John 12 forward, the Lord is
only going to minister to His disciples who He called, who
He gave faith to believe in. Even after He permits Himself
to be arrested, He still ministers only to His people. So from John
13.1 through the next chapters, we're going to find our Lord
no more preaching publicly. He'll be with His people. And
we see our Lord's love and His grace and His tenderness shine
very much in these chapters. He speaks with simplicity. And
there's such a depth to what He speaks to His people, so needful. We're going to look just at verse
1, John 13, verse 1, and we'll look at this in three parts.
First of all, it says, now before the feast of the Passover. And
then it says, 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." Now it says this is before the Feast of the Passover. You know that the Feast of the
Passover was instituted by the Lord to keep the children of
Israel in remembrance of how He brought them out of Egyptian
bondage through a Passover lamb. He provided the lamb. He told
them He was passing through. The only way they could be brought
out of bondage was through a substitute. The firstborn had to die. So
He provided a substitute to die in place of Israel's firstborn. All the firstborn in Egypt died
that night, including all the firstborn in the houses of Israel.
But the difference was the firstborn in the houses of Israel died
in a substitute. And that's what the Passover
lamb typified. It typified Christ, our Passover. Christ, our Passover. After they
come to the great day of atonement, they would bring that lamb and
they would slaughter the lamb in place of the people and the
high priest would take the blood into the holiest of holies and
sprinkle it on the mercy seat. And it all pictured Christ. He's
our Passover lamb. He's our high priest. He's entered
into the holiest of holies. It's by His blood that He's redeemed
His people. Now, it's telling us here this
is before the feast of the Passover. It's telling us this is shortly
before our Lord was to go to the cross. Now, it says, secondly,
when Jesus knew, He knew that His hour was come, that He should
depart out of this world unto the Father. Our Lord Jesus lived
His life anticipating this hour. This was His hour. This was the
hour He looked toward. This is why He came for this
hour. But until this hour came, He
had full protection. Nobody could touch Him because
it wasn't His hour yet. But His hour was coming now. This was His hour when He would
surrender Himself to His enemies. And He knew. Our Lord knew this. He knew the shame he was facing,
he knew the suffering he was facing, and he willingly took
that upon himself. He knew the terror that was coming,
the shame that was coming. He knew the agony that he was
going to endure, the treatment he was going to bear at the hand
of men, the shame of bearing the sin of his people. the terror that would come from
being cut off by God in judgment, and judged by God in place of
His people. And he had begun to experience
soul trouble. We saw that in John 12. And his
soul had begun to be troubled over this. This is what he's
facing in a very short time. But he knew the necessity of
this. Our Lord knew this is a necessity. He said, I must be lifted up. It was a necessity. This is the
only way God could be just, His law upheld, His law honored.
It was only by God coming down, sinless man, taking the form
of a sinless man, and the God-man taking the place of His people.
It's the only way God's law could be upheld. All sinners fell in
Adam. We couldn't do it. It's the only
way His law could be honored. The only way it's ever been honored. Ever. by the Lord Jesus Christ. And this was the only way He
could be the justifier, the one who did all the justifying, the
one who made His people righteous, the one who saved His people,
was by Christ going to the cross. It's the only way all His law
and His prophets could be fulfilled. They all pictured Him. They all
pointed to Him. Everything written in the Old
Testament Scriptures was declaring Him. This is the only way the
Scriptures could be fulfilled. It's the only way God could get
all the glory. He's going to get all the glory for this. So
our Lord knew, I must be lifted up. He knew the necessity of
it. And nothing could turn Him from it. Absolutely nothing could
turn Him from it. He said over there in Isaiah
50, He said, the Lord God opened my ear. I was not rebellious,
neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters.
my cheeks to them that plucked off their hair. I hid not my
face from shame and spitting, for the Lord God will help me.
Therefore, I shall not be confounded. Therefore, have I set my face
like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed." Nothing
could turn him from this. This is why he came. This is
why he came. But remember this, the Spirit
of God gave this Scripture to John to write, to record this
the way he did. And rather than point us to the
suffering at this point, he points us to the joy that was set before
our Lord. He says, when Jesus knew that
His hour was come, that He should depart out of this world unto
the Father. Our Lord knew that once He went
to the cross and accomplished His work, He was departing out
of this sinful world. He was leaving this sin-cursed
world He was leaving, he was departing out, and he was going
back to the Father. He was going where he'd been
from before the world was made. He was going back to his glory.
He was going back to be with the Father he loved, the Father
who loved him, the Father for whom he came to serve. He was
going back to the Father. And our Lord knew He wasn't going
back to the Father alone. He was going back to the Father
and all His people were going back in Him. Mystically, spiritually,
all His people were in Him. And He was taking all His people
back with Him fully, completely, totally redeemed from the curse
and condemnation of the law. That was the joy set before Him. That was why He endured the cross,
despising the shame. It was for this joy set before
Him of glorifying the Father and saving His people and bringing
His people and His Father together in one to be with Him forever. He knew this is where He was
going. This is what He was about to
accomplish. But He also knew this. Having all this set before
Him, knowing all of this, He also knew this. When He departed
out of this world, His disciples that He loved,
His people that He loved, were still going to be in this world.
And this was on His heart. And it says, having loved His
own, which were in the world, He loved them to the end. He
knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this
world unto the Father. And having loved His own which
were in the world, He loved them unto the end. We see our Lord's
humanity here, that He's a real man, touched with all the feeling
of our infirmities, yet without sin. We see it because you know
how the emotions that we have when we experience departing
from somebody we love. You know, you can't describe
the ache in your heart when you're departing and tenderness becomes
more tender. Your embrace becomes stronger,
it becomes longer. You try to reach for the words,
to try to express your love and how you feel. This is what our
Lord, this is what's being described to us here, having loved His
own. that were in the world. He's leaving. He knows he's departing.
And having loved his own that were in the world, he loved them
until the end. But we see here his perfect love
as the God-man. We see that not only did he have
the same feelings of our infirmities, but he's the perfect God-man,
mediator, our head. He's representing his people.
He's perfecting faith and love for his people by everything
he's doing. And He had all this crushing
weight on Him of what He's going to do, what He's going to face.
And you know how that turns us every which way when we have
just a heavy, heavy weight upon us? And knowing His disciples
are going to be here and they're not going to see Him in body
anymore. And He knows how that's going
to affect them. And so His heart's on them. His heart's on them
for the sake of these few disciples that he loved. And not just for
them, for you and me sitting here today. This was recorded
for us. It's for his people at every
age. That he did this. That he focused. He didn't focus
on himself. He focused on comforting his
people. He focused on strengthening his people. assuring his people. He laid aside his soul trouble,
he laid aside all of self and he ministered to his troubled
friends. That's what he did. And because
he is the faithful servant of God, because he is representing
his people and serving the Father for his people and has put himself
into a position of being utterly dependent upon the Father, In
that same verse back there in Isaiah 50, He gives God the Father
the glory for this. He gives Him all the glory. He
doesn't take the glory for doing this. In Isaiah 50 verse 4, He
said, The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned
that I should know how to speak a word and season to him that
is weary. You get what I'm saying? He gave
God the glory. He's serving God. He's perfecting
his people and he's God, forever with the Father, but as the servant
of God, he's depending on the Father, trusting the Father. And he said, the Father gave
me this. this wisdom to be able to speak a word in season to
them that are weary. Nobody ever lived with perfect
faith and perfect love like the God-man mediator. Nobody ever
did. He's the author and finisher
of our faith. He's the author and finisher
of love for His people. This is perfect faith and perfect
love. And we see it here in our Lord
in this little glimpse of what He did here facing all that he's
facing, and having loved his own which were in the world,
he loved them to the end. Now let's look at each of those
words. It says, having loved, having loved from eternity, for
he made anything that was made, he loved his people. He loved
his people. There was nothing in us to love.
We hadn't even come forth. It had nothing to do with anything
in us, period, good or bad. He loved His own simply because
He loved us. He loved us. And when we came
forth, there was certainly no reason to love us. Not that we loved God, but that
He loved us. He sent His Son. This word having
is a very assuring word because our Lord is the same yesterday,
today and forever. He's our immutable God and therefore
having loved means He loves forever. That can only be said of God.
There's nothing about us and there's nothing about creation
that you can say having done it, it does it forever. Nothing
about us and nothing about creation. This world, having existed and
having been created and having produced all the things that
grow out of the earth, it's not going to last forever. It's going
to be burned up by our Lord one day and He is going to create
a new heaven and a new earth. This is the only one this can
be said about. He's the only immutable one.
Having loved His people, He continues to love His people. The next
word there is having loved his own, his love's particular. His
love is toward his own, toward his own. It includes those there
that day. It includes his people in every
age. It includes us here today. It includes his people that aren't
even born yet. But they're his own. They're
his own. There's a word back in the first
chapter which says, He came unto His own and His own received
Him not. That's not the same word here. That word means His
countrymen. His countrymen, the children
of Israel. He came unto His own and His own received Him not.
Here it means His own by divine election. It means those He loved
and chose freely by His free and sovereign grace. His own. He's owned by the gift of the
Father to Him. God the Father gave His people
to Him. He loved us, He chose us, we
were His, and He gave His people to His Son to redeem. That's
what Christ prayed in John 17. He said, I pray not for the world,
I pray for those Thou hast given Me, for they are Thine. They're
his own for whom he laid down his life. They're his own who
he purchased with his blood, who he bought, who he owns, who
he has the right to because he bought us with his blood. We're
not our own. We're bought with the price of
his precious blood. We belong to him. They're His
own who He quickens and who He sends forth His Spirit into our
hearts so that we're inseparably united with Him, never to be
separated from Him. Think about that. You that are
born of His Spirit, He has united Himself with you in spirit in
the new man and you will never be separated from Him ever. Ever. And it says here, having loved
his own which were in the world. This is comforting right here.
Having loved his own which were in the world. This is us in the
world. That is his own who had fallen
and had a sin nature just like all the children of Adam. He loved us. Even when we fell
in Adam, He loved us. That's the good news. This love
was all of Him. It wasn't due to something in
us. It's all of Him. It's in Christ. And now that
we have us in nature, nothing about us changes His love. Having loved His own, which are
in the world. Having loved His own with our
thimble of understanding and our ocean of ignorance. Having loved his own with just
a little mustard seed of faith and with a great ocean of unbelief. Having loved his own who serve
him but our service is so feeble, who believe him but our faith
is so weak. Having loved his own who here
in just a little while, just a little while, These disciples
are going to be exalting themselves over one another while they ought
to be the greatest in heaven, having loved his own, which are
in the world. Philip is going to say, Lord,
if you would show us the Father, it would suffice us. We would
believe you then. Having loved his own, who will
deny knowing him and run and hide. We're in a world that's full
of tribulation and we're going to face a lot of tribulation.
A lot of ups and downs and twists and turns and stumbles and falls. But here's the assurance we have,
having loved his own, which are in the world, he loved us to
the end. He loves His people. He loves
us to the end. Not only does His love know no
change, the love of God in Christ is permanent and perpetual. It
never ends. He said, I've loved you with
an everlasting love, therefore in loving kindness have I drawn
you. He said in Isaiah 54, 8, In a little wrath I hid my face
from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness. That's
everlasting loving kindness. will I have mercy on thee, saith
the Lord thy Redeemer." We love Him. Why? Because He first loved
us. We keep loving Him. Why? Because
He loves us to the end. Some read these words here that
He loved them unto the uttermost. He loved them to the uttermost.
And this is true too, expressing the depth and the degree of His
love. He loved us to the uttermost. How so? He suffered the hell
we deserved on Calvary's cross. He suffered the hell we deserved
on the cross. That's the uttermost. That's
the uttermost. No man ever loved like that.
He loved us to the uttermost by sending the gospel and calling
us and giving us faith and drawing us near to Him. Just think of
this. We despised Him, we rejected
Him, we went all our days wanting nothing to do with Him. We didn't
want forgiveness from Him. We didn't want to hear the gospel
from Him. We hated Him. Did you hate God? You see now that you hated God. We hated God. We don't want anything
to do with him. We think of hatred as a passion. That's how we think of love,
as a passion. Our enmity against God was trying to come to God
some other way. It was trying to come to God
by something we did. It was thinking whether we was
in religion or not. It was thinking we were worthy
of God's love. It was thinking we deserved to
be called by God. It was thinking we could work
out this thing of being born again and of making ourselves
righteous and making ourselves holy. We just need a little help
from God, but we got the rest of it. That's just enmity against
God. That's rejecting God and His
way of salvation. And He loved us and sent the
Gospel to us. In spite of us, He sent the Gospel
to us. And He sent the Spirit into our
hearts and made us hear the Word. It was painful. It's painful. It's always painful when He makes
us see our sin. And He makes us see that we're
undone in ourselves. We're vile in our flesh. And it's always painful to see
that. It's only painful to our flesh. It's only our pride that
it offends. It's only because we hang on
too much to the world. We hang on to our flesh. We hang
on to our works. We hang on to our proud opinion
of ourselves. But oh, it's so worth it when
He works it, to turn you to Him and make you see His love for
you, make you see that even when we were in that state, if we'd
have left us there, we'd have fallen, we'd have went on and
perished until we just were apostate and cast out and undone forever. And yet He keeps sending the
Gospel and He keeps teaching us and He keeps loving us and
He keeps drawing us to Himself and He keeps on making us know,
I've loved you with an everlasting love. This is my loving kindness
drawing you to me. I was talking to somebody just
yesterday about how painful things are that we suffer and it always,
always, a lot of people don't mind talking about our dumb things
and the ignorant things we did because You look back and you
see how wise the Lord was to save you from it and how gracious
He was to keep you in spite of you. And you see all the good
He taught you and all how He made Himself known to you more
and more through what He brought you out of. And you see it's all because
He loved us without a cause in us. He never is going to let
us get to the point where we think, oh He loves me now because
of something in me. No. He loves us because the same
reason He loved us from the beginning, it's of Him. It's of Him. He loved us. He reached down
with His loving hand to the very depths of where we fell. To the
pit, to the nasty pit where we were, that we loved. and lifted
us out of the pit and carried us up to His throne in glory. And He's not done. He's not done. When He gets finished with us,
He's going to raise us up before the Father and present us to
the Father glorified in body, soul, and spirit, unreprovable
by His righteousness, by what He's done for us. by His holiness,
what He has accomplished for us. We are not going to stand
there that day and say that there was anything in us. We are not
going to stand there that day and say, well, at least I did
this or that. No. We are going to say, to Thy name
be the glory. Lord, You loved us. You saved
us. You kept us. You preserved us.
You grew us. You taught us. You loved us.
Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them to
the end, from the depths of our fall all the way to the heights
of glory, to the end of our greatest, deepest
need, to the height of His incomparable love. And He's going to continue
loving us until there is no more time. This is something that's
going to outlast time right here, the love of God for His people.
Time's going to be no more. We're so devoted to time, everything
has to do with the clock. Time's going to be no more. And
we're going to find out His love was before time ever existed,
and His love don't have a thing to do with time. It's eternal. Without a beginning and an end,
just like our God is without a beginning and an end. It's
who He is. God is love. And our Lord Jesus
is the same yesterday, He's the same today, and He's the same
forever. That means there's no shadow
of turning with our God and our Savior. The gifts and calling
of God are without repentance. He loves us with everlasting
love. And the Scripture says, because
He loves His people to the uttermost, it says, wherefore He's able
to save them to the uttermost. that come to God by Him, seeing
He ever liveth to make intercession for them. You take a father, and he's dying. He loves his own children, and
he's dying. And he knows he just has a little
short time. And he's trying to speak words
to his children that are going to be left in the world. And he knows the tribulation
they've yet to face and he's not going to be with them anymore.
And so he's trying to speak to them, give them the wisest instruction
and convey to them how much he loves them, trying to comfort
them, trying to strengthen them. Our Lord here knew His hour had
come. He knew His hour had come. He's
departing out of the world to the Father, and He knew the Scripture
must be fulfilled. The Scripture said, smite the
shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. Now He knows what He's going
to do, but He also knows how much trouble His children are
going to face. He wouldn't be in the world in
body anymore. But His people in every age would
be in the world. And we've got to go through a
lot of tribulation. We must, He said, we must, we must. And so having loved His own which
were in the world, He loved them to the end. But here's the difference
between Christ and an earthly father. We try to comfort, we
try to strengthen, we try to teach. Christ does effectually. He does affectionately, in the
heart, in Spirit. He comforts us with the assurance
that though He's departed in body, yet He's still with us. In the Spirit, He's here. He's
with His people. He's in the heart of each one
of His people. He said, I'll never leave you and I'll never
forsake you. He said, Lord, I'm with you always. And He makes
you know that. He makes you know that. He's
ever with us in the power of the Spirit and we're ever seated
there with Him in glory. He's going to set our affection
on Him. And that's the sweet time when you know everything's
okay. I'm seated right there with Him
in glory. You're seated there with Him in glory, believer.
And He's with you. He's in you. He's surrounding
you. He's keeping you. He's protecting you. He's preserving
you. Why the tribulation? We must
go through that to teach us, He's protecting you, He's preserving
you, He's your salvation. These things right here that
we put so much confidence in, they're not our salvation. His
hands, He makes us continue to know that having loved His own,
He loves us to the end. He makes you know that there's
absolutely nothing that shall separate His people from the
love of God in Christ. Nothing. And He makes you know this according
to our need. That's why we've got to go through
tribulation. He makes you know it in accordance
with our need. The darker the night, the more
the stars shine. The deeper the valley, the more
the stream runs down the valley. The more enemies and fears increase,
the more evident our Lord's presence is all around us, keeping us. The weaker we are, the more evident
it is that He alone is our strength. The more changes we experience
in this ever-changing world, the more He makes you to know
He never changes and His love for His people never changes.
Our love grows lukewarm and He has to fire it up again and keeps
you knowing He does it because His love never changes. the more
we are unable to behold the length and the breadth and the depth
and the height of His love for us. And the way you behold that
is through faith. The more we behold this, He says,
the more we are filled with the fullness of God. This is what
Paul prayed for. He said, that Christ may dwell
in your hearts by faith. This is how we're going to know
this love is by beholding Him, believing Him. It's through faith.
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that you being
rooted and grounded in love. He's the one that's going to
grow those roots. He's the one that's going to ground you in His love
so that you can't be moved. The only thing He says He's going
to shake the whole world again, He said the only thing that can't
be shaken are those things that cannot be moved. What's that? That's His people, that He's
rooted and grounded in His love. You can't be shaken. Oh, you
can become fearful and all the things because of this sin nature,
but He, this communion, this love is in the inner man with
the Lord of glory and that's where He works it. That's how
come, that's how come He can speak into your heart and there
is peace when there is chaos all around. It is between the child of God and
our Redeemer. He is going to root you and ground
you. Christ dwelling in your hearts
by faith. He is going to make us to know
or comprehend something of the breadth, and the length, and
the depth, and the height, and to know the love of Christ which
passeth knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness
of God. You think about this, as He's
growing us in love, by making us see His love more and more. He's filling us a little more,
and a little more, and a little more with His fullness. Now one day, We're going to drop
these bodies to death and we're going to see Him as He is. And we're going to be completely
filled with the fullness of God. Can't be filled anymore. We're going to be completely
full. We're going to be perfectly conformed to His image. That's
what He's doing right now. He's filling you, He's growing
you, growing you by making you see Him, Him, Him, Him. Just like the sun coming up over
the horizon in the morning. You just see a little, you just
see some rays at first, a little glow. And then you see it a little
more, then you see it a little more, then you see it a little
more. And then it gets up noon day and it's shining brilliantly.
We're seeing Him a little more, and a little more, and a little
more, and a little more, and one day we're going to awake
and we're going to see Him in all His glory, in all His light,
in all His love, and be perfectly like Him, filled with the fullness
of Him. So here He is, He's departing,
but He knows His children are going to still be in the world,
and having loved His own, He loved them to the end. That's
so right now. For you who know Him, for those
of you He's called, that's so of you right now. Amen. Father, thank You for this Word.
We pray that You'd bless it to our hearts. Make us know how
true this is. Keep us looking only to You.
Fill us with that fullness, Lord. Give us that comprehension that
passes knowledge. We ask it in Christ's name, amen.