I can't think of anything in
this world more miserable, more utterly miserable than living
with the thoughts, with the firm persuasion that no one loves
you. that no one cares at all about
you. I can't think of anything more
miserable, but I can think of nothing more joyful than the
knowledge of Christ's love for me. It is my soul's delight to contemplate
it. Just think of this, the son of
God loved me and gave himself for me. I stand amazed in the
presence of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder how he could love
me, a sinner condemned unclean. I want, if God will enable me,
to preach to you about the great, immeasurable, incomprehensible
love of Christ for our souls as our Savior himself declares
it in John chapter 15 and verse 9. John chapter 15, verse 9. The Lord Jesus says to you who
believe, to you who are his disciples, to you who trust him. This is what he says to you.
As the father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. So have I loved you. That's my subject and a big one
it is. Here are deep green pastures
in which the good shepherd makes his sheep to lie down and find
rest for their souls as the father hath loved me, so have I loved
you. Here are still waters beside
which he graciously leads us and refreshes our spirits. As the Father hath loved me,
so have I loved you. These are the paths of righteousness
in which our Lord graciously compels us to walk. This is the
table he spreads before us in the presence of our enemies and
causes our hearts to rejoice. As the father hath loved me,
so have I loved you. What sweet rest I find in this
blessed assurance of his love. The love of Christ is the great
cause of redemption and salvation. It is as the sun in the midst
of the heavens of grace. May God the Holy Spirit help
us today to plunge into this deep, deep ocean of grace and
drink and drink and drink until our souls are satiated and overflowing. As the Father hath loved me,
so have I loved you. I want to know, and I want you
to know, the love of Christ that passeth knowledge. This knowledge of his love is
such that Paul calls it that which God communicates to us
out of the riches of his glory. Oh, I want to know and I want
you to know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge that we
may be filled with all the fullness of God come Oh, Holy Spirit,
come, come this day upon us. Take this thing of Christ and
show it to us. I want to show you one thing.
I want you to see and be assured of this one thing. Every sinner
who trusts Christ, that includes you, if this moment God will
give you grace to trust his son. Every sinner who trusts Christ
matters not who you are. It matters not what you've done. Oh, but Brother Don, you don't
know how base, how vile, how corrupt, how horrible I am. No, I don't. No, I don't. But he does. And this is his word to every
sinner who trusts him. As the father hath loved me,
even so have I loved you. I want you to know that every
sinner who trusts Christ is loved of him, even as he is loved of
the father. Let me show you four things. First, the very first thing I
want to say is this, with regard to the love of Christ, believe
it. Believe it. Oh, may God enable us to believe
it. May he give us grace and faith
to believe it unquestioningly. If we trust the son of God as
our savior, We have every reason to believe that which is here
declared by him to us, as the father hath loved me, so have
I loved you. He loves us infinitely, infinitely. Others talk about the love of
God and our Savior's obedience and grace to us as being universal
things. They talk about his love in general
terms of meaningless love and meaningless benevolence toward
all men. But our Savior speaks here to
his disciples. He speaks to his own and only
to his own. And he tells us that his love
for us is a peculiar, distinct, and distinguishing love just
for us. Love to those whom he says, you've
not chosen me, but I've chosen you. If we are in him, as branches
are in the vine, We're the objects of the Savior's peculiar, distinct
love. He speaks of his church as his
choice bride. And each one personally, he says
to each one, as the father has loved me, so have I loved you. Does the son of God speak those
words to you? Are they addressed to me? If
you believe Him, they are. If you believe Him, they are.
Now, people say, well, I'm just not sure. Do you believe on the
Son of God? Do you trust the Lord Jesus?
You know the answer to that question. You know the answer. I'm not
asking how much you trust him. I'm not asking how great your
faith is. I'm not asking what you know
or don't know. I'm asking, do you trust the
Son of God? If so, the Savior says, as the
Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Would you think
of questioning? Would you ever think of questioning
that the Father loves Him? Would you ever imagine, I don't
know whether the Father really loves the Son or not. I don't
know whether the triune Jehovah really loves Christ the Mediator
or not. Would you ever have such a thought
cross your mind? Well, no, Pastor. Why then would
you question what He says here about His love for you? You have
the same authority for both. He says, the Father loves me,
and as the Father loves me, so have I loved you. That he truly
loves us, we may confidently believe, though we might do so
rightfully, we might conclude, we might infer from all that
he is and has done, that he loves us. But he doesn't leave it to
be inferred. He states it as a matter of fact. We're simply to believe him,
to rest confident in his love, to trust him, trusting him to
trust his love. All right. First, then believe
it. Second, as if to confirm his love to us and seal it to
our hearts, that we might absolutely be assured of it and know something
of its indescribable greatness. Our savior draws a parallel to
his love. He doesn't say As you have loved
me, so have I loved you. He doesn't say as a man loves
his wife, so have I loved you. He doesn't say as a mother loves
her baby, so have I loved you. No, he says as the father has
loved me, so have I loved you. Now listen, our blessed savior
would have us to place his love for us in the same category as
the father's love for him. He would have you and me to place
his love for us in the same category as the father's love for him. How does the father Love the
son. Well, he loves him as one with
himself. Essentially one with himself.
God, the father, God, the son and God, the Holy Spirit, dwelling
together in the ineffable glory of the triune, eternal Godhead,
love one another perfectly and love one another with complete
complacency so that the father loves the son as one with himself. That's exactly what the Spirit
of God tells us about our Savior's love for us. You remember in
Ephesians 5 where Paul speaks of a man loving his wife? And
he said, he that loveth his wife loveth himself. No man ever yet
hated his own body, his own flesh, but nourisheth it and cherisheth
it, even as Christ the church. He loves us. And when he does,
he loves himself. We're one with him so that he
loves us as one with him. Think about that and be assured
of the Savior's love. He loves his own body because
of his love for us. The Lord Jesus was chosen of
his father He says, behold, my servant, whom I uphold, mine
elect, in whom my soul delighteth. Because the father loves the
son, he chosen to be a servant. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter six. Deuteronomy chapter, I'm sorry,
chapter seven, Deuteronomy seven. The father loved the son, his
chosen servant as his servant from everlasting. And he loves
us everlastingly. He loves us with an eternal,
everlasting love. You remember how he puts it here?
Deuteronomy seven, verse six. Thou art and holy people under
the Lord, thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen
thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that
are upon the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love
upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than
any people, for you were the fewest of all people, but because
the Lord loved you. That's all. because the Lord
loved you and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn
to your fathers. So that the Lord brought you
out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen
from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He loved you because
he loved you. We sometimes ask why? Because
he would. That's all. His love for us finds
nothing in us to attract it. His love for us finds nothing
in us to draw him to love us. His love for us was not attracted
to us by something we thought, said, or did, or something he
saw that we might possibly think, say, or do. Oh, no. His love
for us is absolutely free. He loved us eternally. Loving
us, he chose us. You see, God's free election
flows from the fountain of his everlasting love. In love, he
predestinated us under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. Hear this
and rejoice. The son of God loved you before
the world began just because He would. He loved you that He
might manifest His love to you. He loved you that you might be
conformed to His image, that He might be the firstborn among
many brethren, that you might forever be one with Him in His
glory. The Son of God thus loved you
from everlasting. Before you had any being except
in Him. Before you had done any good
or evil. With the full knowledge of everything
you would do. With the full knowledge of everything
you would be. With the full knowledge of all
your transgressions, all your iniquities, all your sins. With
the full knowledge that there would never be any love in you
for Him except He created. He loved you from everlasting. And with the full knowledge that
any love I have for Him, He not only must create it, He must
sustain it. He loved us thus from everlasting. Now, do you suppose that anything
can be done by us in time? That which he knew before him,
can it be done by us in time that will cause him now to cease
to love his own? Well, perish the thought. The
father loves the son because he's the son. And so the Savior
loves us because we're the sons of God. Behold what manner of
love the Father hath bestowed on us, that we should be called
the sons of God. Turn to John chapter 10. John
the 10th chapter. Let me remind you of this. The
Father loves the Son because of His obedience as our mediator. John chapter 10, verse 16. Other
sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring
and they shall hear my voice and there shall be one fold and
one shepherd. Now watch this. Therefore. Therefore, doth my father love
me because I lay down my life. You mean the father didn't love
him before? Of course he did. But here, Frank,
he speaks of himself as your covenant head, your surety, your
mediator, the good shepherd, Jehovah's servant who made himself
totally responsible to God for your soul. He said, my father
loves me because of my perfect obedience. As his servant, my
father loves me because I fulfilled all his will. My father loves
me because I have perfectly obeyed his law. I have brought in by
my obedience everlasting righteousness. I have satisfied by my death
divine justice for all my people. Therefore death my father loved
me because I laid down my life that I might take it again. No
man taketh it from me. But I lay it down in myself.
I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again.
This commandment have I received in my father. The father loves
the son because he's the rightful heir of all things. In John 3,
35, we read that the father loveth the son and hath given all things
into his hands. Because he is the son, the rightful
heir, the father loves him and gives all things to his hands.
And we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. So that as
the father loves him, as the rightful heir of all things,
so he loves us as the rightful heir of all things. As the father
loves him as the perfectly obedient servant, so he loves us as perfectly
obedient servants. As the father loves him as his
everlasting son, his eternal son, so he loves us as his own
sons. And the father loves the son.
Look at John 17. John 17. Verse 4, he loves the
son because he's glorified in him. I have glorified thee on
the earth. I finished the work which thou
gavest me to do, and now, O father, glorify thou me with thine own
self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. The father loves the son because
he's glorified in the son. And so the Son loves us because
he's glorified in us. Now, I know the whole religious
world wants to take that and talk about your works. But what you do doesn't glorify
God. You may have written a check
this morning for $10,000 to put in an offering plate. That doesn't
glorify God. There's sin mixed with it. It's not worth anything before
God. Nothing. Well, how do we glorify
God? By the wondrous operation of
His grace in us and for us. In the ages to come, He will
show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward
us through Christ Jesus. Now, hold on to your seat. This
will be shocking, but it'll be a blessing shocking. The father
loves the son as one who is worthy of his love. One who is the object of his
love and worthy of his love. One who is his everlasting delight
and worthy to be his everlasting delight. The Lord God delighted
in him from everlasting. We read it in Proverbs chapter
eight. It was right that he should. Have any question about that?
Is not Jesus Christ, our divine savior, our surety, our mediator,
completely worthy, completely worthy of God's love, the love
of the infinite holy God? Oh, yes, brother Don, he's completely
worthy. So have I loved The objects of his love, completely
worthy of his love. Completely worthy that he should
delight in you. But for the daughter, I'm so
unworthy of his love. Yeah, tell me about it. I'm unworthy
of your love, let alone his. And yet loved by him because
I am completely worthy of his love. Made meet by him to be
partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light. How is it
that he's worthy of the father's love? He said, therefore, doth
my father love me because I obeyed his commandments, because I laid
down my life. Because I finished all that he
required. Rexy didn't do it for himself. He obeyed God's law for you.
He suffered God's wrath for you. He brought an everlasting righteousness
for you. He did the will of God for you.
And because you're one with Him, you're worthy. of that love with
which the Father loves the Son. His righteousness is your righteousness. His obedience, your obedience. His death, your death, worthy
of Him. It was because of His great love
for us that the son of God gave us life and grace in himself
by the power of his spirit. Because of his love for us, the
Lord Jesus has performed all the wonders of his grace on our
behalf. Because of his love for us, our
Lord Jesus took on himself our nature, became one of us. bone of our bone and flesh of
our flesh. The word was made flesh and dwelt
among us that he might in due time die for the ungodly because
of his love for us. The Lord Jesus took our sin and
made it his own and suffered all the horrid wrath of God in
our room instead as our substitute. Dying under the wrath of God
for the under the full satisfaction of divine justice in our place. Because of his love for us. He laid down his life for us. And then at the appointed time,
he comes in great grace, and it's called the time of love
when he finds us. Read it again in Ezekiel 16.
He said, I found you aborted, dead, cast off, deserted, no
one to care for you. No eye pitied you, polluted in
your own blood, naked, rotting out of the open field. And behold,
thy time was the time of love, and I passed by thee, and I spread
my skirt over thee, and I said unto thee, Live! Yea, I said
unto thee, Live! And thou becamest mine. He said,
You're renowned. You're renowned when in all the
earth because of my comeliness that I put upon you. Your beauty
was the beauty I put on you. Your beauty is my beauty, and
therefore He loves you. His love for us is that love
that causes him, God's darling son, to forgive us of all sin,
to justify us, to sanctify us, and to keep us. As I look back
on my own life, I'm filled with adoring gratitude and thanksgiving. Surely, goodness and mercy have
followed me all the days of my life. If God's mercies were counted
up and strung together on the three end of time, oh, what a
wondrous bracelet of mercy they would make for my soul. God's
great mercy. Because of his great love for
me in Christ Jesus has constantly kept me as the apple of his eye. If I were to compare it to mountains,
I see alps piled on alps. If I compare it to the depths
of the sea, I cry, oh, the depth. That's all. What can be compared
to this? Thy love is better than wine
because of his love for us. Our savior made himself one with us and
has made us one with him. So that as he is in the father
and the father in him, so he is in us and we're in him. All that he has done and all
that he has been, that's ours. His righteousness, His obedience,
His death, His resurrection, it's all ours. It's all ours.
All that He is, all that He has is ours. And all that He shall be and
shall have forever is ours. His future is our future. His glory is our glory. This is love indeed. As the father
hath loved me, so have I loved you who shall separate us from
the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. This
eternal oneness. Is the security of both grace
and glory, the saints of God around the throne are not more
fully loved of God, our savior, than we are. The saints of God
around the throne, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Peter, James, and
John, Paul, and all the companions of the servants in the days that
they walked on this earth, all those who've gone before us around
God's throne are not more the objects of God's love than we
are. And the saints of God around the throne have no greater reason
to be confident and assured of God's love for them than we of
His love for us. What more can I say? What more
can I say? As the Father hath loved me personally,
freely, eternally, intimately, immutably, without beginning,
without variation, without change, without end, completely, with
complete complacency and satisfaction and delight. As the Father hath
loved me faithfully, immeasurably, amazingly, so have I loved you. All right, here's the fourth
thing. As the father hath loved me,
so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. What on earth can that mean? As the father hath loved me,
so have I loved you. Now, now you be careful. You
watch out. Because you might lose this thing. You might slip out of my love,
so you be sure you continue in my love. That's not what he's
saying. That's not what he's saying.
Oh, no. What he's saying is this. Ever abide in the confident awareness
of my love. Never doubt it. Never call it
into question. I'm sure that's what he means
because that's what it tells us in verses 10 through 16 Look
here. He says keep ye if you keep my
commandments you shall abide in my love If you keep my commandments,
you shall abide in my love Well, that's a lead pipe cinch That's
a lead pipe cinch Because I've kept my father's commandments
and abide in his love This is not a condition. It's
a promise. I've kept the commandments. I
abide in his love. Therefore, you who are mine have
kept his commandments and abide in his love. Verse 11. These things have I spoken unto
you, that my joy might remain in you, that your joy might be
full. He's not giving us a warning. He's giving us an assurance.
My love, continue in it. Be assured of it. Let nothing
cause you to doubt it. This is my commandment, that
you love one another as I have loved you. A greater love hath
no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends, if you do whatsoever I command you. You're my friends. If you do,
whatever I command you." Well, have you done what he commanded
you? Let's see. Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant
knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but I called you friends. He said, you're my friends if
you do what I command you. Now I'm telling you, you're my
friends. You've done what I commanded
you. Bob Pontzer, The Lord Jesus commands that you love me like
you love yourself. And much as you love me, you
can't love me like that. That doesn't even lie in the
realm of possibility, not while we live in this body. That's
not possible for a man to love another man like he loves himself.
Not possible. Not possible, except for the
God-man. And He loved you and me as He
loves Himself. And we in Him have fulfilled
all God's law. He said, you're my friends if
you do what I command you. Now, I call you not servants
but friends. Remember now, you're my friends.
You're my friends. Continue in the Savior's love
and you'll find His love to be a balm for all your wounds. consolation for all your sorrows,
strength for all your journey, fire to melt you, make you tender
and inspire you, and you'll find it a delight to rejoice your
heart. As the Father hath loved me,
so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. This is that perfect love which
casteth out all fear. That perfect love that casteth
out all fear. Folks, I'll try to tell you,
you take care that you really love the Lord and that That'll
take the fear out of you. No. No, it won't. No, it won't. If your love for him removes
any fear from you, I have great fear for your soul. Did you hear what I said to you?
If your love for him removes any fear from you, I have great
fear for your soul. Let me say it one more time,
I want to make sure you get it. If your love for him removes any
fear from you, I have great fear for your soul. But what is that
perfect love that casteth out all fear? His love for me. confident of his love for me,
confident of his love for me, what will cause me fear? Not my sin, not my failures,
not my inconsistencies, Not my unbelief? Nothing. Nothing. As the Father hath loved
me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. Keep yourselves in the love of
God. looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal
life. As the Father hath loved me,
so have I loved you. Continue, children of God, confident
to your last breath of his love for you. Amen.