It's going to be probably the
shortest message I've brought here. I hope the Lord, I intend
to make it short, I hope He makes it very sweet to you. I want you to look with me at
John chapter 13. John chapter 13. Now I intend to begin this with
this evening's message doing a series of messages starting
here in John thirteen and go through the end of John seventeen.
I realize that we just. You just finished studying through
John about a year ago and when I first came here that's where
I picked up the Bible lessons in John seventeen but nevertheless
And this is just a blessed, blessed portion of Scripture. The whole
Gospel of John. I thought about doing a series
of messages through basically these chapters. And then I began
looking at the chapter before, and the chapter before, and the
chapter before. I thought, well, maybe I better begin with John
1. But I thought, no, I'll just go through a few chapters here.
What prompted this message was a conversation that I had with
some of our people who were visiting us the other night. We were talking
intimately about our particular problems and our weaknesses and
our hopes and desires for this church and for one another. And
all of this eventually, we talked quite late, quite late. And we
had a good time. But all of this eventually led
into thinking and talking about God's love, his care, and his
compassion for his people. We began to relate to one another,
our particular The scripture says to confess your faults one
to another, and that's what we were doing. We were expressing
our shortcomings and our desires for ourselves, what the Lord
would do for us and the church here. And it eventually led into
talking about God's love and His care and His compassion for
His people, how that He will not leave us alone. He just won't
do it for His people. And that led me into thinking about how badly we all need to
be encouraged and comforted. Don't we, Nancy? We need it bad. We need it every day. We need
to be encouraged. But one thing somebody said in
a study this evening, because of this awful place that We studied
this morning about Mephibosheth being down in a place called
Lodibar, house of no bread, and in ruins. And that's the land
that we live in. We're in a world that's a mess,
and I'm right in the midst of it. So we need to be encouraged
because of this terrible place we live in called the world.
It's just tough. It's tough to be here. And I
began to think about how the Word of God is written for that
express purpose. It is now. It is. It's written
to express purpose of revealing the glory of God in His love
toward His people and His promises and provisions for the salvation
of His people. That's what this book is all
about. It really is now. It would not have been written
except for that purpose, to reveal the glory of God. But the glory
of God is seen where? In the face of Jesus Christ.
And what did Christ come to do? To save his people. And that
reveals the love of God more than it behold what manner of
love. God's word is full. I mean, you and I were talking
about this, Rick, how that We just haven't begun to trust our
God. We haven't begun to just lean
upon the promises of God that are in this book, just full of
promises. Why don't we avail ourselves
of them? Even the simplest of promises, as in Romans 10 that
we recently studied, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
you will be saved. We don't hardly avail ourselves
of that. That's the simplest of them all.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll be a saved man or woman.
Well, why don't I? Why don't I just trust Him? Well,
God's Word is full of promises, full of comfort and encouragement
to all His people who simply trust Him, who simply trust Christ. Now, I don't want to be guilty.
I don't want to be guilty of this thing that the world is
doing, preaching this thing called easy-believism. That is, making
this thing of salvation to be just a man's decision. You just
have to decide, and it's an intellectual ascent. You believe that Christ
came, yeah. You believe He died on the cross, was buried and
rose again, yeah. I believe that. You believe you're a sinner,
yeah. I believe that. Not too bad, but I believe it. You're
saved. Now, that's easy-believism. It
goes deeper than that. It goes to the heart, that's
how deep it goes. These things have to really be believed in
the heart, firmly persuaded in the heart of who God is, who
we are, guilty, hell-deserving sinners before God, and who Christ
is, the sufficient, effectual, and only Redeemer and Savior. The only way. We have to believe
these things in the heart. That is saving faith. That. But it's simple, though, really.
Isn't it? It's simply put this way. Believe
on the Lord, absolute sovereign controller. Lord Jesus, that
is the Savior. He's the only one. Christ, Messiah,
representative, mediator between you and the Father. So, in the
choice of passages, I went to these in thinking about these
promises God has given to us. I went to these passages in John.
I remember when we studied them, I remember what a blessing it
was to me. Because these are gentle instructions, gentle and
tender, parting words of the Savior to his people right before
he's to leave and go back to the Father. Now, stay with me.
I hope this, I think, will be a blessing to you. I won't keep
you long, not long enough for you to go to sleep, hopefully.
Just a little bit. These are tender and loving,
compassionate words of the Savior, right before he's to go back
to heaven. He's leaving his disciples. Somebody said this was the greatest
sermon ever preached, followed by the greatest prayer ever prayed,
John 17. I'll amen to that. I'll amen
to it. And all of this was a very personal
and intimate display of our Lord's affection for his disciples.
As you may stand, you disciple of Christ? I am. That's not presumption. I just
want to be. Don't you? I think you do, too.
Well, this is for me. This is for you. Right here.
Look at it with me. John 13, 1. And I'll have you
know this, too. I'm going to do a series of messages
through this. And I didn't get past the first
verse. I wanted to get through most of this chapter, but I couldn't
get past the last line in this first verse. And I wanted to
do it justice, so we'll just dwell on this first verse here.
John 13, verse 1. Now, before the feast of the
Passover, now here's the setting. This is a story, this is when
the disciples and our Lord were in the upper room partaking of
the Lord's supper, the last supper with his disciples. And it says,
before the feast of the Passover, they were in this upper room.
And Christ knew that his hour was come. It was here. Do you
remember throughout the scriptures? It says that they sought to take
him, but they couldn't. His hour wouldn't come. You remember
that? Christ said several times himself,
mine hour is not yet come. Woman, what have I to do with
thee? Mine hour is not yet come. Well, now Christ says he knew.
It says he knew his hour was here. It was here. His hour. What hour is that? His hour. The greatest glory of the Son
of God ever to be shown. His hour. If you will, His curtain,
final curtain call. His greatest glory. His greatest
triumph. His greatest glory. His finest
hour upon that cross. Taking away the sins of His people. And Christ knew that it was here.
It was on Him. He was here, and it says that
he was going to depart out of this world. He knew that his
hour was come, that all things would be fulfilled very shortly,
and that he should depart out of this world unto the Father. Now, Christ was, the reason Christ
came was for the glory of God, yes, but also for the salvation
of his people, because of the love of the Father and the same
love in the Son, Christ came down here to save his people.
He came down here, he said, the Son of Man came not to be ministered
unto, but to minister, give himself a ransom for many. Pilate, he
came down here to serve you and me. Yes, he did. He goes on to
show that in the rest of this chapter, washing their feet.
He came to serve us. with salvation. But Christ was
never, while he was on this earth, never just concerned with himself. It hardly seems he was at all.
But he was mindful of the needs and the concerns of his people.
They were on his mind. The will of the Father, pleasing
the Father, and the salvation, the care and the concern of his
people was on his mind. Even in this, his passion, even
in this hour of great grief for him, he was, as he exhorted us
to do, as the scriptures exhort us to do, he was thinking on
the things of others, even at this time. He said he knew in
his hour he was going to depart out of this world, he was thinking
with compassion and with concern for his disciples, and he knew
He was leaving, and that they were going to go through this
old world. He knew what they were going through. He knew what
they were going to have to go through. Why? Because he was here. He
was right in the midst of it himself. Scripture says we have
not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of
our infirmity, but he is touched in all points, yet like we are,
yet without sin. He knows, Rick, he knows what
this, we have such problems and struggles with sin, don't We
just, it kills us, it drags us down in the dirt, doesn't it?
He knows your very weakness, as the song says. He knows the
pain you feel. He knows loneliness, whatever
it is. He knows, he knows everything
you're going through. He knows it. And he was thinking
upon his disciples at this time, greater love. You know, when our Lord stood
at Lazarus, at Lazarus' tomb, the people said, oh, how he loved
him. Oh, how he loved him. Christ
wept. He was standing there at a friend's
tomb, weeping. And they said, oh, how he loved
him. And the scripture says, greater love hath no man than
this. Terry, the love has never been
expressed like this. Only true expression of love.
Then he laid down his life for his friends. How about for his
enemies? Greater love hath no man than he hath. Hanging there
on the cross before his tormentors. Father, forgive me. Can you do
that? Ain't no way. He did it. Greater love hath no man than
he hath. Behold what manner of love. Believer. Believer. In spite of the chief
useless, failing, universal thing that they call love today, this
God that they call love. In spite of all that, this is
one of the greatest sources of comfort that we can have, the
love of God. We may shy away from even discussing
the subject because the people have butchered it and blasphemed
it so much, but don't do it. Let's not do it, OK? This is
the greatest source of comfort and peace to be had in knowing
God's love for you, you, Nancy Parks, you. Not just that he
loves somebody, but you. And I want to show you, hopefully,
by God's Spirit, by God's grace, he loves you. Yes, he does. Wouldn't you like to know that?
I sure would. Would you like to know that, Rick? Beyond the
shadow of a doubt? Well, let's find out, all right?
Let's find out together. The scripture says true love
never fails. And what it says in 1 Corinthians
13? Charity or love never fails. What does that mean? Never quits.
Isn't that what it means? Never quits. God's love, you
see God's love, he plans, he purposes, and he provides. God's
love saves, keeps, protects, and continues right on. Never stops. Our love is so fickle
and finite, we might tell somebody we love them today and just all
cry and weep and slobber all over them, but tomorrow we might
hate their guts. Yes, yes, right? That's the way
it is. Not his love. No, not his love. I mean, I'll give you the only
illustration really we can use in this, our children. Now, you
love your children, Jeanette, and you love that son of yours,
don't you? Is there any question? Don't
even need to take that for granted. You mothers, you love your children.
You love them. Mary, you love that baby? Ha,
ha, ha. My, my, my, that's Joe Farts
there. It's obvious. It's obvious. You love your children
with all your heart. Now, what could they ever do? To make you forsake them. Can
you really think of anybody? Huh? You've heard it. You've seen it. You've seen mothers.
Their sons have committed mass murder or something. And their
mothers are on TV or something. He's a good boy. Really. He's
always been such a good boy. I love him. I believe Jesus loves
him too. Nothing and no one would make
you Well, look over at Romans 8 with me. Now, we studied this
very recently. Look at Romans 8 with me. Nothing
and no one is going to get between you and your child, make you
give up loving your child. Not even your child. Not even your child. Well, look
at this in Romans 8, verse 35. shall separate us from the love
of Christ." Huh? Now, listen to all the things
he lists here. Tribulation? Christ said, you're
going to go through it. Don't worry. Distress? You get in distress, you get
down, you get in the dirt, you think, oh, it's hopeless. Don't
worry. He still loves you. Persecution? the world forsake thee." He said,
I'll not leave you. I'll not leave you. Famine? And we're in that time of famine.
That just makes us go to the bread, doesn't it? Go to the
bread of life. Famine? Nakedness? That'll make us run
to him for covering on it, for his righteousness. Peril? Sword? Nothing. Nobody. Right? No one, not death, not life. Look at verse 38. I'm persuaded,
Paul said, just a man that believed God here. Why don't we? My name's
Paul. Why can't I believe him just
like this Paul? Paul said, I'm persuaded that neither death,
death won't separate me, it'll join me. Life, not this life,
not anything in it will separate me from the love of Christ now,
his love for me. If he loves me, I love him somehow,
somehow in the end. I love him. Not angels, spirits,
not principality, not the devil himself, nor powers, nor things
present, things to come, no matter what happens to me now, no matter
what happens to me tomorrow. Is that what that says? Height,
depth, any of the creatures will be able to separate me from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus. I'm telling you now. from God's
Word, this is our comfort. This is our comfort. Go on and
explain why here in a minute. Verse 1, look back at verse 1
in chapter 13 of John again. Look at the love of Christ. It
says he knew he was leaving. He knew his hour was come, and
that he was going to depart and leave his disciples behind. And
look at this blessed part, look at every eye, look at this. Having loved his own, which were
in the world, he loved them to Thee. He loved them right on,
right on to Thee. Having loved his own, which were
in the world, it says. And he, like I said, he knows
what this world is like. He knows what we're going through.
Virgie, he knows every pain and every joint in your body. Yes, he does. Why? He made you. He knows every pain you have. He knows every emotion you're
going through. Yes, he does. He knows every
trouble. He knows everything. He knows
all, doesn't he? He knows everything. and having
it loved his own. Oh, he loves them. Oh, he loves
them. Which were in the world. He's
touched and he cares. He said he loved them to the
end. Now Christ our husband, he took
a marriage vow for the father. We take them, don't we? They
don't mean much. They don't mean much. The divorce
rate's about, it's over 50% now. They don't mean much. We make
our little vows before God, but we're not able to keep them.
He can. And he did. And he does. He made
a marriage vow with the Father in the beginning. He promised,
as the marriage vow goes, now I don't know exactly how it is.
I'll learn it. If anybody wants to be married,
I'll learn it for you and get ready. But he promised to save,
to keep, to love, to protect, provide, and care for his people,
for his bride, as long as they both shall live." How long is
that? Till death do us part? No. I
already said it. Death ain't going to make us
depart. It's going to send us to him. So how long is that? Forever. Forever! Death won't separate us. It'll
join us. Now, you feel at times, believers, you feel at times
If not most of the time, you feel that God has forsaken you,
don't you? Am I telling your heart's feeling? You feel like most of the time
that God has left you to yourself and He's forsaken you. And He'd
be right in doing so, wouldn't He? He'd be right in doing so.
And you feel most of the time that God couldn't love me. Don't you? Henry, don't you feel
that way most of the time? You think, I'm so unlovely. How can God love me? Well, you feel most of the time
that you feel like this till you feel, God, He's angry with
me. Oh, Father, don't you feel that
way? Surely God's angry with me. Ain't dropping truth in that
boat. That's looking to yourself. That's not looking to Christ,
is it? Is God looking at us, or is He looking at Christ now?
Is it? Huh? We need to take heart. Once the
Lord of Glory set His affection on you from the foundation of
the world, you were His. You were His forever. He said,
Lo, I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. Never. Now, we say, Berta, I don't care
what you do. Boy, somebody might take this
and run with it, but I don't care. Rick, let them call me
what they want to call me. I want to believe what God says. Christ said, I'll never leave
you. Well, Lord, what if I up and deny you and tell people
who don't even know you and sin against you terribly? Peter did
it, didn't he? And he's the first one the Lord
called when he came back. You be sure and tell old Peter
that I ain't mad at him. Tell him, come on back. He's
mine. I love him. And you'll not, like
I said now, you'll not find any greater source of comfort here
than this. You'll just not do it. You'll not find any greater
source of encouragement than the love of a father for his
children. My daughter could not find any
more peace and safety and security than knowing her daddy loves
her and he ain't gonna let nothing happen to her. Deborah, that's
your father. Believe it. Believe it. Christ said so many
times, oh ye of little faith. And so many times he said to
some poor weeping woman to come in and just cast herself at his
feet, he'd say, that's great faith. According to your faith,
so be it unto you. Woman, your faith has saved you. We know that Christ saved, but
our faith will save us from despair and distress and all these things. The love of the Father for his
people. Somebody may say, to me? Yeah, you. You. No, not me. I can believe him
loving Henry or Joe. Why? Why would you believe that
God would love this old guy as opposed to you? He's asking the
same thing, aren't you, Henry? Why would you believe that God
would love somebody else and not you? He's got the same book you've
got. He's got the same promises you've got. Am I making this
easy-believe-ism, or am I just trying to tell it like it is?
I'm going to describe the gospel here very clearly, very shortly.
But you may say, surely not me. Can't be me. Yeah, you. I say the same thing all the
time. Surely not me. And I'm the preacher. Yeah, me. Even the preacher. There are
so many crooks out there, it's a wonder if any preacher is the
same. Well, I just kind of believe, I just want to believe that he
saved this old boy. Why not? How do you know? Here we go. How do you know?
How can I know that God Almighty loves me? You want to know that,
Steve? William, how can I know that
God Almighty loves me? Me, Paul Mahan. Ask yourself
that question. How can I know? You want to know
that? Let's look at God's Word. I want
you to listen and rejoice in it. Now God, and I'll quit very
shortly, God promised, He purposed in eternity past to have a people.
I'm going to let you, I'm going to have you participate in this.
I'm going to have you, if the word is nigh, even in your mouth
it says, I'm going to have you participate in this, somebody,
I hope. God purposed in eternity past
to have a people. Everybody here agrees with me
about it. He set his love on it. We know that the scriptures
say these things, and we know at first for a fact that the
scriptures say that. This is the gospel I'm getting
ready to tell you. God set his love and his affection
on those people that he chose. He did. And he turned it in his
path before they were ever born. And he made an agreement, made
a covenant with Christ, didn't he? And we studied about that
this morning. And his Son and his Spirit, he
made a covenant with them. And the scripture said he sealed
it with an oath. He could swear by no greater
than his own name. And he even sealed it in blood,
in the blood of his son. Didn't he? Made a covenant, an
agreement to come down here and save these people. And in that
agreement, Jesus Christ was to come down to earth and live as
a man. Live a perfect life as a man.
Because none of these people that God had chosen had lived
perfectly. They all had sinned and come
short of God's glory. Andrew, you can understand that.
All had sinned and come short of His glory, and somebody had
to come and fulfill God's law as a man, for man to be saved.
So Christ came. And then Christ was going to
take their sin upon Him and bear what they had coming. They had
punishment coming because they broke God's law. Christ was going
to come down here and do that. Then he had to rise from the
grave, he had to rise from the grave, stay with me, rise from
the grave indicating that God accepted what he did. If he hadn't
arisen from the grave, he'd still be in it, that means God didn't
approve of it, right? That's what the scriptures teach. And then he was going to go back
to the Father, go back to the Heavenly Father who chose his
And sit down and represent and speak for these people. Sit down
and represent the people as a mediator. And then God was going to send
his Holy Spirit with this book right here and explain the very
things that I just now explained. Preach the very things that we
preach from this pulpit through this Word. The Holy Spirit to
come and to apply that to those people's hearts, those people
of God chosen. and reveal who God is, and convict the sin,
convince of their needs, and point to Christ. That is, in
summing all up, God was going to save His people by grace,
that is, in Christ, through faith by the Holy Spirit giving them
faith. All right? OK. Now I want you to answer
me, somebody, with an amen or something, just
anybody, I don't woman or man. Did God plan salvation? Did he? Did he? God did, didn't he? God
did. He planned salvation. Okay. Did
Christ come down here and live and die for his people? Did he? And you believe that, don't you?
You believe that. I see every head, nearly every
head shaking in here. Then who did he do it for? Who did he do it for? Who? Sinners? Is that you? There's
one saved man in this bunch. Huh? Who else did he do it for,
Terry? Romans 5. Who did he die for?
The ungodly? Are you ungodly? He died for
you, didn't he? Is this easy belief in heaven
or is it the Bible? Now, let's answer this question.
Does the Holy Spirit convict of sin through the preaching
of this word? Does it? Has he convicted you through
preaching this word? What do we have to worry about?
Huh? That give you a little peace,
a little hope? Has he borne, the scripture says
he'll bear witness with your spirit that you're a child of
God. Has he borne witness through this book to your spirit and
your soul? Huh? Has he taken the things of Christ?
We did it this morning. Did he take the things of Christ
this morning and show them to you? That's the work of the Spirit,
man. He never fails. He just said amen. You're a child. of the Most High
God. What else do we need, huh? His
Word. My hope is built on nothing less. It ain't built on my feelings.
My feelings come and they go, don't you? Feelings come, feelings
go. Feelings are buried to save in
our today. My hope is in this book right
here. Nothing else is worth believing. Nothing else. Nobody else. God
help us to believe. If you could answer those things,
now this is not, I don't have to explain myself, here it is.
This ain't easy to believe, is it now? I explain the gospel
to you, and if you rejoice in Jesus Christ, if you worship
God in spirit, rejoice in what Jesus Christ did, and put no
confidence in the flesh, you're the true circumcised. your spiritual
Israel. Janay, is that good enough? A child can believe that. Yeah,
they can. I beg to differ. A child can
believe that. And if it's in the heart, now,
it's in the heart. That's where, with the heart,
man believes under righteousness. And I must add this, I'd be remiss
in not adding this, if you believe that, then confess him publicly
right there in that water. That's how he's told us, to confess
him. Confess him publicly and live
for him. Well, I tell you what, I almost
fear, I really don't fear so much making it too simple as
making it too hard, you know. Paul said that he feared the
serpent through his subtlety, like he beguiled Enoch, that
he would beguile your minds and your hearts from the simplicity
that's in Christ. That salvation is in Christ and
Christ alone, just in a look. It's just in a look, isn't it?
We believe that, don't we? God helps us keep looking, keep
resting on his Word. I want to, don't you? I do. I
believe I do right now. Tomorrow morning I may not. Then
where's my hope lie? It lies right back where it is
tonight, on the Word of God. Right? Right. Stand with me and
I'll dismiss this in prayer. uh... The End