The sermon 'Loving His Own' by Jason Dohm focuses on John 13:1 and explores Jesus' act of washing the disciples' feet as a profound expression of love and humility. The speaker underscores the importance of viewing this act through the lens of love, linking it to spiritual cleansing and service. The sermon highlights the unique content of John 13-17, absent from the synoptic gospels, emphasizing love as the context for Jesus' teachings and actions. The speaker reflects on Jesus' awareness of his impending crucifixion and his unwavering love for his disciples, despite their weaknesses. The sermon extends the love Jesus showed his disciples to all believers, asserting that they, too, are loved intensely and unendingly. The speaker encourages the audience to meditate on the connection between Jesus and the Passover, respond to his love, and draw strength from it to overcome life's challenges.

Our servant text today is John chapter 13 verse 1. I'm going to read verses 1 through 17. Let's follow along. Now before the feast of the Passover when Jesus knew that his hour had come that he should depart from this world to the Father having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, and laid aside his garments, took a towel, and girded himself.

After that he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with a towel with which he was girded. Then he came to Simon Peter, and Peter said to him, Lord, are you washing my feet? Jesus answered and said to him, What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this. Peter said to him, You shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.

Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus said to him, He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not all of you. For he knew who would betray him, therefore he said, you are not all clean. So when he had washed their feet, taken his garments, and sat down again, he said to them, do you know what I have done to you?

You call me teacher and lord, and you say, well, for so I am. If I then your lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them." Let's pray.

Lord, we pray that you will bless the preaching of this word, that you will pour yourself out onto Mr. Dohm, give him your words to speak, Lord, and open up our ears to hear and receive this message. In Jesus' name, Amen. The title of the sermon this morning is, Loving his own. We only have one verse this morning.

That shouldn't make you think that this is going to be a short sermon. The whole Bible is a love story about the love of God for His people. So I have the whole Bible to draw from. And luckily I was very selective. This is a verse about the love of the Lord Jesus Christ for His people.

We're starting five chapters of essentially uninterrupted teaching. Chapters 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 is a single sitting of the Lord Jesus Christ with His disciples and what He taught them in this single setting. The contents of these five chapters are missing from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. None of the other gospels have the content that we are beginning the study of. And likewise, the Gospel of John doesn't have the Lord's Supper.

What was John thinking? There is no institution of the Lord's Supper in what we will be studying in the Gospel of John. Yet these five glorious chapters of Jesus teaching his disciples aren't in the other gospels. More than ever, week by week, I'm more and more convinced that John really is what the scholars says it is, which is the last gospel written. And that God had him fill in the blanks.

That under inspiration, John has given us so many things that aren't in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And vice versa. So really, it's the wisdom of God on display. We needed it all. John gives us the things that the synoptic gospels don't give us.

We're beginning the text, a very famous text, where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. This will extend through verse 17. But verse 1 sets the context. If God hadn't given us verse 1, I think we would think very differently about verses 2 through 17, and we would think of them in many ways wrongly. So I'm very grateful about verse one.

The context for what we'll be studying the next two weeks is love. Everything in the rest has to be seen through the filter of love. It is important that we bear down on this because all that follows in the foot washing passage is about love, practical love, expressed love. This act, the washing of the disciples' feet, is a picture of spiritual cleansing. But at the root of that, at the root of our spiritual cleansing, is love, the love of God for His people.

This act, the washing of the disciples' feet, is an example of serving one another in humility. But at the root of that is love. Did you know that you can disconnect spiritual cleansing from love? And what you end up with is bare self-interest. I'm in a world of hurt because of my sinful thoughts and my sinful words and my sinful deeds.

So I have a need and Jesus on the cross fills my needs. So I have a self-interest that is served by the cross. You can skip right over the top of love. All that is true of course. It's not that there is anything untrue about that, but it's not the heart of it.

The heart of it is, there is a God of love who knew your desperate condition even when you didn't know it. Before you ever knew that you had this self-interest in the cross and he showed it to you. Why? Why did he do that? Love.

Affection. Love that predates the making of the world. Did you know that you can disconnect humble service from love? And so that humble service, one to another, becomes just a rule. It's a weight that we can never get out from under.

God says we should serve each other in humility, and you're never done with it. So it's just a weight that you carry around. It's just another of many rules. That's what you get when you disconnect this text from what underlies it. The context.

Verse 1. The love of God from His people. Or worse yet, your humble service of others becomes a source of pride. Imagine the human condition where humble service can be a source of pride and self-righteousness. That's in all of our nature.

So keeping this connected with the love of God for His people will actually rescue us from having humble service one to another become either a rule that's a way that we can never get out from under, or a source of pride and self-righteousness. As we see what Jesus does in the rest of our text, verses 1-17, this is an expression of love. That's what it is. That's all it is. That is the sum total of what Jesus is doing with these disciples.

He's loving them in the most practical, down-to-earth way. As we go to our text, let's go to our text asking for help. Father, we are in awe that your Son loves us. Why would He love us? In our saner moments we see How unlovely we are in so many ways, and yet Your Word is teaching us that Your people are the object of an everlasting love.

Oh, the glory of Your revelation! Thank You God for the love of your Son, Jesus Christ. Let it loom large. Let it loom large. Pray that you would exalt the love of your Son through the preaching of your word in Jesus' name.

Amen. Well, there's no point in subdividing. We only have one verse. I guess we sort of will be subdividing the verse then. I'd like to begin with major heading Number one, if you're taking notes on the handouts, the explanation of the verse.

Just a simple explanation of what we have here in this one verse. So if you're taking notes on the handout and you're filling in blanks, it's explanation. The explanation of the verse. We have three things in this verse. We have the timing of the Passover.

We have the timing, which is the Passover. We have Jesus' knowledge of the timing. And we have Jesus' love for the disciples. So three very simple things in this verse. Let's look at each one of these.

So number one, the timing. The Passover is the timing of what we are embarking on a study of. We say often that all of the Bible points to Christ. So Christ isn't a New Testament invention. Heaven help us if we would think that.

Christ is in Genesis chapter 3, if not earlier. All of the Bible points to Christ. We are saying that all the time. In the Old Testament, one of the things, in addition to the prophecies that say, where God says, I am sending a Savior, someone to redeem you from your sins. In addition to that we have the types and the shadows and the pictures of Jesus Christ in the ceremonial law.

So you have ceremonial law where God says, worship me in these ways, and in those ways you have little teachings, little pictures, little shadows that point forward to the promised Redeemer. So we have these feasts. You can make a lengthy, wonderful, deep, rich study of the feasts on the Jewish calendar and all the ways in which they picture Christ and the ways in which Jesus fulfills these little examples. You have an entire sacrificial system which includes many, many sacrifices. But I'll name two.

Think of the scapegoat. You come with your sins and you put your hand on the head of the scapegoat. It's a symbolic, It's not real, but it's a picture. It's a symbol that the sinner comes, the guilty one comes, to place his or her hands on an innocent one to transfer your sins so that you become innocent. This is the picture of the scapegoat.

And then you banish the scapegoat. You send out the goat into the wilderness. Or think about the morning and evening sacrifice. For centuries, in the temple, a lamb was slain, and it was burnt up, and bread was offered with it, and wine was poured out. Just think about the symbolism of that.

And then the riches of the Lord's Supper, the bread and the wine, after centuries of the morning and evening sacrifice, the killing of the lamb and the offering up of bread and wine. These point to Christ. But more than any Old Testament picture, an Old Testament picture, where is the Old Testament stop? Here is the Old Testament. It's the fat part.

It's the fat part of the book. Of an Old Testament full of pictures about the Messiah, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, more than any other picture is the Passover. The Passover does justice to the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ more than any other picture. You find the Passover for the first time in Exodus 12. The people of God are in bondage and they are in the process of being released from their bondage.

There have already been nine plagues executed on the Egyptians. The people of God being spared from them, them raining down, literally in some cases, on the Egyptians, but there is a tenth plague and it is the killing of the firstborn. And God's intention is that He is going to kill the firstborn in every single Egyptian household, but he is going to spare the firstborn in every Israelite household. Why? Because the Egyptians are sinners and the Israelites aren't sinners?

No! Because He has set his love on the Israelites and so he is going to provide a substitute. A lamb is symbolic of the Lord Jesus Christ and they are going to kill these lambs and they are going to dip hyssop into the blood and use it to paint the door posts of their house so that when the destroyer comes in the middle of the night to render the wages of sin, which is death, on every household, that the destroyer will see the blood of an innocent covering this household of the guilty. And those sins will have been paid for by the innocent one. It is the just dying for the unjust.

This is a picture more than any other picture in the Old Testament of the Lord Jesus Christ. So then we come to the Gospel of John. John chapter 1 verse 29, John the Baptist says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. You can take the blood of this Lamb and you can paint that blood over the doorposts of your house. And though the wages of your sin is death, The right, just, good payment for your rebellion against God is death.

You can paint the blood of this lamb on the doorpost of your life. And the destroyer, though you deserve, he will not render to you what you deserve. Paul is even more explicit in 1 Corinthians 5 verse 7. Paul says, Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. So he takes the two dots and draws a bright, bold line between them.

Christ is our Passover. He is the lamb whose blood can be painted on the doorposts of your life so that the destroying angel will not render to you what you deserve but he will pass over you. So when we read at the beginning of verse 1, now before the feast of the Passover, this is not simply a time marker. Jesus is the reality of what was pictured by the Passover. Jesus is the fulfillment of that picture.

That's just a shadow. Jesus is the reality or the substance of the picture. Exodus 12, the first Passover, and every succeeding Passover, God was saying, Christ is coming, Christ is coming, Christ is coming, decade after decade, century after century, millennia after millennia, Christ is coming and now the Passover, the Passover, not a Passover, the Passover when the fulfillment of the picture comes and offers himself up as a ransom for sin. There is something else to consider here. This is the time when there are more people in Jerusalem than at any other time of the year.

I consider this secondary, but it's not nothing. Josephus says that during the time of the Passover, the population of Jerusalem would swell to 3 million. From 200, 000 people in normal life in Jerusalem, to the Passover, there will never be more people in Jerusalem than during the week of the Passover. The sacrifice of the Son of God was not done in a corner. It was done when all of Israel was present, probably something like 3 million people there, when the Lamb of God, the Passover Lamb, was sacrificed.

So these two things come together in the mention of the Passover here. One is that Jesus is the reality of the picture that the Passover has been for thousands of years. And secondly, there is a great public presence in Jerusalem to see and bear witness to the Son of God laying down His life for sinners. So that was number one, the timing. Number two, Jesus's knowledge of the timing.

Look at About the halfway point of verse 1. Jesus knew that His hour had come, that He should depart from this world to the Father. Now we just encountered similar language in chapter 12. In the last chapter we were studying, listen to chapter 12 verse 23 where Jesus said, The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. So throughout the gospels He is saying, not yet, not yet, my hour has not yet come, my hour has not yet come, now he says the hour has come the Son of Man should be glorified.

Or look at verses 27 and 28. Jesus says, now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father save me from this hour, but for this purpose I came to this hour. Father glorify your name." The hour is the hour of his great sacrifice for sin. It's the hour of the cross.

But I thought he also said it's the hour of glorification. Yes, they're the same thing. The great way that Jesus is glorified above all other ways. He deserves glory in a hundred different categories. But the great category, the great way in which Jesus receives glory is by laying down his life for sinners.

Jesus will never be known or loved or worshiped for anything more than he is for his work on the cross. God made it that way. So we see that Jesus knew exactly what was happening and what was about to happen. J.C. Ryle says this, Our Lord saw the cross clearly before him and walked straight up to it.

What a great way to say that. He saw very clearly the cross right before him. And rather than turning around, he walked straight up to it. He knew exactly what was happening, he knew exactly what was about to happen, he knew exactly What would transpire in the 24 hours that we are embarking on in our study of the Gospel of John? Being spat upon, being scourged, being ridiculed, being tried, convicted, crucified, he walked straight up to it.

Isn't that a comfort? Doesn't that indicate Jesus' disposition towards His people rather than shrinking back from this moment that he would walk straight up to the abuse and ultimately to the cross. This tells you about what was in the heart of Jesus Christ. It was love for His people that caused him to walk straight up to the cross. For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame.

He got it. He understood that The cross was a shameful death. He despised the shame of the cross. And yet, for the joy set before Him, he endured it. Hebrews 12, chapter 12, verse 2.

Hebrews 12, 2. It was for the joy set before Him. The joy of redeeming a people. The joy of the glory that would be His by completing this great work. In our verse, in verse 1, he doesn't talk about the cross.

He talks about his departure to be with his father. He doesn't even mention the cross. In chapter 12, he mentioned both the cross and His glory. Here, he just speaks of it in terms of this being a departure from the world to return to His Father. In between, he would take on sin and be forsaken.

He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. He was made sin, he doesn't mention that. Some of his last words on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He is quoting Psalm 22. On the cross, because he was made sin, He was forsaken by his father.

He doesn't even mention that. He speaks of this simply in terms of departing the world and returning to his father. He had his eyes on reclaiming his rightful place of glory as God beside his Father. He had his eyes on reclaiming his rightful place of glory as God beside His Father. Remember how the Gospel of John started.

The first two verses of the Gospel. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

He's going back there to be with His Father. So Jesus understood all of this and He understood the timing of all of this and he looked past the cross to renewed, full, complete, unbroken, undiminished fellowship with his Father. Jesus was the perfect example of a heavenly minded man. Eyes not on the cross, but fellowship with his Father. The glory that awaited him.

Number one was the timings. This happened at the Passover. Number two was Jesus' perfect knowledge of the timing. He clearly saw the cross and he walked straight up to it. Number three, we have Jesus' love for His disciples.

In this time when the natural human tendency would be to be very inward, very focused on self, Jesus kept on doing what He had always done. Listen again, having loved His own who were in the world, what was His pattern of life? Loving His own, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. He kept on doing what he had been doing in an unbroken way, a continuous way, loving his own. This extended his own.

This extended time of teaching, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, a lot of teaching, It is more than just a cram session before the final exam. You remember that? Those of you who have been to college, the final is tomorrow. The final exam is tomorrow. You have just a limited number of hours left.

You haven't done your work during, maybe as diligently as you should have during the semester, so you try to make it up in the last night. A cram session, that's what we called it. Cramming for the final exam. Jesus is seizing on a final opportunity to teach His disciples, but this is more than a cram session. As we work our way through these five chapters, we are going to see that what Jesus says drips with affection.

This is not just, oh, last chance, cramming into their minds quick, or we're down to a last few hours, give them a little more information. No, no, no. It is love, love, love we're going to be studying through the next five chapters. The affection of Jesus Christ for these men is going to come through in every verse. And the washing of the feet of His disciples is the perfect kickoff to this.

The perfect beginning. It is a concrete expression. Love for Jesus wasn't just sentiment and it wasn't just words. It was sentimental. It was real affection.

The love of Jesus Christ was love in His heart, but it worked its way out of His heart. And It wasn't even just expressed with words, although he did express it with words. It came through in very concrete, practical ways. We have that in him washing the feet of his disciples. There's nothing wrong with the translation.

He loved them to the end. All of the translations we like render it exactly that way. There's no complaint about the translation. But it misses some of the depth and the breadth. It's just that there's not an English word that brings over the fullness of the Greek.

There are two senses bound together in the Greek word. The first sense is all the way until the last. That is really what the translators have seized on when they give us to the end, all the way to the last. But it can even mean eternally, without end. The point of this sense is that as long as there is an opportunity, the opportunity is seized, however long that is, to the end.

As much opportunity, all of the opportunity is taken. All the way until the last, or even eternally without end is the first sense. The second sense is utterly, completely, absolutely, So, one is quantitative. How much? Every opportunity seized.

All the way. Unendingly. The other is qualitative. What is it like? Oh, it's intense.

It's intense. It's complete. It's utter. It's absolutely thoroughly. So, this love with which he loved the disciples is both of these things that are bound up in the Word.

In the Word. It is throughout all time, unendingly, and it is with intensity, through and through, No part untouched. How rich. And isn't that how we want to be loved? And how we need to be loved?

Think about your nature. Think about your struggles. Think about your sins. Think about your frailties. You need to be loved like that.

It needs to be a love that doesn't come and go, ebb and flow. It needs to be intense, thorough, complete. It needs to be unending. It can't depend even a little on you. Or else it won't be what you need.

So that was the first major heading. An explanation of the verse. The second major heading. The immediate meaning. Jesus loved the disciples.

So if you are taking notes on the handout, immediate, it fills in the blank. The immediate meaning, Jesus loved the disciples. That is what John the Gospel writer is talking about here. It's talking about Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Man, and His love for the twelve men He chose to be closest to Him, to walk with Him for three and a half years. His love for those twelve men.

It helps us to slow down and to think about the disciples. Just to sort of turn over in our minds what we know about the disciples. They were the smartest, the humblest, the quickest to understand and even quicker to serve. The most patient, the most steadfast, right? Isn't that what we know about the disciples from the Gospel accounts?

Heaven. They're often so dull. They're not the smartest. They're often so dull. Thinking these guys still don't understand.

They don't pick up. That's because you've read the gospel a number of times. You have to cheat, cheat. They didn't have to cheat, cheat. Give them a break.

They're not the humblest. They are proud men, often clamoring for first position. They're not quick to understand. They're slow to understand. They're not quick to serve.

They're so clearly desiring to be served. They're not patient. They're very impatient. In one Gospel account, they want to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritans. They're not steadfast.

They all abandoned Jesus in the garden. We are 24 hours. Jesus knew His hour, knew what was right in front of him, knew that part of what was right in front of him was to be abandoned and denied by his friends. These are the men he loved to the end. These are the men whose feet he washes.

These are the men Jesus loved through and through and unendingly. In a backwards sort of way, this is such an encouragement to me. A disciple who finds himself dull, proud, clamoring for praise, slow to understand, slower to serve, very impatient. J.C. Ryle says this, Jesus will never reject any servant because of feeble service or weak performance.

Those he receives he always keeps. Those whom he loves at first, he loves at last. Jesus will never reject any servant because of feeble service and weak performance. Oh, not good enough. Not good enough as a servant.

You're off. Those whom he receives, he always keeps. Those whom he loves at first, he loves at last. Think of Peter, who rebuked Jesus when Jesus said he was going to the cross, who slept in Gethsemane, who denied him three times. Jesus loved him through and through and unendingly.

Think of the others who squabbled about who was the greatest, who abandoned and fled in the garden when the soldiers came. These are the men he loved through and through and unendingly. These are not men God needed to change the world. They are loved men Who Jesus shaped through His love into men who would change the world. Do you understand the gulf between those two things?

The first says, there's work, God needs somebody to do the work. Second says, God according to His good pleasure, because He thinks it's a good idea, will lay his hands on something unlovely and he will shape that object of his love by his love and make them into something useful for him. Not because he needs someone to do the work, but to show off. Let me just say that again. These are not men God needed to change the world.

Are these the men God would have picked if He needed men to change the world? I need the best! These are the best. They are loved men. Who Jesus shaped through His love into men who would change the world.

To show how his love transforms. That was major heading number two, the immediate meaning. Jesus loved the disciples. Major heading number three, the extended meaning, Jesus loves all his disciples. Please Understand, this is not a stretch.

This is not to take us somewhere where the text doesn't really take us. If you are a disciple of His, You have a right to claim what's in verse 1 for your own. You have a right to it. It's not a stretch. It's not something that isn't there.

The extended meaning of verse 1, it extends to you if you've repented and believed. It extends to you. There is a very real sense in which the disciples, these twelve men, are representatives of all disciples, the pupils of Jesus Christ throughout the centuries. I am one. I have repented and believed.

I am a disciple. Verse 1 is mine. Seeing Jesus love the disciples through and through and unendingly gives this disciple confidence that Jesus loves me with intensity. Jesus takes every opportunity, not even ending in my lifetime, but extending through eternity to love me and preceding my birth. Listen to what God says of all His people in Jeremiah 31 verse 3.

Jeremiah 31 verse 3. God says this of all His people, all His people, yes, I have loved I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness I have drawn you. I'll read it again. Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love.

Therefore, With loving kindness I have drawn you." What does that mean? It means His love for you precedes you. It means His love for you was before you had ever taken a breath, had any conscious thought ever. It wasn't based on anything that you had done or would do. And that This was the basis for him intervening in your life to draw you to himself.

Therefore, with loving kindness I have drawn you. I have loved you with an everlasting love. It preceded you. Therefore, I have drawn you with loving kindness, therefore with loving kindness I have drawn you." His loving kindness, the basis for his drawing you in love was his everlasting love. That brings us to this phrase, having loved his own who are in the world.

If God has put His hand on you and given you the gift of repentance and faith. By the way, that's how you know. Has God laid His hand on me? Well, I don't know. Has He given you the gift of repentance and faith?

It didn't seem like a gift. It seemed like I did that. Yeah, you did that. It was in response. If you've repented and believed, He put His hand on you.

You wouldn't have repented and believed if He hadn't. And if that's true of you, you are His own. John 1 verse 3, All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. Jesus made you, you are His own through creation. John 6 verse 37, Jesus said, All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out.

You have been given to Jesus. You are His own by gift, by bestowal, by grant. God granted you. God the Father granted you to Him. Ephesians 5 verse 2, Walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us, and offering in a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma.

Jesus bought you with his own precious blood. You are his own by purchase. Matthew 11, 28-30, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy and my burden is light." You have come to Jesus for rest.

You are His own by trusting submission. You said, I'm yours. I'm tired of being my own. I want to be your own. I not only assent to the truths of the Gospel, I consent to the person of Jesus Christ.

I come for rest. And what are we to conclude from all that? That Jesus will never leave you or forsake you. That Jesus is at His Father's right hand interceding for you, praying that your faith will not fail. That's what Jesus said to Peter.

Satan has desired to sift you as we, but I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail. Why? Because you are his own, his own by creation, His own by gift and bestowal and grant. His own by purchase. His own by trusting submission.

And faithfulness is an unchangeable, inseparable, unyielding part of His nature. Unyielding part of his nature. You are not his science project to see what will happen in this situation or that situation. You are the apple of His eye. The great object of His eternal affection.

Listen to Zechariah chapter 2 verse 8. Here's what the prophet says in Zechariah chapter 2 verse 8. To the Lord's people, He who touches you, touches the apple of his eye. He doesn't touch his science project. He's Trying to see what happens in this stimulus and response world.

And so he's just trying things out with you. No, no, no, no! You're the object of his affection. You are the apple of His eye. He warns those who touch you.

Better not touch him. Better not touch her. That one is the apple of my eye, the object of my eternal affection. He has loved you with an everlasting love. Applications.

I have three. Number one. This number one is a homework assignment, so write it down. Homework. Take some time to meditate on the connection between the Passover and Jesus.

Go back, just open up your Bible in quiet solitude. Get along with your Bible and open it to Exodus 12. Read Exodus 12 and think about how Jesus is the lamb whose blood can be painted on the doorpost so that the destroyer doesn't pay the wages of sin in your household but passes over. That's number one. Take some time to meditate on.

What does that mean? It just means to turn it over in your mind. You're reading it a little bit and you're just turning it over in your mind. In what way is Jesus like this lamb? Linger on it.

Turn it over in your mind and then turn it over in your mind again. Then, Turn it over in your mind again. Then, turn it over in your mind again. Number two. Respond to his love like never before.

I suppose this could be to unbelievers, but I'm really talking to believers. Respond to His love like never before. 1 John 4 19. We love Him because He first loved us. The love of Jesus Christ for His people is not meant to just be received, it is meant to be responded to.

He loves us. God, eternal, almighty, omnipotent, omnipresent, God loves you, a speck on a speck. Here's what He desires in return. Respond. Love him back like you've never loved him before.

J.C. Ryle talks about this in every book he's ever written. The difference between union and communion. Every real Christian has union with Christ. It's synonymous.

You can't be a real Christian without union in Christ. Without union in Christ, you're not a Christian. So Every real Christian enjoys union with Christ. But communion in Christ is something that is enjoyed to a greater or lesser extent. He bemoans it in every book he ever writes too.

How little we seize on the enjoyment of communion. So this is, you have been loved by Christ with intensity, unendingly respond. Respond. Love Him back. You know, It is possible to leave your first love.

There's a letter written in Revelation 2 to a church that had their doctrinal act together, but they had left their first love. It's possible for real live Christians to lose their love. Reclaim it. You remember what It was like to first realize that you, a speck on a speck, and defiled in every part, were loved by the God who made everything. Just how thrilling that was.

Go back and be thrilled again. Number three. Turn to Romans 8. Romans 8. Number three, I'll give you the punch line now.

Conquer through the love of Jesus. The world, the flesh, and the devil are going to throw the kitchen sink at you. The kitchen sink just means everything. Life is going to bring all sorts of trouble to your doorstep. That was not something unknown to the writer of Romans, the Apostle Paul.

He knew a lot about the world, the flesh, and the devil throwing the kitchen sink at him. Here's what he says about that. Starting in verse 35. Romans 8, starting in verse 35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

I'm just going to stop there and interject just from our verse and what we're learning about what the Greek is teaching us in verse 1 of our text. Who shall separate us from the through and through intense unending love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword. As it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers. Nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, Nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." The Apostle Paul looks out on the present and the future, and he knows that the world, the flesh and the devil are going to throw the kitchen sink at him. He says, I'll conquer and more than conquer. Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man, loves me intensely, loves me through and through, loves me unendingly.

Bring the kitchen sink. You can conquer. You can conquer through this love. God, thank you for the love of your Son. Forgive us for having a slant to think that we're your science project, you're seeing how things will work if this or that, and not that we are the affection of your heart, the apple of your eye, so that you warn any who would touch us.

That one is the object of my affection, Eternal affection. Intense affection. Unending affection. Let us see it. Let us feel it.

Let us know it and abide in it. Pray in Jesus' name, Amen.