seeking the Lord's help and your very prayerful attention. I would direct your thoughts this evening to five words you will find in the chapter we read, John chapter 15, and the last five words in verse 12, as I have loved you. The whole verse reads, this is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you. I would just say that this text came to me some days ago, even before I knew the hymns that were going to be sung this evening, and the same in fact for the afternoon service. text was realized before I knew what the hymns were. So there's been a unity of the Spirit which I'm thankful for between us in that. As I have loved you. Our Lord Jesus Christ was preaching what we might call his valedictory sermon. It seems that it began in the upper room when he instituted the Passover after washing the disciples' feet And then they proceeded from the upper room along the street out of Jerusalem to the place called Gethsemane. And it was seen that as they went along the road, he spoke to them. And he preached to that little band, Judas now no longer with them, but the 11 loyal, loving ones who were to prove later on the pillars in the church in the New Testament day. And they had many things to say to them. But one thing he repeated several times in John 13 and in this chapter, taken up by the Apostle John, was the love of the brethren. The love of the brethren. He said this is a new commandment. I give unto thee love one another. Does not mean that the Old Testament saints did not love one another? They certainly did, those who had the fear of God in their hearts. Abraham said concerning Lot, though that was a difficult case, he said we'd be brethren. I believe he meant that not just in the natural sense, but there was that affinity in the things of God. Though Lot, as we know, was under God's chastening hand later, but God called him a righteous man. So he was one in heart with Abraham deep, deep down. And Abraham showed that love to him in the way he dealt with him. There could not be a greater motive for the love of the brethren than we have in these five words, as I have loved you. I want to dwell on them with the Lord's help for a few moments this evening, but I would just like to words by way of introduction first of all it is very wonderful how low the dear spirit comes in encouraging his dear people in john's epistle we have these words we know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren in other words the love of the brethren was a fruit of passing from death unto life And we must just be clear what we mean by the love of the brethren. It's not a social love. People are compatible with us. It's very dispositional. It's something different to that. What is it? Friends, you love another brother in Christ in what you see of Christ in him. That's what binds the brethren together. What you see of Christ in one another, that's where the union is. That's where the communion is. While we are here below, there are many spots and wrinkles, as Paul speaks of in the Ephesians. There is much, no doubt, that needs much cleansing. Other brethren can see our faults very clearly, and sometimes we see other people's faults. But you view them in Christ. You view his people in that great sheet that is at the four corners, of whom the Lord has said, God hath cleansed that corner that is common or unclean. Friends, I believe if we saw that more often, the love of the brethren would be more evident in our lives. When is it that brethren all agree and let distinctions fall? For nothing in themselves that I see in Christ is all in all. The second thing I would say is, there is one epistle written on this very theme, other than John's epistle. That is the epistle of Paul to Philemon. Very briefly you know what the epistle had to say. Philemon was a godly man, it's evident he was probably a preacher, and he had enough, as it were, to preach to. There was a church in his house, and Onesimus, his servant or slave, as it might have been in those days, no doubt was under the sound of the truth in Philemon's house. that Onesimus grows weary of the narrow ways he thinks, thinks it's greener over the fence and runs away and takes his master's money with him down to Rome where he thought he could begin a new life independent of any restrictions that he thought the gospel might bring. Then in the providence of God, in the sovereign purposes of God, he is brought under the sound of the ministry of the apostle Paul. That's a miracle, because Paul was a prisoner. How could this man Onesimus, a slave, ever be found under Paul's ministry? Well, friends, with God all things are possible. So it was under Paul's ministry Onesimus was born again of the Spirit, brought to repentance, brought to a faith in a precious Christ. And now he's not a servant, he's a brother in the Lord, a brother who loves, Paul calls him. Paul loves him, because now he sees the work of Christ in him. But there must be some fruit to this. Repentance has works that are adjoined to it, by grace. He was to go back to Philemon and he was apologised. and seek to submit under the rule that he had in Philemon's house. Paul sent a letter back with Onesimus to present to Philemon and in it basically said I forgive many reasons Philemon why you should forgive him and treat him as a brother but I just treat in just three words or four words yet for love's sake, for the love of Christ's sake. for the love of the brethren's sake, and for the love of the church of Christ's sake, receive him as a brother. And we believe Philemon did. That is the essence behind our text this evening. This is my command, you love one another as I have loved you. But I want to dwell on the last five words in the text because there's something very precious here. It sets an amazing standard that we should be loving one another as Christ loved us, if indeed we have been loved by him and there's fruit in our life. What is the character then of this love that the Lord commends? That we should love one another as he has loved us, as I have loved you. Let us with God's help just look for a few moments at this love and what a mercy if it flows into our heart it won't be difficult to love the brethren then you know all obstructions fall away then and you can say like Ruth did my thy people shall be my people and thy God my God you'll cleave to them because they'll be your best friends those whom you love doubly perhaps in the flesh but more especially in the spirit as I have loved you. Let us go to two places in John where we see a wonderful demonstration of God's love. We think of John 11 for a start. There we read these words. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. There were three very different characters. Very busy Martha, contemplative Mary, and as for Lazarus, we don't read one word recorded that he spoke. I'm sure he did speak, but the Holy Ghost does not seem fit to record it. Three very different characters, yet they were all loved by the Lord Jesus Christ. He loves his people, great and small, and grasping their heart, embraces all, nor wither, soul will part. Isn't that a mercy? Yes, everyone tried here tonight in listening. It was no different to God's other people. You look on them, and you admire them, and you wish you had grace like they did. Is it possible God could love me? Well, you think Abbas loved Ruth, didn't he? Why should they take knowledge of me, seeing I am but a stranger? But you see, he did love her, as a gleaner. and he loved her in the end as his wife. But the point is her difference with the other maidens made no difference to him. He loved her in the same way our Lord loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus. He looked beyond the outward distinction and loved her for who she was. That's how Christ loves, for who we are. Because we are viewed, if we are loved at all, we are viewed in him by God the Father. God the Father loves all those who are in Christ. He views them in Christ. That he loves Christ with an ineffable love. That love, as it were, flows through the person of Christ, through the word of Christ, to the church of Christ. So like the holy anointing oil that ran down from Aaron's beard to the skirts of his garments, that's like the love of Christ. It's the unity of the brethren, that's Psalm 133, isn't it? and what a mercy he gets the skirts of his garments, the lowest place, still he laughs, as I have loved you. And it was a tried love, wasn't it, with Martha, Mary and Lazarus? The Lord prefaced that whole chapter with the statement, Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus. Did that preclude sickness, death, disappointment, discouragement? No. Did they alter Christ's love to them? No. Though they couldn't understand his dealings, they didn't alter his love for them? No. Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, and all these things were more than conquerors, says the apostle, 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, or any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Friend, the sooner will God cease to love his people then he will soon cease to love his son. That's how strong it is. Stronger is love than earth and hell. His wishes are unsearchable as I have loved you. And so there was a tried love. Lazarus even dies. Even though things seemed to go contrary to the very word of Christ. But in the end they proved he had made no mistake. He hadn't erred in his demons. That's why Job is saying the depth of his sorrow. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. If you don't trust someone you don't love, the two go together. Or says Job, there's one who loves me. I know he's hidden his faith behind a dark cloud of adversity, affliction, disappointment, loneliness, things I can't understand. But behind that cloud, I do still believe he loves me. Friend, you have a dark cloud tonight between you and the Lord, perhaps. Maybe your sins, your temptations, your wretched heart that plays you so often. but maybe some thorn in the flesh, some crook in the knot. Oh, how this has come between you and your God, it seems, a heavy cloud. My dear friend, behind that cloud the Lord still loves. And you know what he says to his disciples, I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. The Lord will break through the cloud in due season. Visit there in this soul of mine, pierce the gloom of sin and grief, fill me with radiancy divine, scatter all my non-belief, more and more thy self display, shine into the perfect day, as I have loved you. It is a love in the fires, isn't it, that it comes through. Then I thought of that case in John 13, that again the apostle John, who dwells so much on love, prefaces it having loved his own in the world. He loved them unto the end. What an enduring love, the end of all his sorrows, agonies, that bit of darkness, that dark cloud, all the way through that he loved his own. Yes, it was love to his father and love to his dear people that held him to the cross. It wasn't the nails or the Roman soldiers guarding it. Friends, it was the love he had to his father as will he was fulfilling, and the love to the people for whom he was fulfilling that will. Oh, greater love hath no man than this, the man laid down his life for his friends. Having loved his own, which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. Oh, mercy streamed in streams of love, we might say, as they poured from the Dear Saviour's body, see from his head, his hands his side, sorrow and love flow mingled down. Dare such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown? This is love beyond measure, isn't it? But having gathered his disciples, he did something that perplexed them. They couldn't understand it. He began to wash their feet. And dear impetuous Peter, so often spake before he thought, said, Lord, thou shalt never wash my feet. And what did the Lord say? What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. My dear friends, there are many things in our lives like that. What he does, what I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know Hereafter, the Word of God says so. Christ said it. Then we have to be patient. He tries our love while we are not yet shown why these things are. And in the end, Peter could see how foolish he was to resist the Lord in this. Not so, Lord. Sometimes in the Lord's actions of love, we do say, not so. What does he say? Be still. know that I am God. There's love in this. There's a silver lining to this cloud. As I have loved you. Again, come back to our text. As I have loved you. He loved as God. He loved as man. Now as God, of course, there's no dimensions to his love. You cannot put any dimension to it. length, breadth, depth, or height. It is the very love of God, and again John tells us God is love. What a tremendous saying that is. God is love. He tells us, dear friend, there will be no love in this world without God. Even in a natural sense, it is a kindness of God to give love in this world, even lawful love I'm speaking about, of course. It's God's kindness, but when it comes to things spiritual, Oh, the love of God in the heart, the love of Christ shed abroad. There's no love like it, friends, as I have loved you. And when you get a glimpse of what he said in John 17, and pray that the lover with God had loved him, would be in then the same love? What, the same love of God, the father to his dear son? Yes, the same love. to say now what a mercy that is. It means, dear friend, it has uttermost dimensions to it, beyond your sins, beyond your temptations, beyond all your doubts and fears, beyond that dark cloud that's come between you and him. Friend, his love stretches over it all. My God shall supply all your need according to its richest in glory by Christ Jesus. Remember, dear friends, when the comforts of that love were withheld from the dear Saviour on His cross. God the Father still loved His Son. That could not be any other. As He hung on Calvary's cross and drank the pains, the dregs of hell. Hell is a loveless place. There is no love of God there. The dear Saviour drained that cup of wrath, drank it to its final drop. There should be no condemnation, no curse. Nothing but love now. That's what the hymn writer John Kenwick meant. No glad eye come and thou shalt take me to the as I am. Nothing but sin I thee could give, nothing but love from thee I get. Friend, the cup of wrath has been drained and it's filled, brimful, overflowing with the cup of love to coming sinners. Oh that you could believe it, dear friend. Oh that I could believe it more. We get so straight at our bosom, don't we? We try and imagine God is like us with our poor straightened feelings. Friends, it's not like that. It's not like that. As the prodigal did not understand the love in the heart of the father's father, thought a hired servant was all he could be. So friends, we often have in such limited thoughts the love of God. Friends, he loves his people with an everlasting love. There with loving kindness has he drawn them. The second, dear friend, he loves as man. And that's a wonderful thing, isn't it? He's the same person who is God, but also in that human nature he loves as the man Christ Jesus. He loves so much that we read in the very next verse, greater loveth no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. What do you think of it? Greater life. He could show no greater love to his dear people than that. He laid down that pure, holy, perfect love. It was lived in love. It was lived for the love of his people. He knew they needed a perfect righteousness to cover them. He knew they needed a full atonement to clear their debt. He knew they needed one to conquer sin, Satan, the world, the flesh, the devil, death itself. He knew. they needed one. But there was compassion like a God that when the Savior knew, the price of pardon was his bloody pity. Love, we might say, ne'er withdrew. This is love, isn't it? As I have loved you. Then again, think of the sympathy of that love. Go back to John 11. He wept at the grave of Lazarus. They weren't faint tears. There were real tears of human affection and sympathy with two sorrowing sisters. And he's the same tonight. In all thy affliction, thy head feels the pain. All are most needful, not one is in vain. Forget thee I will not, I cannot. Thy name engraved on my heart forever remains. pounds of my hands I look on I see those wounds I receive it went suffering for thee that marks of love dear friends that marks of love some of you may have heard this from the Liptard dear friend the Sister Howard some years ago when he was in England in one of his stories he told a true story there's a little girl sitting on her mother's lap and she looked at her mother, she said, I love your face dearly, but I look on your hand, she said, they're so ugly and deformed, I don't love that part of you. So the mother said, well, let me tell you why they're like that. When you were a little girl, only a year old, or thereabouts, there was a fire in our house, and your little cradle caught fire. And I rushed up the stairs and I grabbed you from the burning flames and rescued you. And these scars, as you see, are the marks of that love. The little girl said, Mummy, she said, I love all of you especially. I love your hands. You see the picture, dear friends. Graved on his hands, divinely fair, who did their ransom pay. The shining letters that be he hates to put away, or he cannot, he soon forgets those nail prints that cease to love his people, as I have loved you." Well then, dear friends, it's a forgiving love, isn't it? Peter proved that. Oh, he denied his Lord after such bold professions, didn't he, of faith? Though all men forsake thee, I will not forsake thee. Soon we find him in the judgment hall. We find him in Psalm 1, in the wrong side of it. Blessed the man that walketh not in the camps of the ungodly, or standeth in the way of sin, or sitteth in the seat of the scornful. He walked, he stood, and he sat. And where did it get him? He denied his law with oaths and curses. Till the Lord turned and looked on him, All his memory was stirred of his profession of faith and the warning Christ had given him. And yet there was a token of love in it. I have prayed for thee. I have prayed for thee, for that thy faith fell not. Why did Christ pray for he loved him? When our Lord rose again, we are told he met Peter. We're given no hint of the conversation, what took place between them. The one thing I am sure he told Peter, I still love you, Peter. Yes, I still love you. And that is what he says to his dear people, even to his returning backsliding ones. Yes, I would heal their backslidings. I would love them freely. It is the only way a backslider can be restored, by free grace. The prodigal thought can be restored by being a hired servant and working his way back. into the affection of his Father. But my dear friend, it is not the way back. Free grace to such a sinner as me. But if free grace, why not for me, as I have loved you? And then, dear friends, if there is a chastening love, we must never forget that. Our Lord did reprove his disciples more than once. and we are told reproofs and rebukes are in the way of life. And thus it is very important to remember that the strokes of divine chastisement are in love, are a father's hand that is laying it on us in love, that we might learn lessons we otherwise could not learn. Oh then dear, for may we kiss the road, may we embrace those dark dispensations that come the two of us remembering. Behind that frowning providence he hides a smiling face. Do you believe that tonight? A smiling face. I wish I could feel it. Yes, so do I. So do all of God's dear people. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, but yet praise him. with the health of my countenance and my God." Then again, dear friends, it's a pure love. Of course, Christ is pure, and therefore all His thoughts and words and ways were pure. You may say, how could this pure Saviour love an impure sinner like me? Well, friends, He loves our persons, but does not love our sins. and he loves what the Holy Ghost has wrought in the heart. What he sees of his own reflection in the sinner's heart, that he loves. Because that's the Spirit's work. But he does not love our sins. It is a wonderful thing though, dear friend, that before we were called by grace, if indeed we have been, he loved us in the covenant. While we are sporting with death and playing with sin and doing the devil's work, amazingly, His love secretly was set upon us, putting hedges around us we didn't see, preventing us from going different paths, we would have destroyed ourselves in. To that appointed time, rolled on a pace not to propose, called by grace, changed the heart, renewed the will, turned the feet to Zion's hill, and that's what happened. And why did it happen? For love's sake. I've often asked my friends at Chippen and this question, Does God love a sinner because he's been quickened? Or does he quicken him because he loves him? Do you know the answer to that? It's the second. That sinner is quickened because God loves him. Christ loves him. If you want the proof of that, you have it in Ephesians 2, these very words. We read these words. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love, worthy love, as even we are dead in sin, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved, raised us up together, made us sit together in heavenly place in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come ye might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness, his love, we might say, toward us through Christ Jesus, as I have loved you as a pure love. and he loves the grace he puts in his people's heart, as I have loved you. And then it's an unconditional love, isn't it? Isn't that a mercy? Or if the dear Saviour put conditions on this love, where would we be? We couldn't fulfill any conditions for the love of Christ or the love of God. Now if Francis says, I'll have mercy, we'll have mercy. I'll be gracious, I will be gracious, and thus there's no conditions to be performed on our part. Any condition, you might say, being fulfilled by Christ in the covenant of grace on behalf of his dear people, that the love might flow. He's the mediator of that new covenant. There's no conditions on our part. It's free grace to such a sinner's being. If free grace, why not for me? To those of you, dear friends, who are troubled about this point, does he love me? Am I his? And you try, as it were, to make yourself lovable? You'll never do it. You'll never do it, friend. What was there in me that could merit esteem or give thee the creator delight? It was even so far that we ever must cry, for so it seemed good in thy sight. So here's an avenue of mercy for the one listening tonight who feels so vile, so unlovable, and yes, even feeling unloved perhaps. Such an outcast. Is it possible the Lord could love you? Or what did Ruth say when she fell at Bowers' feet? Why has it taken knowledge of me, seeing I'm but a stranger? She felt it. Go to Ephesians 2. Now there be no more strange and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. Stranger become a child. But friends, the Lord loved him, as he found he was a stranger. He saw me ruined in the fall, yet loved me notwithstanding all. He saved, but I lost his stay. His loving kindness, oh, how great! And then this isn't there, the patience of his love. It's a patient love. Many waters cannot quench him, neither can the floods drown him. And you think how patient the dear Saviour was when he was spat upon, when he was betrayed in the garden, when they bound him and took him to Caiaphas. That mockery of a trial for Caiaphas of Pilate and Herod. Scourged, crowned with thorns, beat, reviled, railed upon. And then he goes out to the Calvary carrying his own cross. And there hangs him, two thieves. Is there a word of murmuring? Is there one word of complaint? No, only that one complaint, and it was a holy complaint. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? We may say there the patience of our dear Saviour was tried to the uttermost then, but it endured, didn't it? And that's how He loves His people, patiently. He's patient with them. He deals graciously, faithfully, firmly, but how patient. For once, who once He loves, He never leaves but loves them to the end, as I have loved you. And that's why when, at last, we see our Lord speaking to Peter on the shores of Lake Galilee, asking that question, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Three times the Lord answered it, three times he denied it. What does Peter say at the end? Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. Now, dear friend, look right deep down into your heart tonight, through all the there is layers of it right to its very depth. Can you say with Peter, and lay bare your heart and say, Lord, look on it. I know I'm a wretched sinner. I know I have sinned. I know I'll yet sin. I daren't say any other. For thou knowest I do love thee. And my chiefest joy is to feel thy presence and to hear thy voice. There's no love like thine, Lord. Can you say that tonight? Lord, it is my chief complaint that my love is cold and faint, yet I love thee and adore, O for grace to love thee more. How is it that a child of God loves, because he is loved? We love him because he first loved us, who is first in everything, friends. He is first in this matter, as he shares abroad his love, so it kindles a love in return, as I have loved you we read a man that hath friends must show himself friendly so our dear savior did just that he showed himself friendly he saw me ruined in the fall yet loved me not withstanding all he saved me from my lost estate his loving kindness oh how great what marvels there are in the word of god what this love has done. I think of Zacchaeus. He was the most unpopular, I was going to say ugly, man by his character in the whole of Jericho. He was the tax gatherer. We don't like tax men really, but he was the tax gatherer for the occupying power, the Romans, and he was a proud The Jews were a proud nation. They didn't like subjection or subservience. Here he was doing the bidding of the occupying power. Not only that, he was taking more of his fellow citizens, he should have done, make himself rich on their backs. He was a man who was despised and hated, though he didn't mind that while he got his money. But then, dear friend, the Lord had determined to change that. And only love could change that. Distinguishing love could change it. And that's what is needed to change a heart. Distinguishing love. So those Achaeans thought, perhaps in curiosity, he was going to see Jesus, who he was. Perhaps even then there was the beginnings of Astur and the work of grace. We don't know. This we do know. He was appointed. He'd be at the sycamore tree looking down on the saviour as he passed by. The Lord knew all about it. He knew all about Zacchaeus. He knew more about Zacchaeus than Zacchaeus knew about himself. When our Lord stood at the foot of that tree and said, Zacchaeus, just that one word was enough to make Zacchaeus know that this man, Jesus, knew him through and through, inside out. He felt exposed to the penetrating eye of the Saviour, Zacchaeus. make haste our friends how we need to make haste not loiter make haste or run the righteous run into that refuge we read make haste come down or there's a lot of coming down to be done dear friend isn't there a lot of uh reducing and lessening he must increase i must decrease make haste come down for today not can isaac is if you'll let me i must that sovereign grace, I must abide at thy house.' And he received him joyfully. And then he heard the murmurings around him. And this showed he had love to the Saviour of that very moment. He couldn't dare to think the Saviour should be maligned on his account. You don't want that worthy man to be blasphemed by his bad behaviour. So he says, with half my goods I'll give to the poor, and if I have wronged anyone, I restore them fourfold. Love did it, friend. Love did it. It is love that does it. It all defects the place, makes great obstructions small. It is prayer, it is praise, it is sacrifice, it is more, it is Christ, it is all. Christ had given a command to fulfil, which untoward we might feel about it. that brings to compliance the will, and causes the deed to be done. How does he do it? The love of Christ constraineth us, as I have loved you. And friend, if that love does touch our heart, then one thing is certain, we will love his dear people. We will love what you see of Christ in others. Paul loved what he saw of Christ in Onesimus. He could see it. and exhorted Philemon to look for the same thing, and loveliness was on the same ground, but yet for love's sake. And then one further thought, dear friends, if this precious Savior has done so much for love's sake, surely it should not be a question with us whether we should walk in his ways, whether we should take up the cross and follow him, So fair a face, bedued with tears, what beauty in grief appears? He wept, he bled, he died, for what more, ye saints, could Jesus do to show his love? Is there any more he could do to show his compassion? You say, if only I knew it's for me, I'd feel free. Well, let me ask you one question and see whether you could answer it. Even perhaps I'll come as low as I can. Do you love him in the want of him? Is there an aching void in your heart? You say, I must have Christ. Only he can fill that emptiness I feel. Only he can answer the guilt I have, the temptations I have to endure. Only he can rescue what I am by nature. It's none but Jesus would do for me. Friends, I tell you there's love at the bottom of your heart. And who's put it there? He who's loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore may you draw you. And you know what the Song of Solomon says? Draw me, we will run after thee. Have you ever wondered why it goes from me to we? It's the Holy Ghost drawing the sinner for love's sake. Draw me, we, as aided by the Spirit, as drawn by the love of Christ, we will run after thee, as I have loved you. May God owe his blessing. Amen.