Welcome to one and all to this discipleship session or part of the service. There will be a more formal welcome at the next service, preaching service. I don't feel like we are ignoring you. We will welcome you formally in the next service. This morning we are going to continue with our study in a a subject title, Our Only Hope, and it is looking at how we conduct our lives, how we live, and how we are able to not just survive, but have a meaningful life in a world that's postmodern, and we rely on the supremacy of Christ in this postmodern world to sustain us, to give us a reason for living. This morning we are dealing with Christ and discipleship. We have done part one already. This is part two. So if you haven't heard the first one, you have to go back online, and I know it's somewhere. Lyle will have to tell us where it is, but you will find it. And this is part two, and we will complete this particular lesson this morning. This morning's lesson is a go-to verse that's going to form the background for when we started speaking about this subject of Christ and discipleship. And that verse is Matthew chapter 28, verses 19 to 20, which says, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, And behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age. And we looked at this last time we had this session by a couple of things that we identified as marks of a true disciple. So there's some verse in scripture or some passages that gives identifying attributes of how a disciple can be recognized. The first thing we mentioned was that a disciple must display unwavering fidelity. Fidelity just means faithfulness. Faithfulness to the person whom you are following. It is a demonstration of loyalty. A demonstration of being committed to. That's what fidelity means. So a disciple should display unwavering fidelity. In fact, it marks him out, or her out, as a disciple in John chapter 8 verse 31 says, Jesus says to those who will listen to him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. Abiding in his word is one of the ways, and probably the primary way, that we show our fidelity to the one whom we serve. If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. The second mark or attribute of a disciple, the true disciple, is proof of life. And we went to John chapter 15 from verses 1 to 11, where we have the count of the vine and the branches. And from that verse, which says, By this my father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. John 15 verse 8. And we showed from that portion, 1 to 11, that there is an expression of true discipleship as evidenced by the fruit bearing of the branch that is part of the vine. And we see there were four levels that we could see in the passage. Verse 2 speaks about no fruit of those who are not abiding in Christ. It speaks about getting some fruit, but that fruit comes about and has pruning to be applied to it, which we see as God prunes his people. It comes to testing, it comes to various things we may go through, so we can be made into shape as a branch that bears God-honoring fruit. Then verse 2 speaks about having more fruit. No fruit, some fruit, more fruit. And finally, verse 5 speaks about constantly abiding and displaying much fruit. And so these were attributes of a disciple who shows proof of life, because fruit in the natural world indicates a healthy tree, a healthy fruit-bearing tree, and a healthy fruit-bearing tree is indicative of a healthy tree. So Mark's our true disciple, unwavering fidelity, and number two, proof of life. And this morning we're going to look at the third attribute or the third mark of discipleship which is Christ-like love. Christ-like love. And that foundation verses there will be John chapter 13 verse 34 and 35 which says a new commandment, this is Jesus Christ speaking to his disciples, and this is part of the uproom discourse. It's hours virtually before he's going to be led away, he's going to be crucified, and before he meets his death, at the hands of those who hated him, he speaks to those who love him and who he loves. And he says in John chapter 13 verse 34 and 35, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another. And so that's the third mark of a true disciple, that they express between themselves a Christ-like love. The significance of a love of each other as disciples of Christ cannot be overstated. It's something I think that we need to embrace more and more, not just intellectually and think about and talk about it, but it's something that we are guilty of not expressing enough. And I know that many of you do, but some of us don't do it. And I place myself in a camp where there's lots of room for expression of love in a way that reflects a Christ-like love. Love for each other marks us out as disciples of Christ. It's not obvious only to each other as we love each other, but specifically it's obvious to outsiders, to all people who are looking on. That's what Jesus says to his disciples, by this all people will know that you are my disciples. evidence of discipleship that's based on mutual reciprocal love will become more and more significant when those who are looking on become more and more antagonistic. And we are living in a world, which we have spoken about in our previous lesson, that is antagonistic, that is aggressively focused against us. And it's in those conditions that perhaps the love for each other takes on a meaning that it does not take on when we're living in a time of comfort. When we have all we need at our front door, when we have all that we need in our cupboards, and we have all that we need around us in our home with our family, we don't feel we have a need of anything else because we have so much love at home. But that love at home needs to be also supplemented by a far deeper love, a love that is a love for each other because of Christ's love for us and our love for Him. Our family, our love for our family is really a familiar love. We love, families love each other whether they're in Christ or not. It's a natural thing. But our love, the love between two disciples, or for disciples for each other, is based on the love of Christ Himself, and that's important. But this kind of love is not confined to the New Testament only. This love that disciples should show for each other is not something that is unique to the New Testament. Its foundational principle is found in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament there is a standard for love. The standard for love up until this point of John 13 is a standard that has been expressed by the Lord through the writing of Moses. We're in Leviticus chapter 19 and verse 18. It says, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. And we see in that chapter Leviticus, which we'll be going to shortly, that this love for your neighbor is something which is significant enough to be cited several times in the New Testament. It's something that the New Testament writers go back to time and time again, including our Lord Jesus Christ. He cites that particular verse, and we'll show you later on how that is done. The question is, as we read that verse, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The question we have to ask ourselves is this. Is Leviticus 19.18 saying that the standard for loving your neighbor as a follower of God, because remember that is being spoken to in Deuteronomy. between Leviticus, sorry, to the children of Israel, God's Old Testament people, we are his New Testament people, and don't confuse the two. It's catalogically dangerous, but nonetheless. This is the foundation of loving your neighbor as found in the Old Testament. Easley Wittes, 1918, saying that the standard for loving your neighbor as a follower of God should be according to how much you love yourself or indulge in self-love. I'm going to read a verse and ask a question again. Leviticus 19 says, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The question is, should the standard for loving your neighbor be based on how much you love yourself? Is that the standard? You can reserve your answers for later on. All right. This is one verse that many use to promote the practice of self-love, and they use this because it makes them feel good. It would be profitable for us to consider the phenomenon of this self-love for a moment. It's something that's pervasive in this postmodern world. The desire, the encouragement, and the determination to be self-loved. So the question is to ask is, what is self-love? What is self-love? Here's a definition of self-love and I'm saying this because this is the antithesis of what disciple love should be. What is self-love? Here's one definition. Self-love is an appreciation of your own worth and virtues that enables you to accept yourself fully, treating yourself with kindness and respect, with the aim of reaching a deeper love for yourself. Does that sound familiar? No? How many of you have been part of self-help groups, self-esteem teaching groups at work, self-promoting? How much of you have been and how much of that is prefaced on this? You must love yourself, you must respect yourself, you must make sure that if you don't love yourself, respect yourself, nobody else will. Well, here is another definition. given from a psychological, a worldly, secular, psychological perspective of self-love. Self-love is a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that support our physical, psychological, and spiritual growth. Listen to this. Self-love means having a high regard for your own well-being and happiness. Here's the clincher. Self-love means taking care of your own needs and not sacrificing your well-being to please others. If you've ever bought into the concept and the psychological lie of self-love, then what you're saying is that I count first in my life, me, myself, and me only. I'm numero uno in my life, and everybody else takes the back place. It is the antithesis of what disciple love is. Christ did not love that way. He loved to the point of death. He came and gave up everything so that he could become our savior, and his love was displayed to the point of death. So, nothing is more empty than self-love. It's just pure empty psychology. And we've heard about this when Den was teaching through this in the last discipleship course. We heard how psychology how it is used to manipulate people to believe things that are not true about themselves. Nothing is more empty than self-love. It's worthless psychology. The object of self-love is you, and the lack of self-love is seen as the root cause of things such as depression. They tell you if you don't love yourself, you're going to end up being depressed. Self-love is blamed for the practice of bullying. How that works out, I don't know. Here's one that some of us sometimes identify with. The lack of self-love is said to be the root cause of obesity. Really? This was written some time back because you can't use that statement now. It would be called fat-shaming, right? Lack of self-love leads to you to be in a condition where you will be fat-shamed by those around you. So yeah, self-love or the lack of self-love is something we'll focus on and try to move away from it. That is not what a disciple is called to do. The post-modern world is intoxicated by the practice of self-love. And it is totally antithetical to the biblical principle of loving your neighbor as yourself. So, Mark is a true disciple, Christ-like love. Let me go to another verse to help us focus on what it should look like. Matthew chapter 22 verse 37 to 39 says this, or rather it is another passage that's frequently referred to when people try to justify why they should love themselves in an indulgent way. This verse, Matthew 22 from verses 37 to 39, and we'll go specifically to two verses shortly, is what people use to say, well, this is why I should love myself. It's biblically supported. Matthew 22 verse 37, and he said, as Jesus Christ says to them, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment or the first great commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. They say there it is. Jesus says you should love your neighbor as yourself. If you don't love yourself, you can't love your neighbor. That's a total misinterpretation and misapplication of this verse. And the unsaved are not alone in misinterpreting and misapplying these verses. Careless Christians do the same. And they say it in this way. And this is a quote from a Christian youth conference where the person who came up was talking to young Christians about their self-worth. And this was his parting line, virtually, as we finish this talk. You can only love God and your neighbor as much as you accept and love yourself. That was spoken at the so-called evangelical Christian conference to young people. You can only love God and your neighbor as much as you accept and love yourself. So this concept of self-love is pervasive. And it draws us away from understanding clearly that the love that we should display, the love that we should display not only for each other in the family, but specifically in the Church of Jesus Christ, is one that's the total opposite of this. Think of your home where husbands are instructed to love their wives. How are they supposed to love their wives? As much as they love themselves. Paul speaks in Corinthians about how a person does love himself and will treat himself well. That's a natural predisposition. We don't go out there and try and do something bad to ourselves, a lucio masochist, but normally we try and dress ourselves well, keep warm, keep ourselves well fed. move in the right places, move away from unsafe places, and do more and more and more. But we are clearly told that when we express love, for instance, from a husband to a wife, it's the love that is very unique because it's a love that is expressed by a Christian husband to a Christian wife based on the example that's left by their savior. Husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church. And what did he do for the church? He gave himself for the church. So Christ's love for the church is an example for husbands to love wives. It's the same principle being applied here. And the world does the exact opposite. When Christians say to themselves or say amongst each other, you can only love God and your neighbor as much as you accept and love yourself, they are so way off the mark that you have to wonder, do they understand the theology they claim to abide with? So, the question we have to ask, what have they done by thinking this way? When somebody says that phrase, that sentence, what are they thinking about? What's in their mind? They make themselves a standard. As soon as you say you can only love God and your neighbor as much as you accept and love yourself, you're making yourself the standard of love, not only between you and a fellow disciple, a fellow believer, you're making yourself the standard of love between you and God. And that is blasphemous. We cannot become the standard of love because Why? Primarily, we are sinners. And primarily, all that we do by nature is wrong. And when we do love ourselves, it's a selfish love. It's a self-aggrandizing love. It's a love which is focused on doing things for ourselves at the cost of the benefit to everyone else. So, when we say that we only love God and neighbor as much as we accept ourselves, we're making ourselves the standard. So if that is not what loving your neighbor means, what does loving your neighbor as yourself mean? The principle of loving your neighbor as yourself is laid out in detail in Leviticus chapter 19. So let's go there for an understanding of what loving your neighbor looks like, Leviticus chapter 19. And I'm going through this and I'm going to try and cover as much as I can or finish this this morning. But if you have a question or a comment, please just stick your hand up and we will take it and hopefully we can answer it. Leviticus chapter 19. deals with a section which ends with that verse I said has been cited in the New Testament, and it's misconstituted by most, love your neighbor as yourself. The verse 19 deals with two areas. It deals with the standard for love, verses 1 to 4, and it deals with the showing of love. How is love shown in verses 9 to 18. So, let's just go through this as quickly as we can. Verse 1, And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel, and say to them, You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. Do not turn to idols or make yourselves any gods of cast metals. I am the Lord your God. And keep those two sections in your mind. You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. I am the Lord your God. That's the standard for love. That is what God is establishing right here. Before He speaks to them about how to deal with a neighbor, He establishes what is the standard. And He is the standard. His holiness is the standard for the way we deal with each other. We don't deal with each other because we get something in return. It's not that. It's to honor and glorify God. He is the standard. And this phrase, I am the Lord your God, will give you a clue as you go through the next few verses briefly. Verse 9. When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right to its edge, neither shall you gather the greenings after your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner. I am the Lord your God. This is the neighbor that has to be loved who is a poor neighbor. So this section gives you categories of neighbors who requires, who should benefit from your love because you are in a position to bless them. So first of all, it's your poor neighbor who needs to enjoy your love. That's the neighbor you should love. And you must love him, why? Because I am the Lord, your God. God's a standard by which we are motivated to love those who are poorer than us, children of Israel, so that they are able to be supported in their needs. We went through this very clearly in the book of Ruth. where the gleanings were left to the outer parts of the field, and Ruth and others would go and glean in the barley field because they had nothing to eat. So, loving your neighbor, as far as Leviticus 19 is concerned, is you leave them enough to provide for their poorness, and you do that because you are honoring the Lord, your God. What about people on a social equal level with you? Now verse 11 down to verse 13 speaks with those from whom you shall not steal, you shall not deal falsely, you shall not lie, you shall not swear by my name falsely, you shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. For it says in verse 12, I am the Lord. So even those with whom you just normally have business with, you do it in an honorable way because they are your neighbors and you need to love them by dealing with them honorably. You do that so that you can honor the Lord You're God. What about those with whom you have legal business? How do you deal with them? Verse 15, we shall do no injustice in court. We sometimes think that we can be controlled and governed and taught how to behave in church and maybe in home, but when it comes to legal matters, that's between me and my lawyer. No, it's not. When it's between brothers, it's between you, your brother, and Christ. And even when it comes to legal matters, you shall do no injustice in court. And Paul speaks about that clearly in 1 Corinthians, about brothers going to brothers, against brothers in court, and death before unbelievers. He says, are you able to resolve those things by yourselves? Unbounce yourselves? So, even when it comes to dealing with your neighbor at a legal level, you need to love him as your neighbor and not deal with him in an unjust way. Why? Verse 16. I am the Lord. I am the Lord. What about those who's incapacitated. Those who are blind and deaf and are unable to help themselves because of medical reasons. Moses in Leviticus covers a whole swage of people in society, in the Jewish society there, who have needs, and those needs can be met, or their relationship can be handled in such a way that God is honored. I am the Lord your God. He's the standard, and His standard then determines how we love our neighbors. This ends in verse 18 with this. We shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. So the standard is not ourselves. The standard is God. His standard is high. His standard is exceptionally high. And we need to focus on that as a standard for loving. As He gave to the children of Israel, we have to follow that same standard because that same verse is used in the New Testament when it speaks with our love towards our brothers and sisters who are disciples of Christ. No questions? No comments? It's clear from Leviticus 19 that loving your neighbor as yourself means to treat them with the same kindness, compassion, generosity, and care that you'd like to receive from them if you were in the same position as they are. The same principle is summed up in Matthew 7, verse 12, which is often called the Golden Rule. And Matthew 7, verse 12 sums up Leviticus 19, verse 9 to 18, where it says, So whatever you wish that others do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets. Matthew 7, 12 sums up Leviticus 19, 9 to 18. Whatever you wish that others do to you, do also them, for this is the law and the prophet. That's the golden rule. And some people try to live by the golden rule. They don't know why they need to live by the golden rule. They don't realize that the golden rule is established on the fact that God is the ultimate standard. And so in their own weakness, they try and maintain the golden rule, but they can't. Not completely, and not properly, because they don't know the God who is the standard for this kind of love. James, in James chapter two, verse eight, speaks about the royal law. And he calls this very passage, Leviticus 19 and 18, the royal law. Then, we find in Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four, we have the Shema. The royal law speaks about loving your neighbor as yourself, and the Shema speaks about loving God. And we find that what happens when it comes to Matthew 22, Jesus takes both of these and he brings them together in Matthew 22, verse 37 to 40. And he says this, he takes the Shema and he adds it to the royal law and he brings it together in a single statement from verses 22, chapter 22 of Matthew, starting in verse 37. And he says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart And with all your soul, and with all your mind, this is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. So we are taking continually back to the law and the prophets, where that has been established amongst the children of Israel. This is the way you love, when you love your neighbor. And this love is not because you are doing it because you are so good. It's because despite you being so bad, as you focus on the standard set by God, you can accomplish this. He's the standard, and the Lord Jesus Christ takes those very standards established in Deuteronomy 6 and 4, and Leviticus 19 and 18 says this is how, in the New Testament, you need to love. The royal law does not stand on its own. That royal law of Leviticus 19 and 18, and quoted so often by others as, this is how I love my neighbor, as I love myself, it can't stand on its own. It doesn't stand on its own. It needs the imperative of the Shema in order to be meaningful. Without the Shema, that second commandment doesn't have the weight that it does have because of the Shema. The love of one for his neighbor requires that he loves God first. The vertical precedes the horizontal. The vertical gives meaning to the horizontal. And no matter what philanthropists may think, no matter what they may say, the reason why they do what they do is evident by how much they want to tell you about how much they do what they do. It's for self-esteem. It's for self-justification. They want to feel good. because they see themselves as the standard of goodness. And so they give of their wealth, which doesn't dent their income most times, and they see themselves as saying, that is not the standard. The standard is vertical. If you do not love God first, you cannot love your brother. And if you don't love your brother, you can't claim to love God. And that's the point that I want to make right now. The vertical precedes and gives meaningful meaning to the horizontal, but it also does something else. If the love I have for my neighbor is a true love, then it will reflect the measure of my love for God. The truthfulness of my love for God will be determined by the extent that I love my brother. This principle is picked up by the Apostle John in 1 John chapter 4, where he says the following, if anyone says I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother 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. We cannot divorce those two principles. They are two halves of a single principle of true love. We have to love God first in order to love our brothers. And we can't claim to love God if it's not obvious that we are loving our brothers. Those two go hand in hand. So now, back to the verse that we started out with, John chapter 13, verses 34 and 35. When we get to this portion of John, Jesus sets a new standard. In John 13, the Lord Jesus takes all of this reciprocal love of brother for brother, and he raises the test for discipleship to a new level. He raises the level by giving a new commandment. Do we still love the Lord our God with all our heart, and all our soul, and all our mind, and all our body today? Yes, we do. That's not done away with. Though Jesus Christ hasn't replaced it, the new commandment simply builds on the old. It doesn't replace it, but it's a new commandment given on the basis of a love which is far greater, in a sense, than what we see expressed amongst ourselves. The measure of the vertical love is made clear by how much one shows kindness on the horizontal level to his brother and sister in the earthly deed. But now the Lord Jesus takes love to a new level and introduces this new standard. We find that in John 13. He takes this and he teaches them something that they are going to battle with and they're going to have difficulty dealing with when he says, in Yucca, Mom, I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you. And so, in John chapter 13, this chapter starts with a very well-known account of Jesus washing the disciples' feet. We know that. We speak about John chapter 13, the washing of the disciples' feet. But the washing of the disciples' feet is a lesson in love and humility. The Lord is leaving them an example of what it means to conduct your life amongst each other in humility and with an attitude of servanthood. He gives them an example that they can follow by doing to each other as he has done to them. Verse 15 he said, it's exactly that. He gives them an example that what I've done to you, so do to each other. I've come to wash your feet as a servant in humility, for the servant is not greater than the master. And the master takes on the role of a servant and bends down and washes the disciples' feet. And we know the response from Peter, you can't do this. And the Lord says, well, don't do this. You don't have any part of me. He said, well, wash all of me. And so the usual way of pity vacillates between extremes. But the Lord teaches them all a lesson that you need to love each other in a way that's humble and in an act of servitude, as I've done. He sets an example. But that example forms the launch point for a more significant example to come. In verse 34 and 35, he gives him a command to follow his example in love. Not an example in humility, but an example in love. But there is a significant difference between the two examples given by Jesus. The washing of each other's feet would cost him nothing more but humility. Now I'm saying that, realizing that being truly humble is a great sacrifice. But it doesn't cost you your life. Being humble costs you to give up some convenience, something that is yours, some position of esteem, and in humility, you serve your brother, you serve your sister. But it doesn't cost you a life. But to love each other, just as he loved the second example, would come at a greater cost. His love for them, and the love he could want them to have for each other, The kind of love that would distinguish them as disciples of Christ would have no limits. The love that Jesus exemplifies to his disciples in the upper room, like his love for them, he's saying that love for each other should have no limits. I want to go through a few verses, and I'll read them to you, and I'll put up the verses on the screen. But I want to show you by a string of verses, all from the same writer, that this love that we are commanded to have for each other is significant in that it is a love which knows no limits. John 13, verse 1. Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. In your mind, underline that phrase, he loved them to the end. Do we know what that means? What was the end? Calvary, right? He loved them to the end. John chapter 13 verse 34. We've said this several times this morning. A new command I give to you, that you love one another just as I loved you. Underline that phrase, just as I loved you. You also ought to love one another. The third link in this chain, John 15 verse 12. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." Underline that phrase, lay down his life for his friends. We have reminded ourselves that the disciples of Christ are identified by the unwavering fidelity to Him, We've reminded ourselves that the disciples of Christ are identified by fruitful lives and give proof of life. We've reminded ourselves this morning that the disciples of Christ are identified by loving each other to the point of death. Am I exaggerating? Or is that what we are called to do? I think that when we think about discipleship, and I'm speaking from my perspective, forgive me if you think differently, but I think that we think about discipleship so often from the comfort of our armchair in a warm house, wishing we had done something yesterday for the Lord and promising to do tomorrow, but somehow not today. Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but not jam today. It's a famous line from, I think, Alice in Wonderland. Discipleship tomorrow, discipleship yesterday, but not discipleship today. We just find our lives are filled with so many things that are important to ourselves. Remember, we've gone through great lengths to show that loving ourselves more than loving others is not the Christ-like model. Discipleship today, I think, comes with a challenge, which is greater in some parts of the world than we have. When people are called out for their faith in Jesus Christ at the point of a gun, and there are some in a group, some may stand forward to take that, the arrest, or even the bullet, so others in their family, their spiritual family, can escape. There's a time for that at some time in our lives. The question I have to ask myself before I ask you, is the idea of discipleship just a cost that's too high? Because that's what Jesus Christ is teaching in the Upper Room. You love each other until the point of death. Which is why I said it's a love that's limitless. And you can't escape that teaching. You can't escape what he's saying. John didn't. John clearly understood what he was saying. And John records that. That it's a love unto the end. It's a love that knows no bounds. Is the cost of two discipleship too high? Well, we may come to a time when we're going to be called to show that one way or another. I know we say this often, and I know we say this because right now we don't feel so oppressed. But toss your minds back just a year. You remember how we came in here with closed windows and gathered together faithfully, but knowing that we were doing so against whatever else was happening outside. And we have to admit it, we did it with fear in our hearts many times. Many times we were anxious. Many times we were not sure if there was going to be a van with blue lights driving through those gates. So we know that discipleship does come at a cost. The cost is high for many. Maybe the cost is too high for some of us. Is the cost of true discipleship too high? Or is this commandment to love to the point of death just metaphorical? Is Jesus saying, just love each other so that it looks like you love each other to the point of death? Maybe he's saying, love each other so that you just kind of make the right noises, the right moves, kind of do those things that look right when the conditions are right. I think it's certainly not metaphorical. I think it's a very sincere and a very true teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the question we have to ask ourselves again today is, are we prepared to die for each other in the place of one another as a demonstration of our discipleship and love for each other? I said to you that, I'm gonna quote you a string of verses, but I'm gonna quote the last one to you right now. And that is 1 John 3, verse 16. And this disciple was in the upper room when the Lord said to them, love one another as I love you. And this is what John says in his first epistle, chapter three, verse 16. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us. Is that true? We love him because he first loved us. And we know love because he laid down his life for us. And John never missed the point. He finishes his verse this way, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. So do you think John got the point? That the love that we have for each other is love unto death? He says that. And those disciples that had gone before him, They'd all died because of their love for Christ and their love for each other. They all were persecuted and martyred. He was the last one still alive and as he comes to the end of his life, 60 years plus after he hears it in the upper room, he makes a statement that is almost like you hear the voice of Jesus echoing in that. By this we know love that he laid in his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. In Matthew chapter 10 verse 21, Jesus says that the day is coming when those who persecute his disciples will be their own flesh and blood. He warns them that those who are going to persecute you will be from your own home. Sons and daughters will give up their fathers and mothers. Parents will persecute their children. It says in Matthew chapter 10 verse 21, brother will deliver brother over to death and father his child and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. This day is not yet come. It's not now, it's definitely future. But all the social scaffolding has been put into place to make this a reality. It is this post-modern, post-Christian society that we are called to be disciples for Christ. Defenders of our fellow believers at all costs. And so we need to pray for each other. that when that day comes, which will be before this day comes, but we are ramping up, you know yourselves what happens at schools. Our children are being encouraged, instructed, coerced, groomed to give up parents who don't do what the authorities say they should do. During the times of COVID, many were trying to get children to give up parents who were not vaccinated. We know that, it's a reality. Right now, if you as a parent in certain societies refuse to use the correct pronouns for your children and their friends, they'll give you up, quickly, without a blink, because persecution ultimately is gonna come from the very homes we live in. And so when that time comes, we need to understand clearly that we can only depend on each other for support during those times. This day is not now, it's future, but it is coming. And we need to know how to defend ourselves or be defenders of each other as those who love each other because of the love of Christ. Let us pray. Father, we remind ourselves of the words of your son when he said, this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love is no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. We thank you for his love. We thank you for his example. We thank you for his spirit and the Holy Spirit who indwells us and our prayers that when the time comes that we may love each other then as we learn to love each other now. For his name's sake, amen.