Scripture: John 13:2-5; John 14:21-24; John 21:15-17;
Romans 8:36-39; Ephesians 5:25-28
Today, we arrive at the sixth lesson that John
Wesley offered to all who would call themselves “Methodist” – that of loving in
the way that Jesus lived and taught. In
his tract, "The Character of a Methodist", paragraph #9, Wesley wrote “For
he loves his enemies, yea, and the enemies of God, the evil and the unthankful.
And if it be not in his power to do good to them that hate him, yet he ceases
not to pray for them, though they continue to spurn his love, and still
despitefully use him and persecute him.” In other words, even if
others won’t accept your love, love them in your heart just the same.
Think of the love
that Jesus showed to others, even though they ridiculed Him, betrayed Him,
denied Him, persecuted Him, and even crucified Him. The love of God was ingrained in every fiber
of His being, and evident in every blessing, every healing, every challenge,
every prayer, every encouraging word and every word of truth that He spoke
while walking among us.
In John13:33-35,
Jesus gives us this commandment – “Love one another. As I have loved you, so
you must love one another.” And how did Jesus
love? In just a few words -
sacrificially, perfectly, and offering it to everyone! So let’s consider some of the ways that Jesus
loved others in His Godly way, and what that means for each of us.
Read John 13:2-5
The verses that I chose are
but a part of a much greater lesson that Jesus’ final Passover meal presents,
with the primary thought being that Jesus knows that His ministry here on earth
is coming to a close, and the time that He will be returning to the Father’s
side is about to arrive. The evening
that John is describing here shows that Jesus’ was not about to leave this
place until He made one more effort to reemphasize all that His last three
years was to mean for this world. And He
would be offering these final lessons in a way that would also emphasize the
love that He had for the people of this earth.
That eternal struggle between
good and evil would be demonstrated in so many ways in the next few hours that
we would be remiss if we only considered the love of God that is work in the
lives of those who had grown so close to Jesus.
Judas had been with the LORD for a long time, but he was about to surrender
Christ’s love in favor of Satan’s lies.
Peter was about to object to the divine lesson that his Jesus would be
offering to him – that is the washing of his feet – but would grudgingly accept
it, without fully understanding the significance of this gift. And the entire band of followers would be
challenged by the hatred of the world, and would fear the wrath of the oppressors,
until, that is, the resurrected Jesus began appearing to His flock to
give them His reassurance – and according to 1 Corinthians 15:3-6, it
was to as many as 500 of the faithful.
Jesus loved them all in such
a complete and perfect way that this act of washing the feet of those closest
to Him proved the servanthood that had guided him throughout those years of
ministry. He wanted each and every one
of them to understand that to follow Him in love meant that they were to first be
servants to all, and to accept the love that others offered to
them. He wanted them to know that it was
the love of God that had inspired and guided Him for the entire 33 years of His
life among us, and that it would be that same love that would continue to
inspire, teach, guide, and enable them, and us, to be His, now and forever. (John3:16-17)
Read John 14:21-24
So what does loving like
Jesus do for us? For many, they still
believe that a love like the world’s is more than sufficient, but the truth is
that it falls so far short of God’s love that it is, in Christian service,
totally inadequate. This passage gives
us some insight into the need for Godly love in our lives, if we have any
intention whatsoever to live as a Christian, and equally, as a John Wesley
methodist.
Godly love, both that which
is shown to us by the LORD, as well as that which we return to Him and others,
is the key to experiencing the fullness of the Triune God in our lives. Jesus is asked the question – why will you
show yourself to us, but not to the world?
The problem is that we are the ones who block Jesus from coming
into our lives when we refuse to love God in the way of Jesus! It isn’t God’s desire that anyone should be
excluded from His loving grace, but unless our choice is to accept Jesus and
His ways, God’s love will be meaningless and completely foreign to our lives.
And the evidence that our
love is totally off the mark? “He who does not love Me will not obey My
teaching!” Loving God is shown
through our affection and obedience to the ways that Jesus taught – not
to our own version of what God wants, but through the Godly love that
has been shown and offered to all of humanity.
Read John 21:15-17
This is one of the many
appearances that the resurrected Jesus made for those who loved Him and
followed His word. Jesus had prepared
breakfast for the fishermen, because they had been unable to catch any fish
during the entire night of casting nets on the Galilean Lake. Remembering that Jesus had predicted that
Peter would deny Him three times (John 13:38), sets the stage for
Peter’s denial of his LORD after Jesus’ arrest in the garden (John 18:15-27).
Now, Peter is being asked if
his love for Jesus is true, or if it was just a flash in the pan! Peter is understandably irritated by the
questioning, but it was Jesus’ way of driving home the point that love of Him
and His word can never be a part time commitment – that it must be constant and
consistent with Christ’s teaching! In John10:14-27, Jesus speaks about the sheep of His pasture, and that they come
from many places, more than Peter and the others could ever imagine, or would
ever agree with. And they are defined by
one thing – verse 27 – “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they
follow Me.”
If we are to be included as
members of Jesus’ “flock” – His true Church – we must listen to His voice,
which includes obeying all that He taught, and all that He has shown us, throughout
scripture.
Read Romans 8:36-39
Human love is one of those
things that seem to come and go in our lives.
Social media has come up with a set of terms for this – first, there is
“bff”, which, we are told, means “Best Friend Forever”. That is what Jesus would have our love be –
forever! And yet, the world has also given
us a second term as a means to terminate those friendships” - that being to “unfriend” any person we
so desire! So much for the world’s
vision of what “forever” actually means!
Jesus’ love for us will truly
be forever, and will help us to love Him in that same way! In this very familiar passage, Paul is saying
that the things of earth will never be able to put a damper on God’s love for
us, even in those times when we are tempted to “unfriend” our LORD and
His word. And He will be our merciful
pardon and restoration in those times of our denial and forgetfulness. So Paul’s words are the important reminder
for us, that “in all these things we are more than conquers through Him
who loved us” (v. 37).
Read Ephesians 5:25-28
Paul writes these words to the Church in Ephesus as
an example of how to love each other in the way that Christ has loved His
Church. But this is only a portion of
the lesson – I have omitted the part that gives guidance to the wife (which
actually is a metaphor for the Church).
The complete passage tells us that the “wife”, or the Church, should
respect and submit to the “Husband”, or rather to Christ Himself.
So the question that I would pose to each of us, is
this – As the “bride” of Christ, as the Church who bears His name, do we not
only respect the word He has given us, but do we submit to that word and
ways of our LORD?” Or does
anyone believe that affection for Jesus is quite enough, that submission to His
commands doesn’t have any place in our vocabulary!
Remember the Great Commission – “18 Then
Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven
and on earth has been given to me. (1) 19 Therefore
go and make disciples of all nations, (2) baptizing them in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (3) 20 and
teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am
with you always, to the very end of the age.”
And John Wesley’s thought once again – “And if it be not in [your] power to do good to them that
hate [you], yet [you must] cease not to pray for them, though
they continue to spurn [your] love, and still despitefully use [you]
and persecute [you].” Love
others, in spite of all that they may do.
These must be the
marks of both a Christian AND a methodist – loving others as we have
been loved by Jesus Christ, and that obeying the commands of Jesus is the
outward sign that we love Him in return.
May it be so for
each and every one of us!
