• How God’s love in us enables us to love others
John 13:31-35 — Jesus urges continuing to live by sacrificial love
Acts 11:1-18 — Believers challenged to welcome those not like them
Revelation 21:1-6 — John sees a new order as a city-like community
• See this week’s linked article Having God’s Heart — the Heart of the Gospel
• Watch this week’s 12-min video God’s Love: Receiving It, Relating In It
///////
Psalm 148 — Setting the scene
1 Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise Him in the heights above.
2 Praise Him, all His angels; praise Him, all His heavenly hosts.
3 Praise him, sun and moon; praise Him, all you shining stars.
4 Praise Him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies.
5-6 Let them praise the Name of the Lord, for at His command they were created, and He established them for ever and ever — He issued a decree that will never pass away.
7-8 Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do His bidding,
9-10 you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds,
11-12 kings of the earth and all nations, you princes and all rulers on earth, young men and women, old men and children.
13 Let them praise the name of the Lord, for His name alone is exalted; His splendour is above the earth and the heavens.
14 And He has raised up for His people a horn, the praise of all His faithful servants, of Israel, the people close to His heart. Praise the Lord.
John 13:31-35 — Jesus urges continuing to live by sacrificial love
The new command is for disciples to love others, the way Jesus loved
31-32 When [Judas] was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is 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.
“Now… at once” – a turning point in the Gospel as Judas heads out into the night, setting the arrest and trial and execution of Jesus in motion.
“When he was gone” – in The Passion translation: …Jesus said, “The time has come for the glory of God to surround the Son of Man, and God will be greatly glorified through what happens to Me…” Jesus sees past the Cross, anticipating the glory between Him and the Father to follow.
“Glorified” – the word for glory or honour, doxazo, is repeated five times, emphasising the exchange of glory between God and His Son through Jesus’ giving up of His life.
33 “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.
34-35 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.”
“New command” – rooted in Moses’ commands to love the Lord and one’s neighbour as oneself, Deut. 6:5, Leviticus 19:18. What is new is Jesus’ insistence that we love “as I have loved you”, i.e. sacrificially.
• For further study, loving our enemies, and loving sacrificially Matt. 5:43-48, John 15:13.
Reflection
SUMMARY This incident preceded Jesus’ arrest but it was a recent memory and talking point among the disciples following the Resurrection — clear instruction from Jesus to His apprentices about how they were to carry on His work. They couldn’t come with Him, but they were to be the heart of a new kind of open community, growing by sharing Jesus’ unselfish and unconditional love.
APPLICATION The disciples were to love one another but not in any exclusive way because they were to love “as I have loved you”. Jesus’ clear demonstration had been to love people who were different e.g. non-Jews and those rejected by society. They would have to discover the promised Holy Spirit’s enabling power to love beyond human affinities — something for them (and us) to grow into.
QUESTION When we say God (or Jesus) is glorified, what does this mean in plain language?
///////
Acts 11:1-18 — Believers challenged to welcome those not like them
Peter answers his critics with the story of how God gave him new instruction
1 The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.
“Believers throughout Judea heard” — a new and for some, controversial development. Some Jewish believers struggled to grasp that Jesus was Lord of every believer, regardless of background.
“The Gentiles had received” – how Roman centurion Cornelius and his household heard Peter’s testimony of Jesus’ death and resurrection and experienced the Holy Spirit giving them a praise language, just like the Jewish worshippers at Pentecost.
2-3 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticised him and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.”
“The circumcised believers” — criticism arose, not from the other apostles and brothers, but from those referred to elsewhere as the “circumcision group” who were seeking to apply the religious rules of Judaism to the new believers.
• For further study, see Galatians 2:1-5, 12, 21, Colossians 2:8-12, Titus 1:10.
4 Starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story:
“From the beginning” — Peter explains how, following a dramatic instruction from God, he had stayed with the Gentiles, and saw how God blessed and accepted them. He was submitting to God by welcoming Gentiles into the church, v.17
5-7 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles and birds. Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’
8 “I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’
9-10 “The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean. This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.
11 “Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house.
13-14 He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’
Peter recounts the story of Acts 10:1-33
15 “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as He had come on us at the beginning.
“As He had come on us” — convincing evidence that they had received the Holy Spirit in the same sense as those present at Pentecost, while outside the Jewish law. For Peter, that was God’s clear answer.
16 Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptised with [or in] water, but you will be baptised with [or in] the Holy Spirit.’
17 So if God gave them the same gift He gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”
“Stand in God’s way” — or withhold, kolyo, as in the earlier story of Cornelius’ conversion, Acts 10:47. Baptism in the Bible always follows repentance and belief and is a way of demonstrating dying to the old life, and rising up into the new life that comes when we put our trust in Christ.
18 When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles, God has granted repentance that leads to life.”
“Repentance that leads to life” — the choice to turn from sin and independence to God, resulting in new dimension of life, and eternal life. As with these Gentile believers, satisfying man-made laws and regulations is not how it works.
Reflection
SUMMARY Jewish followers of Jesus believe that the apostle Peter has behaved inappropriately by accepting hospitality from Gentiles — and presumably, sharing meals with them. So Peter tells his story of how God presented a vision followed by a new experience which turned his presuppositions upside down. Peter, a careful, observant Jew, had his narrow understanding of who God loved shattered – but also renewed.
APPLICATION We all have an understanding of how we relate to God within the framework that’s familiar to us. For some that will be based on the rules and practices of our church tradition. Others will seek to understand what the Bible, surely a higher authority, sets out. The Bible reveals God’s purpose progressively from the patriarchs, through the prophets and then Jesus’ earthly ministry, then post-resurrection, the new Christian church, learning to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. We are all comfortable with the understanding and experiences we know — then God does something new and turns it all upside down. God is always in the business of renewing us. We should let Him.
QUESTION How have you been challenged about how God sees those you might have thought outside the scope of His love?
///////
Revelation 21:1-6 — John sees a new order as a city-like community
God is known by all the people and dwelling intimately with them
21 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
“Passed away” — the old, decaying order, Rom. 8:20-21, 2 Peter 3:7 and 10, finally fails at the approach of the judge on the great white throne, Rev. 20:13.
• For further study, contrast Genesis 1:1 with Isaiah 65:17 and 66:22.
2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
“The Holy City” — pictured in a way that combines the images of Jerusalem, the Temple, and the Garden if Eden.
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.
“He will dwell with them” — showing the “Holy City” to be built of living stones, i.e. God’s redeemed people, Hebrews 12:19-24, 1 Peter 2:5. Since humanity’s lapse into sin, separation from God has been its greatest tension, requiring prophets to call people back to God, God’s Son Jesus to redeem them, and the Holy Spirit to enliven them.
• For further study, God’s heart for people to know Him: Gen. 17:8; Exodus 29:45-46; Ps. 46:4-5; 95:7; Jer. 7:23; 31:33; Ezekiel 34:14; 37:27; Zech. 8:8; John 14:2-3; 17:24.
4 “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
“No more… crying” – because the curse and brokenness of sin under the old order is overturned by God’s presence.
5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then He said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
“Making everything new” – becoming a Christian by making a choice to recognise Jesus as Lord is a new spiritual birth as a new creation, 2 Cor. 5:17. But new life in Jesus is uncomfortably surrounded by the old and broken order. In the new heaven and earth the Lord makes everything new..
6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.
“Alpha and Omega” – God was before the beginning and will be beyond the end. The perspective of heaven is not constrained to fit our concept of time.
Reflection
SUMMARY God is always “doing a new thing” and renewing the way people relate to Him. The psalmists and prophets have done their best to put it into words, and Jesus carried out an amazing mission of showing what this looks like. The struggle between the old order and the old way, and the new life and new relationship, will continue – until the end time, which will be marked by the renewal of everything.
APPLICATION We none of us like change at first, and renewal in church and Christian life can be an emotive subject. If renewal is difficult for us — being fought by our insecurities — it’s time to repent and change, because without a doubt, that is where we are all heading.
QUESTION Why do we so often resist change and renewal? Why do we resent having our understanding changed (or upgraded) by God?
PRAYER Thank you, God, that you never give up on us even when we show ourselves to be obstinate or unwilling to hear You afresh.
Help us to be willing to work with you for Your kingdom.
Enable us to learn to see the world with Your eyes, and to do our part to call people back to You and Your love.
Amen.
Leave a Reply