that you can watch on the Lord's
Day at 9.30. We begin the Bible study part
of our services. All right, you're in 1 John chapter
four. I'm gonna begin at verse seven,
1 John chapter four. 4 and verse 7, beloved, let us
love one another, for love is of God. And everyone that loveth
is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not
God, for God is love. And 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. Aaron is not
that we love God, but that he loved us, and he sent his son
to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved
us, let we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen
God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth
in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we
dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his spirit. And we have seen and do testify
that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that
Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God. And we have known and believed
the love that God hath to us. God is love. And he that dwelleth
in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love
made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment,
because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear
in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect
in love. We love him, and here's the reason,
because he first loved us. And then he says, if a man say,
if a man, if this is his confession, if this is his testimony, I love
God. And yet he hateth his brother,
he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
And this is commandment, and this commandment have we from
him that he who loveth God love his brother also. Let's bow our heads together. It is a wonderful thing, our
Father, to be able to speak to you, to know that through the
merits of our dear Savior, we have access into the Holy of
Holies, into the presence of the righteous God at any time
we desire to approach you. a marvelous, marvelous and gracious
thing that you receive us and you welcome us through Christ
Jesus. We bow before you, our Father,
in confession of our neediness and in confession of our many,
many sins. And we We weep over our guilt. We mourn the coldness of our fervency to love you and believe
you. Lord, we know that our faith
so often is weak and we have little faith, but thank you that
we at least have some faith. And we ask that you who gave
us faith to begin with, You are the origin of faith that You
would increase it. Lord, increase our love for You,
our love for the Lord Jesus, our love for the Holy Spirit. Lord, we ask that You would increase
our gratitude for this wonderful salvation you have gifted to
us. We thank you for the blood of
redemption. We thank you that our Savior
has bought us. And that price that he paid was
the death of himself. And in that bloody sufferings
upon the cross and in His death we see our full atonement. We
see satisfied every one of your demands. And now you're a just
God having punished our sins and our substitute and you're
our Savior. And you indeed save us in a just
way, in a righteous way, in a way that did not compromise in the
least your holiness. We thank you that you're not
ashamed to call us your children. May we never be ashamed to call
you our father. And the Lord Jesus, he's never
ashamed to call us his brethren. May we never be ashamed to call
him our savior, the one who loved us and gave himself for us. As
we meet together tonight, we ask that you would send your
spirit, and Holy Spirit, would you take the things of of God
and take the things of the Son of God and reveal them, show
them unto us. May we be anxious to hear the
Word of God. Give us the listening ear and
a believing heart. Oh God, we are absolutely dependent
upon you for all things, all things spiritual, all things
physical, all things emotional. And Lord, there's not a moment
that goes by but what we don't need you. And we ask, oh God,
though there are times when you're not in our thoughts, may there
never be a time when we're not in your thoughts. And reading
the word of God, we know And we do have the assurance that
you always remember us. You're always mindful of us.
And you visit us. You visited us when your only
begotten son came into this world and redeemed us. You visited
us when you sent your spirit to quicken us and make us make
us spiritually alive in Christ Jesus. And you visit us when
we gather together as a congregation to open the holy word of God
and read and preach and study the things of the Lord Jesus
and his sacrifice. And you visit with us individually
When we are by ourselves and our thoughts are turned unto
our God, we've read the word of God, we've thought upon you,
we've thought upon Christ Jesus, you visit with us, receive our
thanksgiving, receive our praise. We lift up to you these who were
mentioned and others of our congregation. who are needy physically, having
sickness and disease and these sorts of things, weaknesses of
the flesh. Lord, we ask that you'd give
strength according to your will and grant healing if it pleases
you. Bless those of our congregation
who are elderly and who are having great difficulty getting around
anymore. Lord, these are your children
too. And we're thankful that for them
and for us, you've said you'll never leave us and you'll never
forsake us. So be with us tonight as we meet.
Bless on the Lord's day as brother and sister Heller come to visit
with us. We thank you for their faithfulness.
We thank you that you have sustained them these many years that they've
been in New Guinea. And we ask that you'd continue
to bless their ministry there, bless their children here in
the States, and pray that you'll continue to watch over them in
the absence of their parents. We thank you for all things,
and we bless you, and we gather to worship tonight. For Jesus'
sake, we ask all of these things. Amen. All right, if you would,
go to the book of John, chapter 17. John, chapter 17. And this will be the, unless
the Lord changes my mind, it'll be the last message from John,
chapter 17. I've certainly enjoyed the several
messages that I believe God has led me to work on and then to
deliver to you. They've certainly helped me and
I hope that they've been a help to you as well. This evening
we can continue to study in this great high priestly prayer of
our Savior, and we're getting down right toward the end, and
our subject is love from eternity. That's the subject for the evening,
love from eternity. In the New Testament, there are seven statements about
our God that set forth His character and His identity and His nature. And these are certainly deserving
to be itemized and studied individually, but this evening I'm just going
to mention them to you. And then this last one we'll
deal with somewhat in this message. First of all, in John chapter
4 and verse 24, and I'm not asking you to turn to these, it would
take too long. It says, God is spirit. God is spirit. He is immaterial. He is immortal. God is invisible. God is omnipresent. He's everywhere. And God is indivisible. He cannot be divided. So that
when we say we are Trinitarians, we believe the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit. That's the Trinity. We're not
saying that each one is one-third of the Godhead or one-third God,
I should say. Each of those is a different
revelation or a different view of God, but the Trinity is one
God. He is a fool who doesn't believe
the Trinity. And He is equally a fool who
tries to set forth the Trinity in words that we can understand.
We just cannot comprehend God as being triune. But He is, and He's indivisible.
God the Father is totally God. God the Son, He's totally God. God the Holy Spirit, He's totally
God. But not three gods. rather one
God in the revelation of three persons. Secondly, we read in
Mark chapter 12 in verse 29, the Lord our God is one Lord. And that emphasizes what I just
said just a little bit ago. There's a unity in the Godhead. There's a oneness in the Godhead. There's just one God. There aren't
many gods. There are many idols. And we
could say there are many gods, if we understand by that, little
g. But there's only one Lord God.
There's only one Jehovah. There's only one Sovereign. There's
only one Creator. He's the Maker. He is the Sustainer
of all things. And then thirdly, God is light. and in him is no darkness at
all. 1 John 1 and verse 5 states that. In the Bible, you know
this, darkness often means error, evil, death, ignorance. Those are some things that darkness
sets forth. Well, God is not any of those
things because God is holiness. God is holy. We read holy and
reverend is His name. God is goodness. God is good. The Lord is good. The Lord is
truth. The Lord has all knowledge. And the Lord is the very origin
and the giver of all life, and it doesn't matter what kind of
life you're talking about. Maybe you're talking about human
life, plant life, animal life, our physical life, our spiritual
life, our everlasting life, which is the length of it, eternal
life, which is the quality of it. Because right here in John
17, this is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God
in Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. So God, God is, He's life Himself. And that's
included in light. And then fourthly, God is faithful. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse
9. Also, 1 Corinthians chapter 10
and verse 13. God is faithful, that is, God
is absolutely truthful. He cannot lie. He is trustworthy. We ought to be trustworthy. We
ought to be men and women who are as good as our word. Sometimes
we slip up. Sometimes we say something that
we intend to do, we fully intend to do, But circumstances arise
and we can't keep our word. God is always faithful. And even
when we don't believe, 2 Timothy 2 says this, when we believe
not, God is faithful still. He's faithful to every promise
He's ever made and He's faithful to every threat also. You can trust Him. And then fifthly, God is consuming
fire. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse
29 says that. And we understand from the book
of Deuteronomy chapter four and verse 24 that by consuming fire,
it means God is jealous. That's what it means. He's a
consuming fire. God is jealous. He's jealous for His name. He's
jealous for His glory. He's jealous of the worship of
men and angels. He said, I am the Lord. That's
my name. My glory will I not give to another.
He's not gonna give it to anybody else. He's jealous of it. He
is a consuming fire. And then 1 Peter 2 and verse
3 says, the Lord is gracious. That's his character. It's his
nature to be gracious. You say, oh, I pray that God
will be gracious to me. Listen, he is a gracious God.
The scripture says he plinketh us in mercy. who all do call
upon Him. If you call upon Him out of your
neediness, He supplies the need. If you call upon Him out of your
emptiness, He fills you with His righteousness, with His grace,
with His peace, and with His salvation. The Lord is gracious. He's full of grace. His grace
is sovereign. His grace is saving. His grace
is very sure And His grace is sufficient for all of our needs. And then the last one, I read
to you there from 1 John chapter 4. God is love. God is love. In John chapter
17, our Lord lifted up His eyes to heaven. He prayed to the Father.
And He did so as the perfect man. And He did so as our legal
representative and as our regal representative. He was our legal
representative. He's our surety from old eternity. Way back before God ever made
the world, He gave us as a gift to His Son. Actually, if you
read there in Ephesians, the first chapter, the one who first
trusted in Christ, was the Father. Well, what did the Father trust
Him with? The gift of all of the elect.
He trusted the Son of God, who then stood as our legal representative. And God never, He has never ever
looked to His people for the satisfaction of His law, justice. Everything demanded of us, everything
required of us, He has always looked to our legal representative. We have one who stands before
God, even now, who stood before God before He made the world,
and He stood before God as our legal representative. When He
came to this earth, He came as our legal representative. And
everything the law of God demanded of us, full obedience, perfect
thoughts, perfect motives, perfect words, perfect works, everything
demanded of us, our legal representative, He took care of all that. And the law of God, of course,
demanded the penalty of sin be executed, that's death. And so
our legal representative died in our stead. He died in our
room. He died in our place, satisfying
the justice of God that demanded death for sin. And he arose again
and he ascended as our intercessor. He is our legal representative. And now he is our regal. representative. That is, he's
the king. He's the royal one. And actually,
he's always been the regal representative of his people. He is the king
of kings and the Lord of lords. He's the sovereign who reigns. And this one who is our savior
is the royal one. Boy, how wonderful to know we're
in the king's family. And not only are we in the king's
family, but the king himself represents us. There is no higher
authority. He is our legal and regal representative. Therefore, he says here in John
17, verse two, he says, as thou hast given him, and he's speaking
of himself, as thou hast given him power, authority, over all
flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast
given him. This is regal authority. Here's
the King who reigns. Now of our Lord Jesus Christ,
we know that he existed from all eternity. And he has had
an everlasting union with the Father. That's why Solomon writes
of him in the book of Song of Solomon, chapter five and verse
11. Solomon says, his locks are black
and bushy. As black as a raven is the way
Solomon expresses it. Whoa, whoa, what's he talking
about? He's talking about the youth of Christ. He's talking
about the strength of Christ. He's talking about the energy
of Christ. He is all powerful. There's nothing
beyond His ability to do if it's His will to do it. He's like
a young man in the very strength of his years. Whereas John describes
Him in Revelation chapter 1, and John says of Him, His hair
is white as snow. White as snow. Revelation 1 and
14. In fact, we read in Daniel, He's
the Ancient of Days. This is our Savior. He's ever
youthful. He's ever almighty. He's always been with the Father. Therefore, He's the Ancient of
Days because that sets forth His eternality. And this union
of the Father and the Son sets forth the union of the Son of
God and His people. I want you to look at verse 23. Our Lord Jesus says, I in them,
and He's talking about all those the Father gave Him. And this
is not just the 11 disciples. This is all who will ever believe
on Him through His Word, which He has already stated in the
verses above. He says, I in them, and thou
in me, that they may be made perfect in one. I in them. Now, who are the them? The them
are those the father gave him. Let that be established. He's
mentioned these several times. And those the father gave him,
these are the one he keeps on referring to. And he says of
these people in verse 23, I in them, I'm in these people. I'm
in these people. And then he says, and you, Father,
thou art in me. You got the union here. You see
the closeness of the Lord Jesus with us, and then the Father
with the Lord Jesus. I'm in them, you're in me. That means the Father is in us
also. In other words, God's in us.
God's in us. He is not saying that since God
is in us, we are little gods. He's not saying that we are therefore
divine. What he is setting forth is the
union that can never be dissolved between God and His people and
the Savior and those sinners that He came to redeem. I in
them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one. Perfect. Now, in the Bible, when the word
perfect is used, many times it means that we'd be justified,
made perfect. That's not what he's talking
about here. He's not talking about justification. What does
it mean to be justified? It means to be declared righteous
by God. It means to be made righteous
by God. How did he do that? How did he
do that consistent with his law and justice? He did that by the
substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The perfection
he's speaking about now is that when all the church of God comes
together as one. As one. And in that day, it will
still be with all of us together as it is with all of us individually. The Lord Jesus is in us. The
Father is in the Lord Jesus. And therefore they are united. in oneness. But even more blessed
to us, they are united with us in oneness. And that is indivisible. That's a unity that can never
be broken. And then he says this. He says
that the world may know that thou has sent me. That is, in
the day that is to come, that everlasting day, when all the
redeemed of the Lord are gathered together and we're all perfected
in Him, we're all glorified in Him, in that day, the world will
know that God sent Him. They will acknowledge that God
sent Him into this world. and that God loved all of these
that were given to Christ just as the Father loved the Son. Now this is one of the most unusual
things, one of the most blessed things. If we could ever grasp
just a little bit of it, it would really be a tremendous blessing
to all of us. How does God love his son? Well,
he loves him forever. He's always loved him. Was there
ever a time when the father did not love the son? Of course not.
Well, there's never been a time he doesn't love us then. Because
he says, he says, thou hast loved them as, you know what, the word
as, it's just two letter word, but it means to the same degree. God loves us to the exact same
degree that He loves His Son. If we could enter into that just
a little bit more, our hearts would be flooded with joy and
happiness. Look how God, how does God love
His Son? With a delight. That's how He
loves us. with great satisfaction. That's
how He loves us. Well, how can He be satisfied
with us? Don't you understand? He loves
us as He loves Christ, and He loves us in Christ with whom
He is fully satisfied. That's the reason He's satisfied
with us. That's the reason He sees no sins or faults in His
people. Does He see any sins or faults
in His Son? Well, of course not. All of that
was dealt with 2,000 years ago at the cross of Calvary. And
the Savior, having taken our iniquities, our guilt, our transgressions
upon Himself, He then bore them away into a land uninhabited.
He buried them in the depths of the deepest sea. He put them
behind God's back. They're gone. And as God sees
no sin in His only begotten Son, He sees no sin in us. There's
nothing to upset God. If I could use the word upset,
there's nothing to make Him angry. We say, doesn't the Bible say
God is angry with the wicked every day? Absolutely it says
that. But we're not wicked. You know
what we are? Righteous. We're not wicked at
all. You say, oh, when I get up in
the morning and I look myself in the mirror, I'm looking in
the face of somebody who's wicked. Yes, in and of yourself you are,
but in Christ Jesus you're not. You're not. And I just don't
think we enjoy the fullness of our forgiveness and of our righteous
standing in Christ Jesus. And to think that God loves us
as he loves his son is absolutely marvelous. It's a love that will never be
dissolved. It's a love that's never ending. It's a love that has no degrees. There are no degrees of the love
of God. You know, there's a verse over
in, and you know it well, over in Romans chapter nine, where
the apostle says, Jacob, if I love, Esau have I hated. Well, lots of people in an effort
to avoid that, what they consider to be the harshness of the verse, they say, they put it this way,
Jacob have I loved, Esau have I loved less. That's how they
try to take the sting out of it. But here's what people who do
that, who decide they're gonna change the Word of God, they're
already in deep trouble. But here's what they don't understand.
Whatever it is that God does, He does it with all of His might. They forget who we're talking
about. We're talking about God. And there are no degrees of what
he does. And if God loves, he must love
totally. You know, we say, here's a young
couple gets married. And the groom says to his bride,
I love you with all my heart. I love you with all my heart.
So are you saying that love's not gonna grow? Well, no, that's
not what I'm saying. And you know, that love does
grow, doesn't it? Sure, it grows, it matures. And in that sense, it is getting
better. And I can say, we've surely enjoyed
the, greatly enjoyed and appreciated the celebration Sunday night
of our 50th wedding anniversary. And I loved her, I loved Nancy
when we were married, but I love her more now. It's a love that
has grown. But God's love can't grow, see. His love is not like our love.
That's why we get in big trouble when we start bringing God down
and trying to understand Him in the light of how we feel or
how we do. You can't do that. God, when He loves, He truly
loves with all His heart. And that's a bunch. That's a
lot. Well, how much did He love us? So much that He gave His only
begotten Son to die for us. And that's what John said over
there in 1 John chapter 4. Herein is love, not that we love
God. But that He loved us and gave
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Propitiation, what's
that? The satisfaction of divine justice,
to be the mercy seat. He gave His Son to be our mercy
seat. This is a love that has no depth. You can't measure the depth of
the love of God. It's too high. You can't measure
how high it is. It's too wide. It's an infinite
love. That's how God loves. That's why it is so utterly foolish
for anybody to say God loves everybody in the whole wide world. He doesn't. You know that's not true. If
he loved everybody in the whole wide world with all of his heart,
there wouldn't be anybody in hell. Don't be like there's a guy,
his last name was Smith, and he wrote a book on Revelation,
and he made a statement like this. He said, here's what hell
is. It is a revelation of the colossal failure of the love
of God to rescue all the objects that he loved. Is that what hell
is? Does that represent a colossal failure on God's part? Bible
says God can't fail. I assure you, no, the Word of
God assures you, nobody will ever perish that God loves with
all of his heart. Can't do it. That's impossible. And of course, if you say, as
one preacher I heard say one time, he professed to be a sovereign
grace preacher. He was preaching for Jack Shanks.
And Jack and David Pledger A couple of other preachers there really
began to tangle with this guy. He said there was a time, he's
talking to sinners, he said, listen, if you're yet in unbelief,
God hates you. But when you come to believe
the Lord Jesus, that hatred is turned into love. Well, that's
heretical too. Because that means God changes. He can't change. If He loves
you, He's always loved you. And if He hates you, He's always
hated you. That's the way God is. You see, God cannot love except
with all the love that He has. He does not love by degrees.
He doesn't love some more than others. About three really. beautiful
statements about the love of God in John chapter 11. One is
when Mary and Martha sent word to the Savior about their brother
being sick. They said, he whom thou lovest
is sick. I bet you there's a lot of sick
people in and around Bethany. Nothing was said about God loving
them. Christ loving them. And then you go a little bit
further in chapter 11, it says, now Jesus loved Mary and Martha. This is not a sentimental desire
that some good things happen to them.
This is the love of His heart. And when the Lord Jesus goes
to the tomb of Lazarus, in that most powerful verse, John 11,
35, which all of us can quote, because it's the shortest verse
in the Bible in the English language, Jesus wept. The next verse says,
the next verse said, the people all said, behold, how he loved
him. They had no idea how much he
loved him. They could not comprehend the
depth of the love that the Lord Jesus Christ had for Lazarus
and for all of his Lazaruses. Notice as we keep reading here,
look at verse 24. He says, Father, I will that
they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory,
which thou hast given me, for or because thou lovest me before
the foundation of the world. And remember, He loves his people
like he loves his son. So how long has God been in love
with you? Since before the foundation of
the world. And he goes on to say this, look
at verses 25 and 26. Oh, righteous father, the world
has not known thee. The world doesn't know God. We
read this past Lord's Day from 1 Corinthians 1, the world by
wisdom knew not God. It's what it said, wasn't it?
Knew not God. And the Savior says, O righteous
father, the world doesn't know you, but I've known you. And these have known that thou
didst send me. These know, they know who I am. They know you sent me to be their
Savior, to be their Redeemer. And he says in verse 26, and
I have declared unto them thy name and will declare it that the love wherewith thou
hast loved me may be in them and I in them. The Lord Jesus
is saying, here's the reason I proclaimed who God is. that they may know about this
love. And that this love that you have
for them will be in them. And I'll be in them. It's a love
that will never fail. It's a love that will never cease.
It's a love that is changeless. You remember the Lord said to
Jeremiah, He says, I have loved thee with an everlasting love,
therefore in loving kindness have I drawn you. The love of
God to us is unmerited. Hosea 14, 4, I will love them
freely. The Lord's love for us has no
barrier. Did he stop loving us when we
fell in Adam? Was that a barrier to His love? It was a barrier to our drawing
near to Him. Yes. It was a barrier of God
drawing near to us. Yes. But it wasn't a barrier
to His love. He didn't stop loving us when
we fell in at Him. And this is beautifully illustrated
in the story in Luke chapter 15, the prodigal son, he left,
he took all of his inheritance, he went and he spent it all on
riotous living. And finally, when he's slopping
the hogs, he says, I'm a fool. My father's hired servants, they're
doing a whole lot better than I'm doing, look at me. I'm going
home. I'm going to memorize a little
speech of confession. I'm sorry, Father. Did the father
ever stop loving him? No. Did the father ever stop
caring about him? No. Did the father ever stop
having warm feelings toward his son? No. I can just see him in
my mind's eyes out on the front porch in a rocking chair, looking. And he sees him, and he recognizes
him, and he just takes off running. You see, the sin of that man
was no barrier to the Father's love. And our sin against God
is no barrier to His love, for He in His infinite wisdom came
up with the way of removing the barrier. Without doing any damage to His
own holy character. The love of God. It's evidenced
by the gift that He gave. And this love of God is saving. I had a good friend of mine wrote
this down. He said, love is a living principle
which finds its satisfaction and fulfillment in bestowing
the best it can upon the objects of its affection. It cannot be
happy except to the extent that it can satisfy that desire or
ambition. My friend J.D. Butler wrote that. It's a powerful statement. Love
is a living principle which finds its satisfaction and fulfillment
in bestowing the best it can on the objects of its affection
and cannot be happy except to the extent that it can satisfy
that desire or ambition. God gave us the best. That's
how we know the love of God. He gave us the best. Can't give
us any better than the Lord Jesus Christ. My, what love. And I'll tell you, the love of
the Father for the Son is the The foundation, let me just give
this to you and I'll quit. It's the foundation upon which
the Savior's prayer rests. It's quite powerful. Look again
in verse 24. He says this, Father, I will
that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am,
that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me. For
thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. For thou lovest
me. Thou lovest me. There's something very, very
comforting about this because all of the promises of God in
Christ Jesus, they don't rest upon our love for the Lord. Aren't
you glad? The fulfillment of all the promises
of God are not founded upon our love for the Lord. We're grateful
for that. But there's something else here. It isn't even founded, watch
it, upon God's love for us. Now look at it again. Which thou
hast given me. For it doesn't say for thou lovest
them, though he did. But here's the foundation for
everything good that God does for his people. Thou lovest me. It's the Father's love for the
Son. That's why we're saved forever.
It's that union, it's that relationship between the Father and the Son.
That's why we're not going to perish. It is in our love for
the Lord, and there's a sense in which it isn't even God's
love for us. It's God's love for His Son.
If we could ever learn this, everything good God has for us
is in Christ Jesus. It's where it's at. Not anywhere else. Not anywhere
else. This is a wondrous love. Well,
let's sing a closing song.