“ Chu Yah Sih Kih Took
Chook fook thai Kah!” These words in the Chinese Hakka dialect were the few last
words of my father before he went to be with the Lord. Translation: “May The
Lord Jesus Christ bless us all!” How I
treasure this blessed farewell greeting of my father unto me. It is forever
engraved in my heart: Chu Yah Sih Kih Took Chook fook thai kah! Yes, May Our
Lord Jesus Christ bless us all, as we love one another according to His
Commandment He gave in His farewell discourse to His apostles shortly before He
went back to His Father in Heaven.
It’s in the Upper Room
of the temple in Jerusalem. The apostles are reclining at a Passover meal with the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. This would turn out to be their last supper altogether. The
night before, unknown to the other apostles, Judas plotted the betrayal of
Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, the price of a slave. Earlier that day, Jesus
sent Peter and John into the city to prepare the upper room, already furnished
and ready, for that night’s meal. Jesus has washed the disciples’ feet. Judas
has just left to betray the Son of God into the hands of sinful men, already
having been paid by them. After Judas leaves, the Lord passes some bread, and
then a cup. He has just instituted the Lord’s Supper. In this solemn moment,
the Lord instructs the remaining eleven apostles. The Lord knows He is about to
depart this world. He said in John 13:34-35:
“I give you a new commandment: love one
another. Just as I have loved you,
you must also love one another. By this
all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another”.
He repeated in John 15:12
“This is My command:
love one another as I have loved you.”
And again in V17, “This is what I command you: love
one another.”
What is the commandment exactly?
Note that Jesus’ New Commandment
is not just ‘love one another’ but love one another as I have loved you. The Lord wants His disciples to love one
another as He has loved them. So,
the question is:
How
did Our Lord Jesus love His disciples?
His love is really too
high, too deep, too long, and too wide to understand and describe fully, but
let’s see briefly a few ways Our Lord loved His disciples:
1.
He fed them
Matthew
15:32 Then Jesus
called his disciples unto him, and said, "I have compassion on the
multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to
eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way,"
He multiplied bread and
fish to feed thousands upon thousands.
2.
He encouraged, comforted, consoled, sympathized and empathized with His
disciples.
In
John 11:35, Jesus wept with Lazarus’ family at his
death.
He comforted His
disciples with these words in John
14:1-3
1"Do not let your
hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2 In my Father's house are
many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to
prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come
back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
3. He forgave time and time again. e.g,
Peter,…
4.
He served humbly.
Go to the scene
of the last supper on the eve of His crucifixion.
John
13:1
1 It was just before
the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this
world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
John
13:4-5,12-15
4 so he got up from the
meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5
After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet,
drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
12 When he had finished
washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you
understand what I have done for you?” He asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’
and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. (By virtue of my status and rank and privilege as your Lord and Teacher,
I am not obliged to wash your feet. But I “count you as more significant than
myself” and serve you.) 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed
your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an
example that you should do as I have done for you.
Firstly, Jesus laid
aside His status and became a servant.
Secondly, His love
involves practical deeds of helpfulness. In those days, almost everyone walked.
The roads and paths were dirty. There were probably no socks and no sidewalks.
Everyone’s feet were more or less caked with dirt. The dirty work had to be
done. Jesus did it for those who should have been doing it for him. He laid
down a sense of entitlement and served.
All
these ways that Jesus loved His disciples demonstrate that He, the Son of
God, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End truly sacrificed
Himself for His disciples. He laid down His life for them.
John
10:11
I am the good
shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
John
15:13
No one has greater love
than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
Romans
5:6-8
V6 For while we were
still helpless, at the appointed moment, Christ
died for the ungodly.
V7 For rarely will
someone die for a just person-though for a good person perhaps someone might
even dare to die.
V8 “But God proves His
own love for us in that while we were
still sinners, Christ died for us!
Our
Lord was love personified. He was the very embodiment of love Himself.
I
Corinthians 13:4-8
4 Love is patient, love
is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not
self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices
with the truth. 7 It always
protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never
fails (ends).
Christ Jesus totally
embodied this divine agape love towards His disciples. You can replace the word
‘love’ by His Name Jesus or by God. God Is Love/agape (I John
4:8). Jesus/God is patient, God/Jesus is kind…
How
are we to love one another now?
I
John 3:16
16 This is how we know
what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
Brothers and sisters,
(1) We ought to have such love for one another
as to be willing to risk our lives to help each other - as in case of a
pestilence or plague, or when we are in danger by fire, or flood, or foes.
(2) We ought to have
such love for our brothers and sisters in Christ that we should be willing to
die for them, as a patriot is willing to die for his country.
How
can we lay down our lives for one another as Our Lord laid down His for us?
Is it easy? Is it difficult? I think that it is neither easy nor difficult. It
is just IMPOSSIBLE. Impossible without the Love of the Lord Himself dwelling in
us. That is why Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3: “You must be born again ” To be born again means that a person
admits to God that he or she is a sinner, truly repents of sin, believes in or
trusts Christ Jesus, and confesses faith in Christ as Savior and Lord. Natural, unregenerate humans do not have
the ability to love as Jesus loved. To obey this new commandment, we must
have God's life in us to manifest God's love through us. Without this new birth
in Christ, we cannot love one another as we truly should. Only we in Him and
His Love in us are we able to love one another as He loved us.
In John 15:5, Jesus says: “I am the vine, you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him
produces much fruit, because you can
do nothing without Me.” “This is my commandment, that you love one another
as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down
his life for his friends” (John 15:12–13).
How do we love like that? Sacrificially even unto death? Only by being born again and remaining/abiding in Christ Our Lord!
John
15:9,
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.”
Now,
how do you know if someone is born again? What is the sign of Divine Life in a
person?
Apostle John said in 1 John 3:23, “And this is His
commandment, that we believe
in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He has
commanded us.”
In Apostle John’s mind,
Jesus’ command to believe in Him, and His command to love each other are
inseparable. So together he calls them one
commandment: “This is His commandment (singular), that we believe in the
name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He has commanded
us.”
A believer in Christ
who does not love is a contradiction. Believer in Christ AND love must go
together! One cannot truly exist without the other. No love-Not real genuine
Christian. And no one can love truly sacrificially unto death like Christ did
for His enemies without being a born-again Christian. A true genuine Christian
loves. This is his or her new nature in God.
John
13:35 “By this all people will know that you are My
disciples, if you have love for one another”
Divine
Love is the sign of Divine Life. Divine love is the sign of having been born
again. If you declare yourself
openly to be a Christian, a disciple of Jesus — your Savior and your Lord, then
your love for others will be decisive in showing that you are real. So when
Jesus says in John 13:35, "By
this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one
another," He meant that love
confirms that your profession of faith in Him is real.
Again, this divine
agape love manifestation is only possible if we are grafted into the life and
love of Christ. Jesus is the vine, we are the branches. When we abide in Him
and He abides in us, we’ll then be able to love as He loved, because we’ll love
through Him in His perfect love.
Our Lord does not tell
His disciples that the world will know we are His disciples because of our
political activism, or our thriving programs, or our rich talents, or even our right
doctrines and theology. Now, I am not
minimizing the importance of right doctrines and theology. But, Jesus
Christ Himself, the Living Word of God declares that the world will know that
we are His by our love, by the agape love that we manifest to one another.
So, brothers and
sisters, this is what Jesus Christ, Our God is commanding you and me to do:
“Love one another just as He has loved us”
Conclusion
Our
Vision & Prayer:
O Lord God, may we
believe in Jesus Christ and love one another as He, God Himself has loved us! May
we, from this day forward:
Accept
one another (Rom 14:1-5; 15:7)
Bear
one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2).
Confess
our sins to one another (James 5:16).
Devote
ourselves to one another (Romans 12:10).
Esteem
one another in love (Rom. 14:5; Phil.
2:3).
Forgive
one another (Col. 3:13).
Give
sacrificially to meet one another’s needs (1
John 3:16–17).
Humble
oneself toward each other (1 Peter 5:5).
Inspire
one another to spiritual growth (Heb.
10:24).
Join
together in faithful participation in our local church (Heb. 10:25).
Kindle
holy affection to one another (1 Peter
5:14).
Love
and comfort one another with the hope of Christ’s return (1 Thes. 4:18).
Make
peace with one another (1 Thes. 5:13).
Not
lie and deceive one another (Eph. 4:25;
Col 3:9).
Oppose
and fight fear together by growing in love (1 John 4:18).
Pray
for one another’s spiritual and physical healing (James 5:16).
Quicken
one another’s heart to forsake unbelief and hardness of heart (Heb. 3:13).
Reach
out to one another in compassion (Col.
3:12).
Serve
one another in humility (Gal. 5:13; I
Peter 4:10).
Trust
God instead of resenting one another (1
John 3:11–12).
Use
Spirit-filled, Word-saturated music to teach and admonish one another (Col. 3:16; Eph. 5:19).
Visit
one another and be hospitable without complaint (1 Peter 4:9).
Walk
in truth together (1 John 3:18; 2 John
1:5).
Xceed
one another in showing honor and affectionate brotherly love (Romans 12:10)
Yield
and submit to one another (Eph. 5:21).
Zealously,
seek good for one another (1 Thes.
5:15).
So help us, Father God!
In the Mighty Name of Our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.
