I can think of nothing on this
earth more miserable than living with the thought, with the firm
persuasion that no human being gives a flip about you. That no one loves you, or even
cares whether you live or die. That was not true with me, but
I was fully convinced it was when I was a young man. Miserable,
miserable. And I can think of nothing more
joyful, more delightful, more peaceful than being convinced
that the Son of God loves me. The Son of God loved me and gave
himself for me. Think of that. I stand amazed
in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder how he could
love me, this sinner, condemned, unclean. O love surpassing knowledge,
O grace so full and free, I know that Jesus loves me. and that's
enough for me. O wonderful salvation from sin
Christ set me free. I have this sweet assurance and
that's enough for me. O blood of Christ so precious
poured out at Calvary. I know its cleansing power and
that's enough for me. Now that's what I want to talk
to you about tonight. Turn with me, if you will, to
John, Chapter 15. The Gospel of John, Chapter 15. I want to talk to you for just
a few minutes, I hope, by the power of God's Spirit from my
heart to yours, by His Word about the immense, immeasurable, incomprehensible
love of Christ for ourselves. Now John chapter 15 is one of
those passages of scripture that sadly is very commonly misinterpreted
in my opinion. It is commonly interpreted as
being a very stern warning telling us of the necessity of perseverance
and kind of keeping you on the edge of the seat, walking the
tightrope, wondering whether you're ever going to fall off
the tightrope or not. But the passage is not intended to be
read in that way at all. But rather, it is a word of blessed,
blessed assurance that all who believe on the Son of God are
preserved and kept by His grace. It begins like this, I am the
true vine on the one there is. in God's kingdom. It's described
in the Old Testament frequently in the Psalms and the Song of
Solomon and the Book of Isaiah as a vineyard. He says, I'm the
true vine. You are the branches, branches
that have been grafted into the vine, branches drawing life from
the vine. And just in case you wonder how
things are going to go with this vine and the branches, the one
who takes care of it is God. My Father is the husbandman. And he gets down to verse 9. And the Lord Jesus makes this
declaration, As the Father hath loved thee, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. Now these are still waters beside
which he leads my soul, green pastures in which he makes me
to lay down and find rest. This is the table he prepares
for me in the presence of my enemies. As the Father hath loved
me, so have I loved you. The love of Christ, what a marvelous
marvelous subject for contemplation. This is the great cause of our
redemption, the cause of our salvation, the cause of everlasting
glory. Spurgeon said, the love of Christ
is as the sun in the midst of the heavens of grace. Indeed
it is. As the Father hath loved me. Drink, drink, drink of these
blessed waters and satiate your soul. So have I loved you. I want to know, and I want you
to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge. Turn over to
Ephesians chapter 3, if you will. Ephesians chapter 3. Paul addresses these saints at
Ephesus after describing for them all the blessed work of
God's grace for us in chapter one, and then the marvelous work
of God's grace in us in chapter two, both of which are absolutely
vital to our everlasting salvation. The apostle says in verse 14
of chapter three, for this cause I bow my knees unto the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the reason I'm bowing
and praying for you, of whom the whole family in heaven and
earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches
of his glory. What a statement. That he would grant you according
to the riches of his glory. Now that's great riches. That
Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that you, being rooted
and grounded in love, planted firmly, grounded firmly in love,
may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth,
and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ
which passeth knowledge. Now watch this, that ye might
be filled with all the fullness of God. I'm in waters way over
my head. There is such depth of mystery
in the love of Christ, it simply cannot be understood, comprehended
by our puny brains. This is one of those things which
we're plainly told it passeth knowledge. All we can do is taste
it, experience it, believe it, and rejoice in it. Oh, may we
experience it and know it more fully. Blessed Savior, show us
something of your love. Now, I've got one point, just
one point. I want you to get it. I want
you to get it. God help you to get it. God write
it on your heart. I want you to see this one thing. Every sinner who trusts Christ Every sinner who trusts Christ
is loved by Him even as He is loved by His Father. Did you get that? Every sinner who trusts Christ
is loved by Him even as He is loved by God the Father. Is that
what this text says? As the Father hath loved me,
so have I loved you. I believe that's what he said.
Every sinner who trusts Christ is loved by the Son of God even
as he is loved by God his Father and our Father. Now, let me see
if I can come at that three or four ways that will help you
to get some understanding of it. First thing I want you to
hear is this. Believe it unquestionably. Believe it without a doubt. Oh, may God enable us to believe
it. May he give us grace and faith
to believe it, for we have every reason to believe that which
he here declares. As the Father hath loved me,
so have I loved you." He loves us infinitely. Now, others like
to talk about his love as a sort of general benevolence. I hear
folks talk about the love of God benevolent love of God. And what they mean by that is
they try to somehow take the edge off God's sovereignty for
folks who despise it. And they say, well, God loves
all his creatures. Now, if you can get some kind
of comfort out of somebody telling you God loves you like he does
frogs and rattlesnakes, that's fine. Go ahead and have it. But
that's not what this is talking about. The Scriptures never speak
of God's love as a general benevolence, but rather our Savior is speaking
here of God's peculiar, particular, distinct, and distinguishing
love for His own. He says concerning His own in
verse 16, You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. And
you whom He has chosen are those whom He is addressing here when
He says, as the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you." The
Lord Jesus is here speaking to His church, and He speaks to
us as His choice bride. He speaks to each of us personally. He says, as the Father hath loved
me, so have I loved you. Now, I can almost hear you ask, Do you believe on the Son of
God? Have you, do you take Him by
faith, trusting Him as your only Lord and Savior, your only Redeemer,
your only hope before God? Has He given you faith in Him? I ask not how strong your faith
is, I ask not how faithful you have proven yourself to be. I
ask only, dost thou believe on the Son of God? If so, Tom Shuler,
he's talking directly to you. Yes, I do trust Him. As fickle, faithless, hard, and
useless as I am, as utterly corrupt and sinful as I am, I trust Christ
alone as my Savior. In this he declares to me, as
the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. He truly loves
us. We may be confident of that Though
we might and do rightly conclude that He loves us when we begin
to think about the wonders of His grace, all that He's done
for us, He doesn't leave this as something for us to infer.
He doesn't say, now, look at all that I've done, and now,
having concluded everything I've done for you, don't you understand
that I love you? But rather, before declaring
all that He has done and is about to do. The Savior says, as the
Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. So that this is
not something that has to be inferred. But rather, we have
it from His own lips, spoken on the night when He was betrayed,
when He would soon suffer and die as our substitute. He writes
it in His Word and says, now, believe this confidently. Never question it. But it draws
a parallel. He draws a parallel, as if to
confirm his love to us, as if to seal it to our hearts, that
we might be absolutely assured of it, that we might know something
of the indescribable greatness of it. Our Savior draws a parallel
to his love. He doesn't say, as a mother loves
her child, so have I loved you. He doesn't say, as a husband
loves his bride, so have I loved you. He says, as the father hath
loved me, so have I loved you. What a parallel. Would you ever
consider, Steve, questioning to the least degree the father's
love for his son? Never. Oh, never. shocking to think of such, just
as shocking to question the Savior's love for you. That's the parallel he draws.
Our blessed Savior would have us place His love for us in the
same category with the Father's love for Him. He would have us
be just as confident of the one as the other. How does the Father
love the Son? Let's look at the parallel. The
Father loves the Son as one with Himself. God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one God. Three persons in
the one eternal God. Each mutually delighting in the
other from everlasting to everlasting. And because he is one with the
Father, the Father loves him. That's how he loves us. Turn
to Ephesians chapter 5. Let me show you. The Lord Jesus
Christ has made us bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, his
bride, his body, His very own bride and His very own body. And He loves us boundlessly,
immeasurably, as one with Himself. Ephesians 5, 23. The husband
is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the
church. And He's the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the church
is subject unto Christ, so let wives be to their own husbands
in everything. Love your wives, even as Christ
also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might
sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having
spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and
without blemish. So ought men to love their wives,
look at this, as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth
himself. For no man ever yet hated his
own flesh, but nourisheth it, even as the Lord the church.
For we are members of his body, of his flesh, of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave
his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and
they too shall be one flesh." Now don't miss the next line.
This is a great mystery. It's a wondrous thing. It's a
wondrous thing how God gives a man a woman and a woman a man,
and they love one another. They're wed, not only taking
vows before a preacher, not only taking vows before court, not
only taking vows to love one another, determined to honor
one another, determined to serve and do for one another, but they're
wed to one another, married to one another. I'm talking about
married to one another. And as they move along, Shelby
and I will soon be married for thirty-seven years. And you know what? We think a
lot alike. We anticipate one another's thoughts. In a foul mood, she says, I know
what you're thinking. I say, no, you don't. But she does. Because we're sort of one. But we're not really one flesh.
When I eat, she doesn't get any satisfaction from it. She might
be thirsty right now. Watch this. She didn't taste
that water. We're not really one flesh. Not
really. If I were to lose her tomorrow,
I would lose so much of my life, but I wouldn't die with her.
We're not really one. This is a great mystery, but
I'm not talking about husbands and wives. That's just the illustration. I speak concerning Christ and
the church. He made us bone of His bone,
flesh of His flesh, His body. We can no more die than He can
die. Nothing touches us that doesn't
touch Him. We are one with Him, more one
with Him than I can ever imagine, much less declare to you. Really
and truly one with Him. Because of His love for Christ,
the Father chosen as his servant. Come back to Isaiah chapter 42.
Isaiah 42. The Lord God said, Behold, my
servant, whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth. Christ Be my first delight, he
said, then chose us in our Savior and our head. Christ is chosen
of the Father as his servant, as that one by whom his will
is performed in the earth, as that one by whom his purpose
is accomplished, as that one in whom he shows forth his glory,
his greatness, his majesty, and his grace. In just that way,
the Savior says, that's how I've loved you. In John 15, 16, ye
have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. As the Father hath
loved me, so have I loved you. He chose us because He loved
us, and He loved us because He loved us. Election flows from
the fountain of God's everlasting love for His people. It was in
love that He predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will
and made us accepted in the Beloved. Now, my brother, my sister, hear
this and rejoice. The Son of God loved you as the
Father loved Him. before the world began. I have
loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn thee." Do you have any idea how indescribably
ridiculous it is for creatures of time to try to talk about
things eternal? We don't have the slightest clue
what eternity is. We can't begin to grasp it, but
God our Savior condescends the eternal to speak to us creatures
of time, the infinite to speak to us the finite in language
that will allow us to get some handle on what he's talking about. I've loved you with everlasting
love. What that means is this, God
the eternal, in all his incomprehensible eternal being loved us. And there's a period right there. Loved us. Loved us. As long as God has been and is
loved us. No beginning to the love of God. No measure to the love of God. No change to the love of God. No end to the love of God. Not passionate, burning and cooling
is our love. No, no, no, no. He loved us everlastingly. He loved us And because He loved
us, He chose us. Loving us with an everlasting
love, He chose us that we might be one with Him forever, that
we might be heirs of God and joint heirs with Himself. Now, be sure you get hold of
this. You might want to hang on to
your seat because this might just shock you. How did the Father
love the Son from everlasting? He loved Him from everlasting
as one completely worthy of His love, in whom He declares, My soul
delighteth. Now, Brother Don, you've lost
the slayer. No, no. As the Father hath loved me,
so have I loved you. As the worthy objects of my love,
not in ourselves by soul, no. Not by reason of anything we've
done, no. Not by reason of anything we've
experienced, no. has nothing to do with ourselves
as one with Him. And this is what He says, Behold,
thou art all fair, my love, my dove, my undefiled, there is
no spot in thee. Now, let a man take that language
and apply it to any woman in the world. I speak such language
to my wife with sincerity, but it's hyperbole. You might not know this. She's
not absolutely perfect. Not yet. Not yet. But our Lord never speaks in
hyperbole. He said there's no spot in thee.
Do you know what that means? no spot. He declares, Thou art
beautiful through my comeliness that I put upon Thee. He says,
My love is but one, and nobody and nothing like her. Now, because of His love, having
chosen us in love, so great was the love of our Lord for us that
he became a man, became one with us that we might be one with
him. He who counted it not robbery to be equal with God became a
man, that he might execute God's eternal purpose of love toward
us. It is written, For this call
shall a man leave his father and his mother, and they too
shall become one flesh. That's exactly what the Son of
God did. He left his father that he might
become flesh with his chosen bride. He took our nature so
that he might be able to do for us and suffer for us what otherwise
he could never have done and never have suffered. By taking
on himself our nature, the Lord of glory established a nearer,
sweeter union with his beloved bride than could otherwise ever
have existed. If he had never become the babe
of Bethlehem, the man of Nazareth, how could he have been made in
all points like unto his brethren? You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, how that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became
poor, that you through his poverty might be made rich, having become
a man The Son of God, our Lord Jesus, died in our room, in our
stead, under all the fury of God's holy wrath and justice,
when He was made sin for us. He says in verse 13, greater
love hath no man than this. that a
man lay down his life for his friends. But God commendeth His love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
In due time, Christ died for the ungodly. Well, how can the
Lord Jesus here be talking to you and I? While we were children
of wrath, even as others, living with our fists shoved in God's
face, determined, if we could, to do away with God, He looked
on us and declares us to be His friends from eternity. For we
were reconciled and accepted in Him, the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world from eternity. And He lays down His
life because He names us as His friends in order that in time,
the time of His love, He might reconcile us to Himself by the
blood of His cross, making us His delightful friends. so that
we willingly choose him to be our friend who has chosen us
from eternity as his friends and named us such. And now, we're
no more servants, he says. I call you no more servants.
Servants, slaves, that's the word. Do you know something that
slaves could never have? in their relationship with the
best of masters, confidence. In the best of circumstances,
never know what the master is going to do with me. He seems
to be good to me now, seems to love me now, but I've heard of
others. Never confidence, never assurance. Never confidence of
love, never confidence of desire to care for, never confidence
of peace of any kind. Because the servant-master relationship
never allows it. The servant must always live
in fear. Our Savior says, don't ever live
in fear of me. I call you not servants, but
friends. Look here, I've told you everything
you need to know. All that my Father has told me,
I've declared to you. Now, having died for us, having
given His life for us, at the appointed time of love, the Lord
Jesus came to us. Turn over to Ezekiel 16. Let
me show you the picture one more time. It'll do you good to look
at it. He came to us when we were like
an aborted infant. Let people call it what they
will these days. An aborted infant, for any reason,
is a despised, hated, inconvenient, unwanted piece of flesh by the
one who aborted the child. Strong language. That's what
we are by nature. Cast out from the womb with none
to care for us, none to provide any necessity for us. Not dying,
but rotting. Ezekiel 16, verse 1. The word
of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to
know her abominations. And say thus, saith the Lord
God unto Jerusalem, thy birth and thy nativity is of the land
of Canaan. Thy father was an Amorite and
thy mother a Hittite. You were born to a cursed people.
And as for thy nativity in the day that thou was born, thy navel
was not cut, neither was thou washed in water to supple thee.
Thou was not salted at all, nor swallowed at all. None eye pitted
thee to do any of these unto thee. to have compassion upon
thee, but thou was cast out in the open field to the loathing
of thy person in that day that thou was born. And. Isn't it wonderful he didn't
say but, he said and. And when I passed by thee, and
saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, When
thou wast in thy blood, live! Yea, I said unto thee, When thou
wast in thy blood, live! Verse 8, Now when I passed by
thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love.
And I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness, and
swear unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith
the Lord, and thou becamest mine. washed I thee with water. Yea,
I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed
thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broadened
work, and shod thee with badger skin, and I girded thee about
with fine linen, and covered thee with silk." Verse 14, And
thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty, for it
was perfect through my comeliness which I have put upon thee, saith
the Lord. Because of His great love for
us, the Lord Jesus Christ, God's darling Son, came to us when with regard to our souls
no man cared. No man cared. No man can. And we were rotting
in the filth of our natural corruption, despised and cast off to the
loathing of our persons. And He said, live. And He spread
over us the skirt of His righteousness and took away all our filth.
speaking peace to our souls, washing us clean with His Word,
giving us His Spirit, putting on us all His beauty, forgiving
all our sin, justifying us from all things, sanctifying us perfectly,
and He's kept us. Oh, He's kept us, kept us, kept
us. I try often I try constantly
to look back over the days of my life and remember as best I can His
wondrous works to me. And as I look over the days of
my life, I was thinking the other day
when they are all threaded together, what a beautiful bracelet of
mercies they shall make. goodness and mercy. Follow me
all the days of my life. Your mercy, O God, is in the
heavens. Because of His great love for
us, the Son of God has made us one with Him. To which Jesus and the chosen
race subsist the bond of sovereign grace that hail with its infernal
train shall ne'er dissolve nor end in vain. Hail sacred union,
firm and strong, how great the grace, how sweet the song that
worms of flesh should ever be one with incarnate deity, one
in the tomb when he arose, one when he triumphed over his foes.
one when in heaven he took his seat, while Sarah sang all hell's
defeat. This sacred union forbids their
fears, for all he is or has is theirs. With him their head,
they stand or fall, their life, their surety, and their all."
What does this mean, one with Christ? His righteousness Measure it any way you want to
measure it. Talk about it any way you want to talk about it.
All His righteousness is our righteousness. We're one with
Him. His obedience, all His obedience
to the Father is our obedience. His sacrifice, His death, His
sin-atoning, blood-shedding is our sacrifice. our death, our
sin-atoning bloodshed. His life is our life. His future is our future. His glory is our glory. In John 17, just a couple of
chapters over, in verse 5, he says, restoring to me the glory
which I had with thee before the world was. In verse 22, he
says, The glory which thou gavest me,
I've given them. All that he is or has is ours. That's love indeed. Our Savior
says, as the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. The Holy Spirit giving us this
word by the Apostle Paul In consideration of all this says, who shall separate
us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus our Lord? This
eternal oneness is the security of both grace and glory to our
souls. Yonder sits Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. They've been sitting around his
throne for thousands of years. Moses and Elijah and David, Peter, James and John. And they
are not more loved than you. And they're not more secure in
His love than you. As the Father hath loved me,
so have I loved you. Now look at the last line of
this text. continue ye in my love. Oh, now there's the kicker. Let's see. In verse 7 he says, If you abide
in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will,
and it shall be done unto you. That's our part. Here's it now.
If ye abide. I read those words similarly
applied to something else. If any man sin, does that somehow
imply that you might not? When the Savior says, if ye abide,
does that somehow imply you might not? Oh, no. No, no. What men generally speak of as
warnings or promises, How do you know that? Look at verse
16. He said, if you abide, if you
abide in me, if you abide in me, you'll ask what you will.
You'll ask it and it'll be done to you. Look at verse 16. You've
not chosen me, but I've chosen you and ordained you that you
should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain.
and that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name,
he shall give it you." Looks to me like he's saying, if I
loved you, you're going to abide in me, continue in my love. This is what he's saying. Live
right here. Live right here in this blessed
assurance of my love, believe in me. Ever abide in the confident
awareness of My love for you. Never doubt it. Never call it
into question. Continue in the Savior's love
and you'll find His love a constant balm for your soul no matter
what happens in time, a constant strength no matter what you must
face, a constant supply no matter what your need appears to be. Are you sure, Brother Don, that's
what he's saying? I'm sure. Look at verse 10. If you keep
my commandments, you shall abide in my love. Well, there again, Brother Don
Shirley, that's telling us that his love is conditioned on our
obedience. Oh, no. This is His commandment. Do you know what it is? This
is His commandment. You read it in 1 John 3.23, that
you believe on the Son of God. And believing on the Son of God as the Father hath loved me. So have I loved you. Now somebody's going to get this
tape. You're going to send it to somebody. And they're going
to say, well, you can't leave it at that. That'll open the
floodgates to sin and licentiousness and evil. You just can't preach
grace that free. It'll make folks want to go out
and do evil. Is there anybody here? I ask you before God Almighty,
is there anybody here who hears this word from the Son of God
who won't spit in His face? Oh no, oh no. Oh Master, my loving
Redeemer, teach me to love you. We love Him because He first
loved us.