Love That’s Unfailing (John 13:18-38) Myles Holmes | December 7, 2025

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

So good to be together this morning.

If you have your Bibles, you can open them up to John chapter 13.

John 13 · chapter mention

We're going to be in verses 18 to 38 this morning.

If you don't have a copy of God's word, you're going to need one.

And so the ushers have come to the front of the aisle, they're working their way down, and you can just flag one of them down.

They'll put a copy into your hands, which you can keep as our gift to you.

Now, as you turn to John chapter 13, verses 18 to 38, I want to ask you a maybe sobering question.

John 13:18–38

And the question is this you ever know what it feels like to realize that you're not enough?

Now I don't mean that in like the cultural self-esteem way that we often hear about it.

I mean in a real way to realize that you just are not enough.

Recently sitting with a number of men in our church, men who are desiring to walk the path that biblically every man is called to, the path of eldership.

We went around the room and this was not planned at all, but asked, you know, what's your greatest hesitation as you walk this path, being called to be a biblically elder qualified man, and every one of the men in that room said the same sobering thing.

I just don't know if I'm enough for this.

I wonder if you feel that same thing in your life.

I wonder if there's been moments in your life where you promised yourself you'd do better, but then your actions spoke louder than your words.

Times in your life where you genuinely wanted to do what was right.

You genuinely wanted to be faithful to God, but you weren't.

And if you're anything like me, then simmering beneath the surface of your life is this persistent question: Am I enough?

Am I the father or mother that God has called me to be?

Am I the spouse that God has called me to be?

Am I the friend that God has called me to be?

Am I the Christian that God has called me to be?

And in John 13, what we're invited to is this same question sitting right in front of two of Jesus' closest disciples.

They're sitting around the table with Jesus, and by the end of the chapter, the answer to this question, are they enough?

is painfully clear.

Both these disciples will fail Jesus.

Judas will betray him.

Peter will deny him.

And what rises to the surface in this passage is the reality of human failure.

The reality that even those who are closest to Jesus are not immune to the weakness that I think you and I feel as we ask ourselves this question am I enough?

And what we find in this passage we're about to read is that it functions a lot like a storm, where you see the dark clouds of our human weakness rolling in.

But behind the dark storm, at the same time as those dark clouds arise, something beautiful shines through.

And in John 13, we see the darkness of our human failure as we look in the mirror and find that the answer to that question, are we enough, is a strong and clear no.

But we find that shining brightly in that darkness is Jesus' unfailing love.

I want to read this together.

Why don't you stand with me as we read God's Word?

John chapter 13, verses 13 to 38.

John 13:13–38

Sorry, verses 18 to 38.

I'm not speaking of all of you, Jesus said.

I know whom I have chosen.

But the scripture will be fulfilled.

He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.

I'm telling you this now before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am He.

Truly, truly I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me.

And whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.

After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit and testified, Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.

The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke.

One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at the table at Jesus' side.

So Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking.

So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, Lord, who is it?

Jesus answered, It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.

So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.

Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him.

Jesus said to him, What you are going to do, do quickly.

Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him.

Some thought that because Judas had the money bag, Jesus was telling him, Buy what we need for the feast, or that he should give something to the poor.

So after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out, and it was night.

When he had gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.

If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once.

Little children, yet a while I am with you, you will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, where I am going, you cannot come.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

You are also to love one another.

By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

Simon Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going?

Jesus answered him, Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow me afterward.

Peter said to him, Lord, why can't I follow you now?

I'll lay down my life for you.

Jesus answered, Will you lay down your life for me?

Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.

This is the word of the Lord.

You can grab a seat.

Shining in the darkness of this passage is the only hope of the world.

It really is the core of what we're gonna see this morning.

I want you to see this that the only hope of the world is Jesus' unfailing love for the faithless.

Now, if we were watching John, the Gospel of John, unfold as a movie, this would be the scene where your stomach starts to turn because one of the characters that you've loved, and for the disciples, you know, it's really shocking to know this, Judas is about to betray the character you love most, Jesus.

And so in this scene, the music might shift, the camera might zoom on strained faces, and we as viewers would feel the weight of betrayal coming.

John wants us to feel this darkness.

He wants us to see just how dark this scene is.

That's why in verse 30, he gives us this clue.

It's not just a time stamp, it's not just a detail about the story.

In verse 30, John tells us it was night.

And what John is doing there is deeper just than factual information.

He's really giving us a spiritual diagnosis that what Judas is doing in this passage isn't just walking into the night.

He is being deceived into spiritual darkness.

He is believing that there is more joy, more satisfaction to be found outside of the room with the light of the world in it and in the darkness.

And love and Lord, I want you to notice at the very beginning of this passage that this is what sin does to us.

Sin doesn't force us away from Jesus, sin convinces us that there is life to be found outside of Jesus.

And what we watch unfold as this chapter goes on is that failure begins to rise to the surface, first in Judas, then in Peter.

Now, the first thing I want you to see as we see the only hope of the world in this passage and the unfailing love of Jesus is this that sin is more deceptive than we think.

Sin is more deceptive than we think.

Now, one of the things that becomes more immediately clear as we read this passage is that Jesus is never naive about what is happening in the human heart.

Nothing is hid from Jesus.

And so when we come upon the scene, the disciples are enjoying a meal around the table.

And you can imagine the kind of attitude that comes when you're with close friends that you love and you're enjoying good food, and yet here in the background, we are told Jesus is troubled in spirit.

And as we discern why that is, it's it's something that Judas and the disciples cannot see.

Jesus sees what we can't see clearly.

Jesus looks into the lives of these happy disciples and he sees the deceptive and ultimately destructive power of sin at work in them.

And loved one, I want you to know that when Jesus looks at your life, he also sees the deceptive and ultimately destructive power of sin at work in you.

Now, this is incredibly important for us because until we see what Jesus sees in us, we will not understand what the gospel is all about.

Very similar to when you know the doctor gives you a diagnosis, then you can understand the severity of the treatment.

But it's not until you know that diagnosis that the treatment makes any sense at all.

Jesus cannot be deceived by sin.

You and I can.

Jesus looks past the version of ourselves that can play the Christian game.

Jesus sees through the excuses that we make for the way that we live.

He sees that those are the weight of those excuses are flimsy in and of themselves.

Jesus is not deceived.

Loved one, Jesus looks at you and he knows who you really are, even when you have convinced yourself that you are doing fine, that you're doing okay.

That's exactly what John is showing us here.

In Judas, we see what sin can do to someone who stays close to Jesus while becoming increasingly blind to what's happening inside of them.

In other words, you can be in all the right places, but if you don't deal, if you don't know what's happening inside, nothing can change.

I want you to notice that first about sin's deceptiveness.

I want you to understand that sin deceives us because it can survive.

Sin deceives us because it can survive.

Look with me at verse 18.

Look in your copy of God's word and notice what Jesus says.

He says, I'm not speaking to of all of you, I know whom I have chosen.

But the scripture will be fulfilled.

He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.

Jesus looks at this room of his disciples and he says, This the one who is his betrayer is someone who has eaten bread with him, it's someone who has been close to him.

Not only that, it's someone who Jesus has chosen.

And that detail is incredibly important for us because it teaches us something about sin.

It means Judas has been nearer to Jesus than anybody.

I mean, no one in the history of humanity had such a glimpse of Jesus and his time on earth as Judas did.

Judas heard every sermon, he witnessed every miracle, he walked with the light of the world himself.

And all of these moments that we don't even have recorded in Scripture, you know, the the gospel writer says at the end of the book that if you were to record all the things Jesus did, there wouldn't be enough paper in all the world.

Judas saw all of it.

There is no one who had a more concentrated dose of the glory of Jesus, of the beauty of Jesus, of the power of Jesus, and yet Judas is unchanged.

Why is that?

Well, it's because sin is so powerful that even in the presence of Jesus himself, sin can remain undisturbed when it goes unrecognized.

Let me give you a picture of that.

We know throughout recent human history, the destructive power of nuclear warfare, we know that when a bomb is dropped, it destroys and vaporizes literally almost everything.

Now I say almost everything because you know that there is one thing that can survive nuclear warfare: little insects.

And so they say after nuclear warfare, what will be left there is the cockroaches.

Their bodies are able to endure levels of radiation that would just vaporize everything else.

When the dust settles, what you find are the cockroaches.

And loved one, I want you to know that that's what sin is like.

Sin is the cockroach of the soul, it can survive the nuclear brilliance of Jesus' ministry if the soul is never surrendered to him.

Now, Judas proves that.

Three years of proximity to Jesus and sin still survives in him.

Sin has this immense power to survive in us, which means this loved one, that you and I should never assume that we can handle our sin on our own.

And yet, if we're honest, what do we often do when sin is exposed in us?

Well, if we don't minimize it, if we don't negotiate with it, we often assume that we're strong enough to deal with it.

That we're wise enough to deal with it, that we're disciplined enough to deal with it, that if we just get the right habits in place, if we just get the right structure in place, that we can deal with the sin.

But but Judas is showing us how dangerous that lie is.

Sin doesn't just die from exposure, sin doesn't just die because you're in the right environment.

Sin doesn't just die because you're around the spiritual things for long enough.

Sin can survive sermons, sin can survive miracles, sin can survive proximity to Jesus, sin provides.

And if that's true of Judas, that sin survives, we should never, we should never trust ourselves with it.

This is a deceptive nature of sin that it survives, but uh, but I want you to know that sin is more deceptive than that because not only is it able to survive, what we see in this text is that it's able to stay hidden.

Did you notice that?

I mean, if we can get away from our familiarity with this text, something very interesting is happening here.

In this, you know, table dinner that they're having, Jesus is troubled in heart.

We see that in verse 21.

You see that after saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and then he invites his disciples into what's unsettling him.

And look at the disciples' reaction in verse 22.

The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke of.

It's fascinating that when Jesus is in a room with his closest disciples and he says, one of you will betray me, the disciples have no idea who it is.

That doesn't seem like real life to me.

I gotta tell you, if I was in a room with the staff of the church and I said, Hey, one of you is gonna betray me, immediately they would have Excel spreadsheets going.

They would have assumptions of who's it who it would be.

Some of you right now already know who it would be.

It would definitely be Joel.

Other of you, you know, others of you, it's Adam for sure.

You know, we know it's not Julie, right?

Julie's new, she's innocent.

But all that to say, maybe Melanie, you know, I've seen Melanie play board games, she's got a vicious side.

All that to say we'd have some speculation.

The disciples have no idea who it could be.

In fact, when when Jesus tells them, he says, Watch who I dip my hand into this bowl with.

That is the one who is going to betray me.

Even after that, did you notice what the disciples said when Judas left the room?

Look at verse 28.

Now, no one at the table knew why he said this to him.

Some thought that it was because Judas had the money bag.

Jesus was telling him, buy what we need for the feast, or that he should give something to the poor.

Even after Jesus identifies the betrayer, they still could not believe it was Judas.

They could not wrap their mind around it.

Why?

Because sin has an incredible power to stay hidden.

Nothing about Judas gave him away to the disciples.

The disciples clearly believed that he was a good man.

And you can understand why.

Judas had done ministry beside the disciples.

And when Judas cast out demons, when the disciples cast out demons, Judas cast out demons.

When the disciples cleansed lepers, Judas's lepers were cleansed.

When the disciples proclaimed the kingdom of God, Judas was right there beside them.

And that is what I want you to see in this passage that sin does not always look sinful.

Sin does not always function in your life with a megaphone, pointing your eyes and your mind to the reality of his existence.

Sin can hide.

Sin is deceptive.

In fact, the most destructive sins often hide under years of ministry, under years of service, under gifting, under success, under spiritual activity.

In other words, sin is like the Trojan horse.

It is beautiful on the outside, but on the inside it is carrying destruction.

Sin hides itself from us, and that should terrify us more than it does.

You know, loved one, most of your sin is not hiding in obviously wicked things.

Most of the idols that will bring destruction into your life hide inside things that look good.

It hides inside your gifting.

It hides inside your strengths.

It hides inside your passions, your personality, your ministries, your servings.

It hides behind the success that everyone else points to in your life and says, wow, wow, God must be blessing you because of how successful you are.

You're such a great parent.

You've succeeded so much in the workplace and you serve the church so faithfully and loved one.

It is right there that the most destructive, dangerous sin hides.

You know, Judas Judas doesn't fail because he's obviously bad.

I think what we're seeing in the case is that in this case is that Judas fails because he's believably good.

His sin stayed hidden inside what every other disciple assumed was a healthy relationship with Jesus.

And if sin can stay hidden inside of Judas' ministry when he's so close to Jesus, why would we assume that it can't stay hidden in our life?

And if you aren't scared enough of sin now because of its ability to survive.

The nuclear power of Jesus and because of its ability to stay hidden amongst people closest to you.

Let us fear sin because of its of its ability to spread.

Sin not only survives, it not only stays hidden, it spreads, it grows, it moves, it advances, and you see that in this text.

Love one, look at with me at verse 2 of chapter 13.

It says, During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas, Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him.

In verse 2, what we find is that sin is a suggestion to Judas.

It is a temptation.

But look how quickly it escalates by verse 27.

Notice what John says to us about Judas's sin.

Then, after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him.

What begins as a suggestion very quickly turns into possession.

A sin that begins small in Judas's mind as a simple whisper, it begins as a small opening, becomes a takeover of Judas' life.

And this is how sin works.

You can look in your own life.

Sin never shows up in full force.

Sin always begins as a suggestion.

And it starts at a size that you can justify, a size that you can excuse, a size that you can ignore, a size that you feel like you don't have to confess to anyone.

Oh, it's just a small sin.

But then you feed it a little bit and it grows.

This is what sin does.

C.

S.

Lewis gives a picture of this in his book, The Great Divorce.

He describes a woman who has this simple habit, I think, you know, many of us can relate to.

It's the habit of grumbling.

And at first she grumbles because she's upset.

I mean, you know, us grumblers, we can admit there are some things to grumble about, right?

Just shovel the driveway this morning, you know.

It just begins because there's a good reason to be upset, but eventually she becomes the kind of person who just grumbles without choosing to.

Neutral state for her is just grumbling.

It just kind of has become who she is.

And then the final diagnosis, C.

S.

Lewis, you know, in typical C.

S.

Lewis fashion says she becomes nothing but a grumble.

And sin doesn't just express her feelings, sin actually consumes her, and that is the spread of sin.

Judas embodies this reality.

He doesn't just wake up possessed by Satan.

He doesn't just wake up destroying his entire life.

It begins as something small.

He entertains a whisper.

He nurtures a secret desire.

He opens the door of sin an inch and sin kicks it wide open.

Loved ones, sin spreads, and it spreads more quickly in the places in your life that you excuse, in the habits and the patterns in your life that you never confront.

In the areas of your life that you just think, well, I'm I don't even need to confess this because it's so small.

Loved one, you see the deception of sin?

Sin is the carbon monoxide of the soul.

You can't smell it, you can't see it.

By the time you know it's there, it's already too late.

And it's good for us at a moment like this to just pause and reflect on this reality that the most dangerous sins to you right now are probably not the sins that you hate.

The most dangerous, destructive sins to you now are the ones that you have made a home for, that you tolerate, that you call small, that you think you can manage, the the ones you believe, you can just keep it into a corner in your life and it'll be okay.

Sin never stays in the corner.

Sin grows, sin spreads, sin consumes, and unless Jesus intervenes, sin will take more ground than you ever meant to give it.

That's what sin does.

Sin deceives us, sin survives the exposure of Jesus.

Sin stays hidden.

Sin spreads towards destruction and love when it if that is true of sin.

If sin is that deceptive, what hope do we have?

Here's our hope, loved one.

Jesus is in the room.

In fact, Jesus is not merely aware of our sin.

He's moved by it.

You see that in verse 21?

After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit.

He literally, the Greek is torn up of heart.

He grieves over the disease of sin.

And even more importantly than that, Jesus is not only moved by our sin, he's the only one who can do something about it.

So that in verse 19, we see him taking action.

Look what he says.

I am telling you this now, before it takes place, before the cross happens, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am he.

Jesus is the hero who is both moved to compassion by our sin and has the power to do it.

We need both those things, right?

I mean, you don't feel comforted by the toddler who understands your problems.

The toddler can't fix your problems.

Jesus is the one who both knows and cares for you and has the power to save.

And at this point in the passage, the the whole tone of gospel writer begins to shift from the darkness of Judas' sin to the greater power of Jesus' unfailing love.

And that's what I want you to see next in this passage.

The love of Jesus is more powerful than we can imagine.

The love of Jesus is more powerful than we can imagine.

Look at verse 31 with me.

It says, When he had gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified.

And God is glorified in him.

You know what this is proof of?

You ever wonder if you're a part of a conversation of like a group of people and then you leave and they start talking about you?

It's kind of proof that it happens.

It happens with Judas.

As soon as Judas leaves, Jesus looks at his disciples.

In fact, the next few chapters in John will be Jesus having a private conversation with the disciples who are his, and Jesus says, Okay, now we're ready to get to the good stuff.

Now, Jesus says, Is the Son of Man glorified?

Now, now, if you are a note taker in your Bible, which I believe you should be, you need to take it a pencil and circle now.

Because there is a hinge here.

Now that Judas has left, the betrayal has begun.

We should be shocked by what Jesus says here.

Because the very moment Jesus' destruction on the cross is set in motion is the very moment Jesus begins speaking about glory.

Now is the Son of Man glorified.

That should make no sense to our understanding of glory.

If the disciples were writing this story, in fact, if you and I were writing this story, this is not how we talk about glory.

We often talk about glory when things go well.

You know, glory is when you're on the beach and the sun, I mean, I'm sorry to do this, guys, but the sun is shining on you.

Glory is when you're the farthest away from suffering, but but Jesus says, now, now is the Son of Man glorified.

And to understand exactly what's happening here, we need to understand what this word glory even means.

To glorify something simply means to show its true worth, to put it on display so everybody can see how valuable that thing really is.

And we understand glory instinctively, you know, when the royal family comes, some of you guys are royal family people, and so I gotta speak really carefully here.

When the royal family comes, you see glory on full display.

You see the crown, you see the clothes, you see the customs, all the things that they do to kind of show you, hey, here's someone who's important.

You don't need to know the royal family to know that you know something's being said about these people.

These people are glorious.

But Jesus, as he looks at his glory, he locates it somewhere else entirely different.

That's the kind of glory, loved ones, that the disciples want.

The disciples want Jesus to have the glory of a crown, a political kingdom.

But Jesus is after a deeper glory.

Jesus says his glory is not revealed when suffering is avoided, but when he in his unfailing love stands against your greatest enemy and decides to remain there even when it will cost him everything.

That's what Jesus says is glorious.

And in fact, you and I understand this kind of glory instinctively too.

That's why we on the calendar mark Remembrance Day.

We honor the glory of soldiers who did not turn back from their enemy even when it cost them everything.

And we don't call it a glory because war is beautiful.

We call it glory because when it cost these soldiers everything, their love for the people stood firm.

It was their sacrifice that revealed their worth.

And just as soldiers go into a battle, believing that a love willing to give its life is the highest form of glory there is, so Jesus looks at your life and he says, if I'm gonna get glory from their life, then I must stand firm in the face of their greatest enemy, no matter what it costs me.

Jesus looks at that kind of glory and says, This is the glory I'm about to show you.

This is the kind of glory that the gospel is built on.

Now, that definition of glory, it does not stay abstract for Jesus because what we find in this text is that Jesus will show exactly how that sacrifice will be made glorious in Peter.

How will people know of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ?

Jesus shows us in Peter.

Look at verse 33.

Verse 33, Jesus tells his disciples something that's concerning.

You can understand why this would be concerning if you've spent time with Jesus for three years.

He says, Little children, yet a little while I'm with you, you will seek me.

And just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, where I am going, you cannot come.

Now I want to address verse 34 and 35 in a moment, but in verse 36, Simon Peter takes issue with this.

You see what he says in verse 36, Lord, where are you going?

I mean, don't you love Peter?

Doesn't Peter make the gospel so fun?

Because he just says what's on his mind.

Lord, where are you going?

Jesus answered, Where I am going, you cannot follow me now.

Now listen, when we get to heaven with Peter, don't say those kind of things to Peter, okay?

Peter doesn't stand, he doesn't, you know, do those kind of hard statements.

You cannot follow me now, Jesus says, but you will follow me after.

And Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now?

I'll lay down my life for you.

You can hear the sincerity in Peter's voice, can't you?

In fact, if we're honest, like you and I would do that, all that Jesus has done for you, wouldn't you do the same?

Wouldn't you stand up and say, Jesus, I would die for you.

There is nothing, there is nothing that could, there's nothing I wouldn't do for you.

I love you so much, Jesus.

And that's what makes what Jesus says next so painful.

He looks at Peter.

Peter is the most loyal.

Peter is the one who most vividly and clearly will stay committed to him.

And he says, he says to Peter, Will you lay down your life for me?

Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow until you have denied me three times.

In other words, you know what Jesus is saying to Peter?

He's saying, Before there is any glorious sacrifice on your part, there will be failure.

Peter, you are doing nothing before you fail me.

You know, love one, I think this is where so many of us misunderstand the gospel.

We think that Jesus loves us because one day we'll prove to be faithful.

We know we aren't right now, but we kind of have this feeling that we could just get things together.

And that Jesus knows that.

And that one day over time we'll be strong enough to deserve his love.

But do you see that Jesus loves Peter knowing exactly how he will fail?

And Jesus' unfailing love for Peter, demonstrated on the cross, is not waiting for Peter to be stronger, for Peter to be better.

It is loving Peter to the end despite his failure.

And so Jesus very publicly names the failure and still loves Peter to the end and loved one.

This is where we see the glory of the cross, that Jesus did not give his life for a faithful people.

That would be easy.

I mean, it would be easy to give your life for a people who were good.

What the scriptures say is that while we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.

In other words, the hope of the gospel is not that Jesus loves you because you are faithful to him.

The hope of the gospel is that Jesus loves you, knowing exactly when you won't be faithful to him.

You know, both Judas and Peter fail to Jesus.

In fact, I think you can make the argument that Peter kind of fails to get Jesus more.

Like Peter's denial of Jesus is very public.

What Judith does in betraying Jesus is very private, and he never keeps the reward of it.

In many ways, Peter's betrayal of Jesus is worse.

They both fail Jesus, but only one experiences restoration.

And the difference, loved one, is not the severity of the failure.

The difference is where each man turns after he fails.

Do you know that?

After the cross, Judas disappears from John's story entirely.

He enters into the night and he never comes back.

He's not shown in the Gospel of John seeking Jesus, not shown restored, not shown changed.

The Synoptic Gospels tells us he tries to deal with the remorse that he's feeling by taking his own life, but John lets the weight of silence speak for itself concerning Judas.

Peter's story is very different.

Peter's denial is not the end of his relationship with Jesus.

After the resurrection, you know what happens to Peter?

Jesus goes looking for him.

And as many times as Peter denied Jesus, Jesus will forgive him.

And then Jesus entrusts Peter with a mission.

And the gospel writer here is showing us this contrast very deliberately.

What's the difference between these disciples?

One disciple leaves Jesus and remains in the darkness, the other denies Jesus and then is found by Jesus and forgiven.

And Peter discovers what every true disciple must discover: that Jesus' love is more powerful than we can imagine.

That true, the belief that Jesus is looking for is not the belief that avoids failure.

It's the belief that trusts Jesus despite your failure, that runs to Jesus despite the knowledge of all the ways that you fall short.

And so the pressing question for us as we sit in front of Jesus this morning is this have you brought your failure to Jesus?

Jesus wants none of the other stuff.

He doesn't need your gifts, he doesn't need your time, he doesn't need your treasures, he doesn't need your talents.

What Jesus calls you to bring is your failure, your sin.

You have nothing else to offer him that he does not have.

Loved one, what are you doing with your failures?

What are you doing with all the ways that you fall short?

If you've brought your failure to Jesus, if you believe this love is for you, then Jesus now turns to you with words that are just as serious.

Look what he says in verse 33 A new commandment I give to you.

That you love one another just as I have loved you.

You are also to love one another.

A third thing I want you to realize is this that the mission is more necessary than we realize.

It's fascinating to me that Jesus gives this command to his disciples, knowing exactly what they are about to do.

He knows Judas has already left.

He knows Peter will deny him.

He knows that when he hangs on the cross, none of these people in this room who are his closest disciples will be there for him.

And yet, knowing all of that, he still says this, pointing to his disciples, it is by your love that the world will know you belong to me.

I don't know if Jesus could have picked a more flimsy object in that time.

And yet, this tells us something crucial.

The command to love from Jesus does not come because the disciples are faithful.

Do you see that?

It has nothing to do with the disciples' faithfulness.

Jesus does not say, Love one, love one another so that I will love you.

You know, if you want me to love you, you better figure out your relationships with other people.

And yet, legalism, you know, often tells us that what that's what Jesus is saying.

Well, I better love people because otherwise, you know, Jesus is gonna, he's not gonna think very highly of me.

And Jesus is unwilling to motivate his disciples.

He knows the legalism won't do that.

He says this love, love one another because I've already loved you.

I've already poured my love into you.

Jesus wants his unfailing love that he shows at the cross, that he shows to Peter through forgiveness.

He wants that love to be sent into the world through his followers.

That's the mission.

But I want you to notice here how Jesus expects his sacrifice to shape your life.

You know, if I were to ask you today, what is the mark of a follower of Jesus Christ?

If I were to say, how is the world going to know that you are a follower of Jesus Christ?

How is the world gonna know what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ?

What would you say to me?

I would think that many of us would say, Well, it's my personal relationship with Jesus.

You know, I read the Bible, I pray, I go to church on Sunday, and my coworkers know that I do those things, and so they're gonna know the love of Jesus.

Maybe your answer is not personal, maybe it's more external.

Well, it's through evangelism.

We gotta get out there, we gotta make the arguments, we've got to have the right theology.

Now, both those things are incredibly important, but it's fascinating that Jesus gives a very different answer.

By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.

Jesus doesn't say the world will recognize him by what you believe privately or what you even skillfully share publicly.

He says the world will see him when the gospel of what he has done on the cross, his unfailing love for a faithless people, the world will see him when that gospel creates a community unlike anything else in the world.

A community where people fail and then are forgiven, where repentance is met with restoration.

Now, Jesus is pointing us to the reality here that this love just can't be manufactured.

We can't just say, I'm gonna love harder.

It must come and flow.

To the world from people who have already been loved like that by Jesus.

This is the mission of the church.

The mission of the church is to make the invisible love of Jesus visible in our life together.

When the world asks, where is the love of Jesus?

They are supposed to look at the church and see the unfailing love of Jesus given to people who do not deserve it, who have been faithless to him, who have done nothing but fail him.

Which very practically means this.

That if you are not actually loving people in the church, that like if this is your church, we're talking about people in the room.

If you are not loving them, then the mission of Christ will not advance.

Jesus' intention is that his love goes out to the world by creating a community that is shaped by the gospel, the reality that the unfailing love of Jesus is the only hope for a faithless people.

So let me ask, maybe this way.

Someone were to step into this church for a few weeks and observe your life.

It's just your life.

They keep sitting behind you.

You're like, why is this person with a trench coat and sunglasses that looks like Pastor Miles sitting behind me?

And they they keep watching your life.

Would they see the love of Jesus in the way that you treat other people?

Would they see Jesus' patience in the way that you respond to people who are difficult in this church?

Now listen, I'm your pastor, so there's no difficult people in this church, okay?

But would they see your patience in the way that you love the difficult people in this church?

Would they see the mercy of Jesus in the way that you just keep on reaching out your hand to that person who fails over and over and over and over again?

Would they see the forgiveness of Jesus in the way that when conflict happens as it surely will, when you have, you know, like hundreds of sinners swimming in the same waters?

When conflict happens, do people see the forgiveness of Jesus in that you pursue restoration?

You don't just sit back and say, well, I don't care, I'll let them deal with it.

You pursue it.

Where they see the steadfast love of Jesus when you stay committed to things, even though they don't necessarily serve your personal interests.

Now I am convinced by Jesus' words here that the mission of God cannot move forward simply through programs in the church.

It cannot move forward through the personality of the pastor, praise God, for us.

It must move forward by the love that has saved us, becoming visible in the world around us.

The world will believe the gospel when it sees a community that loves the only way Jesus can.

Now, Loven, you know that that love can't come from a strong people.

That love can't come from a people who can do it themselves, from people who have it all together.

That love, Jesus is telling us, it only comes from people who know they are unfaithful but have been loved by Jesus anyways.

That's the hope of the world.

What is the hope of the world?

Loved one, the hope of the world is in this room.

It is the unfailing love of Jesus Christ, transforming your love so that what flows out of you is this desire to love other people the exact same way.

That is why the invitation of the gospel is not, hey, come here if you're worthy.

Hey, this is the church for you.

If you've got your life together, this is the place for you.

The invitation of the gospel is come if you are needy.

Not come if you are faithful, come if you are faithless.

Come if your life is marked by failure and the need of grace.

That is who the gospel is for.

And if redemption is going to be a place where the love of Jesus is visible, then this must be a church where unfaithful people keep coming back to Him.

I want to reflect on this together, so I'm going to invite the worship team up right now, and we're going to do something a little different this morning.

In a moment, we're going to close with a song that we haven't sung before, and you might not know it.

It's called, O come all ye unfaithful.

And as we enter this Christmas season, this is a Christmas song that reminds us what Christmas is really all about.

That Jesus is not born to the king, to King Herod.

Jesus is born to the shepherds, to the lowly people.

That the story of Christmas is not about a strong people ascending the mountain to meet with God.

It is about a weak people who did not have the strength to meet God themselves.

And so God came down and met them.

You don't need to know the song, you don't need to sing this song.

I want to actually just invite you to remain seated and simply listen and reflect on the invitation of Jesus here.

Let's do that together.