Truth For Life

Guest (Male): What is it that you think should distinguish every Christian community from the surrounding culture? Is it morality, good works, exuberant singing?

Alistair Begg: We'll hear the answer today on Truth for Life, as Alistair Begg examines the new commandment Jesus gave his disciples. We're in John's Gospel, chapter 13.

Not only are there places that we'll remember all our lives, but we also remember sounds as well as sights. The title for our study today has to do with a sound. The title of the study today is When the Rooster Crows. When the rooster crows.

It's not difficult to imagine that routinely throughout the course and the balance of his life, Peter, upon hearing that familiar sound on a daily basis, would be inevitably reminded of that evening that he spent in the courtyard.

And then also reminded of the way in which that scene was painted over, if you like, covered over, renewed, transformed by another scene. The scene that took place when Jesus made breakfast for the disciples on the shore after his resurrection.

And I don't think there is any doubt at all that if Peter was able to join us, to come back and be a part of our services today, he would sing heartily, Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more.

The departure of Judas has given rise to the eleven now being under the tutelage of Jesus in a very personal way. And once again, if you see your text in front of you there in 31 and into 32, Jesus reminds them of what he has already said in one of our previous studies about the wheat that falls unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but then out of that will come this growth.

And we thought then about Jesus being glorified. And so once again, he gives voice to this. It seems fairly difficult, doesn't it? Now is the Son of Man glorified. And God, the Father is glorified in him. If God the Father is glorified in him, God the Father will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at the very essence of it.

It's Jesus is actually giving voice to what is virtually inexplicable to us. He's referring to the awesome nature of the way in which in the cross, the cross serves if you like as a splendid theater, a dramatic display of the incomparable goodness of God. If we want to know how God loves, if we want to know how good God is, if we want to know about God seeking to save people, then we look directly to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Notice the tenderness of his tone in verse 33. "Little children," he says, "Little children, yet a little while I'm with you, you will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now also I say to you, where I am going, you cannot come."

"And a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another." Now, when we come to this phrase, "a new commandment," what are we to make of it? And I want to pause on this because I don't want us to go wrong.

The new commandment to which he refers is not intrinsically different from what has already been for us in the Old Testament. Because in the Old Testament, in Leviticus 19, the word of God is you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So what then is new about this commandment?

Well, it is a new commandment in the sense that it is the commandment that goes along with a new covenant. This cup is a new covenant in my blood, which is given for the remission of sins. And accompanying that new covenant is the reality of a new life. The new life that Jeremiah the prophet spoke of, where a heart of stone would be removed and a soft and appliable heart would be there, and the Spirit of God would come now and invade that heart.

It's new in that sense. It's new also in so far as the depth of it and the demand of it is inescapable. Listen. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another." How? Just as I have loved you, you are to love one another.

How has Jesus loved? Perfectly, ceaselessly, sacrificially. That's what he's going to display on the cross. That the cross of the Lord Jesus defines as well as displays the nature of the love of God.

Are we to take this seriously? "A new commandment I give to you," the followers of Jesus, "that you love one another just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another." How is this even possible?

You see, the Christian life is not just difficult. The Christian life is impossible. The Christian life is impossible. Again, I want to pause on this for a moment because there may be some here this morning, and you have never really factored in the whole idea of what it means to become a Christian.

Some people are trying to be a Christian without ever having become a Christian. And so what does it really mean? What's involved? Remember what we discovered way back in chapter 3, in the words of Jesus to Nicodemus. He's a religious man. He's convinced of the idea that knowing God, loving God, following God is all about the things you do for God. Or the things that you don't do because you want to please God.

And how taken aback he must have been when Jesus says to him, "I want to tell you something, Nicodemus, truly, truly, unless a man is born again, he cannot even see the kingdom of God." "You must," he says, "be born again."

In other words, making it very, very clear that Christianity is not something that we take up. People talk about I've taken up, I've taken up golf. I've taken up business, or whatever you've taken up. We understand it. We don't take up Christianity.

By definition, Christianity takes us up. So let me ask you this morning, are you on the side of those who said, yeah, I've taken it up, or do you find yourself saying, no, it has taken me up? Mysteriously. Again, Jesus to Nicodemus, the wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound, but you can't tell where it comes from or where it's going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

And the new life that is born in our hearts is the resurrection life of Jesus. So that becoming a Christian is a result of God's amazing grace towards us, mysteriously, wonderfully pursuing us, showing us our need, showing us our Savior, closing for us the reality of these things.

And then the living out of the Christian life is the living out then of the life of Christ that has been granted to us. So that our identification with Christ is not by way of affiliation. It is by way of regeneration. That's what being born again means, being regenerated.

That isn't something that we could do for ourselves. That is only something that God does. And that is the source. That's the difference, you see, between people who just go to church, or they just attend things, or I'm an affiliate, or whatever it might be. Well, that doesn't sound like a member of a family, does it? I'm affiliated with the Begg family? No, I'm a member. I'm a member.

Membership in the family of God is the issue. Predates membership in any local family. I want to stay with this. I want to ask you this morning, are you in Christ? Are you a Christian?

If you are a Christian, then you know at least this. Number one, that Jesus has done something for me. He has done something for me. He has done something for me that I desperately required. He has done something for me that I couldn't do for myself. He has done that which is the most important issue in the entire world, and he's done it for me.

I've been made aware of the fact that I was created by God. I've been made aware of the fact that I am accountable to God. And I've been made aware of the fact that I am going to face God. You see, people don't believe that. They don't believe that. That is not my reality, that is not my truth, that is not my idea. I can just dispense with it all. And then in the watches of the night, when their conscience confronts them, when they're aware of their condition, then the story is vastly different. To whom are you going to go? To whom will you turn?

The only person to whom you can go is Jesus. That's the first thing. Secondly, that if you are a Christian, if you're in Christ, then you know that Jesus has done something in me. In me. That's the story of the new birth.

It wasn't, it wasn't that Nicodemus decided to change his religion. It wasn't that he changes his ideas about God. It was that Nicodemus became a child of God, the Christian, you see. If anyone is in Christ, they're a new creature.

So I know that God in Jesus has done something for me, and I know that he has done something in me, and as a result of that, I know that he plans to do something through me. Through me.

Now, this is what he's addressing here before we even get to the reaction of Peter. "I want you," he says, in recognition of how I have loved you, to love one another.

In other words, one of the features, a distinguishing feature, maybe even the distinguishing feature of a Christian community is love for one another. That when the Spirit of God takes hold of a life and of lives, then what is, what becomes unmistakable is the fact that we are now enabled to love people for whom we have no natural sense of affection. You get that?

What is Jesus saying here? "By this," verse 35, "will all the people know that you're my disciples." What is that? By what? By all the things we're saying? By all the things we don't do? By all the things we do? No, no, no. "By this will all the people know that you're my disciples if, if," there's, that is a, that is a very small hinge on which hangs a very large door. "If, if you have love one for another."

In other words, Jesus says, that our love for one another within the body of Christ is the visible manifestation of the gospel. It is, if you like, the authentication of the gospel. Here's the great opportunity for the church in every generation, and not least of all in our own. In a broken world, with broken families, and broken bits and pieces of everything, the church of Jesus Christ has the great opportunity.

Schaeffer referred to the love within the body of Christ as the final apologetic. The great answer, the great illustration of why someone would want to become a Christian. Because as I say to you, the church is unlike other associations. Most associations here in greater Cleveland are based on status, wealth, background, intellect, sporting achievements, whatever it might be. The church isn't marked by any of that stuff.

The church is to be marked by an inclusiveness which demonstrates the universal appeal of Jesus. So that people come amongst, those who love Jesus, and they discover that the reason they actually love each other is because Jesus has first loved them. Bruce Milne says, "It is designated that is the church as a community, which welcomes all people, irrespective of background, age, gender, color, moral history, social status, influence, intelligence, religious background, or the lack of it."

To love like Jesus is to love inclusively, indiscriminately, and universally. That's why when John writes his first letter, picking up on what Jesus has taught him, he writes this, "No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us."

In other words, what he's saying is this, that the invisible God is made visible when his children love not in word and in talk, but in deed and in truth. That's the great challenge. That's the great challenge. It's a challenge, is it not? Because we're selfish.

Our whole culture is in a militancy against it. It's about me, it's about my, it's about what, it's about my. You live your life like that and you come into a community like this. That's why, that's why in the early church, who was it? Probably a Roman general or something. He says, you got to see how these Christians love each other.

Now let me ask you, do you think that America, when it thinks about love, when it thinks about friendships, when it thinks about the, the, the engagement of unlikely people with other unlikely people, do you think they're hurrying towards church buildings? They're certainly not.

Why? Well, because we changed it into a political agenda. Or we changed it into we're the people, and we feel sorry for you that you're not one of the people, as opposed to we are a mess. Jesus is a wonderful Savior. This is a messy church, but it's full of messy people, whose messed up lives are in the process of being continually cleaned up by Jesus.

What a phenomenal opportunity is given to us. In light of all of that, and the reason I've spent time on that is because I want us first of all to understand as best we can, the challenge that is there, the examination of our hearts, of our church life, but then to see against that the response of Simon Peter.

Because we ought immediately to be taken aback by Peter's reaction. Because it would appear from what follows, that despite the dramatic nature of what Jesus has said, "I have a new commandment for you," and so on, that somehow or another, Peter's ears are not attuned to that himself. He doesn't seem to have any time for that. He seems to have little time for this call to selfless love.

His focus is elsewhere. Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, where are you going?" It's fantastic, isn't it? I mean, I always say I'm encouraged by the people who used to do that in school, who would ask that kind of question because it's usually the question that I wanted to ask but I didn't have the guts to ask it. I want to believe that I'm going, oh no, this is a wonderful, helpful about the love. No, "Where are you going?"

Peter is more interested in satisfying his curiosity than in paying attention to what Jesus has said. He doesn't have any questions here about brotherly love. He doesn't say, can you explain exactly what you mean by that, Jesus? Like how we could love the way you love. He's got no questions about that at all. No, no, no. No, instead, he wants to know the answer to the one thing that Christ has purposely chosen not to disclose.

Now that ought to ring a bell again, because if we are honest, the tendency in our hearts is very similar to Peter's. Because we're prone to seek answers. We're prone to, I know this, from 48 years in pastoral ministry, most of the questions that people come to their pastors about are questions about things that are contained in the secret counsel of God that he has chosen not to reveal. So they want to come and find out, could you please tell me why it is that God this, why he did that, where was this, and what's the next thing? They're not asking questions about how could I love the person next door to me who's a pain in the neck? They're not asking questions like that. No, they're asking these kind of questions. I don't say it in any spirit of judgment, I'm tempted to do the same.

The one thing that he has chosen not, chosen not to make known, Peter wants the answer to that question. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, Deuteronomy 29:29. But the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of the law. In other words, God keeps nothing back from us that we need. He loves us a Father. He's not withholding information from us that is necessary for the living of the Christian life or commanding the gospel to the world. None of that is held back. And all that he has made known is not only for us, but is for the children's ministry, is for the youth ministry, is for the whole world.

"This is it," he says, which we may paraphrase as the main things are the plain things. The plain things are the main things. Your impact on the watching world is tied to your love for one another, says Jesus. And Peter says, "Where are you going?"

And Jesus' answer, you will notice, is not explicit. He's going to a place where Peter cannot follow now, but he will follow afterward. That will take us actually to our final truly, truly in John's Gospel, in chapter 21, where Jesus will say of Peter, "Truly, truly I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted. But when you're old, you will stretch out your hands and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go." And John explains, "This he said to show by what kind of death Peter was to glorify God."

"You will not follow me now, but you will follow me afterward." One of my friends says, upon that afterward hangs the weight of Christian hope. "You will all fall away, but afterward, when I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee."

So Peter, instead of allowing all that Jesus has now said to sink in, his characteristic assertive personality prevails, and he moves on from where to why. "Where are you going?" "Where I'm going, you can't come now. You'll come afterward." "Why can't I come now?" It's great, isn't it? I think it's great. This is Peter talking to God.

This is Peter challenging the Deity. I answered your first question, you're back with another one? Don't we see ourselves? "Where are you going?" Love each other. "When are you coming back?" Love each other. "Why can't I?" Love each other.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Truth For Life with Alistair Begg. In our study of Jesus' truly, truly statements, we are gaining insight into the certainty of Jesus' words. One thing he tells us is that he alone is our source of strength and endurance and comfort. This is truth all of us need to bring to mind often.

So to supplement our current study, we are recommending a book called *Come You Weary, Enjoy Christ's Comfort*. This little book unpacks the opening chapter of Ephesians and points to additional scriptures that highlight the blessings of being in Christ and describe Jesus' longing that all who are weary would come to him.

You'll find that this book is a heartfelt reminder that we are never alone. Jesus is waiting to lift us up and fill us with deep and lasting joy. Now, today is the last day we're recommending this book *Come You Weary*. You can request your copy when you donate to Truth For Life online at truthforlife.org/donate or call us at 888-588-7884.

I'm Bob Lepine. Do you find yourself making promises to God and then failing to keep them? If so, you're not alone. Tomorrow, we'll hear an encouraging message that addresses this from Alistair. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth For Life, where the learning is for living.