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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/stuart-thompson/love-one-another/
First John, please, in Chapter 3. I just want to read one verse here to set as a starting point for what I want to consider with you this afternoon. I've hesitated whether I should mention this or not, but I must have thought I was going to see Murray this weekend.
I changed my shirt before I left yesterday. I would have to confess I'm not a good consistent track distributor, but probably more than ever it's when I'm traveling that I think about it, and I had picked out a particular track I wanted to carry with me yesterday.
Oh, it won't fit in this shirt. I'm going to wear this shirt. No, I better change. Murray said it's a risky business. I think the new Lenox Saints have just worked over the toll booth guys in Chicago so much they're not interested anymore.
The toll booth man looked at it as I was handing it to him with the exclusive payment. I don't want any of that exclusive stuff. It is a risky business. Why don't you go start another war? You guys are really good at doing that.
That's the world we live in. That is the world we live in. We've been hearing something about already from our brother William particularly this morning, and what I'm going to look at is about, it runs along some of the same vein we've been hearing already, our relationship one with the other, particularly the attitude of being ready to serve one another, and particularly then we will look at it.
We'll see it in John's Gospel how the Lord wants us to be preserved from this world. But in 1st John chapter 3 verse 23, it says this, and this is the his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another as he gave us commandment.
I guess it's because it's part of my background, but I pick up things that have to do with that famous four from the 60s at times in the news, the Beatles, Fab Four they called them. George Harrison particularly was the one that was my favorite in my days gone by, but George Harrison is commonly quoted as having said his last words on his deathbed, love one another.
You know that was sort of the theme of the days of the 60s, late 60s and early 70s when the beautiful people and whatever other name you might tag them with, there was all this business about love one another, but what we have read here, if you refer to George Harrison particularly, he didn't get the whole story.
You see, John says, this is his commandment, singular, that we should believe on the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another. There are two segments then, John is particularly identifying, that are inseparable in the the life of those, as this epistle is devoted to, who are genuinely saved by the grace of God.
The first element then is the means of salvation, believing in the name of his son Jesus Christ. But John is insisting here, that part two can not be exempted. If it's not there, really what John was saying in his epistle, and you can look at it at large if you wanted to, but if he's saying if part two's not here, you're not real and so I want to look at this idea of loving one another.
Sad thing is that George Harrison died searching for the first part. One point in his life he had said, all other things can wait, but the search for God cannot wait. We know he looked in the wrong channels for it, but he thought you could just love one another.
It's Christ first, as we've been hearing already, and out of the recognition of who he is and what he has done for us and the resulting love for him, this second component, if you would use the term, is natural to Christianity.
If it's not there, there's something desperately wrong. So let's go back to John's Gospel, the commandment that John says he is quoting. We look in John chapter 13. It is only very recently that I have been looking at this and noticed a few things, learned a few things that really hadn't paid attention to before.
John, of course, speaks about this commandment. Peter refers to it, but I was surprised to see that the Apostle Paul, 6, and if you would allow his potential authorship of Hebrews, a seventh occasion, either quotes it specifically or alludes to it very distinctly.
So seven times that Paul takes up this tremendous commandment that is part of the reality of God's salvation. So in John chapter 13 verse 1 we read, Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.
And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot Simon's son to betray him, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he was come from God and went to God, he rises from supper, laid aside his garments, took a towel, and girded himself.
After that, he pours water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet. Verse 12, So after he had washed their feet and had taken his garments and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you?
You call me Master and Lord, and you say, Well, for so I am. If I then your Lordhead and Master had washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord, neither he that is sent greater than he that sent them. If you know these things, happy are ye if you do them. Now down, please, verse 34.
A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. While we're reading, just go over to chapter 15, please.
Chapter 15, verse 11,. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends, and he continues down at verse 17.
These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own. But because you're not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
Remember the word that I said unto you, that servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. Now, comments on what we have just looked at and read together in John.
And then I want, as I've already mentioned, to look at one of the occasions that Paul takes up the sense of this. It won't be a distinct quote, but it'd be, I think, a very clear allusion to it. This commandment to love one another.
I think it was last night, Brother Murray, I think it was, in prayer referred to the occasion in the upper room when the Lord Jesus instituted his supper, the Lord's Supper. And how tragic it was, or is to see, as Luke records in chapter 22, there was strife among the disciples at that occasion.
Well, what we have looked at in John 13, really, is from the same setting. At what point Luke's comment about the strife among the disciples, who was going to be the greatest among them, refers to on the evening as it progressed.
I couldn't be sure, but this much we know that the evening began with that attitude. Because as chapter 13, as John records it, they have evidently then have arrived at the upper room setting and nobody's washing feet.
I would gather from what we understand of the custom that we read and what we see in the scriptures, if it had been in somebody's particular home, and they had invited them in, there would have been a servant there that would have taken care of this duty.
But it was an upper room. It was a room that was just available for them to meet, to observe the Passover. It wasn't somebody's home, and they're saying, you come into our home. And so they came in together.
There's no servant. Nobody's washing feet. Why? Because of what Luke identifies. There was a strife among them. Who's going to be the greatest among us? And so as it got to that point, and we're not going to elaborate on everything we have read in chapter 13, just that we have seen the setting.
The Lord Jesus then took the towel, took the basin, took the water, and washed the disciples' feet. He said he was setting them an example. We know that it was not an example then to carry out physical foot washing because of the very fact he would ask the question, know ye what I have done to you?
So he wouldn't ask the question if it was just about taking water and physically washing feet. He was doing something that was to be typical of their behavior, of their interaction, the striving disciples, the ones seeking for place, one in relation to the other.
What should be typical of them, ongoing, was this attitude of serving each other. So it is from that very setting that we get these words. This is my commandment, a new commandment I give you, as he says in verse 34, that you love one another.
In what manner? As I have loved you. How did he love them? Well, there is a sense, if you could put it this way, he loved them when they were unlovable. They weren't doing something that would draw out the affection of one another to themselves, among themselves.
They were doing the exact opposite. They hadn't even taken the bowl and washed his feet. And he has identified himself among them as Lord and Master. And yet, no bowl, no water, no towel, it's bad enough they weren't washing, they didn't want to wash him, let alone each other.
He loved them with this manner of stooping and serving. It is in Luke 22 as well that the Lord Jesus said in this setting, I am among you as one that serves. That was the mark of the Lord Jesus. Now, I don't know if you're like me, this commandment, love one another, three words, seems so common.
And, you'll excuse me if you don't think like me, it's been too easy, too often of my Christian life just to, you know, it's nice, isn't it? It's sweet. It's kind of, that's good. Love one another, you know, and kind of fluffy.
Let's get down to some real meat and potatoes Christian stuff. You know, I'm confessing to you, it's too easy just to take this as something, well, why do you have to talk that way? The Lord Jesus, as we said then, knew that he did have to talk that way because of the way his disciples behaved.
And not just as they were out on their own, but in his very presence, this is how they had behaved. Striving one with the other and not even being willing to serve him as we've been hearing in one of these most menial things.
In fact, it would have been, as we know, a slave's job. Remember what John the Baptist said when he realized that the Lord Jesus had now moved in amongst people in a public way and he was confessing Christ to them, he was acknowledging his arrival.
He says, I'm not even, he didn't even say I'm not worthy to wash his feet. He said, I'm not even worthy to undo his sandals. Do as it were, prepare him for the washing of his feet. That was the mindset and the hard attitude of John.
So the commandment to us, as to the disciples, is to love like he loved. Serve. Serve one another. Well, I want to go now to Galatians, please, chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5. Though many of us appreciate what the overall purpose and theme, if you would, of Galatians is, just for our refreshing, it was an epistle that Paul saw as being necessarily written.
The Spirit of God moved him to write, to ward off the influence of the introducing law-keeping into the subject of salvation by faith in Christ. Paul saw that it would totally undermine the truth of the gospel and its effectiveness, so this epistle was written to establish Christians in liberty, that is, freedom from the obligation of the law, because they were saved by grace through faith in Christ, as Ephesians would teach, and so the epistle was written.
So chapter 5 begins, Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. So don't get bound up and drawn into all the activities of the law, of Old Testament requirement.
Great to know. We're free. We have liberty. As I was thinking about this, my mind went to the wars in Iraq. You remember, boy, the years go by fast. The first battle relative to Iraq in these modern days, the United States had intervened on behalf of Kuwait that Iraq had invaded and overrun.
So it was to liberate Iraq. That having been accomplished, the second battle, Gulf War, Iraq then was in a totally different situation. They had been made free. Now the U .S. moved in onto Iraqi soil and used it for a base to launch round two, if you would, into Iraq.
Now that was all good and right and just, as we would see it. But what we're going to see now as we come down in Galatians chapter 5 and verse 13, that that concept, though, becomes the potential for evil.
For therein ye have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh. That word occasion from New Testament era was used in various ways perhaps, but what we're thinking of just now was like a liberty, rather a Kuwait that had been brought into liberty and now it's being used as a base of operations to carry out another attack.
Now that's where the analogy stops. Because right here, what Paul is saying is, your freedom in Christ could potentially become a base of operation. Your liberty could become something used for ill and not for good.
And so how does he go on then with this subject? He says to them, use not liberty for a base of operations to the flesh, but rather by love serve one another. That last phrase then is what I am suggesting is Paul alluding to at least in some way what the Lord Jesus had taught.
The term serve one another here is that word then to enslave yourself to the needs of others. It is interesting that the words one another are a derivative of the single word other in our New Testament and it is that word other that means one of another kind, of the same kind rather.
So you and I as one another are of the same, our brother Lavery is going to remind us, this is family. We are one and of the same. But he says if you let your flesh become the base of operation, it will not fulfill this commandment.
There will not be the serving, the embonding of yourself as it were. And you don't want to be in bondage to law keeping, he says I want you to be in bondage to serving one another. Give yourself to this that was exemplified by the Lord Jesus when he would stoop at disciples feet who weren't worthy of it for a bit.
He was the one that was worthy of having feet washed, but you know how we have seen it. He says don't let your flesh. So the flesh is most of us, but we should just review for a moment, is that aspect of human nature that is still within us ruined by sin.
If you want to put another term on it that helps you understand it, it's self, it's me. Put it in two letters, M-E. The flesh is me to the exclusion of one another, the others. And the potential then is that this liberty that has been won for us by another becomes a base of operation that will war against the purposes of God.
What we have introduced to us here, if you would, is Christian cannibalism. And I've put in brackets unseemly cannibalism, but then as I did that afterwards I thought, well cannibalism is never seemingly no matter what context it's found in.
Rather, it's a pathetic thing. But in the context in which we're using this, how unseemly is it that you and I, as those who have been brought into liberty by a battle fought by another, should use that to consume another Christian?
That's most unseemly. But that's what the Lord Jesus saw in the upper room that night. He saw the behavior of his disciples. We've been hearing about the sigh of the Lord's heart. I wondered if there was the groaning of the Lord's heart.
Oh man, look at them now. Do not use your liberty for an occasion of the flesh, but love one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Amazing, eh?
We're not going to go into it in any length, but I have been surprised at how the New Testament takes up this commandment, love thy neighbor as thyself. The majority of the time, whether you go right back to its introduction in Leviticus and you go through the scriptures, neighbor is people of God.
And it's becoming sort of like a theme, a motto for Christians, professing Christians in some place, to do certain things today. And I'm not going to demean them for that, but it's primarily not talking about that.
Neighbor is the one near to us. And who are the nearest ones to us? It's not the person that lives next door in the suburb or out in the boonies where I live or whatever kind of situation. It is the people of God.
And that's the context that is very evident here. Love one another. Why? Because you're fulfilling the law, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But, if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
It is very unseemly, isn't it? It just seems so unbecoming that the Spirit of God has to speak to you and I this way. But this is very real. I am not trying to introduce anything to the setting that Walker Shaw has been passing through here in recent months.
But I think I can safely say that when there is a great trial in the midst, there's a tremendous bonding of the saints at the same time. But what I want us all to realize is this, that when times get good and liberty seems to be just so sweet and flowing, there is a tremendous potential to become occupied with me.
So, you bite and devour one another. This is this Christian cannibalism. Take heed that ye be not consumed. It's as if Paul recognized bite and devour. They're in the present tense. This is something that's ongoing.
Well, you be careful because in the end, someone will be consumed in the point. How does a Christian become consumed of others? Well, you're going to see a list of things here. But I want to just suggest this practically speaking, that when there are occasions that there is striving amongst the saints, and particularly, say, between two individuals in the local assembly, biting and devouring, sort of an ongoing thing, how often have we seen that one of those individuals begins to just sort of erode?
And you don't see them quite as often. Attendance starts to diminish. And then in due course, they don't want to have anything to do with being there. Consumed. Consumed by the circumstance that is so, it just shouldn't be part of our experience.
I better move on. We're going to read through the following verses. And I will make very few comments. If you're anything like me, again, you've read this list different times. You've gotten into it. And by the time you're about maybe, oh, 25 of the way through, you're almost reading it by script and going right through it.
Because it doesn't have anything to do with me. And then you sort of wake up as you get to the end of the list. And you go, oh, yeah, yeah, no problem. And there was this business that's sandwiched in the middle of this list of warfare activity that really is too easily part of me.
Let's go through it. Verse 16, this I say, then walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would.
So the warfare is engaged. God's Holy Spirit seeking to make a holy person. The flesh in its awful tendencies of self-seeking is striving against it. But if you be led of the spirit, you're not under the law.
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness. That would probably likely be related to sexual issues. Lasciviousness, totally unrestrained living. And you're going, yeah, sure, no problem.
Idolatry, oh, witchcraft, yeah. Hatred, variance, which is strife. Emulations, jealousy. Wrath, anger, uncontrolled. Strife, rivalries. Seditions, divisions. Heresies, extensive personal preference. Endings, murderous drunkenness and revelings.
Boy, I got through the list. Beginning, end. We can read it easy, can't we? But it's that bit in the middle. Love one another. Because if you don't, me becomes a source of warfare. Of strife. And all the things that are sandwiched in the middle.
Sadly, at times, saints are guilty of beginning and end in some way. But you know what it goes on to say. The people that do these things are not going to be in the kingdom of God. It is so inconsistent with those that are in this family.
Whom Christ has delivered into liberty. It's just not right. You know, I can't sit down on that note. Let's read the rest of it. But the fruit of the Spirit is. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering. Putting up a lot.
Gentleness, goodness, doing what is beneficial to others. Faithfulness, meekness, temperance, that self-control. Against such there is no law. Don't you just love it when there's a saint like that in your number.
In your number. Dear saints, the Lord Jesus said love one another. Paul alluded to it. He says it stands in absolute stark contrast to self-seeking. We will only be preserved. Personally, collectively.
When we take up this common commandment. That if you're like me, you just so lightly esteem. Love one another. How? As I loved. How did he love? He served in humility.