Trinity Baptist Church

Making a Difference in the World

John, The Disciple of Love

John 13:23

 

We are continuing this morning in our series of studies on the 12 ordinary men who were called and commissioned by Jesus to accomplish some very extraordinary things.

 

What we're doing in this series of studies is looking at and learning from the strengths and the weaknesses of the men who are known as "the 12 apostles."

 

And the reason why I say that we're looking at and learning from their strengths and their weaknesses is because if you're going to really learn about a person, you've got to see them when they're at the top of their game and when they're down in a slump.  You've got to watch them when they're hitting on all 8 cylinders and when they're totally out of gas.  You've got to be there when they're bringing home straight A's as well as when the teacher calls mom and dad in for a conference.

 

That's one of the reasons why I love the Bible so much, it shows us people just the way they were -- like the old saying goes, "Warts and all." And as we study these bible biographies, I believe that it is wonderful and profitable for us to see a life as it was lived from the beginning to the end; to watch a person handle this circumstance or this crisis, to dig down and tap into the springs of their character and to discover the secret of their personal power. 

 

 

That's why we're studying these twelve men -- they walked with Jesus.  They talked with Jesus.  They ate with Jesus.  They spent 24 hours a day with God in the flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ. They had opportunities for spiritual instruction and Christian service that nobody else will ever be able to surpass.

 

And yet, as you look at their lives, they had feet of clay just like we do. They had their issues just like we do.  In short, they were ordinary, everyday men.

 

Now, this morning, as we continue looking at and learning about the lives of these men, we come to the one who is perhaps the best known and the best loved out of all of the disciples.  He was a man of outstanding character.  He was a man who enjoyed an intimate relationship with Jesus.  He was a man who was a part of Jesus' inner-most circle with Peter and James and Andrew.

 

He was a man who served his Lord longer than any of the other 12.  He was a man who wrote more of the New Testament than any other person with the exception of the apostle Paul and maybe Luke.  Altogether, this man wrote a gospel, three epistles and the Revelation of Jesus Christ.  His name was John and he was the brother of the disciple we looked at last week named James, the Son of Zebedee.

 

Now, I want to stop right here and make a statement.  History and artistry has really done a disservice and an injustice to John as well as to us.

 

 

 

 

Throughout history and especially in medieval art, John has been portrayed as a weak –looking little pale-skinned, sissy looking boy, who's looking up at Jesus with a dove-like stare while lying his head on Jesus' chest.

 

In fact, there are some who claim that claims that the person who's traditionally been said to be John in Leonardo DaVinci's The Last Supper is a girl, Mary Magdalene.

 

That's about as bad as when you were 12 or 13 years old and you answered the phone and they thought you were your sister or your mother.  That's the way John has been portrayed throughout history.

 

But the picture we get from Scripture lead us to believe he was as rough and rugged, hard-headed and hard-edged as any of the other fisherman disciples.  He could be as ambitious and intolerant as James.  He could be as explosive as Peter.  As a matter of fact, the only time that Matthew, Mark or Luke record John speaking for himself, He's telling Jesus how he just ripped into a person who wasn't a follower of Jesus for casting out demons in Jesus' name, and kind of half-way bragging to Jesus about it.

 

Another time, he's right in there with his brother James asking Jesus to let them call fire down out of heaven to destroy some Samaritans who'd just rejected Jesus.  He was right there when his mother was asking Jesus to let her boys sit on His right hand and on His left when He came into His kingdom.  He even said that he was able to drink of the cup that Jesus was about to drink -- speaking of His death.

 

He was, after all, one of the two called by Jesus “the Sons of Thunder”.  So, as you read the Bible it’s clear that John could be just as narrow-minded and hard-headed, just as egotistical and explosive, just as aggressive and ambitious as his older brother James was.

 

But here's the thing- John aged well.  He matured.  As he grew older he didn't become bitter, he became better.  The Holy Spirit molded him and made him into the man that the Lord desired that he should be.

 

As a matter of fact, if you compare the young man that is presented in his gospel with the old man that's found in the Revelation, you'll see that he had matured personally as well as spiritually.  You'll find that all of his liabilities were traded for assets, and that his glaring weaknesses had been turned into his greatest strengths.

 

Now, don't misunderstand, John was still John, he still had the same personality and the same gifts and the same abilities, but he had been transformed into the John that Jesus desired him to be.  

 

Now, whenever anybody thinks about John, they normally and naturally associate him with the word love. As a matter of fact, he's known universally as "the apostle of love," and there are several reasons for that.

 

First of all, his name means "whom Jehovah loves."  Secondly, he's referred to in our text this morning as "the disciple whom Jesus loved."

 

John 13:23

 

And theologians and bible scholars have overwhelmingly and traditionally said that this was none other than the disciple, John.

 

The Bible says that he was the disciple whom Jesus loved.  Now, Jesus loved all of those he had chosen, but somehow Jesus loved John as He loved His own soul.

 

So, his name means love; he was the disciple that Jesus loved and then number 3, one of the major themes of his writings is love.

 

More than 80 times in his gospel, epistles and the Revelation, John uses the word "love." But here's what I want you to understand and then we're going to get into the meat of the message -- when John uses the word "love" it is not just an emotion, it is a principle, it's a power, it's a life-changing, person-transforming virtue that comes from God Himself. 

 

John even wrote in his first letter, "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love."  And it was that divine principle and that heavenly power that transformed him from "the son of thunder" to "the disciple of love."

 

So, let's take a look this morning at how that transformation took place.

 

First of all, in the early life of John you find

 

 

You can sense it in his writing; you can see it as he lays his head on the chest of Jesus.  John had a sentimental, emotional love for Jesus.

Now, I want to say this -- there's nothing wrong with an emotional, sentimental love.  All love has to start somewhere, but an emotional love is an immature love.  It has power, but no boundaries.  It has strength, but no control.  And you sense this in John in his gospel.  He's a hot-head with a hot-heart.

 

You know, I was thinking about this whole matter of having and cultivating an emotional love for Jesus this past week, and I had to catch myself.  You see, I'm so much of a "truth" guy.  I'm so much of a fact guy that a lot of times, if I'm not careful, I'll dismiss or worse, I'll degrade the feeling of love when it comes to the Christian life.  And yet Ephesians says that as Christians we are not just to speak the truth, but we are to speak the truth in love. 

 

Listen, truth without love can be very brutal.  But on the other hand, love without truth can be hypocritical.  That's what I learn from watching  John's love for Jesus in his gospel.  He wanted to be near Jesus.  He wanted to hear Jesus' heart.  He wanted to have that equal, but special, relationship with Jesus.

 

Can you imagine what it must have been like to get to lay your head on the chest of the One who created this world and came to die for this world?  Can you imagine what it must have been like for this young disciple, probably the youngest of the twelve, to be called "the disciple who Jesus loved?"  It must have stirred his heart.  It must have put him on cloud nine.  It must have kept him up at night, this tremendous emotional, sentimental love that he had for his Lord.

 

 

As a matter of fact, the word that is used three times in John's gospel, when he refers to himself as the disciple who Jesus loved is the word, "phileo."  It's the word that speaks of a brotherly love.

 

In a lot of ways, comparatively speaking, it can be an immature love.  And the reason why I say that is because when Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me?" in John 21 is the word "agape" and it is the word that means "unconditional, Christ-like love."  But the first two times that Peter answers that question he uses the word "phileo" which again means "brotherly love."

 

So, on the third time, Jesus changes from agape -- unconditional love to phileo -- brotherly love, and when he does that Peter says, "Yes, I love you with a brotherly love.  You see, Peter had blown it.  He had messed up and he knew that his love wasn't where it was supposed to be.  It wasn't mature, it wasn't agape, but when Jesus brought the concept down to brotherly love, Peter jumped all over it and said, "Yes, I love you like a brother."  It's an emotional, sentimental love.

 

I know that this isn't the best analogy, and I'll go ahead apologize for it on the front end, but do you remember what it felt like when you first feel in love with your spouse?  Do you remember how you couldn't stop thinking about them?  Do you remember how you longed to be with them, and any time spent away from them seemed like and eternity?  Do you remember how that love felt?

 

The lack of response is making me just a little nervous.  But do you remember how that felt.  Was that an emotional love?  Yes.

Was that a sentimental love?  Yes.  Did your love grow and mature over the years?  Hopefully.  But was that love?  Absolutely.

 

That's the same kind of heart love that John started off with for Jesus. You say, “How do you know?”  I know because that’s how all of us start out with Jesus.  When I became a Christian, it was an extremely emotional time. 

 

But I can promise you this.  Even though it was emotional, it was love.  I realized that God loved me and Jesus died for me, and I could be saved, and overcome with love and emotion, I responded.

 

I'm talking about a heart love.  That's the kind of love that John had for Jesus.  He loved everything about Jesus.  He loved being with him and he loved listening to him and I'll tell you, I think that our churches and our Christians would be a lot better off if they would learn to cultivate this sort of sentimental, emotional love for Jesus that John had.

 

Think about it.  What would our churches and families and believers be like if we loved Jesus the way that John did?  What would our churches and families and believers act like if they love Jesus the way that John did?  Do you think we'd have to twist their arms or beg people to get them to read their bible or spend time alone with Jesus in prayer?

 

Do you think that we'd have to stay on them week after week, encouraging and exhorting them to come to Sunday School or worship?

 

 

 

Do you think that we'd have to come this side of brow-beating them in a sermon, trying to get them to walk with Jesus each and every day, if they loved Jesus with the hot-hearted love that John had for Jesus?  Listen, there's a reason why John is known as the "apostle of Love" and that is because he loved.  He loved Jesus.  He loved His church and he loved everybody else who loved Him as well.

 

And throughout the gospels, we find evidence of this emotional, sentimental love that John had for Jesus.  And I'll just say it again, there's nothing wrong with that kind of love.  It has to start somewhere.  It has to begin somewhere, but it can't stay there.  It has to grow and develop and mature and be transformed.  And that's what we see in the ages and stages of John's life.

 

What do we find about the “apostle of Love” in the epistles?  There we find John expressing

 

 

Listen to what John has to say about love in his letters.

 

1 John 2:5, 15, 3:18, 4:17, 5:3

 

You see, when John wrote his gospel, he was a young man, but as he picks up his pen to write his pastoral letters, He's got the experience of age, he's matured and developed and grown in his understanding of what love is.  It's no longer just a sentiment, its surrender. So, all throughout these three little letters that he wrote he keeps reminding his "little children" of the importance and the impact and the imperative of surrendered love.

Now, why do I call this a surrendered love?  Well, because he begins by saying that if you don't keep Christ's commandments, you can't say that you love Him.

 

And then he even says that those people who keep His Word have the love of God perfected or matured in them.  That's quite a change from the writings of the young man in his gospel.  It's moved from the emotional to the volitional, from the feelings to the will.

 

Think about it this way:  An immature love lives for self, what self can get, but a surrendered love lives for the Savior, what the self can give.

 

That's why I believe so many people in our churches are still living and operating on the basis of a sentimental, and a somewhat selfish love.  They want to be near Jesus, they just don't want to have to obey Jesus.

 

Everybody wants to talk about the Jesus of love.  And if you want to be homosexual, that’s OK because Jesus loves you.  If you want to live like the devil, the Jesus of love would never burden you with rules.  After all, Jesus is all about love and forgiveness and tolerance and patience.

 

There are lots of folks who want all of the benefits of hanging around with Jesus, but they want no part of bringing themselves under the Lordship of Christ or the demands of Scripture.

 

But John had grown to understand the surrender of love.

 

Then finally, in his later years as he records the Revelation on the Isle of Patmos, we see in John

 

 

When we come to the last writing of John, the Revelation,, we don’t see too much about him because obviously, it’s not about him; it’s about Jesus .

 

But in what little he writes about himself, we find a tremendous amount of information.  Listen to what the elder statesman of the church writes as he begins the great book of the Revelation.   

 

Revelation 1:9-20

 

In verse number nine, we see just how surrendered John was.  He was, “on the Isle of Patmos for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

Now don’t get the idea he’s there on a ministerial sabbatical or just to go deeper in his relationship with God.

 

A clearer understanding of that statement is found in newer translations that use the word “because” instead of “for”.  He was there, exiled as a political prisoner, “because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ”.

 

Don’t miss what I’m telling you.  He’s abandoned off our there in the Aegean Sea off the west coast of Turkey because he wouldn't give up the truth and he preached it out of love for God and love for men.

 

 

 

Two years after he received the Revelation, around 96 A.D., during the reign of Emperor Trajan, he died tradition says. And some traditions say he was most remembered because of a constant phrase on his lips, "My little children, love one another." And those who knew him remembered him by greeting one another, "My little children, love one another."

 

But the best epitaph that I can give you comes from 2 John.  There we see a little synopsis of the life of John and the things that concerned him.

 

Verse 4

 

That's John, always concerned about the truth.

 

And  notice the way it’s supposed to work.  He taught them the truth and in turn, he now finds some of their children walking in truth.

 

Verse 5

 

He’s talking to the church and he says, “I'm so glad you have the truth and are passing it along, but you can't have the truth without love, so I'm telling you, love one another.

 

What kind of love are we talking about?

 

Verse 6

 

It's the love of obedience. You love God, then be obedient. You love Christ, then be obedient to His Word. Love God, love Christ and in obedience to His Word love one another.

 

 

I'm glad you have the truth, but you can't have the truth without love and love means you obey the Word of God and that's how you love God and that's how you love Christ and that motivates you to love others.

 

When Tony Dungy was coaching the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he had a defensive end named Warren Sapp who played for him.  Warren Sapp is an immense man who loves Tony Dungy, and one time while he was trying to express his feeling for Dungy he said, "I'd take a bullet for him. . .if it wouldn't kill me."

 

Well John went farther than that.  He died in absolute surrender His Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

 

How about you?

 

How do you love the Lord?  Sentimentally, sacrificially or in full surrender?