John 13:31-38
Committed to Christ
Introduction
How do you show your commitment to Jesus Christ? I see a lot of people who wore the WWJD bracelets, they have fish on their cars, they wear t-shirts with Christian sayings on them. Sometimes I’ve seen people get “Christian tattoos” like a cross or a verse or something.
Our passage this morning has to do with commitment. At first we saw the loyalty of Jesus. Then in Judas we saw the opposite of loyalty – betrayal of Jesus. Now this week we’re going to see the theme of commitment to Jesus Christ in verses 31-38. Let’s look at 2 aspects of Commitment to Christ.
Commitment to God’s Glory (v31-32)
First is a commitment to God’s Glory; a Commitment to God’s Glory. Notice verses 31-32, “When he was gone, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him God will glorify the Son in Himself, and will glorify Him at once.”
The word glory occurs 5 times in these 2 verses. It is a Greek word that means exaltation. The glory of God is the whole reason for our lives. Every life and everything about our lives is to be intended for the exaltation of God. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” Everything right down to the simplest tasks should be for God’s glory.
He said again to the Thessalonians in 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, “We constantly pray for you that our God may count you worthy of His calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you..”
Our commitment to God’s glory is based on two things. First, Jesus was committed perfectly to the glory of God. “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in Him.” Jesus’ lived His life on earth perfectly for the glory of God and we are to live our lives for the glory of God.
The reason His life glorified God perfectly is because He perfectly obeyed the Father’s will. Flip over to chapter 17 a moment and see verses 4-5 with me. Jesus prays to the Father and says, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.”
Jesus did what the Father wanted Him to do. He wasn’t independent or autonomous. He wasn’t ‘His own person’ and He never had an attitude that says, “No one tells me what to do” or ‘I do what I want”. His life was lived in total submission to His Father’s will.
Obeying the Father meant the cross. Philippians 2:8 says, “Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!” If Jesus was going to be obedient to the Father it meant going to the cross. If Jesus was going to glorify the Father it meant suffering and dying on the cross. There was no other way. Jesus prayed later this night, “If it is possible let this cup pass from me. Yet, not as I will but as You will”. And it was not possible. He had to drink from the cup of suffering and dying on the cross. That was what the Father’s will was.
But why? How could the Father’s will be something so cruel? How could something so shameful and disgraceful in the eyes of humanity possibly glorify God? This is what Jesus is talking about here in John 13. His crucifixion is how He, the Son of Man, is going to glorify God.
The cross of Jesus will glorify God in several ways. First, the cross purchased salvation. Jesus bought salvation for sinful man with His own death. In His death, Jesus satisfied the demands of God’s justice. God demands justice for sins. He is holy, and, because He is holy He will judge sin. Sin does not get to co-exist with Holiness. God’s holiness will come up against sin and destroy it.
Second, the cross of Jesus Christ glorifies God in that it destroys the power of sin. The power of sin is made weak at the cross of Jesus Christ. Romans 8:3 says, “By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering, He condemned sin in sinful man.” Death is the power of sin. Sin leads to death. Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death”. James 1 says, “sin, when it is full-grown gives birth to death.” Sin and death were destroyed when Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead.
Not only are the accomplishments of Jesus to the glory of God, but, the attributes of God are displayed in Jesus’ death on the cross. God’s holiness and justice as sin was punished. God’s faithfulness as He promised a Savior would come to save us from our sins. God’s grace and mercy in that someone else died for our sins so that we could live. God’s love in that no matter how terrible of sinners we are the love of God is shown to all at the cross. Jesus perfectly displayed the glorious attributes of God on the cross.
But Jesus connects
(v33)
Jesus gives them the third shocker in a row. First He washed their feet. Then He said one of them would betray Him. Now He says He’s leaving them. Verse 33 says, “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going you cannot come.”
Back in chapter 7 and 8 Jesus said things to the Jewish leaders like, “I am with you for only a short time, and then I go to the One who sent me. You will look for me but you will not find me; where I go you cannot come.”
Commitment to God’s Love (v34-35)
So first we see a Commitment to God’s Glory. Second, we see a Commitment to God’s Love. Notice verses 34-35, “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 that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
The emphasis here is love, it is mentioned 4 times in these 2 verses. Jesus shifts from the glory of God to the love of the disciples. And in doing so he gives them a new command – a command to love each other. Love is the fulfillment of the law. All the commands in Scripture can be met if we would but love each other.
What’s the connection between God’s glory in the previous verses and love in these verses? The only way to glorify God is to love one another. A key word in these verses is the word “as” - “As I have loved you”. Jesus is not just talking about any kind of love, He is talking about His kind of love. The type of love, the brand of love that we are commanded to give each other is the same quality of love that Jesus gave to us.
It is agape love. It is the highest possible love that can be given. It is the love of humbleness and self-sacrifice. It is given freely without any cost. It is for the benefit of the other person and often at a cost to us. But that is the beauty of it – it is a love that someone can receive at a time when they by all accounts least deserve it. Because it is not given to someone based on how they perform or how much they deserve it. It is the love of choice. It is the love we choose give to someone because we want them to benefit and be well.
(T.W. Hunt quote, w2d2p1)
That’s when we glorify God. When God’s brand of love is expressed in our lives to each other God is glorified.
Francis Schaeffer wrote a book called The Mark of the Christian. In it he listed two practical ways that Christians can manifest love for each other. First, they can be willing to apologize and seek forgiveness from those they have wronged. There is nothing worse than someone who is always right. There is nothing worse than someone who refuses to admit they are in the wrong. There are few things that makes forgiveness harder than someone who won’t ask for it. As believers in Christ, we should be willing to seek forgiveness from those we have wronged.
Secondly, Schaeffer says a practical way to show Christ’s love is to grant forgiveness. We are those who are forgiven by God and as such should we not be ready to forgive each other as well? We have been given the example, but, we have also been given the ability to extend that forgiving kind of love. After describing the death sacrifice Jesus made for our forgiveness, it says in 1 John 4:11, “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we ought to love one another.” Our loving forgiveness towards each other is rooted in God’s loving forgiveness towards us.
Jesus says there is a special reason in doing this. This kind of love causes two things. It causes something in the life of the believer who practices God’s love, and, it causes something in the lives of unbelievers who are watching your life.
First, giving this kind of love will cause others to acknowledge that I am a disciple of Christ. He says “all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Now notice this is what outsiders looking in can observe about our lives. Does the unbelieving world around you observe the love of Christ being practiced in your life?
Notice also that this is the love you and I give towards other Christians. If an unbelieving world sees that we don’t even love each other, how would they ever be convinced God loves them? Your Christ-like love towards your brothers and sisters is one of the greatest ways to convince non-Christians of the love of Christ.
Schaeffer goes on to say in his book something quite interesting about this verse. He says, “The church is to be a loving church in a dying culture….In the midst of the world, in the midst of our present dying culture, Jesus is giving a right to the world. Upon His authority he gives the world the right to judge whether you and I are born-again Christians on the basis of our observable love toward all Christians.” Note that he says “observable love”.
Second, giving this kind of love gives assurance of salvation. First John 3:14 says, “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers”. Then in the next chapter, in verse 12 he says, “If we love one another God lives in us”. In other words when we love each other with the love of Christ we grow in assurance that we ourselves have received love from Christ and that God lives in us. Perhaps some believers struggle with assurance because they do not practice loving their brothers and sisters AS Christ has loved them.
Commitment to God’s Presence (v36-38)
Lastly, we see the Commitment to God’s Presence. I want to close with these verses 36-38, “Simon Peter asked him, ‘Lord, whwere are you going?’ Jesus replied, ‘Whwere I am going you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.’ Peter asked, ‘Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.’ Then Jesus answered, ‘Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows you will disown me three times!’”
I love Peter because of his heart. Peter can’t imagine life without Jesus. He can’t imagine not being where Jesus is. Peter was the one who jumped out of the boat and walked on water to be with Jesus. Peter was the one who after he sees the resurrected Jesus on shore impulsively jumps out of the boat and swims to shore to be where Jesus is. Peter was probably feeling pretty smug when Jesus told the Jewish leaders in chapter 7 that they could not go where He was going. Peter probably thought, “Too bad for you guys, I’ll be with Him.” Peter is the one who was horrified that His Lord would wash his feet, but, Peter was the one who was even more horrified when Jesus told him, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me.” Peter always wants to be in the presence of Christ and was committed to being with Him no matter what the cost.
Now, shouldn’t we all have the heart of Peter here? Shouldn’t we groan and ache to be united with our Lord? Shouldn’t we be greatly encouraged in 1 Thessalonians 4 when it says, “we will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” Should not we count off the days and weeks until the Lord comes back, being as Philippians 3 says, “eagerly awaiting our Savior from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ”? While we are in these bodies we are away from the Lord, but, Oh, how we long to be away from these bodies and in the presence of the Lord!
Now listen, there is a lesson here for Peter that is available to us today. Peter was thinking geographically here. Peter was listening all the way up to verse 33, but, he didn’t hear a word after that. He got hung up on Jesus leaving. He was thinking that wherever Jesus was on the map, whether it was in hostile Jerusalem, defiled Samaria, or in the dog-countries of the Gentiles, or prison or even death, Peter wanted to be where Jesus was.
But, Jesus says He can’t be with Him for a while. The nature of ‘being with Jesus’ was changing you might say. As Jesus left them, they were to remain with Him not by following Him where He was, but, the way He was with them.
Remaining with Christ, staying with Him, has nothing to do with where you are on the map but instead it is the question of Are you doing what He told you to do? Jesus will say in chapter 15, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in His love.”
Are you loving your brothers and sisters as Christ loved them –and loved you? Are you humbling yourself to serve each other as if the other person is greater than you? Are you letting resentment and bitterness take root and refusing to forgive? Are you refusing to ask for forgiveness?
Peter wanted to follow Jesus then, but, Jesus was going somewhere that no one else could go, or would go. As the Son of Man He was going to face the wrath of God. He was going to represent mankind before God and endure the punishment for all of humanity’s sins. He was going to the cross. And on the other side of the cross He was going to be raised from the dead.
The pattern is that Jesus humbled himself and was obedient to the Father even to death in the most disgraceful way. As those who are saved and are committed to Christ, shall we expect the pattern is different for us than for our Lord? No servant is greater than his master. As we humble ourselves and obey Him fully, even to the death of our self, shall we not also find the glory of the resurrection what we attain?
Being committed to Christ is a commitment to God’s Glory, a commitment to God’s love, and, a commitment to God’s presence.
Committed to Christ
Introduction
How do you show your commitment to Jesus Christ? I see a lot of people who wore the WWJD bracelets, they have fish on their cars, they wear t-shirts with Christian sayings on them. Sometimes I’ve seen people get “Christian tattoos” like a cross or a verse or something.
Our passage this morning has to do with commitment. At first we saw the loyalty of Jesus. Then in Judas we saw the opposite of loyalty – betrayal of Jesus. Now this week we’re going to see the theme of commitment to Jesus Christ in verses 31-38. Let’s look at 2 aspects of Commitment to Christ.
Commitment to God’s Glory (v31-32)
First is a commitment to God’s Glory; a Commitment to God’s Glory. Notice verses 31-32, “When he was gone, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him God will glorify the Son in Himself, and will glorify Him at once.”
The word glory occurs 5 times in these 2 verses. It is a Greek word that means exaltation. The glory of God is the whole reason for our lives. Every life and everything about our lives is to be intended for the exaltation of God. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” Everything right down to the simplest tasks should be for God’s glory.
He said again to the Thessalonians in 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, “We constantly pray for you that our God may count you worthy of His calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you..”
Our commitment to God’s glory is based on two things. First, Jesus was committed perfectly to the glory of God. “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in Him.” Jesus’ lived His life on earth perfectly for the glory of God and we are to live our lives for the glory of God.
The reason His life glorified God perfectly is because He perfectly obeyed the Father’s will. Flip over to chapter 17 a moment and see verses 4-5 with me. Jesus prays to the Father and says, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.”
Jesus did what the Father wanted Him to do. He wasn’t independent or autonomous. He wasn’t ‘His own person’ and He never had an attitude that says, “No one tells me what to do” or ‘I do what I want”. His life was lived in total submission to His Father’s will.
Obeying the Father meant the cross. Philippians 2:8 says, “Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!” If Jesus was going to be obedient to the Father it meant going to the cross. If Jesus was going to glorify the Father it meant suffering and dying on the cross. There was no other way. Jesus prayed later this night, “If it is possible let this cup pass from me. Yet, not as I will but as You will”. And it was not possible. He had to drink from the cup of suffering and dying on the cross. That was what the Father’s will was.
But why? How could the Father’s will be something so cruel? How could something so shameful and disgraceful in the eyes of humanity possibly glorify God? This is what Jesus is talking about here in John 13. His crucifixion is how He, the Son of Man, is going to glorify God.
The cross of Jesus will glorify God in several ways. First, the cross purchased salvation. Jesus bought salvation for sinful man with His own death. In His death, Jesus satisfied the demands of God’s justice. God demands justice for sins. He is holy, and, because He is holy He will judge sin. Sin does not get to co-exist with Holiness. God’s holiness will come up against sin and destroy it.
Second, the cross of Jesus Christ glorifies God in that it destroys the power of sin. The power of sin is made weak at the cross of Jesus Christ. Romans 8:3 says, “By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering, He condemned sin in sinful man.” Death is the power of sin. Sin leads to death. Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death”. James 1 says, “sin, when it is full-grown gives birth to death.” Sin and death were destroyed when Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead.
Not only are the accomplishments of Jesus to the glory of God, but, the attributes of God are displayed in Jesus’ death on the cross. God’s holiness and justice as sin was punished. God’s faithfulness as He promised a Savior would come to save us from our sins. God’s grace and mercy in that someone else died for our sins so that we could live. God’s love in that no matter how terrible of sinners we are the love of God is shown to all at the cross. Jesus perfectly displayed the glorious attributes of God on the cross.
But Jesus connects
(v33)
Jesus gives them the third shocker in a row. First He washed their feet. Then He said one of them would betray Him. Now He says He’s leaving them. Verse 33 says, “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going you cannot come.”
Back in chapter 7 and 8 Jesus said things to the Jewish leaders like, “I am with you for only a short time, and then I go to the One who sent me. You will look for me but you will not find me; where I go you cannot come.”
Commitment to God’s Love (v34-35)
So first we see a Commitment to God’s Glory. Second, we see a Commitment to God’s Love. Notice verses 34-35, “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 that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
The emphasis here is love, it is mentioned 4 times in these 2 verses. Jesus shifts from the glory of God to the love of the disciples. And in doing so he gives them a new command – a command to love each other. Love is the fulfillment of the law. All the commands in Scripture can be met if we would but love each other.
What’s the connection between God’s glory in the previous verses and love in these verses? The only way to glorify God is to love one another. A key word in these verses is the word “as” - “As I have loved you”. Jesus is not just talking about any kind of love, He is talking about His kind of love. The type of love, the brand of love that we are commanded to give each other is the same quality of love that Jesus gave to us.
It is agape love. It is the highest possible love that can be given. It is the love of humbleness and self-sacrifice. It is given freely without any cost. It is for the benefit of the other person and often at a cost to us. But that is the beauty of it – it is a love that someone can receive at a time when they by all accounts least deserve it. Because it is not given to someone based on how they perform or how much they deserve it. It is the love of choice. It is the love we choose give to someone because we want them to benefit and be well.
(T.W. Hunt quote, w2d2p1)
That’s when we glorify God. When God’s brand of love is expressed in our lives to each other God is glorified.
Francis Schaeffer wrote a book called The Mark of the Christian. In it he listed two practical ways that Christians can manifest love for each other. First, they can be willing to apologize and seek forgiveness from those they have wronged. There is nothing worse than someone who is always right. There is nothing worse than someone who refuses to admit they are in the wrong. There are few things that makes forgiveness harder than someone who won’t ask for it. As believers in Christ, we should be willing to seek forgiveness from those we have wronged.
Secondly, Schaeffer says a practical way to show Christ’s love is to grant forgiveness. We are those who are forgiven by God and as such should we not be ready to forgive each other as well? We have been given the example, but, we have also been given the ability to extend that forgiving kind of love. After describing the death sacrifice Jesus made for our forgiveness, it says in 1 John 4:11, “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we ought to love one another.” Our loving forgiveness towards each other is rooted in God’s loving forgiveness towards us.
Jesus says there is a special reason in doing this. This kind of love causes two things. It causes something in the life of the believer who practices God’s love, and, it causes something in the lives of unbelievers who are watching your life.
First, giving this kind of love will cause others to acknowledge that I am a disciple of Christ. He says “all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Now notice this is what outsiders looking in can observe about our lives. Does the unbelieving world around you observe the love of Christ being practiced in your life?
Notice also that this is the love you and I give towards other Christians. If an unbelieving world sees that we don’t even love each other, how would they ever be convinced God loves them? Your Christ-like love towards your brothers and sisters is one of the greatest ways to convince non-Christians of the love of Christ.
Schaeffer goes on to say in his book something quite interesting about this verse. He says, “The church is to be a loving church in a dying culture….In the midst of the world, in the midst of our present dying culture, Jesus is giving a right to the world. Upon His authority he gives the world the right to judge whether you and I are born-again Christians on the basis of our observable love toward all Christians.” Note that he says “observable love”.
Second, giving this kind of love gives assurance of salvation. First John 3:14 says, “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers”. Then in the next chapter, in verse 12 he says, “If we love one another God lives in us”. In other words when we love each other with the love of Christ we grow in assurance that we ourselves have received love from Christ and that God lives in us. Perhaps some believers struggle with assurance because they do not practice loving their brothers and sisters AS Christ has loved them.
Commitment to God’s Presence (v36-38)
Lastly, we see the Commitment to God’s Presence. I want to close with these verses 36-38, “Simon Peter asked him, ‘Lord, whwere are you going?’ Jesus replied, ‘Whwere I am going you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.’ Peter asked, ‘Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.’ Then Jesus answered, ‘Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows you will disown me three times!’”
I love Peter because of his heart. Peter can’t imagine life without Jesus. He can’t imagine not being where Jesus is. Peter was the one who jumped out of the boat and walked on water to be with Jesus. Peter was the one who after he sees the resurrected Jesus on shore impulsively jumps out of the boat and swims to shore to be where Jesus is. Peter was probably feeling pretty smug when Jesus told the Jewish leaders in chapter 7 that they could not go where He was going. Peter probably thought, “Too bad for you guys, I’ll be with Him.” Peter is the one who was horrified that His Lord would wash his feet, but, Peter was the one who was even more horrified when Jesus told him, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me.” Peter always wants to be in the presence of Christ and was committed to being with Him no matter what the cost.
Now, shouldn’t we all have the heart of Peter here? Shouldn’t we groan and ache to be united with our Lord? Shouldn’t we be greatly encouraged in 1 Thessalonians 4 when it says, “we will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” Should not we count off the days and weeks until the Lord comes back, being as Philippians 3 says, “eagerly awaiting our Savior from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ”? While we are in these bodies we are away from the Lord, but, Oh, how we long to be away from these bodies and in the presence of the Lord!
Now listen, there is a lesson here for Peter that is available to us today. Peter was thinking geographically here. Peter was listening all the way up to verse 33, but, he didn’t hear a word after that. He got hung up on Jesus leaving. He was thinking that wherever Jesus was on the map, whether it was in hostile Jerusalem, defiled Samaria, or in the dog-countries of the Gentiles, or prison or even death, Peter wanted to be where Jesus was.
But, Jesus says He can’t be with Him for a while. The nature of ‘being with Jesus’ was changing you might say. As Jesus left them, they were to remain with Him not by following Him where He was, but, the way He was with them.
Remaining with Christ, staying with Him, has nothing to do with where you are on the map but instead it is the question of Are you doing what He told you to do? Jesus will say in chapter 15, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in His love.”
Are you loving your brothers and sisters as Christ loved them –and loved you? Are you humbling yourself to serve each other as if the other person is greater than you? Are you letting resentment and bitterness take root and refusing to forgive? Are you refusing to ask for forgiveness?
Peter wanted to follow Jesus then, but, Jesus was going somewhere that no one else could go, or would go. As the Son of Man He was going to face the wrath of God. He was going to represent mankind before God and endure the punishment for all of humanity’s sins. He was going to the cross. And on the other side of the cross He was going to be raised from the dead.
The pattern is that Jesus humbled himself and was obedient to the Father even to death in the most disgraceful way. As those who are saved and are committed to Christ, shall we expect the pattern is different for us than for our Lord? No servant is greater than his master. As we humble ourselves and obey Him fully, even to the death of our self, shall we not also find the glory of the resurrection what we attain?
Being committed to Christ is a commitment to God’s Glory, a commitment to God’s love, and, a commitment to God’s presence.
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