The Lord Jesus is about to leave
this world. He's going back to the Father. He has told his disciples that
where he is going, they cannot presently come, but they will
follow him afterwards. For now, he says, you must abide
here and here in this world. You must suffer great tribulation.
You must be hated and despised of all men. Here, you must endure
trial unceasing, trouble unrelenting, temptations with no abatement. He promised that he would send
his Holy Spirit to comfort his disciples. He promised that he
will help them. He promised that he would be
gracious to them. He promised that he would come
to them. And he urges them simply to trust him, not be fearful,
but trust him. You believe God, believe also
in me. But he knew their hearts. He knew what doubts, what fears,
what questions, what uneasiness arose within them. So just before
he leaves this world, he, as it were, takes them by the hand
and says, let's go to God and let's pray. And the prayer that
he offered, his one Last prayer before leaving this world is
found in John chapter 17. In these 26 verses, our master
prays in the hearing of his disciples for the full, complete salvation
of our souls, for the full, complete salvation of God's elect. He
asked for these things specifically. He asked that God would be pleased
to preserve us. Keep through thine own name those
thou hast given me." He asked that God will cause his joy to
be fulfilled in us, that we might have in us the fullness of his
joy. He asked God to sanctify us. even as he had sanctified himself,
that he would sanctify us through his word, through his truth,
that he would separate and distinguish his own from the rest of the
world. And he prays for the union of
his people, that we might be one, one with God, one with him,
one body in him. that all his people might be
melted together into one people, that all our hearts might be
melted together into one heart, that all his people might be
made perfectly one as he and the Father are one. And he prays
for us to be with him in glory. And ultimately, He plays for
our complete gratification. Heaven will be the complete gratification
of our renewed souls. Hell will be lust with no gratification,
only intensified lust with no gratification. will be the complete
gratification of our souls. For our souls crave His glory. And in Heaven's glory, He prays
that we may behold His glory, the glory the Father has given
Him, that we may behold Him in His glory. Now, let's read just
the last part of this prayer this morning. We'll begin 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 Thou
lovest me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father,
The world hath not known thee, but I have known thee, and these
have known that thou hast sent me. Now here's a text. 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. And I want, if God will enable
me, to try one more time to preach to you a little bit about the
love of God. The title of my message this
morning is The Love of God in Us. I can't imagine a subject
of greater depth, a mystery more wondrous or motive more inspiring
than the love of God. When I try to preach about it,
I'm aware of my utter incompetence. This is an ocean of infinite
depth, a mind with infinite treasures, a mystery of infinite wonders. The love of God, however, is
a subject. Though it is beyond the reach
of all comprehension in this present state, it is a subject
that is always indescribably delightful upon meditation. Nothing more effectually produces
the desired fruit in us. Many of you have been converted
when God's commendation of his love came to your hearts in the
revelation of Christ. What more effectually corrects
us from the error of our ways than the consideration and fresh
reminder of God's love for us? What so affectionately reproves
our sin, our unbelief, our love of the world as the consideration of God's
love for us? What moves your heart Godward
like the revelation of his love for you in Christ? May God, the
Holy Spirit, now show us something about this love. 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. Now, I have been working on this
literally for weeks, day and night, trying to condense the little bit that I understand
of what's said here. Let me give you first what our
Savior is declaring here, what he here teaches us, and then
we'll try to look at it two or three ways. First, our Lord Jesus
Christ speaks about what he had done, what he would do, and why. He says, I have declared unto
them thy name. and will declare it. And here's
the reason. That the love wherewith thou
hast loved me may be in them and I in them. Our Savior here
declares in the hearing of his disciples the entire purpose
of his existence in human flesh. He summarizes the whole of his
work and asserts that the purpose of all is this one thing. that
the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and
I in them. The very last word of our Lord's
prayer is concerning the love of God for us. The last petition
he offers is that which is contained in this verse. He means for us
to know and enjoy the love of God for us. But there's more
here than that. He prays that the love wherewith
the Father loved him may be in us. He could ask nothing greater. For here he asked that we might
be filled with all the fullness of the love of God, and in doing
so, asked that we might be filled with all the fullness of God,
for God is love. Love is not just something that there is about
God. Love is the attribute of God's glorious being. There are
very few things in the scripture where we're told that God is
a specific thing. God is holy. God is good. God is merciful. God is just. But hear me, God is love. And here our Savior asked the
Father that He would cause His love, wherewith the Father loved
Him, to dwell in us. Oh, may God be pleased to answer
His prayer this hour. Oh, great God of grace, shed
abroad Your love in our hearts. May God be pleased to shed abroad
His love in your heart. You see, this is the beginning
of the experience of grace. It is the shedding abroad of
the love of God in your heart. It is God Almighty making you
to know that you're the object of His love. Oh, but preacher, I've been told
all my life God loves me. Yeah, but you don't know it.
Folks have been lying to you all your life. We teach our babies,
saying, Jesus loves me, this I know. And thus we teach them
to have hope that they don't have. We teach them that which
is not true and not revealed in the word of God. But preachers,
shouldn't we tell folks God loves them? No. I can't tell you God
loves you. Only God can do that. Only God
can do that. Turn to Romans chapter 5. Let
me show you. Romans chapter 5. When God comes to sinners in
saving power and grace, He puts His love in them. He puts His
love in them. Romans 5 verse 1. Paul tells
us how we were justified by the death of our Lord Jesus Christ
as our substitute. Now verse 1. being justified,
by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein
we stand, this grace of justification wherein we stand and rejoice
in the hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory
in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience,
and patience experience and experience hope. Now watch verse 5. And
hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad
in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. We have
hope before God. Hope that will stand us in the
midst of trouble, without shame, without blushing, without embarrassment,
without shaking, without confusion. Hope that will stand us in the
midst of tribulation, lifting our hearts toward heaven, because
God Almighty has said in our hearts, I love you. How do you do that? By putting
Christ in us. By putting Christ in us. Only
love to us be given. Lord, we ask no other heaven. Because you see, the revelation
of God's love is the revelation of all. The giving of God's love
is the giving of all. God's love given to us, bestowed
upon us, is that which gives us hope before Him as we dwell
in His grace and in His love, declaring God is our Father and
we are His sons and daughters. All right? Now then, let's look
at this text back here in John 17, 26. First, the Lord Jesus looks backward
and summarizes his entire life in ministry. I have declared
unto them thy name. Now listen to me and hear me
well. There is no salvation without
knowing God. There is no knowing God apart
from the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no salvation without
that knowledge of God. Now salvation is not, or knowledge
rather is not salvation. But you can't be saved and be
ignorant of God. That's just not possible. Our
Lord says in verse three, this is life eternal that they might
know thee, the only true God. The Lord Jesus came down here
in human flesh so that men and women might know God Almighty,
infinite, eternal, incomprehensible, just, and good. Christ the Lord
reveals God. Now, this is what our Savior
says. I have declared unto them thy name. in His person, coming
down here in the flesh. As our Lord walked in the flesh,
the disciples said, we beheld His glory, the glory as of the
only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And
our Lord Jesus walked before men as He walked in this world
as a man. He stood before them. And this
is what He'd say, look here, look here, you want to see God?
You want to know who God is? You want to know what God is? Look on me. Look on my face.
Look on my hands. Look on my deeds. Look on my
words. Hear me! I am. This is God talking to you. This
is God speaking to you. This is God living with you. This is God ministering to you. What a tremendous statement,
and yet it's a statement of fact. The strange thing is that you
and I really aren't much astonished by it. Come back to John 14 for
a moment. Here is a man who never learned
anything about God because he is God. And here is the only man who
has ever made God known to another man, this man who is God. God is revealed in him. It is impossible for men to know
God apart from the God-man, Jesus Christ, the Lord. But what about
Adam and Eve back down in the garden thousands of years before
Christ came? The Lord Jesus appeared to them
walking with them in the garden in the cool of the day. It was
Christ who walked with them. Well, what about Abraham? Abraham
rejoiced to see my day. It was Christ who came to Abraham.
He worshipped him in Genesis chapter 18. It was the Lord Jesus
that Abraham saw when he took Isaac up to Mount Moriah and
there was about to sacrifice him and did sacrifice him in
his heart to God. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
one whom Manoah and his wife saw doing wondrously. It is Christ
the angel of the Lord who came and made God known to men in
those days in anticipation of this day when He would come here
in the flesh physically to make God known, to declare Him. Here
he is. He says in John chapter 14 in
verse 7. If you had known me, you should
have known my father also. You see, knowing God is not some
kind of a mystical thing, and yet it's the most mysterious
thing ever was. I know you. I know you. Don't know you very
well. Just know you. I know Christ. in exactly the same way and know
God in exactly the same way as God has made himself known to
me in Christ. Do you understand that? Know
Him. Stop guessing. I know who God
is. I know what God is. I know what
He's like. I know what to expect from Him.
And salvation is knowing Him. Look here, verse 7. John 14,
7. If you had known Me, you should have known My Father also. He's
saying, Thomas, Philip, y'all don't know Me. Your problem is
you don't know Me. You haven't yet got it. And from
henceforth, you know Him. And have Him. Have seen Him.
Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and that'll
be enough. Just show us the Father. Reach
up in heaven and bring the Father down here to us. That'll be all
right. Jesus said to him, Have I been so long time with you,
and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me,
look at this, hath seen the Father. Look here. Look here. He says
to his disciples, look here. You want to know who God is?
What God is? How God acts? How God thinks? What God does? What to expect
from God? I am! Read on. He that has seen
me has seen the Father. And how sayest thou then, show
us the Father? I've already shown you. Believest
thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? We're one.
The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the
Father which dwelleth in me. He doeth the works. Now then,
not only is God revealed in Christ, God is revealed by Christ. The
only way we will ever know Him is if the Son Himself reveals
Him. The only way any man will ever
come to know God is by a distinct, personal work of God in revealing
Himself to you and in you by Christ Jesus. This knowledge
of God is not something we pick up by reading books. It's not
something we pick up by diligent study. It's not something the
preacher communicates. It's not something mom and daddy
can give you. It's not something you learn
in catechism class or in Sunday school class. This knowledge
of God has got to drop down from heaven in your soul by the power
of God Almighty. He alone can give it. Look in
Matthew chapter 11. Matthew chapter 11. I preach the Gospel to you the
best I know how. I study and prepare. I urge you
to study. I urge you to never miss opportunity
to hear the Word of God preached. Oh, don't take that thing lightly.
If God is pleased to make Himself known to you, He will do it by
the preaching of the Word. Don't take that lightly. But
it's going to take a heap sight more than me standing up here
talking to you. for God to be revealed in you. It's going to
take God speaking through me. It's going to take God the Holy
Spirit sent down from heaven by the Lord Jesus Christ who
came here to declare God to men. And when He does, God who commanded
light to shine out of darkness will shine in your dark heart
and suddenly you'll see the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. This is what our Lord said back
in Matthew chapter 11. Look at verse 25. At that time,
Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven
and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise
and prudent. Wise and prudent men can learn
religion and write theology books. But God's hidden himself from
the wise and prudent. You won't find out God by your
brain, and has revealed them unto thieves. Those who quit fussing, and quit
arguing, and quit trying to figure everything out, and they say,
baby, this takes God at his word. Well, that's so simple. I know
it. Too simple for a smart man to
get hold of. Too simple for a learned man to grasp. Too simple for
a religious man to bow to. Oh, but every newborn babe believes
God. He revealed them to babes. Read
on. Even so, Father, for so it's in good in thy sight. All things
are delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knows the Son, but
the Father. Neither knoweth any man the Father
save the Son. Now watch it. And He to whomsoever
the Son will reveal Him. Salvation then comes by revelation. And it is a distinguishing revelation. Our Lord says in this chapter
two or three times, He says the world doesn't know you. The world
doesn't know you. He has called us out of the world. And it is this knowledge of God
revealed in us in the face of His Son by the gospel that distinguishes
us from the whole religious world. By this revelation, the Lord
Jesus makes Himself known in the hearts of His people. Now
then, our Savior says something about the future. He said, I
have declared unto them thy name. I haven't declared it to everybody,
but I've declared it to them. I haven't revealed God to everybody,
but I've revealed Him to them. I've made Him known to them.
I've made God known in them. Oh, what grace. Now then, he
says, and I will declare it. He looks to the future. He looks back on all his past,
and he says with absolute confidence, without any hesitation, without
any qualification, from the time that he came into his mother's
womb, and came forth from his mother's womb, doing the will
of God, he looks back on it all, and says what no man could ever
say, is I've declared your name. I've revealed God. But I'm not
done yet. And we'll declare it. You see,
throughout his life, he had declared what God is. But if he had stopped
right here, if he had stopped right here with his perfect obedience,
Rex, with his perfect righteousness, with his perfect complicity with
the Father's will, with His perfect bowing to His Father in all things,
He stopped right here. No man would ever know God. No man. The revelation would
not have been complete. It would have been no more complete
than if He had stopped back at Mount Sinai. The revelation of
God is not yet finished. He says, and I will declare it. Don't pause here then. Don't
pause and stop just at his birth. Don't pause and stop just in
his sermon on the mount. Don't pause and stop just by
his performing miracles. Don't pause and say, now I know
God, because I've seen him feed the 5,000. Oh, no. You don't
know God yet. Not yet. Go on to Gethsemane and learn something about God. But that's not it yet. Go on
to Calvary, and behold the God-man, when he is made sin, and God forsakes His darling
Son, as He pours out His fury on His
Son. to the torment of His body, His
heart, and His soul, until justice has nothing else to pour out
on Him. Oh, now, I think I see who God
is. You notice in this context the
way our Savior prays. He says, O righteous Father,
now I see. how God Almighty, the judge of
all the earth who must do right, can be my righteous father, the
righteous father to this prodigal vagabond who deserves nothing
but wrath from God. Because God has fully, fully,
fully satisfied justice, paying all my debt, putting away all
my sin, and now He has revealed Himself in me as my righteous
Father. And I lift my heart to heaven,
and believing on His Son, I say, God is my Father. I will declare it. The preaching
of the gospel is but the declaring of the Father by the Son. It is but the declaring of how
that God is both a just God and a Savior. It is but the declaring
of how God can be just and yet justify the ungodly. And certainly
our Lord would have us to understand that this revelation of God,
this knowledge of God, is something that at best, in
this state of weak mortality, we will know only a little. So
he continually, continually, continually, continually declares
the Father to us. In heaven's everlasting glory, we will begin to get some idea
who God is. And we will forever just begin. Oh, but pastor, we're going to
know even as we're known. Yeah, we're going to know all things
without sin. But we will never know God fully. If we did, we would become gods. But heaven will be the continual
manifestation of God, the infinite God, in and by His Son, in the
accomplishment of redemption. All right, now let me show you
one more thing. Our Savior tells us the why of
it all. Now what's the language? I have
declared unto them thy name, And we'll continue, we'll go
on declaring it perpetually without end for this purpose, that the
love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them. This is the thing I've been trying
my best to get some kind of a handle on. And I won't begin to imagine
a thing. I've got it figured out. But there are at least four
things our Lord intends for us to grasp here. First, our Lord
prays that the love of God would be shed abroad in our hearts
in the revelation of his love. You see, the Son of God would
have us enjoy a deep, continuous, undisturbed assurance of God's love for us. Perfect love casteth out all
fear. We read that in 1 John. That's not talking about us having
perfect love, my son. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's
talking about God's love made perfect in us when it's revealed
in us. Now the love of God toward us
has come to its final, ultimate end. It's shed upon in the heart
of the one loved. And here's a sinner who lifts
his heart to heaven. In spite of everything, he knows
he is. looking on Christ, the Son of
God, and understanding now that God looks on us through His Son. It's, oh my God, He loves me. He loves me. Secondly, not only
is this intended to give us a revelation of God's love, but our Lord here
speaks of a realization. He would have us realize and
never fail to realize that the Father's love for us is the very same love that He
enjoys. That the love wherewith thou
hast loved them Thou hast loved me, be in Him. The Father loves us as He loves His Son. Oh, wonder of wonders! I feel
more inclined to sit down here and roar with laughter than try
to preach to you about this. The father loves us as he loves
his son. Someone said, well, you can't
possibly mean that. You can't possibly mean that.
God really loves his people just as he loves his son. I challenge
you to give consideration to the most simple, Revelation of
fact in this book. When the choice was made whether
God would sacrifice you or sacrifice his son, he sacrificed his son. Now that's just beyond me. But the Father loves us, Bobby,
as He loves His Son in eternity. Here comes a mighty river of
love from God for us, gushing from the heart of God in a mighty
torrent. And a river gushing. of love
from God Almighty toward his darling son. And the two meet
together at Calvary, not in any kind of collision, but in a marvelous
mission. And now, through the sacrifice
of his son, the river of God's love flows to us. The love which the Father has
for His Son. Thirdly, our Lord would have us understand
that this is a reflection. Our love for Christ is but the
reflection of the Father's love back to Him again. My Jesus, I love Thee. I know Thou art mine. For Thee, all the fathers of
sin, I reside. And when I say that, Merle, I
speak the truth. Either that or I'm deceived. But that love for Him that's
in me is the Father's love for Him. There is no more I but Christ
that dwells in me. The life which I live by faith,
I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave
Himself for me. And the love I have for Him. It ain't mine. It's no more mine than the light
of the moon belongs to the moon. It's just a reflection of the
sun. And that love that's in me is
God in me. It is God's love for His Son
in me. And then our Lord would have
us to understand that the love of God in us is a radiance, radiating from within, heavenward, toward his people. He that loveth not knoweth not
God. For God is love. Beloved, if
God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. Now then, watch this. Our Savior
says, I have declared unto them your name. Not to everybody,
but to them. Oh, has he declared the Father
to you? And I will declare it. And this
is the reason. so that the love wherewith you
have loved me may be in them, and I in them." The Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, is in us. I don't have any idea, really,
what all that means. I just, what on earth? How can
He come dwell in us? Back in John 14, 20, He says,
At that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in
Me, and I in you. But not until then. When we get
to glory, we're going to get some idea of what He's talking
about here, but not now. For now, it's enough for us to
know this. He who is life and immortality, dwelling in
light and in glory. He who cannot die because he
is life. He who cannot die because death
has no more claim on him, he who has satisfied every demand
of justice for sin made to be his, dwells in me. That means, Lindsay Campbell,
I'll never die. That means immortality is mine. And at last, I got some idea
of what Paul meant when he said, Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in you is the love of
God in you, radiating from you, reflecting back to God because
it is Him in you. It is the love of God. and the very life of God. Give it to us so that now we
live because He lives. And we can not perish because
He who is life lives not only in glory but in us forever. Amen.