The #1 Question I Get

 
Christians have not always presented a pretty picture to the world. Too often they have failed to show the beauty of love, the beauty of Christ, the holiness of God.  And the world has turned away.
OPEN
Through the centuries men have displayed many different symbols to show that they are Christians. They have worn marks in the lapels of their coats, hung chains about their necks, and even had special haircuts.
   Of course, there is nothing wrong with any of this, if one feels it is his calling. But there is a much better sign — a mark that has not been thought up just as a matter of expediency for use on some special occasion or in some specific era. It is a universal mark that is to last through all the ages of the church till Jesus comes back.
What does a Christian look like?
I. John 13:33-35
   At the close of his ministry, Jesus looks forward to his death on the cross, the open tomb and the ascension. Knowing that he is about to leave, Jesus prepares his disciples for what is to come. It is here that he makes clear what will be the distinguishing mark of the Christian:
³³[Dear] little children, I am to be with you only a little longer. You will look for Me and, as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: you are not able to come where I am going.
    ³⁴I give you a new commandment: that you should love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you too should love one another.
    ³⁵By this shall all [men] know that you are My disciples, if you love one another [if you keep on showing love among yourselves].
This passage reveals the mark that Jesus gives to label a Christian not just in one era or in one locality but at all times and all places until Jesus returns.
Notice that what he says here is a command which includes a condition:
 
”A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

An if is involved
If you obey, you will wear the badge Christ gave
It is possible to be a Christian without showing the mark, but if we expect non-Christians to know that we are Christians, we must show the mark
II. Men and Brothers
The command at this point is to love fellow Christians

But, of course, we must strike a balance and not forget the other side of Jesus’ teaching:
                                    We are to love our fellowmen, to love all men, in fact, as neighbors
All men bear the image of God
They have value, not because they are redeemed, but because they are God’s creation in God’s image

People today have rejected this and have no clue who they are and therefore can find no value in themselves or others.
Abortion, Euthanasia, Class warfare, selfishness, road rage, Materialistic, Me focused, Volunteerism down.
All men are our neighbors, and we are to love them as ourselves. We are to do this on the basis of creation, even if they are not redeemed, for all men have value because they are made in the image of God. Therefore they are to be loved even at great cost

This is the whole point of Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan:
 Because a man is a man, he is to be loved at all cost

So, when Jesus gives the special command to love our Christian brothers, it does not negate the other command

The two are not antithetical

We are not to choose between loving all men as ourselves and loving the Christian in a special way. The two commands reinforce each other

If Jesus has commanded so strongly that we love all men as our neighbors, then how important it is especially to love our fellow Christians

Paul makes the double obligation clear:
¹⁰So then, as occasion and opportunity open up to us, let us do good [^[a]morally] to all people [not only ^[b]being useful or profitable to them, but also doing what is for their spiritual good and advantage]. Be mindful to be a blessing, especially to those of the household of faith [those who belong to God’s family with you, the believers].     
GALATIANS 6:10

This dual goal should be our Christian mentality, the set of our minds; we should be consciously thinking about it and what it means in our one-moment-at-a-time lives. It should be the attitude that governs our outward observable actions


“Very often the true Bible-believing Christian, in his emphasis on two humanities — one lost, one saved — one still standing in rebellion against God, the other having returned to God through Christ — has given a picture of exclusiveness which is ugly.
   There are two humanities. That is true. Some men made in the image of God still stand in rebellion against him; some, by the grace of God, have cast themselves upon God’s solution.
   Nonetheless, there is in another very important sense only one humanity. All men derive from one origin. By creation all men bear the image of God. In this sense all men are of one flesh, one blood.
   Hence, the exclusiveness of the two humanities is undergirded by the unity of all men. And Christians are not to love their believing brothers to the exclusion of their non-believing fellowmen. That is ugly. We are to have the example of the Good Samaritan consciously in mind at all times”     Francis Schaeffer

III. For True Christians Only
If we look again at the command in John 13, we will notice some important things:
A.  This is a command to have a special love to all true Christians, all born-again Christians
                       

From the scriptural viewpoint, not all who call themselves Christians are Christians, and that is especially true in our generation

The meaning of the word Christian has been reduced to practically nothing
Central to semantics is the idea that a word as a symbol has no meaning until content is put into it

Because the word Christian as a symbol has been made to mean so little, it has come to mean everything and nothing

Jesus, however, is talking about loving all true Christians.
And this is a command that has two cutting edges, for it means that we must both distinguish true Christians from all pretenders and be sure that we leave no true Christians outside of our consideration.

 In other words, humanists and liberal theologians who continue to use the Christian label
or mere church members whose Christian designation is only a formality are not to be accounted true.

But we must be careful of the opposite error. We must include everyone who stands in the historic-biblical faith whether or not he is a member of our own group.

But even if a man is not among the true Christians, we still have the responsibility to love him as our neighbor

He is covered by the second commandment


B. The Standard of Quality 
The second thing to notice in these verses in John 13 is the quality of the love that is to be our standard

We are to love all Christians "as I," Jesus says, "have loved you."

Now think of both the quality and the quantity of Jesus' love toward us

Of course, he is infinite and we are finite; he is God, we are men

Nevertheless, the love he exhibited then and exhibits now is to be our standard

The church is to be a loving church in a dying culture

How, then, is the dying culture going to consider us?

Jesus says, "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another."

In the midst of the world, in the midst of our present dying culture, Jesus is giving a right to the world. Upon his authority he gives the world the right to judge whether you and I are born-again Christians on the basis of our observable love toward all Christians

That's pretty frightening.

Jesus turns to the world and says, "I've something to say to you. On the basis of my authority, I give you a right: you may judge whether or not an individual is a Christian on the basis of the love he shows to all Christians."

In other words, if people come up to us and throw in our face the judgment that we are not Christians because we have not shown love toward other Christians, we must understand that they are only exercising a prerogative, which Jesus gave them

And we must not get angry. If people say, "You don't love other Christians," we must go home, get down on our knees and ask God whether or not they are right. And if they are, then they have a right to have said what they said

Failure in Love

We must be very careful at this point, however
We may be true Christians, really born-again Christians, and yet fail in our love toward other Christians
As a matter of fact, to be completely realistic, it is stronger than this. There will be times when we will fail in our love toward each other as Christians
In a fallen world, where there is no such thing as perfection until Jesus comes, we know this will be the case. And, of course, when we fail, we must ask God's forgiveness
 But Jesus is not here saying that our failure to love all Christians proves that we are not Christians.

What Jesus is saying, however, is that, if I do not have the love I should have toward all other Christians, the world has the right to make the judgment that I am not a Christian.
No one except Christ himself has ever lived and not failed
If success in love toward our brothers and sisters in Christ were to be the standard of whether or not a man is a Christian, then there would be no Christians, because all men have failed
But Jesus gives the world a piece of litmus paper

There is a mark which, if the world does not see, allows them to conclude, "This person is not a Christian."

It is true that a non-Christian often hides behind what he sees in Christians and then screams, "Hypocrites!" when in reality he is a sinner who will not face the claims of Christ. But that is not what Jesus is talking about here. Here Jesus is talking about our responsibility as individuals and as groups to so love all other true Christians that the world will have no valid reason for saying that we are not Christians.

IV. The Final Apologetic

There is something even more serious. And to understand it we must look at John 17:21

²¹That they all may be one, [just] as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe and be convinced that You have sent Me.

Jesus is praying for the oneness of the church, the oneness that should be found specifically among true Christians

Jesus is not praying for a humanistic, romantic oneness among men in general. Verse 9 makes this clear: "I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours." Jesus here makes a very careful distinction between those who have cast themselves upon him in faith and those who still stand in rebellion

Jesus goes on in this 21st verse to say something that always causes me to cringe
If as Christians we do not cringe, it seems to me we are not very sensitive or very honest, because Jesus here gives us the final apologetic

What is the final apologetic? "That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me."

In John 13 the point was that, if an individual Christian does not show love toward other true Christians, the world has a right to judge that he is not a Christian

Here Jesus is stating something else which is much more cutting, much more profound:

We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father sent the Son, that Jesus' claims are true, and that Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of the oneness of true Christians

Now that is frightening

Look at it again. Jesus is not saying that Christians should judge each other (as to their being Christian or not) on this basis. Please notice this with tremendous care

The church is to judge whether a man is a Christian on the basis of his doctrine, the propositional content of his faith, and then his credible profession of faith

The church has a right to judge, in fact it is commanded to judge, a man on the content of what he believes and teaches

But we cannot expect the world to judge that way, because the world does not know about doctrine

That is especially true today because people no longer believe even in the possibility of absolute truth

V. False Notions Of Unity

Let us be clear, however, about what this oneness is. We can start by eliminating some false notions

1. The oneness that Jesus is talking about is not just organizational oneness

There is an attempt to bring people together organizationally on the basis of Jesus' statement, but there is no real unity, because two completely different religions — biblical Christianity and a "Christianity" which is no Christianity whatsoever — are involved. It is perfectly possible to have organizational unity, to spend a whole lifetime of energy on it, and yet to come nowhere near the realm that Jesus is talking about in John 17.

Jesus is here talking about something very different, for there can be a great organizational unity without any oneness at all — even in churches that have fought for purity

I believe very strongly in the principle and practice of the purity of the visible church, but I have seen churches that have fought for purity and are merely hotbeds of ugliness. No longer is there any observable, loving, personal relationship even among members, let alone with other true Christians

2. Jesus is not talking here about the union of the invisible church  - We Cannot break that union

3. He is not talking about our positional unity in Christ

It is true that there is a positional unity in Christ — that as soon as we accept Christ as Savior

This is the bottom line: The world is going to judge whether Jesus has been sent by the Father on the basis of something that is open to observation.

True Oneness

In John 13 and 17, Jesus talks about a real seeable oneness, a practicing oneness, a practical oneness across all lines, among all true Christians

The Christian really has a double task. He has to practice both God's holiness and God's love. The Christian is to exhibit that God exists as the infinite-personal God; and then he is to exhibit simultaneously God's character of holiness and love. Not his love without his holiness: that is only compromise. Anything that an individual Christian or Christian group does that fails to show the simultaneous balance of the holiness of God and the love of God presents to a watching world not a demonstration of the God who exists but a caricature of the God who exists.

Visible Love

What, then, does this love mean? How can it be made visible?

1. It means a very simple thing: It means that when I have made a mistake and when I have failed to love my  Christian brother, I go to him and say, "I'm sorry." That is first

It may seem like a letdown — that the first thing we need to do is so simple!

But if you think it is easy, you have never tried to practice it

It may sound simplistic to start with saying we are sorry and asking forgiveness, but it is not

This is the way of renewed fellowship, whether it is between a husband and wife, a parent and child, within a Christian community, or between groups
 

When we have shown a lack of love toward the other, we are called by God to go and say, "I'm sorry . . . I really am sorry."

If I am not willing to say, "I'm sorry," when I have wronged somebody else — especially when I have not loved him — I have not even started to think about the meaning of a Christian oneness which the world can see

The world has a right to question whether I am a Christian

And more than that, if I am not willing to do this very simple thing, the world has a right to question whether Jesus was sent from God and whether Christianity is true

How well have we consciously practiced this?

What divides and severs true Christian groups and Christians — what leaves a bitterness that can last for 20, 30 or 40 years (or for 50 or 60 years) — is not the issue of doctrine or belief which caused the differences in the first place
 

Invariably it is lack of love — and the bitter things that are said by true Christians in the midst of differences

Without Love - The world looks, shrugs its shoulders and turns away. It has not seen even the beginning of a living church in the midst of a dying culture

Forgiveness       There is more to observable love than saying we are sorry

There must also be open forgiveness. And though it's hard to say, "I'm sorry," it's even harder to forgive

We need a once-for-all forgiveness at justification, and we need a moment-by-moment forgiveness for our sins on the basis of Christ's work in order to be in open fellowship with God

A forgiving spirit registers an attitude of love toward others

True forgiveness is observable

And the world is called on to look upon us and see whether we have love

Let me repeat: Our love will not be perfect, but it must be substantial enough for the world to be able to observe or it does not fit into the structure of the verses in John 13 and 17

And if the world does not observe this among true Christians, the world has a right to make the two awful judgments which these verses indicate: That we are not Christians and that Christ was not sent by the Father

VI. When Christians Disagree

What happens when we must differ with other brothers and sisters in Christ because of the need to show God's holiness either in doctrine or in life?

1. In I Corinthians 5:1-5 Paul scolds the Corinthian church for allowing a man in the midst of fornication to stay in the church without discipline. Because of the holiness of God, because of the need to exhibit this holiness to a watching world, and because such judgment on the basis of God's revealed law is right in God's sight, Paul scolds the church for not disciplining the man

A very important question arises at this point: How can we exhibit the oneness Christ commands without sharing in the other man's mistakes?
 

I would suggest a few ways by which we can practice and show this oneness even across the lines where we must disagree

Regret - we should never come to such difference with true Christians without regret and without tears

So many times we rush in, being very, very pleased to find other men's mistakes.

We build ourselves up by tearing other men down.

This can never show a real oneness among Christians.

Not all differences among Christians are equal

The more serious the wrongness is, the more important it is to exhibit the holiness of God, to speak out concerning what is wrong

At the same time, the more serious the differences become, the more important it becomes that we look to the Holy Spirit to enable us to show love to the true Christians with whom we disagree

Humanly we function in exactly the opposite direction that the Bible teaches: In the less important differences we show more love toward true Christians, but as the difference gets into more important areas, we tend to show less love

As the differences among true Christians get greater, we must consciously love and show a love which has some manifestation the world may see

So let us consider this: Is my difference with my brother in Christ really crucially important?

If so, it is doubly important that I spend time upon my knees asking the Holy Spirit, asking Christ, to do his work through me, that I might show love even in this larger difference

Costly Love - we must show a practical demonstration of love in the midst of the dilemma even when it is costly

In other words, we must do whatever must be done, at whatever cost, to show this love. We must not say, "I love you," and then — bang, bang, bang!

So often people think that Christianity is only something soft, only a kind of gooey love that loves evil equally with good

This is not the biblical position

We must be careful therefore, not to say that what is wrong is right, whether it is in the area of doctrine or of life, in our own group or another

Anywhere what is wrong is wrong, and we have a responsibility in that situation to say that what is wrong is wrong

But the observable love must be there regardless of the cost.

   The Bible does not make these things escapable:  1 Corinthians 6:1-7

 ¹DOES ANY of you dare, when he has a matter of complaint against another [brother], to go to law before unrighteous men [men neither upright nor right with God, laying it before them] instead of before the saints (the people of God)?

    ²Do you not know that the saints (the believers) will [one day] judge and govern the world? And if the world [itself] is to be judged and ruled by you, are you unworthy and incompetent to try [such petty matters] of the smallest courts of justice?
    ³Do you not know also that we [Christians] are to judge the [very] angels and pronounce opinion between right and wrong [for them]? How much more then [as to] matters pertaining to this world and of this life only!
    ⁴If then you do have such cases of everyday life to decide, why do you appoint [as judges to lay them before] those who [from the standpoint] of the church count for least and are without standing?
    ⁵I say this to move you to shame. Can it be that there really is not one man among you who [in action is governed by piety and integrity and] is wise and competent enough to decide [the private grievances, disputes, and quarrels] between members of the brotherhood,
    ⁶But brother goes to law against brother, and that before [Gentile judges who are] unbelievers [without faith or trust in the Gospel of Christ]?
    ⁷Why, the very fact of your having lawsuits with one another at all is a defect (a defeat, an evidence of positive moral loss for you). Why not rather let yourselves suffer wrong and be deprived of what is your due? Why not rather be cheated (defrauded and robbed)?
What does this mean?
The church is not to let pass what is wrong; but the Christian should suffer practical, monetary loss to show the oneness true Christians should have rather than to go to court against other true Christians, for this would destroy such an observable oneness before the watching world. THIS IS COSTLY LOVE
   Paul is talking about something which is observable, something that is very real: The Christian is to show such love in the midst of a necessary difference with his brother that he is willing to suffer loss — not just monetary loss (though most Christians seem to forget all love and oneness when money gets involved) but whatever loss is involved
Approach the problem with a desire to solve it rather than with a desire to win
We all love to win
But we should understand that what we are working for in the midst of our difference is a solution — a solution that will give God the glory, that will be true to the Bible, but will exhibit the love of God simultaneously with his holiness
The Difference of Differences
To realize that it is easy to compromise and to call what is wrong right, but that it is equally easy to forget to exhibit our oneness in Christ

Love In Practice –

   In order to control the church, Hitler commanded the union of all religious groups in Germany, drawing them together by law. The Brethren divided over this issue. Half accepted Hitler's dictum and half refused. The ones who submitted, of course, had a much easier time, but gradually in this organizational oneness with the liberal groups their own doctrinal sharpness and spiritual life withered. On the other hand, the group that stayed out remained spiritually virile, but there was hardly a family in which someone did not die in a German concentration camp.

   Now can you imagine the emotional tension? The war is over, and these Christian brothers face each other again. They had the same doctrine and they had worked together for more than a generation. Now what is going to happen? One man remembers that his father died in a concentration camp and knows that these people over here remained safe. But people on the other side have deep personal feelings as well.

   Then gradually these brothers came to know that this situation just would not do. A time was appointed when the elders of the two groups could meet together in a certain quiet place. I asked the man who told me this, "What did you do?" And he said, "Well, I'll tell you what we did. We came together, and we set aside several days in which each man would search his own heart." Here was a real difference; the emotions were deeply, deeply stirred. "My father has gone to the concentration camp; my mother was dragged away." These things are not just little pebbles on the beach; they reach into the deep well-springs of human emotions. But these people understood the command of Christ at this place, and for several days every man did nothing except search his own heart concerning his own failures and the commands of Christ. Then they met together.

   I asked the man, "What happened then?"

   And he said, "We just were one."                            Francis Schaeffer

To my mind, this is exactly what Jesus speaks about.
The Father has sent the Son!

The One True Identifying Mark

Let us look again at the biblical texts which so clearly indicate the mark of the Christian:

John 13:33-35
³³[Dear] little children, I am to be with you only a little longer. You will look for Me and, as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: you are not able to come where I am going.
    ³⁴I give you a new commandment: that you should love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you too should love one another.

    ³⁵By this shall all [men] know that you are My disciples, if you love one another [if you keep on showing love among yourselves].

John 17:21

²¹That they all may be one, [just] as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe and be convinced that You have sent Me.

1.Just like the Samaritan loved the wounded man, we as Christians are called upon to love all men as neighbors, loving them as ourselves.

2.  We are to love all true Christian brothers in a way that the world may observe

This means showing love to our brother in the midst of our differences — great or small — loving our brothers when it costs us something, loving them even under times of tremendous emotional tension, loving them in a way the world can see

BOTTOM LINE:

We are to practice and exhibit the holiness of God and the love of God, for without this we grieve the Holy Spirit.

Love — and the unity it attests to — is the mark Christ gave Christians to wear before the world. Only with this mark may the world know that Christians are indeed Christians and that Jesus was sent by the Father.

I originally taught this 11/2005

TJ