I'm changing the order a little bit. I'm going to preach before we observe the Lord's Supper together. Thank you, Petra. Turn your Bibles to John chapter 13. John 13, reading verses 31 to 35. We're thinking about a new commandment for a new year. Remember how John 13 starts. It starts with this interesting statement. Having loved His own who were in the world, He now prepared to show them the full extent of His love. Of course, that would ultimately point to the cross. But it opens up a passage in John which is unique to John. What we call the Upper Room Discourse. the remaining chapters where he taught for the last time before his crucifixion. If you found that in your Bibles, as I read that, if you don't have a Bible with you, we're gonna put the text on the screen for you so you can see it and hear it at the same time. When he had gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so I now ask you, where I am going you cannot come. And here's our text. A new commandment I give you, that you love one another just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. By this, all people will know if you have love for one another. What have we just read together? We have read the inerrant, infallible, all sufficient word of God. And I pray that for me, for my family, for your family, and for this church family, that in the things that we're doing, as Brother Norman mentioned, where it's a new year, we're starting afresh and anew, that this will be one of the real driving forces in our lives as followers of Jesus Christ, that we love one another as He has loved us. From time to time, I encounter somebody who has been taught poorly and led to conclude that when Jesus came, he did away with commandments and that the new standard is love. The reason that I had Brother David take us through the passage in 1 John 2 is because you hear some of that tension. A new commandment I give you. But it's not really a new commandment. It's an old commandment. And I hope I can explain to you once again what he was talking about. Because it's the same author. Whether we're in John's Gospel or John's letters. And I think that there should be a healthy tension that the moral law of God, summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments, continues to abide as a judge upon the lost. If you're here today and you've not professed faith in Jesus Christ, repenting of your sin, trusting in Him, following Him, you're under the judgment of God. You're under the law. You're condemned by the law. If you live your life out and go into eternity in that condition, you will stand before the awesome judge of the universe one day who will say to you, you had more gods than me. You reduced me to your notion of idol. You took my name in vain. Every time you spoke my name and yet did not live according to my standards for my glory, you took my name in vain. You ignored my holy day, which I gave you for rest, renewal. You did not honor your father and your mother because I gave you your father and your mother to appoint you to me. You murdered yourself for not giving your life to me. You were unfaithful to me, though I was a faithful God to you. You stole. I gave you a life of so many years, and you stole that time. You lied. You coveted. You were discontent. He'll have those kind of things to say to the unconverted who stand before Him in judgment, trembling. The Scripture says in Revelation, it will be such an awesome day for the unconverted that they will cry out, please let the rocks and the hills fall upon us and crush us. Save us from the face of Him who sits on the throne. Save us from the wrath of the Lamb. It'll be an awesome day, followed by much weeping, gnashing of teeth, the scripture says. Live this life out, not giving our lives to Jesus Christ. And it's a new year. Some make New Year's resolutions, I think that's fine. Some will start again in their New Year reading through the Scripture. I think that's wonderful. But I read an article recently that said when the New Year comes, by the time the second Friday in January arrives, it's called Quitter's Friday. where people bring their memberships to gyms and are going daily to get back in shape. By the time the second Friday comes, they'll start fizzling. What I'm talking about today should never fizzle in the life of a follower of Jesus. And I'm speaking very personally and experientially today that if we're not careful in our closest connections, we can take one another for granted. We can take God to us for granted and not love one another as we ought to. The Pharisees were that way. Listen to how they challenged Him in Matthew 24. recorded in verses 34 to 40. It says, but when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. They were thrilled by that, by the way. The Pharisees always loved it when Jesus stuck it to the Sadducees. The Sadducees were the theological liberals of Jesus' day. They snickered at the notion of resurrection. The text says, one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. And another thing you need to remember, when these guys in the scripture, very seldom are they inquiring because they want to nourish their souls. It was almost always a test, a trap. He said this to him in verse 36, Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And he said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commands depend all the law and the prophets. He was trying to trick Jesus. Here was the trap. Teacher, the 10 words. Which one of the 10 words is the greatest? Well, you lose that. That's like asking me, do you still beat your wife? If I say no, I've just admitted to being a former wife beater. It's a question you can't win if you answer. But Jesus was wiser than them. which is the great commandment. Jesus, if you had to pick one, which would you say is the most near and dear to your heart, the most important for us to abide by? Jesus saw through their snares. And what he did was, and I've told you this before, he summarized the two tables of the law. In the first table of the law, You should have no other gods before me. You should not make unto yourself any graven image or any likeness of anything in heaven above, in the earth beneath, in the water under the earth. You should not bow down to them nor serve them. You should not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. You should honor and remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Honor your father and your mother. Don't kill. Don't commit adultery. Don't steal. Don't lie. Don't covet. Jesus said, OK, the first table of the gospel is love the Lord your God with all your being. That's what those first four speak to. But without, he said, I'm going to give you a bonus. The second is like it. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. And he said, the whole law and the prophets, the whole Tanakh, the whole Old Testament, hang two realities. The Pharisees were convinced that they were faithful to both tables of the law. In fact, a young Pharisee, a rich, young ruler he would encounter, said, all these things add up. What good thing do I need to do to get into heaven, to have eternal life? Jesus said, you know the law. Keep it. The young Pharisees said, I have. What else? How deceived he was. They were deceived. They believed in their heart that they loved God with all of their being, but they also desired to kill the Son of God. And so it's with that kind of a background and a backdrop that James and his disciples, who by the way, if you know the narratives of the New Testament, they were fussing and fighting all the time. Who's going to be the greatest? Who's going to be closest to Him? Go get Mama to talk to Him. So Mama shows up. James and John. I have a request for you. You've had people do this to you before? I want to ask you something, but I want you to agree to it. Years ago, the director of the Louisiana Babs Convention, who is a friend of mine, was getting ready to speak at one of our conventions. I was editor of the conservative newsletter at the time. And I'd written a pretty scathing editorial about our problems. And he was on his way to the platform and he said, I want you to promise me you're not going to be offended by what I say. I said, Dean, I love you, but I don't know what you're going to say. So I can't make that promise. And he got up and he called my name. Don't let people do that to you. This woman comes as a mom. Will you let my son sit on your right and your left when you enter your kingdom? I give her credit. She recognized enough in him that he was gonna have a kingdom. He said, you know what you're asking for. And think about what was on his mind. When he manifested himself as king, where was he? On the cross, flanked by two thieves, slated for public execution. And he uses this occasion to address how he has come to internalize the law. I know Brother Norman's been working on the Sermon on the Mount. And I'm sure you'll be hearing from that in the future. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes the law and presses it. You've heard it said, do not murder. But I'll tell you, if you're hateful towards somebody in your heart, you've murdered them. He internalized the law. which is prerogative to do. And so he tells them in the text that we read together from John 13, I want to give you a new meaning to an old commandment. I want to give you a new measure for how you know whether or not you're obeying it. And I want to give you a new message to the world. That's our text today in verses 34 and 35. First of all, a new meeting. Love. He says in John 13, the first part of verse 34, a new commandment I give you, that you love one another. What's new about that? that love the Lord your God with all of your being. And the Pharisees thought they did that even though they had a hateful attitude toward anybody that wasn't a Jew. They despised the Gentiles. One of the ugliest things you can do is a Christian who is a racist. The Scripture teaches us that God doesn't look on face. When the Bible talks about how He does not show partiality, that's the literal translation of that passage. He does not look upon a person's face. He's colorblind. The Pharisees were racists. And even within their own people, they despised the lowly. the leper, the poor, as under God's judgment. I can hear the Pharisee praying in the temple, I thank you, Father, that I'm not like this wretch over here. Thankful you made me the way you made me. The arrogance is out of such prayers. So Jesus comes and says, I want to give you a new commandment. It's the same commandment, that's what John's struggling with in 1 John. It's an old one, but it's really a new one. It's been around, you've known it from the beginning. It kind of goes back and forth. Why? Because he's struggling to help them understand that you can look at the law on tablets and imagine to yourself that you keep the letter of the law. That was a rich, young ruler's problem. But when you look at me, at Jesus, you'll see what love is. One of my pastoral teachers, Christ, was the law walking. You want to know what it means to obey God? To love God with all of your being? Look at Jesus' life. He would say in the course of His life, I can't say anything unless it's given to me by my Father to say. I think about that sometimes. And I think, you know Bill, if you follow those parameters, you stay out of trouble. At least, self-inflicted trouble. I don't say anything except what the Father gives me to say. I don't do anything, Jesus would say, except what the Father tells me to do. He was so completely, absolutely devoted to loving God with all of His being. And so He's going to assign a new meaning. He's not going to diminish the tablets of the law. What it's going to invite them to do is to put on the lenses of loving Jesus Christ, following Jesus Christ as the way to see the tablets of the law. So Jesus Christ. You love one another just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. Matthew 18 in a little while, where the disciples ask Him, so now, and this is the background to it, Lord, the Pharisees say that you're to forgive a person three times, and after that, forgiveness. By the time they ask Jesus this question in Matthew 18, they're keen that his standards are not the Pharisee's standards. So the question comes, how should I forgive my brother if he sins again? Two seven times? You've got to know the background. That's magnanimous. That's twice the Pharisee's standard plus one. It's also in numerology the complete number. The number 17. No. And the text in the Greek is a little bit tricky. Not seven times. It could read 70 times seven or 77 times. Whichever one it is, that's a whole lot more than seven. And it's a ton more than three. You love one another as I have loved you. They would think about that. How has He loved us? Well, I told you John 13 starts, "...who were in the world, He now prepared to show them the full extent of His love." And He would speak about it in their last gathering around what they thought would be Passover, the inauguration. of the Lord's Supper. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. I'm struck from time to time as I meet people who have an appreciation for sound doctrine, for orthodoxy, But as my friend Sam Tullock said one time, he said, Bill, I've met people who believe in the grace, but they don't believe in the grace of the doctrines. They're not gracious people. So he tells the message to the world. Here's where it really begins to rub, folks. Here. It's got to be more than me just making a living. It's got to be more than you supporting me in this ministry. We had a wonderful Sunday last Sunday. You as a congregation voted 100% for the budget that was presented. What a blessing of God. But it's got to be more than that. That's not the end. It's a means to an end. What is the end? To gather worshipers from all backgrounds. My friend David Sitton was with us more than a dozen years ago. He said, when it's all said and done, members of the choir going out to register more members of the choir. We're gathering worshipers. John Piper says it this way, and let the nations be glad. Missions exist because there are places on the earth where the worship of God exists. So Jesus teaches us this message for the world. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Our doctrine can be straight. Our zeal can be unmatched. But if it comes out of a context of fighting and fussing and bickering and backbiting The world is deaf to a gospel message out of that context. Here is how all types of men will know that you're my disciples, if you have love for one another. What kind of love, Jesus? Look at me, he would say. How have I loved you? It's a rebuke to us. Jesus is long-suffering with us. We're short-tempered. We're antagonistic to the Gospel we say we believe. Jesus bears patiently with us. When we're impatient with others, we contradict the Gospel we say. He is forgiving toward us. And when we're unforgiving, I'm going to show you from the Scriptures, when we're unforgiving, it's an indication from heaven that we've not been forgiven. In the Beatitudes of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Well, what does love look like? It looks like the love of Jesus. And John's truth is picked up by Paul when he writes to the church in Corinth. It was a church full of problems. In fact, some people would have probably said, I don't know that you can call Corinth a church. I don't speak that kind of thing from time to time. Probably somebody has said of us in our past, with all the turmoil going on there, I don't think you're even called Bethel a church. A church made up of sinners saved by grace. Hopefully, prayerfully, a church made up of repenting sinners and forgiving sinners. Because you see, folks, Once the reality of repentance and forgiveness lays hold of us, more than a theory, more than an idea, more than a construct in the Scriptures, once the reality of repenting when I've sinned and forgiving others when they've sinned against me, once that grips hold of us, the Gospel will thrive. Well, Paul helps us. In 1 Corinthians 13, he says, I want to show you a more excellent way. All the fussing and fighting and bickering going on at Corinth over the subject of spiritual gifts, there's a more excellent way. Verse 4, love is patient and kind. It's a portrait of Jesus Christ. I told you this when we preached through 1 Corinthians. When you read 1 Corinthians 13, you have to think at every line. That's how Jesus is. Jesus is patient with me. Jesus is kind. Jesus does not envy my devotion to Him. He longs for it because my devotion to Him is the best reality in my life that will guide my life and strengthen my life. But if I'm more devoted to something else, then I've made a God that supersedes Him. Love does not envy or boast. There's no place for boasting. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, it should be that we follow humbly, thankfully. It's not arrogant or rude. Brothers and sisters, that's tough. in a generation that is consumed with me, my, mine. If we're not careful, we'll say, what about me? And the Holy Spirit will say, before you get into that discussion about yourself, look at the cross. But I've been mistreated. beaten, bloodied, brutalized. The man of sorrows hung, despised and rejected by men, a man of grief, all too familiar with grief. From the cross, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. I have to remind myself from time to time, and I remind others as the occasion presents itself. You may be mistreated, but no one's ever stripped you naked, beaten you beyond recognition, and hung you publicly on a cross for all to see. So put it in context. It's not arrogant. It's not rude. It exists on its own way. That's why Jesus would say, you want to follow me? The first thing is deny yourself. You can't follow Christ and make yourself the meat and matter of everything. It's not easy. Jesus is not that way with us. He does not rejoice at wrongdoing, someone getting theirs. The rejoices with the truth when the truth is manifested. When the truth is practiced out, fleshed out, then love, agape love, bears all things. Which means we are not permitted to say, I've had enough. It believes all things. That doesn't mean you're naive. It means that you're going to believe the best about a brother or sister in Christ. It hopes all things. It endures all things. This is a portrait of Jesus. And then verse 8, it never stops loving. True love. There are different kinds of love that do play out. I've talked about that before. But agape love, unconditional love, has always got reserve in its tank to love some more. That's what love looks like. When Jesus says, love one another as I have loved you, we ought to retreat to 1 Corinthians 13 and pray that devotion, dear God, make this me. Make me this. And I'm not feeling it right now. Well, mercifully, as I've had the opportunity to tell some folks recently in premarital counseling, love is not a feeling. It's a commitment. It's there and it's true whether you feel it or not. Whether you feel like manifesting it or not. Well, real quickly now, what are the implications or the danger of not embracing Jesus' new commandment? Look at Matthew 18. Beginning in verse 21, Peter, the most vocal of the apostles, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times, or as I mentioned earlier, 70 times seven. than you think. I like to tell people, when Jesus stops forgiving you, then you can stop forgiving others. Then he tells a story. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. That's what God did with you, by the way. You owed a debt you could not pay, and he summons you to the bar of his judgment. Execute judicial punishment on you, guilty as charged. When Jesus stepped out of the shadows and said, Father, put that person's debt on me, Jesus paid it all. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow." This man, a king, wishes to settle accounts. When he began to settle, verse 24, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents. Now, I haven't kept up with this exchange. Economics has thrown the numbers way out of whack, but there was a time when it was the equivalent of 10 million US dollars. Probably 15 or 20 today. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children." You see how unforgiveness, it doesn't just touch you, it touches your family. With his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So he's going to be sold into debtor's prison. And the way that worked back in Jesus' day was you would go to prison in the evening, in very harsh circumstances, and you would work all day during the day to pay back the debt you owed until you had settled the debt. Knees, imploring Him, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything. He's pleading for patience. And he's not telling the truth. He won't pay such a debt all that long. Listen, and out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. That's what God did to you and to me in Jesus Christ. Debt canceled, paid in full by the blood of the Son. Well, what a day of rejoicing that must have been, should have been. Verse 28, when the servant went out to his fellow servants who owed him 100 denarii in the exchange when I was keeping up with it, the $10 million debt. This fellow found somebody that owed him $5 by contrast. And seizing him, he began to choke him, what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, have patience with me. The exact same thing he had just said to the king. Have patience with me, I will pay you. But he refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. He followed through on what the king said was going to happen to him. He had it happen to his fellow servant. Put him in prison until he pays me the five dollars he owes me. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed. They reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned to him and said to him, you wicked servant." Notice the tone now. Before it was a matter of a debtor. You're a great debtor to me. It's moved beyond the debt now. It's to a disposition. The Lord is wicked. You wicked servant. I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all of his debt." Hard labor. Now remember, Jesus is answering a question, how often should I forgive my brother if he sins against me? Up to seven times? And the final line in this is devastating. So also will my heavenly Father do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. Love one another as I have loved you. Paul would write in Ephesians, be kind and affectionate one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. My question as we close is, when do I ever have to withhold forgiveness? Well, that hurt me. That really hurt me. That hurt me deeply. It's going to take me a while to get over that. Really? You want God to relate to you that way? You've sinned repeatedly against me in this area, and I've forgiven you every time, but this time, you stepped over the line. This time, it's gonna take a while. Brothers and sisters, that attitude does not come from the Holy Spirit of God. That comes from the enemy of our souls who comes to steal, kill. who wants us to forget how much we have been forgiven. We can't afford that. I can't afford that. You can't afford that. My family can't afford that. Your family can't afford that. This church can't afford that. We will not be forgiven. In fact, we have no reason to believe we've ever been forgiven. if we think we have found a reason while we live not to forgive others. A woman, Jesus' dinner one time, began weeping at His feet, and took her hair, began to wash off His feet with her hair. It was an embarrassment, it was a scandal to the Pharisees. This woman loved much. She was forgiven much. I think sometimes we forget how much we've been forgiven. So my challenge to you this year, this new year, is this new commandment will be renewed in you and in me, and in me and mine, and in yours. that I not forget how much I've been forgiven, so that I will always quickly forgive others who sin against me. I didn't have to think about it from the cross. Father, forgive them. I don't know what they're doing. Have you been forgiven much? If you think, well, Pastor, I haven't been forgiven that much, then I should get down on your face and cry to God and hope that He shows you He rescued you from. Because if you've been forgiven much, the Scripture says you love much. The absence of forgiveness, by the way, only stirs bitterness in your heart. Oh, it may hurt somebody the way you speak to them and act, but it's the bitterness of your own heart. It's the coldness. It's the shriveling of your soul when you forget how much you've been forgiven. So I call you to renewal today. How much the Lord has forgiven you. And in like action and attitude, be quick to forgive others. Love one another. as Jesus has loved and continues to love you. Let's pray together. Dear Holy Father, you're the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, Lord, forgive me. I know these things in my head. But I don't always express them from my heart. Actions in my words and my deeds and my attitudes, dear God. Remind me, remind my brothers and sisters. You've given me a precious family. You've given us many precious. His church family. And we don't want it to be ruined by the enemy of our souls who would love to divide, to destroy. Help us as we begin a new year to fight the fight of faith, repenting and forgiving. Not looking to others as to what they're going to do, but looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, following his example. Loving others with much love. We've been by Christ. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.