Now each sinner that God saves,
we know that we have to be perfect before God. We have to be perfect
before God and that means we have to have loved God perfectly
and we have to have loved our neighbor perfectly with absolutely
no sin. We have to have obeyed God in
perfection. And how can that be for Christ's
sheep? Where is that manifest? Where
do we see that? How can it be? Well, our Lord
said at the end of verse 15, I lay down my life for the sheep. That's where we see this perfect
righteous love for God, and for his people. Look down at verse
17. Therefore doth my Father love
me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No
man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power,
authority to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.
This commandment have I received of my father." The Lord Jesus
Christ is speaking here of himself as the mediator. He's speaking
of himself as the one head of his people, the one representative
of his people. And he's declaring that his obedience,
his laying down his life, was absolutely voluntary. It was
free. It was his will to do it. He did it voluntarily, freely.
He wasn't coerced. Nobody took his life. He did
this freely of himself. He laid down his life and he
took it up again. It was by his own will that he
did so. It was by his own power that
he did so. And he said, for this reason,
my father loves me. Now, first of all, let's look
here at the Father's commandment. He said in verse 18, this commandment
have I received of my Father. In eternity, God the Father made
His will known to the Son for Him to come forth, take flesh
as a representative of His people, and lay down his life to declare
God's righteousness, to manifest the love of God, that perfect
righteousness of God toward his people. And Christ willingly,
he willingly became surety, willingly entered into covenant with the
Father to perform this. He willingly did that, to serve
God as a man, representing his brethren. be the one man God
looked to, the head of His people. And to do so, He had to go to
a cross, and He had to lay down His life on the cross. Whenever
God gave the law, the Lord summed that up. Let's look at Mark 12.
The Lord summed up the whole law of God in Mark 12, in verse
30. He said, the first of all the
commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord,
and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment.
And the second is like it, namely this, thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself. There is none other commandment
greater than these. Absolutely. Now look over at
John 15. Our Lord's telling us in our
text what the fulfillment of that law is, what's required
in the fulfillment of it. is that a person has to love
God perfectly, perfectly, and love his neighbor as himself
perfectly. And look what our Lord says here
in John 15, 13. He said, there's no greater commandment, and he
says in John 15, 13, greater love hath no man than this, that
a man lay down his life for his friends. And that greatest love,
that no greater love than what Christ is declaring in our text,
his love for God and his people. He's the only one who ever loved
God and his people with all his heart and mind and soul and strength. He's the only one. He's the only
one. Nobody ever has and nobody ever
shall. In the perfection, Christ did
it. That's why he came. And it's only in perfection that
God regards it as obedience. It's got to be perfect to be
accepted of God. It's got to be absolutely perfect.
It's only in the love of God manifest in Christ's willful
obedience, willfully laying down His life. It's only in His obedience
that the love of God is manifest. 1 John 4.9, In this was manifested
the love of God toward us. because that God sent His only
begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. And
then Paul said this in Romans 5, he said, when we were yet without
strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely
for a righteous man will one die, Yet perventure for a good
man, some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love
toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for
us. Much more than being now justified
by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if,
when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death
of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."
This commandment Christ received of the Father. He gave him this
commandment to go forth and manifest his love, manifest the perfect
love of God, the righteousness of God, and to do it by laying
down his life in perfect love to God and perfect love to his
people. That's what Christ, the commandment
Christ gave him was this law of this mediatorial sacrifice
that he was to make. So that commandment came from
the Father in eternity. in eternity. He said, this commandment
I received from my Father. Now, let's behold this perfect
righteous love of Christ. He said in verse 18, no man taketh
it from me. He said, I lay down my life of
myself. No man taketh it from me, but
I lay it down of myself. I have power, authority to lay
it down. I have power, authority to take
it again. The Lord Jesus laid down his life voluntarily. I
titled this, no man, I forget what I titled it. I lay it down
of myself, that's what we titled it. I lay it down of myself.
I thought to title this, The Free Will, because this is the
free will. Nobody coerced our Lord Jesus
to do what he did. And surely now in eternity when
the Father gave this commandment, the Lord willingly, he laid down
his life then. He laid down his life then. Because
when you, as the scriptures say, when you enter suretyship for
a friend, you bind yourself. You're surely smart for it, because
you've bound yourself by becoming surety. But to do that, our Lord
willingly He willingly entered into that covenant. He laid down
his life for eternity. He's the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. And then His coming into the
world, you know, it says He took on Him the form of... He made
Himself of no reputation. He took the form of a servant.
He did this willingly. When we preach Christ and Him
crucified, we're talking about everything our Lord did in laying
down His life from eternity all the way through His life all
the way to the cross. And it was all Him laying down
His life voluntarily. No man took Christ's life. They
couldn't even touch Him to the time appointed. They couldn't
lay a finger on Him to the time appointed. He laid down His life
Himself. It was His will to lay down His
life. It was uncoerced. It was His
loving obedience to His Father and to His people. He alone is
the one who is perfect love. We see perfect love, the perfect
love of God in Christ and His obedience. And this was manifested,
the love of God. God sent forth His only begotten
Son. He commanded His Son and His
Son wittingly came forth. to manifest the love of God.
Perfect obedience that God requires toward God and men. The love
of the law. This is what Christ came willingly
to perform. Now go to Hebrews 10. Men like
to talk about man's will. Here's the will that we need
to be talking about right here. It's the will of our Lord Jesus
who willingly laid down His life. He said in Hebrews 10 verse 5, When he cometh into the world,
he saith, Sacrifice an offering thou wouldst not, but a body
hast thou prepared me. And burnt offerings and sacrifices
for sin, thou hast had no pleasure, no satisfaction was made. Justice
was never satisfied. Then said I, Lo, I come, in the
volume of the book it's written of me. All these Old Testament
scriptures were speaking of me, Christ said. I come to do thy
will, O God. He said, this commandment I received
of my father. Why couldn't animals make atonement? Because animals could not willfully,
the will is a moral, it's a moral thing to morally, willfully lay
down your life. Animals couldn't do that. Animals
couldn't do that. They weren't acting in obedience
to God. They weren't acting in love to
God. They were just sacrifices. Christ willingly laid down His
life. He willingly laid down His life
for God and for His people. And He did it from a heart of
perfect love to God and perfect love to His people. I mean all
His heart, all His soul, all His strength, all His mind, all. He willingly did this. And that's
how all God's elect are made perfect. by what he did. He had
to love God and he had to love his brethren without any sin
in perfection. Think about that now. Hold your
place there in Hebrews 10. Just think about this. Remember
in Isaiah 53? Isaiah 53 says whenever he was
smitten and when he was mocked and all the things that sinners
did to our Lord, it says he opened not his mouth. He opened not
his mouth. Now you just think about this
for a minute. Think about this. Out of the heart, the mouth speaks.
Now sinners smote him on the cheek. just reared back and cold
cocked him on the cheek, smote him on the cheek, plucked out
the hairs of his beard. You know how that hurts. That
hurts just to pull one hair out. They grabbed his beard and pulled
out his beard by the handfuls. They plucked out the hair. They mocked him. They spat upon
him. They stripped him naked. put
a crown of thorns on his head, put a reed in his hand and an
old dirty robe on him and mocked him as a king. And then nailed
him to a cross. You just picture each stroke
of the hammer nailing his hands and his feet to a cross. And
then sat down and mocked him some more. Here's the perfection
it requires to obey the law of God. He never had even a glimmer,
not even just a flash of sin toward those men that did that
to him. Not any. Not any. And he was doing it in perfect
love to God and perfect love for his people. And he had not
even a glimmer of sin in him. He opened not his mouth. Now,
let me ask you this. If you were smitten on the face, there's going to be perfect love,
no sin, not even a glimmer, not even a flash. What if our neighbor's
house burned down? We're going to go over and give
them the keys to our house and say, take mine. What if our neighbor's
son gets life in prison? We're going to go and say, take
my only son and let him serve and your son stay home. And would
we not in our hearts have this thought, I'm glad it wasn't mine? We've never obeyed the law of
God. It's impossible. It's impossible. Our Lord Jesus
did this perfectly. Is that what God's law requires? Does it require that kind of
obedience? God is perfect. God is righteous. God is holy. There is no sin
with God and He can't look upon sin. It requires absolute perfect
love. That's the perfect righteousness
it requires. That's the love Christ gave to
His Father and to His people by laying down His life. And
not only was it that stuff that He suffered for men, but He bore
the shame of His people's sin and bore the curse, the wrath
of God on our behalf. The second death, and he did
all that in perfect faith to God, perfect love to God. This
is why God only looks to Christ. This is why he only looks to
Christ. He never has looked anywhere to Christ. Christ is the one
man on behalf of all his people who has a perfect will and from
a perfect heart, loved God and his people as himself, which
is the perfect fulfillment of the law, and laid down his life
and put away our sin. The only one. The only one. And it was a sorrowful, painful
death. Lamentations 1.13 says, he said,
from above hath he sent fire into my bones and it prevaileth
against them. He has spread a net for my feet.
He turned me back. He made me desolate and faint
all the day. The yoke of my transgressions
is bound by his hand. They're wreathed and come up
upon my neck. He's made my strength to fail.
The Lord has delivered me into their hands for whom I'm not
able to rise up. And he knew all this, he knew
he would face all this, and he did it in unparalleled perfect
love, willingly. No man takes my life, I lay it
down on myself, he said. On one hand, Christ's obedience
to God was him totally denying himself and his will. in doing
the will of his father. He said, I came not to do mine
own will, but the will of him that sent me. So on one hand,
it was him totally denying himself in doing the will of the father.
But on the other hand, it was the will of the father for him
to do what he was doing. So it's the only time one man
and God, their will was in harmony, in perfection. One time in the
whole, since the fall, one time in perfection, and this was it. He said, Hereafter I will not
talk much with you, for the prince of this world cometh and hath
nothing in me, but that the world may know that I love the Father. As the Father gave me commandment,
even so I do. Arise, let us go hence. And he
went to the cross. That's Christ's love in laying
down his life. It was perfect oneness of God's
will with the will of man. God's will and the will of the
Lord Jesus in perfect holy love, in Christ our head, perfectly
fulfilling the will of God. So look back now at Hebrews 10
and look at what he says here. We'll talk about the will of
man. This is the man whose will we
need to be talking about. Right here. Christ, I lay down
my life. No man takes it from me. I willingly
do this. Look here, Hebrews 10.10, He
said, I came to do thy will, O Father, by whose will we are
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ one
time. His will, by His will, by this
perfect, willing surrender of Himself to fulfill God's will.
What does it mean when it says, by His will we're sanctified?
Verse 14, by one offering He hath perfected forever them that
are sanctified. This is what he told Abraham
he would do. Remember we saw the other day when he came to
Abraham and he said, Abraham, I am El Shaddai, the Almighty
God. Walk before me and be thou perfect.
I will fulfill my covenant. I will, I will, I will. Remember how many times he said
that? I will, I will. And then he came forth and said,
Father, I came to do thy will and it's by his will That's what
he was telling Abraham. Walk before me and be perfect. Because I'm your surety. I'm
your perfection. It's by my will that you will
be. He was perfected forever already
in Christ's surety. But he went to the cross and
by that one offering perfected, perfected, perfected his people. That's the only way God can have
any. That's the only way God can accept us. He said in the
law, it must be perfect to be accepted. This is why Christ's
ministers say, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me
and unto the world. This is why, brethren, this is
amazing love. This is why those believers in
heaven and those in earth say, herein is love. That we love
God? Oh no. Here in His love, not
that we love God, but that He loved us and gave His Son the
propitiation for our sin. Now look back at John 10. And He laid down His life that
He might take it again. The same way that nobody took
His life from Him, He laid it down, so He had no help from
anybody. He raised his life again. Look
here in verse 17. I lay down my life that I might
take it again. I have authority to lay it down
and I have authority to take it again. No man in the history
of this world, except this one man right here, no man ever said,
I yield up my spirit. and yielded up the ghost. He's
the only one that ever did it. Nobody took his life from him.
And he wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't suicide. Nobody took his
life from him. He willingly laid down his life
on the cross and when he satisfied justice, he said, into thy hands
I commit my spirit. Nobody ever did that. He did
that. And he's the only one, the only one that ever took up
his lifeless body out of the grave and arose alive. He's the only one that ever did
that. He said, I have the authority to lay it down. I have the authority
to take it up again. And it was because he laid it
down that he was able to raise it up. That's what he said there. I lay down my life that I might
take it again. This was part of the covenant.
He agreed to lay down his life and God gave him the authority
to take it up again. Now why did he do that? Go to Romans 1. What was he declaring
by that? He's declaring that he is the
mediator, that he is the son of David and the son of God.
That's what he's declaring, that he truly was the God-man, the
Lord Jesus. Look here, Paul said, he's preaching
the gospel, verse 3, concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord,
which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh,
and declared the Son of God with power according to the Spirit
of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. That's what was
being declared. He came out of that grave and
it declared He really is the Son of God. He really is God
in human flesh because He raised Himself. To this end Christ both
died and rose and revived that He might be Lord both of the
dead and the living. The man, Christ Jesus, is the
Son of God. The man Christ Jesus is the Son
of God. He is the Christ. He is the head
of his people. He is the righteousness of his
people. He is the perfection of love, the perfection of the
law for all his people. He is. He is. And it's declared
by the fact that He raised Himself from the dead. God the Father
raised Him, Scripture says. The Spirit of God raised Him,
Scripture says. But He says right here that He
raised Himself. And you know what that declares?
He's God. He's one with the Father and
one with the Spirit. That man is God in human flesh. That's what it declares. Now
look at the Father's love for the Son. He said, Therefore doth
my Father love me, because I lay down my life. Now as God, God
the Father, and God the Son are one in love, they're one. But
he's talking here about him as the mediator, as Christ Jesus
the God-man, as the head and representative of his people.
He's talking about the relationship that God the Father has to him
and he has to the Father is the exact same relationship that
every one of his elect has with the Father in him, because of
him. He's the only one who can say
this. Me and you can't say this. Nobody
else can say this, and this is why this is blasphemous when
people say something like this, because he's the only one that
can say this. He's the only one who can say he merited and deserved
fully the love of the Father. Because He did everything perfectly
in perfect accord with the will of God His Father. He did. I
don't understand this. I have no idea how this could
even be. But it's so of Him as a man. And remember now, all His people
are in Him and He's representing us as we walk this earth. But
Scripture says, as a man, He grew in wisdom and stature and favor
with God and men. Because he only did that which
pleased the Father. He said earlier in John, I always
do that which pleases the Father. He highly exalted the Father. And God is pleased with him.
God is satisfied with him. He justified God, He declared
Him just, and the justifier manifests His righteousness. He justified
His people from all our sins. His blood completely, thoroughly
blotted out all our sins. That's what His perfect love
did for His people. By laying down His life, He blotted
out the sin of His people. Justification means there is
no record of sin. Period. For anybody for whom
Christ died, none. None. Do you believe that? You believe that? You believe
God when He says you are justified. He says, search for their sin. It will not be found because
it is no more. I have blotted it out as a thick
cloud. It doesn't exist. When the record
books are opened in glory in that final day, there will be
no sin to be found for His people, period. Why? Christ's perfect
love went to the cross and loved us to the death of the cross
and put it all away. And it pleased God. His blood,
by His one offering, made His people perfect before God, perfect
before God, so that God looks us up and down, looks us completely
thoroughly over and says, you are absolutely, perfectly righteous. Holy God saying to you, believer,
you are perfectly righteous. Christ's obedience, Christ's
perfect love. Here is what God says, this is
what His law says. It says that Everyone that trusts
Christ only, it says we have loved God and loved our brethren,
even our enemies, with all our heart and all our soul and all
our mind and all our strength, with everything about it, we
have done it perfectly. Perfectly. That's what this book
declares. Man, we ought to be jumping pews
right now. I'm telling you. What did he
say? He has seen the travail of his soul
and he's satisfied. The pleasure of the Lord prospered
in his hand. My righteous servant has justified
many He's poured out his soul unto death. He was numbered with
the transgressors. He bare the sin of many and made
intercession for the transgressors. Wherefore God also is highly
exalted him and given him a name above every name. And God says,
this is my son. Hear him, preach him, declare
him. And you better not be preaching
man up. You better be preaching man down and preaching my son
up. If this was your son, would you stand for somebody preaching
up a dead dog's center and trying to give him glory that belongs
to your son? God won't have that. The Father loveth the Son and
has given all things into His hands. Everything. He said, As
thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give
eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him. He said, I'll
divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the
small with the strong. You know why Christ's yoke is
light and easy? Here's why it's light and easy.
He took that old law, that broad, deep, tall, giant law. He took that old law, fulfilled
it for his people, and comes to you and says, believe on me. and this obedience is yours.
Believe on Christ and His obedience is your obedience. I'm not trying
to keep the commandments of God. I have kept them in perfection. You can say that believer. What
do you think the imputation of righteousness is? It's God declaring
you as righteous as God's holy law is righteous. That's exactly
what it is. by the doing and dying and love
of Christ Jesus our Lord. Now when we need to be humbled
and brought down off our high horse of thinking that we're
better than somebody else or we've done something and God
ought to give us a good reward because of all our great and
splendid works, This is what he takes right here,
this book. This is how we came in the first hour. We thought
that about ourselves in the first hour. What did he do? He turned
you to true, perfect obedience, to true, perfect love. And what
did that do? That broke your heart and put
you in the dust and made you say, Lord, I've never, I've never
loved you as I ought. And that's how he continues to
do it. We think we've sinned too much,
we think God's going to cast us out, and the devil and all
his ministers are still telling us the same thing. What's going
to keep you from falling away? Christ coming in the Spirit and
in power through this gospel and saying, look to me, I'll
never let you go. I did this for you. I'll never
let you go. That's how he strengthens you.
What I'm saying is, it's looking to Christ that he chastens, he
corrects, He builds up, He pulls down, He makes you persevere. And it's beholding His love.
This is the constraint. This is the constraint. And it
made us in the first hour believe on Him. It makes you continue
following after Him. It makes you want to honor Him. It makes
you mourn your sin when you don't, when He shows it to you. And
it makes you quit looking at everybody else. It makes you
look at Him. It puts our mouth in the dust.
It makes us love. Even when we're not loved. Why? Because he loved us when we didn't
love him. He laid down his life for us
when we didn't love him. We hated him. We were ungodly
when he did this for us. And this is how He grows us in
that love and keeps you seeing His is the only perfect love. It keeps you humbled and keeps
you knowing He's your perfection. He's your perfection. I pray today we would believe
on Him. And those that had never believed
on him, cast all your care on him. And anybody that has cast your
care on him, that he would bring us to cast our care on him all
over, all again, all completely. It's in his hands. It's in his
hands. This is the sum and summation
of the whole book, of every word he speaks in this book, everything
that is practical. This is as practical as you can
get. It's only hearing this that's
going to make us believe Him, and constrain us to love Him,
and constrain us to love one another, all the while confessing,
not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Thy name be the glory.
This is it. This is it. Father, we thank
you for this word. Thank you for sending your Son. Lord, we're thankful that you
didn't leave salvation to our will. We're thankful that this
is the love by which you make your people willing to believe
on you, trust you, repent from ourselves, repent unto God, Lord,
keep your people looking to you. Keep us safe, protected. Keep
us knowing that what you've done for us and that you'll continue
to work to save us and keep us. Lord, bless your church. Bless
your people everywhere. We ask your mercies right here
for every one of us, for each member of our house, our children
that don't know you and those that do. Lord, don't let us Don't
let us ever grow stale. Don't let us grow lukewarm. Don't let us think we know. Keep
us hungry. Keep us thirsting after your
righteousness alone. Keep us looking out of ourselves
to you only. Keep us sinners in need of constant,
continual salvation by Christ our Redeemer. Lord, be with those that aren't
with us and be with those that are hurting and sick and sorrowful. Lord, bless the Word to their
heart. Bring us all down to Your feet to just trust You. Know
that You're salvation. We need this, Lord. We're asking
You in all these things to save us in spite of us. We thank You, Lord, for the blood
of our Redeemer. I ask you to cleanse our feet,
Lord. Keep us walking toward Him, looking to Him alone. It's
in His precious, holy, willing name that we ask it. Amen.