Next Step Christian Church
Worship 6/20/26
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  • Love Came Down
  • No Not One
  • I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever
  • One Thing Remains (Your Love Never Fails)
  • Jesus' "New Commandment" didn't sound like a new commandment to his disciples, so why put so much stress on this? Jesus knew how hard it would be for Christians to love Christians, disciples to love disciples, and that our reputation... and His reputation... was on the line. How is this a new commandment? Jesus has radically demonstrated “how he loves” by washing feet, and is headed to lay his life down for love. This is primary to who we are: Love God and Love Others. Let us love famously. 

    Letting all the Bought Air Out

    It’s absolutely freezing in the middle of winter. The furnace is struggling to keep up and I keep feeling this draft. Where is it coming from??? Walk into a kids room and it is frigid. Literal snow coming in through the screen. Guess what happened? Yup, window wide open. “I was too hot.”
    It’s 95 degrees out. The air conditioning is cranking. I am cleaning a kiddo’s room and what do I find? The window wide open. Someone wanted fresh air in the night and opened the window wide… and left it for 3 days.
    I picked up a phrase from KK, “You’re letting all the bought air out!!!” I paid good money for that air, now I am heating the world!
    A thousand times we have said it.
    I laughed the other day, driving and moving a few more things into Logan’s new place.
    He propped the door open so we could move things in and out. I said, almost reflex, “you’re letting all the bought air out” and he says “the first thing I did was turn the AC off.”
    He has learned! Amazing?! How, at last??? It doesn’t hurt that now he’s paying the bill.
    A thousand times we may say it, but it takes the right time, the right voice, the right example for it to finally land.
    They hear it from a friend, on a YouTube short or TikTok… and NOW it’s true. NOW they believe it.
    … and if we had just known to have that friend say it, or have the kids pay the electricity bill, right? But… I am not sure it would work that way.
    It takes the right moment, the right voice, the right example, at just the right time for us humans to finally hear it. To finally get it.
    Speaking of just the right time:

    Now is the Time

    Jesus has washed their feet, told them it was an example, then sent Judas out to betray them.
    John 13:31–34 ESV
    31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. 33 Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ 34 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.
    I think Jesus is telling the disciples what he has already told them again and again. It is time. Now is the time.
    Maybe he is even reminding himself in the moment of pain and struggle. This is for a purpose, this is for a reason. This is the moment of truth. This is the moment of love.
    And then a word of such affection “little children.” I am running out of time. Everything is about to change.
    So I will tell you something SO important!!!

    Love Again?

    … and again and again and again?
    We have seen this sermon title before. Disciples love. Do we really need to cover this again?
    First of all, we are here again because the text is here again. I don’t make this stuff up, we are all learning at the feet of Jesus.
    We keep talking about it because Jesus keeps talking about it.
    If we are not hearing “love God, love others” over and over and over again… we aren’t teaching what Jesus taught. On this all the law and prophets hang. From this all Jesus’ commands stem. This is the One thing. These are the most important commands.
    This is who we are.
    So did Jesus teach this again and again? Yup. Applications about what it means, how it works, what love looks like in practice. His own example in healing and deliverance, in service.
    Jesus taught about the radical scope of love. It was always as God commanded, but our sinful hearts want to limit love to our friends, to our family, to our in-crowd.
    Jesus says “who is your neighbor?” The Samaritan. The enemy. The lost and broken. The sinner and the saint. The everybody.
    But there is a funny bit that Jesus says.

    How is this new?

    John 13:34 ESV
    34 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.
    Isn’t that odd? What is odd about it?
    If Jesus has taught on this again and again and again… and he is quoting from the Law and Prophets as he does so because God is and has always been love… how is this new?
    1 John 3:11 ESV
    11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
    … and he goes on there to use the example of Cain murdering his brother. Like… all the way back to the beginning, to first humans, from the beginning this has been the message of God. The heart of God. The fundamental command for human beings.
    The foundation of all human flourishing. Love God, love others.
    So, Jesus, how is this new?
    Here is what is new. There is a new model, a new standard, a new and perfect example to follow:
    John 13:34 ESV
    34 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.
    This is coming fresh off Jesus washing their feet. The model of offensive humility, an act of service, a pure of act of love. The leader/rabbi/discipler/Master/God-divine… washing their feet.
    And Jesus says “love like me.”
    This is coming fresh off, IMMEDIATELY after washing Judas’ feet, then giving him the choicest morsel of bread, honoring the man who is already betraying. Jesus, loving his enemy, his betrayer, faithfully and consistently and completely for years, all the way to the end.
    And Jesus says “love like me.”
    And Jesus knows what no one else in the room yet understands. He has told them, but they can’t seem to hear it. Jesus is on his way to lay down his life for them. He will be betrayed with a kiss. He will be judged and condemned by those who should have known him best, his own priesthood. He will be judged and condemned by a governor whose pretense at power doesn’t even compare to the King of Kings. He will be beaten, scourged by soldiers and put on a cross. He will be mocked by the very crowd that shouted “Hosanna” days before. He will take on the sin of the world, take on the death of each human and all humanity, and he will lay down his life for his friends…
    … and for his enemies
    … and for you and me. Though we be both friend and enemy in turns.
    And Jesus says “love like me.”
    That’s new.
    Every model and example of love before Jesus was limited. Scoped to our human frailty, our human limits, our in-circles. While there were hints of “blessing the world through the seed of Abraham” and Jonah bringing the Great Enemy of Nineveh to repentance… every model and example of love before Jesus was partial and flawed and radically limited.
    Jonah is a great example. The greatest act of love to Israel’s greatest enemy at the time… and it is resisted, and grudging, and Jonah has to be essentially forced into it… and then throws a tantrum about it after the fact.
    Jesus willingly lays down his life, it is not taken from him.
    And Jesus says “love like me.”
    Is that even possible? Not by our own power. Not by our own merits. Not by our own “try-hard.”
    But it is the very first of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ death and resurrection unlocks a radical new availability of the Holy Spirit, to now dwell in you forever, direct and personal connection to God, possible because of the righteousness Jesus purchased and gave you by his death.
    And the Holy Spirit supernaturally empowers you to love like Jesus.
    Supernaturally reshapes you, recreates you as a new creation, to love like Jesus. Love God and love others.

    And the World Will Know

    John 13:34–35 ESV
    34 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. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
    Not just a new mode of love, a new judge. We are used to these words, but they are surprising.
    It is in the eyes of a watching world, we will be seen, judged, recognized or not as the disciples of Jesus.
    All people will know?
    Isn’t that wild? Do “all people” even know who Jesus is, or that he is the epitome of love? They did not… but they would.
    There are few in this world now who do not know the name of Jesus… and even our secular society recognize Jesus’ words of love, misunderstood and misinterpreted as they are… and they find Christians a far cry from the love of Jesus.
    I think this is the other reason Jesus taught this again and again and again… and on his last night before the cross, he teaches, models and commands it again.
    This is our primary act of evangelism, good news to the world, Love is here and it is the nature of the Kingdom.

    Disciples Love Like Jesus

    and the world sees.
    Your disciples see you. The way you love people in this room. The way you love them.
    There is value in arguments, in apologetics, it answers some questions and brings clarity to confusion. But very few are argued into the Kingdom… and notice that Jesus didn’t spend a lot of time doing so.
    There is great value in teaching the commands of Jesus, for the words of Jesus are life, the commands of God are good and an invitation into life abundant. Many come to Jesus because of the beauty of his words, the power of his commands.
    There is power in the gospel proclaimed, it is seed to fertile soil, and we are commanded to be proclaimers.
    But I think all of these require, before, during and after, love.
    Has anyone come to Jesus except that Jesus loved him first? Not one.
    And I suspect nearly every human who has come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior in the last 2000 years. An estimated 12-15 BILLION people. They were loved by a disciple of Jesus. Most, loved again and again, by many disciples of Jesus. They saw the way that disciples of Jesus love each other, and they saw life as it was meant to be.
    Life and love worth having.
    Love first, and during, and after.

    Love in the Hardest Moments

    The Hardest Moments are invitations to love like Jesus.
    So putting these together.
    What’s new in the commandment? Loving like Jesus: humble love, sacrificial love, love to the enemy and the betrayer and the friend alike.
    Who’s watching? The world, watching to recognize the love of Jesus in you.
    So… when you have a hard moment. The worst day. The hardest season. It is absolutely human to mess up, to snap back, to bring anger and resentment. It is human and understandable.
    But let us hear the invitation and supernatural empowering of Jesus to do something different. To love like Jesus, to love famously in the hardest of circumstances.
    So… when you have an enemy. A jerk, offensive and difficult and obnoxious and just gets on your last nerve. Or one who has deeply hurt and betrayed you. It is human and normal to not like them, to put all the distance in, walls to protect yourself.
    But hear the invitation and supernatural power of Jesus’ command. To love one another as he has loved us, even the enemies in the room. Even though Judas has gone, Peter is still there, and every person in the room has a past and future of sin that Jesus will bear on the cross.
    When you feel the weight of the cross. You are sacrificing for them… and they don’t get it. They don’t see or appreciate you, what you are carrying or about to carry. What you are suffering and about to suffer. What you are giving up.
    When they just can’t see or hear how much you love them.
    These are the footsteps of Jesus.
    Hear, church, the final syllabus of Jesus, a new command, to love in the new way he showed us.
    Because of the command of Jesus, we make this commitment, this covenant together:
    As disciples of Jesus we covenant together to love God and love others, inside and outside the church fellowship in word & action.

      • John 13:31–34NIV

      • John 13:34NIV

      • 1 John 3:11NIV

      • John 13:34NIV

      • John 13:34–35NIV

  • Love Is War
  • They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love
Next Step Christian Church
pastordusty@nextstepchurch.org
(720) 663-9085
https://www.nextstepchurch.org
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