The Love of God

1. I wanted to do a different word for today, about praying for everyone and about caring for everyone. Because we’re going to be talking for the next 10 years, when it will be the 2000-year celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit, in 2033. We want to join with people around the world with people that are praying for every person by name in the world to have the witness of Jesus. So, I wanted to preach about that.
2. But the Lord kept bringing me back to a very simple sermon and I hope it will bless you, it’s blessed me and kept me awake a couple of mornings kind of early. And it’s just simple=y I want to talk about the Love of God. We’re going to be looking in the Gospel of John 13: 31-35. But right before verse 31, in verse 30, and it’s a verse about Judas, that Pastor Brian referred to this morning, that Judas is going to betray Jesus. I don’t actually want to read verse 30, I just want to point it out, and when we look at verse 30, we can think that for one moment, darkness reigned, because Judas was going to put his plan in motion.
3. We read from verse 31:

³¹ When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in Him. ³² If God is glorified in Him, God will glorify the Son in Himself, and will glorify Him at once. ³³ “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for Me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. ³⁴ “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.”

4. Really the command to love wasn’t new, there are passages in the OT where they are told to love. But with the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus, what is new is the shaping of that love, according to the life and death of Jesus.