I invite you to turn with me
in your Bibles to John Chapter 13 and today we embark on what
I trust will be a time of great, great blessing as we come to
this last evening of the Lord's earthly life and this remarkable
time that he had with his apostles. I just wanted to read a couple
of verses, these first three verses, and I just want to focus
on verse one of chapter 13. This is the words of the Lord. Our
God to us. Now before the feast of the Passover,
when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart
out of this world unto the Father. Having loved his own which were
in the world, he loved them unto the end. And the supper being ended, the
devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's
son, to betray him, Jesus knowing that the father had given all
things into his hands and that he was come from God and went
to God. This is just a remarkable description
of the journey of our Lord Jesus Christ. My title of my message
is, Having Loved, He Loved. Having Loved, He Loved. Having loved his own who are
in this world, which were in this world, he loved them unto
the end. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we pray that we might be found among those people loved of your
dear and precious Son. And we pray, Heavenly Father,
that you would guide and direct our thoughts and our words this
morning, that your Son would be honoured, esteemed, and your
people would find rest and peace in who he is and what he has
done. Bless your words to our hearts, Heavenly Father. May
the blessed Holy Spirit come and take these particular things
of the Lord Jesus Christ and write them and apply them to
our lives, that we might find ourselves at rest in the glory
of your dear and precious Son. We pray in Jesus' name and for
his glory. Amen. Well, there's one particular
demographic I want to be part of. There's one particular group
of people I want to be part of. His own. The loved. Loved. What is your great desire? What's the great desire of the
hearts of God's people is to know yet again that he loves me the way these
verses speak about that love, that he loves me the way that
reveals the glory of all of his character. It's an extraordinary
thing to think, isn't it? If you go to, as I went to India
many years ago now, and amongst all the people I was with there,
and I was one of them, I was in this world, no one would ask
that question. I would ask that question, who
does God love? Because the answer was given
every time anyone ever stepped foot on the mission field or
stepped foot in a pulpit, God loves everyone. And the proof
of God loving everyone is that Jesus came and died for everyone. And the Holy Spirit wants to
save everyone. I want us to be reminded of where
the Lord Jesus Christ finishes this in this high priestly prayer
he says this is eternal life John 17 verse 3 this is eternal
life that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ
whom thou hast sent My great desire is that I'll be found
amongst that number. That I'll be found amongst that
number. I'm thankful that Norm spoke
so well about the character of God. One of the things that we
hear so often is that we look at the various attributes of
God and we look at his sovereignty And then we look at His justice
and we look at His power to create a universe and His amazing power
to sustain that universe. One of the things that we need
to be continually reminded of is that all of the attributes
of God are one. And so God's love is not indistinguishable
from his holiness and his absolute sovereignty and his perfect justice. God is love. And that love is in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so the question that should
be asked and ought to be asked is what sort of love is God talking
about here? Is that love just a desire? That's an unfulfilled desire
that God loves and fails. Does God love Judas in exactly
the same way that he loves Peter, James and John and the other
11 disciples? We'll see later on in John chapter
13 that God asks, commands Judas to leave. The devil entered Judas
and Jesus says to him, you go. And like all people in this world,
he perfectly obeyed the Lord Jesus Christ and he went out
and he went out into the darkness. In Acts chapter one, he went
to his own place. I don't want to go to my own
place. I don't want any of you to go
to your own place. We want to go to one place, the
place where he is. The great comfort of love. is
that love is reciprocated, isn't it? It's the great comfort of
love, isn't it? We, many of us here, have fallen
in love. And how do you know? The answer
is you know when you know. You just know when you know. And we have a God who comes in
the glory of who He is. And His love is a love that's
returned to Him. We love Him, 1 John 4, 19. We love Him. God's children love
Him. They love Him as He is. They love everything about Him. They love everything about His
character that's revealed in here. And we wouldn't want to
change a single thing. We love Him. Why? because he
first loved us. He first loved us. So the great
comfort, the great comfort of love is love returned. And that's
exactly the love that the Lord Jesus Christ has for these people. So let's just go and look at
these simple statements that the Holy Spirit has made for
us here about the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse one of of chapter
13, now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that
his hour was come, and there's no doubt about what that hour
was, there is just one hour that he's speaking of, all the way
through John's Gospel he says, my hour has not come, my hour
has not come. The Greeks come to him and say,
Sir, we would see Jesus. And the Lord immediately says,
the hour is come. Now, this hour is come. And there
is just one hour, isn't there? There's one hour. And it speaks
of that time on the cross where all of the glory of God is revealed
in all of the beauties of holiness. All of the attributes of God
are magnified and enlightened and exhibited in the most extraordinary
way on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you want to
take any attribute of God and see it most magnificently, you
go straight to the cross. This hour was come. Our times
are in his hands. His time was come. He knew. Jesus knew. How much knowledge
does the Lord Jesus Christ have? Is there anything ever that has
happened in this universe or ever will happen in this universe
that takes him by surprise? The knowledge of God is infinite. Not only does he know all things,
but all things, he read it there in verse three with me, didn't
he? All things, the Father had given all things into his hands. Who was absolutely sovereign
in all of these last hours of his earthly life here? Who was
the one that was directing everything and superintending everything?
And it was all, according to Acts chapter two, it was all
done because of the, Determinant counsel and full knowledge of
God. He came to die. He came for this hour. He came for these people that
he spoke of here. He knew that his hour was come. that he should depart out of
this world. He'd come into this world, he'd
come from the Father, and he came and spent those 33 and a
half years, and he spent those three and a half years of ministry,
that he should depart. And that's a lovely word, that
word depart. It means to pass over from one
place to another. God's children are strangers,
aren't they? This is not our home. We're strangers and we're
pilgrims. We're just on a pilgrimage through
here. All of the children of God have an eternal home in heaven. They have a short, short, short
duration here on earth, and then they have an eternal home in
the heavens again, don't they? Where's our home? It's there. And look what he was doing. He
was to depart out of this world, to pass out of this world unto
the Father. We can only imagine what it is
for he and his father to be. all the time, wasn't he? But
he was there to depart to the glories of heaven where the angels
sing his praises, where the saints of God gather around that throne,
where he is on that glorious throne with all of the remarkable
things that you read about in Revelation and in the Old Testament
about that throne that our Saviour sits on. He was to go to that
place. He was to go unto the Father. A place where He is perfectly
satisfied. He was perfectly satisfied from
all eternity. He had no compulsion. There was
nothing lacking in God that caused Him to create this universe.
God is complete and God is perfect. He has no unfulfilled needs that
caused Him to create. I love how John's gospel at the
day of the resurrection, he says to Mary, it's such a glorious,
glorious picture, isn't it, of the Lord Jesus Christ resurrected,
revealing himself to his people as he saw fit. And he says, I'm
not yet ascended to my father, but I go to my brethren and say
unto them, I ascend unto my father, and to your father. His father
and our father are the same. To my God and to your God. I want to be in that company. I want to be in the company of
Mary. Okay, let's move on. He knew that his hour has come.
He knew that he should depart. He should depart. His departure
was no accident. He controlled and ruled all the
events of it. And this is this wonderful, wonderful
description of what he was doing. Having loved, having loved his
own, which were in the world, He loved them unto the end. Sometimes we preachers need to
get out of the way of the scriptures, don't we? And just let God's
word stand. Having loved his own, which were
in the world, he loved them to the end. That word end means
to the uttermost. continually. It's to love them
with a result. His love is not like the unrequited
love of so many love stories that people love to parade around. His love is an effectual love,
which is what I wanted to say. His love actually gets what it
wants. His love gets a response of love because His love no end or measure knows,
no change can turn its course. Eternally the same it flows from
one eternal source. Jeremiah chapter 31 makes a remarkable
statement about the love of God. God has appeared of old unto
me saying, yea, I have loved thee, with an everlasting love. And
I want us to be reminded of what that word everlasting means.
It doesn't mean that it starts now. It doesn't mean that it
starts when I make a decision. Everlasting has no beginning
and everlasting has no end. That's what everlasting is. Because
it's God's love. Does God have a beginning? Does
God have an end? His love's the same, as with
His holiness and His justice and His absolute sovereignty
over all things. He loved his own. He loved his own. If you turn back to John chapter
one, you'll see there's a vast difference between this particular
love and these particular people and what men falsely think is
the love of God in this day. It says in verse 11 of John chapter
one, he came unto his own. and his own received him not. And there, when he is speaking
of his own, he's talking about his own people, his own nation.
He came to the nation of Israel. He came to those particular people,
and his own received him not. When he speaks in John chapter
13 of having loved his own, form of that noun, I'm sorry,
altogether. And this own that he's speaking
about here, having loved his own in the world, it means to
be in relationship, it means to be the property of, it means
to be in a union with with a husband, as a child with a father. There is a union, there's an
intimate union between the Lord Jesus Christ and his people.
A union that was forged in all eternity. A union that brought
the Lord Jesus Christ to the cross of Calvary. A union that
caused him, because of that eternal covenant, that union, to be made
sin for them on the cross of Calvary. It was because of that
union. These are the people he's talking about here. It speaks of relationship. It's his own. All the way through
John's Gospel, all the way through John's Gospel, we have pictures
again and again of these particular people who are called his own. His own. And for want of time,
we'll go back and look at all this small law building in the
next few weeks, but all of his own are the gift of his father.
All of the father has given me shall come to me, he says. All
of his own are those who are redeemed by his blood. He bought
the church with his own precious blood, Acts 20, 28. All of his
own are the ones in John chapter 10 that hear the shepherd's voice names to them. And they hear
that particular voice. And they are His. They are His
by creation. They are His by union. They are His as the gift from
His Father. They are His in His calling. They are His in His redemption.
But wonderfully, remarkably, they are His by the conquest
of His love. They are His in this love they are the people he prayed
for in John chapter 17 he says in so many places in John 17
this is his high priestly prayer and he says I have, verse six,
I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me
out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest
them me, and they have kept thy word. Verse nine, he says, I
pray for them. These are the ones he prays for.
I pray not for the world. Isn't it extraordinary that people
would say that the Lord Jesus Christ loves everyone and died
for everyone, and on the night before he died, he wouldn't pray
for them. If you had a choice between dying
for someone and praying for them, what would you do? You'd pray
for them, wouldn't you? Much easier. He says, I pray
not for them, but for them which thou hast given me, for they
are thine. So they were the father's. Again
and again, he goes on to say in verse 11, he says, and now
I'm no more in the world, but these are in the world. I come
to thee, Holy Father, keep through thine own name. those whom thou
hast given thee, that they may be one as we are one. Verse 20, neither I pray for
these alone, he's praying for us here now in his high priestly
prayer, he's entered into that holy of holies, but for them
also which shall believe on me through their word. Verse 24,
father I will, this is the desire of the Lord Jesus Christ on that
night before the crucifixion, I will, that they also, whom
thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold
my glory, which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before
the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world
has not known thee, but I have known these, and these have known
that thou hast sent me, and I have declared unto them And we'll declare it that, listen
to these words of this glorious, glorious saviour of ours, that
the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. What is the love of God the Father
like for his son? Such is the love of God the Father
for these people, having loved his own. He says, as the Father
has loved me, verse 9 of chapter 15 of John, as the Father hath
loved me, so have I loved you. Isn't that remarkable? How does God the Father love
his son? He loves him because he sees
in his son in love, isn't it? He sees all
of the beauties of the character of the Lord Jesus Christ and
he loves us the same because in the Lord Jesus Christ we are
indistinguishable to God from his Son, having loved his own. Don't you love what Mary and
Martha, when they sent that messenger to the Lord Jesus Christ, they
said to him, He whom thou lovest is sick. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
wept at the tomb, those Jews, those unbelieving Jews said,
behold, how he loved him. There is a people in this world
that God calls his chosen, his elect, he calls them his own.
And this is the love language that you can read, turn with
me to Ephesians chapter one, just very briefly. He says, 3 Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he has
chosen us in him before we should be holy and without
blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good
pleasure of his will. Who chose whom? Who did the choosing? God did the choosing. Election
and predestination are the love language of God to his people
in the scriptures. Titus 1 speaks of the faith of
God's elect. The faith of God's elect. God's
children believe what God says about his character. Who did
the choosing? There's no doubt about it. You
didn't choose me, says the Lord Jesus Christ to these disciples,
but I chose you. When did he choose his people?
Before the foundation of the world is when he chose them.
Why did he choose them? Why does he operate in this way
in this world? Why does he reveal these things
to us? You read with me in Ephesians
1 verse 6. wherein he has made us accepted,
and that word means graced, he's made us graced in the Beloved. We are graced in
the Beloved. How did he come to choose us?
People think that God's election is a callous, a callous hating
of some and a loving of others, that it was a cold and random
and arbitrary act. We were chosen in his son, brothers
and sisters. We were chosen in his son. We were chosen in his son. Having loved his own, all of
the glory of God is tied up in his love for his own, the powerful
infinite effectual love of his own. I have loved you with an
everlasting love, says Jeremiah 31. Therefore with loving kindness,
which is the Old Testament word for grace, therefore with grace
have I drawn you. Blessed is the man, God says,
that I choose and calls to come unto me. He'll dwell in my courts.
He came to his own. He loved his own. He loved these particular ones
which were in the world. Where were you when he found
you? Where were you when he called you to himself? You were in the
world. That doesn't mean that you weren't
religious. The Apostle Paul was in the world.
And while the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking these words on that
evening over in Jerusalem, just around the corner, as it were,
there are a group of men gathering, and soon to be gathered with
Judas, who are hatching a plan to further a religion. People are very happy with a
Jesus of their own manufacturing, a Jesus who can be manipulated
by men. People find the absolute sovereign
God so, so offensive, and nothing has changed. The carnal mind
cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness
to him. But God reveals them to his people
by his Spirit and he causes us to love and he causes us to come
out of that world. We were in Ephesians chapter
1. There are so many places in the New Testament that speak
of what it was to be in this world. He says, He says he doesn't
want us to henceforth walk not as the other Gentiles walk, in
the vanity of their minds. The minds of mankind are empty,
aren't they? They're empty of the nature of
God. They're empty of the nature of themselves, as Norm showed
us. They're empty of the nature of the emptiness of their religion.
They're empty of the very reality of the character of God, the
vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being
alienated from the life of Ephesians 4a then, being alienated from
the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the
blindness of their heart. Who, being past feeling, have
given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with
greediness." Is that a description of this world we live in? Norm
read another one out of Romans chapter 3. They're all through
the scriptures, aren't they? This is the vanity of the mind of
mankind. We were in that world. We were
in that world. And we still have to live in this world. There are several aspects to
the foot washing that the Lord Jesus Christ will go on to exhibit. The most significant one, of
course, is the substitution that's pictured in it, that he takes
the filth and the dirt of us walking in this world and takes
it unto himself with the towel that's wrapped around him. There's
also a picture of the fact that while we're in this world, we're
still walking in this world and our feet are dirty all the time.
We're just continually dirty. And he does come to his people. I love what Ezekiel 16, how God
describes it in Ezekiel 16. He says, at the time of love,
at the time of love I pass by. The time of love is the time
when the gospel is proclaimed and the gospel comes with power
to the hearts of God's people. And you know you love when you
know you love. You know you love when you know
that everything about the one that you love delights every
possible part of your being. And you love to talk about the
one you love. You love to talk about the character of the one
you love. The conversation keeps drifting
back, doesn't it? Back to him again and again.
He loved them! Having loved his own which are
in the world, he loved them unto the end. Do you love them when
they're in the world? God's love is everlasting. God's
love is unchanging. God's love is all-seeing, all-knowing. God's love is absolutely sovereign
love. When Paul was murdering Christians and rejoicing in the
murder of Christians, did God love him? course he did when Peter betrayed
him and cursed on that this same night to prove that he had nothing
to do with him did he still love him did the Lord Jesus Christ
still love him that's what it means he loved them to the end
it means he loved them Perfectly. His love is a perfect love. Because he loved us from before
the foundation of the world, it means that absolutely nothing
that we have ever done has caught him by surprise, and nothing
that any of his children have ever done has caused his love
to diminish in any way. While ever we live in this world,
while ever we live in this flesh, we continually think A bit like
the rich young ruler that Norm was thinking about, wasn't it?
That our relationship with God goes up and down on the basis
of our performance. Our relationship with God, as
Norm reminded us a while ago, our relationship with God is
based entirely upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who are His
own, those who are united to Him are continually united to
Him and they are loved as He is loved. That's what it is to
love to the uttermost. Nothing can diminish that love.
Nothing can be added to that love. That word also means to
be loved continually. It never changes. The love of
God never changes. The love of God is never cold
like our love is. So often it's an embarrassment
to talk about our love, isn't it, for him? It's an embarrassment
to even talk about our faith in him. And his love never changes. His love is never cold. His love
is never unfeeling. His love is never made tired
and discouraged by the circumstance of this world. And love speaks
of passion. He loves his people with a passion. The most dangerous place you
can possibly be in this world is between the Lord Jesus Christ
and someone he loves. He loves them continually. He
loves them, that word, to the end, also means with a final
result. It remains that there is a purpose
in his love. He loved his own. He loved his
own in election. He loved his own in the purchase
of his own blood. He loved his own by the power
of invincible grace when he comes and he calls them. And he does
all through the scriptures, doesn't he? He calls them. He says to
Zacchaeus, get out of that tree and come down. And what does
Zacchaeus do? He gets out of that tree and comes down. He
says to Bainimaeus, He's calling you. What does Barnabas do? He
comes to the Lord Jesus Christ. He comes to Lazarus, and what's
he say? Lazarus, come out. And what does Lazarus do? The
love of God is powerful. The love of God is love that
causes a response. We love him. We love him because
he first loved us. I'd like to finish by helping
you Look at what this love does. I was talking to someone a couple
of weeks ago. It was the first time I've ever
spoken to anyone who actually seemed to really understand that
the Gospel is all of complete and utter sovereign grace. And
she then said, well, what on earth do you do then? What on
earth is the motivation for doing anything if everything is done
and everything is completed and the Lord Jesus Christ has made
you perfectly accepted in the blood? But what on earth? What's
the purpose? What are you doing here? What
do you do now? People think that the grace of
God is ineffectual grace. No wonder people talk about the
love of God as some ineffectual effort that doesn't get anything
done. must be saved. Everyone that
the Lord Jesus Christ died for must be saved. Everyone that
God the Father gave to the Lord Jesus Christ must be saved. And they'll be saved while they're
in this world and they'll be saved out of this world and they'll
be kept by Him by the power of God through faith. But in 2 Corinthians
5 verse 14, He says, for the love of Christ,
that's not our love for him, it's his love for us. The love
of Christ constraineth us. And the TH ending means a continual
constraining. Because this we thus judge, if
one died for all, then we're all dead. The love of Christ. love that just sits out there
hoping that things might happen. God's love is a powerful love.
It's a love that operates to the end, having loved his own
to the end, he loved them to the end, it operates powerfully,
to the end of him being glorified in his own in this world. to
the end of them being made conformable to the Lord Jesus Christ. I love
what David said in Psalm 17, when I awake, when I awake in
his likeness, I'll be satisfied. One day you'll put me away and
I'm gonna awake. to the end that they'll be made,
and presented by the Lord Jesus Christ, holy, unblameable, unreprovable
in His sight. There's only one sight that matters,
brothers and sisters, it's what He sees. For the love of Christ
constraineth us. The love of Christ doesn't leave
us alone. The love of Christ presses upon
the children of God, and it restrains the children of God. so long time since we've looked
at this verse, but I just love the way this word is used in
the rest of the New Testament. Holds me. That's how it's used,
how to translate it. This same word, constrain us.
It means it holds me. He holds me to myself. And he hedges my way like he
did with Gomer. He says, you can go this far
and no further. You'll come back here to me again
and again. It holds me. The love of Christ
keeps me. It keeps me. Don't you love that? I can't keep myself. I can't
keep myself from this world. I can't keep myself from the
silliness of what I am. I can't keep myself from the
stupidity and vanity of my thoughts. I can't keep myself from the
sins that grieve me so much, but the love of Christ keeps
me. Another way this word is translated, this word constraineth,
means it takes me. The love of Christ takes takes hold of all this. This
is what it is for him to love his people to the end of this
time here. The love of Christ presses on
me. Do you see how active it all
is? It presses on me. It restrains me. It restrains me from doing What
I would by nature do, and it causes me to do things that naturally
I would never want to do, and it causes me to love the things.
It causes me to love the things that he loves. It constrains
me, it actually stops me, it actually says, this is how far
you'll go. The love of Christ constrains
me. It puts me in a bind, as it were. Paul in Philippians 1 says, I
don't know what to do. I don't know whether it's far
better to be with Christ. But here I am. His love holds
me in this place to be here for his purposes for this short time.
And the love of Christ. makes me sick. It takes a hold
of me like a disease takes hold of someone and it constrains
me. The love of Christ constrains me. To go back to what we began
with, isn't it? I want to be in that group of
people. I want to be one of those. It's
my great desire, it's my great desire for you that you would
be one who is none but among the ones which were in the world,
the ones which He loved to the end. How can I know? How can
I know? The answer is really simple,
isn't it? We believe God. We believe God. We believe to
the saving of our souls. Let me read the words of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He says in John 5, 24, truly,
truly, this is it. Amen, amen. I say unto you, so
these are not my words. He that heareth my word, hears
the words of the shepherd's voice. You've heard his words this morning,
I trust and not mine. He that heareth my word and believeth
on him that sent me, hath everlasting life. Hath everlasting life. It is their possession. It is
the gift of God to them, and is passed from death unto life. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. As it is written in the prophets,
and they shall all be taught of God, every man therefore that
has heard and learned of the Father comes to me. And as we saw in John chapter
12, this involves confession. And confession is simply saying
the same as God. I'm saying the same as God about
His Son. I'm saying the same as God about
the way He loved His own in this world. I'm saying the same things
as God about how the Lord Jesus Christ saves sinners. Do you believe that Jesus Christ
of Nazareth is the Son of God? It's not any more complicated,
brothers and sisters. Let's not let religion and other
things distract us. I want to be in that demographic.
I want for you to be there. I want to know that I'm loved,
and I want to know that the love that He inspires in me is a love
that loves Him exactly as He is, in all the glory of Him revealed
in the Scriptures. Let's pray.