Love One Another

[0:00] Well, we're going to turn to our Bible reading now, and you'll find that on page 901 of the Church Bibles. We're going to be reading from John 15, verses 1 to 17.

[0:13] John 15, verses 1 to 17. This is what John writes.

[0:30] I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

[0:47] Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

[1:05] I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.

[1:20] If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers. And the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

[1:38] By this, my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.

[1:51] Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

[2:02] These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

[2:17] Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command you.

[2:28] No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends. For all that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you.

[2:41] You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide. So that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give to you.

[2:56] These things I command you, so that you will love one another. Amen. Amen. Well, good evening, and please do have your Bibles back open in that passage we had read in John 15.

[3:17] Which is all about our need to love one another as Christ has loved us. Probably my favourite TV drama of all time is called Band of Brothers.

[3:38] It follows a group of US soldiers fighting through World War II together. It's a brilliant drama if you get the chance to see it. But one memorable scene happens on the eve of the Normandy landings.

[3:51] All of the troops are gathered together in a hangar, and the commanding officer is informing them of their mission, so that they're prepared for all that lies ahead. And in this section in John's Gospel, we're in a scene that is very similar.

[4:06] For the Lord Jesus is sitting down here with his disciples, his future apostles, and he's preparing them for their mission, for all that's ahead. And way, way, way back in January of this year, if you were here in the evening, on the very first evening of the year, we looked at the first eight verses of this passage.

[4:24] And I thought it would be profitable to come back all these months later and look in more detail at verses 9 to 17 together. So where are we in John?

[4:34] Well, let me just refresh your memory. We're in the middle of a scene that runs from verse 13. It's chapter 13 to chapter 17, sometimes referred to as the farewell discourse.

[4:45] Because it takes place on the night before the cross. Over the next 24 hours from this point, Jesus will sovereignly control events that will culminate in his death by crucifixion.

[4:57] He's going willingly and obediently to finish the work that God the Father sent him here to do, which is to die willingly as the Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice of atonement, to save people like you and me from our sin.

[5:13] That will happen on a Friday night, and this scene takes place on the Thursday night before. And you know, if you and I were there in that room, I reckon the tension would have been so great you could have cut it with a knife. It was a very tension-filled room.

[5:26] Judas has just left to betray Jesus, slipped off into the night. And Jesus has told his disciples that he's leaving them. I'm going. And understandably, they're distraught.

[5:39] But Jesus is in total control. And he's teaching his disciples to calm them and to prepare them for mission. And if you're to read through this section, through this discourse, you will see that actually Jesus spends most of his time preparing his 11 men, his New Testament church and embryo, for what life will be like after he's ascended to the Father in heaven.

[6:02] He's going to send them out into the world to be his witnesses, to pass on the evidence that declares Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God, so that people might respond by believing what they've said, and by believing they will receive eternal life in his name.

[6:18] And Jesus says, Troops, do not worry. I will not send you to do this task alone. You will be fully equipped and fully enabled for this task. That's what Jesus has just said in chapter 14.

[6:29] He says, When I leave you, I will send my spirit to take up permanent residence in you. And when that happens, he, the spirit, will bring the disciples into union with Jesus.

[6:42] They will be in Christ and Christ will be in them. And at the start of chapter 15, Jesus gives a very helpful illustration for us to get our minds around this really quite difficult concept.

[6:53] Please look at verse 5. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.

[7:07] So Jesus is saying, When I leave, I'm going to send my spirit. He will come and live in you. And you and I will be as close, we'll be closer than we've ever been before. We'll be brought into union with one another, just like a vine and a branch are together as one.

[7:22] You disciples, you do not deserve such a thing. This is a gift completely of grace. I've chosen to be this gracious to you. But having said that, you disciples also have the great responsibility of doing everything that you can to abide in me.

[7:39] That's all over verses 1 to 8. Abide in me, abide in me, abide in me. Remain in me. Do whatever you can, says Jesus, to remain in me. For all those who abide in me and remain in me will live and they will bear much fruit.

[7:54] That is, my perfect and holy, godly character will start to display itself in your lives. And also, if you abide in me, you'll become effective in evangelism.

[8:05] I will use you to engraft other branches into me. New converts, new believers. And ultimately, as you do this, as you abide in me and bear fruit, you will bring great glory to my Father.

[8:19] Well, what does abiding in Jesus look like? Well, back in January, we looked at these three things. Abiding in Jesus means these three things that lead into one another. Firstly, believing in Jesus' word.

[8:33] That's clear from verse 7. And to believe in Jesus and his word means not just paying him lip service, not saying, yes, I believe in you, I'm an evangelical Christian.

[8:43] No, it means obedience. I will obey your commandments. Verse 9 makes that clear. But what are Jesus' commandments?

[8:53] What does he command? Well, he sums up all of his commandments into one. Verse 12. Please look at verse 12. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

[9:05] That is what it looks like to abide in Christ. Abiding in Christ is not some kind of individual mystical thing that we do in isolation. No. It's immensely practical activity that must be carried out with other members of the church.

[9:21] You cannot abide in Christ if you do not abide in his church. It is a corporate church family activity. You see, where I am with Jesus is not measured about how I feel about Jesus or about how well I'm doing in my private, individual quiet times.

[9:37] No. Those things are important. Where I am with Jesus is measured on how I treat his people. How I'm getting on with other members of his church. If a church is full of people who avoid each other, keep each other at arm's length, or at war with each other, or if they're indolent about loving one another, then that is very, very concerning.

[9:59] A church that is full of people who are not practically involved in loving each other, it's very concerning indeed. But, if a church is full of people who are practically seeking to love one another, and share their lives together, seeking to make each other blossom, well, that is a very good sign indeed.

[10:20] It shows they're abiding in Jesus. Well, with the remainder of our time, I want us to look at, specifically, Jesus' command in more detail. This command that he gives. Look again at verse 12.

[10:32] This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you. Notice, please, that Jesus doesn't simply say, love one another. He gives it in the form of a command.

[10:43] He doesn't say, it's very important that you try your best to love one another. He doesn't say that. He doesn't say anything other than, this is my command. I command you to do this.

[10:55] That you love one another. Now, why does he state it as a command? Well, I think for two reasons. Firstly, Jesus states this as a command, because this is really the commandment that lies behind the whole of God's law.

[11:09] Elsewhere in the other Gospels, when Jesus was asked, what is the greatest commandment? He replied by summing up the law into two commandments. Two commandments that go hand in hand together.

[11:20] Remember? He said, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Those two commandments are what really lay behind the whole of God's law and all the other commandments.

[11:31] And they go hand in hand together. Yes, love God and express that by loving his people. And that's what Jesus is really teaching here. It's the same thing, isn't it?

[11:42] He says, if you love me, then you'll obey my commands. And my commandment is this, love one another. Love others in the church. There are other passages where Jesus says, love your enemies, love those outside of the household of faith.

[11:55] But he's saying here, love one another, disciples. So that's one reason why Jesus gives this in the form of a command. But I think there's another reason and that is this.

[12:05] Jesus knows what the human heart is like. He knows that by nature, all of our hearts are sinful and selfish. And friends, even in a state of grace, even with the spirit of Christ in us, our natural inclination of our hearts is to always err towards sin and not to love one another.

[12:26] I know that's true of my own heart. No one has ever had to teach me how to not love other people. No one has ever had to instruct me in that.

[12:37] In fact, I can honestly say that throughout my life, I have excelled at very few things. But one thing that I've excelled at greatly is not loving other people. If you want to know that's true, just ask my wife or my parents who are seated at the back there.

[12:50] I am very, very good at not loving others and so are you. I know that's true because the Bible says it's true of your heart. That's what we're all like.

[13:02] And if you don't think that's true of your life, then you're deceiving yourself. And so this is why Jesus states this as a firm command. So we can't pretend that loving one another is some sort of an optional activity just for a few keen beans in the church.

[13:17] If we don't take this commandment seriously, if we refuse to obey it, then Christ says, you will not abide in me. It's that serious. We are called to follow his example in the way that he obeyed his father and so abided in his father's love.

[13:31] We too are to obey him and his commandments and so abide in his love. And again, just notice what verse 12 doesn't say. Jesus does not say in verse 12, love others in the church only if they've loved you first.

[13:46] He doesn't say that. He doesn't say love others in the church only if you get on well with them and if you find them easy to talk to. He doesn't say that. He doesn't say love others unless they have hurt you.

[13:58] If they've hurt you, have nothing more to do with them. In fact, brew bitterness in your hearts. He doesn't say that, does he? He doesn't say love others but only if the other person is at the same stage of life as you.

[14:13] If they're much older, then just act like they're not part of the church at all and ignore them. He doesn't say that. Jesus says, this is my command that you love one another as a blanket policy, a command for all disciples everywhere, at every stage of life, at every location.

[14:30] Love one another. And this means, by the way, that we're commanded to love those whom we find the most difficult in church. And notice that I'm looking firmly at the ceiling. I'm not making eye contact with anyone just in case you get the wrong idea.

[14:41] I'm going to look down now at my notes and I'm looking back up now. But it's true. It means loving those in the church we find the most difficult people to get on with.

[14:56] A number of years ago, a much older, wiser brother who was preaching on this passage and he did this scenario and I'd like to repeat it because I found it so challenging at the time but he said this, just imagine that we're fast forward to the end of our service and you're so thankful that the sermon's over.

[15:13] But it's coffee time and you go up to the counter, you go and get yourself a coffee, you've got a biscuit in the other hand, you're looking forward to having a good chat with someone, you turn around and you're faced with a scenario.

[15:23] On your left hand side you see people that you know and love well in the church. You get on well with them, you find it easy to talk to, you get on like a house on fire. But on your right hand side, woof, there's that person that you fell out with two months ago over some mundane thing in the church.

[15:41] They're alone, no one is talking to them and they've got a bad reputation for being difficult. If you were in that situation, which person would you go and speak to? Now I don't know about you, but I can shamefully say that I have been in that situation actually many times and time and again I've always gone off to my buddies on the left hand side.

[16:03] Well, if I take Jesus' commandments seriously then I will not seek to be like that after the service. I will seek to love everyone including the person that I've fallen out with or find difficult to be around.

[16:19] In fact, in that scenario what the best thing to do would be is to go to that person, talk to them and bring them over to the group and include them in the conversation so that other people can start ministering to them.

[16:29] Now that's just one straightforward example about how we can obey Christ's command, isn't it? And I'm sure you can think of many more ways in which you can apply this. But as Christ's disciples today we should be constantly asking ourselves the question in what practical ways can I love my church family this week?

[16:49] Some of us recently read a great article called The Ministry of the Pew. It's a tremendously helpful article and challenging article that challenges us to, as we walk into church be praying about who we're going to sit next to so that we will be thinking about sitting next to newcomers so that we can make them feel welcome and so that we might be able to make them feel at home in the church and that is so good and if you don't have a copy of that article come and see me at the end I would love to email it to you it's fantastic.

[17:21] But as we walk into church we should also be praying a prayer like this Father help me to go in here and love my brothers and sisters in Christ give me the power to turn away from self-interest and instead help me to be other person centred please help me to listen during the coffee time so that I might hear of my friends needs and give me the wisdom to speak the truth and love to them after the service so that I can build them up and help them in their needs.

[17:50] Or perhaps we should be praying actually as we walk out of church just imagine later on tonight as you walk out maybe you can make it your aim to pray this sort of prayer Father thank you so much for the privilege of being part of your vine thank you for the union I have with my brothers and sisters and the Lord Jesus please help me to obey Jesus' great command from John 15 and love them this week not just today after the service Father Mrs. Smith shared with me that she was really struggling to get out to the prayer meetings because of her bad leg well please help me during the week to obey Christ by offering Mrs. Smith a lift to and from the prayer meeting to love her practically to pray for her and to do all these things in Jesus' name Amen that would be a great prayer to pray going out of the building wouldn't it?

[18:43] Jesus commands us to love one another but what kind of love are we to show one another? we'll look again at verse 12 he tells us Jesus says love one another as I have loved you how has Jesus loved the disciples?

[18:59] well with the rest of our time this evening I want us to go through the text and look at the ways that Jesus has said he has loved us and this is incredible what he says here's the first thing we've got four things here's the first thing Jesus has loved us in the same way that the Father has loved him let me say that again Jesus has loved us in the same way that the Father has loved him please look at verse 9 as the Father has loved me so I have loved you and friends the God of the Bible is one we believe in one God but within his oneness there's plurality multiformity in other words the God of the Bible the true living God is triune Father, Son and Holy Spirit one God in three persons and all the members of the Godhead love one another perfectly constantly and completely this is sometimes called God's intra-trinitarian love and it is the ultimate love in the universe it is an eternal love it has no beginning and it has no end it is the first love that ever existed just think about that this is the perfect love that all other loves are based upon when no other such loves existed there was this perfect beautiful complete love that existed within the persons of the Godhead listen to this quote from Gary Williams who's an excellent theologian and Bible teacher he says this the Father eternally delights and loves his Son and his Spirit the Son and his Father and Spirit the Spirit and Father and Son this is who God always is the Trinitarian relationships are untroubled undisturbed eternally constant and full overflowing with love and delight

[20:55] God is always love love is not something he opts to be from a list of choices each day God doesn't think to himself hmm whom shall I be today shall I be good evil loving or unloving many people in our own times create and recreate their own social identities from day to day but God is not like that he is no shape shifter he is who he is always he is perfect love forever there is no sorry there is to God's inner relations a completeness and it is the completeness of love the Holy Trinity is the eternal fullness of love and that love has spilled out onto you and me if you're a believer today and actually friends if you were to go through John's gospel tonight when you went home and read through it in its entirety with a highlighter and I suggest you do this it's a very good exercise to do go through with a highlighter and mark down every instance where the gospel speaks about someone loving someone else you might expect loads of references of God loving the world and that's true there are lots but actually when John's gospel speaks of someone loving someone else it usually always is talking about the fact that the father loves the son and the son loves the father that is the main love story of this gospel and that eternal love that perfect and beautiful complete intra-Trinitarian love has spilled over into the church by the spirit and this is the love that you and I are commanded to show each other just as the father has loved the son so we are to love one another and that is the way that Christ has loved us now Jesus what he's doing here he's setting the bar so high if you're sitting there thinking goodness that is so high well you're right absolutely there's a reason why Jesus is doing this it's so that we cannot stoop into sentimentality and think that the love we're to show each other is a cheap love no

[23:09] Jesus has loved us in the same way that the father has loved him and we are to love each other that way with complete constant love that's what we're to strive for here it is so far above us but that's what we're to strive for the love that is perfectly displayed within the God held itself that's the first thing let's look at the second way that Jesus has loved us and it's this Jesus has loved us by giving his life for us please look at verse 13 greater love has no one than this that someone lay down his life for his friends and we know from the very first chapter of John that the eternal son the one who was by the father's side in glory willingly left that glory and became flesh taking upon himself our human nature with all of its weaknesses and infirmities and broke into this world of darkness and evil to reveal the glory of God the father and friends where in John does the son reveal the father's glory in all of its fullness answer at the cross by laying down his life sacrificially for his friends that is what is ahead as I said earlier for Jesus in a few hours time as he spoke to those eleven men who were with him listening to him

[24:29] Jesus was going to lay down his life for them and for everyone today who puts their trust in him and as he hung on the cross torturously suffocating over many hours which is what crucifixion was he was experiencing a far worse agony God's controlled personal hostility to all things evil was poured out upon Jesus it should have been poured upon the disciples and us today but it was poured out on Jesus God condemned sin in the flesh of his son for us and Jesus did that because he loves his friends he was laying down his life for us and this love that Jesus has shown his disciples really is the greatest love the world has ever seen has ever known just as we sung in the hymn earlier the love that Jesus has shown us is so costly it is the most self-sacrificial love of all time it is a love that's willing to give up everything for others and this is the love again that Jesus commands you and I to have for each other we are to love one another as he loved us completely costly and self-sacrificial we are to put others before ourselves in this building and in this church family now there are some countries across the world where brothers and sisters in the church face situations where they will may face opportunities where they are to die for each other we by God's mercy are not living in a land where such situations come our way they might come one day but it's not yet happened so for us loving others with this costly

[26:15] Christ-like love well what will it look like well I take it it will look like all of us being willing to sacrifice lots of our time talents money and materials in order to see our brothers and sisters flourish in some way or another our lives will be other person centred I once heard about a Christian man down south I never had the privilege of knowing this man but I'm told he was a great man to know he was a businessman in London he retired early with a very healthy retirement package he had lots of cash loads of cash tucked away in all sorts of savings accounts all over the place and during his retirement he had the chance to do pretty much whatever he wanted the world was his oyster he was that wealthy but because he loved Christ and because he wanted to abide in Christ and obey Christ and obey this command he sacrificially started to pump his cash into things that brought great blessings to the church in this country he did that for years and years and years and instead of going off to explore the world what he did was he signed up to as many church rotas as he could and duties and he got stuck into the life of the local church one day he was diagnosed with a terminal illness and he could have used the remainder of his money that he had left to get himself the best palliative care that was going but instead he chose to deny himself that luxury and he gave the money instead to further things that brought goodness to the church and I'm told that in the end he died in great pain but also in great joy because he was in the Lord Jesus for him that is what it looked like to love one another other disciples with Christ's love what would it look like for you most of us aren't minted but that's a question you need to ask yourself what will it look like for me to lay down my life for my brothers and sisters in here so Jesus has loved us in the same way that the Father has loved him

[28:28] Jesus has loved us by giving up his life for us let me just do two more ways in which Jesus has loved us and they're very similar they go hand in hand third thing Jesus has loved us by calling us to a glorious friendship please look at verse 14 you are my friends if you do what I command you you are my friends says Jesus what a glorious calling that Jesus should call us his friends if you're a Christian that's what Jesus thinks of you if you abide in him if you seek to obey him and love his word he calls you his friend let me just say we need to be careful not to read our 21st century values back into the word friend here to be a friend in our culture today is really more like being a chum or being a mate and friend in our culture usually means some sort of equal standing equal status when Jesus calls us his friends he is not for one second suggesting that we can think of him as a chum or a pal neither is he suggesting that we can think of him as some sort of an equal and actually and I need to think more about this

[29:39] I read this in Don Carson's excellent commentary during the week but Don Carson says this I've never thought about this and I have to think more about it but let's he says this the text doesn't even say we can call Jesus our friend it says he calls us his friend but it doesn't actually say that we can call him our friend and that's the truth all the way through the Bible it's the same in the Old Testament with Abraham God graciously called Abraham his friend but Abraham never had the opportunity to call God his friend I have to think a bit more about this but Carson says that it's stated this way so that we disciples don't get puffed up with arrogant pride so that we start to think well Jesus is actually very privileged to have me as a friend you know Jesus is my buddy well that is wrong what a colossal privilege it is though what a great calling it is that the king of kings should look at us and think you are my friends I announce that you are my friends but he's still our master he's still the one calling the shots over our lives that we are to obey and serve that's why he says verse 14 you are my friends if you do what I command you yes and notice verse 15 that the difference between being a friend and a servant of Jesus again it's not based upon how we feel about Jesus but it's based upon what he has lovingly revealed to us verse 15 no longer do I call you servants for the servant does not know what the master is doing but I have called you friends for all that I've heard from my father

[31:16] I've made known some of you will know that I once worked in a Glasgow sports shop called Greaves Sports has anyone been into Greaves Sports you should go it's a great sport shop it's brilliant and I left on really good grounds when I left the sports shop and the owner of Greaves Sports was Mr. Greaves funnily enough he was the owner and the master of the company and for the first few months of working there I didn't have much contact with him I was just a servant there to serve him but one day the staff offices were up in the the highest part of the building and I was walking in from a tea break past his office and the door was open and one day I walked past his office door and he called me in and he started to show me in his office big architectural drawings and paintings of his master plan for the shop to expand and extend his business and from that day on when he revealed that to me the relationship changed somewhat he treated me as more than a mere servant he treated me actually as a trusted friend but I was never his chum or his pal who could just casually saunter into work whatever time

[32:23] I liked sit in his office sit in his chair put my feet up on the desk drink out of his favourite mug and say hey big sandy no I was still there to serve him as my master but he did treat me as a friend by showing me his master plan and in the same sort of way Jesus calls he loves us so much he calls us to this great status of being his friends he has revealed the father's master plan to us in the gospel what a love what a great privilege what does that teach us about Jesus' love well it teaches us that it's undeserved he's loved us with an undeserved love and it's a love that's willing to bestow upon us great gifts that we just do not deserve and again that is how we're to love one another undeserved love willing to show goodness and shower goodness upon each other fourthly and most briefly Jesus has loved us by calling us to a glorious purpose please look at verse 16 you did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the father in my name he may give it to you so here Jesus is reminding them but he has loved them by choosing them and appointing them for the glorious purpose the most glorious purpose ever

[33:49] Jesus has chosen them and appointed them for fruit bearing mission for gospel mission as I said earlier he's going to send them out soon after his ascension into the world to be his witnesses they are going to notice they're going to go and bear this fruit that is they're going to share the eyewitness testimony about Christ and the fruit that they will bear when they're out in the world as new converts new believers who having believed the apostles testimony will be brought into union with Jesus and will remain in Jesus and again that is a great gift of love that is undeserved and unmerited and they've even got the great gift of prayer as they go about this mission look what Jesus says whatever you ask the father in my name he will give it to you don't rip that out of context as many prosperity preachers do Jesus is speaking here of prayer that comes from a heart of people who are abiding in him from hearts where his word is abiding and mastering therefore it is prayer that is in line with his revealed will in the gospel prayer concerned with fruit bearing fruit bearing activity that type of prayer says Jesus it will be answered with yes

[35:01] Jesus has loved all of his disciples by choosing us and giving us the glorious purpose and task he promises that his father will be with us as we prayerfully go on this mission that he's called us to and again it is utterly undeserved that's how much he's loved us and it's the same love that we're to show each other to show our undeserved gifts upon each other so let me just recap those four things before we finish Jesus has loved us in the same way as the father has loved him Jesus has loved us by dying for us Jesus has loved us by calling us to glorious friendship and for a glorious purpose Christ has shown us and continues to show us love that is perfect costly self-sacrificial utterly undeserved and full of good gifts and Jesus commands us to show the same love to each other

[36:02] Jesus isn't asking us to do something that he hasn't already done himself and friends if we remember the love that he has shown us then I think it will make the fight because it is a fight to love each other I think it will make this fight much easier so as we close let me ask this what type of church will we be will we choose to be a fruitful joyful church that is effective in evangelism or will we be unfruitful joyless and ineffective in evangelism friends if we all abide in Jesus by believing his word obeying his commands loving one another as he loved us then we really can be assured that we will be fruitful joyful and effective and again you might be here this evening and it might just be that you are facing an immense struggle to love someone else in this church I don't know if that is the case because I don't know your heart but I wouldn't be surprised if you are feeling that way because let's be honest we all have our moments where we are really hard to love so how do we encourage our hearts to change well surely we must pray that the spirit will help us feel the wonder of the love that Christ has shown us that perfect costly self-sacrificial and undeserved love that he showered upon us that love that's caused him to shower blessings on us because when the spirit assures our souls of his love then we will find that it is much easier to love others so friends why don't we close our eyes bow our heads and we'll ask the spirit to help us let's pray heavenly father we praise you for the wonderful truth that the eternal love that you have for your son has overflowed from your son to us by your spirit and that that love now flows between us from one to another we thank you that your son made known to us everything that you told him to make known we praise you therefore that we've been called to the glorious status of being Christ's friends our master and our king he calls us his friends help us to love one another therefore in light of these wonderful things that we've been looking at this evening we're so sorry father for the times when we have not loved one another sorry for the times when we've behaved just like the unbelieving world around us so please help us help us to love one another more and more and more with the same love that Christ has shown us we cannot do this on our own we need the supernatural strengthening of your spirit to help us obey our king's commandment to deny ourselves love each other love each other as he has loved us lord we want to do this for when we behave like this we really will be distinctive in Glasgow we really will be a distinctive people the world will look on us and say that is what a follower of Christ is like look at their king displayed in their behaviour so please help us heavenly father give us the mindset of the lord Jesus so that your name may be glorified in this city we pray this in his precious name and for his sake amen