, and is nuts.
He actually cares for the guy, takes him to a, a lodging, pays for his lodging, cares for him. And Jesus says, that’s Samaritan the one you called the dogs. He knew who his neighbor was. Was anybody in his world in need? And then he says, love one another, love your neighbor. And then he really gets in our grid and he says, love your enemies.
This is why what Charleston Church did is supernatural. They forgave, they loved, we’re called
to allow a world to see the glor of Christ. He did his part. He did it in his life. He did it in his death. He’s still doing it through the lives of those that are willing to say, God, teach me to love as Christ loved. Let’s pray. Lord, we celebrate you.
God, I believe the church in America, and I don’t exclude this church in this indictment,
is to some degree the impediment to people being drawn to Christ. So God, humble us, change us, Stu us. What it means that your great glory was shown when you went to the electric chair to serve others to the ultimate expre expression of it. Lord, may we be embracing of particularly the people that are different from us.
May we look this week at people who think differently and value differently. in our offices is people not to be irritated by, but people for us to begin to put at the very top of our prayer list, praying, Lord, let them know how much you love them because we found, Lord, that when we pray that way, we start loving them.
So, Lord, change us in Jesus’ name, amen. We’re gonna close our service this morning, celebrating the Lord’s supper. Uh, I’ve gone long, longer than I expected to, but this table, which Jesus is celebrating in the Passover, was a time where they remembered what Jesus had done in them and for them. It says that he took bread and the first element that the guys are going to come and distribute among us.
And if some of you have to go, I understand. Um, this is my body. He said this picture’s what I’m giving up for. You. Do this in remembrance of me. I’m gonna ask the men to come and distribute the elements for me. First of all, we’re gonna distribute the bread. Oh no, we’re gonna distribute it all cuz they’re all together.
forgot. We got, we got a new system with Covid. The bread is on the bottom. The, the drink is on the top up.
One of my more smooth Lord supper, uh, leadership moments. Okay. I’m gonna let you guys go ahead, let’s just distribute them at this time. Thank you.
The bottom of your cup, there is a small tab that you can take out, a small wafer there, which is the bread, and Jesus said this and we’re told the Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
It says in the same way he took the cup saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of me,
Lord, we worship your glory, the of all that you are shown most prominently in your cross. We delight in it.
We who are the recipients of the love of it, repent of our lovelessness and cry out that we might be more and more stunned with the love in your life and in your death, that somehow you might be seen in us. God, if there are brothers or sisters that we know are believers and we’ve just had conflict with, because we don’t agree on certain things, God help us to not be so concerned with being right and being more concerned about being righteous in the way we treat each other.
In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.