John 13, we just looked at Judas Iscariot leaving, betraying our Lord. We just looked
at Judas Iscariot betraying our Lord, selling Him out for nothing. Look at verse 30 and 31. This
all goes together, what our Lord says here immediately after he
left. Verse 30, it says, Judas having
received the sop from the very hand of our Lord who provided
for him for over three years, well all his life, but most especially
the three years that Judas was with him, Having received this
supper, he went immediately out, and it was night. That's fitting,
isn't it? We saw that he went out into
the darkness because his understanding was darkened. And he, a little
while later, was cast into outer darkness forever. Now, I hope and pray we tremble when
we read these things, because the propensity for us to do this
is within all of us. Okay? This man was an apostle. An apostle. He went out. It was night time.
But now let me tell you this, for your comfort and for God's
glory, upon the authority of God's Word, I tell you that a
person One of God's own cannot lose their salvation. A child
of God cannot lose their salvation. Our Lord said, I give unto them
eternal life, and they shall never perish. He said, no man
will pluck them out of my hand. So it behooves us, doesn't it,
to find out whether or not we are His, belong to Him. If we
are, these things are very serious to us. These things are life.
These are words of life. You remember when people got
offended at what our Lord said. They said, these are hard sayings.
Everything our Lord said is just truth and it doesn't say anything
good about man. It's all for the glory of God
and all put salvation completely in His hands, His will, His choice,
His everything. And those nominal religious professors
didn't like his absolute sovereignty and choice and his will. And
they didn't like it. They said, these are hard sayings.
And they left. They went out, walked no more
with him. As long as he was feeding them and everything was going
well, that's why they were following him. Health and wealth religion.
But then he started talking about his sovereignty and choosing
whom he would. No man can come except the Father draw. They
said, these are hard sayings. We can't take this. And they
left. And our Lord turned to His disciples. And nothing He
said offended them, did it? Nothing He said was too hard
for them. Those whom the Lord truly chose,
they believed everything He said. They hung their souls on everything
He said. He turned to them and said, will
you also go away? And Simon Peter, on behalf of
all of his people, is this your answer? Is this your heart's
answer to our Lord's truth? To whom shall we go? Where would we go? Go back to
what you brought us out of? Back to the pit from which you
dug us? Back to the slime pit? Back to the world? Back into
outer darkness from which you delivered us? To whom? Our families whom we left for
you because you are now our life. You are our love. Go back to
our family. Go back to the world. Thou hast words of life, they
said. This is our life. This gospel
is our life. We hang on your word. We believe
everything you say. And he said, Have not I chosen you? That's
the confession of every believer. That's the heart's cry of every
believer. Go back? Where? Who? To whom? Why? This is life. No one else believes
it. I do. That's what they're saying. But Judas, you see, for a long
time, gave evidence, and they didn't see it because they loved
him. And he gave an outward show of profession. If they'd have
really had discernment, they'd have seen some things, heard
some things out of him. Money, you know, he was interested
in money. It says he began to seek opportunity. Long before this, he sought opportunity
to betray him. As many people do, they seek
an opportunity to get out and save face. To get mad at somebody. Have you ever thought of the
absurdity of this, of the lunacy of this? People get mad at somebody
in the church, get mad at the preacher, get mad at somebody
in the church, and take it out on God? They quit worshipping
God? Huh? I'm mad at so-and-so, so I'm
not going to go worship God. That's a bad heart, isn't it?
And it's going to lead into what our Lord says here. He gives
a command. I tell you to love one another. If you don't love
one another, you will leave. You will. You will leave. Because in many
things, we offend one another. We have, we do, and we're going
to. And if we don't really love one another, we're going to leave.
And we're going to prove that we were never of them. Judas went out. Judas went out. He looked like, he sounded like
a disciple, but he was not. He was not washed. He was not
sanctified. He was not justified. He was not God's elect. According
to foreknowledge, he was not born again or else he would not,
could not go away. He could not sell out. Simon
might deny him, but he would go weep bitterly, rue the day
that he ever did that, and weep bitterly and call on the Lord
from the depth of his heart until the Lord finally called him back.
But he'd dive in the ocean and swim the deepest sea to get back
to Christ. How could someone who heard such
truth like Judas, such wisdom, saw such wonder and such glory
in the presence of such a one as the Lord Jesus Christ, sell
him? Sell him out! People do it all the time. Do it all the time. When he had gone out, verse 31,
now here, see this leads in to what our Lord is saying. All
right? Immediately he went out. Therefore, when he was gone out,
our Lord said, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified,
and God is glorified in him. Now. This fella, and they didn't
know what Judas was about to do. John did. And Judas went
out to betray him, and our Lord said, right after that, He said,
Now. Now is the Son of Man glorified. I hope you're going to see the
connection here. I think I saw it for the first time. Now, you're
going to see my glory. You're going to see God's glory.
Now, the scripture says much about God's glory, doesn't it?
The heavens declare his glory. The firmament showeth his handiwork.
Day unto day others speak. His created glory. His glory
is everywhere to be seen. Doesn't glorify Him as God, Romans
1. Man is not thankful. That man
doesn't glorify Him as God. Man believes in evolution. Man
worships and serves a creature rather than the Creator who is
blessed forever. Amen. Man is a vainglorious creature. Man is a rebellious thing. That God would say one of these
rebels is glory. Glory. Scripture says much about
glory. All things were created by him
and for his glory they are and were created. Heavens declare
his glory, but the greatest glory of God is saving sinners. The greatest glory of God is
saving worthless sinners. And all are worthless sinners.
If you get tired of hearing that, then you will leave. Yes, you
will. You'll leave this gospel. I'm
tired of being called a sinner. This gospel is for sinners. I'll have you know, I'm as good
as the next man. Yes, you are. And what Scripture says is, no
good. That's how good you are. No good. By nature. Moses asked our Lord, show me
your glory. Didn't he? Remember? Show me
your glory." This started way back in the Old Testament. Show
me your glory. The angels, we saw, saw something
of His created glory, didn't they? The angels saw Him. He created the angels, I guess,
before He created the heavens and the earth. But after that,
they saw Him create all of this. Some of them did. They saw this, but Moses said,
show me your glory, your greatest glory. And here's what the Lord
said to Moses. I never tire of telling it. Exodus
33, he said, I'm going to make, I will make all my goodness pass
before you. Here's my glory, my goodness. Man's real bad, real bad. Adam and Eve. How could they
rebel against such goodness? They're in paradise. People think,
well, everything's all right. If I have my health, have my
wealth, live in paradise, live in a beachfront cottage, you
know, and eat fruit all day long, then I'll be a good person. Adam
and Eve lived just like that. And they shook their fence. How
could they do that? Why would God put up with us?
Why would God bear along with them? Why would
God go on and let this thing go like it had? Because He's
good. He's not like us. He said, I'm
going to make my goodness pay for it. He said, I will be gracious. Grace means getting what you
don't deserve. Grace means giving, giving, giving. You don't earn it. You don't
deserve it. In fact, mercy is not giving
what you deserve. The wages of sin is death. The
soul that sins must surely die. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God, glorifying Him with our lives and our mouths
and our tongues. And we do the opposite. But God,
who's rich in mercy, that means He doesn't give us what we deserve. He spares us. Why? He spared
not His own Son. Made His goodness pass before
Him. The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The grace of God. It's
not an offer. Because we turn it down. I'll be gracious. I will be gracious. I'm going to give this gift to
Him that I'm going to ask for. And I'm going to give it to Him.
I'm going to bestow it on whom I will. Sovereign grace. They don't deserve it. But I
have chosen whom I will. None of them deserve it. Here's
the problem with man in it. Here's the problem. Man thinks
everybody deserves a chance to be saved. Nobody deserves to
be saved. We all deserve hell. But God,
rich in mercy and grace, for His great love were with thee."
Who did He love? Who did He love? Who did He set
His love on? Not good people. There were none. I will show mercy. Oh, what mercy! He revealed that. You know, Christ's
greatest glory is hanging on that cross. People spit. And
the face of the Son of God said, go leave us. We don't want you
around here. Kill him. Perfect holiness, perfect
love, perfect goodness, perfect purity. This is what man thinks
of that. If offered a choice, what will
you do with Jesus? The Holy, spotless, separate
from sinners, Son of the Most High God, altogether lovely. What will you do with him if
offered a choice? Kill him. And they did. Alright, here's
glory. Hanging on that cross. And the
worst, most despicable of all the bunch who's hanging beside
him. A thief who'd done nothing but rob and rape and murder and
kill and insurrection and rebellion all his days. And the people,
everybody wanted him dead too. Kill him. Here's what our Lord
Jesus Christ did. In one great act of unbelievable
glory. Chose that man. Boy, if this
isn't an act of sovereign grace, if this isn't proof more than
anybody else on earth, if this isn't proof that salvation is
of the Lord, that He did the choosing. Did this man choose
Christ or did Christ choose him? Huh? What did this man do all
his life? Nothing but sin. Christ in one
act of sovereign power and glory, opened his blind eyes, opened
his deaf ears, had that man listening to all he was saying, broke that
man's heart, had that man look upon him and ask for mercy. And
our Lord said today, you're going to be the first in the glory
with me. Here's glory, John. Here's glory. This worst chief of sinners on
earth is the first walking in the glory with the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now who gets the glory? What'd this man do? See, what they're trying to show
us is that on the backdrop of Judas' betrayal, and if Christ
hadn't chosen the other 11, they would have betrayed him too.
In fact, all of them left him. Simon Peter said, I won't. I bet from then on, he never
said anything without saying, God willing, I won't. The Lord
willing, I won't. The Lord willing, I will do this,
I will do that. He didn't make that mistake again,
did he? I won't leave you, he said, before the cock crows,
you're going to deny me three times. And we know they all had
to, didn't they? They all had to. Our Lord had
to go to the cross alone. So this is His glory, you see.
You see the contrast with the backdrop? I've used this illustration
so many times. You go into a jeweler, a jewelry
store, and you want to buy a diamond or whatever, a pearl, a pearl. Great price. And what the jeweler
does is he brings out a black velvets or dark blue velvet cloth
and lays it on that counter, that display case, and then brings,
it's black, you know, black, black, and he brings out this
pearl or this diamond and puts it on there, and boy, it just
jumps out doesn't it? It just sparkles. I didn't buy
my wife a big one carat ring. I didn't have much money at the
time. And it's a quarter carat. And anyway, it's good enough.
But Buddy, when he brought that out, it looked like three carrots. And yeah, it's beautiful. This gospel is only beautiful
as seen on the backdrop of man's worthlessness and sinfulness
and rebellion and sin. And only when you see your own
dark heart will this gospel mean anything. Only when you see your
own sin will you need Christ, the pearl of great pride, and
sell all that you have to have Him. You know that? This gospel
only means something to sinners. I mean sinners who know something
of the darkness of their heart, the plague of their heart. Some
of you nodding your head, you know what I'm saying. If it wasn't
for God's sovereign electing grace, I would be a Judas. You
would be too. And if people argue, well, you
believe in election and it doesn't matter what you do. Nobody, none
of God's people believe that. Maybe Judas did. Maybe he believed
that. But none of them did. Because
it scared them to death, the thought of him. He told them,
all of you are going to be offending me tonight. And it scared them
to death. He said, no, please. He said, one of you are going
to betray me. And they all said, me? Didn't
they? He said, I? Oh my Lord, don't
let me do that. And what Christ did, Oh my, what
Christ did was great glory. What God did, sending His Son
down here, killing His Son. God's greatest glory is seen
at Calvary. Not creation, but Calvary. Against
man's great sin and wickedness. God's great love is seen against
man's great hatred of God. Chilling his own son for evil
sinners. I would not do that. I would
not do that. I would not sacrifice my only child for anybody. I wouldn't do it. Not even myself. Would you? No, you would not.
But God did. He really did. He really did. See, this is His great glory.
And His great glory is in forgetting Forgiving, forgetting. His great
glory is in keeping us. His great glory is in Christ
not forsaking us or leaving us. We forsake Him. We leave Him. We go back. But His great glory
is said, go get Him. His great glory is sending His
watchdog, goodness and mercy, to follow us and say, go get
Him, bring Him back to me. They're not going, they're not
leaving. What would you do? After all the years, you know,
you didn't do something for somebody and they say, I'm leaving, I've
had enough, I'm leaving. Would you say, okay then? Not
if you let them, you wouldn't. God's great glory, Christ's great
glory is keeping us, taking us back when we deny Him, taking
us back when We leave him, oh my. Here's what he said in verse
32, if God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in
himself and shall straightway glorify him. This is best seen
in John 17. John 17, our Lord clarifies this, what he means
here very clearly. In John 17, look at it. Now,
I can't wait to get to that, but there's so much glory in
between. John 17, 1. Our Lord, He just
said, God be glorified in Him, He shall glorify Him, Christ
in Himself, and straightway, immediately, very soon, shall
glorify Him. Verse 1, John 17. These words
spake Jesus and lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father,
the hour has come. Glorify Thy Son. Oh God's great, Christ's great
glory was being crucified on Calvary's tree for the likes
of us. That thy son also may glorify
thee. Look at verse four and five.
I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work
which thou gavest me to do. John, he said it's finished.
He's not on the cross yet, but he said it's finished. He's talking
about glorifying God as a man. I've glorified Him. All sin becomes
short of the glory of God. Christ didn't. He didn't come
short of God. He glorified Him with all His
mind, heart, soul, and strength. I finished that work. I finished
that work. I've brought in an everlasting
righteousness. I've established a righteousness.
I'm the coveted head. And I have established a... wrought
a perfect robe for my Father's children to cover them in, this
righteousness. You tired of hearing that? Oh,
I don't. I feel naked quite often. Read on. It says in verse 5,
Oh, now, Father, now, oh, Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own
self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was
washed. You know what Christ's glory
was? The Father was His glory. He
gloried in God. God gloried in Him. Oh, that
we might do the same. Oh, that our great joy and heart's
desire would be with our Father. Verse 21. He says, Oh, I pray
for them that they all may be one as Thou, Father, art in me
and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Thee. that the
world may believe that thou hast sent me, and the glory which
thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as
we are one." He's praying that we might, he's saying we have
been given that glory and yet we need to go from glory to glory. If you see anything of the glory
of God in this wonderful thing of salvation and this work of
Christ and God choosing unworthy people, then you already have
been glorified. And yet, when we get to glory
and are there finally and love Him, see Him as He is, see the wicked, Cast out when
that should have been, could have been us. We're going to shout, buddy.
We're going to shout like we've never shouted before. At the
top of our lungs and the bottom of our heart. Thank God for sovereign
electing grace. Thank God for sovereign keeping
love. Thank God. for Christ and Him
crucified. Thank God for Christ's blessed
righteousness. When we see all these moral,
religious, good people we used to think were even better than
us cast into outer darkness, but us chief of sinners at the
right hand of God, thank God this is glory. And verse 24 says that they may
behold my glory. And I didn't get to my second
point. Go back quickly. Let me give
me a few more minutes. All right. He said, this is glory. This is glory on the backdrop
of such evil, betrayal, denial. And then he says right after
that, little children, verse 33, little children, Now, he's
talking to grown men, and I'm talking to grown men and women. My wife is talking to your little
children, and they're little children. We're no less little children
than they are. Meaning, we're still, I don't
care how old you are, you're totally dependent on your Heavenly
Father. Completely. 100% dependent on
your Heavenly Father. We're poor, ignorant, foolish,
childish, immature. Huh? Where would our children be if
they were left to themselves? Huh? That sucks. Did that offend you, him calling
us little children? Little. Little children, little ones.
Oh, this is... We need to be like little children.
Our Lord said that, except you receive the kingdom as a little
child, you won't even be in it. You won't be there. He calls
them little children. And this is their father, as
Christ said, he that hath seen me hath seen the Father. This
is the Father's comforting words to his little children. And there
is a command. He says, little children, yet
a little while I'm with you. You shall seek me. And as I said
unto the Jews, whether I go, you cannot come. So now I say
unto you, whether I go, you cannot come. A little while, I'm with
you. You'll seek me and you won't find me. And you can't go where
I'm going. Where's he going? And this is
what they began to say. Where are you going? Why can't
we come? Remember? In the next chapter,
why can't we come? Sign of peace, I'll go with you
to the death. And he meant that. But no, our
Lord said you can't come. Why? He's going to the cross. He's going to be forsaken of
the Father. He's going to be made sin for them. They can't
come. This is a solo work, salvation
of the Lord. Completely, it's by himself.
He's going to have to purge our sin on Calvary's tree. He's going
to be forsaken of the Father. He's going to the cross to put
away sin. And then He's going to go to
the Father, to the right hand, to pour out His precious blood
on the mercy sick. The high priest alone must do
that, mustn't he? And he did it. He said, you can't
come. Remember it was Thomas said, we don't know where
you're going. Our Lord said, you do too. Listen to me. I've been telling
you. They didn't want to think about
losing Him. Now here's what made them little children. You see,
Judas went out. Judas betrayed Him. Judas sought
opportunity. Judas said, He doesn't mean anything
to me. I'll take money. I'll take a
person. I'll take a thing, anything.
He doesn't mean that much to me. But every one of them, It was tearing them up at the
thought that Christ was leaving them. Don't, please don't go. You see what I'm saying? Here's
how you know. Christ said, a little while I'm
with you. And this gospel, I keep saying this, not everywhere all
the time, it leaves and goes other places. How does that affect
you? If you didn't have a place to
worship, didn't have a preacher, didn't have the gospel, what
do you think about that? Oh, don't go, don't take this gospel
from me. Oh, Lord." That's what they said, all of
them, the true disciples, the true chosen ones. He said, a
little while, and I'm going away and you can't come. Now listen
to what he said, verse 34. He said, I've given you a commandment. These are my parting words. If
your father, was leaving and not coming back. You say he's on his deathbed,
and you're standing there, and you love him or her. And that's
who this is. And he said, these are my last
words to you. Now, you listen to me. Would
you listen to him? Would you do what he says? You
would try it. All right, here's what he said.
Here are his parting words. Little children, a new commandment
I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you,
and you also love one another, because by this shall all know
you are my disciples, if you have loved one another. Now Judas
left. He not only left the Lord, he
left all those fellows he said he loved. Right? A new commandment I give you,
that you love one another as I have loved you. How's that?
We just went through 1 Corinthians 13. Herein is love. Love thinketh
no evil. Love hopeth all things, believeth
all things. Love is kind. Love is long-suffering. Love is courteous and pitiful. Love is forgiving and forgiving. Read the article in the bulletin.
The most godly and Christ-like person, you know, is the one
who knows you and loves you anyway. The one who remembers, like our
Lord, remembers your frame because they have the same frame. And
they won't leave you. They won't leave you. As I have loved you. Slow to
anger. That's the person who knows Christ
best. That's the person who's most like Christ. Slow to anger.
Slow to wrath. Pitiful. Courteous. Kind. Considerate. Understanding. Long-suffering. Forbearing. Forgiving. Hideth. Doesn't talk about. That's the
person who really knows the Lord and is most like Christ. This
is a command, he said. It's not good counsel. It's not
good advice. This is how the world will know
that you're my disciples, he said, because this is supernatural
love. This is not natural love. Oh,
it's natural to love your own. It's natural to love your blood
kin. It's natural to love your mama, love your daddy, and them
to love you. You love your brothers and sisters in the flesh. Now,
this is supernatural. This is a person who's born of
God. This is a person who's in the family of God. This is a
person whom God has really done a work in. They love their brothers
in Christ, their blood kin. Their blood kin. This is my family
now. Simon, Peter, and all of them
left their family and never spoke of their children. Did they have
children? They never spoke of them. They never spoke of their
wives. They never spoke of their parents. Christ was their life. Each other was their life. They're
brothers. They're constant companions.
Why? Because he was. This is how the world knows. These men love each other like
brothers. They come from different backgrounds.
They come from different parents. They come from different ways.
They have different this, different that. But they actually really
do love one another and stick together and stick by each other.
And they're all of them following Christ with their eyes on Christ,
helping each other, that Christ is really their life. This must
be of God. This is of God. That's what the
world would have to conclude. They believe what nobody else
believes. This is of God. They actually love each other
and wouldn't leave for anything, leave each other. That's God. And I've talked to so many of
you, and it's just so. You have unsaved relatives, brothers
and sisters you love, father and mother that you love, this
and that other person you love, but they don't love Christ. They
don't believe this truth. They don't believe like you. And you really don't even enjoy
being around those people. You'd rather be with your brothers
and sisters in Christ. That's just the way it is. And
this is of God. Is this so? This is the way it
is. This is of God. Because as we
said, in glory someday, there's not going to be any relationships
like this. There's only going to be one relationship, and that's
those in Christ, the children of God. And we're going to know
as we've been known. We're going to understand as
we've been understood. And we want to thank God, the high
heaven, for sovereign electing grace. Oh, may the Lord show us his
glory. May the Lord give us this supernatural
love. May the Lord make us his little
children in Christ. Amen.