A New Commandment
Rev. Res Spears
Time for Something New • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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A pastor at a church we used to attend made a point during a sermon one Sunday to say he wasn’t a big fan of officiating weddings.
Too many couples, he said, were already on the downward slope of their relationship by the time they came to him for their premarital counseling. And he hated seeing such couples make a commitment to God to remain together when it seemed so unlikely they would keep that commitment.
There was a hard truth in what that pastor said that morning. In fact, statistics show that most marriages that fail do so within the first two years of the wedding.
Certainly, that has much to do with the hard adjustments that must be made, but I think our pastor was onto something. All too often, the wedding ceremony is a subconscious effort by a struggling couple to buttress a relationship that is already experiencing problems.
This is what was happening when Annette and I planned our wedding 22 years ago. We were already having problems, mostly because I was a jerk then and really had no idea how to love anybody.
Nonetheless, we got married on the beach on an unseasonably warm November day, and things got better for a while.
But by years two and three, we were in a bad situation. I’ve said many times that we were near the point of separation and divorce.
Annette has told me in recent years that she would have given up on me if she hadn’t known it would have broken the heart of my grandmother, who loved us both dearly.
And so, she held on, and in 2005, we became saved, and Jesus changed us both. And things have been hard from time to time since then, but they’ve never been as bad as they were before we were saved.
And I tell you that to make the point that we are still together today because Annette CHOSE to love me when I was unlovable. She CHOSE to love me when I was selfish and angry and bitter and self-absorbed.
And making that choice — indeed, continuing to make that choice over and over again — may have been the most Christlike thing I’ve ever seen my dear wife do.
Valentine’s Day is on Tuesday, and we’ll exchange cards — we never do much more than that. The greatest way I can honor my wife on that day and every day is to never forget how she loved me when I was unlovable and to allow the Holy Spirit to keep me from being that way again.
But as we prepare to celebrate this Hallmark holiday, it’s interesting that the next installment of this “Time for Something New” series that I’ve been preaching is ALSO about love.
On the night before His crucifixion, Jesus gave His disciples a new commandment. This commandment had its foundation in the teachings of the Old Testament. The Jewish people were already familiar with God’s command to “love your neighbor as yourself.” But Jesus took things a step further.
"A new commandment I give to you,” He said to His disciples. “That you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”
So what’s different about this new commandment? What’s different from what the disciples already knew from the Old Testament?
What’s different is that Jesus says to love one another “even as I have loved you.”
Jesus loves us with a choosing love. He chooses to love us, even when there’s nothing lovable about us. He chooses to love even those who deny Him and set themselves against Him.
He chooses to love those who have made themselves His very enemies by living as if He didn’t exist and as if they have the final word about what’s right and what’s wrong. He chooses to love us, even if we choose to ignore Him, even if we curse Him and mock His very name.
As He hung upon that cross at Calvary, Jesus loved us with a sacrificial love. He loved us by seeking the very best for us — our salvation — even as He knew that doing so would cost Him His very life.
In the Old Testament commandment to love your neighbor as yourself, the Hebrew people inferred a limit to love. Whether that limit was there or not is debatable. But the inference they drew put love of themselves on an equal plane as love of their neighbors.
But Jesus came along and said we need to love one another, even as He loved us. That we need to love one another even MORE than we love ourselves and our own lives. Even if the other is undeserving of such love. Even if that love is not returned to us. Even if the recipients of that love mock us for it.
This is the example of love to which we who follow Jesus in faith are to aspire. But most of us won’t ever be called to give our lives out of love.
And even if someone here must make such a sacrifice for love one day, we still have to understand how such love looks from one average day to the next.
The Apostle Paul understood this, and he saw how the lack of such love was hurting the church in Corinth. And so, he wrote one of the most beloved passages of Scripture to them in what’s often called the Love Chapter, the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians.
We’re going to look at that chapter in a moment, but first, let me give you some context.
The Corinthian church was defined by its divisions.
They were divided over their favorite teachers. Some said, “I’m a follower of Paul”; some said, “I’m a follower of Apollos.”
They were divided over the Lord’s Supper. Some would gorge themselves at the love feast that normally came before the Lord’s Supper, and others would go away hungry.
But the biggest division seems to have been over spiritual gifts. Some in Corinth seem to have believed that those who had the gift of tongues were better Christians than those who did not.
And Paul tells them in chapter 12 that every Christian’s spiritual gift — whether it’s prophecy, teaching, miracles, healing, helping, administration, tongues, or anything else — every spiritual gift is important to the proper functioning of the body of Christ.
We all should honor one another for the role each of us plays in the body of Christ, even as we earnestly desire that the Holy Spirit will use us in still greater ways.
But then, Paul says, “Let me show you a more excellent way” of living together as the body of Christ. And that’s where we’ll pick up in verse 1 of chapter 13.
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
Now, the people of that church in Corinth had a wrong view about what it means to be “spiritual.” They thought it meant having the gifts of the Spirit.
They judged one another’s spirituality based on the spiritual gifts they saw in one another. And all too often, they ranked others as inferior to themselves, because they didn’t think the others’ gifts "measured up” to their own.
But what Paul is saying in this chapter is that what it means to be “spiritual” is to demonstrate the FRUITS of the Spirit, the first and ultimate of which is LOVE.
In other words, if we are filled with the Holy Spirit as those who have turned to Jesus in faith, then we will show the fruits of the Spirit in all that we say and do, especially in love.
So speaking with the tongues of men and angels without love is just making a lot of irritating noise. Having all the knowledge that we could ever attain about God, proclaiming the very word of God or having the greatest faith one could possibly have — doing any of this without love would make us far from being the most honorable ones around. In fact, the word Paul uses here means we’re “nobodies” if we don’t have love.
Even if we were to give everything we have to feed the poor, if we did it for some reason other than love, then it’s worth nothing in the kingdom of heaven.
What Paul is showing us in these verses is the PRIMACY of love. The spiritual fruit of love is over and above all of the spiritual gifts. And WITHOUT love, our exercise of the gifts we’ve been given is also without value.
Love should be at the core of everything a Christian does, everything a Christian says, every thought a Christian has.
It should have the place of primacy in every Christian life. It should be the primary thing to which we are all striving. It should be our No. 1 priority.
But remember that the Corinthians were having a hard time, much as we sometimes do, in applying this great truth about the primacy of love to their everyday lives among one another.
And so, Paul transitions in verse 4 to giving us a PROFILE of love.
4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,
5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,
6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Paul starts this part of the passage by showing the positive passive and active responses of love for one another.
We passively show patience to one another, recognizing that every one of us is still a work in progress. Each one of us still has a ways to go in the Holy Spirit’s work of conforming us to the image of Christ.
Each one of us has deserved at some point for everybody else to just throw up their hands and walk away. But love is patient, passively waiting for the Spirit to do His work in others, just as He is doing it in us.
And the truth is that we’re much better at seeing the faults of others than seeing them in ourselves. So, patience is also the humble recognition that we’re probably not as good as we like to think we are.
When we show patience, we mimic the patience God has had with us, holding back His judgment so that all would have the opportunity to be saved.
Just as He has restrained Himself from bringing His righteous judgment upon mankind, we are to restrain ourselves from our UNrighteous tempers with one another.
Kindness, on the other hand, is an active response, and it’s one that I think results from patience.
Rather than giving in to temper and self-righteous judgment, love responds to those who disappoint us or treat us poorly with kindness. It returns GOOD for EVIL.
Kindness is the voice of Jesus on the cross, when He called out, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Now, having given us two examples of the positive expressions of love in everyday life, Paul gives us eight negative examples to show us how love does not behave.
Love is not jealous. In the context of this passage, where Paul has been addressing the divisions over spiritual gifts in the Corinthian church, this means love isn’t offended by the success or gifts of others.
On the flip side of that, love doesn’t brag. The root of the Greek word that’s translated as “brag” here means “windbag.”
Ever known a windbag? They just talk and talk and talk. And what do they tend to love to talk about most? Right. Themselves. They like to magnify themselves.
But people who are filled with the Spirit of God aren’t like that, because the Holy Spirit isn’t like that. He magnifies Jesus, not Himself.
Jesus said the Holy Spirit would glorify HIM.
If we are full of the Holy Spirit and walking in the Spirit, then there won’t be room for wind-baggery. And there won’t be room for arrogance and pride.
Earlier in this letter, Paul talked about how God has chosen the foolish things of this world to shame those who think themselves wise and the weak things of the world to shame those who think they are strong.
His point there is that none of us who follow Jesus have anything to boast about. We are saved entirely by God’s grace, through faith in Jesus, and therefore have no reason to be proud of ourselves.
Our salvation is God’s work through Jesus. And our sanctification is God’s work through the Holy Spirit. And so, there is no place for arrogance in love. Love is not arrogant.
Furthermore, love doesn’t act unbecomingly. In other words, love doesn’t “deal with other people in a way that injures their dignity.” [Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), 1 Co 13:4.]
It’s not rude or indecent or obscene. Love recognizes that every other person is made in the image of God and loved by Him.
Love doesn’t seek its own. In other words, love isn’t self-interested. Love puts the interests and needs of others ahead of oneself. In other words, love doesn’t insist on its own way, and it’s not selfish.
Love isn’t provoked. “It’s not irritable or touchy, but it absorbs offenses, insults, and inconveniences for the sake of the welfare of others.” [Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), 1 Co 13:4.] Your husband might still get on your nerves, but he won’t be able to provoke you to an irritable response.
Furthermore, love doesn’t keep a record of wrongs. Paul uses a Greek accounting term here. And the idea is that Christians demonstrating the love of God within us aren’t keeping a ledger of everything done to hurt us.
We don’t nurture and feed animosity against one another by holding onto the hurt we have experienced at the hands of others. As those who have been forgiven, we forgive those who have trespassed against us.
Love doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness. Christians shouldn’t delight in evil of any kind, whether it’s evil done by ourselves others or evil done TO others.
If you’ve been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, then you will not get what you deserve for your sins. So, if we are walking in the Spirit by the love of Christ, then we should never be people who take delight in seeing others “get what they deserved” here on earth.
Now, Paul shifts to describing some of the things love DOES. And the first is the other side of the coin from what he said in the beginning of verse 6.
Whereas love doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, it DOES rejoice in truth. Love rejoices in the truth of God’s righteousness and in the truth of the gospel.
It is never indifferent to moral considerations, and “it cannot rejoice when the truth is denied.” [Leon Morris, 1 Corinthians: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 7, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 178.]
We serve the Savior who described Himself as the way, the TRUTH, and the life, and as we rejoice in Him, we rejoice in truth and righteousness.
Love bears all things. This word can also mean “covers.” The idea, as one commentator puts it is that “Love ever is ready to make excuses for others; it throws a kindly mantle over all their faults.” [Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), 1 Co 13:7, quoting Erdman]
Love believes all things. This doesn’t mean that Christians have to be gullible. What it means is that we’re eager to give people the benefit of the doubt. We’re not to automatically suspect the worst of people. Rather, our default position should be to believe the best about them.
Love hopes all things. Instead of expecting that a person who has failed us will continue to fail us, we’re to be hopeful that they’ll do better this time. We’re to recognize that failure isn’t final and that God’s grace is a powerful force in our lives and the lives of others.
Love endures all things. It’s not overwhelmed by the difficulty of loving others. Love pushes on with fortitude, like a soldier advancing toward the enemy under fire.
And so, Paul has described the PRIMACY of love and the PROFILE of love to show us why love is so important to the Christian walk and to help us understand how this love is to look in everyday life.
Now, he closes this section by making a remarkable statement about the PERMANENCE of love. Look at verse 8.
8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part;
10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.
11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.
13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
I believe the gift of tongues already has disappeared within most of Western Christianity, if not across the earth. And what Paul says here is that there will come a time when the other gifts of the Spirit will also disappear.
These gifts have been given to followers of Jesus for building up the church. And so, there will be no need for them in heaven or in the eternal kingdom on earth.
We will have no need of teachers or prophets, for instance, because we will all know God intimately and completely, and we will hear His voice personally.
To paraphrase what Paul says in verses 9 through 12, our knowledge and understanding of God are incomplete in this world.
But when we are finally with Him and fully conformed to the image of Jesus, we will know them fully, and there will be no need for the gifts that currently build us up in our faith.
But the fruits of the Spirit will remain, and chief among them is love.
I don’t know if you’re looking forward to Valentine’s Day or dreading it. But I DO think this Hallmark holiday has actually cheapened our understanding of what true love is really all about.
True love — that which Jesus demonstrated at the cross — chooses to give itself sacrificially for the benefit of another, whether that person deserves it or not, whether they are lovable or not, whether they’re currently loving you in that way or not.
Like Jesus, true love is patient and kind. Like Jesus, true love isn’t jealous or boastful or arrogant. Like Jesus, true love isn’t rude and doesn’t insist on its own way. Like Jesus, true love isn’t irritable and doesn’t keep a spreadsheet of the wrongs one has suffered. Like Jesus, true love rejoices in truth, not in unrighteousness. Like Jesus, true love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
This week, whether you’re looking forward to Valentine’s Day or dreading it, let me encourage you to be like Jesus and truly love one another. It’s hard, but it’s beautiful when we do it right.