THE LOVE OF JESUS
Mark I Webster
Galatians 2: 20 (from “I live by faith”)
Proverbs 23: 26
In the thanksgiving for the loaf at the Supper this morning, the scripture was quoted in which, in inaugurating the Supper, the Lord Jesus, in taking the bread said, “This is my body which is given for you”, Luke 22: 19. Reference was made to the greatness of the love that was expressed in that. As we consider the emblems, and particularly the loaf, the enormity of the personal love of the Lord Jesus - what it is, and the way that it has taken Him - no doubt never ceases to affect all of us who break bread. I wanted to draw on this passage in Galatians to speak of that personal love of His. Paul could speak in a very personal way about the Lord Jesus: “the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me”; “for me”. The question would be whether every one of us in this hall could write those words. Could you write them? I do not mean, ‘Do you have the ability to write?’, but could you write them or say them with assurance? That involves certain things that I would like to speak of. It is a very personal matter; God’s word in the gospel is very personal. No doubt in some places there may be hundreds or even thousands that come under the sound of the word, and we are very glad of that; but whatever the number of persons involved it comes to every one of us personally. I also read the passage in Proverbs where Solomon, who in many places in the Scriptures is a type of the Lord Jesus, writes personally by way of an appeal, “My son, give me thy heart”. You will notice that the word “me” appears in both these scriptures. The ‘me’ in both is very important. Sometimes we may say ‘me’ and we are seeking to draw attention to ourselves in a willful way. But that is not the case in either of these scriptures that I have read.
Now in the scripture in Galatians, the apostle Paul describes himself as the “chief of sinners” (1 Tim 1: 15 KJV); he recognised what a sinner he was. He recognised that if he was to be set free from the consequences of his sinful history, it involved faith in One, the Son of God, as to whom he could write here, “who has loved me and given himself for me”. Can you say that? It involves that we believe on Him, the Lord Jesus, the One who in His Person is no less than the Son of God. I did not read the whole passage, in which the apostle is addressing a danger amongst those to whom he was writing, but he is bringing out the importance of faith, as to which, in relation to himself, he could write, “I live by faith”; he now lived on that principle. He was no longer proceeding on the basis of what he could do with his natural ability. He was a Jew, and had been governed by the law. He brings out that no man can be justified on that principle; God justifies the sinner on the basis of faith - faith in the Lord Jesus and His blood. That is very important, that you have faith in Him, and faith in all that He has done for you, including the shedding of His precious blood. Paul could write personally of his faith in the Lord Jesus.
Now I do not want in any way to be misleading or imaginative in what I say, but he is writing as though he was the only sinner in the world, and he writes of the enormity of the personal love of the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, that had caused Him to give Himself for Paul. It was said in our reading earlier, that although God is a sin-hating God - He must be because of all that He is in His holiness - with sin therefore being an offence to Him, He nevertheless loves the sinner. I want to bring that home to you. Whoever you are, whatever you are, whatever you have done or not done - maybe including ignoring God’s word in the past or putting off the matter of your sins to another day, God’s love is towards you; and it has been fully demonstrated in the Lord Jesus, God in His Person, who came into manhood in order to give Himself for you, for you - as if for no one else in that sense, but for you. What that must have meant to the Lord Jesus. He came in order to suffer and to die; and to continue what I am seeking to bring before you as to what is personal, it was in order that He might suffer and die for you. Have you thought of that? You may have heard the brethren speak of the wonderful scope and greatness of all that the Son of God has accomplished for God in His mighty work at the cross in suffering, going into death and shedding His precious blood, but He gave Himself for you. What love!
I suppose the greatness of the Person of the Lord Jesus must have laid hold of the apostle Paul almost immediately on the Damascus road, because if you read Acts 9 it records that when he received his sight, “straightway in the synagogues he preached Jesus that he is the Son of God”, Acts 9: 20. He had an immediate impression of the greatness of the One that had appeared to him, appeared to him from the glory, where Jesus is now. How great it is that a divine Person should come into manhood in order to express the fulness of divine love towards you. Persons speak of love and often they confuse love with lust, but the love of God is incomparable in all its greatness. God Himself is love; it is His very nature, and that love has been fully, not partially, expressed in the Son of God. He has expressed that love, and He expresses that love today and He expresses it to you. These words, I am conscious, are very simple, but I trust they help to draw your attention to what is very real and most blessed, the love of God Himself, expressed in the One who came into manhood to give Himself for you. The gospel contains what is truly grand and glorious in its scope and objectives, and how wonderful that is. But it comes right down to each one of us in a personal and simple way that we can all understand.
Now I am not going to speak about you as a sinner, because I hope that you are aware of, and recognise that fact. It would be a foolish person who tried to pretend that he or she was not a sinner. And we are all in that category, and sin has brought in distance from God. God does not want distance between His creature and Himself; He wants His creature to know and experience the blessing and the joy of His presence. You remember that when God set man in the garden of Eden, He came down to see him, to commune with him. You wonder at that, that God, so great, should have an interest in man. He has always had man in His heart to secure him for Himself, and He has always had the Lord Jesus in His heart as the Man of His choice. How wonderful that is. But He came down to commune with man; He wanted the company of man, just as He wants your company. Think of that! How wonderful these things are, that God wants you, and He wants you for Himself. He wants you for His pleasure; He wants you to know the blessedness of an untroubled relationship with Himself in which there is no distance or anything to separate you in any way from Him, and for you to know His love that is expressed in His beloved Son. That is fully possible. So that Paul could say, “has loved me”. He would be right in saying, ‘He loves me’, but he could look back on his history - no doubt he would look back further than his history and think back to the cross of Jesus; and say with assurance He “loved me” then. Yes, you too were in the heart of the Lord Jesus when He went to the cross to suffer and to die for sinners. His love was fully expressed there, His love for you. He wants you to come into the certainty and joy of that, and the assurance that He gave Himself for you. You cannot enjoy love if you do not have the experience of it. But He and His love are available to you.
Now I trust you have come to the Lord Jesus and accepted Him, accepted Him for yourself, as your Saviour. How important that is; in fact, it is essential. There cannot be anything, in one sense, more essential than that, that you come to the Lord Jesus, the One who has died and has been raised; and that you receive Him and put your faith in His precious blood which was shed there upon the cross. As you do so, God can look upon you as one whose sins have been atoned for, and free of anything relating to you that would otherwise come in the way of a true relationship with Himself. God is free to do so righteously on the basis of your faith in the Lord Jesus and in His precious blood, the One who in the bounty of His love, gave Himself for you. You might ask what was in His heart. The greatness of the fulfilment of God’s thoughts in purpose? Of course it was, but how precious to bring it right down to you and me personally, and to be able to say, as Paul could, without any doubt in his mind, “the Son of God who loved me”. I ask you again, can you say that? I trust you are a believer on the Lord Jesus, one who can reflect on the fact that the Lord Jesus came into manhood, went to the cross and suffered there, so that you know He bore your sins in His body on the tree, went into death, and shed His precious blood, that you might be cleansed from all unrighteousness. He was raised for your justification, and in that connection, you may say, ‘Well, that was because of His love for me’.
Persons give presents to one another, and we are thankful for the generosity of those who give those gifts to us. But none of those gifts, however great they may be, can in any way compare with the greatness of the giving that Jesus made when He gave Himself. Nothing less was suitable; only He could settle everything before God. Only He could set you free from your guilt and your sins. Only He could do it. He gave Himself willingly. What love! How precious that is. May it affect your heart; may it win your heart if it is not yet won for Him; may it develop you in affection for Him. May you be able to say, maybe not in the exact words Paul uses here, but say that which corresponds to these twenty words, that “I live by faith …”. That is to be a continuing and present experience of course, and we will not go into that now, but it is sufficient to say that Paul was living on that principle of faith, no longer in his sins, no longer seeking to follow the law and all that would otherwise get in the way. He had been ushered in, as it were, to an area and sphere of life, by faith: “… the faith of the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me”.
In Proverbs there is another ‘me’. I would like to speak of this in relation to the Lord Jesus. “My son, give me thy heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways”. The Lord Jesus wants your heart. That really means your life, I think. The Lord Jesus has demonstrated the greatness of love for you, which is incomparable, and now He wants your heart. He wants it for Himself. As you have the Lord Jesus before you, and you have faith in Him, how are things going to be different? They should be different. We read in the reading of those who are lovers of pleasure, lovers of self, instead of being lovers of God, 2 Tim 3: 4. The Lord Jesus has a claim in love upon you. Does it not appeal to your heart, that the One who in His love has given Himself for you wants you for Himself? Is He not worthy of your heart, your life? He is. No other is more worthy of it than He. How worthy He is! And what an appeal this is, “give me thy heart”. I trust that might resonate with everyone here. You young ones here today, give the Lord Jesus your heart; give your life to Him. That is very important, and it is very blessed. It is a very blessed matter no longer to pursue your own will, your own ways and your own natural interests, but to give your life to Jesus. The Lord Jesus would say, “give me thy heart”. He wants your life; He wants your all. The Lord Jesus would appeal to everyone to do that, whether we be young or whether we be older. He would say, ‘Make a committal to me’. If you have received Him as your Saviour, there is something more; there is something He is looking for and desires; and that is you. He wants you: He wants your heart, He wants your life to be for Him. If you have never done it before, make that committal tonight, and remain true to it.
And then He says, “let thine eyes observe my ways”. What ways are His. Amongst His ways are His ways with those of us who belong to Him. And they are ways of love. We may not always recognise them exactly, but everything that He does towards us is in love. His ways are beyond our ways. God’s ways are above our ways as the heavens are above the earth. All His thoughts and ways are, as the scripture brings out, Isa 55: 8-9. His ways are beyond reasoning; but in His love He says “observe” them. What does that mean? Mr Darby’s footnote say it means to delight in them. We may not always think that they are delightful, but they are for our good and for our blessing. So the scripture says to observe them, to delight in them. Often tests come - at school, at work, at home - there are these and other spheres, as it were, of our activity and responsibility, and sometimes things may seem hard and troublesome, but they are part of the Lord’s ways. Observe them; do not just resign yourself to them. Sometimes we may become a bit stoical about them and may seek as men would speak to just ‘Get a grip’, but that is not the thought here. I speak, I trust, very carefully, but the Lord Jesus was never marked by what is stoical: He felt things. He felt things in His soul. And so do we, and they often affect our spirits. But His ways are to be worked out with Him, for they are His ways in love, and they are for our blessing.
That is all I had to say. If nothing else remains from this preaching, then seek divine help to remember those four words, “give me thy heart” and to follow them up. For His Name’s sake.
Buckhurst Hill
30th January 2022