In this message, Dr. Stanley describes the “badge” of true discipleship as loving one another. We are called to love others not as we love ourselves, but as God loves us. It is this badge of love that we wear every day of our lives and that sets us apart from the world.

This message is part of the series “Called to be a Disciple.”

[Music] with a message from God’s word here’s Charles Stanley would you turn to John Chapter 13 want us to read beginning in verse 31 through verse 35 John Chapter 13 we’ve been in a series on discipleship we Define what discipleship was and then we talked about the demands of discipleship and then of the devotion of it and this morning the badge of a true disciple John 13 beginning in verse 31 he says therefore when he was gone out Jesus said now is the son of man glorified and God is glorified in him if

God be glorified in him God shall also glorify him in himself and shall straightway glorify him little children yet a little while and I Am with You ye shall seek me and isai said unto the Jews whether I go ye cannot come so now I say to you a new commandment I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you that ye also love one another by this should all men know that ye are my disciples if you have love one to another now we have seen that discipleship is not optional but mandatory and that discipleship and a

Believer are not synonymous that a believer believer is a person who has received the Lord Jesus Christ as personal savior but the discipleship demands much more than that for a disciple is a person who has accepted Jesus Christ as Savior yielded to Jesus Christ as Lord and one who is available for Jesus Christ to reproduce himself through him in the life of someone else a disciple is attempting to instruct and build up another in order that the other may do the same for someone else Jesus has called all of us to be

disciples some have responded and some have not he gave us in the 14th chapter of Luke a very clear picture of the price tag of discipleship and that is that discipleship demands love and loyalty for him above love and loyalty for all others that it demands obedience to him that it demands the forsaking of all else that is a sacrifice of everything else whatever he demands of us to surrender unto him to be his disciples that’s the price of discipleship when you look at the price tag I think often times this is where

many of us back off but it is a matter of backing off from Life at its best and it is a matter of stepping away from the maximum that God has provided for every single one of his Believers now there are many things to be said about disciples many things the Bible says about them as to their function as to their work their activity their Ministry but the primary thing that I want us to note this morning is this that when Jesus had summed up all the activity of a disciple then he said to those men there is one distinguishing Mark of a

disciple that sets him apart from all else and apart from this you’ll never be able to spot one if you see them because you see there are many people today who are doing many of the things that Jesus described as the activity or the attitude of a disciple but he says in these two verses here is the way you can spot a disciple here is the way you can identify one who is a true genuine disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ now I believe that if a Believer is honest with the word of God you cannot be satisfied with yourself until you have

at least said to the Lord God I do want to be a true New Testament disciple I want to be committed to that Lord and I want you to do in my life whatever is necessary to send me down prune me back sculpt me out conform me break me Shatter Me but God don’t give me up until you have conformed me to your likeness anything less than a desire to be maximum for him is displeasing to him is a discredit to the Christian life and my friend is a step of misery in your life so the standard is high men can attempt to bring it down God never lows

it not even an eighth of an inch now he says there’s a way you can spot a disciple and he says it three times in these two verses he says a new commandment I give un to you and what is that that you love one another as I have loved you that you also love one another verse 35 by this that is by this love one toward another all men will be able to spot you and identify you and detect you as being one of my disciples that is if you have love one to another when you think of discipleship and you think of this

matter of loving each other I think there are three things that he says here that I want you to get in your mind the first one is this first of all he issues a command to us concerning this Badge of discipleship that we to wear Jesus is saying that the true disciple is going to wear a badge that’s not going to be on his coat not even necessarily be on his lips but it’s going to be on his heart it’s going to be a badge that cannot be covered you can’t covered up with a coat you can’t wear it on the

outside it is from within and it will be a badge that you cannot hide it will be an expression of something on the inside he said by this shall all men know that you’re my disciples when you wear the badge of loving one another now I want you to notice the command that he gives us here he says first first of all it is a new commandment I that I give to you that you love one another now the content of that command is simple he simply saying to us that as a disciple we are to love each other now listen there’s a lot in the Bible about loving

your enemies and we would agree that we ought to love lost people and have compassion for people who are not Christians and often times in our emphasis on loving our enemies or loving the Lost loving the Heathen we forget that Jesus Jesus did not say by this shall all men know that you’re my disciples that you love the lost but he was saying to a group of disciples that the disciples love each other therefore that love is a love for one disciple for the other disciple of one brother toward his brother in The

Fellowship of the kingdom of God God’s people are identified by the outside world that they are loving each other and so often our emphasis is on love in our enemies he says by this shall all men know that you’re my disciples that in the fellowship of God in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ among his disciples you are detected and identified and distinguished from all other groups by a penetrating by a sense and a quality and a depth of love that is completely beyond the understanding of the world they will not understand

how we can love and love and love one another but there is a contrast in what he say saying listen he says a new commandment that I give unto you that you love one another and the new commandment is not that you love your brother as you love yourself he says I want you to have a higher quality of love than that that is the quality of love that is whereby you and I are able to love others as Jesus Christ loves us and loves others he says it is a new commandment that I give unto you that you love your brother as I love you it puts it on a whole