Feeding the Lambs - New Command

"Little children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and, as I said to the Judeans, `Where I am going, you cannot come,' now I say it to you as well. "I am giving you a new command: that you keep on loving each other. In the same way that I have loved you, you are also to keep on loving each other." 

-Jesus of Nazareth
John 13:33-34

[22nd message of the New Believer Series]

In the preceding message of this series we have read that we will discuss about the two commandments that Jesus gave His disciples.

All throughout this series, we have centered on (and will continue to center on) God's mercy, God's grace, God's goodness and God's love.

But we will also balance this with God's justice and expectations.

Old Testament

Jesus said He came not to abolish the law (of the Old Testament) but to fulfill it.

God gave His people His law to live by -- rules and regulations, dos and don'ts that together are impossible to comply with.

He didn't give these to spite His people. Rather God gave it for them to see their own flaws, faults and folly, and realize that no matter what they do, they cannot live up to His expectations. This is the Old Testament.

Jesus of Nazareth

When Jesus came, He fulfilled God's Law. 

God sent us His Son, because we cannot save ourselves, Jesus became obedient to our heavenly Father up to being the final Sacrificial Lamb who took away the sins of the world. He fulfilled the requirements, conditions and stipulations of God's law.

Burden

Now on top of these laws (the 10 commandments), religious leaders, well meaning as they were or because of their own personal agenda added hundreds of human made dos and don'ts, making life miserable for God's people.

In the preceding messages we spoke of how through the years believers have made up their own religious ordinances and through the centuries people have made them into religious traditions. Making living a godly life even more impossible.

New Testament

The original laws of the old should have been our eye opener that we cannot do it on own.

When Jesus came down, He established the New Covenant -- the final covenant. This is the New Testament. Believers have been drafted into His family, becoming children of God.

[We discuss the Covenants of God in this Series]

Religious Hypocrisy

We already established that Jesus didn't really come to establish a religion and He hates religious hypocrisy.

But He also did not give us blanket immunity from doing things we ought not to be doing. The Holy Spirit residing inside a believer, convicts believers when they go out of bounds. Studying the bible also will convict believers as the Holy Spirit nudges them towards the right path.

New Commandment

The old testament foreshadowed the new. Everything in the old testament (the Jewish Scriptures) point to the new testament and its new commandments.

This new commandment that Jesus left His disciples were touched on by the Apostle John in the excerpt above.

We will be able to read the  commandments that Jesus left us, which were recorded by Matthew, Mark and Luke.

• Matthew 22:35-40

• Mark 12:28-31

• Luke 10:25-28

Matthew puts it this way (the Great Commandment):

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

And then the last command of Jesus (the Great Commission):

"Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

So here are the new commandments:
1. Love the Lord, and love your neighbor (everything else hinges on these) and
2. Go and make disciples of all nations (hence the need for this "online" church -- going where no one has gone before).

As a new believer, the Holy Spirit will testify that these commands are what the Lord would want us to do. And these we can do through the power of God's Word and His Spirit.

New Believer Series