A New Commandment I Give You: Love One Another [22nd Anniversary Service]

The church has reached its twenty-second anniversary. The message set two things side by side: the scene in which Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment, telling them to love one another and to love as he had loved them, and a vision of being lifted by grace to the summit of the mountain of sin while those around were falling as they tried to climb it.

The new commandment is not a demand to wear oneself out in service and giving; it is a life of self-sacrifice, lived for the sake of others. Many attend church while their spirits remain parched, and to know of that thirst and pass by, the sermon said, is to break the commandment to love one another. The vision carried a further word: the mountain of sin cannot be scaled by human strength, and can be ascended only by a hand reaching down from heaven.

A day will come, it was said, when every worldly rank and outward show is stripped away before Christ and the soul alone stands before him. Even the most impressive devotion may be burned up in the fire, but a life of quiet love and prayer in a lowly place will remain like pure gold. The sermon closed with the assurance that those who love one another as the new commandment teaches can become a holy people, blessed by God.