We Are Saved Into Community

6 July

John 13:31-38

I enjoy a weird sign. Warning labels that tell you not to put something in your mouth, and you think, someone has obviously done that. Or a one-way street sign pointing in the wrong direction. Or my favourite: a roundabout that has five other roundabouts attached to it.

There’s a sign that hangs above every church that believes in Jesus. And it reads this:

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples — if you love one another.

Love. Observable, every day, unglamorous love between ordinary people who don't get to choose to be with each other, who don't naturally get along, who probably wouldn't even know each other if it weren't for Jesus. And yet, we are called together, called to belong to one another, called to love one another.

A New Measure

Jesus gives this command on the night before he dies. He's already washed the disciples' feet, even Judas’, the one about to betray him. In that same moment, with Judas still in the room, he says: a new command I give you, love one another as I have loved you.

The command itself isn't new. Leviticus 19 already says love one another. What's new is the measure. The measure is no longer just love each other, it's love each other as I have loved you. And what kind of love is that? Sacrificial. Laying down your life for others. That's the standard.

And here's what Jesus doesn't say: work up the emotion of love towards each other. He doesn't say feel warmly about everyone in the room. He gives a command. Love is something we do. It's an action. And sometimes you turn up to church when you are not feeling particularly lovable or love-giving. Maybe it's been a hard week. Maybe someone cut in the dinner line and you're quietly annoyed. Maybe you just want to sit in your usual seat and not be bothered.

I think that's most of us at some point. And the great thing about love being a command rather than an emotion is that we don't have to feel it first. We do it, in the power of the Spirit, and the feeling follows.

The act of doing love transforms the feeling of love. When we stop doing the acts, we stop feeling the love. So when we come to church on the nights we don't feel like it, those are the nights we work harder in the Spirit to do the acts. And the love comes.

Saved Into Community

Here's something I've heard a lot over the years: it's just me and Jesus. That phrase sounds spiritual. It sounds deepl devotion. But it's actually misleading. It's not what the Bible calls us to.

When Jesus saves us, he doesn't say: you're a Christian now, off you go, do whatever you like by yourself. He saves us into a community.

Joseph Hellman puts it plainly: a person is saved into community. To follow Jesus meant to join a Jesus community. The idea of a solo Christian, saved but not connected to a body of believers, was simply inconceivable to the first Christians.

Paul makes the same point in 1 Corinthians 12. He's writing to a church that was actually pretty divided — split over spiritual gifts, social status, who got to eat first at communion. And into all of that division he says: remember who you are. You are one body. When one part suffers, every part suffers. When one part rejoices, every part rejoices.

That's not a poem about church structure. It's a call to remember that what happens to you matters to me, and what happens to me matters to you. We are not a club of individuals who share a common interest in Jesus, meeting in a building and then leaving. We are one body.

The gospel reconciles us to God vertically — and to each other horizontally.

You don't get one without the other. God doesn't separate them, the Bible doesn't separate them, and neither should we. Our relationship with God bleeds into our relationship with others, and our relationship with others bleeds into our relationship with God.

What It Actually Looks Like

So what does loving in community look like in practice? Four things.

First, truth and love together — always. Paul says in Ephesians 4 to speak the truth in love. The two are inseparable. If you love without truth, you're not actually loving. If someone comes to you and says my arm looks bad, and you say it's just a flesh wound, you'll be fine — that's not love. And if you speak truth without love, you weaponise it. Some people take great pride in calling a spade a spade, but they're also the ones using the spade to hit people over the head with it. Truth without love is not a tool of healing. It's a weapon. We speak truth in love. Not one or the other.

Second, build each other up. We do that by showing up. By listening. By giving time. One of the great gifts anyone can give in church is the gift of being there — because when you show up, you show that you love. You love someone enough to be there either for them, or to be loved by them. When we stay home, we rob other people of the opportunity to love us. The world will cut us down endlessly. Churchshould build us up.

Third, keep your circle open. It's good to have close friends at church. But don't close your circle. When we gather, keep your relationships open so that anyone who walks through those doors will feel the love Christ commanded. That means giving time and energy and a listening ear even when there are other things you'd rather be doing. And going out of your way to find someone you don't know and sitting with them at dinner.

And fourth — show up. That's step one. You've already ticked a box just by being here. Now ask: who is God going to bring my way tonight? How can I love them?

The Sign

When the world sees church, a mismatched group of people, different ages and backgrounds and personalities, people who wouldn't otherwise know each other, choosing to love each other sacrificially, not for what they get back, the world stops and asks: what is going on here?

That's the sign. That's the witness. Not our words alone, but our love for one another. Philip Jensen asks: what if the church is more like a diamond than a hammer, an object that exists for the pleasure and glory of its owner, rather than purely as a tool for achieving something else?

Something to be cherished. Something that glorifies the one who brought us together.

God didn't just save us. He adopted us into the most precious family that has ever existed. One day we'll be part of the largest community there has ever been, and it will last for all eternity. How we practice that now matters. How we love each other now is a preview of that.

The sign above this church reads: they love one another. Let's make sure it's true.