SPEAKER_00: So we're making our way through John still.
SPEAKER_00: I think we'll just be doing this forever, maybe perhaps.
SPEAKER_00: We're at John 13.
SPEAKER_00: We've been at this dinner party for a while in John 13, the Last Supper.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus and his disciples are in this upper room in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: It's right before the Passover feast.
SPEAKER_00: And so a little bit of review if you've been here and tracking with us the last couple weeks.
SPEAKER_00: So the disciples and Jesus, they get to this home, and usually when you came into a home, there would have been a servant there to wash everybody's feet.
SPEAKER_00: The servant obviously wasn't there because everybody's still hanging out around the dinner table and they still have dirty feet.
SPEAKER_00: So in this situation, usually the person of lowliest stature would have gotten up to wash everybody's feet.
SPEAKER_00: This was just custom.
SPEAKER_00: Well, apparently they're not doing that.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, they're doing a reverse.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples are having an argument, and I love this because this is what we do.
SPEAKER_00: They're having an argument about who's the greatest amongst them.
SPEAKER_00: This is just such a human moment right here.
SPEAKER_00: And so what should be occurring is somebody washing feet, and instead they're arguing with each other about who's the greatest.
SPEAKER_00: And so slowly Jesus gets up and they're not really noticing him.
SPEAKER_00: And this was two sermon two weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: He puts a towel around his waist, fills a basin with water, and he starts to wash their feet.
SPEAKER_00: And what we talked about two weeks ago, and what we said is that he's going around to all his disciples, who are basically what they're doing is, you know, John's looking at Peter and saying, Peter, am I important?
SPEAKER_00: Will you tell me I'm important?
SPEAKER_00: And Peter's looking at Andrew and said, Andrew, will you tell me I'm important?
SPEAKER_00: I need somebody to tell me, will you tell me?
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus gets up and starts to wash feet, the most important person at the meal.
SPEAKER_00: And what Jesus is saying to each of them is, you're already important.
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm the one who deemed you important.
SPEAKER_00: I've already deemed you important.
SPEAKER_00: And then last week, um, Judas was at the table, and Judas, as we know, if we know the stories of the scriptures, he's the one who betrayed Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh Judas doesn't get it.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't get it.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't get that he's already important.
SPEAKER_00: So he's been he's been grasping.
SPEAKER_00: At first, he's grasping, thinking Jesus is gonna kind of lead him into an important uh position in maybe in Jerusalem and maybe in the nation we're gonna take over, and then he's starting to see that's not gonna work out.
SPEAKER_00: And so Judas, then he starts stealing money.
SPEAKER_00: He's grasping for identity in all these different ways, and eventually he's willing to sell out his friend for$220.
SPEAKER_00: $220?
SPEAKER_00: We talked about last week.
SPEAKER_00: What a horrible negotiator he was.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's awful.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's all you got out of the negotiations to hand Jesus over.
SPEAKER_00: And what we talked about last week is that even Jesus washed Judas' feet and and gave him the cup and gave him bread.
SPEAKER_00: And what Jesus is saying in that moment is Judas, even you, I see you.
SPEAKER_00: I see what you're doing, I see how you're you're grasping.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're you're searching.
SPEAKER_00: You maybe maybe Judas didn't even realize it, and Jesus saying, I see, I see you though, and I love you.
SPEAKER_00: And then we get these comments this week.
SPEAKER_00: Same table, Judas has gotten up, Judas has left, and so Jesus has left with eleven, and he starts to focus his words a little bit more.
SPEAKER_00: And so, verse 31, it says, When he was gone, when Judas was gone, Jesus said, Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him.
SPEAKER_00: If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in Himself, and we'll glorify him at once.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of glory going on.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of glory going on for Jesus, and all of this is coming to fruition.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus talking a little bit in a riddle here.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, I'm my death is coming.
SPEAKER_00: My children, I will be with you only a little longer.
SPEAKER_00: You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now where I'm going, you cannot come.
SPEAKER_00: And then this, this is where we're going to focus this morning, verse 34.
SPEAKER_00: A new command I give you.
SPEAKER_00: And we can just sort of stop right there.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot of us, if you've read this before, you kind of know what's coming.
SPEAKER_00: But think about being one of these 11 disciples, and you've been you've been culturally raised in a rules, commandments.
SPEAKER_00: 600 and something in the Old Testament, obey enough of them.
SPEAKER_00: You're pleasing to God.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, Hey, I got a new commandment for you.
SPEAKER_00: And they're what it what is it?
SPEAKER_00: Because I need to obey this one also in order to be pleasing to God.
SPEAKER_00: And so they're breaking out the pencils, um, and they're they're they're they're ready.
SPEAKER_00: A new commandment.
SPEAKER_00: All right, Jesus, I'm ready.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus says, Love one another.
SPEAKER_00: As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
SPEAKER_00: And you know they've got to be going, Jesus, that's Leviticus 19, 18.
SPEAKER_00: We already have that commandment.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is saying it's a new commandment.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus says, By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not new, but it's new.
SPEAKER_00: It's not new to the disciples.
SPEAKER_00: It's Leviticus 19, 18.
SPEAKER_00: They've already been told to love one another, but Jesus is saying, I give you a new commandment.
SPEAKER_00: So, so what what how is it new?
SPEAKER_00: What does this mean?
SPEAKER_00: Uh let me I was thinking about it this week, and this is how I started to understand it a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we moved to Grant Park eight years ago.
SPEAKER_00: We lived there for about five years, so we moved it in as this little house, little poster stamp lot, and there's a big oak tree uh just to the left of our lot, and it hung out over our our driveway, and it just dumped leaves.
SPEAKER_00: And I would go out there with a rake and just work, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, just I mean, we've done this, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean you rake them in the pile and then you put them in the bag and then you carry the bag.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and it was it was it was unending.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was just a debt I could not pay off.
SPEAKER_00: It just over and over it, and I I hated it.
SPEAKER_00: I hated it.
SPEAKER_00: It was all work.
SPEAKER_00: Like the ratio of work and reward was so far off.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm out there and it's it's obligation.
SPEAKER_00: It was no fun.
SPEAKER_00: So then uh track with me a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Five years later, we moved to a home in Buckhead, and it had tons of trees all over the lot.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm just thinking back to this one tree.
SPEAKER_00: I'm had I had one tree to deal with, and now there's all these trees.
SPEAKER_00: And so, first purchase, guys, you know, you know my first purchase.
SPEAKER_00: Backpack blower.
SPEAKER_00: The idea of strapping an engine to my back is one of the coolest concepts.
SPEAKER_00: I know it's it's it's it's a little stupid to put a gas engine on your back, but I love the idea of a gas engine on my back.
SPEAKER_00: And so the leaves start falling, and I break out the gas engine powered backpack, and I'm out there just right, and and the ratio of work reward is is totally flipped.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it changes everything.
SPEAKER_00: You can go out there and your whole life can feel like a mess.
SPEAKER_00: And you put that gas backpack blower on.
SPEAKER_00: A few of you know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: You can clear a yard, you can clear a driveway, and the sense of accomplishment and reward is just soaring.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I've become a little addicted to this because you know I I can't control a lot in my life.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, even Friday we're we're giving Greta, our one-year-old, a bath, we're giving her a bath, look to the left, toilet to the left, toilet seat.
SPEAKER_00: You know the little connection pieces at the back of the toilet seat that connect the seat to the toilet?
SPEAKER_00: Um, well, one of the little plastic pieces that covers the screw is gone.
SPEAKER_00: So every time you look over there, you you you see, well, every time I look over there, I see the screw.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe everybody else sees the other 98% of the toilet.
SPEAKER_00: I see the 2% there that's visible.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going, where's this piece?
SPEAKER_00: I'm down on my hands and knees, I'm looking for this piece, I'm hating, hating Greta a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: You know, where'd she put it?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm I'm on the hand in the bathroom, nothing in the bathroom, in the hallway.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, where did she put this?
SPEAKER_00: It was in the trash can.
SPEAKER_00: She put it in the trash can in the bathroom.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Greta.
SPEAKER_00: I can't control, I can't control all that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you you know what I'm talking about, these feelings.
SPEAKER_00: You can't control maybe your spouse, maybe you can't control your boss, maybe you can't control things at work.
SPEAKER_00: You can't you can't control every everything in your your life, but I can strap on a gas blower on my back and go out, and I can clear a driveway, and the world's gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_00: And so I've become a little addicted to this.
SPEAKER_00: Here's my point my motivation for the task completely changed when I was empowered to do it.
SPEAKER_00: See, see, it was the same task.
SPEAKER_00: Clear the leaves.
SPEAKER_00: Same task.
SPEAKER_00: But it became new because my motivation and the way in which it was done was changed.
SPEAKER_00: So this word, a new commandment, that word new, that that word new means unexpected.
SPEAKER_00: It means that there's there's a fundamental shift in how you approach something.
SPEAKER_00: So, same commandment.
SPEAKER_00: Love one another, totally new, completely new.
SPEAKER_00: So uh this this week we had a men's Bible study, and David was there, and Keith was there, and Patrick, and the four of us sat around my living room, and we talked Luke 15.
SPEAKER_00: They kind of gave me a hard time.
SPEAKER_00: They said I was working on my sermon as we talked, and I secretly I think I was.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, so this story in Luke 15, we we've we talked for an hour and a half, and there's another men's Bible study going through the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: And so this week, I've just in my mind and my heart has been rolling around this John 13, this Luke 15, because this this first phrase, as I have loved you.
SPEAKER_00: So this week I'm searching, like, how do I how do I communicate that?
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: And this story of Luke 15, this is what it means.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Jesus is telling the story.
SPEAKER_00: This is my favorite story, so you're gonna get it probably about every six weeks.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna show back up.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's the prodigal son story, is what we know it as.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you remember this, the younger son goes to the father, and the father seems to be a relatively well-off guy, and and so the younger son goes to the father and says, I want my inheritance now, which would have been would have been a shameful thing to ask for.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it would have been like you know, it's basically saying, I don't care about you.
SPEAKER_00: I just want your money.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't want a relationship with you, I don't care if you're here or not here, I just I just want the money.
SPEAKER_00: The father gives him money, the son runs off to another country, foreign land, starts spending it.
SPEAKER_00: Things are fun.
SPEAKER_00: He's having a great time.
SPEAKER_00: He is l he's living it up.
SPEAKER_00: Slowly that bank account is dropping.
SPEAKER_00: He's getting poorer and poorer and poorer, and eventually he's at the bottom, he's bankrupt.
SPEAKER_00: He's bankrupt financially, he's bankrupt morally, he's he's bankrupt, you know, uh sense of self.
SPEAKER_00: He is at the end of himself, he hires himself out to a farm.
SPEAKER_00: He's working on the farm, and he is so hungry, he he's envying the food that the pigs are eating.
SPEAKER_00: He's at the bottom.
SPEAKER_00: And then it says in Luke 15, it says, he came to his senses, which means he remembered.
SPEAKER_00: He remembered his father.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the question that he had to be start to ask inside of his mind and his heart.
SPEAKER_00: If I go home, will he still love me?
SPEAKER_00: What's this love like?
SPEAKER_00: You know, I said Jesus, as I have loved you, John 13, Luke 15, the the wandering son, he's wondering, like, what's the what is this love like?
SPEAKER_00: Is it is it still is it limited?
SPEAKER_00: Like that go past the limit, they go over the line?
SPEAKER_00: And so he works out his little speech of what he's gonna say, and he's gonna say, you know, he's working it out.
SPEAKER_00: I so he's he's headed back home.
SPEAKER_00: I here's what I'm gonna say to dad.
SPEAKER_00: I'm you know, dad's gonna be, he's gonna be he's gonna be upset, so I'm gonna present it.
SPEAKER_00: I've sinned against you, against heaven, so I'm gonna be honest, I'm gonna come right out.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not worthy to be your son, and say that, and that that's gonna be maybe that'll help.
SPEAKER_00: And then and then dad, just make me like one of your hired men.
SPEAKER_00: You know what they break me as a son, just kind of let me back in, I'll work my way back in.
SPEAKER_00: And then it says this in verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him, was filled with compassion for him, and he ran to his son.
SPEAKER_00: Crazy thought.
SPEAKER_00: Middle Eastern man, they don't they don't run.
SPEAKER_00: This is crazy.
SPEAKER_00: But the father runs to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him.
SPEAKER_00: And then the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
SPEAKER_00: So he's starting a speech.
SPEAKER_00: I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.
SPEAKER_00: But the father said to his servants, it's like the father doesn't even hear it.
SPEAKER_00: Quick, bring the best robe, put it on him, put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, bring the fattened calf and kill it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's have a feast and celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: For the son of mine, still a son, right?
SPEAKER_00: You know the son had to feel good when he heard that.
SPEAKER_00: For the son of mine was dead and is alive again.
SPEAKER_00: He was lost and is found.
SPEAKER_00: So they began to celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: And what Jesus what Jesus is communicating here is no limit.
SPEAKER_00: There's no limit to the love of God.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the father was waiting.
SPEAKER_00: The father had never forgotten about the son.
SPEAKER_00: So this is where it gets really interesting because the other son, this is where our conversation Tuesday night was centered, the other son, the elder son, which we know as sort of the moralistic son.
SPEAKER_00: He's judgmental, he's distant, you know, he's he's judging his brother, and he goes to that and says, you know, I don't like any of this.
SPEAKER_00: You never threw a party for me.
SPEAKER_00: I've been here, I've been loyal.
SPEAKER_00: Like he said, I've earned it, I've earned that, and you're giving it to him.
SPEAKER_00: So this son's working off of like a merit scale.
SPEAKER_00: All these years I've been here, I've been slaving away for you.
SPEAKER_00: Never given me a party.
SPEAKER_00: And so this brother, this brother's proud, he's judgmental, he's self-consumed with his own record.
SPEAKER_00: He makes himself feel better by comparison comparing himself to his brother.
SPEAKER_00: He has no ability to extend compassion.
SPEAKER_00: And he just he thinks his younger brother should have to earn his way back in, is what he thinks.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 31, the father says to the to the older son, he says, You're you're you're always with me.
SPEAKER_00: Everything I have is yours.
SPEAKER_00: Like, no, you see, my relationship with you is a gracious relationship, my relationship with your brother's a gracious relationship.
SPEAKER_00: But he doesn't get this.
SPEAKER_00: The older brother doesn't get that that beginning phrase in John 13, as I have loved you.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't get it.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't get that it's without reservation.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't get that that Jesus would wash the feet of Judas.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't get how his father could come off of a porch and run to a rebellious son that had rebelled against him.
SPEAKER_00: So he sees his brother wrapped in a robe and he's livid.
SPEAKER_00: Because he left and he's he stole from dad.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's back to steal some of my inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: So he stands in judgment over his brother, and because he doesn't understand as I have loved you, he can't love his brother.
SPEAKER_00: So a whole realm of questions are unavailable to him.
SPEAKER_00: So he cannot ask.
SPEAKER_00: He cannot ask, why did my brother feel like he needed all that money?
SPEAKER_00: He cannot ask, Why did my brother feel compelled to run away?
SPEAKER_00: He can't ask, what I wonder what is hurting inside my brother?
SPEAKER_00: He can't ask, how could I help my brother?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, these questions are unavailable to him because he has objectified his brother.
SPEAKER_00: He has reduced his brother out of personhood into a set of behaviors.
SPEAKER_00: And see, if we objectify people into a set of behaviors, then we can judge the behaviors and we can feel superior to the other person.
SPEAKER_00: This is what we do.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: This is what judgment's about, this is what comparison is about, this is what gossip is about, this is what lust is about.
SPEAKER_00: It's about uh you know, dehumanizing an individual into a set of behaviors so then I can I can feel whatever I want to feel towards a set of behaviors, and I can assert myself over them, and if I assert myself over them, and then I can feel more important than them.
SPEAKER_00: This is the same thing as the argument around the table in John 13.
SPEAKER_00: John to Peter and Peter and Andrew, am I important?
SPEAKER_00: Will you tell me I'm important?
SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing, it's the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: This is what we do in our poverty when when when our hearts are needy and we're not receiving God's love, and we become so needy that we start to do this with other people and need pulling from other people and objectifying other people.
SPEAKER_00: But the question is, is what what if the what if the elder brother had understood his father's love?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about the difference in the response that the older brother would have had to his younger brother.
SPEAKER_00: A whole different set of questions would have been available to him.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is what happens when when when we are receiving the love of God as I have loved you, love one another.
SPEAKER_00: When the first half of the verse, it's important to get this to the second part, this is why it's a new commandment.
SPEAKER_00: The first half, when when we're when we're living in that, a whole new set of questions can come to us when we approach another person.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to objectify them into a set of behaviors as to judge them or gossip or feel superior to them.
SPEAKER_00: We can ask, I wonder why they feel so anxious.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder why they're I wonder what they're afraid of to feel like they gotta go do that.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder what broke in them.
SPEAKER_00: Like, what what broke in them to to get to that?
SPEAKER_00: Like what what's I wonder what's driving driving them to get to that behavior.
SPEAKER_00: And so instead of judging the behavior, you're concerned about a person's heart.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what's love-loving another person is about.
SPEAKER_00: But you can't do that unless you've received the love of God, because if you haven't received the love of God, you're gonna objectify the person.
SPEAKER_00: We we were at dinner with Sam, his wife Rachel on Thursday night, and uh talking and and I can talk about a bunch of nothing for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: And uh it was toward the end we're having ice cream and the place next to where we where we ate uh for dinner, and we're having ice cream, and I don't know what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: I think we're talking about I think we're talking about vacationing or something, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean my favorite topic to talk about pretty much.
SPEAKER_00: So uh we're we're talking about nothing.
SPEAKER_00: But it's it's great, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like hanging out, and and I'm pretty much just self-absorbed at this point, enjoying my ice cream sorry Sam, I'm thinking about my ice cream.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm thinking about this strawberry ice cream, it's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: And and Chrissy asks, she just says, how how can we do you remember that?
SPEAKER_00: She said she said, how how can we help you guys?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, like, I probably should ask that.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, wow.
SPEAKER_00: I I I'm I'm married into somebody who loves people well.
SPEAKER_00: And this idea, and some of you know what I'm talking about, some of you maybe naturally you love people well.
SPEAKER_00: I don't na naturally I love myself well.
SPEAKER_00: You know, this idea of loving other people, like watching my wife do this, I mean I mean it's all the time, you know, she'll be doing something.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: She said, Well, you remember this is happening to whatever person like I don't remember, like, unless my iPhone tells me something, I'm just thinking about me.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and to watch somebody else love people so well, and and then slowly, and I'm I'm talking slowly, there's been some transformation in my life, not much, apparently, because I'm more concerned about my strawberry ice cream than asking them how we could help them.
SPEAKER_00: Slowly there's been some transformation here, and and what it has felt like to begin to care for people is uh, do you remember in the Truman Show?
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that movie The Truman Show?
SPEAKER_00: And and Truman is in this like fake world that's just very surface, and actually it is a fake world because he was born into it, and it's basically a TV show, and everything's perfect, and everything works around him, and then at the end he's he's trying to get out, get out, get out, and he sails across the water, and then he's walking up the stairs and he's opening that door and he's going past the wall.
SPEAKER_00: So you know what I'm talking about, you can rent it later.
SPEAKER_00: Um, that's what it's felt like.
SPEAKER_00: Like caring for people has felt like going through that doorway.
SPEAKER_00: And for me, that's not easy.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's much easier to live in the stream and show and just think about myself and just please my own needs.
SPEAKER_00: See, at least for me, uh I'm at the argument at the table of who's the greatest.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, even last night we're we're at a we were at a wedding, beautiful out, all these people, there's probably 250 people there.
SPEAKER_00: And what what and what am I doing?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are much more spiritual than me.
SPEAKER_00: I I'm always I'm scanning the crowd of like, I wonder who's here.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I wonder if there's anybody important here.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, some of y'all do this, you go to a wedding, and you go, oh, well, you know, you know who's here.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're here.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, this is I'm I'm crazy.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and there's all these people, and they're all people, and and that's what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_00: See, um, I will use, and some of you do this too, I will use status to feel more important.
SPEAKER_00: This is just objectifying people.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is this is also just arguing around a table about who's the greatest.
SPEAKER_00: And and and I almost I don't even I I don't even realize that's what I'm doing until I feel some water on my feet.
SPEAKER_00: And then I I realize Jesus is trying to tell me that I'm already important.
SPEAKER_00: And this is actually what played out sitting at that wedding last night over on the side, you know, normal wedding.
SPEAKER_00: Christy's cousin's getting married, and I'm looking around and I wonder who's here.
SPEAKER_00: And oh, he used to do this.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm over there, and um, and and there's that moment of me, um, this is going on in my heart and mind, me using status to feel important, and then me repenting of using status to feel important, and go, God, I'm so friggin' broken, this is ridiculous, and using, and it's a you know, God, I, and then to go, to realize that Jesus washes my feet, I'm already deemed important.
SPEAKER_00: As I've loved you, love one another.
SPEAKER_00: And then, and then being set free to love other people, anybody, right?
SPEAKER_00: Not just people that can better us.
SPEAKER_00: So then verse 35.
SPEAKER_00: Love this, verse 35.
SPEAKER_00: By this, okay, so by receiving love and giving love, and so literally, you gotta think at the table, and Jesus is is uh he's going around, he's and he's he's he's giving the cup of the new covenant, so he's he's sharing uh wine, he's saying, This is the cup of the new covenant.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, there's a new way, not the way like obey all the commandments in order to please God, but you're already pleasing to God, so therefore obey two very different things.
SPEAKER_00: One's the covenant of law, one's the covenant of grace, and Jesus is going around, he's saying, here's the cup, here's the bread to receive love, we give love.
SPEAKER_00: That's what verse 34 is about, verse 35.
SPEAKER_00: By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.
SPEAKER_00: So, what this does not say is by your perfect purity in every way, by your church attendance, by your tithing, by your quiet times, by the length of your quiet times, by the frequency, by how successful you are, by your political beliefs, by your impressive reading list, or you've just been buying the books and putting on the bookshelf and makes you feel better.
SPEAKER_00: By any of that, people will know you're in reciprocals.
SPEAKER_00: No, that's not what it says.
SPEAKER_00: Because you love people.
SPEAKER_00: You love people.
SPEAKER_00: That's what people are waiting for.
SPEAKER_00: People are waiting for us to stop objectifying each other and stop sitting in judgment over them and just to start to care for them.
SPEAKER_00: And we can all track back to people who have done that for us.
SPEAKER_00: I can, I can think through, man, he did that, and he did that, and he did that, and what refreshing it is when somebody actually cares for us.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I also know this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking back, I've I I don't have any remembrance of not being loved.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I come from a family and my parents split and divorced, but I I never remember not being loved.
SPEAKER_00: Not by my father and not by my mother.
SPEAKER_00: But what I do know is some of you do remember not being loved.
SPEAKER_00: So even the concept of as you have been loved is maybe difficult.
SPEAKER_00: That may be a difficult concept to get your mind and your heart around.
SPEAKER_00: And when we when we don't receive it, we start running to other things.
SPEAKER_00: And what the way of the world says, it says, indulge.
SPEAKER_00: Drink of it another cup and another cup and another cup and another cup and drink more of that cup and then drink more of that cup, and then eventually, you know, you will fill your tank.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens with that was be careful, be careful of what it'll drive you to.
SPEAKER_00: And we become more self-centered, and then we don't see people.
SPEAKER_00: See, if you don't receive the love of God, you cannot love people.
SPEAKER_00: And because you're just always needing another cup and another cup.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the good news: we've already received a cup that has more than enough for you.
SPEAKER_00: And this is Jesus going around the table with the cup of the new covenant to each person, and he sends the cup of the new covenant.
SPEAKER_00: Take and drink of me.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying to you, he's saying to you, I see you.
SPEAKER_00: I see you trying to assert yourself over other people to feel more important.
SPEAKER_00: I see you objectifying people.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do it.
SPEAKER_00: You can stop.
SPEAKER_00: I've loved you.
SPEAKER_00: Drink of this cup.
SPEAKER_00: It will set you free to love other people.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: God, we thank you for this call that's more than us to love other people, to care for people, and to not use them to make ourselves feel important or better or superior.
SPEAKER_00: But we only know how to do this when we rest in you.
SPEAKER_00: When we see how you did that for us, you sacrificed yourself for us.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't consider yourself more important than us.
SPEAKER_00: You humbled yourself to the cross, and our sin is laid on you, and you have given us your righteousness, and you say to us, We're already important.
SPEAKER_00: You say to us, I see you, I see you, and I love you.
SPEAKER_00: Would we receive all of this this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Would we receive the promise as to receive the call?
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.