John 13, we’ll start in Verse 18, just continuing the study of John’s Gospel. The setting is the last supper, just hours before Christ is to be betrayed and ultimately murdered, and he is having a bite to eat with his friends. So, that’s where we pick up the story, a conversation around the dinner table. “I am not referring to all of you,” Verse 18, Chapter 13, “I know those I have chosen. But this is to fulfill the scripture: He who shares my bread has lifted up his heel against me.” That is a quote from Psalm 41:9, just real briefly. It’s probably referring to the fact that just before a horse gives you a nice swift kick and sends you flying; he lifts up his heel against you. That is what Judas is preparing to do to the Lord Jesus as he betrays him. He says, “I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am He.”

Jesus says again, something he says frequently in John’s Gospel, “I tell you the truth, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me. After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, ‘I tell you the truth, one of you is going to betray me.’ His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved,” that’s John the Beloved, who writes this book, “was reclining next to him.” And, “Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, ‘Ask him which one he means.’ Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, ‘Lord, who is it?’ and Jesus answered, ‘It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.’ Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it Judas Iscariot, son of Simon. As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him. ‘What you are about to do, do quickly,’ Jesus told him, but no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the Feast, or to give something to the poor. As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night.”

That’s regarding Judas’ betrayal. Here’s Peter’s denial, “When he was gone, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the son in himself, and will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are disciples, if you love one another. Simon Peter asked him, ‘Lord, where are you going?’ And Jesus replied, ‘Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.’ Peter then asked, ‘Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.’ And then Jesus answered, ‘Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!’”

Let me summarize this for you very briefly. Jesus has basically articulated the heart of John’s Gospel. That the Father has sent the Son, and that the Father and the Son have sent the Spirit, and that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, are sending his people, his disciples, into the world, that we are all missionaries in full-time missions. Sometimes we think of missions as what happens over there in those other nations. That is true, God has a heart for all nations of the Earth, all peoples, languages, colors, and tribes. God has the desire to reconcile the world to himself in Christ, but missions also happens in Capital Hill, in Belltown, in Fremont, in Queen Anne, and over at Green Lake, and we are the missionaries that God has sent.

“We are the children of the King, whom have been disbursed on his behalf,” as Paul says, “as ambassadors of that great King, to talk about our King and to love those whom are there.” And Jesus tells us as we go not to be surprised, that some people, as we love them and tell them about God’s love, they will reject us and the message that we bring. Now, that shouldn’t surprise us, Jesus has told us, “They will reject you, but don’t worry. They’re not just rejecting you. They’re rejecting me. And in addition, they’re not just rejecting me, they’re rejecting the Father whom has sent me.” Basically saying, “Don’t take it personally.” If someone doesn’t love God, and you have been loving and gracious in your affections toward them, they are rejecting the Father and the Son and you, so you are in very good company – very good company.

We see this then in Judas Iscariot, who betrays Christ. Christ has come into the world, has loved Judas for three years; fed him, instructed him, poured into him very faithfully. And Judas is going to betray Christ, ultimately participate in his murder, betray him for 30 pieces of silver as Zechariah had prophesied hundreds of years prior. And that, the sad truth about Judas is, it is not that Judas was unloved or insufficiently instructed, Judas is hard-hearted through the duration of this ministry, he’s been stealing money from the moneybag, and he hates the Lord Jesus; he does not love him.

Peter, on the hand, Jesus promises he’s going to betray him, but he’s going to betray him in a different way. He’ll betray him with a denial. Peter starts off as a very cowardly man. We’ll see in the story a little later that a teenager, or a young girl, comes to him and asks, “Do you know Jesus?” and he curses and declares that he does not. At the moment when he should testify and stand with Christ, as Christ is going to die, Peter will deny him. But, Peter is different than Judas Iscariot, in that Judas does not love Christ, but Peter really does. And so, Judas never changes, but Peter does. Judas never repents, Peter does. Judas kills himself, but Peter is ultimately reinstated at the conclusion of the Gospel of John.

All of that to say very simply this, that we are sent into this world for the purpose of not worrying about, “Will they betray Christ, or will they deny Christ?” We are just sent with a purpose and the function of love. We’re supposed to love people. That’s what Jesus tells us, that he has loved us, and as he has loved us, and as he has loved us. We are to take that love that he has given us, Romans 8, tells us “That it is given into our hearts by the Spirit that he has poured out upon us.” We take that love that God has given us, through Christ, and we share it. We become conduits for grace and for kindness and mercy and love.

What happens then is that love is for us a public issue. It is not just that God loves us and we have this warm feeling toward God. It is also not that we love in secret or in private. Jesus says that it is to be a public matter. "If you love one another, everyone will know that you are my children, that you are my disciples that you are my students, because you’re following my examples and you’re showing my love.” And so, love is, for the children of God, a public matter. It’s a matter that does not just belong in the hidden confines of the church. It is something that is supposed to sort of spill over with joy into the greater community, so that God’s love extends through us, his missionaries, into all the earth.

What we see in scripture though, is that there is a lack of love, and a lack of friendship, and a lack of community because of sin. We see that in Genesis, where God creates the man and the woman for the purpose of oneness. They have friendship, and intimacy, and loving affection, but, sin comes and immediately they hide from each other. They hide from God. They cover themselves. Shame enters into the human equation. There is separation between the man and the woman and God, and the man and the woman and each other and that’s what sin does. Sin isolates us from God. It also isolates from one another. It kills life, and it kills love, and it kills oneness, as God has created us to have.

This is come to be such a pressing matter in our own age that we live in a world that is almost completely devoid of real Christ-like biblical love. C.S. Lewis distinguishes between need love and gift love. He says that need love is where I love you, because you do something for me that is beneficial. That is a contractual sort of love where, “Well, you make me feel good, so I love you,” or “You do kind things for me, so I love you,” or “You meet a need that I perceive that I have, so I love you.”

He says that Christ-like love is a gift love where, “I give affection to you with no demands or expectations in return. It is a covenantal and not a contractual love. It is not predicated upon terms. It is just given freely, and graciously, and happily, without ever expecting that you will give it back to me or make up for it, or that this ever in any way be an equal giving of love.”

And so, what has happened is, in particular, in the last 25 years in this nation, there has been a complete disintegration of social networks where people can develop friendships and love each other. There’s a really good book on this by a Harvard scholar, it’s called Bowling Alone, and he tracks the fact that over the past 25 years, the vast majority of most of our lives, there is a complete disintegration of all social networks. Nobody goes to church. Nobody goes to the bowling league. Nobody goes to the PTA. Nobody goes into any sort of social network where you can meet people. If you’re new to this city, you’ve discovered how hard it is to actually get to know people in any sort of social network and connect unless you sin, and then you’ll find lots of people gathered around those activities. But, I know none of you have tried those. I’m saying that other people do.

And what happens then, is as there are less social networking opportunities; there is a decline in the ability to love. It says that we’re supposed to love each other. The problem is we don’t even know each other. We can’t even get to the place of loving affection and intimacy, because our neighbors are complete strangers. If you live in an apartment complex, the odds are good you do not know anyone who lives in that complex. If you live in a neighborhood and own your home, you may not even know your neighbors. You may not even know your co-workers. You may walk through the grocery store and go out to dinner and go out to a movie, and see no one that is familiar to you, and maintain autonomy, and independence, and isolation and that’s what sin causes.

And so, some of us, especially those who are single, it becomes this very despairing, lonely place. You go to work by yourself. You sit in a cubicle by yourself. You drive home in your car by yourself. You eat dinner by yourself. You go to the grocery store by yourself. You come home and do your laundry by yourself. And what happens is that an entire culture becomes so isolated and detached, that the natural consequence is discouragement, and depression, and grief. And so, what we develop then is an entire medical profession to help you cope with your sadness and with your depression, some of which may indeed be biological. I think a great amount of it is just the sheer, logical conclusion to isolation and loneliness.

God has created us for a relationship, for community and for love. We worship a Trinitarian God, whom has love between the Father, Son, and Spirit. We are built for loving, covenantal relationships. And when we don’t have them we get sad, because we’re not functioning according to the pattern that God has created us for. And so for some then, even whole medical industries come to say, “Well, we medicate and counsel you to overcome your sadness.” There may be viable reason for some people to have those things. I think a lot of people what the need is love and a friend and someone who cares about them.

And, statistically, in this book that I was reading, this Bowling Alone, he says that over the last 25 years people going to clubs and meetings is down 58 percent, families having dinner together is down 33 percent, and people just having their friends over to their home for friendship, is down 45 percent. And that’s even reflected architecturally in how we build our homes. We build our homes so that there is one parking place for us and there’s nothing else for anyone else, because we’re not anticipating that anyone’s ever going to come and see us.

The homes do not have large living rooms so that you can entertain and have friends over. They don’t have a separate dining area that enables you to have friends over to your house for dinner. There isn’t a large kitchen, where, if you have a family, you could cook a meal together. If your friends come over and you’re single, at least you can spend some time in the kitchen and sit at the dining table and eat, and hang in the living room, and have friendship. Instead, we take that extra space and we’ve redesigned our architecture to created offices at home, so that we can stay at home all the time, and work all by ourselves, and eat all by ourselves, and it becomes very grievous. It’s a lonely place.

And what Jesus tells us is that all men will know that we are his disciples by the love that we have for one another. What has happened is we don’t have a loving, relationally based society; we are now in a consumer-contractual basis, which means if my car breaks down and I need a ride home, I can’t call my friend, because I don’t have any friends – I’ve got to call a cab. It means if my house burns down, the insurance money has to go toward my hotel room, because I can’t go crash at my buddy’s house, because I don’t have any buddies. That means that if I’m cooking dinner and I run out of milk, I can’t go ask my neighbor, because I don’t even know my neighbor, and they might shoot me if I end up on their property, or sick the dog on me.

And so, we live in this kind of society and what Søren Kierkegaard says, he’s a great philosopher, he says that love is the works of love. That love is a feeling, and an emotion, and an experience, but more than that, it is action. It is doing things. You know I love my wife, because I do things with her and for her. You know I love my children, because I do things with them and for them. I can’t just tell my children, “Daddy loves you very much. I’ll see you at high school graduation.” It’s – no, love does things. That is God’s love for us. He initiates with us. God is present and active, that’s the whole purpose of Christ coming, that God is with us and involved and participating in our lives in practical ways.

And so, my question to you is this, in the world that we live in, Jesus has told us, “I have loved you, now love each other, so that other people will see a completely contrary form of life that shows the Kingdom of God; that they get a glimpse of something completely other and holy.” But, my question to you is this. Practically, why are we not doing this? And I’ve heard this frequently about Mars Hill, “This is a cold church – nobody greets me – I don’t know anybody.” Part of it is you’re all new, okay. So, you usually go to a church and you think, “Well, there’s a bunch of people here and I’m the new guy, so all the people should greet me-” we’re all new people, okay.

This time last year, this service didn’t exist. Last summer this service didn’t exist. We’ve doubled in the last year, which means you’re all new – everybody’s new, except for me, and I’ve been here for a little while. But, other than the practical matter of there’s so many of us, as we’re growing so quickly – practically, one of the reasons why you don’t even know people, even in your own church, well enough to love them, why is that? Think its laziness? It is inconvenient to have friendships, because people need help, and they always seem to need help when you don’t feel like giving it, or in ways that are inconvenient. So, if you prefer a life of convenience without any disruption, people are a real complication. And if you don’t like the inconvenience of caring for others, then yeah, laziness can creep in; it becomes really hard to do anything for anybody.

Why else, practically? Time? I don’t know if you know this, we’re all very busy. Do you know why we’re very busy? Because we’re very important – very important. And I know what you’re thinking, “Well, not everybody’s important,” but you certainly are as am I. We are very important people, and so we’re very busy. We don’t have a lot of time to love people, because we’re so important that we’re busy with very important things, we don’t have time for trivial things like loving people. We have very important things to do and time just takes over. We live in a world that is governed by hurry and worry and busy, and we are always doing something. Most of us, at the end of the day, are not exactly sure what we accomplished with all of that fury, but we knew that we were very busy. And in acting busy and looking busy and seeming busy, people think that you’re very important. It’s a trick that pastors learn very early. If I look very hurried, and frantic, and important, then no one calls me or talks to me, and I can have a lot of free time. Now, my secret is out. I’ve used that trick on many of you and you think, “Oh, I shouldn’t call Mark, he’s very busy.” That’s how we work. That’s how we all work. I’m just being honest, because I get paid to be honest.

But, we like to project business and I don’t have time and it’s a defense, so that we don’t have to invest in people and we don’t have to love them, but it seems like it’s justified, because we just don’t have the time. Why else? What’s that?

Response: Selfishness.

Selfishness. We think, “Yeah, this is great. I need more friends and people to love and help me.” But we’re not willing to practice Philippians 2, and then go help and love and serve somebody else. Frequently, people will say, “I don’t have any friends. I’m lonely.” “Okay. Have you talked to anybody? Do you go to Bible Study? Do you invite people over to your house? ” “No. I just sit at home and wait for them.” “Well, you know what they live a mile away and they’re waiting for you, and you’re both gonna grow old and gray and bitter, and you should just meet in the middle. There’s plenty of Starbucks right there.” Why else?

Response: Because of your transparency.

Yeah, if you get to know someone, then they get to know you, and they may – you may not want them to know certain things about you. It’s like well, “I like projecting this, sort of, image, and then living contrary to it. But if I publicly project an image and privately live contrary to it, I can fool some of the people some of the time,” and that’s how we become deacons. You can do that. “But if people get to know me, if they come over and see how I talk to my wife and my kids, and how I live my life – well now I’m transparent. I’m vulnerable. You’re gonna find out that I have things to work on. If I don’t want to work on this things, or if I’m stuck in habitual patterns that are real bad or sinful, I don’t want you to get close enough to point those things out.” So, all of a sudden my isolation is intentional to protect my sin or my immaturity or my duplicity.

Yeah?

Response: Because we don’t know any different.

You don’t know any different, it’s amazing that in this world, people are crying out, “We want community. We want friendship. We want love.” “What is that?” “I have no idea. What does it look like?” “I have no clue.” I mean, it is even to the point where we watch Survivor and MTVs, The Real World and Friends, and all the shows are about pseudo-quasi, immature, pointless communities that aren’t accomplishing anything, but people are just intrigued by, “Look at that, people are talking to each other. That’s amazing,” you know. But, the only way we can get them to talk to each other is to lock them in a room or put them on an island. That’s the only way we can – and then it becomes Darwinian, and they vote each other off anyway, so it’s not very loving.

I mean, we have no idea. I mean, you can’t even fathom a world where you didn’t lock your doors, because all the people around you loved you, and you didn’t have to worry about them coming in at night and hitting you over the head. They have no idea about that.

Yeah?

Response: We live in a culture that we displace ourselves quite frequently, when we do that, instead of building communities for our life, and move all over the country and all over the world.

Oh, yeah – yeah, the mobile nature of the society. He says – I guess, he’s moving to Germany for the military. But, it’s hard, because it is hard if you are – how many of you have moved more than 10 times growing up as a child? More than 15? More than 20? Okay. You guys, we’re gonna give you free medication. I mean, you think about it, if your pattern of life is continual displacement; moving, relocating, new schools, you learn, you know, it is just not a worthwhile investment to develop loving relationships with people, because they will be broken. That will be hard, that will be painful, there’ll be a sense of loss, and so I do not involve myself anywhere – put my roots in deep, because I know I’m going to be pulled up and subsequently, that’s going to be very painful.

And so, there’s a loss of a lack of sense and place. See, it makes sense when Jesus looks at his men and says, “Love each other.” They’ve been living in close proximity in community. They’ve been eating meals together. They’ve been doing ministry together. They’ve been praying together. They’ve been working together. And therefore, they can love each other, because they are in covenant relationship, and the expectations is they’re gonna be working together and living together for the rest of their lives in varying degrees.

We live in a world that doesn’t know anything of that. So, Jesus tells us, “Love one another,” we’re like, love who? I’ve never even seen that. I have no concept of what that is. Any other reasons? Yes.

Response: Encouragement.

Yeah. Explain that one.

Response: It’s just like he was saying, it takes a certain amount of bravery to get out there and believe that the person that you’re talking to assumes you’re as shy as the person’s sizing you up.

Everyone is shy. Some of it are Irish and we hide it well. That’s the only difference. And the hard part with friendship is that it does take a lot of courage, because we think of this romantic, naïve, sinless view of friendship. “Oh, we’re gonna have friends. We’re gonna love each other and hold hands, bake cookies, live happily ever after,” but you look at it, Jesus is having dinner with his best friends, and what are they going to do to him? One is going to kill him, and the other one’s gonna curse him and deny him. I mean, and Peter’s the leader. What you find is, is that friendship is painful and your friends will, like Christ’s friends, crucify you, and you’re gonna have to resurrect and love them and reconcile as Jesus will with Peter.

Your friends are gonna kill you. You’ll say, “Oh, I can’t believe my friend did that.” I mean look at Jesus’ buddies. And, certainly, Jesus didn’t have it coming, I mean, Jesus is, all things considered, a fairly decent guy, all things considered. As incarnate, perfect God, I’m assuming he was – at very worst, he was a perfect friend, but his friends betray him, deny him. And the issue is, if we love each other, it takes courage, because you will be vulnerable and people will sin against you. But that’s the good news, is that because of Christ those things can be worked through.

All of that to simply say this. I’ll give you a guys a simple illustration. I had this last week. I sit on a board and I went down to Colorado. We’re planting churches in India. We’re planting 13 there this year, and I was meeting with the head of this movement and – just a long story. But, I flew into Denver, and then we went out to a place called Montrose, which is nowhere. It’s in the middle of the mountains, and you got to take this little commuter plane. It seats 28 people. They said, “Well, you know, there’s a lot of winds, a lot turbulence, so we can only have 12 people. Any more weight than that we’ll crash in the mountain, you’ll all die. So, 16 of you can’t get on the plane, but 12 of you can. Congratulations.” I’d be like, “That’s cool, bump me. You know, that’s fine.”

So, I got on the plane and it’s like you’re at Disneyland the whole time, and I’m sure I was like a kaleidoscope, just changing colors over and over and over. We make it over the mountain, we land and this guy I’ve never met – he’s on the board – and he comes to pick me up – Christian man – and he says – I look around Montrose, and I’m like, “Boy, this is a little town,” he’s like, “Yeah, but I live up there. That highest peak, 7,000 something feet up, Paul calls it the third heaven. I live right up there and we’re gonna drive up there. That’s my house.” It’s in the middle of nowhere, a little town call Ridgeway, 600 people, but this is a town that is spread over, you know, 10s of thousands of acres. It’s all farmers and ranchers and such.

And so, we drive out there and I get there and he takes me out to his house, beautiful home just overlooking the whole valley. Nobody around. Quiet. Peaceful. Tranquil. It was amazing. And I meet his wife, and his wife is one of the most lovely women I’ve ever met. I’m convinced – I’ll show you when we get to Proverbs – I think that a woman who is loved, that gives her beauty. It’s an investment in that woman, and there’s a radiance and a joy and an affection that kind of comes out of her as she’s loved. This woman was well loved. Very Godly. Very sweet. I just was thoroughly – enjoyed just meeting her.

And then I meet his children. He’s got a son who’s 20, studying to be a pilot. I ask his son, you know, “Tell me about your dad. Tell me about your family.” He says, “Oh,” he just gushes about his dad, “Oh, my dad loves God. He’s the best dad. Just did a great job with our family. Prayed over us. Taught us the Bible. Loved us. Encouraged us. We hike, and climb, and fish, and hunt. And me my dad are so close.” And I said, you know, “You’re 20, you got any draft picks? You looking to get married? What are you – any girlfriends,” you know. And he says, “No, no. I thought about that and I just – I look at my mom and I look at my dad and the way they love each other, that’s what I want. So, I just told my mom and dad to, you know, just pray and as they meet a good woman, introduce me to her and they can pick my wife.” I thought, “Wow! You don’t hear that very often,” you know. And he said, “Yeah, my dad’s just such a great guy, he knows better than me. My mom’s a godly woman, she knows better than me. If I could be a man like my dad and marry a woman like my mom, then I’d be as happy as I could be.”

So, I meet his other daughter, and the time I’m there, she’s on the cover of the local newspaper four days in a row; Valedictorian, prom queen, leading a mission trip to Mexico, and another was student athlete of the year. Small school, like 26, 27 kids graduate, they have the commencement in the park and like 300 people come out – half the town. She gets up, preaches the Gospel, and has an altar call. And she’s a very godly, very sweet girl. And I get put in the bedroom of the 13-year-old daughter and that was traumatic. But, it’s the first time I’ve ever been in a 13-year-old girl’s room that didn’t have pictures of the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Christina Aguilera, or Brittney Spears, bare midriff on the wall, so I was very impressed, just to begin with. And I started talking to this young girl and she’s just articulate, sweet, bright, she loves God, she’s just amazing for 13.

And I just had conversation with the children and with the wife, and the way they spoke about the father was one of the most encouraging things I’d ever seen. They said, “Well, our dad’s like Jesus and we just love him. He’s just great.” And they have this sort of perfect little life going on. And so I was talking with him, and we’re driving through town, go to get gas, and we’re running errands. We go into the restaurant, every single person there, “Hey, Frank, Bob, Phil. How’s your wife. How’s your kid. How’s your blah, blah –?” He knows everybody in the whole restaurant. Go to get gas, he knows everybody there. Everywhere we go, in the whole town, he knows everybody on a first name basis, whether or not they’re a Christian, if they’re married, how long, how many kids they have – he knows everything.

And I asked the guy, I said, “How do you meet everybody? I mean, there’s so many miles between you people. He says, “Well, I took a job as a real estate agent, so everybody that’s moving here or relocating, has to come through me to find property. I did that so that I could welcome them, because when you move into a new town, you don’t know anybody, you don’t know where to get a car, you don’t know about the schools, you don’t know anything, and then I could take them out to dinner, share the Gospel with them, we have an Evangelistic Bible Study at our house that we invite them to. I lead worship at my church, and I view my business as God bringing me people to help their lives get settled. And as I love them and get them home and a school for their kids and help them find a decent restaurant to take their wife out to, or whatever, then I’m bringing Christians into their life to love them and serve them and, you know, if your car breaks down, he’ll fix it, or whatever.”

And he said, “I arrange everything that way,” and he said, “We’ve seen tons of people come to Christ, and a lot of people that are in the church now that are people that have come to Christ,” and he just talked about how much he loved doing this. And I thought, “Man, that’s what Jesus is talking about.” I was meditating on the Scripture, that as he loves those people that God brings into his path, they know that he is a child of God. And it says in Scripture in Corinthians, that love is not rude, so he’s just gracious about all this.

So, we go to the gas station, the guy that runs the gas station comes out and gives him a big hug and I said, “Who’s that guy?” He said, “Oh, I led him to Christ last year and now he’s led his son to the Lord.” And he’s telling me all these stories of all these people. Not a pastor, you know, can’t exegete the Greek text. He just studies the Bible, prays a lot, and loves the people that God brings into his path – very simple. So, I asked him, I said, “You know, I’ve very rarely seen biblical wisdom lived, and families that love each other, and communities where the man has invested himself in loving a large number of people.” I said, “How did you get to this place? Were you raised in a Christian home?” He said, “No, I was raised non-Christian. I made it through College and I was functionally illiterate – I was a student athlete, so they just graduated me – and I got married to my wife and we were very hard time, and she went away on a business trip and I put a gun to my head and I was gonna kill myself, I was so depressed. I was alone. I didn’t understand anything,” and he said, “God just grabbed me and loved me and changed me. And so, I started loving my wife. We had kids and I started loving my kids,” he said, “It’s just some miraculous thing to where God loved me and then his love came through me, and it sort of touched everything in my life, and it’s amazing.”

And that’s exactly what Jesus is talking about, “As I have loved you, so love one another and by this, everyone will know that you are my disciples. If,” and he predicates it, “you have love for one another.” That that’s our job is love. And I love the way the Scriptures explain this. That Jesus has loved us in action, not just emotion. It’s not that God stood up in heaven and said, “Well,” you know, “Here’s affection. I just, sort of, give it to you out of my heart.” In Romans 5:8, Paul says, “That God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” God’s love is shown in Jesus. He – God comes down, humbly lives as one of us extending a hand of friendship, but the problem is, is that we are separated from God, and separated from one another, because of our sin. It has isolated us, it has made enemies of God, and not friends, and it has, indeed, made us enemies of one another and not friends. That’s why all secular godless, Gospel-less attempts at friendship and community are destined to fail, because they cannot address the sin issue that really is the dividing point between us, and between us and God.

And so Jesus comes, “While we were yet sinners,” while we were yet his enemies – and he loves us by dying for us. Corinthians tells us that he died in such a way that our sin was placed upon him and he died in our place, and that we then have, according to Paul, reconciliation with God, in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19, “That we are now reconciled to God, that our sin has been forgiven in the Lord Jesus and we are reconciled to God. And we now have friendship with God as our Father.” In addition, Paul tells us in that section, that he has now given us this ministry of reconciliation, that we are all in full-time ministry, and our hope is that through loving people with the love of Christ – and that love sometimes is a strong hand where it is a telling of truth, and sometimes it is a soft hand of a giving of grace through that ministry of reconciliation – that love of Christ going out, then other people are reconciled to Christ. And then in so doing, they’re reconciled to us. And so, the Gospel has a dual dimension. It has a horizontal dimension where it reconciles us to each other, because of the vertical dimension that it is reconciled us to God, through Christ.

And so, then Paul speaks of us in Ephesians as a family; moms and dads and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins. And we’re supposed to function in loving friendship toward one another in such a public way, that it’s not just something that makes the church a very warm and happy place, but that it sort of spills over, And that other looks at it and they say, “My goodness, you and your wife, you really love each other,” or, “Your kids really love those parents.” or, “That woman had a baby and she got sick, and the other people in the church came over and cooked a meal and took care of kids.” Or, “That young married couple just had a baby,” and “This other couple, on Friday night’s, babysits them, so that that family can go out on a date.” Or, “That single person who’s by themselves has, sort of, been adopted in by that family. And they’re brought over for dinner and they play with the kids, and they’ve got an adopted family that has brought them in.”

And they look at that and they say, “What is going on here? Why do you do that? That’s now how we do things in this world.” And the answer is always, “Well, Christ. Jesus has reconciled us to God and to one another. And he has – God is love, 1 John 4. And Romans tells us, ‘He’s poured out his love in our hearts,’ and so we’re giving it to you; that this is not our love. This is Christ love through us for you. We’re conduit for his work.” And that’s how the Gospel spreads in Acts, people loving people in a public way, and then others being attracted, saying “That is a different God. That is a different Kingdom. That is a different world. I’ve never seen that.” That’s completely antithetical.

And so, that’s where we’ll leave it today. This is what I want, we’re gonna take communion and in the taking of communion that is we are celebrating, is Jesus Christ. His body and blood, shed for us out of love, to reconcile us to God and one another. In partaking of communion, we are celebrating Jesus and that we can belong to God through Christ, and that we now belong to each other as well. And Paul tells us that we should have no debt outstanding, except love for one another. The one thing we’re always gonna be obligated to is loving each other. And we’ll take communion in a moment. If you’re a believer, I encourage you to take it. If you’re not, I encourage you to love Christ and join us, and be part of the family of God.

We’ll take an offering, if you’re a first time visitor or non-Christian, please do not give, you are our guest; it is good to have you. In the taking of communion, remind yourself of reconciliation to God and one another, and then we’re going to no sing and not celebrate, we’re going to just have you break down; groups of two, three, four, five, just meet somebody. Pray with them. Visit. Some of you come in every Sunday, you sit in the same seat and then you leave, and someone sits next to you; you don’t even know them. So, we’ll begin with just getting to know each other, and from there cultivate a habitual life practice of being hospitable, opening our homes and our lives and our schedules to love each other. It’s not something that we just do this morning, but this morning is a beginning place for us, as a congregation.

And if I could have those whom are being baptized to go get changed, I’ll go get changed as well and we’ll conclude our time together as you guys are just praying, meeting, visiting, talking, hanging out, whatever you want. We’ll take and do the baptism, you’ll witness that, and then what I would encourage you is this, as you go out today, if there’s some people here you meet, or there’s some friends here that you say, “Man, we’ve been meaning to get together with those people for a long time,” just go out and get lunch. Go out and get a bite to eat, kill a few hours, grab a few strangers, and just love each other and celebrate what Christ has done to put you together as a family, and just get some time together. And put a few hours in your schedule today for friendship and for affection. And so, I’ll pray for us.

Lord Jesus, thank you so much for your work on our behalf. Lord Jesus, it is my prayer that none of us would be like Judas Iscariot, just betray you, walk away, not even care, and never come back. Lord Jesus, we all know that at certain points and in certain ways we’re gonna be like Peter. We’re gonna fail. We’re gonna sin. We’re gonna rebel. We’re gonna deny. Lord God, thank you for your grace and your love, your kindness that leads us to repentance. Lord Jesus, it is our prayer that you, as a loving God, would indeed, through your Spirit, pour out love into our hearts that we could share with each other, and that that would become a public issue to whether others would taste and see that our Lord is, indeed, loving and good.

And so, God, thank you that we can love. It is a supernatural and tremendous gift that you’ve given to us. Pray that we would love, not as the world is loved, but as Christ has loved us. And so, Lord Jesus, I pray for friendships to be formed, for affection to be given, and that this congregation would be a foretaste of your Heaven, and a wonderful, beautiful witness to the world of the goodness and the sweetness of the Gospel. Lord, we love you, and we thank you, and we celebrate you and your work in reconciling us to yourself and to one another. Amen.