The First Thing About Jesus' Last Words: Loving One Another | Don Hooton

In this sermon, Don Hooton discusses the importance of Jesus' last words and teachings before his crucifixion, particularly focusing on the command to love one another. Don delves into passages from the Gospel of John, highlighting that Jesus emphasized this command to his disciples five times. He explores how love is a critical aspect of true discipleship, reflecting Jesus' own actions and teachings. The sermon also touches upon the writings of Paul and Peter, underscoring that love is a fundamental characteristic required of Christians. Join Don as he explains why love mattered to Jesus, Paul, and John, and why it should matter to us as well.

00:00 Introduction: The Importance of Last Words
00:56 Reflecting on Jesus' Last Sayings
01:40 The Upper Room Discourse
03:42 The Command to Love One Another
07:05 Understanding the Depth of Jesus' Love
14:52 Peter's Emphasis on Love
26:34 Paul's Perspective on Love
28:53 John's Teachings on Love
34:31 Conclusion: The Command to Love

Transcript

Every time I see my family, the last words I want them to hear me say is, I love you. And though it often was when they were younger. Don't forget to clean your room. Remember to do your homework. Please take out the trash. No, I'm looking at Daniel and uh, and the boys would say, well, that was usually rever re uh, reserved for them because little baby Sarah, she never got any assignments.

And all I did was give her a smushy wishy smiley face. You know, the girl always gets the special treatment. But if there were something to happen to me, I'd want my last word spoken as a husband, as a father, and as a grandfather. To be about what is important to me. Wouldn't you want that to be the same for you?

Those would be the first things that I want my last words to be about. And so when we look at Jesus' life, we, we tend to think about, and you've probably heard sermons, I've preached sermons on the last sayings of Jesus, and we're talking about them on the cross. If you go back and you look at them, and it's an important study and it's a critical understanding of what was happening to Jesus at the cross.

It reflected his pain. It reflected his relationship with his father, and it reflected a very familial relationship that he had with his mother when he told John, the only disciple that he speaks to from the cross. Behold your mother, but you don't remember, and I hope I can impress on you. Jesus spent all of his time up until that moment when he was in the garden and arrested.

He spent it with the 12, we call it the upper room discourse, and from John chapter 13 through John chapter 17 is Jesus's words to them as the last words to them. If I can just assume that we all know that the apostles had a hard time getting things. So many times Jesus said, get thee behind me, Satan, to Peter.

You know, he, he, he called the James and John sons of Thunder for very good reason that they were not always compassionate and merciful. But here in that upper room, he's going to discuss with them what I want to impress you this week with as the first things because. In Christianity, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to look about and see that a whole lot of Christians have gotten it wrong, and I suspect that you're here today because you don't want to get it wrong, that you want to understand what the first things are that Jesus talked about with them, because time was running out for him.

The end of his earth, three life was at hand and everything was about to change for him. So we're going to be talking about the first things from the last things that Jesus said or Jesus did. Open up your Bible to the gospel of John.

Notice chapter 13 and verse one. Before the Passover festival, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world to the Father. And John says, having loved his own who were in the world. He loved them. To the end, I'd almost proposed to you that John considered this a bookmark, a chapter division, that he's introducing this theme throughout the conversation that Jesus is about to have with the disciples.

Skip down to verse 34, and Jesus says, I give you a new command. Love one another, just as I have loved you. You are also to love one another. By this, everyone I know, everyone will know that you are my disciples. If you love one another, chapter 15 in verse 12, this is my command. Love one another as I have loved you.

Verse 17. This is what I command you love one another. Now I take a volunteer if you choose to answer this question, but if your mom told you to brush your teeth five times in the course of one long conversation, what do you know about your breath?

Why do you think Jesus told them five times to love one another? Five times? Teaching we say is repetition. The more you repeat something, the more you emphasize something. So this is the only thing Jesus emphasizes five times in this conversation. Obviously, that's a first thing to him, but consider who he's looking at.

He's looking at Peter and Andrew, James and John, Peter and Andrew. Peter was. The one who wanted to slice up Chu's ear. He's about to do that in about 24 hours. Peter was the one that Jesus said, you're looking out after men's interests and not the interests of God. And then there's James and John Sons of Thunder who wanted to call down thunder upon those evil Samaritans because of what they were doing.

And then there is Judas, the zealot.

Walking hand in hand with a tax collector who had been hired by Rome to take taxes from his own people. When the zealots were people who were trying to rid Israel of Rome at all. Political anarchist in some senses, walking hand in hand with Matthew. And then of course there's Judas. The scariest, the scariest.

He was looking at their eyes like, I'm looking at yours. And he could see they still didn't get it.

And I think for you and me, we don't, we tend to think that if someone preaches about love or someone talks about love, that that's not true. Christianity, that's what everybody talks about. Well, you know what? In the first century, that is not what everyone talked about. Love was considered a vice. It was not considered a virtue.

To be compassionate and caring about human beings was just a sign of a weakness. If you weren't a real man, if you loved other people, especially other men. But Jesus says to these 12, men love one another, and there's a reason. He saw in their faces because he knew them as the son of God and certainly as their master.

It's repeated five times. So when you, when you recognize that repetition and the significance of that repetition, let that stick with you that in this conversation in the upper room as he's about, as he's instituted the Lord supper, we talk about the, we're gonna talk about that this morning. We, we, we center our attention around that particular aspect of the conversation.

And it is important, but don't miss this, that Jesus says it five times, not because they were gonna forget it, but because they didn't get it. They needed to love each other. Notice. Also, he commands it three times. And so when we start talking about love and loving one another, even the expression itself loving or commanding us to love as Jesus does in his ministry, occurs 16 times in the gospel.

You remember in Matthew chapter five in the Sermon on the Mount, what does he tell? Who does he tell us to love? That all of us will have difficulty loving you. Remember? Love your enemies. Okay. Politically, you may have a lot of enemies. I don't know who you voted for. I'm not asking, but you may have a lot of enemies.

Jesus doesn't give you a pullout card. Get outta jail free. I can hate anyone I want to. Jesus says, love your enemies. He couches it in language. That's a command. It's not optional. He wants the people that he's about to die for, to emulate the love that he is having for the people. Remember what Paul said in Romans five, even while we were yet enemies, what did Christ do?

He died for us. So it's a command. The concept of love is sometimes associated with feelings, emotions, tears, and touchy-feely expressions. But the Bible says this is a command. This is a duty, and it's gonna really be a defining characteristic to being a disciple. The next thing is, he says, is that it's new now.

It really wasn't new in the sense that. The Israelites had never, ever thought about loving people. What was one of the two great commands that Jesus gave or that Moses gave that Jesus reiterated? Love your neighbor as yourself. And it's not true that to say that that kind of love is selfish love. But in the final analysis, what defines the love I show my neighbor That one.

Yeah. The way I wanna be loved. Now if I have a very limited perspective of what I want to, you know, it's kinda like the husband who tells his wife, uh, okay, I told you on our wedding day that I love you and if I change my mind, I'll let you know. You know, that's not necessarily a true demonstration of love, is it?

All you ladies say Amen. Right. You know, um, it's not new in the sense that it was new in time. It was new in the sense because of the Greek word that Jesus is recorded to say. It was new in the sense of quality. It was a new of a kind of love. And notice how Jesus tells us that it is new, just as I have loved you.

Notice Jesus doesn't give us an out on trying to define the love the way we feel it, the way we want it, the way that we have practiced it. The way he defines the love that he has commanded us and repeated it to the 12 is that it's the kind of love that you see in me. How many of you feel really good about that?

That you're really good at that, right? So imagine how difficult it was as Matthew was looking across at a bunch of other Jews who probably resented the fact that he was a, he was serving the Roman government before he became a disciple. Or imagine what it's gonna look like after the, the crucifixion when the other disciples are gonna be looking across the table at Peter who says, yeah, you denied our Lord three times.

Or then there's gonna be John. Who's gonna look across the table at the others and said, I was at the cross. Where were you?

Love one another Repeated five times stated as a command, because what makes it a command and what makes it new isn't that you've always grown up appearing. Love your neighbor as yourself because, but now you have seen what true love is. Love them just as I have loved you. And then the last thing is it's truly a mark of discipleship.

Some people use the word badge, but, but, but it's a mark. There's a story that I love to tell. It's not about Daniel. So he gets an out on this one. When Joshua, our oldest, was born, when we lived in California, there was a lady whose husband was one of the elders, and she was, she had a very funny sense of humor and that probably tells you something about me that I always thought she was funny.

She had a funny sense of humor. And so as soon as Joshua was born, we kept him home. I don't remember what it was, two weeks, however long it was, but. And you know how that goes. All your parents, parents with new children that everybody, as soon as you walk through the doors with the child, everybody wants to kiss it, hold it, and everything else like that, right?

Or not it, him, sorry. Him and uh, she came up to me a few weeks later and says, Don, that little boy is the spitting image of you. And of course, she played me very well. I beam with great pride. You know, my son looks like me. And then she said, but don't worry. All of us ladies are collecting money so that he can afford plastic surgery when he grows up.

This is a badge of discipleship

that when the people of the world who live in darkness see you, they need to see the light of the gospel in the way that you love. Not just the way you love your wife, but that's included. Not just the way that you love your children, but that's included. Not just the way that you love your neighbor, but that's included, but the way that you love your enemies.

Jesus came into the world to save us from ourselves, and he said. This is what will make you my disciples. Now I want you to look in one Peter chapter one

in one, Peter chapter one. Obviously, it impressed Peter's writing to make this clear, and I've purposely eliminated part of the text so that you will see it. Emphatically, and by the way, I didn't make mention. All of the quotes that you'll see in front from you in front of you are coming from the Christian standard version.

So notice what it says since you have purified yourselves by your obedience to the truth, because you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and enduring word of God for all fleshes like grass. All its glory, like the flower of the grass, the grass withers and the flower fails, but the word of the Lord endures forever.

And this word is the gospel that was proclaimed to you. Every part of that reading is terribly important. Doesn't Peter make the point that the way we became connected with God in a way that plea him is by obedience and the obedience to what you can answer. Truth or the word. Okay. And he says that truth is the word that was proclaimed to you in this gospel, this sharing of the good news of Jesus Christ.

This is what was proclaimed to you. You have obeyed it, and this word is imperishable. It is not the things in the world. It's going to last forever and ever and ever. And I suspect that if Peter writing this by faith. Would not be surprised that here we are some 2000 years later and what are we reading?

His words that we have obeyed because they were given by God through the Holy Spirit to the apostles, commanding people to obey the gospel. But we often overlook what's there. Read it again since you have perfected, uh, purified yourselves by your obedience to the truth. So that you show sincere, brotherly love for each other from a pure heart love one another constantly.

Now, when you look at that text, and I, I purposely tell you that comes from the Christian standard because sometimes people say, oh, that's a modern translation. It's just emphasizing it, you know, that's, that's what these modern translators do. They just emphasize the soft parts of the gospel. Well notice the English standard version in obedience to the truth for a sincere, brotherly love, love one another.

Earnestly from a pure heart. Notice the New American standard obedience to the truth for a sincere love of the brothers and sisters. Fervently love one another from the heart

and then the King James.

In obedience to the truth with un unto Unfeigned, love of the brethren see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently. Now, I'm gonna tell you, when I first started preaching, I never ever emphasized that part of the verse ever. I just didn't, mainly because I never thought it was important to emphasize.

But now I've studied the conversation with Jesus in the last things, in the last words that he says, and five times he tells those 12 to do what? Love one another. So here is one of those 12 writing to Christians that he speaks to in one Peter chapter one, to those who were scattered abroad, and here he is writing to them and he says, you need to understand that in your obedience to the truth.

It was so that you would show sincere, brotherly love for each other from a pure heart loving one another. Constantly.

Peter doesn't mince words. That's what truly defines really being a disciple is this is a first thing. So if we are truly to be a people of the word,

how should that manifest itself in our life?

Are we to be keepers of the word? How is that in your mind, mess manifesting itself in your life? Oh, well, Dawn, I come to church all the time. That's keeping the word. Well, I'm not gonna argue with that. Well, Dawn, I, I, I give generously in the contribution and, and, and, and I partake of the Lord's Supper every time that it has served.

And, and I am a devoted disciple of Jesus Christ. And I show all of the religions of the world how they are wrong.

But do you

love one another?

We are to love everyone. Jesus doesn't give us an out. I have to love you and I hate to say it this way. I, I remember I got actually got chided by an older woman once when I told her and it's been told to me I have to laugh at myself. This is not in my notes. I don't know why it bubbled up. Maybe I need to remember this, but she said.

When I said to her, I love you, but I don't really like you. That's what I told her. And she goes, you need to figure out what love is.

And I'm not trying to say that loving someone means that you like everything about them. Do you think Jesus liked. The feelings that Peter had when he pulled out the sword and sliced Malko ear. I don't think he liked it at all. I don't think he liked that about Peter's personality, but he wanted to transform Peter and the rest of the 12 become like him in loving.

And the truth is, the more that you learn to love people the way God does, I mean, I need you to really think about that.

I know God hates sin,

but I'm not always prepared to say that God hates sinners because they were people created in his image that he died to save. He loved them. And I'm not trying to get all fancy on the word love and like. But I tell you what, that if we want to harbor the right to hate someone, we probably don't have love.

And so Jesus says in the words of Peter from a pure heart, love one another, constantly. So when you put it all together, this love one another in the gospel of John chapter 13, verse 34, I give you a new command. Love one another, just as I have loved you. You're also to love one another, and by this, everyone will know that your army of disciples, if you love one another three times repeating this, this new command, this new mark of discipleship, this is what Jesus says.

Is the first thing that I want you to remember about these last words. You need to love one another. And I think the best way for us to balance our preaching is to balance it the way Jesus did. And Jesus says, love one another. And I, I, I could talk to you about Agape, the Greek word. I'm not a Greek scholar.

There are probably some of you out here who are, but I'm not. If you look at the word love, it just, it really means favor. That, that you, you give to someone something that they did not earn, they did not gain from labor or from work. You just, you just love them. That's agape. That was the, that was the vice of the first century.

I am not gonna give you something that you did not earn. I'm not gonna give you anything unless you gimme something in return. That's the way the ancients thought of that kind of charity. Hence why the King James translation often translates to this word, agape charity. Jesus says love that way. This new way of Christ is the way he wants us to be.

So love was what mattered to Jesus.

And I can say that with absolute certainty. 'cause he said it five times to the 12th, it mattered to him. And when you think about that truth, looking at the passage in John chapter 17, I don't want you to miss this point in John chapter 17. Look at verse 25. This is John's record of what we sometimes call the last prayer of Jesus or the intercessory prayer.

Depends on who calls it and why, what they're calling it, but it is Jesus's prayer. John records, and we're gonna talk about this prayer later on in the week, but again, here I am 61. Yeah, I do. I admit how old I am. 61. I don't think I, I'd ever caught this. Part of the end of the prayer.

Jesus praise righteous Father. The world has known you, has not known you. However, I have known you and they have known that you sent me. I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known so that the love you have loved me with. May be in them,

and I may be in them.

If Jesus prayed about it,

it matters.

It matters to him that these 12 would manifest the kind of love that he would manifest to them. Love mattered. Notice also love mattered to Paul. And I'm not trying to say Paul had a special take 'cause I don't believe he does it all, but I believe love mattered in the way that he wrote. Look what it says.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I'm a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing.

Remember the context in which chapter 13 appears. I know you hear that at weddings. How many times do you hear that? At weddings? Yeah. That's where we hear it most. And that's a good time to hear it. By the way, I've been married, she's had to love me through an awful lot of difficulties,

but this is talking about what the church at Corinth needed to hear when they were fighting among themselves as Christians and the local church. Anybody know what they were fighting about? Spiritual gifts. Someone had to gift a tongue, someone had to gift a prophecy, and the person with the gift of tongues paraded himself like a rooster in the, in the HIN case saying, I'm better than all of you.

Look, I've got the gift of tongues. I know you've never met a Christian that parades himself or herself around about the great gifts that they have in. Aren't you lucky I'm alive to be here in this church? I'm sure you've never met a Christian like that.

Paul says, if you don't have love, you have nothing. Even if you're greatly charitable, if you're, if you're, you're great. If you're loud, just you've got nothing. It mattered to Paul that the Corinthians understand that.

I think I'm actually earning a credit for you right now 'cause I just looked at my watch and I might finish early. Am I allowed to finish early? Okay. Alright. I can fill the time, but, but love also mattered to John. God is love. Whoever abides in love, abides in God, and God abides in him by this is love perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment because as he is, so also, are we in the world?

Did you hear that, that John says the way that we are in the world? He didn't say in the church building, he didn't say in your house. He said In the world. And when you go to school, the way you treat your teachers, when you go to work, the way you treat your employees or employer,

when you get pulled over by the police officer for speeding.

The way we are in the world is that we're to be like him as he is. So also are we in the world? There is no fear in love, but perfect love cast out. Fear for fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us, and if anyone says I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar.

John liked that word a lot. Have you ever been called a liar? No one wants to raise their hand. Okay. Well, John calls us a liar. If you've ever harbor hate for a brother, you're a liar by saying that you love God.

He says For he who does not love his brother when he has seen. Who whom he has seen cannot love God, whom he has not seen, and this commandment we have from him. Whoever loves God must also love his brother. It mattered to John.

So does love matter to you?

Does love matter to you? Once again, I'm not talking about the touchy feely, huggy, squeezy, kissy, kissy love,

but the manifestations of what love really looks like.

Back in the dark days. When I was here, one of the, one of the acronyms that were really popular, it hasn't died away. It's still around, but it started in the eighties. You would get a bracelet or you would wear jewelry and it would say WWJD, you remember what that meant? What would Jesus do? And I remember I was trying to convert one of my high school friends who sadly has died in the funeral, was actually yesterday, but I was trying to reach him with the gospel and I used that expression because he wore a bracelet.

WJD, what would Jesus do about worship? And we're gonna talk about that in this week and everything else like that.

But I needed to put that bracelet on me when I was talking to that woman.

I needed to put that bracelet on me when I was talking with my brother that disagreed with me. I needed to put that bracelet on me. That's the five minute. Okay. I needed to put that bracelet on me

to love. We talk about it being a choice. It's not, it's not touchy feely. It's not huggy, huggy. You know, I have to love. It's not, I get to love, even though it's a blessing. Don't misunderstand. But I have to, and I, it's funny to me that the things that when I'm, and I may, y'all will probably agree with me sometimes when I talk to people like, do I have to go to church?

You know, do we not, do we have to just sing? Do we have to just use unleavened bread and fruit of the Do I do? I just have to, what do you have to love?

Do you have to.

Jesus says, I do. And if you know that it's hard to love your enemies, then you know it's hard to worship God the way he wants to. When in your heart you don't want to, when in your heart you wanna rock out on a piano or in your heart, you want to have pizza in Coca-Cola, like the church I grew up with, I didn't grow up with, sorry.

Church I grew up around in San Antonio, served pizza and Coca-Cola for the Lord's Supper to make it more relevant to young people. I once time used that illustration with teen groups. They say, I want to go like, okay, we need to think about that. I have to. Does love matter to me? It's not a soft, touchy-feely, it's a command.

So Galatians says in chapter five, verse five. If we're in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision accomplish anything. What matters is faith, working through love. I'm not overemphasizing, I'm highlighting, but I'm not overemphasizing anything that the Holy Spirit made these apostles right to Christians.

What matters he says is faith, working through love.

Romans chapter 14. For if your brother or sister is hurt by what you eat, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy by what you eat, someone for whom Christ does.

Paul. Put it in the context of even individual choice that we would call, um, optional or matters of opinion or however we wanna articulate what's happening in Romans Chapter 14. Paul says, if you're walking according to love, you're gonna make this decision for your brother. It's not about you, it's about him.

So. Read those last w. Read those last. I thought the, there was another slide in there. I guess not. So let's read again those last words. John chapter 13, 34 through 35. I give you a new command. Love one another just as I have loved you. You also to love one another, and by this everyone will know. You are my disciples.

If you love one another. Thank you very much for your time.