What words do you share before you go? What words would you share to prepare your team for your departure? What words does Ajax boss Farioli share before his team go out today?
Introduction
Judas leaves. Now begins a time of equipping for the disciples. Jesus wants to prepare them for his departure. He soon says: A new command I give you. Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all people will know you are my disciples if you love one another.
What is the attitude of this community to be – to bring glory to Jesus and to love one another.
Loving one another Jesus talks about and yet he has just served them.
Loving one another through service…
Galatians – love and service
This is exactly where Paul goes in Galatians 5.
In that chapter – we looked a little at it on our weekend – disciples of Christ are free people. That is what faith in Christ brings – freedom from the need to do religious actions in order to be right with God – we do instead these religious actions because they are right to do or because they are response to God’s grace but we do not do them to keep right with God. The only way we become right with God is through faith in Christ – who loved us and who gave his lives for us…
Freedom. But how do we live a free life. He says ‘’you, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature / flesh, rather serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: love your neighbour as yourself. If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.’’ Galatians 5:13-15.
The Christian community is becoming divided and there are significant problems – ‘’biting and devouring each other, conceited, provoking envying each other’’ – they are not loving each other generally and certainly not loving as Christ has loved them.
Paul calls on them – love your neighbour, serve one another in love. As Jesus said – love one another as I have loved you. Jesus says – you may not like everyone, but you are to love everyone…
Now. We can stop it there – and Paul is giving them a message of trying harder, and hoping it works out okay.
But listen to Paul – he says the resources of heaven are there to help you do this – in fact the resources of heaven are in you…
V16 of Galatians :
But I say walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh …
Paul says – how will you serve one another in love, how will you love your neighbour, how will you love as Jesus loved you – by walking by the Spirit.
And you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. The flesh – sinful nature within us – the flesh is also a description of life without Christ and before Christ. Maybe often the example the world around us – which does not recognise Christ – sets us.
The flesh here – biting, devouring, conceited, provoking, envy – how to not give into it, how to not indulge it, how to live differently – walk by the Spirit.
BUT I say walk by the Spirit – this is the divine antidote to a life of flesh / the sinful nature…
Looking closer.
BUT I say walk by the Spirit. So v13-14 -love…
v15 – keep hurting each other you will destroy each other
v16 BUT I saw walk and you will not live like that. Paul says that is the antidote.
So this is the command – love.
Yet if you keep going as you are as a community you will destroy each other
But walk by the Spirit and you will not give into all that selfish complusions that are ruining your church.
BUT I say – is a command – imperative – it is not advice. This is how you are to go.
Walk. It is a common Paul word. And it is from his Jewish heritage. It is the way he describes living our life as a disciple.
For a Jew, an ethical life – is to walk in the ways of God.
But he has combined it – walk by the Spirit – he has put two basic key things together.
As disciples we are to walk in the ways of God.
But we do not do this in our own power – that is not God’s intention – our walking in the ways of God are empowered, as Christ’s disciples, by God’s empowering presence in the person of the Holy Spirit.
This is important. In Galatians – again as we looked at in the weekend – Paul has revealed that the Spirit is one who speaks, one who has helped and been active in our conversion to Christ, the Spirit who is in fact Christ dwelling among us, the Spirit who brings the intimacy of our identity as sons and daughters of God into our deepest places, our heart, and the Spirit is active in our worship, ministry and mission. All this. But it is not only about your UP, and your OUT, but your IN.
And now he says, in chapter 5, the Spirit also seeks to be help you, empower you and transform you in your day to day to life as a disciple and as you seek to be a member of this community.
To use the Liverpool Football Club anthem – Paul says ‘’ you’ll never walk alone as disciple’’ and you were never meant to…
How do we walk then?
The command to walk by the Spirit – is a command and not a passive. So we do not sit back and let it happen. It is a conscious effort. We want the Spirit to achieve his aims in our lives. We are to choose to conform our lives to the Spirit; to be led by the Spirit –we rise up, we follow the Spirit by walking in obedience to the Spirit’s desire.
And what does to be led by the Spirit. In this case Paul is not talking about direct guidance, it is the other side of the coin ‘walk by the Spirit’. We walk by the Spirit because we are following where the Spirit leads, and where does the Spirit lead, he leads in ways that reflect and copy Christ, ways that reflect those beautiful words in Galatians 2:20 – the life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’’
Paul’s belief is that through the Spirit, supernatural help is possible. For Paul, as a theologian puts it: ‘’Spirit people – meaning Christians – we march to a different drummer, and the Spirit empowers us to live in such a way our lives show that empowerment.’’
As we walk – Paul says – fruit grows in our lives and in our community – love joy peace etc…
Paul tells them – if the disciples use their freedom properly, by serving one another through love, they are empowered to do so by the Spirit, who produces such fruit among them. But they cannot be passive. They must walk, live, conform to the Spirit, who leads us in ways we reflect and copy Christ.
So the empowerment that the Spirit is intended and will bring to us, as we seek to live the pattern of Jesus – to love one another as Christ has loved us.
When I was in OM, in my first 8 months I shared a flat with a Hungarian engineer called Peter. We got on fine at first but over time I became more and more irritated and frustrated with him, and I can imagine him with me. It was fine but it wasn’t great as a flat. At the start of the autumn, Peter had sudden appendicitis. He was rushed to hospital. They operated and then he was home in the flat for some weeks recovering. As a missionary I was usually home in the day as I was in those months learning Hungarian. He needed a very hygienic flat I was told by a doctor I think. So the following weeks became times of service, daily washing the bathroom etc etc…
Now. I have no clue what happened but you know, as I chose to serve, as I sought to act in love, by the end of those weeks when he went back to work, my heart had been transformed. I had no irritations, no problems. I don’t know if Peter changed but God had changed me, and I think as I tried to walk by the Spirit, led by the Spirit and therefore imitate the pattern of Jesus, to wash feet, to do what he would do, fruit came, transformation… God’s Spirit was at work…
It was a choice from the will but also in my heart to love and serve…
2. Love.
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 you are my disciples, if you love one another.
It is not a new command as an idea – because Leviticus called on them to love one another. The new-news,is that they are to love each other, with the sort of love modeled by Jesus.
As I have loved you – the most immediate action – feet were washed – and so to love one another truly, means to pursue a life of servanthood and sacrifice towards each other.
He gives this command after the footwashing. Love means to act not in some sentimental way, but to act in profound ways. He calls on his disciples to show a level of love that is unparalleled in the world. His words today ‘’make us examine ourselves how we live as Christ’s followers and how we demonstrate the quality of love he extended.’’
Paul is very aware of what Christ has done. ‘’Christ lives in me. The life I live in the Body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.’’
Paul knew that he was washed, saved, born again, and that God – Christ – had given himself to him, therefore he could now freely and joyfully give himself in love and service to others…
He reminds the Philippian disciples.
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:1-11
Jesus had many reasons to do things out of self-interest but instead he emptied himself and humbled himself. The Philippians are told to choose between selfish ambition and regarding others highly, between self glory and humility, to in fact place others first.
The challenge Paul says is: in your relationships with others – in your love to each other – have the mindset of Christ – to serve, not to be served, like Jesus who became like a servant and became to death even death on the cross.
So knowing how Christ loved him, also because a motivation and a foundation for our service and love of others. As a theologian put it:
‘’Our service will be certainly motivated by the same power that touched the lives of Jesus’ disciples. Jesus’ love and service for us transform us and empower us. Without such knowledge we cannot serve and love another person as Jesus would have us.’’
Our core values – UP IN OUT – Upwards in worship and prayer; inwards – lifelong discipleship and deep community; OUTward locally and globally in service and evangelism… Here Jesus connects the OUT and IN. As a community – as we love each other – in fact not simply we love each other but we love each other as Jesus has loved us – then all people will know you are my disciples. How to do evangelism, Jesus says, part of it, a big part of it, is your community life – love each other as I have loved you… And nothing will astonished a broken fractured world, as a community where there is radical, faithful, genuine love shared among its members.
Conclusion
You see there are many places we can go to find communities of shared interest. There are many places where you can go, to find people just like yourself, who love football, music, gardening, politics.
But is it the mandate of the church to become a community of love, a circle of Christ’s followers who invest in one another and serve one another, because Christ has invested in them, served them, who demonstrate love not based on the mutuality and attractiveness of its members,
but on the model of Christ, who washed the feet of everyone, included judas and commanded us to love as he had loved.
To consider some questions for week ahead.
So how can my love for others reflect the servanthood shown in Philippians 2…
‘’Let’s examine ourselves how we live as Christ’s followers and how we demonstrate the quality of love he extended.’’
What does seeking to walk by the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit look like for you, in this community?