“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.”

— John 13:34-35

John 13:34-35 snuck up on me. 

A few years back I decided to do something extremely dangerous and daring; I knew my world would be turned upside down the moment I started stepping into this new land of mystery and adventure. I resolved to take Jesus at his Word. I needed to start living what Jesus said as if it was actually true truth. And in this passage of John 13:34-35 specifically, I was a bit upset by what Jesus was saying:

He has given those who are not his, permission to judge those who are. 

Think about that for a second. Jesus is allowing non-Christians to criticize his bride. How could he? Sounds like a bit of betrayal, yet, it is true. Jesus has handed those who have not yet believed in him the right to judge those who have. But if you notice, what they are judging us on has very specific parameters — the measuring stick they get to use is love.  

Notice one other thing, the object of who people in the church should love is rather surprising. Love in this context is not focused on how people in the church love those outside the church, but on how we love those inside the church. John reinforces this in his first letter, “We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.” (1 John 3:14) And brothers in this context are those who are already in the family of God. Those on the outside are allowed to watch how we behave with each other on the inside.

I was meeting with a couple who wanted a divorce. They both thought that if they split up and found another partner, life would be so much easier.  They had enough of the day-to-day struggle they were having being married. One of them said out loud, “The grass seems greener on the other side of the fence.” I asked them what they meant by that. Here is what was said:

“When I meet other people at work and we go out to lunch, we never argue over the home budget, how to discipline children, or even how I drive the car. We laugh so much more when we are together than I ever do with my spouse. It is just easier, and that is what I want.” It reminded me of the song Escape by Rupert Holmes, “If you like Pina Coladas…”

I then asked in my kindest voice, “And why do you think that is?” 

“Well, I don’t know?” Said the confused man.

“It is because you are married.” I then said, “Look, when you are married you can’t lie to your spouse because they live with you. When you are married you must daily die to yourself for the sake of the other person’s needs and wants. When you are married you must learn to forgive the brokenness of the other person because you will see their human flaws up close and personal day after day. But when you go out on a date with a woman that is not your wife, everything is based on a pretense. It is easy to be funny, happy, beautiful, and sensitive when you don’t have to share a life with another broken person like you. You can lie and play a part when the candlelight is flickering. But when you are sick and tired, monotony and lethargy naturally take over.”

Then a quick thought came to my mind, “The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence, it is made of artificial turf.”

That is what Jesus is saying in John. Genuine love is found not in how you present yourself in public, it is how you live with those in private. It is not proving to the world how you are more enlightened than the culturally backward church family that you just left, but rather it is how you learn to hang in there even when you are deeply offended and hurt. And this kind of selfless love is meant to be the main character trait of Christ’s church.

And by the church, I am talking about a real church, not a multi-million dollar mega-church that is filled with beautiful people bringing in lattes and wearing flip-flops and Hawaiin shirts for an hour on Sunday. But rather, one that has warts and scars.  A place that is filled with different generations, different tastes in music genres, different economic incomes, different haircuts, and allows different political points of view to mingle under the same roof. 

Jesus wants all of us in our weirdness and differences to learn to live and love him together. “I want them to be one as we are one.” That is another John verse.

Now oneness takes love. And this is what the world is allowed to watch and judge. They don’t simply Google the definition of it, they must see it in living color to understand it. Remember, “Love is patient, love is kind, and love keeps no records of wrongs.” That is often where love in the church goes south.

People leave the church because they have been hurt, misunderstood, not chosen for leadership, or they may have been excluded from a lady’s get-together, and so they start compiling a list of wrongs. But who can they share their hurt with? There is only one place — those on the outside. They turn to sympathetic listeners and then regurgitate their grievances. It is like the cheating husband sitting with the pretty new lady at an undisclosed lunch location griping about his wife. “You know what she said to me? She called me a lazy old man because I wouldn’t get up off the couch and fix the car.”  

“Ah, you poor exploited husband,” says the pretty blond as she flashes her long fake lashes and smiles a Saccharin grin.

When you nurse hurts for too long with the wrong people you begin to only see your family’s failures through a lens of bitterness. 

Have you ever tried to first forgive and then look to see just how good the church actually is? The problem with evaluating the greatness of the church is that our greatness is found in our honest convictions and acts of humility. Honesty must confront sin and pride, and sinful proud people don’t like that. But isn’t that why we need the church, so we can all grow to be more like Jesus? The world won’t tell you the truth about your brokenness, because they want you to start swimming in sin with them. Did you know it is easy to be evil? It is even easier not to tell people when they are evil. 

Of course, people will always like the bar, “Cheers”, because they know your name. But I assure you, they will never confront you on your sin. Telling a woman you are dating that she is wrong for wanting to date a married man will get you nowhere fast. It is easier to imagine she is the only one who ever really loved you as she batts her eyes and rubs your knee. So in order to keep her around, you must keep using flattery and lies — they work like a charm on those who think they are good.

And then when it comes to acts of humility, by design, it means the church will not promote itself and it will nip boasting in the bud.  Those in the church are told to never let their left hand know what their right hand is doing, and because of that principle, the church seems quiet and uncaring in the eyes of the world. We will even shy away from defending ourselves when criticized because we don’t want any hint that we ever operate out of pride. Sometimes we are too kind for our own good.

But the world is built on self-promotion. Politicians are great at it, especially when they use other people’s money to do something they would never do themselves. And when ungodly people feel guilty about a lifestyle they know God does not condone, they have learned to quiet that guilt by bashing the church for judging them. Judging others has become our culture’s only truly evil offense. So to help them quiet their conscience, they look for people in the church or who left the church to bash the church — this kills two birds with one stone. 

Again, joining the world in their criticism of the church is like dating the lying adulteress, she is all about pretension. As long as she can get you to believe she is better than your wife, she hooks you and reels you right in. A truly good woman would confront you for your cheating, and not cheat with you, nor let you bash your wife. So it is with the world. If they can hook you by making you believe the church is really full of rotten people, they will because it makes them feel better about themselves. 

Two weeks ago I was at our Tuesday night prayer meeting, and it was the week after the Roe v. Wade ruling was overturned. As far as I know, everyone in the prayer group was pro-life, so naturally, they were thankful for the ruling. Now the world will have you believe that those same pro-life people probably don’t care about people. “Oh sure,” they will say, “they will protect life in the womb, but once the baby is born they will have nothing to do with them. And they also are so quick to condemn the ladies who have had abortions, and they hate the doctors who perform them. I would like to see those pro-life pretenders put their money where their mouth is.”

Well, if anyone feels that way, I wish they could meet this group of people. They didn’t just pray, they daily live what they prayed for. Many in the group had adopted numerous children, and have taken in foster children, and worked at Alpha Woman’s Center counseling and loving the ladies who had abortions already. One person even prayed for an abortion doctor her father befriended for over 30 years trying to get him to experience the love of Christ. These people would never defend themselves, they would never gloat about winning a Supreme Court ruling, and they would never consider themselves brave cultural warriors, all they want are little babies to have a chance. The same chance all of us who are breathing already have!

What I have seen over the last thirty years of being in the church is that the people who care the most about life in the womb always prove to be those who actually care the most about life once it is out of the womb.

It is easy to criticize your wife, in fact, it is easy to cheat on a spouse. It takes a lifetime of long-term forgiveness that is hard. It takes Christ’s love.

Have you ever wondered why there are so many college and professional football and soccer athletes tearing their ACLs these days? Do you think it could be because most stadiums have switched from real grass to artificial? Just because it seems greener, doesn’t mean it is better.