John 13: They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love ane another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:34-35

How does a self-serving, self-centered, and selfish world recognize the Christians amidst them? Answer: when they live differently than they do. When a pride-filled and inward-bent people see a separate group among them serving one another, giving themselves up for one another, and loving one another, they will realize the contrast, and "they will know we are Christians by our love."

But the question I want to ask today is this: is this how the American Church is living in the current moment? Are we truly loving one another? Does the world around us, when they look at the modern evangelical Church, see a body of people that self-sacrifices for one another? Do they see a humble, loving attitude in yourself?

In John 13, we find the disciples in the upper room, right before Jesus was betrayed, arrested, and crucified. At such an intense point in history, we would expect Jesus to be doing anything than the one thing he was doing: washing his disciple's feet. Their Lord, master, and teacher was washing the very feet of his disciples. Why? Well, perhaps a few different reasons, but one of the big ones was this: to give them an example of how they ought to live, that is, with humility and love for one another.

Feet in Jesus' time were incredibly dirty. The paths that you would walk on to get from place to place weren't exactly "paved," and the donkeys and camels that people used to get around would walk on the same path, so there was often much "debris" left behind. Furthermore, many people in that time were too poor to afford sandals, meaning that the disciples could literally be walking in dirt, dung, and whatever else would be laying in the roads all day long. To "wash someone's feet" is gross enough in today's culture, but it was even worse in that culture, though it had to be done. Usually, it was done by a slave. But here, we find it being done by the very Son of God.

After Jesus washes his disciples' feet (and after Judas leaves the room to betray him), Jesus gives them a "new" command: to love one another (see verses above). This command wasn't "new" in the sense that it had never been commanded of them, but it was "new" or perhaps "revamped" in Jesus Christ. No longer was "loving one another" an obscure, unrealistic expectation. Now, in Christ, the disciples had a practical example of what that looked like. Loving one another looked like washing each other's feet by the power of the Holy Spirit, and it likewise does for us today. Let us note the following this morning, which is a major theme in all four of the Gospel accounts: the way to "climb the ladder" in Jesus' kingdom is not to climb but to help others climb. The way to get to the top is to yearn for the bottom. For the least among us are truly the greatest.

Yet in the last verse of this text, we get the reason why Jesus was doing and commanding these things: that a watching world might realize our identity as Christians. "By this [that is, loving one another] all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." What Jesus is saying here is this: the world will recognize a people that act against their very nature. By nature, every human is self-serving and self-oriented, just ask any parent who has nurtured a baby before. But when worldly people see that human nature bent on its head and pointed in the other direction, they notice. When they see a Church not bickering with one another, going out of their way to serve one another, and washing each other's feet, they take notice. Thus, the principle is clear: though there are many ways to evangelize, a great one is this: loving and humbly serving [which are one in the same] your Christian brothers and sisters.

Though it would be easy here to turn this devotional into a complaint about the American church, let me rather convict you this morning: how are you doing at self-sacrificially loving your brothers and sister in Christ? Now, don't get me wrong, there is a place for going out of your way for your neighbor who does not know Christ--yes and amen. But what I am asking you this morning is this: what about that one Christian brother or sister that you just don't get along with? How could you "wash their feet" today, metaphorically? How could you show a watching world how much glorifying Christ means to you by following his example of self-sacrificial, humble love?

Go and do likewise this morning. Amen!