Love One Another: Part 1John 15:12-17

Love One AnotherI. The Command to Love

II. The Standard of Love

III.The Bond of Love

IV.The Productivity of Love

Love One AnotherI. The Command to Love

John 15:12aThis is my commandment, that you love one another

Acts 11:23When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad…

Acts 4:13Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

John 13:34-35 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. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Matthew 22:35-40And one of them [Pharisee], a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “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.”

Luke 10:30Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.

1Corinthians 13:4-8Love is patient and kind; …Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

MaclarenLift your eyes beyond the walls of the little sheepfold in which you live, and hearken to the bleating of the flocks away out yonder, and feel – ‘Other sheep He has which are not of this fold’; and recognize the solemn obligation of the commandment of love.

Romans 12:9-10Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

1 Peter 1:22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart

Hebrews 10:24-25 …let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

1John 2:9-11Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

1John 3:10By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

1John 5:1Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.

Luke 6:27-28 …I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

Love Your Enemies• Loving our enemies is against

human nature

• Loving our enemies means to have mercy

• It is God-like to love your enemies

SimeonOur love to the saints should not be confined to those of the same Church or party, nor should it have respect to any pleasure or advantage that we expect to derive from them; for this is only a refined species of self-love: it should respect them only as children of our heavenly Father, as members of Christ our living Head, and as joint-heirs of the same eternal glory.

1John 3:23And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.

Love One AnotherI. The Command to Love

II. The Standard of Love

John 15:12-13This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Barrett The eternal divine love reached its complete and unsurpassable expression in the death of Christ, which was at the same time the death of a man for his friends.

Christ’s Lovea) …seek and to save the lost

b) …based on forgiveness

c) …revealed in their election  

Deuteronomy 7:7-8It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Christ’s Lovea) …seek and to save the lost

b) …based on forgiveness

c) …revealed in their election  

d) …shown in his perseverance

e) …shown in his promise of future glory

Matthew 19:28-29Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.

ParaphraseI am the embodiment of all that love ought to be. You cannot get beyond me, not have anything more pure, more deep, more self-sacrificing, more perfect, than the love which I have borne for you. Alexander Maclaren

Romans 5:6-10For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more

Romans 5:6-10…shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

CarsonHere especially do we see the wonderful love of the Lord Jesus Christ. So long as we think of ourselves as being somewhat good in God’s sight we do not see it. But when we see ourselves as God sees us, then the surpassing worth of the love of Christ becomes evident.

1John 3:16By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

1John 4:10-11In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

1John 3:18Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.