John chapter 13, we'll be looking
at verses 1 through 11 this morning. And the title of the message
is, He Loved His Own. He loved His own. Now, as we have in view of this
text this morning, the Scripture opens in John chapter 13 and
verse 1, and it says, Now before the feast of the Passover. Now, before the Feast of the
Passover, now exactly when this particular event took place,
there's a great deal of speculation. A great deal of speculation as
to whether it was the same night in which the Lord was betrayed,
or was it a couple of days before when He ate at Simon's house
in which He was anointed by Mary with the oil for His burial. the speculation as to why this
is. And if you'll notice this when
you read the book of John, you might want to understand that
John was the last of the writers. And what he had done was filled
in places that he thought was important, that the Spirit moved
him to fill in, that the other writers had not taken into hand. And so, here we have this instance. Before the Feast of the Passover,
when it was, I really don't know. I really don't know. I've probably
been of both opinions at one time or another. But regardless
of when this happened, exactly when this happened, it's not
clear. But the purpose of which this
supper is very clear. The purpose of this supper was
to show that the Lord loved His own. unto the end. That was the purpose. The purpose
of this whole thing is to show the love of the Lord Jesus Christ
toward His own. Now, He did this at a specific
time, Passover. The feast of the Passover was
nigh. Now, what is the Passover feast? What is this feast about? The
feast of the Passover. You see, this was instituted
by the Lord so that the people of Israel would remember how
it is that God delivered them from the bondage of Egypt. How
that God, by His mighty hand, had delivered them from Pharaoh. If you'll recall, the nation
of Israel was enslaved for 400 years under the bondage of Egypt. They were enslaved according
to the promise that God gave Abraham. He told Abraham, your
people will inherit this land, but before they do, they'll be
slaves for 400 years. And so they were. And then God
raised up a man named Moses, revealed Himself to Moses, and
Moses was the man chosen of God to deliver them out of this bondage. And if you'll remember, there
were many plagues. There were many plagues that
the Lord put on the nation of Egypt. But yet each plague did
not move Pharaoh, only God hardened his heart even more until this
one plague, until this last plague, and that was the plague of Passover. The Lord God said, I would come
and destroy the firstborn in every house of man and beast
that had not the blood. on the doorpost and on the lentil.
You remember he told his people, they must sacrifice a lamb, a
spotless lamb, and then take the blood and splatter it on
the doorposts. And the angel of the Lord passed
through on that night of Passover. And every house that had not
the blood, the angel came and killed the firstborn in the house.
But to all who had the blood, When God said, when I see the
blood, I will pass over you. And that was Passover. That was
Passover. The Lord passed over all those
and the firstborn lived. And this, my friend, is a great
picture. A great picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Men by nature are in bondage,
enslaved to their will and sin and Satan, and cannot serve God
and will not serve God. But God has promised judgment
upon all those who have sinned. Have you sinned? God's promised
judgment on all sin, and He must punish all sin. but to whomsoever
the blood of Jesus Christ is applied to the heart. To whoever
comes by faith in Christ has the blood of sprinkling that
speaketh better than that of Abel. It speaketh better than
Abel. Abel's blood demanded justice.
What does Christ's blood demand? Freedom. Christ's blood demands
freedom and life and liberty. That's what Christ's blood is
for us. And when God sees the blood on
our heart, the blood of Christ, He will pass over us because
the debt of our sin has been paid. Because He did this in the stead
of His people. You see, that lamb died in the
stead of that firstborn. And even so, Christ died. in the stead, in the room of
His people. Now Jesus, you see Passover was
very important. Very important to Christ because
He was the Lamb. He was the Lamb that was to be
slain for the sins of His people. And read this in our text. When
Jesus knew that His hour was come, that He should depart out
of the world unto the Father. How many times in Scripture do
we read Jesus saying this, mine hour is not yet come? Remember
when his mother asked him to fill those water pots and make
the wine and change the water into wine? What did Jesus say
to her? Woman, what have I to do with
thee? Mine hour is not yet come. You
see, all the while they threatened to kill Him and they wanted to
kill Him, but Jesus in great confidence went right through
them because His hour was not yet come. But now it was a solemn
time for the Lord Jesus Christ, for He knew the time was at hand
which He would be slain for His people. He knew the time had
come when He would drink the dregs of their sins. He knew
the time had come when all the sin and vileness of His people,
God would impute unto Him. God would charge their son with
their sins. And He Himself would endure the
wrath of God for those sins. It was a very solemn time, a
very solemn time. The hour had come for the sinless
Son of God to have the sins of His people imputed to Him and
that He might endure their shame and suffer for them under the
strict justice of God. Why then would Christ do such
a thing? Why would the sinless, perfect,
righteous, just, holy, perfect Son of God, why would He take
the sins of His people on Himself? Why would He bear their iniquity
and shame and ridicule that they deserved? Why would He do such
a thing? Well, the text doesn't leave
us without a reason. Read our text. He, knowing that
His time would depart, having loved His own. Why did Christ endure such suffering? Because He loved His own. This is the only reason God gives
for such a great sacrifice. Love. Love. Do you know the Scripture
speaks of God loving, but God is more than just an action to
Him. Love is more than just something
He does. My friend, love is what He is. He is love in Himself. This is who He is. He loves. And how does He manifest His
love? In that He sent His only begotten
Son to suffer in the stead of sinners. God is great in love. My friend, you cannot measure
the vastness of the love of Christ. It can't be measured. Do you
actually believe for one moment that we, in this moral frame,
can actually understand His love? Oh, I strive to. I long to know
how much He loved me. My friend, His love is so vast
and measureless. His attributes are boundless.
Do you realize that God is boundless? That in all of His attributes
of justice, God is eternal and perfect and right. And even so
in His love, He is perfect and right to love. But notice this. Where is His
love directed? Did you notice where His love
is directed? Is it directed to everyone? Without
exception? Does God love everyone without
exception? Did Christ say here He would
depart because He loved everyone without exception? No. Christ
said He knew His time was to depart to the Father, having
loved His own. Wednesday night we talked about
what it is to be Christ's possession. And we saw that we were His possession
by predestination. Those who are Christ's own, those
who are loved by Christ, are loved by Him from all eternity. They are the objects of His affection. And everything God does, He does
in light of His love for them. Everything God does is out of
love for them. Having loved His own. My friends, it was for them and them alone He came. It was for His own and His own
alone that He would suffer and die. Jesus did not die for everyone. He died for His own. He died for those that were His
by gift. You remember that Jesus said,
the Father which has sent me, he has given me a people. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And him that cometh to me, I
will in no wise cast out. Why? Because he loves him. Because
he loves him. And he died for him. He loved
them unto the end. In other words, he loved them
to the end. of their sin. In other words,
when He suffered, He... You ever unroll a towel, squeeze
it out, you know? God in Christ squeezed out all
His justice. on Christ so that there was not
one sin of His people that He did not pay for. He loved them
until the end, until the last ounce of His blood was spilled
for His people. He loved them until the last
agonizing ounce of strength in Him. He said, Father, into Thy
hands I commit my spirit. He loved them to the end. And my friend, this love is the
reason He has given us this example that He does here in this Scripture.
When He washes the disciples' feet, He's not telling us to
go get a bunch of buckets and start sitting down and start
scrubbing each other's feet. Don't buy into that mess. That's
not what He's teaching. My friend, He was showing in
this demonstration, He is showing us His great love for us who
are His own. For us who believe this is a
picture, a picture of what great sacrifice He has made so that
we might live forever with Him. I want us to get the picture
of what's going on here. I want us to assume that this is at
Simon's house, and I'm beginning to understand that I'm leaning
more towards that, but the other men may be right. But I believe
it's the time he was in Simon's house. You remember when he was
anointed with the oil for his burial. So get the picture here.
The Lord had just been anointed for His burial, and there are
the disciples over there kind of arguing about pennies. They're
arguing about the money that's being spent for that oil, and
that was being led by Judas Iscariot. Judas said, hey, shouldn't that
have been sold for, you know, such and such money to give to
the poor? Of course, he didn't care anything about the poor.
He didn't care anything about that. So he got the disciples
over here bickering about this, and the Lord Jesus Christ had
just been anointed for His burial. And they're fighting. And Lord
Jesus Christ quietly gets up, still dripping with the oil of
His anointing, takes off His robe, It's soaking in the oil
and lays it aside. He reaches over and he grabs
a towel that's meant for a servant and he puts it on. He fills a
bucket full of water and then he begins to bend down at the
feet of his disciples and to take their feet and to gently
wash them with the water. And then he took the towel that
he was girded with and he began to dry them. And he did this
to every one of them. What was the reason behind this?
Simon Peter, he started complaining, didn't he? As he always does.
He's always doing something. Simon Peter's always speaking
when he should be silent. That's a lesson we should probably
try to learn. There's no when to be quiet. He didn't learn
that yet. So here he was boasting against
it and the Lord said, you don't know what I'm doing, but I'm
going to tell you in a minute. The Lord Jesus Christ did this
as a picture to show us His great love. And I want us to see three
things in this that show us His great love. First of all, I want
us to see His great love in His condescension. His condescension. I want us to see His great love
in His commission. In other words, what He was sent
to do. And I want us to see, thirdly, His great love in His
coronation. You're going to see these three
things in this text here. Lord willing. First of all, his
condescension. Look at this in verse 4. I love
these words. The Lord is so gracious to give
us words like this. Verse 4. He riseth from supper,
and laid aside his garments, and took a towel, and girded
himself. Jesus had just been anointed.
And now he is dripping with oil. He lays aside his garment and
takes the towel of a servant. And he anoints himself with the
towel of a servant. He puts on that servant's towel. And it's here we see the condescension
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He, this man, Jesus. He who is God incarnate. He who from all eternity received
nothing but praise of His angels. He who is worthy of all praise
and glory and honor and anointed with all majesty and power and
dominion for all eternity past. He had been this way. This is
who He is, my friends. He is God. He is God. The psalmist speaks of him in
Psalm 104. It says, Bless the Lord, O my
soul, the Lord, my God, thou art very great. Thou art clothed
with honor and majesty. Who cover us thyself with light
as with a garment. That's who He was from all eternity. This man, Jesus, was God from
all eternity! Anointed God! Blessed God forever! That's who He was! He had a robe
of majesty! A robe of light that no man can
approach unto! He created all things by the
Word of His power, and by all things they consist. You got
up this morning because of the Lord Jesus Christ. You breathe
this morning because of Him. In Him we live and move and have
our being. He was clothed, my friends, with
a robe of majesty and light. And Jesus being God, Scripture
says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. The Word was God. He, from all
eternity, was praised and honored as He should have been, as He
was worthy of. Friends, this man, Jesus of Nazareth,
is none other than the Lord God of heaven and earth. And yet,
because of His great love for His own, His great love for the
elect of the Father which He had given Him, Jesus Christ agreed
in eternity to be their federal head and representative. He agreed
to do this from all eternity. But now the time had come, and
He has now condescended to become a man. He took off the robe of His deity
and He laid it aside and He took the robe of a servant. He took a towel of a servant
and abased Himself. He abased Himself. He laid aside
that robe of deity and took the servant's towel of humility,
and he being right to judge all men and to rule all men, and
he has the right to demand of them their submission, yet he
laid aside his rights and became a servant. Philippians 2 verse 6 tells us
who being in the form of God. In other words, who being the
express image of God, who being God Himself, He fought in not
robbery to be equal with God. There was no robbery in that
for Jesus to say, before Abraham was, I am. There was no robbery
in that. There was no blasphemy in that.
He is God and He had every right to say that. See, when men worshipped Christ, He didn't forbid them, did He?
Remember those lepers that came down, they bowed down and worshipped
Him. Did He say, like the saint in
Revelation, get up, get up, why are you worshipping Me? No, He
didn't say that, did He? You see, He had every right to
be worshipped by men. He took upon Him the form of
a servant, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled
Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross. Having loved His own, He took the form of a servant. He became bone of our bone, friend. He became flesh of our flesh. Jesus was not a man that walked
around painless. Your pain, He felt it tenfold. Your hurts, He felt it tenfold,
my friends. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief, the Scripture says. You see, my friend, He became
a man so that He might be our Head. You see, in order for Him
to save us, in order for Him to love His own and to redeem
His own, He had to become one of His own. He had to become
a man. You see, it was by man that sin
entered into the world, and it must be by man that righteousness
come. You and I could never have righteousness
if He did not come and take the towel of servitude. That's a
towel that each and every one of us should have taken. And
we didn't. We should have served God with
all of our hearts. We should have loved Him and
loved our neighbor as ourself, but we did not. We did not. And so Jesus Christ,
in order to be the representative, He must be made a man. You see, where as by one man's sin
entered in the world and death passed upon all men, Spiritual
death passed upon every one of us. Every one of these children
here this morning without Christ, they are dead in their sins. Dead. Don't believe this idea
of age of accountability. I don't know that. I don't know
what age God holds men accountable, but I know this, they're dead
from birth. And unless God gives them life,
they have no hope. I know that. God must give them life. God
must give them life in their hearts. And how does He do that?
He does that through a federal head, through a representative,
just the way death came by Adam. So life comes by Jesus Christ,
who was made a servant of God. You that believe, you that are
called, you that are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, Dwell on His great sufferings
for you. Friends, it would do us good
to meditate on the sufferings of Christ. See His great sacrifice in that
He laid aside His deity and became a man. He became the servant of men. I know if we were God, we wouldn't
do that, would we? Most of the time, we won't even
cross the street for somebody, much less give our life for them. Scripture says, for a good man,
some would even dare to die. If you had a good man, maybe
you would die for him, but not a rebel, not somebody that would
spit in your face, but Christ did. He became a man. Second of all, let us see his
great love in his great commission. Look at this back in our text.
And after verse five, after that, he pours water into a basin.
and began to wash the disciples' feet and wipe them with the towel
wherewith he was girded." This speaks of the great work or commission
that the Father gave Jesus Christ to perform. Jesus Christ says
in John 6, 38, I came not to do mine own will, but the will
of Him that sent me. You see, God had a purpose for
Christ to come. God had a reason for Christ to
come and to become a man. God had a work for him, and he
came to save his own people from their sins. That's what he came
to do. Because of his great love, he
came to save his people from their sins. Isaiah 53, verse
12 says, Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoiled with the strong. Because He poureth
out His soul unto death, just as He poured that water into
the basin to wash His disciples' feet, so did Christ pour out
His soul unto death. You see, when Christ gave Himself,
He didn't give just part of Himself, He gave His whole self. to the work of God in redemption. Every thought. Let me ask you
this. Have you controlled every thought
that you had since you sat down here? Has anybody got control
of all their thoughts or have your mind wandered a little bit?
Have you been able to focus in on the sufferings of Christ and
to see Christ just in this few minutes? My friend, Jesus Christ,
every second of His life, He focused on God and God alone
to do His will. Everything God said to do, He
did. Even unto death and even in His
death, His thoughts were perfect unto God. He offered unto God. He said, My God, My God, why
hast Thou forsaken Me? You see, He was the sinless Son
of God. He suffered such things because
it was His commission. It's what God sent Him to do.
Oh, beloved Christ, see how He poured out His life
for you. I gave my life for Thee. What hast thou given for me? He poured out everything for His own. He bore our sins
in His own body on the tree. There we were at enmity against
God, hating God and despising Him, rejecting His Christ, doing
exactly what we determined to do, saying, I will not have this
man to rule over me. And yet, while we were sinners,
Christ died for the ungodly. While we were sinners, He died
for us. He satisfied God's just demands
by being our substitute. He who was the sinless Son of
God had our sins imputed to Him and poured out on His soul, poured
out His soul unto death. It is by His blood and by His
blood alone that we are washed from our sins. If any man here, any woman here
will stand before God, I'll tell you this, you will not stand
if He has not washed your sins in His own blood. Jesus said, if I wash you not,
you have no part with Me. But praise God for His own, He
has washed their sins away in His own blood. Your sins, believer, are gone
because He loved you. He loved you and He gave Himself
for you. His blood washes away the sins
of His disciples. And number three, we see that Jesus Christ has
by His great Love given us. Or next, we see that Jesus Christ
not only washed us by His blood, but He's also given us His Spirit.
He's also given us His Spirit. They that have not the Spirit
of Christ, they are none of His. When He washes our sins away,
praise God, He doesn't leave us just with this corrupt nature,
but He gives us a new nature, a new heart that longs to serve
Him, that loves Him back. You see, I didn't love Christ
before, but when God washed me by the water of His Word, He
filled me with His Spirit, and out of our bellies flow rivers
of living water, the Spirit of God. Now then I see that He first
loved me, and because He first loved me, I am able then to love
Him back. His love for me was great because He had fulfilled the
commission of God. And number three, His coronation. We see His coronation in this. What is a coronation? That's
a crowning, isn't it? When a king comes and he is crowned. That's what Jesus Christ is speaking
of here in our text. Look at this in verse 12. And
after he had washed their feet, he had taken his garments and
sat down. He at first girded Himself with
a towel and laid aside His garments. But now He had laid aside the
towel and He had taken His anointed garments again. What is that
speaking of? That is saying when Jesus Christ
died and was buried, He is now risen and God has crowned Him
Lord of all things. Him who loved us. He who died for us. has now been
given the crown of glory and is seated again on His throne. You know, as in college, I learned
how to network more than anything else. I learned how to, it's
not what you know so much as who you know. You know somebody,
you get it in, and then you're good to go. Well, my friend,
the person I know sits on the throne of glory and he loves
me. He who controls all things and
moves all things by the word of His sovereign power loves
me and does everything He does for
me. Now, if that don't give you joy
and comfort, I don't know what will. God's providence is good
toward His own, isn't it? I was listening to somebody preach
a message this last week, and they were talking about, he was
listening to a conversation, and one person, they were in
some kind of reunion or something, and there was no parking. And
this one person said, you know, well, I got up real close to
the building. That's good. I'm glad the Lord gave me that
space. Another person said, well, man,
I had to drive all the way around. I didn't find a parking space.
But that was good because I needed the exercise. You see, God's
providence is good always toward His own people. Because He loves
them. And everything that you are going
through, everything that He is doing right now, He is doing
for your good and His glory. Everything. Because He loves
His own. And He loves them until the end. My friend, is it the end yet? Is it the end yet? Nope. Well,
he's going to love you till the end, wherever that is, wherever
that is. He loves you. He gave up everything. For you. He gave his life. For you. And he leaves his disciples with
this, as I have done this unto you, as I have loved you, as I have served you, who am
your Lord and master, is it not reasonable that you
should serve one another? Not just reasonably. Of course
it is. My friend, if I grabbed a basin
of water and washed your feet, it wouldn't mount to a hill of
beans if my heart towards you was with anger, would it? No. How then can I love you? How then can I serve you if I
don't understand what He did for me? People always want to tell us
what to do. If you know what He did for you, you'll know what
to do for somebody else. Take the towel of a servant,
gird yourself, and serve one another. What a blessed chapter this is.
What a blessed example the Lord has given us of what He has done
for us. He condescended because of His
great love. He fulfilled His commission because
of His great love. And now He has ascended in the
heavens, gathering all of His children to Himself because of
His great love. Now go and love like he did. Let's stand. We'll be dismissed in prayer.