Introduction to John 13

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/15/2016 7:35 AM

My Worship Time                                                                           Focus:  Introduction to John 13

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  John 13:1-17

            Message of the verses:  In our SD for today we want to look at the introduction to John 13:1-17 as we have moved onto a different section in the gospel of John, dealing with Jesus teaching His disciples things that they will need to know since He was soon going to go back to the Father and not be with them in bodily form anymore.

            I want to begin with a quote from Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary on the thirteenth chapter of John which he entitles “The Sovereign Servant.”  He writes in the first paragraph of his introduction about having to give a farewell message to a church that he had been the pastor of, but was leaving to take another ministry and writes “I may not have succeeded, but my purpose was always to prepare them for the future.”

            He goes on in the next paragraph to write “John 13-17 is our Lord’s ‘farewell message’ to His beloved disciples, climaxing with His intercessory prayer for them and for us.”  He then mentions other farewell messages found in the Scripture including Moses’ farewell message, along with Joshua’s, and also Paul’s found in Acts chapter 20.

            “In this passage, we see our Lord in a fourfold relationship:  to His Heavenly Father (John 13:1-5), to Simon Peter (John 13:6-11), to all of the disciples (John 12:12-17), and to Judas (John 12:18-35).  In each of these sections of John’s Gospel, you will discover a special message, a spiritual truth to help you in your own Christian life.”  Now even though we will not be following this outline given here we may from time to time come back to Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary for some nuggets of truth that we always find with his writings.

            Now as I listened to John MacArthur’s latest sermon on John 13:1-17 yesterday I found that there were some wonderful things that he was saying about love, and as we look at these verses in the future SD’s we will see that the Lord Jesus Christ was showing His disciples about love as He demonstrated it to them in these first 17 verses.  I will give some of the quotes that he used in his sermon as we continue on in this introduction.  The sermon title from which I get these quotes from is entitled “The Humble Love of Christ.”

            ““Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end (John 13:1).”  This passage sets up the whole seen we will be looking at as we continue our study in John’s gospel chapters 13-17.

            “That sets up this whole scene.  It is an expression of that love.  It is an expression of that love.  This is about Jesus’ love for His own who are in the world, and believers.  First, the apostles who were gathered with Him and then second, all who would believe after them, as He makes clear.  This is a night of love.  This is a night when the Savior out of love deposits in the bank, of the apostles and all who would ever believe all the riches of heaven.  This is His gift to all of us; 13, 14, 15, 16.  Then chapter 17, He prays that the Father would fulfill it, knowing that He will.

            “It’s an incredible portion of Scripture.  Five whole chapters dedicated to the Son of God expressing His love for His own.  This is how He loves us.  When it says He loves us to the end, to the max, to the full, eternally and infinitely.  As much as an infinite, eternal God can love, that’s how much He loves, immeasurable and inconceivable.  Its depth, its height, its length: inconceivable.  This is all about love.”

            “The Humility of Love: Selfless humility is the soul of love.  Put it another way: only humble people love, and your capacity to love is directly related to your capacity to humble yourself.  You understand that?  That is a simple biblical truth and principle.  Only humble people love.  The humbler you are, the less interested you are in yourself, the greater your capacity to invest yourself in somebody else.  They are related to one another proportionately.  The lower you go in self-concern, the higher you go in concern for others.  The more you sacrifice for you, the greater you will sacrifice for others.

            “True love, biblical love, the love that we’re talking about here is full devotion of the one who loves to the needs and well-being and blessing and joy of the one loved.  Now, I understand that in the world it is possible for people to have sacrificial love for other people, to make great sacrifices and to genuinely care on a human level for someone else.  But for us as believers, we are commanded to love everyone like that, everyone without regard for any returning benefit.  In its purest form, biblical love is completely unselfish.  That’s not true of human love.  There’s a reciprocating reality there that gratifies the person who loves, but for us love in its purest form is completely unselfish.  It is indifferent to personal gain.  It has no concern about personal satisfaction or fulfillment.

“This kind of love in its pure form is complete commitment to the joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment of others at any cost, at any point, at any sacrifice.  That’s the kind of love that we are called to demonstrate.  Now, Paul summed all that up by one statement, “Love seeks not its own.”  It’s not looking for what gratifies the person who loves.  Love is completely indifferent to its own desires.  It wants only to spend itself on others.”

Well this concludes the quotes from this sermon at this point, but we may return for more as we continue to look at these first 17 verses of John chapter 13.

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I have to say that humanly speaking that I cannot come close to the kind of love that we are talking about in this SD from the above quotes.  I have to remember that once I became born from above that all things became new, I am not the same person I was before the miracle of the new birth and so God can work through me to love others with the kind of love that Christ has for me.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I certainly desire to love others like Christ love me, even though I find it difficult at times.

Memory verse for the week:  (Romans 6:13):  “13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Bethphage” (Matthew 21:2).

Today’s Bible question:  “Who was king when Daniel was put in the lions’ den?”

Answer in our next SD.

10/15/2016 8:28 AM