This sermon focuses on the rediscovery and recovery of the lost commandment of Jesus, emphasizing the importance of love for one another as a central aspect of the Christian faith. The speaker shares personal experiences and insights into how this commandment was overlooked in history, leading to a lack of emphasis on love in Christian teachings. The message highlights the need to merge faith in Jesus Christ with love for one another to truly reflect the kingdom of God on earth.

I am very honored to be with you here and I'm delighted at this opportunity to just share, to be together, to just share my heart and the passion that I feel for God's amazing love for us. It just is a, as you were talking Jonathan, it is discovery. It is ongoing, discovering the amazing love that a father has for us as his daughters, as his sons, and the love that he so graciously and generously pours into us. I'll never forget May 1st, 2002. I woke up that morning. The reason it's so astonishing to me is, well, I have to tell you a bit of the story. I woke up that morning and I remember saying, I'm ready to study the Bible. And that's very strange in that I had already been a pastor for 34 years and love the Holy Scriptures and love studying the Bible. I love teaching the Scriptures and just was constantly reading and going, just advancing, learning. But strangely enough, six months before that, I'd gotten up on a Sunday morning and we had multiple services on Sunday, and I'd gotten up really early. This was my habit and I was leaving the house. But I lost my way that morning, late October of 2001. I lost my way. I ended up downtown calling for help. I literally had driven a thousand times down the freeway to the place where I pastored and where our congregation met. But that morning, I didn't make that turn, and I ended up downtown calling for help. And my elders were so extremely gracious. When they heard what had happened to me, they literally cried and lifted all the responsibilities off of me, and it went into a season of recovery. And it was, honestly, in one sense, it was like surrendering. It's almost like dying, but you're still alive. That's what it felt like, because it was, I wanted to tell people, you know, it's like I wanted to write people notes and say, you know, the commitment we had a week and a half from now, I won't be there. I had a breakdown. But I couldn't do that. There was no opportunity for that. And you just spiral down. It's kind of like you don't tell people that after you die that you won't be keeping the appointments. And that's the feeling that I had as I'm spiraling down. My elders lifted all the responsibilities off me and developed a plan of taking care of me and having me go into counseling. And they were so, they're my heroes to this day. It was a wonderful grace that they demonstrated. But for me, all I wanted to do was sleep. And I slept and slept typically the mornings. And so, in fact, about, I remember this about specifically about three weeks in to this, to what had happened to me in late 2001. I remember about three weeks in, my wife had fixed me a half of a sandwich and a little bowl of soup. And I'd been laying on the couch that morning and resting, sleeping. And I remember when Patty said that there was a little lunch ready. I'd gotten up, gone into the kitchen, all that was, ate the soup and the sandwich. And I'm just laying back down on the couch again after that's over and settling in and getting comfortable. And I looked up and there is my wife looking down at me. She says, honey, you are scaring me. You slept all night. You slept all morning. Now you're laying back down to sleep this afternoon. She said, aren't you afraid you're not going to be able to sleep tonight? I looked back up and I said, honey, I can hardly wait till tonight and I can go to bed. I mean, it was just that kind of exhaustion, which won't go away. It was more than tired. It was just a deep, after six weeks of that, I started to get worried and we sought more. I was already under the care of a doctor and seen professional counselor. I sought more counsel and they said, no, we think you're probably on track. We think that your body will tell you when it's had enough rest. And sure enough, it started coming around towards Christmas. I started to get just a little bit of natural energy. And I remember one of the very specific things that stands out to me was in January. I remember being in the shower and I had my first creative thought that I could remember after the breakdown. It was very cool. It was just exciting. I remember drying off afterwards and for the life of me, I couldn't remember what the thought was, but I knew I had one and it was like, yay, something is clicking alive inside of me. I didn't read my Bible for three months. That had never happened for me since the Lord impassioned my life with his life. And I didn't pray. I mean, I'm saying we didn't pray over meals, but I couldn't read generally. I couldn't read books. I couldn't watch television programs. And I would try to watch a movie or something and it was like, it would, a few minutes in, I would just lose total interest and think, why would anyone ever, ever want to watch this? And so it was, but I didn't read my Bible for three months. It was March, February, when I started reading devotionally. I remember I started reading out of the book of Colossians, started reading a little bit, just a verse or two a day. But on this day, six months after that breakdown, I remember waking up that morning and going, I am ready to study the Bible. And I really was. I remember excited, sitting down at the kitchen table in our home and putting out my little laptop that I had used, hadn't touched for six months, and put it on the table. I used it for study, my Bible and my Bible studies and sermon preparation. Put it on the table. It felt so different sitting down. It felt like somebody, six months earlier, my life had been characterized by a desk that was piled high with responsibilities and activities and just many different leadership roles. But it felt like somebody had come along in the meantime and just done this, had just tipped it, and everything had slid off that table. And now when I sat down at the kitchen table, it was like, it was empty. It was like nothing on it except this little laptop sitting there. And this thought came to my mind. I've never had this before, but this thought comes to my mind. I am ready to study the Bible, but where am I going to start? Because the Bible is a big book. I mean, a typical Bible has a thousand pages in it. Where do you start? In Genesis or Isaiah or Romans or Revelations? Where do you go to study? So I'm sitting there contemplating that. And the Great Commission comes to my mind. Obviously very familiar to all of us. Matthew chapter 28, verse 18. Jesus says, all authority in heaven and earth has been given me and therefore go and make disciples of all the nations. And I punched in Matthew 28, 18, and it popped up on the screen and the verses that followed. And I began to read it. And all authority in heaven and earth has been given me, therefore go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son or the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all whatever I did command you. And I'm with you always to the very end of the age. And as I read those words, just this warmth settled over me because they really defined who I was, what my life had been about. And just memories of some of the impassioned messages out of that came back to mind. And an interesting thing happened in that moment as I'm sitting there. I hadn't, like I said, I hadn't touched my little laptop for six months, but apparently when I was preparing the last sermon in October of that year before, I had been looking at something in parallel in Young's literal translation. Robert Young, brilliant scholar, has written the Analytical Concordance. He also wrote a literal translation of the Bible and I just used his material periodically. Well, I looked over on the split screen and I saw his writing and I started to read it in what he had, how he had translated it. And it said something like this, having gone then, disciple all the nations. It's a good way to render it. The thrust is not go ye therefore in terms of the language and how that language is structured. It really, the thrust of it is disciple all the nations, the ethnos, the peoples. Make disciples of all the peoples. That's the point of it. So having gone then, disciple the nations. But then what absolutely fascinated me was what I saw next because Robert Young puts a parenthesis next and inside the parenthesis, he puts these words, parenthesis, baptizing them to the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all whatever I did command you, end of parenthesis. And lo, I'm with you always to the very end, until the full end of the age. Well, instantly, you have to understand, when your mind has been somewhat flatlined, I must admit that the kinds of things that happened next probably were exaggerated in my thinking. But it's like the excitement meter just spiked off. I looked at it and went, oh my goodness, Robert Young thinks that this could be rendered, having gone then, disciple all the nations, and lo, I'm with you always till the full end of the age. Makes total sense. That would be a great statement. But then it's kind of like, oh by the way, if you want to know what disciple making is, I'm going to embed a definition. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And as I'm sitting there, it's almost like a number one appears. Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and number two, teaching them to obey all whatever I've commanded you. And I thought, that is amazing. So simple. Discipleship summarized in the Great Commission that disciple making is bringing people through faith in the gospel, or through the gospel, seeing them baptized, and then beginning the journey of learning all that Jesus had commanded. And I thought, this is simpler than it's ever seemed to me in that moment. And I was thinking about, wow, that's an amazing thought. And I, in that moment, simplicity seemed important to me. And I thought of the privilege of baptizing hundreds and hundreds of people over decades, and just the joy that that had brought, and seeing people come to faith, and seeing that transformation that takes place in their life. It was so great, fun, wonderful, wonderful thoughts. And then I looked down, and he said, and teaching them to obey all whatever I did command you. And in that moment, I thought, yes, of course. And what all did Jesus command us? That was my next question. And instantly, I went like, I know what my first Bible study is going to be. I know what I'm going to study. I am going to go through the New Testament, particularly the Gospels, the writings of Jesus, and I'm going to find everything he commanded us, 10, 20, 40, or more things, whatever it is. I'm going to find all those. I'm going to list them. I'm going to systematize them. My first study will be to put them all in order, so that when I get better, and I can teach people, I want to know what to teach them, all the things that Jesus commanded. I punched in the Greek word enteleme, and the closely related entele. I punched those two numbers into my little laptop there, and hit enter. And I just thought, I am going to start right where the word starts. I'm going to start with the very word Jesus used. And instantly, I think 87 times, if I remember correctly, it popped up on the screen. And I quickly printed those out, sat back down at the kitchen table, and started looking down at where that word, other than here, had been used. I just scanned through them. I quickly became aware that the word was used in several different ways. It was used, first of all, of commands given to specific identifiable groups of people. And, for example, when Jesus had taken Peter, James, and John up to the Mount of Transfiguration, you remember up there the amazing encounter. They saw Jesus like they'd never seen him before, and they heard the voice of the Father, and all the appearance of Moses and Elijah, and then their disappearance, and Peter's, you know, all of that. As they're coming back down from the mountain, Jesus said to them, don't tell anyone what you have seen until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead. But when you look at the original language, what he said was, I command you, don't tell anyone what you've seen until after the resurrection. This word was used about 15 times like that, for specific, targeted, like those three people in that moment. It was used in another way. It was used about of the 70-some remaining times. A little over half of them were the use of that word command as it relates to the commands contained in the law of Moses, very specifically referring back to them. In fact, that was the one that I would personally have been most familiar with. For example, the well-known passage in Matthew chapter 22, where an expert in the law comes to Jesus, and he says to him, tell us, what is the greatest commandment in the law? There's a, in fact, the majority of those over 35 of those remaining times were those kinds of statements that very clearly connect with the law and the commandments in the law given to us by Moses. And we know that Jesus responded to him in that circumstance. But what really gripped me in that moment was the remaining 30-plus times that I saw that word used in these verses that were remaining. And I looked at the combination of the word love and command as they were seen together. And I'll give you just a little mosaic of what I saw as I scanned down this list and began to read these words. 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're my disciples if you love one another. If you love me, you will obey what I command, and whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father. And I too will love him and show myself to him. The world must learn that I love the Father, and I do exactly what he commanded. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I've obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. My command is this, love each other as I have loved you. Greater love is no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. This is my command, love one another. The commandments do not commit adultery or do not steal, do not murder, do not covet, whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule, love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to its neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. We know that we've come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says I know him but doesn't do what he commands is a liar and the truth isn't in him. Dear friends, I'm not writing you a new command but an old one which you've had since the beginning. This old command is the message you've heard, yet I am writing you a new command. Whoever loves his brother must live in the light. We receive from God anything we ask because we obey his commands and do what pleases him and this is his command, to believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and to love one another as he commanded us. I ask that we love one another and this is love, that we walk in obedience to his commands and as you've heard from the beginning his command is that you walk in love. It just hit me over and over and over again and I went oh my goodness, this word command that I'm focusing on and the word love are used over and over in the New Testament and it just began to stand out everywhere and I was thinking to my question what all did Jesus command us and instantly I realized well I sure have found one thing right off where Jesus said a new commandment I give you, love one another as I've loved you, this is my command that you love one another and I was just kind of rocked as I looked at it and said oh my goodness I had never seen this so clearly before and I wondered at first it was almost as if I had not seen that passage before, this very bold and clear statement that Jesus had given to his disciples that's in the context of his final going away message to them, he's giving them the going forward instructions and here he says to them three times this new commandment I'm giving you or my commandment love one another and he repeats it on three separate occasions and during that evening so I was just struck with the weight of this and I'm thinking wow why have I or how could I have not seen this clearly? Now you have to understand in that moment I'm thinking everybody knows this commandment but me I everybody just assumed I knew it but I have totally missed this now you need to know that love was very important to me in the the longest message series I ever preached as a pastor went too long for a series some might say it lasted a year I preached on love out of the new testament for a year it was an amazing rhythm out of most of the letters I just just found it over and over again and it was a wonderful year and transformational for our church but that had happened many years earlier but I had not seen this I've kind of seen it as one of the sub points of Christian faith I really hadn't seen it so central as I was seeing it now in this moment and because I'm thinking now everybody knows this but me I have a lot of catching up instantly I knew that it was all through the new testament I knew that that was part of my background I just have not seen it owned so personally by our Lord Jesus Christ something the new commandment my commandment love one another as I've loved you it just now it's standing out to me and I'm thinking I have a lot of catching up to do so I know it's all through the new testament but what I want to do now is I'm going to go back to the early church fathers I'm going to go back to the writing of the antinacian fathers about the year 125 to maybe 325 you know they left us 10,000 pages of their writings about 50 authors and it's wonderful I'd studied I'd read through it and comb through it but I thought I am going back because I know that in their writings I will find a treasure trove of teaching about this new commandment Jesus gave us and how they applied this and how they implemented this in the early church I got up from the table and I went into what had been my office before my breakdown and on one of the file cabinets there had been a stack of books that had been kind of newly acquired that was growing growing and about halfway in that stack was burkhart's encyclopedia of early church beliefs I had gotten it during my breakdown I was wandering one day in barnes and noble happened to see this book on sale and I pulled it out a rather thick volume and and I was fascinated by the topic and because it was 30 off I just said yep sold and I bought it and put it in the stack but hadn't done anything with it I pulled it out of the stack and took it back to the table and I started to look through it I'm looking for commands commands of Christ Jesus commands of but strangely enough out of 700 topics what burkhart had done is he he had combed through that book of the the 10,000 pages of writings and he had divided what they wrote into 700 topics and had you could look up any one of those 700 topics and find what he what they had said about that topic so I was sure I was going to find it but I'm looking commands of Christ commands of Jesus laws of and then I thought of laws of Christ there's something about the law of Christ I remembered in scripture and I looked that up strangely enough I could not find any of the 700 topics that related to Jesus commandment so I started looking under love and again there was no reference to the words we just read from john 13 34 or 15 12 or john 15 17 and then I thought I know what it is it's charity they they would use the word charity so I went to the word charity and again found no reference to the commandment Jesus had given in that moment something just gripped me and I went no no no no this can't be happening is it true that I'm not the only one that missed this I spent thousands of hours in research over the next five years I had to know what had happened to that commandment but I'll tell you that I think the hypotheses that began to form in my mind that day before that day was over is pretty accurate I think very early in the Christian faith this commandment slipped off the table and we stopped teaching it it was not in our creeds was not referred to in our confessions of faith to this day it's absent from my estimate at least 80 percent probably higher of the statements of faith and practice in the western church I do travel some now go to other countries two of the last countries I've been in I'm thinking of the Philippines we were doing seminars there and posted on the walls were the 49 commands of Christ in English but during my research I already knew what those 49 commands were because I had a friend in the process of research hand me a sheet of paper and he said here this will relate to your studies what you're researching I started to fold it up and put it in my notebook and he said no no no would you look at it so I pulled it back out and started to scan down it and the 49 commands were really taken from the use of the aorist imperative wherever Jesus made a statement that was made in the aorist imperative took it as a command out of his teaching as I was scanning down at that day when I first looked at that sheet of paper with the 49 commands I was going down 29 32 and then I'm going no no no no but of the 49 commands that were listed the command Jesus said was his was not in it that I've seen in the Philippines I was recently in Uganda and saw the same 49 commands listed but missing was the command I would say today the one command Jesus owned as my commandment is missing I totally understand because I missed it I missed it it was always in my Bible and it was always there for us in church history but our attention began to be drawn away from it I think very early you have to understand that the early the early leaders of the church had a huge task it's an unenviable task they were with the death of the apostles they were being asked now to guide the emerging church what is this going to look like they are being confronted with many questions with many ideas speculative issues are being brought to them some of them are heresy some of them are truth others are just distractive and secondary issues but they are having to make decisions about which of those are true which are faults which are heresy which will divide the church and they took this to heart they began to write each other letters then they began to get together had councils they began to develop creeds and confessions but I think what happened it's very early in church history the pressing needs of trying to develop orthodoxy and preserve orthodoxy in the pressing need of that we took our eyes off of something that was so precious the value of it may have only really been understood under careful scrutiny and I think the enemy of all that is good the dark one the enemy of Christ said if I can only slip this off the table and out of their attention I'll let them have orthodoxy but they cannot have it with the commandment in it and I think the distraction and the fog that settled over it caused that incredibly central truth to be lost this key to orthopraxy was lost in a pursuit of orthodoxy and it was a tragic loss that day sitting at that table there was a moment I was sitting there and this began to form in my mind and suddenly I understood church history it became clear to me because when you take that commandment out of our teaching out of our instruction out of our creeds out of our confessions out of our statements of faith and practice many behaviors become acceptable even justifiable in the absence of the command that says a new command I give you love one another as I have loved you so you must love one another in fact by this all people will know that you are truly learners of me followers of me if you love one another it was that central that it became the mark of authenticity I was stunned at that point as I considered what my own loss and then on top of that my the shock at realizing this may have been lost very early to us it appears that we haven't focused on this and I didn't honestly didn't know what to do I was so sure that I was going to find just a bunch of materials I was so excited to learn what I had been missing and now I'm confronted with this loss the only place I could go was go back to that scripture that had captured my attention Matthew 28 verse 18 through 20 I went back and began to read it and look at it kind of word by word and I the the second point that it stood out to me in that parenthetical insertion that young chose to put in there now that second point teaching them to obey I remember going back through that kind of word by word I think the first thing I realized was teaching them to obey all that I taught you now I realized that every time I read that that's what I said in my head teaching them to obey all that I taught you but now I'm confronted with the fact that he has used a word all that I commanded you and for some reason that seems significant to me that words are important and his choice of using that word uniquely in this way was significant particularly in light of the fact that only weeks before he had given them what he called a new commandment and it repeated it two more times that night now saying it is my commandment I own it it's mine well I began to notice that I needed to say teaching them to obey all that I commanded you now honestly I would never argue that that did not include everything that Jesus taught us but it for sure does not exclude the one thing he said was his commandment to us I would argue that point it must include that but I had missed it and I think others in history had missed it then I was captured by the word teaching them to obey I looked at it King James Version it's teaching them to observe is the way it rendered all that I commanded you whatever I commanded you and to observe I don't like the word observe particularly it just seems like it could be too passive but obeying better but actually when I looked at the word in the Greek it's the word torreo and when I looked at that word I was I was awakened by what that word means it the maybe the best way to translate it is teaching them to guard all that I commanded you teaching them to guard but there's different words in the Greek for guard and some of them could be like to stand watch with a you know a weapon to guard something and but it's interesting that when you look at this word teaching them to guard it it's a word which means to guard by never taking your eyes off of it it's to guard it by never letting it out of your sight it's to never let it out of your focus teaching them to guard by never letting out of their sight that which I have commanded you we need to keep it in our vision and I began to see that it seems that very early it had slipped from our vision it had slipped from our teaching slipped from inclusion in our creeds as I began to study I saw that the I I looked through the Catholic materials through the councils that they had and searching for some reference to this to this truth couldn't find any but as I'm combing through history I begin to I come to the reformation I'm thinking we are now going to see the recovery of this commandment and as I looked at the reformation there were honestly some very hopeful moments sometimes it looked like this command is coming back but honestly the the central truth that was recovered and kind of renewed in that was the first command within that parenthetical phrase faith in Jesus Christ which would lead one to the step of baptism and that was the focal point a very worthy and significant focal point for us that we would understand that is through faith in Jesus Christ that we have this gift of salvation but the hopeful moments did not really turn into practice probably the the highest attempts at recovery of that commandment came in what was called the radical wing of the reformation later known as the Anabaptists and they seem to grasp some of their writers more clearly focused on the importance of loving one another and they saw it tied to communion but through history a very interesting thing happened with them they they begin to move away from their emphasis on the command that Jesus given to what they called in their history the rule of Christ and the rule of Christ was not John 13 34 a new command I give you to love one another they had that early but now the rule of Christ began to supplant that and the rule of Christ for them was Matthew 18 the process of discipline where if someone offended you or did something sinful you were to talk to them one-on-one and then you were to bring several more in to confront them and then if they didn't hear them you were to bring them before the church and if they didn't hear the church you were to stop fellowshipping with them to put them out and that became the predominant thing in the Anabaptist movement the rule of Christ and as a result we saw many many tragic hurts begin to develop in their movement if you've studied the Anabaptist movement many schisms because those divisions in the rule of Christ begin to predominate and over and over again it pitted one person another over disputable matters and division happened and people stopped talking to each other many wounds many schisms they made a poor choice I would say to release the precious commandment Jesus gave us and embrace what they would call the rule of Christ in the Augsburg confession 28 points of the Augsburg confession that Luther and probably Melanchthon was most instrumental in in in composing that but those 28 points not to be confused with a 95 or 93 or 98 a couple of different times they posted things but in those 28 points that became the Augsburg confession faith or belief in God is referenced over a hundred times and rightfully so but love is only mentioned six times and the importance of that was that it was never mentioned pointing to the commandment Jesus gave us so the Augsburg confession was very strong on faith in Jesus Christ rightfully so but it did not bring the recovery of love for one another the command that Jesus gave us and Augsburg confession became in general the theological basis for the Church of England and the Church of England while they modified it some it it was the basis many believe of that and then as you know Wesley came all of his life was an Anglican came out of the Church of England and even though he formed the Methodist movement the Methodist movement then adopted that Augsburg confession as the basis of their faith and then out of the Methodist movement came the Holiness movement that we knew and out of that came the Pentecostalism and charismatic renewal or many parts of the charismatic renewal speaking in general terms here the truth is we have all carried that same DNA through but missing has been the commandment that Jesus gave us and John combines this very strategically when he says in first John chapter 3 verse 23 and this is his command he's speaking of God the Father when you look at the context and this is his God the Father's command that you believe in his son Jesus Christ that's number one the Father's command is that we believe in his son but John doesn't stop there he goes on to say and that you love one another as he now speaking of Jesus the son commanded us the Father's command is to believe in his son it's John 3 16 the son's command is that we love one another that's John 13 34 the importance of loving one another faith in Jesus Christ and love for one another I believe are the great commandments of the new covenant those two need to be merged together for us to experience the kind of life and grace and practice that is ours in the Christian faith the Father's command to believe in the son and the son's command that we love one another how serious has this loss been as I travel and have the opportunity now to travel globally the same absence has been transferred to the places that we largely us we've carried the gospel that same absence is felt in the places we have discipled people because we did not teach them to guard all whatsoever Jesus commanded us we've missed for one thing the very thing he said was his commandment and they're unaware of it I was with African pastors in Uganda they'd come from different countries and um one of the young pastors was there was Gene Cloud he's he's from the capital city in Rwanda and as I started to get to know him started to ask a little bit about his story and one of his friends a medical doctor that was there sitting with us that day said um probably best not to talk about it it's too much of a story and it's really emotional what I learned is that Gene Cloud was the only surviving member of his family in the genocide in 1994 his entire family was lost his mother who was protecting his hiding place was hacked to death right next to him as he stood as he hid under the bed they were demanding that his mother tell him where the remaining family members were she was silent wouldn't say anything she died blood poured out right next to where he was lying Gene Cloud when he heard the message that I was sharing and emailed me when he got back and said my wife and I and some of the other leaders are studying your book said we desperately need this commandment we do terrible things to each other and he wasn't just referring to the genocide that forever changed his life he said we have not learned how to live the Christian faith with love I feel a part of that responsibility because I miss that commandment I am passionately committed to seeing this commandment rediscovered and recovered by the church of the Lord Jesus Christ I do not believe we will ever reflect the realities of heaven and the kingdom over which he presides I do not believe we will ever reflect it accurately until we embrace the command he gave us on that strategic night I had never been taught to my knowledge if I was it went over my head which is certainly a possibility it's for sure I miss things but I had never been taught the connection between new covenant and new commandment I do believe now they are inextricably linked together you see the same night that Jesus introduced the promised new covenant spoken of by Jeremiah referred to as the new thing by David and Isaiah and other writers and spoken of prophetically by Ezekiel this this new covenant that was promised specifically by Jeremiah what we we see is Jesus after 600 years of scriptural silence after Jeremiah Jesus breaks that silence that night as he takes the bread and breaks it and says this is my body broken for you and then he takes the cup and says this cup is the new covenant in my blood the next day he will go to the cross he will enact the covenant through his life his suffering his death his burial and his resurrection on the third day a new covenant will be enacted the holy spirit will be poured out as he promises the resource of heaven will be made available but the night that he introduces the new covenant is the same night he says I have a new commandment new covenant and new commandment should be linked together and to me that's what the book love revolution is about the book I've written it really is about the restoration the recovery rediscovery and recovery of that commandment by his church it is us embracing john 3 16 with john 13 34 now john happens to be the writer who specializes and focuses on this area I think john got it in a way that some of the other apostles and disciples of jesus may not have gotten it there were things that they saw and got clearly but john saw this love in fact in john 13 when we see this final hours unfolding jesus washed his disciples feet and shows them the full extent of his love and from that time on four times after that john refers to himself as the disciple that jesus loved he got it it was like something that so gripped him jesus loved all the disciples but john got it and he is the one that was able to talk to us so clearly and give us john 3 16 seeing that we could know god as a father we could be born from above and know him as father he also was the one that saw the love that jesus poured out tomorrow we'll cover numbers of areas that that the practical outworkings of this and why it has become more important to me with time why this recovery must happen it's why when I heard a 50-minute clip clip that jonathan had done back here at the solemn assembly not too many months back it wasn't that long ago someone emailed me and said you've got to watch this I pulled it up and I listened to jonathan and I was pretty sure he had never heard anything I'd said or read my book or anything and I called jonathan I said I've got to talk to you I heard what you said about the importance of the new covenant about the importance of that new commandment talk to me and tell me where that came from and he told me this story for him and maybe you'll share that with us tomorrow but for him he was in college as a student at st john's college in new mexico and in this secular college they're studying the great writings and he happens to be in a class that is focusing on the gospel of john and it was there that he saw this commandment and it began to tumble his life I said when did this happen jonathan he said thought for a moment and said november 2002 it's the same year that it happened to me at that table so I feel a real kinship with him and I feel like there is a linking that is happening now if this is just a matter of raw theology if it's just a matter of debating theologies and points of you know that probably wouldn't be worth our time but I am hearing and seeing and living the miracle of a change the last nine years I actually I knew it that day may 1st 2002 when that day was over and I folded up my books and put my laptop away I knew life would never be the same for me I I knew it it I had been rocked and it's been true the unfolding writing the book is not the high point it's living this reality and understanding what empowers it if I'd not seen the commandment I never would have asked the next question one we'll talk about tomorrow so how do I do this how does this happen how is this empowered in my life and that is changing my life on a daily basis the lives of others as well so it's an honor to be able to tell you we don't we'll have some books here tomorrow we don't have them tonight if you can't be here tomorrow maybe ask a friend to pick some up for you you can get them on amazon.com also love revolution rediscovering the lost command of Jesus but I urge you to read it not because I wrote the book read it because I'm passionately committed to the message it's not my message it's his message he's the giver of that commandment and the one that I believe we bring glory and honor to I'll tell you some more details obviously tomorrow even about the story and some of the research and thousands of hours and hundreds of pages that didn't get in the book tried to keep it as simple and focused as I could on one thing how do we recover rediscover and recover this command thank you for opportunity to share tonight and let me just let's just say a prayer here for one thing father I thank you to these friends that have come they honored me by inviting me as a brother to be with them thank you for the brothers and sisters that are here in New England for Jonathan Frizz my my friend that I'm getting to know better and better and his wife Cassie and their their family thank you for them and thank you for the friends that I've just met and and the ones that I am meeting in the days ahead I welcome them into my life I love I welcome father the lessons you want to teach me through them and I'm asking you to open up our hearts our minds our understanding and to fill us with the love of heaven teach us how to be the answer to the passionate prayer that Jesus prayed to the father in John 17 pour into us the love that God shared with God and now wants to pour into us open our hearts fill us fill us fill us overflow us I pray lord a powerful reformation would continue to build in this region of our country there would indeed be a revolution a coming full circle back to the feet of Jesus the author and finisher of our faith Jesus name amen