Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,
We have now finished the first major section of John’s Gospel. And I am sure you all know by know that it is a record of Jesus’ public ministry seen in the seven great miracle signs and seven great discourses. It is described by some Bible commentators as the Book of Signs. Well today we begin what those same Bible commentators call
the Book of Glory.
And the focus of the Book of Glory is Jesus’ private ministry with His disciples on the night of the Last Supper, and then the account of the crucifixion and resurrection, and then Jesus’ closing words to His disciples.
Ch. 12 ended on a very sad note. We read that though Jesus had done so many signs among the Jewish people, they still did not believe in Him. And we read that Jesus’ soul was deeply troubled because He knew that the Jews would soon arrest Him and hand Him over to the Romans to be crucified. It sounded like a mission failure. But Jesus also spoke about the cross as Himself being “lifted up,” and that this would be when the ruler of this world was cast out and how Jesus would “draw all people to Himself.” And this opening verse of ch. 13 wants us to see that the cross will not be Jesus’ defeat but the crowning glory of His love for His people!
So it’s very fitting, given that we celebrate the Lord’s Supper today, that we see that the Book of Glory Begins with the Love of Jesus. This verse that transitions us from Jesus’ public ministry to Jesus’ private ministry explains that we are about to see the fullness of the love of Jesus. So is there anyone here who could do with a reminder about the love of Jesus? Well, we will hear about the love of Jesus in this sermon and then we shall see and touch and taste the love of Jesus in the bread and wine of the Supper. And our two points today are the occasion for the love of Jesus and the objects of the love of Jesus.
- So let’s begin with the Occasion for His Love.
- The verse begins by telling us that it was “before the Feast of Passover.”
- Back in 12:1 we were told that Passover was six days away. Passover was when the Jews would kill a lamb and paint its blood on their doorposts in memory of the time when this was first done in Egypt so that the Angel of the Lord would pass over those houses and not kill the firstborn. But it also pointed forward to Messiah who would be the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world.
- And we saw that during this week Jesus had come into Jerusalem riding on a donkey and probably surrounded by some of the 250,000 odd Passover lambs that were brought into the city for this feast.
- Well, the evening for the Passover Supper has come. John does not tell us about the Passover Supper that Jesus shared with His disciples; the other Gospel writers do. John prefers to tell us about this long discourse or sermon of Jesus and then the prayer that He prayed. And then in ch. 18 we will read that after Jesus had spoken “all these words” He went out to the garden, which we know was Gethsemane, and was betrayed there and arrested.
- So this would have been a very powerful moment for the Lord Jesus. As He and His disciples shared the sacrificial lamb and drank the wine that symbolized blood sacrifice, He knew that in a matter of hours His body would be broken and His blood poured out for the complete forgiveness of all our sins.
- The verse begins by telling us that it was “before the Feast of Passover.”
- But another marker of the occasion for Jesus’ love is that “He knew that His hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father.” For the fact that Jesus knew what was about to happen reveals His divinity, which means that He is God.
- You see, you and I cannot know what will happen in the future. Boys and girls, are you going to go to school tomorrow? Yes? Brothers and Sisters, are you going to go to work or uni or tech or the library tomorrow? I am sure you all expect that that is what will happen. But we cannot know for sure, can we. The Lord Jesus could come back to earth this afternoon. You could become sick before tomorrow and have to stay home. Many things might mean you do not go to school or work tomorrow.
- But we have already heard Jesus say a couple of times that His hour had not yet come, and then in 12:23 that His hour had He knew all that was about to happen to Him in the next hours and days. We also read in 6:64 that Jesus knew from the beginning who would not believe in Him and that Judas would betray Him. And in 12:7 we learned that Jesus knew that He would be buried.
- And the point of this observation is that Jesus is not caught by surprise or driven off course by the arrival of Passover. He doesn’t run away and hide. Instead, He sets Himself to demonstrate His love and to teach His disciples. And He does this knowing that on the other side of these events He will return to return to the place He came from and to the Father who sent Him.
- Do you remember how John’s Gospel began? “In the beginning was the Word (Jesus), and the Word was with God.” So Jesus was with the Father in heaven. But He left heaven to live on earth as a human being in order to save His people from their sins, by the way of the cross. And then He returns to heaven to be with the Father again. So yes, the prospect of the cross troubled His soul, but He also knew that beyond that He would once again enjoy His fellowship with His Father in heaven.
- Isn’t it wonderfully encouraging to know that your Saviour knows what will happen tomorrow and the next day? You may go to school or work tomorrow or you may not. But Jesus already knows what tomorrow will bring for you. And His promise in Scripture is to work all things for the good of those who love God.
- So, it is Jesus’ knowledge of what is about to happen that is the occasion for His love. But in the second place we turn our attention to what this verse reveals about the Objects of His Love.
- And the objects of His love are described here as “His own who were in the world.”
- And first and foremost this is a reference to His disciples. Jesus had withdrawn from speaking to the crowds to speak just to His disciples. But Judas Iscariot will soon withdraw from this group to betray Jesus, as we see in v2, revealing that He is not a true follower of Jesus. And we will also see that what Jesus does and says in these chapters is not just for the eleven but for all “His own who were in the world.”
- And as we think about that further, it is clear from this phrase that Jesus’ saving love is focused not on all the people of the world but only the group that are His own. It is like if I said to you that I love all the yellow jellie beans that I bought from Pak N Save. I am not saying I love all the yellow jellie beans at Pak N Save but just the yellow jellie beans that are mine. So the objects of the love of Jesus are those that belong to Him – His own. And this has been a repeated theme in John’s Gospel. And I want to walk you through verses we have already considered and a few that we will come to soon so we can see that Jesus’ love is focused only on “His own”:
- For example, in John 6:37, Jesus said, “All that the Father gives me will come to me.” So Jesus loves those whom the Father has given to Him.
- John 6:39 “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day.” Jesus loves those whom the Father has given Him.
- John 6:44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.” Jesus loves those whom the Father draws to Jesus.
- John 6:65 “And [Jesus] said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”” Jesus loves those whom the Father grants access to Jesus.
- John 8:47 “Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” Jesus loves those who are of God.
- John 10:11&27 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep … My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” Jesus loves His sheep; ie. not the wolves.
- John 13:18 “I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen.” Jesus loves those He has chosen.
- John 15:16 “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.” Jesus loves those He has chosen.
- John 15:19 “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” Jesus loves those He has chosen out of the world.
- John 17:2 “Father, you have given [Me] authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given [Me].” Jesus loves those whom the Father has given Him.
- John 17:6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” Jesus loves those whom the Father gave to Him.
- John 17:9 “I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me.” Jesus loves those whom the Father gave to Him.
- So the love of Jesus is focused only on those given to Him by the Father, the chosen ones, those who are God’s, His sheep.
- What this means then is that if you have repented of your sins and trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins or if you repent of your sins and trust in Jesus today, then you are one of those whom Jesus loves.
- And that truth, brothers and sisters, young people and boys and girls, is astonishing! Because if you and I are honest, we have to confess that to a holy God we are utterly unloveable; we are miserable, wretched, filthy sinners. We are unholy. We are unjust. We are impure. We are filled with hatred and anger. In short, we are sinful and in wilful rebellion against God. Yet He loves us!
- And He doesn’t love us because we first loved Him. No, “we love because He first loved us,” it says in 1 John 4:19. And He doesn’t love us because of anything we can offer Him. That was God’s point in our earlier reading in Deuteronomy when He told the Israelites that He had not chosen them because they were a large nation or special in some way. He simply loved them because He chose to love them. And it is the same with you and me as NT believers. God does not need our praise; the angels praise Him. He does not need spiritual children; Jesus said He was able of stones to raise up children for Abraham. God loves us because He has chosen to love us. Fullstop! Isn’t that wonderful?! Tremendous?! Wow?!
- People of God, in view of this great truth, I want you to think about ch’s 13-18 as a love letter. A love letter is a letter from one lover to another. I hope that there are lots of husbands and wives here that have received love letters from their spouse? Yes? Love letters are flavoured by the love for the person being written to. And everything we are going to read in ch’s 13-18 describes the fullness of Jesus’ love for us – His followers. For we are described in the Bible as the bride of Christ. So receive these words as a love letter from your Groom – the Lord Jesus!
- And His love for you begins in eternity past. For notice what John says, “Having loved them,” that’s past tense language. And this comes out, for example, in Ephesians 1:4-5, “[God] chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ.” God’s choosing you to salvation in eternity past was from His love.
- But the love of Jesus for His bride also comes into the present. It is His love for His disciples that led Him to wash their feet, as we shall see as we continue into ch. 13 next week.
- But in ch. 14, we shall see His love revealed in His promise to prepare a place for us in heaven.
- And also in ch. 14 we shall see His love revealed in His promise to hear our prayers and give us what we seek from Him that accords with the will of God.
- And then in ch’s 15-16 we shall see His love revealed in His promise to send us the Holy Spirit.
- And then in ch. 17 we shall His love most beautifully revealed in the prayer that He prays for us. It is a majestic and glorious and comforting prayer!
- And then from ch. 18 we shall see His love displayed on the cross. WHY did God send His Son to earth to die on the cross? We know from John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son.” And we know this also from Romans 5:8: “But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” And if you ever wonder why Jesus willingly endured the mocking and the torture and the spitting and the injustice and the pain and the eternal wrath of God against your sins, you have your answer here in v1 – His love for you. It is His love for you, believer, that took Him to the cross.
- But the love of Jesus is also about the future: In ch. 14, Jesus gives you this promise: “I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
- And all this is what it means when we read, “Having loved his own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”
I hope you are looking forward to reading the rest of this love letter? I am looking forward to spending my weeks immersed in it so that I can hopefully bring out some of the wonderful truthes in the letter each Lord’s Day in the sermons. And may it be that as we drink deeply from the well of Christ’s love for us that our love for each other and our desire that others would come to know the love of Christ would grow.
Well, having heard about the love of Jesus, let us prepare ourselves now to see and touch and taste the love of Jesus in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. And we will do that as we listen to some words of instruction about the Supper…
Sections A, B, and C
Prayer – And all God’s people said, Amen.