Let's turn back in our Bibles
to John chapter 11. I'm warning you now that I'm
no longer loyal. I'm getting through this two-word
verse and I'm running out of time today. I trust that the
Lord is with us in being revealed by the Blessed Holy Spirit in
His glory. Let's go back to this story again.
Verse 32 in John Chapter 11. When Mary was come where Jesus
was, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou
hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore
saw her weeping, And the Jews, also weeping, which came with
her, he groaned in the Spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where
have you laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come
and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, How he loved him. How he loved him. This is a cry, a declaration
of astonishment from those Jews. And I trust that none of those
Jews, the ones later on in verse 45, are the ones who believed.
They saw these things, those Jews that did, and they believed
in him. Our God is declared in 1 John chapter 4 to be love. God is love. In 1 John chapter 1 verse 5,
God is light and God is spirit, we read in John 4 to the woman
of the world. God is spirit and those that
worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. God is holy. And whenever we come to one of
the attributes of God we have to, in a sense, cast our eyes
away from what we think of love and life in this world and think
upon Him because our God is altogether unique. The great cry of God
against all of humanity is that you think I'm altogether like
you. And that's what we do, don't we? We humanise God and we give
God characteristics as we have. And even in the so-called love
of God that's proclaimed these days, it's very much a human
love, isn't it? We just read in 1 Corinthians
that His love endureth all, His love fails not, and yet the love
that is attributed to God is more like the human love that
is weak and failing and tries and fails and doesn't succeed. You think that I'm altogether
such as one as you and He's not. Our God is perfectly pure in
all of His active activities. We cannot come to understand
and know God by beginning with ourselves. It has to be from
Him choosing in grace and mercy and love to reveal Himself. The love of God is a love that
is extraordinarily unique to Him. And it's like all of the
attributes of God. Whenever you come across an attribute
of God in the scriptures or whenever you come across or dealing with
it, talking to other people about the attributes of God, it is
very good, it's right and proper that we are caused at a time
like this to look at the love of God. But we must, if the Lord
would allow us the grace, is to actually put all that love
with all of the other attributes of God. God's love is a holy
love. God's love is a sovereign love. I have loved you, Jeremiah 31
verse 3. I have loved you with an everlasting
love. I have loved you everlastingly. Therefore, with loving kindness
have I drawn you. That love word, loving kindness,
is the Old Testament word for grace. With grace have I drawn
you. God's love is powerful. God's
love is sovereign. God's love is effectual. God's
love is discriminating love. The notion that God loves everyone
is not in the Scriptures. The notion that the Lord Jesus
Christ died for everyone is not in the Scriptures. The notion
that God wills the salvation of everyone is not in the Scriptures.
Our God is absolutely sovereign. Jacob have I loved, and Esau
have I hated. And if you go and read the rest
of it in Romans chapter 9, you'll see that this was done before
either of them were born. And so God's love is eternal,
like God. God's love is a love that was
from the beginning. When we're thinking about the
love of the Lord Jesus Christ for his people, we need to hold
them all together. Ephesians 1 is just so glorious,
isn't it? You listen to these remarkable
words. He says, Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. According as he has
chosen us and him before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and without blame before him in Christ. before the foundation of the
world, in love, in love. Predestination is a love word,
isn't it? In love, having predestinated
us under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. God's love is infinite love. But God who is rich in mercy,
for his great love wherewith he loved us. God's love is immutable. God's love never changes. Why does God love? love whom he will. Deuteronomy chapter 7 describes
why God loves. It's the best description that
I can find in the scriptures. There are many others, but Deuteronomy
7 verse 7 says, God did not set his love upon you, nor choose
you, because you were more in number than any people. For you were the fewest of all
people. How did the nation of Israel start? Just with love.
God loved Abraham, and he loved everyone in Abraham. His love
is distinguishing love. It's particular, it's special
love. You were the fewest of people, but because God loved
you, and because he would keep the oath he had, which he had
sworn to his fathers, God's love, begins with God, glorifies God,
and here we have in John chapter 11 this behold. God wants us
to behold. That means to gaze upon intently,
to examine closely, and to lay hold of what we see. And what we see in John chapter
11 is this glorious description and this glorious picture, picture
of the salvation of all of God's people, picture of the Lord's
dealing with those that he loves. He loved Martha and Mary and
Lazarus. He loved them. And they sent
a message to him, behold, he who thou lovest is sick. They just laid out their case
before him. And Martha is brought in the
very presence of God and here we have love's confession. This
is the confession that love draws from people, isn't it? He says
to her, I am the resurrection and the life. There's always
got to be a resurrection before the life. He that believeth in
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever
liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
Now he's talking to her about resurrection and life. You must
have resurrection before you have life. You must be born again
to see the kingdom of God. You must be born again to enter
the kingdom of God. And he's talking to her about
resurrection. And listen to what she says. that thou art the Christ? the Son of God, which should
come into the world, which means he was the Christ before he came
into the world. He was the Christ that came with a purpose from
God Almighty. And he came, as he says, he came
to his own. And John chapter 13, verse one
says, you know, having loved his own, having loved his own
to bring the world, he loved them to the end. And we know
what that end is. It's him going to the cross.
But that's love's confession. That's the confession of the
loved ones of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not a confession
about me or you. It's a confession about him,
isn't it? Our confession is who he is. It's love's confession. And then in verse 32 of John
11, we see love's posture. When Mary has come to where Jesus
was, we come to where he is. We looked at that last week.
You come to where He is, and where He is you'll see Him. What
a mercy to see the Lord Jesus Christ in His glory. Multitudes
are talking about Jesus. God's children see Him through
the eyes. Love's posture is to fall at
his feet. The safest and best place we
can ever be, as long as we can possibly be, and as close as
we can possibly be. She went at his feet with her
tears in the next chapter. And here in verse 34, when Jesus
saw her weeping, the Jews also weeping, they came with her.
He groaned in the spirit and he said, where have you laid
him? This is love's cry. Lord, come and see. She's speaking about a God who
is ever present. circumstances of your life and
everyone else's life. This is his creation. He rules
it as an absolute, unchallenged sovereign. And why do we cry
to him? This is where I'm at. This is
the circumstances of my life. You just come and see. Come and see. And here we have love, drawn
out of the Lord Jesus Christ in a way which is just quite
remarkable. Jesus wept. God Almighty in him flesh burst
into tears. One of the difficulties we have
with looking at the activities of the Lord through the lens
of our own flesh is that we are like a glass with a bit of mud
on the bottom that's been settled and the water looks pure. All
it needs to do is be stirred a little bit and it becomes muddy.
You can't even walk through the bush and trodden in a puddle
it seems because they are just perfectly stirred and clear and
all of a sudden the mud just becomes very, very muddy. as pure water you can possibly
imagine, the most beautiful glass you can possibly imagine, stir
it up as much as you like, and it's still perfect, and it's
still pure, and it still, it still is so, so revealing. Our God, our God, according to
Isaiah, is a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. We don't know how many times
the Lord Jesus Christ shed tears in his earthly life, but we know
of three. We know that he shed tears here,
He shed tears as he walked in and looked upon Jerusalem, and
with that omniscient eye that saw the future, that saw the
outworkings of unbelief, he wept over Jerusalem. And in the Garden
of Gethsemane, in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Lord Jesus
Christ mixed the blood of our salvation love costs. In Hebrews chapter 5 it says,
Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers
and supplications with strong unto him that was able to save
him from death, and was heard in that he feared. Though he were a son, yet learned
he obedience by the things which he suffered. And being made perfect,
he became the author of eternal salvation. unto all men that
obey him. And it's speaking of him, called
of God, a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. And I've
said, used those words a number of times, that the Lord Jesus
Christ is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. That word touched is the word
we get sympathy These are the pure tears. He's able to succour them. He's able to come to the cry
of them, the cry out to Him. And the remarkable thing is that
the Lord Jesus Christ, when He therefore saw her weeping and
the Jews also weeping, didn't He know what was going to happen
in just maybe 15 or 20 minutes' time? Didn't He have full understanding or weeks later, he'll be sitting
at a table and having a meal with Lazarus. He knows all things,
brothers and sisters. He knows all things. And I just
love, I love the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is so united
to his bride. And so, so joined with them that
the emotions that we feel, And when you are in a place where
tears will be shed, isn't it remarkable to think that our
God and our Saviour knows what it's like, and He's there in
the midst of it. and that he's not unfeeling.
He's not a God who just winds up a universe and sets it going. He's a God that is touched. He's a God that is moved. He's a God that comes to his
own and he shares in the things that
they share. This is what it is to be beloved,
isn't it? It's to have someone who is closer
than a brother. These tears reveal so many glorious
things about the Lord Jesus Christ and his love for his people. He is a sympathising saviour. And He knows the cost of love. And He knows the union of love. And He knows the communion of
love. He knows the And He brings those that behold
to be astonished by His love. I want to be astonished by the
love of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to be astonished again
and again of how He could love me, how He could love one such
as us. There's a famous poem written
about the love of God. It says, the love of God is greater
far than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest
star and reaches to the lowest hell. The guilty pair bowed down
with care. God gave his son to win. His erring child he reconciled
and pardoned from his sin. Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made, Were every stalk on earth
a quill, And every man a scribe by trade, To write the love of
God above Would drain the ocean dry. nor could the scroll contain
the whole that stretched from sky to sky. O love of God, how
rich and pure, how measureless and strong, it shall forevermore
endure. The saints and angels Of course, one of the things
that the children of God delight in contemplating, and we delight
that God has written it so clearly and so strongly throughout all
the scriptures, is that there is a glorious union. A glorious
union that brought forth these tears and caused this one who
was touched with the feeling of our infirmities to burst into
tears. The Lord Jesus Christ wept. Child
of God, you have never wept aloud. Most of our weeping is not done
in public. Most of our genuine weeping is
done in private, and it's done in a way that we have to shield
it from the gaze of other people. that the Lord says that he'll
bring his children to himself. He says in Jeremiah 31.3, The
Lord hath appeared to me of old, saying, Yea, I have loved thee
with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn
thee. And how does he draw his people
to himself? Verse 9 of Jeremiah 31, They
shall come, they shall come with weeping and with supplication,
with pleas, that means. cause them to walk by the rivers
of waters in a straight way wherein they shall not stumble, because
I am a father to Israel." You've seen the tears of your
children, haven't you? What do crying children do? They were embraced by his arms
to the hill close to his heart. And that's exactly how God comes
to his own and leads his own. He shed his tears. It says in
verse 33 that he was, he groaned in spirit and was troubled. That's an interesting phrase
because it speaks of his indignation. What has caused his pain? Sin
and Satan, the great enemies that the Lord Jesus Christ came
to deal with. And he wept. There is between the Lord Jesus
Christ and his bride this particular secret, effectual and remarkable
union where he reveals himself to his people to know, to know his presence,
to know his presence in the midst of pain. So seldom do we thank
God for the good things of this world. So seldom do we thank
him for the things that are going well in our lives. And so he
chastises and rebukes those he loves and he brings those he
loves into circumstances where he would be called to say, Yet in the midst of that, in
the midst of the darkness, the light of the glory of who He
is shines so clearly and so brightly. For it became Him, Hebrews 2.10,
for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing
many sons to glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect
through suffering. For by He that sanctifies, He
that makes holy, And they who are sanctified are all of one. They're all one. For which cause
he is not ashamed to call them brethren. Brethren are people
who are born in the same way. We all have the same mother.
We all have the same father. That's why there's a family resemblance.
That's why the Lord Jesus can come to these people that he
loved from eternity. These people that God the Father
gave him and put in union with him before the foundation of
the world. He can come to them and shed tears for them. I just want to go and look at
some verses in closing about this union. We've read several
times in John Chapter 17 that the Lord Jesus Christ's great
prayer, His great high priestly prayer, is that they would be
one. That's why He shed tears, isn't
it? Because they are one. I in them
and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, that
the world may know that thou hast sent me and has loved them
as thou hast loved me. Like all things in the Scriptures,
we have to go back to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ to see
the glory of this union, to see this union expressed in those
tears, this union expressed in his love for them. If these Jews
were astounded before the cross, He says he owns his people and
is in union with his people so closely that he bears their sins
as his own. He says I have preached righteousness. wherever his people meet, there's
a great congregation, because the greatness of the one who
is there when he gathers his people. How great is that, to
be in the presence of God Almighty. Lo, I have not refrained my lips,
O Lord, Thou knowest. I have not hid Thy righteousness
within my heart. I have declared Thy faithfulness
and Thy salvation. I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness
and Thy truth from the great congregation. What a glorious
revealer we have. Withhold not thy tender mercies
from me, O LORD, that thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve
me. And then he says why? This is
the Lord Jesus Christ speaking. You read about this in Hebrews
10 and Hebrews 8. This is him speaking of the union, the oneness
of him with his people. He says, For innumerable evils
have compassed me and never sinned, he could never
be a perfect substitute, he could never be a perfect sacrifice,
he could never be that infinitely perfect sacrifice that satisfied
the justice of God if he ever had any sin. We must declare
that he never ever sinned. It was impossible for him to
sin. He's a holy one, it's impossible. And yet he says, for innumerable
evils have compassed me about, surrounded me. My iniquities
have taken hold of me, so that I am not able to look up. They
are more than the hairs of mine head. Therefore my heart faileth
me." When did his heart fail him? When his heart was broken
in Bethesda in his garden, and he mingled the blood, he mingled
the blood that was to be shed on Calvary's tree with his sweat
and his grime. the cup that God the Father gave
him, and in that cup were all of the sins, all of the elect
children of God, all of them, every single one. The sins that
I've committed in the past, the sins that we are and I am committing
right now, and all of my future sins, all of them. And the Lord
Jesus Christ looked into those cups that the Father had given
him, and from his grains and was tearful. I'll just go
to a couple more. I just want us to see it because
we can't understand Jesus weeping unless we understand Jesus dying
and Jesus in union with his people. And this is such a profound truth
and such a powerful truth and such an oft-repeated truth that
I want us to embrace it because if you're astonished, if these
Jews were astonished and said, behold, then we would be saying,
love. He says in Psalm 69 verse 5,
O God, thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from
thee. It is a union, brothers and sisters,
which we will never ever be able to understand this side of eternity. for us to embrace it and to rejoice
in who he is. He says in Psalm 18 verse 23, he says, I was also
upright before him. He's the only person who could
ever say that. He's the only person who's ever walked on this
earth could ever say that I was upright before him. And then
he says, and I have kept myself from mine iniquity. From mine iniquity. In 2 Corinthians
chapter 5 is the verse that speaks of this union in this glorious
way. For he has made him sin. God the Father made the Lord
Jesus Christ sin. for us, on our behalf, to stand
over us and to shield us, to protect us, as Noah was protected
in the ark from the wrath of God, to be sin for us, who knew
no sin, he knew no sin of his own, he was horrified by sin,
it was indignation that caused this weeping, indignation and
union caused this sin, these tears to flow from the Lord Jesus
Christ, sorry, that we might be made It's good to repeat well-known
verses, isn't it? This is the love that drew the
Lord Jesus Christ to this earth to reveal an eternal, infinite
love. It's a love for particular people.
Behold how He loved him. He loved him. What shall we say, I'll close
in Romans 8.31, what shall we say to these things? If God be
for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not, how shall he
not with him also freely give us all things. That word freely
means the cause of his giving is in himself and not in us.
It's glorious grace being described, brothers and sisters. Who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Who can bring an
accusation against God's elect? Well, the answer is really simple,
isn't it? It is God that justifies. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died, yea, rather, but is risen again, who is even
at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword.
As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all day long. We
are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all things
we are more than conquerors. More than conquerors, brothers
and sisters. Not just conquering, but more than conquerors. Over
all the circumstances and all of the enemies that surround
the children of God. We are more than conquerors through
him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus. The love of God is in
Christ Jesus. The love of God, as we read earlier
in Romans 5, is shared abroad in our hearts. Amazing grace. Amazing love. Behold. Behold. Let's pray.