this evening, John and we go
back to chapter 15. I will speak to you about the relationship
of the Lord Jesus and His people. Well, as chapter 15 begins, 12
men are walking toward a garden. One leads the way, the others
Follow. It's the Lord Himself who walks
ahead of these men and they follow. Like it says in the book of Revelation
concerning the people of God, these are they which follow the
Lamb whithersoever he goeth. Our Lord said, My sheep hear
My voice, And I know them and they follow me. They follow me. These men are going to follow
the Savior. He said to them in the last statement
of chapter 14, Arise, let us go hence. He got up, they got
up. He walked out, they walked out. He begins to go toward the garden,
And they, as obedient sheep, they follow the shepherd. They've left the upper room now
where they had been meeting. Our Lord ate the last Passover
with them. There he instituted the Lord's
Supper. It was in that upper room, as
you will recall, that The devil entered into the heart of Judas,
and he left the master to go out and finish the deal that
he had made with the chief priests to betray the master into their
hands. And after Judas had left, our
Lord Jesus begins to speak words that are so comforting and wonderful
and instructive to his disciples that they didn't only bless those
men, but they blessed the people of God for all these centuries. Ever since the Spirit of God
inspired John to write these words, which we have, which men
have divided this into John chapter 14, ever since these were written,
all of God's people have found great consolation from this passage
of Scripture. And we're thankful for it. And
then at the very end of chapter 14, he said, let's go. Let's
go. Arise, let us go hence. Now they didn't know where they
were going. But he did. And he led them. Now we know,
as the people of God, we know where we're ultimately going. We're going to glory. We're going
to heaven. We know we're going there, but
we don't know the different directions that He'll take us on the way. But He does. And this is a great comfort to
us. Years ago we used to sing a chorus,
My Lord knows the way through the wilderness. All I have to
do is just follow. Follow. I don't take the lead. When we make an effort to take
the lead, that's when we get in trouble. We follow because
He's all wise. He knows where we need to go. And in this occasion, He's going
to the garden. He's going to offer that prayer
of John chapter 17, and then he's going to the cross of Calvary
where he will give his life a ransom for these men. Now, as they go,
he continues to teach them in John chapters 15 and 16, he reveals
himself again as being the very prophet of God that Moses had
spoken about. He's teaching them the word of
God. And he's our prophet. He's the
one who teaches us. We listen to him. We take in
his word. We consider nobody else's voice
to be the authority except the voice of Christ Jesus. And so
as they go, as they go toward the garden, he continues to fulfill
the office of the prophet. After all, never a man spake
like this man. But he will very quickly get
to another office, which he will reveal to them he's their priest. And as in the Old Testament,
a priest had two duties. Number one, he made intercession
for the people. He's going to do that. That's
what He does in John chapter 17. In fact, He will say, I pray
not for the world. I pray for these that Thou hast
given Me. He's going to make intercession
for His people. And then He's going to do the
other work that an Old Testament priest did. He's going to offer
the sacrifice to God which will once and forever put away all
the sins of His people. Here's the prophet. He's teaching
them. Chapters actually go back to
13, 14, 15, and 16. He's the prophet. You get to
chapter 17. Here is the priest. He speaks
to the on their behalf. These men have
a tremendous work that awaits them. He's been teaching them
the gospel for the better part of three years. He's equipping
them. He's kind of honing their abilities
and their talents. After all, He's the one who handpicked
each of these men. and they've got to go out and
preach the gospel. He will give to them the great
commission, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to
every creature, and he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.
He that doesn't believe, God says he'll be damned. Our Lord
Jesus, He's been preparing these men for the work that awaited
them. And now He's going to When we
get to chapter 17, he's gonna pray for them. He makes intercession
for us. You see, back in the Old Testament,
there was, as you know, seven pieces of furniture in the tabernacle.
One of them was the altar of incense. That's where they burn
incense. The priests did it, and on the
Day of Atonement, the high priest did that. But they didn't just
put some incense and start burning it. They had to go out to the
brazen altar. And out at the brazen altar where
the offering had been presented to God, where the animal had
been offered to God, they got those hot coals off of the brazen
altar. And then they put that in the
censer. And then they go back, especially
on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would put incense
upon those hot coals. Because you see back there at
the brazen altar, that's Christ crucified. There's substitution. There's the work of redemption.
Everything our Lord Jesus did, And thus, as our intercessor
and as our high priest, is based upon the fact he offered the
sacrifice to God that put away our sins. And his intercessory
work is based upon that. That's the reason the hot coals
came off the brazen altar. And then it was on those hot
coals all the aromatic incense was put. That's our Lord praying
for us. That's our Lord interceding for
us. He's the one who accomplished
redemption for us. And on the basis of His life
laid down, God is satisfied. And He offers Him, having offered
Himself as the sacrifice to God, He offers to the Father prayers
for His people. And then he will go to do the
next work of the high priest, which is to offer to God the
sacrifice that will once and forever put away the sins of
his people. Ah, what a great responsibility.
What a weight is upon the Savior. And I know he's the God man. He's mighty, the scripture says,
mighty to save. He's the mighty God. But it's
very obvious from reading toward the end of Matthew and Mark and
Luke, that when he did pray in the garden, he sweat, as it were,
great drops of blood. He felt the weight of what He
was going to do. He was going to have to endure
the wrath that He knew quite a bit about because it was His
own wrath. It was the wrath that He had
poured out on the ungodly who were spending eternity in hell.
And He knew that wrath awaited Him. Because He had to bear all
the sins of all of His elect in His own body on the tree. and feeling the weight of that
responsibility. He said, Father, if it be Thy
will, let this cup pass from me. So all of this awaits Him,
but even though it did, it's as though all of His attention
is upon these men and their welfare. He wants to
put their minds and their hearts at ease. He knows how troubled
they are. It says He's touched with the feelings
of our infirmities. We don't have a high priest who's
beyond feeling, who's beyond empathizing with his children. He walked on this earth, He's
faced what we face, He's faced the trials, He's faced the temptations,
He's faced the troubles, and He came through them all. And
when we're in the very heat of affliction, He fills it. In some mysterious way, He enters
into it. as it says in the book of Isaiah.
In their affliction, in all of their afflictions, he was afflicted.
That's what it says concerning the Son of God who went with
Israel through their wilderness journeys. Here's the angel of
the covenant. In all their afflictions, think
of all of the afflictions of the Israelites in the wilderness. And yet it says in all of their
afflictions, he was afflicted. I don't even know what that means. I can't even begin to enter into
that. Except to say this, He's touched
with our infirmities. And so here He is, He's concerned
about these men even though a great work awaits Him. A work that
is stupendous. A work that is marvelous. No
greater work has ever been done. that which faced him was judgment
and wrath and the anger of God, the cup of God's righteous indignation
that he must drink down to its last bitter dregs. But he takes
time, he's teaching these men and then he's going to pray for
these men as their high priest and then he's going to present
himself to God as that sacrifice to put away their sins. He said,
I'll lay down my life. No man can take my life from
me, he said. I have the power to lay it down,
he said, and I have the power to take it again. This commandment
have I received of my Father. So here we see the prophet. Here
we see the priest. And when he goes to die, what's
written up on top of the cross. What is that inscription? Jesus
of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. There He is, there's our
Savior, Prophet, Priest, and King. He will be the altar, He
will be the priest, and He will be the sacrifice, And there is
the King dying for us. And He shows He's the King because
He absolutely triumphs over Satan. He triumphs over our sin. He goes into the grave and He
triumphs over death. He's the King. And when he died, his death guaranteed
that all for whom he gave his life will never feel the curse
of the broken law because he died in our stead. This is our savior. We have a wonderful relationship
to him. which he brings out quite beautifully
here in John chapter 15. Let me give you four things very
briefly. Number one, this relationship
between the Lord Jesus and his people is one of vital union. These men are walking toward
the garden. The Lord himself begins to speak
to them about their union with him and he illustrates it by
speaking of a vine and its branches in the first eight verses. You
see the relationship of Christ Jesus with His people is a living
relationship. It's a vital relationship. Because just like the branch
gets life from the vine, so we get our life and our nourishment
from Christ Jesus who is the true vine. This is a real spiritual
union. We're united to Christ Jesus. We are one with Him. We're one
with Him. The Scripture likens it a few
different ways, like the head is united to the body. You're
one person. You're not a head and then a
separate body. That wouldn't be good. You're
one. That's us in the Savior. He's
the head, we're the body. This union is also likened to
a husband and a wife. And we read in Ephesians chapter
4, this is a great mystery, this union is a great mystery. Not
so much the mystery of the union of a husband and wife, though
they're one, what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder,
can't be divided. They're one. But you read there
in Ephesians chapter 4, Paul says, I speak of Christ and His
church. We're one. We're one, like the
vine and the branches. One, like the head and the body.
One, like the husband and the wife. We're one. This is a union
that is beyond human description. We use a few illustrations to
try to get us to commence to beginning to understanding what
he's talking about, but this defies definement. You see, this is more than outward
conformity to a few religious rules. This is more than making
a decision. This is more than just coming
together and we'll sing, oh how I love Jesus. No, this is a living,
vital, everlasting union. We're one with Jesus Christ and
we have been so from all eternity. This is not a relationship that
began in time. It didn't begin when we came
to the Savior in saving faith. This is a relationship from old
eternity. When God the Father gave us to
the everlasting Son of God, we were united to Him. We've always
been united to Him. If you want to know how close
we are to Christ, look back in chapter 14 and verse 20. At that
day, chapter 14, verse 20, at that day, at that day when the
Holy Spirit is given in the fullness of his grace and power, at that
day, shall you know that I am in the Father? What kind of union
is that? My goodness, that's an everlasting
union. I am in the Father. Remember,
he already stated back in John chapter 10 and verse 30, I and
the Father are one. And now he says, at that day
when the Spirit of God comes, you shall know that I am in my
Father. He's united to the Father. And
then watch this, and you are in me. You know, we read, Christ in
you, the hope of glory. There's union right there, but
now he says, ye in me, and now, I in you. That's what he says. Nearer to God we cannot be, because
we're in the person of Jesus Christ, who is Himself God. I in my Father, I'm in my Father,
you're in me, and I'm in you. Look at John 17. Look at a couple
of statements over here at John 17, verse 20. John 17, notice
verse 20. Neither pray I for these alone,
but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.
Who would that be? Well, that includes us. and all the saints of God who
read the writings of these apostles and God saves them. Verse 21, that they all may be
one as thou father art in me and I in thee, that they also
may be one in us. One in us. 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. I in them and thou in me, that
they may be made perfect in one. And that the world may know that
thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. This is the eternal union of
the Savior with us. How close are we to the Savior?
Just as close as He is to the Father. If that doesn't float you boat,
folks, if that doesn't put a little wind in your sails, I don't know
what will. We're as close to the Savior
as our beloved Savior is to the Father. All right, secondly,
this relationship. Number one, I said this relationship
between Christ and His people is one of vital union. Number
two, this relationship between Christ and His people is one
of unending love. Look at verse nine back in chapter
15. As the Father hath loved me,
the Savior says, so have I loved you. Continue in my love. How does the Father love the
Son? Well, ever how He loves the Son is how the Son loves
us. How does the Father love the
Son? He loved Him from everlasting. In other words, it was a love
that never had a beginning because God never had a beginning. God
the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit never had a beginning.
So this is a love that's from old, from everlasting. And that's how He has loved us. As the Father loved Him with
a love of delight, a love of satisfaction. You know, when
God the Father looks at the Lord Jesus Christ, He's always delighted
in Him. He's always pleased with Him.
He's always thrilled with Him. That's the way Christ is with
us. It's a love of delight. He's thrilled with us. He's delighted
with us. And as the Father loved Him,
with a special and peculiar affection, with an unchanging, constant
love, that's why Christ loves us. His love for us is not like our
love for Him. Because our love for the Lord
Jesus, though it is real, Because the Scripture says we love Him
because He first loved us. It is a real love. But it is
an imperfect love. It is a love that grows. It is a love that is maturing.
It is a love that will not be perfected until we get to glory. But we do love Him. We do love
Him. But our love for Him is nothing
to speak of. That's the reason I have such
difficulty. And I've never selected this
song for us to sing, Oh, How I Love Jesus. Though I do love the Lord Jesus,
and I love Him because He first loved me, I have great difficulty even thinking about my love for
him, and I have great difficulty certainly singing about my love
for him. But I can sure sing about his
love for me. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus. That's what we sang a while ago.
Vast, unmeasured, deep. So deep you can't fathom it.
It's all around me. It's up above me. It's down beneath
me. It's everywhere. It's in front
of me. It's behind me. This love of the Lord Jesus for
me. It's an unending love. You see, the love of our Savior
toward us is just like Himself. The same. Yesterday, and today,
and forever. It doesn't change. It doesn't
change when we disobey Him. It never fluctuates. You see,
the love of our Lord Jesus is an absolutely perfect love for
us. It's like likened unto the love
of a bridegroom for his bride. Husbands, love your wives as
Christ loved Himself for the church and gave Himself for it. It's like the love of a father
for his children, for He's our everlasting Father. Therefore,
He says in John 12, having loved His own, which are in the world,
He loved them to the end. He says this in verse 9, in my
love. 15 verse 9 says, continue ye
in my love. Continue to value my love. Continue
to believe my love. Continue to rest in my love. Don't forget about my love. Love's
behind it all. That's right. He predestinated us in love. under the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ unto himself. You've heard a number of times,
Christ Jesus didn't come to this world to get God in the notion
of loving us. He came into the world because
God did love us. He loved us with this love that
is from old eternity. Because he loved us, Christ laid
down his life for us. And of course, verse 13 says,
greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his
life for his friends, in the stead of his friends. Our Lord
Jesus, how much does He love us? He loved us so much, when
He saw danger coming toward us, He pushed us out of the way,
and He died in our stead. That's love right there. The
wrath of God would roll over us. The anger of God would consume
us. But our Lord Jesus pushed us
out of the way to everlasting safety. And He says, Father,
take Me instead. And the Father did take Him and
poured all of His wrath on His only begotten Son. And I'll tell
you, because He loves us, He treats us, Not servants, but
his friends. Look at verse 15. He says, henceforth,
I call you not servants. And of course, there is a sense
we're all the servants of the Lord. We're bond slaves of Christ
Jesus. But he says, we're more than
servants. He says, for the servant knoweth
not what his Lord doeth. But I've called you friends.
For all things that I have heard of my Father, I've made known
to you." I've told you secrets. I've told you things that nobody
else knows. And the Lord has shared with
us, those of us who are His friends, He's befriended us from old eternity. He's shared with us things that
He doesn't share with the world, like how God can be just and
justify the ungodly. He doesn't tell that to everybody.
That's a secret. Millions and millions of people
will never know. But we do. We do. And we would be very contented
to say, Lord, make me as one of your hired servants. That's
what the prodigal son said. When he went home, make me as
one of your hired servants. And the father wouldn't have
anything to do with that. Bring the best robe. This is
my son. Put a ring on his finger. Sonship. Put shoes on his feet. And put
a glorious robe on him. Oh, he's way above a servant. He's a friend. And even more
than that, it shows in some places, we're sons of God. We're children
of God. Now, this relationship, number
three, this relationship between Christ and His people is evidenced
by our love for other children of God. He says in verse 12, this is
my commandment that ye love one another as I have loved you. The law says love your neighbor
as yourself. Our Lord Jesus has elevated this
law, and he says, love one another to the same degree that I have
loved you. Let's love one another, because
love is of God. That's why it's wrong for us
to harbor resentment against anybody, especially the people
of God, especially those of the household of faith. Don't have
a bad attitude toward anybody who's mistreated you. As people of God, we can sometimes
say things, and it hurts. With our words, we can hurt one
another. We don't aim to, and sometimes
we don't even realize we've done it. But when somebody hurts your
feelings, they say something to you, just love them. That's what our Lord says, love
them. Love them. Brother Joe read to us here from
Ephesians 4, Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving
one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven
you. Love the people of God because we're in the same family. The
same family. Notice what he says. Go back
to chapter 13, 34 and 35. Chapter 13, verses 34 and 35. A new commandment I give unto you
that you love one another as I have loved you that you also
love one another. By this shall all men know that
you're my disciples if you have love one to another. The distinguishing
badge. It's amazing, the distinguishing
characteristic of a disciple of Christ Jesus. Watch it. It's
not his dress, not how he dresses or how she dresses. It's not
where they go or where they don't go. It's not living some kind
of austere life. It's that they love one another. That's what distinguishes the
people of God from those who are false disciples. We love each other so that when
we're wronged, we forgive. And what do we do when we're
mistreated? We return from mistreatment.
Not evil, but kindness. Kindness. It's the reason the Lord says,
go back, take a minute, go back to Matthew chapter five. Here's his words on the Sermon
on the Mount. Look at Matthew chapter five,
verse 43. You have heard that it hath been
said, Matthew 5, 43. You have heard that it hath been
said, thou shall love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy, but I say
unto you, love your enemies. You know, that's gonna take grace.
That's gonna take grace to love your enemies. No, I wanna get
even with my enemies, but that's wrong. That's wrong. Love your enemies, bless them
that curse you, Do good to them that hate you. Pray for them which despitefully
use you and persecute you. I have found that one of the
ways to take away at least some of the anger and frustration
I get with some people is to just pray for them. It's something
about praying for somebody earnestly and truthfully. It kind of takes
the starch out of you. Takes a lot of that foolish harboring
of grudges, kind of takes it away from you. That's not to
say we can fully forget things that are done for us, but I tell
you, we can choose not to labor upon them and just not to think
upon them. Just pray for them. Pray for
them. Somebody does something to you
or says something to you, when you're alone with God, just pour
out your heart to God. Pray for God's mercy for them. Watch it. He says, that you may
be the children of your Father which is in heaven. And I take
that verse to be that you may be like or resemble your Father
which is in heaven. For He makes the rain to rise
on the evil and on the good. If you was in control of the
rain, would you send the rain upon the evil? Would you send
rain upon those who despised you and cursed your name? If
you's in charge of the rain, it's a good thing we're not. God is. See, He sends His rain
on the just, on the justified ones, on the righteous ones,
And He also sends His reign upon the unjust, the unjustified and
the unrighteous. He says, for if ye love them
which love you, what reward have you? It's easy to do. You say,
I love you, Pastor. It's easy for me to say, I love
you too. But on the other hand, if somebody
came up to me and said, I despise the ground you walk on. What am I supposed to do? What's
to be my attitude? It's to love Him. That's a tall
order, isn't it? It's to love Him. Well, you see,
here's the reason. When we despised God, He loved
us. He didn't turn away from us.
He didn't say, if that's going to be your attitude toward me,
I'll never have anything to do with you." No, that's not the
way God treated us. Let's resemble our Heavenly Father. After all, we're in His family.
Go back to John again, real quick. And here's the last thing. Here's the last thing. This relationship
between Christ and His people is on account of something the
Lord did for us. Verse 16, you have not chosen
me. John 15, 16, you have not chosen
me, but I've chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring
forth fruit. What do you think that fruit is? It's the fruit that the branches
bear because they're attached to the vine. It's the fruit of
the Spirit. I have ordained you that you
should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain,
that whatsoever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give
it you." Think about this. Our Lord, He looks at the eleven
men walking with Him as He leads them toward Gethsemane. He glances over toward John and
says, John, you didn't choose Me. I chose you. Phillip, you didn't choose me. I chose you. Joe, you didn't
choose me. I chose you. Bill, you didn't
choose me. I chose you. Ron, you didn't
choose me. I chose you. He brings it right
down to our level. Remember that this all started
with Him. This relationship between the
people of God and our Lord Jesus, it all began in sovereign free
grace. You didn't choose me. I chose
you. You didn't begin this relationship. In fact, you didn't even want
it. You wasn't even interested in it. It's all because of me. You didn't seek me, I sought
you. You weren't interested in me,
I was interested in you. You didn't love me, but I loved
you and I chose you. And old him, I came to love many
years ago. It's written by a guy whose name
is Josiah Conter. Back in 1856, he wrote these
lines. "'Tis not that I did choose thee,
for, Lord, that could not be. This heart would still refuse
thee. Hast thou not chosen me? Thou,
from the sin that stained me, hast washed and set me free,
and to this end ordained me that I should live to thee. To a sovereign
mercy called me, and taught my opening mind. The world had else
enthralled me to heavenly glories blind. My heart owns none before
thee, for thy rich grace I thirst. This knowing, if I love thee,
you must have loved me first." I love that song. You see, the
Lord could have passed us by. All of each of you. The Lord
could have passed us by. Never spoke a word to us and
He would have been just in doing that. We didn't deserve any mercy. If we deserved it, it wouldn't
be mercy. He didn't have to call us. He didn't have to speak to
us. He could have just let us go
on our merry way all the way to hell. But He didn't. You didn't
choose me. I chose you. I chose Him. You want to talk about the relationship
between Christ and His people? Right here is where it started. The election of grace. The election
of grace. You say, why won't we choose
the Lord? Well, we won't choose the Lord
because we don't know we need Him. Scripture says the whole need
not a physician. Who does? Sick people, right? Sick people need a physician.
We don't know we're sick. We don't know we're bad off.
We don't know we're lepers. We don't have any idea of our
awful dilemma. We're standing on the verge of
eternity and there's hell. Hell itself is gaping our mouth
wide open to receive us. We don't know anything about
that. It's only the mercy of God that keeps anybody out. It's
only the grace of God that keeps people out forever. Why don't people choose Christ?
They don't feel they need Him. Number two, they don't see that
salvation is by grace alone. Most people in this world think
salvation is kind of a let's make a deal sort of thing. You know how it works. God helps
those who help themselves. That's the mentality of the world's
religion. You do for God, God will do for
you. Men understand that. They understand the reward system. But salvation is not on a reward
system. It's on a grace system. Grace. What they don't understand is
salvation is by pure, undiluted grace. And then thirdly, they
don't see the wisdom of a crucified Savior. Salvation is by substitution.
It's by sacrifice. It's by satisfaction. It's by
the wisdom of God and the power of God. But to the unregenerated
man, the gospel is foolishness to him. That's what it says in
1 Corinthians 1. To the unregenerated man, the
salvation of sinners by the sacrifice of Christ is foolishness. You see, the world sees no holiness
of God to be declared. They don't think about the holiness
of God. All the world thinks about is God is love. That's
all they think about. Well, you know, God's love. Well,
He is. But I'll tell you, his holiness
has got to be dealt with and faced. Because he's got a holy
love and he's got a holy hatred, too. The world sees no justice of
God to be satisfied. The world sees no wrath of God
to be poured out. The world sees no law of God
that has to be honored. The world sees no righteousness
of Christ that has to be freely imputed. The world sees no crimes
against God, crimes, transgressions against God that have to be answered
for. They don't see those things. We don't choose the Lord. And
He just comes right down to this relationship between you and
me. That's vital, like the vine and the branches. That began
with love. And love between you, my love
affects how you treat one another. But it all began right here.
You didn't choose me. I don't care who you are. He
didn't choose me. He said, I chose you. That's
where it all got started. That's why I love the doctrine
of God's electing grace. That's where it all started.
I wouldn't love him if he hadn't loved me forever. I wouldn't
have chosen him had he not chosen me. Well, let's sing a closing
song. Number two. Number two. That's standard.