"A COMMANDMENT OLD AND NEW"

Sermon by Pastor John Hollis

Sundays, May 6, 2007

Text: John 13:31-35; 1 John 2:7-11

The life of the child of God is expressed in two definite ways: faith expressed through love in service to God and love expressed in service to his fellow Christians. Both faith expressed through love in service to God and love expressed in service to fellow Christian pose a challenge for all of us. We sometimes fail to see the challenge in the words of Jesus when he said, "Love one another, even as I have loved you."

A challenge similar to this is found in baptism of children. The parents vow to rear the child in the faith expressed by the parents at the time of their child's baptism. This is a challenge, for children grow up and make decisions sometimes that go contrary to their parents' faith. Likewise, the congregation vows to teach the child in the faith expressed at the time of the baptism of the child. Thus the congregation faces a like challenge as the parents.

Loving one another poses such a challenge. We may find it easy to love a fellow Christian as long as they live as we judge they should live. But if they should turn from the way we think they should follow, it may become a challenge for us to love them; especially to love them as Christ loved us. But more about this later in the lesson.

First John 2:1-6 speaks of keeping God's word in connection with forgiveness, which points to the fact that faith is always expressed in obedience. (See Hebrews 11:1-6; Romans 4:19-5:2; Ephesians 2:8). Grace is always the end of an active faith. Though Jesus spoke of keeping his commandment, keeping commandments alone will not insure a relationship with God.

Keeping God's word - his commandments - and loving our fellow Christians are inseparable concepts; we cannot do one without doing the other. When we think of Jesus calling his command for his disciples to love one another a "new commandment" and John calling it an "old commandment," we begin to think something must be wrong in the these two statements.

I believe there are three important lessons we can learn from hearing the "old commandment" and hearing the "new commandment."

First we must realize that brotherly love is an old commandment. Brotherly love is a principle that is as old as the human race. It is not a principle that began with Jesus Christ. This principle - or law - began when humanity began. It began with Cain and Abel. Listen to the words of John from his first letter: "By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: any one who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; not as Cain, who was of the evil one, and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother's were righteousness" (1 John 3:10-12).

Someone has said, "When God made man, he designed him for fatherhood; and since this involves sonship, it also involves brotherhood." Cain and Abel did not come to realize their relationship as being brotherhood. What was it that hindered this from happening? Cain's works were evil and his brother's righteous. What was the evil that entered into the destruction of their brotherhood? The lack of love. The commandment was from the beginning: the commandment to love one another. This commandment had no influence in Cain's life, so he killed his brother.

This principle has a very peculiar and definite meaning to the Christian. John's expression "from the beginning," some think, has reference to the beginning of the Christian experience. But since John ties it to the experience of Cain and Abel, I think he had that beginning in mind.

It is true that a child of God should love his brother from the beginning of his Christian experience. This is one of the first lessons that a child of God learns. Becoming a child of God, one also becomes a brother or sister to all of God's children. One is not a brother or sister to a part of God's family but to all of God's family.

Just as God's love transcends all denominational lines so the love of the child of God transcends all denominational lines. Since God's love is not partial, so the love of the child of God is not partial. We do not pick and choose which brothers and sisters we wish to love. Brotherly love goes all the way back to the beginning; it is an old commandment, yet, at the same time it is a new commandment.

Christ the Master announced to his disciples that it was a new commandment. This commandment to love one another as he loves us was never taught with more fervor than when Jesus announced it to his disciples. He had just demonstrated his love for them by washing their feet.

Jesus demonstrated its newness when he said "even as I have loved you." His whole life was a demonstration of love. And when the Word became flesh he became a

brother to all humankind. In his love for his brothers and sisters, he never selected a few to love and a few to ignore; he loved every one of us.

Earlier I mentioned the challenge we face in loving one another as Christ loves us. The challenge comes in the words: "even as I have loved you." Is it possible for us to follow him in this? Think what this means. Think of the most despicable person you have ever known. Could you love that person? God did. Christ did. "For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:6-8). We are challenged to love even as he has loved us. Can we do it?

Such love as this had never been known, and this is why Jesus calls it a new commandment. It is unlike any other commandment given by God to his people.

Consider again that God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son to die for the world. That is the way he loved us. I have only one son. Suppose that I receive a call from a doctor that says that a rare blood disease is threatening to destroy all of humankind. They have searched for a rare blood type from which a serum could be obtained that would stop this epidemic. The doctor informs me that my son has that blood type. He asks me: Will you give your son to save humankind? There is the challenge.

God looked at his creation and saw that they were steeped in sin, and he gave his only son because of his love for us. We do not have to make the supreme sacrifice that he made, but we do have to love others as he loved us.

The sad thing about this is that we haven't fully learned this lesson. The church struggles with this problem - this challenge. Ben Patterson was pastor of a Presbyterian Church in California when he wrote an article for Leadership magazine. He told what Billy Martin, who was at that time the manager of the Oakland A's ball team. In an article in Sports Illustrated Mr. Martin had said about being a manager: "You'll have fifteen guys who will run through a wall for you, five who hate you, and five who are undecided. The trick is keeping the five who hate you away from the five who are undecided."

Pastor Patterson said that there had been times in the "past four years, four months and twenty-two days - precisely the period of time" he had been a pastor, there had been times when he felt he was a graduate of the "Billy Martin school of Church Management." Of course there is something wrong with this picture. Such attitudes should not be found in the church. But Pastor Patterson had found so much conflict within the family of God that he had become frustrated and discouraged.

This new commandment belongs to a new era - the era of light. Jesus came into the world as a light. The darkness was on the wane and the light of a better day had dawned.

Brotherly love and righteousness are in complete accord. From the words of our text in First John: "The one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes."

Two elements are here presented - light and darkness. In nature, no two elements are more unlike each other. They are in perpetual conflict. They cannot exist together in the natural realm. The same is true in the spiritual realm: love and hate cannot exist together.

Consider: Light is purity - darkness is impurity. Paul said, "the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality," and so forth. (Galatians 5:19). John said that the darkness will blind our eyes. We usually think of light as blinding our eyes, but in this case it is darkness that blinds us. How many people have you known that have had their eyes blinded by the sensual ways of the world?

Consider also that light is truth - darkness is error, falsehood, deception. Listen again to John: "No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: any one who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another" (1 John 3:9-11). The one in error is the one who is deceived by falsehood. And because of this he does not love his brother.

Light is love - darkness is hatred, cruelty, unkindness. Sometimes people who call themselves Christians can be very unkind to one another. John reminds us that "We know we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (1 John 3:14-16).

Light is security - darkness is insecurity. "God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline" (2 Timothy 1:7). The word timidity is sometimes rendered fear. But there is no fear in loving one another.

Light is peace - darkness is discord, fear, turmoil. If someone is always spewing forth hatred for fellow Christians and sowing discord among them, this person is full of discord, fear and turmoil, and there is no love in him.

Light is hope - darkness is despair. The Gentiles, before Christ came, were "separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:12). They knew only despair until the love of God was shed abroad among them.

Light is joy - darkness is gloom. Because of the "tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high shall visit us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace" (Luke 1:78-79). The world that knew only the gloom of darkness and sin came into the sunshine of the love of God that taught them to love one another.

When we love one another as Christ and God love us, we will know purity, truth, security, peace, hope and joy within our lives. When a brother or sister falls down, we will lift them up with our love. And as we love one another as Christ and God love us, then the world will know we are Christians by our love.

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