Love for One Another

Many of you may know already some of the background that has been a foundational part of the journey that led Kay and me to the Beloved family. For almost thirty years, we have been in some of the, “premier,” Spiritual environments with some of the, “coolest kids,” doing Christianity today. We have had the enormous honor (and I mean that sincerely) to be around (and even establish personal relationships with) some of the greatest men and women of God. We have been in some of the most powerful environments and services that have happened over that timeframe as well. I say all this because I am attempting to build a clear image of the perspective this message is coming from.

There were very few messages or ministers in our formation years that did not directly preach about, indirectly refer to as a pillar of Kingdom truth, or assume the universal importance of our required engagement to the, “Greater Works,” doctrine of the Spirit-filled life. This is one of those places where that pesky pest of, “context,” will get in the way of a really great sermon.

“Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I am doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”

John 14:12 BSB

This week, many of our Beloved peeps and I returned home pretty late for a Tuesday night. The reason was that we were serving our local community and the Kingdom in outreach to impact hundreds of kids and their parents/guardians with the Gospel. We spent thousands of dollars and collectively hundreds of hours (plus) in genuine efforts to legitimately impact every single possible heart with the goodness, love, and truth about Jesus our Savior, and His intimate passion for each one of us. We turned our church and property into a lighthouse of alternative activities for those folks teaching their children how to celebrate, “Halloween.” We were successful… darkness could not overcome the light.

I say this not in any way to brag on the Beloved family, even though I LOVE this church, but because the compelling force behind our late night was the desire to do the works of Jesus.

Genuine Jesus people will organically desire to produce the same fruit (works) that He did.

The people of the world will be driven by internal forces to produce the fruit of their spiritual heritage, the devil.

This should be a basic and simple premise that humanity should not have much disagreement about. Yet, physical wars are being fought to spill the blood of the wretched enemy who dares to argue against the adamantly believed morality of the opposition. Consider how many millions of people are concretely convinced that their fruit (works) are, “good,” and that more people should be like them.

• We should all agree to mutilate the bodies and destroy the genders of an entire generation because we “love” them better than our enemies do.
• A biblical worldview is only possible for an extraterrestrial alien posing as a right-wing extremist who is a Christian Nationalist who was devastatingly elected as the newest speaker of the house.
• Genocide can actually be a good thing if it targets the people and groups that our morally superior professors have told us to eliminate… like Jews, white men, Christians, republicans, etc.
• Propaganda is evil and wrong unless we use it under the guise of, “misinformation,” to convince people to only think the way that we think because we are right and everyone else is wrong… even biology, and history, and God (especially Him).
• War is wrong unless it is against Russia, or whatever country is attacking the new flag I am flying on my Facebook profile because some wars are right… if I agree with them based on what I am told to think because they need my support to raise more money, to buy more weapons, to make the warmongers wealthier, so they can buy more public opinion, to spill more innocent blood and look like angels, so they can be reelected.
• Pharmaceuticals are a divine gift from the benevolent earth gods so that the human immune system can be more perfectly enhanced by technology because Artificial Intelligence has come to save us all.

What a person generally believes is, “good works,” will compel them in their personal philosophy and belief systems. Jesus directly and eternally should have resolved this truth for genuine Christians through studying His life and words in the pages of our New Testament.

“And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”

Acts 10:38 NLT

Jesus did good. Good as defined by God. Jesus did not do bad. I know this seems elementary, or even condescending, but these simple truths are being directly and successfully challenged by our modern, progressive cultural activists. At this point, you may be wondering what this has to do with the, “context,” of John 14:12. A TON!

John 13 through 17 are the chapters that give us a detailed description of Jesus’ last hours before His unlawful and torturous atonement journey that pinnacled atop Golgatha hill on an old rugged cross between two convicted felons. These chapters are among my favorite places in all of scripture and have likely drawn the most hours of interaction from my eyes all the way to the center of my heart. Much of my deep commitment to how important the discipleship process should be comes from these most intimate places. Jesus can only say these things and be this confidential with those who are fully submitted and committed to discipleship. Our context verse above is inside that block of scripture.

Jesus was teaching His closest friends (15:15) some of the most consequential and precious truths that could be shared in this sacred moment. Many of these things were only shared here at the very end of His earthly life and ministry. In a way you could say that Jesus had been building these guys up this whole time for the next few days of radical historic happenings. There were no masses, no crowds, no random folk looking for ministry, or healing, or answers, or arguments. This was Jesus face-to-face in covenant faithfulness explaining the Kingdom for the heirs of salvation who would be the ones to whom He was entrusting the entire message of the Gospel. These fellas would determine whether what Jesus lived and died for would be taken further than His physical feet and audible voice could carry. To annotate that this was a vital moment would be to drastically understate the truth.

Chapter thirteen opens up with one of the more Jesus-esk moments in the whole bible, the washing of the disciples’ feet. Likely none of us today could imagine the humbling experience of having your Lord, your Master, your Rabbi, your Christ, your God… strip himself in naked lowliness and do the menial task that the lowest house slave would be assigned. This overt and compelling image of God Himself kneeling before you and washing the yuck from your filthy feet had to be engraved in their eternal memory. This was a sincere moment of the action of love for these guys that many of us cannot comprehend.

He finishes by saying these words:

“I have set you an example so that you should do as I have done for you. Truly, truly, I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” (Vs 15-17)

Then a bit later, we see this exchange:

When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify the Son in Himself— and will glorify Him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little while longer. You will look for Me, and as I said to the Jews, so now I say to you: ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.” (Vs 31-35)

Notice these words were specifically chosen only after, “Judas had gone out.” Jesus was about to say something so powerful, so intimate, that He had to wait for the betrayer to leave first. What follows could easily be some of the most cherished moments in human history.

• “A new commandment I give you…” – What? Why is this new? These words come from the Torah (Leviticus 19), but have also been a normal part of Judaism from the start. What made this new was twofold: (1) These words were commanded by God’s audible voice, to people who were in a committed covenant with Him with direct-relationship-value attached. Not generic, not law-based, not distant, not ambiguous. Real, raw, tangible (their feet may still be tingling from the foot-washing just moments earlier). (2) What was commanded was first defined by the commander. Just required only and exactly the same standard He commanded. This is as far from hypocrisy as you can get. He spent three-and-a-half years diligently and supernaturally expressing what His kind of love looked like, acted like, and persevered like. There could be no arguments in the future because if it ain’t the way Jesus loved then it just ain’t the commandment.
• “Love one another.” – This was Peter to John. James to Matthew. Nathaniel to (the other) Judas. This was a known person, an irritating person, a real defined fleshy carnal guy to another. Not some ethereal, nonexistent social media guy in a galaxy far, far away. This was about the one across the table that just argued about who was going to be the most awesomest in the coming Kingdom hierarchy flowchart. You know, the ones that you live with, eat with, do life with, and try to not get offended at seventy times seven times in a day. A tall order, a high call, yet made possible and required by the tender intimacy of the moment.
• “By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.” – I have heard this more times than I can count. This is one of the most used evangelistic verses in red ink. This is a tear-jerker when the traveling evangelist takes a break from the convicting (condemning) message about your neighbor burning in the lake of fire for a million years because you were a self-centered, unloving jerk, so he rejected Jesus based on your love witness. I do not have the time here to unpack all that, yet just like many truths, there is a balance to both sides of that message. But, there is something a bit obscure that I have not heard anyone besides me point out… Jesus specifically was saying that one of the most useful and successful evangelism tactics that exists is seeing disciples love disciples. Jesus did not say the disciple’s love for the world, their love for their momma, their love for their cute puppy, or even their love for their newborn child would be the inflection point for the world. Their love for each other was the single determining measurement that, “everyone,” would use to prove the authenticity of their relationship with Jesus. Heavy…

Honestly, this is one of the main reasons I believe that the vast majority of pew-warming churchgoers reject discipleship for a lifetime. This level of accountability, transparency, and sincerity is radically rare. Most folks are not looking for this level of commitment in their Christian experience because it kinda crosses the comfort line. This is territory that even angels dare not tread.

Where are you at in this?

Where could you be?

Where should you be?

Sorry… I will back away because I can sense the tension and that is just another way to express the opposing force of resistance. I have no desire whatsoever for me or my words to be pushed away… I actually love people, want to be with people, value people, and have given my life to serve people in ministry. But, I also equally desire for those people to be healthy, whole, and prospering as their soul prospers. A prospering soul is a disciple who loves like Jesus loves.

Then the world will see something it has never really seen before… the Word become flesh, and flesh, and flesh that dwells among them. And they will want it because there is nothing better.

I love you!
Steve, a disciple