Understanding the Red Letters Part 42
For the past several days, we have been sharing thoughts from the Sermon in the Upper Room. Jesus’ last message to His disciples before His death lays the foundation for what life under the new covenant will look like. And unlike the Sermon on the Mount, this message is pure new covenant.
One of the interesting things I find in Jesus’ upper room discourse is the lack of commandments. This is one of the most significant differences between the two covenants, the old and the new. The old covenant, the Law, was ALL about keeping the commandments. The new covenant, on the other hand, is about who you are; a new creation, a child of God with an unbreakable connection to your heavenly Father.
A covenant is a promise. And one of the promises of the new covenant is that you are a totally forgiven, fully accepted, and deeply loved child of God.
You see, when you know who you are as a reborn child of God, you know what to do. You don’t need a list of commandments because grace is teaching you “to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age” (Titus 2:12). Your new nature is guiding you. And your new indwelling of Christ’s Spirit is empowering you. Can I say it again? When you know who you are, you know what to do.
Is doing what you know to do automatic? No, it is a maturing process to live into your new identity; to live according to who you are. And “Christ in you” is an endless supply of power to grow into who you are. The key to how the “who you are” translates into the “knowing what to do” is recognizing the reality of Christ living in you; the power source for doing what needs to be done.
Now the Sermon in the Upper Room is not command-free. It does contain one commandment. Jesus calls it “a new commandment.” I call it “a new commandment for a new covenant.” “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34).
The focus of the Sermon in the Upper Room is two-fold. First, it is about who you are as a child of God. You are “vine and branches” close with the Father. And second, how we live. We are to love one another. And the sheer beauty of it all is that the who you are – complete with a new heart, new Spirit, new nature, new life, new self, new power, new identity, and new freedom – is the HOW you keep the commandment to love. You love as God loves because of who you are; filled with the love of God because He lives in you.
Can you tell I love these upper room chapters in John’s gospel? And I love this new covenant message. And even from afar, I love you, my friends!