The Love of God – The Divine Method

[00:00:00] Well, now, I hope you're holding onto your seats this morning ready for anything. [00:00:14] John, chapter 17. I'm going to read a few verses from the great high priestly prayer of our Lord Jesus. [00:00:30] We will read from verse twelve. [00:00:40] While I was with them, I kept them in thy name, which thou hast given me. And I guarded them. And not one of them perished but the son of perdition. That the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I come to thee. And these things I speak in the world. That they may have my joy made full in themselves. [00:01:04] I have given them thy word, and the world hated them. Because they are not of the world. Even as I am not of the world. [00:01:13] I pray not that thou shouldest take them from the world. But that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth. Thy word is truth. [00:01:31] And thou didst send me into the world. [00:01:35] As thou didst send me into the world. Even so sent I them into the world. [00:01:41] And for their sakes I sanctify myself. That they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. [00:01:49] Neither for these only do I pray. But for them also. That believe on me through their word. That they may all be one. Even as thou, father, art in me and I in thee. That they also may be in us. That the world may believe that thou didst send me. And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given unto them that they may be one even as we are one. I in them, and thou in me. That they may be perfected into one. That the world may know that thou didst send me and lovest them even as thou lovest me. Father, I desire that they also whom thou hast given me. Be with me where I am. That they may behold my glory which thou hast given me. For thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. [00:02:42] O righteous father, the world knew thee not, but I knew thee. And these knew that thou didst send me. And I made known unto them thy name. And will make it known that the love wherewith thou lovest me may be in them, and I in them. [00:03:05] Shall we pray? [00:03:07] Lord, this time this morning has not taken thee by surprise. [00:03:12] Although perhaps for us it is a surprise. Lord, we commit very especially your heinous and his family to thee. That thou give them journeying mercies and bring them safely to us. And we pray for ourselves, Lord, that as we turn now to thy word, thou wilt be gracious to us. And, Lord, grant we pray that every one of us may receive something from thyself. [00:03:42] We thank thee, Lord, that thou hast made a special grace and a special power available for this time this morning. And we stand by faith into that provision. We appropriate it in the name of our Lord Jesus. And we look to thee that both speaker and hearer alike may know that anointing upon them so that together we may fulfil thy will, may meet with thee, may receive of thee. O Lord, hear us, we pray, as we commit ourselves to thee, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen. [00:04:27] I would like this morning just to say a final word. As far as I'm concerned, about the love of God, I didnt expect to. But when I was asked late last night and I began to think about the Lord, it was really in fact only in the early hours of this morning that the Lord gave me a further thought, which I think draws together all that I have said about the love of God. [00:05:01] Entitle it the divine method. [00:05:05] Now we are rather afraid of methods, but I called it the divine method, or the divine way, if you like. What a wonderful way. The Lord Jesus ended that great prayer of intercession recorded in John 17, that prayer that we call the high priestly prayer. And he ended it in these with these wonderful words, that the love wherewith thou lovest me may be in them, and I in them. [00:05:50] That the love wherewith thou lovest me. O how the father loves the Son, that the love wherewith thou lovest me may be shown to them. No, that was so, but may be in them, and I in them. [00:06:21] You will remember that it was a sentence in one of the letters of the apostle Paul that started us off on this consideration of the love of God. I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that ye may approve the things which are excellent, that ye may be sincere and void of offense unto the day of Jesus Christ. We are nearer to that day than ever before. In this age we do not know just how near we are, whether we still have some years to go, a decade or two to go, or whether tonight the day of Jesus Christ might dawn. [00:07:16] And the great prayer of the apostle Paul for that beloved church at Philippi, and I suppose for all the churches that were in his care and all the churches that were beyond his province of authority, was, I pray for you that your love may abound yet more and more. Nothing else will keep us in the will of God. Nothing else will enable us to triumph in adversity. [00:07:58] Nothing else will enable us to endure all the pressures and strains of the last phase of the end times. [00:08:10] Nothing else will enable us to overcome but that love of God in us and the Lord Jesus in us. [00:08:23] That's what you and I need more than anything else. That may be why the Lord Jesus ended his great prayer of intercession with these words, that the love wherewith thou lovest me may be in them, and I in them. If the love of that the father has for the Son, that same love, that same fullness of love, that same power of love be in us, and the Lord Jesus be in us, we must surely be invincible. By the grace of God, we shall overcome and stand before his face. We shall come by the grace of God to the throne of God. For nothing else will ever satisfy the father or the son or the spirit than a heart and a life that is filled immersed in the love of God. [00:09:38] Now I said I would speak about the divine method, and I want immediately then, since we have not so much time, to turn you to John, chapter 15, this wonderful gospel of John, where we have already remembered that it ends with those words, lovest thou me tend, my lamb? [00:10:12] Lovest thou me shepherd, my sheep? Now I want to read a few verses. First of all, in John, chapter 15, I will read from verse nine. Even as the father hath loved me, I also have loved you. Abide ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love. Even as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full. This is my commandment. That ye love one another even as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends. If ye do the things which I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth. But I have called you friends. For all things that I heard from my father I have made known unto you. Ye did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you. That ye should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide. That whatsoever ye shall ask of the father in my name, he may give it you. These things I command you. That ye may love one another. [00:11:55] The divine method. What is the divine method? Will you first note here that the lord's end in one sense for us is that we should bear much fruit, and that our fruit should remain not transient fruit, not decaying fruit, but fruit that is eternal. [00:12:26] Ye did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and that you should bear much fruit and that your fruit should remain fruit. [00:12:47] You will remember that the jewish people were judged and dispersed to the ends of the earth because there was no fruit. [00:12:59] God is always looking for fruit to be given salvation, to be given revelation, to be given life. Eternal life is a grave responsibility viewed from one aspect, because the end must always be fruit. And if we are barren, if we are fruitless, something is wrong. Now there are many, many believers that are barren. [00:13:32] Indeed, I think one has to say honestly before God that the great majority of us believers are fruitless. [00:13:41] We are barren. And if we do bring fruit, this blossom and the beginning of fruit, it is cast before it comes to ripening, something goes wrong. It's as if the tree can't take the fruit. It has the early promise of fruit. There are many people who have real experiences of the Lord, will experience of the Holy Spirit, and you can see all the blossom and you can see the beginnings of the fruit forming. And then you come a little later and the whole thing's dropped. It's just leaves. There's no fruit. It's all leaves. [00:14:23] It is so with many assemblies of God's people, many companies of God's children, you go and you see a real moving of God. God speaks to them, God gives them revelation, God challenges them. There's a real, as it were, influence brought to bear upon them from the throne. And it seems as if for a while they look as if they're going to bear fruit. There's blossom, there's the beginnings of fruit. You can see the little fruit forming in the tree. And then you go back, sometimes months later, perhaps a year or two later, and it's all gone. [00:15:01] The leaves are there, the life is there, but there is no fruit. [00:15:09] But the Lord Jesus said, I chose you and appointed you, that you should go anywhere where he appoints, in the desert, anywhere in the most uncongenial place on earth, anywhere. If he has appointed you and sent you, you should bear fruit and your fruit should remain. [00:15:44] What then is the key? [00:15:48] It is not this matter of divine love. [00:15:59] If somewhere or other, in all the revelation and all the zeal, the love of God is somehow missing. [00:16:13] Now I want to be very careful in this matter because its much more than that. You see, the Lord Jesus put his finger on this matter infallibly. [00:16:25] He said, greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend. [00:16:35] In other words, it was as if the Lord Jesus was saying, now, look here, look here. It's no good just talking about love, singing about love, praying about love. Love is expressed in action. Love is expressed in a way of life. Love is expressed in lives laid down. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. [00:17:06] Why do we not see people saved in the office or in our places of work? Why do we not sometimes see people saved in our families? Why do we not see sometimes people saved in our circle of friends? Because we give the impression that we know it all, that we are the saved, that we are something, that we've got everything. And you should listen because you're going to hell. You're under the wrath of God. You're under the curse. They don't see a life laid down. They don't see all the little jobs done for them out of love. They don't see a deep, real concern. They only see themselves as a head to be counted as a trophy to be won as another name to be added to someone's popularity and glory as an evangelist or a teacher or a servant of the Lord or a witness to Jesus Christ. The people are not loved. [00:18:04] Greater love hath no man than this. Most of us have made these mistakes in our families. When we were first saved, we went back like a steam train, like an expression, like a. Like Concord of british production, Concord zooming in with great noise. And Zola said, now, listen, you. I've been saying, of course we're full of it. We're full of it. It's not that we're doing anything necessarily wrong, but we fail to see that a thing that wins a family or wins friends is a character. [00:18:38] We fail to see that by opting out of family responsibilities because we've been saved, we have damaged the reputation of the Lord somehow or other by never being the one in the office or in that place of work who bears the burden and cares for people and loves for people. We've opted out of our responsibility. We've damaged the reputation and the name of the Lord. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Here is the divine method. [00:19:13] You can't lay down your life unless you're filled with love. [00:19:18] Try it. [00:19:20] Try it. [00:19:22] All it is is a dead teaching which brings you into a cast iron bondage. [00:19:28] I know many people who talk about the cross all day long and nearly all night long. [00:19:34] It goes round and round and round in their head like a spinning top. [00:19:39] And what is the result? They look dark, they are dark, they are heavy, they are dull, they are lifeless. [00:19:46] They have a kind of self imposed brokenness. [00:19:51] It isnt the Lord. [00:19:54] When God comes in with the work of the cross, the result is resurrection. [00:20:00] And resurrection swallows up the brokenness and the death, so that in you its death but its life in them. They touch life, they touch the Lord, they touch the power of God, they touch the glory of God. You touch the brokenness, you touch the personally. You, I, we touch the death, the brokenness, the affliction. [00:20:26] Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend. [00:20:33] Ye are my friend. [00:20:35] The Lord Jesus does not demand of us anything that he has not done. That's why I spoke about the divine demonstration. If you managed to get anything out of that evening in the dark, greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life with friends. Dear beloved people of God, if you and I are not baptized in the love of God, if we're not immersed in the love of God, if the love of God has not been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, if the love of God is not the dynamic of our living, of our service, of our church life, of our worship, then it seems to me that we come only into a formalism. We cannot but come into a formalism. We are barren, we are fruitless, and no matter how beautiful the leaves are, or how shiny the leaves are, or how strong the trunk is, God is not satisfied because he looks for fruit. [00:21:48] Greater love hath no man than this, that a man laid down his life for his friends. I know so many companies, forgive me, I don't want to sound condemning or accusing, but in my little ministry, traveling over part of the earth, I go, generally speaking, from those companies that know something about church truth. And I must tell you with a heart that is deeply grieved over much of what I see, that we find again and again that people have church truth, but they haven't got the church. [00:22:32] They have got a certain amount of doctrine, a certain amount of vision, a certain amount of understanding. And in spite of the fact that we say again and again, it's organic, they try to put it together. [00:22:47] It cant come together without love, because the church is a community of love. [00:22:56] It is something produced out of the passion of its lord. [00:23:02] When his side was pierced and there came out blood and water, out of that side was brought the bride, out of that great demonstration, that supreme demonstration of the love of God. On Calvary came the church. And if the church contradicts the principle upon which it was born, the love of God, she's nothing. [00:23:31] And that is why the devil will work and work and work to set us all at sixes and sevens, to spread insinuations and doubts through all till we're all suspicious of one another, all disillusioned with one another, all colliding with one another, all, as it were, up against one another till in the end we cannot win. It's a sham. [00:23:55] We take the Lord's table, it's a sham. We worship, it's a sham. [00:24:01] We don't want it to be a sham, but it's become a sham because we have failed to understand that first and greatest commandment, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind and with all thy strength. And the second greatest commandment, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. [00:24:32] Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends. [00:24:49] Church truth is only the beginning of a matter. Thank God. If God reveals truth to any brother or sister, there is so much ignorance and so much error in the world that it is a wonderful thing when God reveals anything to any child of God or any servant of God or any company of the Lord's children. But dear ones, remember this, that the understanding of church truth does not automatically bring about the producing of church life. [00:25:20] The only thing that brings about the producing of church life is when a few brothers and sisters fall into the ground and die. When they all lay down their lives one for another. When you have a marriage in which the husband is all I and the wife is all I and the children are all I, you're going to have a very, very unhappy home. [00:25:45] Somewhere or other, a wife has to lay down her life not only for her children, but for her husband. And somewhere or other a husband has to lay down his life for his wife and for his children. And somewhere other parents have to lay down their lives for their children. And there sometimes comes a time when children must lay down their lives for their parents. [00:26:10] But when that happens, you have an atmosphere of love. [00:26:17] You have an atmosphere where there's true authority, where there's true order, where there is a real family life, and where it represents something of what God intended. So it must be with the divine family. [00:26:33] You cannot get human beings living together unless we are prepared to lay down our lives for one another and actually lay down our lives for one another. [00:26:45] Now, it is interesting that in this connection, there are a number of things that are said that I think are so beautiful. [00:26:52] Fruit comes out of this. Lay down your life and fruit will be the result. Lay down your life more deeply, and therell be more fruit. Lay down your life even more deeply, and there will be even more fruit. [00:27:06] It is an infallible law with God. [00:27:12] So if there is no fruit in your life, I must tell you, whatever your excuse, whatever you say, you dont have to come and discuss it with me. I can tell you somewhere the love of God is absent somewhere in your life. In my life, the love of God is absent. [00:27:36] It is being contradicted, ignored, overlooked. [00:27:42] For when divine love takes hold of a born again believer, then surely as night follows day and day follows night, that believer will be led to the cross. [00:28:05] And there in their path, stark and bloody and inescapable, is Calvary. [00:28:14] And for the first time, you are faced with whether you will fall into the ground and die. And it isn't all glory and ecstasy, as we sometimes think. Oh, for a revelation of the cross that will be all ecstatic and full of thrills and lift us up, and it's just wonderful, wonderful. It is wonderful when you see that youve been crucified with Christ, but within hours, someone will be nailing the nails into your hand. [00:28:48] You cant do it yourself. God was so ordained that your nearest and dearest will do it for you. [00:28:58] Within a matter of hours, your colleagues, your coworkers, the fellow members of the body of Christ, circumstances, unsaved relatives and friends, your husband, your wife, your children, they are the agents that God uses to see that you know what it is to be crucified with Christ. You don't have to bother your head about how to be crucified. [00:29:31] The Lord will take care of that. Fear not. [00:29:35] He has already done it 2000 years ago. It is the application of it in your life, and he will use your nearest and dearest, your circumstances, all the people that come into your life to do this very thing in your life. You dont have to worry about it. [00:29:54] But we all know that we should lay down our lives till we come to it. It's all right if it's a lovely feeling that suddenly, as we lay down our lives, immediately, the Lord will be there to fill us with power and fill us with life and fill us with joy and fill us with revelation. But the Lord often stands back and allows a time to go where everything is impossible and everything within us screams, don't go this way. Don't go this way. Don't go. They'll trample over you. They'll walk over you. They'll destroy you. They will do this and this to you. You'll never be the same. [00:30:35] Thank God. [00:30:37] Haven't you asked the Lord to change you? [00:30:47] Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends. The divine method. There is only one method. God has no other method. He has only one method. [00:31:00] You must lay down your life. It is the way of the cross. Now, immediately someone says, well, what about the Holy Spirit? Quite right. What about the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit will only come upon you in fullness and power, in an abiding way, not a transient way. Get me right on this. There are experiences of the Holy Spirit that are transient. There are touches from heaven. There are touches of glory. They come and they go. [00:31:29] But there is a coming of the Holy Spirit upon a human being that is forever not only an indwelling, but a committal. [00:31:41] When Jesus came to those waters of Jordan, he didn't need to be baptized. He was already righteous. He was without sin. And when John the Baptist saw him, he said, you should baptize me, not I you. But Jesus said, suffer it to be so that righteousness may be fulfilled. [00:32:06] And what did Jesus mean? He meant something far, far deeper than perhaps most certainly at that time realized. He meant this. [00:32:16] If I am to do the will of God, I have to make a cold blooded decision today. And that cold blooded decision is to commit myself to the death of the cross three years before I come to it. [00:32:37] I dont believe anyone helped the Lord Jesus, neither the Father, nor the spirit, nor anybody. It was a decision that he had to make with his own will as the son of man. And he chose to go into those waters of Jordan and be baptized. He was really saying, Father, I love you and I love this world, and I love those that you've given to me out of this world, I commit myself to the death of the cross, that I might win them. And in that moment, the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit came in a bodily form as Adam and dwelt upon him, abode upon him. John said, I was told that whoever I saw the Holy Spirit coming and abiding upon, he was the messiah. [00:33:41] He didnt just touch him. He didnt just fill him and go. He didnt just open heaven for a revelation and then close it again. The heavens opened and the Holy Spirit came upon the Lord Jesus and dwelt upon him. [00:34:00] Many of us have understood the dove as a. A symbol of meekness and a symbol of gentleness and a symbol of sweetness. [00:34:14] And it may be so, but in my estimation, that is not the meaning of the Holy Spirit coming down as a dove. You see, John the Baptist knew instantly. He came from a very poor family. And he knew too that Joseph and Mary were poor people. Their sacrifice that they made in the temple when they came up three times a year for the great feasts was not a bullock. They couldn't afford it. Nor was it a lamb. They couldn't afford it. It was two turtle doves. [00:34:50] And the moment John the Baptist saw the Holy Spirit coming down in that symbol of sacrifice, he said, behold the lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world, he understood instantly the Holy Spirit has come upon him to enable him to lay down his life, that the sin question may be forever settled. [00:35:19] It is not different with us, with you or with me. [00:35:24] Only when you are in a cold blooded way will to do the will of God and commit yourself to the death of the cross, even though you may not fully understand it, only then are you a candidate for the Holy Spirit to come upon you and enable you to do what you cannot do yourself. [00:35:45] You cannot do it yourself. [00:35:47] Theres no way for you to do it yourself. Try. Try to die for other people. Try to fall into the ground and die. Try to be humble, try to be broken. Try to lay down your life for the church and for the world. You can't do it. You may do it for a day, but believe me, you'll be exhausted. You'll nearly be in a mental home with a nervous breakdown by the end of a month of trying to somehow lay down your life for it's impossible. It is unnatural to the fallen nature. It is unnatural to our self centredness, to our instinct of self preservation. Only the Holy Spirit indwelling us and coming upon us can enable us to really lay down our lives so that all that sordid ambition and all that desire for assertion and all that desire somehow to be something or somehow to. To fight for our rights or whatever else is finally dealt with. It isn't dealt with in one single moment. It's a lifetime. But the Holy Spirit is there to enable us to do it. If Jesus, who was without sin, needed the Holy Spirit to die daily for three and a half years of public ministry, how much more do you and I, if Jesus, who was perfect and holy and righteous, needed the Holy Spirit so that he could go through those three and a half years and fulfill his ministry, and finally offer himself up to God without spot or blemish. [00:37:25] How much more do you and I need the Holy Spirit to come upon us? [00:37:33] The divine method. [00:37:37] Ah, you see. I see. Now I see what you're talking about. You're talking about an experience of the Holy Spirit. Ah, I'm glad. Or some may say, oh dear, now what is he up to? [00:37:56] No, please, I don't want to say anything that is wrong in the presence of the Holy Spirit. [00:38:04] But he understands far, far more than I since he gave me the understanding in the first place. [00:38:12] It is not an experience of the Holy Spirit you need in the first place its love. [00:38:22] Its only when the love of God has touched your heart initially, perhaps in a first way, that turns you toward the father, turns you toward the Lord Jesus, you toward his church, turns you toward his will, that for the first time you're faced with the possibility, shall I lay down my life or not? [00:38:58] Now there are some other wonderful things in this 15th chapter, just very. I'd like to touch on two other matters if we have time in this 15th chapter and verse eleven. Listen to this. Oh, I think these are beautiful words, these things. Have I spoken unto you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full? [00:39:30] One has to say that there are very few christians that have joy. [00:39:38] Very few, isn't it? So now we're not talking about that bubbly, effervescent thing, although now and again even that's a relief. [00:39:51] But we're not talking about that bubbly, effervescent type of joy that the world knows when it gets hilarious and then commits suicide the same night. [00:40:02] I'm not saying something funny, it's true. [00:40:06] It's one of the tragedies of the world. Because it's a facade. [00:40:10] It's a facade. [00:40:12] It's not joy. [00:40:14] Many christians have fallen into the same thing. They can come into a meeting where you have a worked up emotional atmosphere, where all apparently is joy, but it isn't. You get out of it and you fall flat on your face, taken away from it, and you'll spiritually die. [00:40:32] What did the Lord Jesus say when he meant, when he said these things? Have I spoken unto you that my joy may be in you? Oh, so that's the beginning. His joy, not my joy, but his joy. And when his joy is in me, then my joy is made full. [00:40:52] So that's the right way round, is it? That's why some of us, in seeking to pursue our own satisfaction and fullness and so on, fulfillment we have become joyless. [00:41:18] There's only one way for his joy to be in us. [00:41:22] It's when we go the way he went. [00:41:25] When we go the way he went his joy is in us and our joy is made full. Don't think for a single moment that when you go the way of the cross it's all dark, all morbid, all dreadful. [00:41:41] No, no, no. There is a joy thats made full. [00:41:48] God delights to do things for people whove let go. [00:41:53] He cooks up the most amazing surprises for them. [00:41:58] Sometimes hell leave you for years and years to go through a lonely way of difficulty and problem. And then at the end he will come with little surprises that only love could conceive. [00:42:18] There is a wonderful word in the Old Testament. It says, I think I better just read it. I know I got it, but I can't remember exactly the word. It's in psalm 37. [00:42:37] Delight yourself also in the Lord and he will give thee the desires of thy heart. I think thats one of the most amazing promises in the word of God. [00:42:49] Delight yourself also in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. So few people have the desires of their heart. But if you delight yourself in the Lord and thats more than just obeying and thats more than just by duty following, its more than just an understanding or a knowing of the will of God. It is a life of worship, of delight in the Lord, of transport in the Lord. [00:43:19] He gives you the desires of your heart. Now thats one thing. Then another wonderful thing I found in this chapter is this. [00:43:26] No longer do I call you servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth. But I have called you friends. For all things that I heard from my father I have made known unto you. I think that's a wonderful word for him. Then he divulges his heart. [00:43:47] The secret of the Lord is given to us. [00:43:52] The law doesnt give his secrets to everybody and he doesnt divulge his heart to everybody. But if we are prepared to lay down our lives, then he there is a kind of revelation, a manifestation of the love of God to us. [00:44:18] And then verse twelve, look at that. This is my commandment that ye love one another even as I have loved you. There's no other way for the body to be built up, is there? In the end. How interesting. It is, as we saw on one of these evenings, that one, corinthians 13 comes in the middle of a passage, all to do with the with church life, with the gifts of the church, with the functions of the body with the disorders that can come to do with the Lord's table and all these things. Right in the middle of it. Suddenly the apostle says, now I will show you a most excellent way. [00:45:08] As if the spirit of God said to the apostle, don't let them just think that it's a matter of functions and gifts and exercising these things and manifesting the spirit. [00:45:18] There's more to it than this. And then comes that one corinthians 13 if I have not love, I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal and so on. And then he ends that little thing. Pursue love, follow after love, or as Philips puts it, make love your aim. [00:45:45] In Ephesians chapter four and verse 16 it speaks of the building up of the body of the Lord, and says, it maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love, the divine method. [00:46:07] This is my commandment that ye love one another, even as I also loved you. How did the Lord love you? He loved you when you were an ugly, impossible, self centred, self seeking, empty, hell deserving sinner, and when you were in that state, blind, dead in sins darkened in your mind, alienated from God, he loved you. [00:46:44] Thats how were to love one another. But oh we dont. [00:46:47] Our brother or our sister has only to display one fault and were getting all upset straight away. [00:46:55] Its strange what the Lord Jesus said about taking the beam out of our own eye before we take the fleck out of our brothers eye. Now very often the fleck in our brother is the beam in ours only we just cant see it. [00:47:13] And its only when God gives us an understanding of ourselves and we take the thing out we suddenly realize I have no right to speak about so and so like that. I had it ten times more love even as I also loved you. [00:47:39] Can anybody finish with another believer if you're disillusioned with another believer, if you're disappointed with another believer, if all you can see in another believer are the failings and the faults, the weaknesses, the frailty, God has not yet done too much in you, or if he has, pride has come and taken over, how are you to love your brother? Not because he's perfect, not because he has only 1% of faults, not because he has only 10% of faults. You are to love him as if he is 100% of faults. [00:48:31] Thats how the Lord loved you. [00:48:34] Its amazing. Sometimes the Lord takes five years to get us through an issue, but we get disillusioned with another brother and sister because they havent got through in a week. [00:48:45] We say they came to that conference at Richmond and they didnt settle. [00:48:52] We forget that it may have taken us ten years before the Lord almost dragged us in. And finally he met us and we came through. And then we turned around and said, why isn't it happening? So I said, something wrong. Something's wrong. [00:49:12] Oh, if we could only understand how God has dealt with you and dealt with me. If we understood how God has dealt with us, then perhaps we would understand a good deal more about one another. And what helped you most? That someone was standing there like some old schoolmaster, grimacing at you, looking with a thunderous brow? And so did that help you? Did those people help you forever pointing out all your failings and faults? Did they? [00:49:42] Did it help you when someone outlined from scripture where you were falling so far short and what you ought to be and what you are not? Did it help you? [00:49:53] Or was it the person who you had, the very person that you felt in your heart had a real shrewd suspicion of just what you were, but loved you just the same? [00:50:13] We all know such people in our spiritual history, people who loved us in spite of what we were, who knew. And somehow they were faithful. [00:50:25] They spoke the truth in love, but they loved us. [00:50:30] Those were the people who built us up. Those were the people who finally brought us to the place where we would break down in tears and melt before God. Those were the ones who helped us on with God. [00:50:44] Oh, the damage we do to one another. [00:50:49] The building up of the church. [00:50:52] Now, I'd like to pass you on to another portion in this matter of the divine method. And you'll find it in John's gospel again in chapter 13. [00:51:02] Now, we can't read all of this. I just read a few verses from it. John, chapter 13, verse one. Now, before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the father, having loved his own that were in the world, he loved them to the end, or he loved them to the uttermost. And during the supper, the devil having already put 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 came forth from God and goeth unto God, riseth from supper and layeth aside his garments. And he took a towel and girded himself. Then he poured water into the basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. And then in verse twelve, so when he had washed their feet and taken his garments and sat down again, he said unto them, know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me teacher and Lord, and ye say, well, for so I am. If I then the Lord and the teacher have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye also should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, a servant is not greater than his lord, neither one that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them. [00:52:45] And verse 34, a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. [00:53:07] What a beautiful phrase that is at the beginning of this marvellous chapter, having loved his own that were in the world, he loved them to the uttermost. I like that much more than to the end. [00:53:22] It wasnt that there was an end of the lords love or a point of time. When he finished, he loved them to the uttermost. [00:53:34] Jesus the Messiah. Jesus the son of man. [00:53:40] Jesus, in whom all the fullness of the father dwells in bodily form. [00:53:46] Jesus God the Son, took a towel, laid aside his outer garments, girded himself with the towel, took a basin, a bowl, and filled it with water, and then knelt in front of each of his disciples and washed their feet. [00:54:14] It is almost too much for the mind. [00:54:18] Can God kneel before a creature he has made? [00:54:26] Can the messiah kneel before his subjects? [00:54:34] Can the master kneel before the disciples, the teacher before the student? This is something the world knows nothing of. [00:54:48] This is an inversion of the world order. [00:54:53] Jesus said, I have given you an example that ye should also should do as I have done to you. [00:55:06] Now I want you to notice one thing, so that one matter becomes inescapable. [00:55:16] Every one of those twelve disciples was present. [00:55:26] Not only John, who had such an understanding of the Lord Jesus and was nearest to his heart than any of the others, but Peter, who was to deny him with oaths that very night, and all the others, they all denied him and fled. We forget that. We often think Peter was the only one. But it says in the book, and all of them did the same. [00:56:00] Peter was only the spokesman, and normally spokesman always gets all the trouble. [00:56:14] All of them were there. Perhaps the most surprising thing of all was Judas was there? I'm not sure that many here. I myself, I must include myself. I'm not sure that many of us would wash all the disciples feet. [00:56:31] I think we would say, now so and so is going on with the Lord. I'll wash so and so's feet. [00:56:38] Oh, God is doing something in so and so. I'll wash their feet. [00:56:42] I don't mind kneeling for a moment before them because I'm so delighted the way they're going. [00:56:50] But so and so, I wouldn't give you two pennies for so and so. All wind noisy gong clanging cymbal the sooner someone comes down and bangs them on the head, the better. [00:57:08] Sooner, somehow or other, they come to an end, the better. [00:57:14] Jesus washed all their feet. [00:57:20] Now, maybe you say there's somebody in the company that you just can't wash them. Their feet. You couldn't do this kind of thing with them. It would be misunderstood. It would be. [00:57:32] It would. Somehow they would take advantage of you. There's no such thing. [00:57:40] I must remind you that Judas Iscariot was there. [00:57:45] And he washed the feet of Judas. [00:57:52] If my lord. If our lord can wash the feet of Judas Iscariot. Is there a single believer, a single one within the company of the church whose feet I cannot walk? [00:58:15] It's not that you become a partaker of that one. Sins. [00:58:23] Jesus knew exactly what was in Judas heart. Jesus knew that every one of them would deny him and flee from him. He knew it all. He knew what was in them. He prayed for them. He knew exactly what was going to happen. [00:58:39] And he washed their feet. [00:58:45] In the States, you don't wash people's feet. In fact, the habit of feet washing has gone out. I think more or less altogether. Except as a ritual in certain denominations at Easter. [00:59:04] But in the old days in the Middle east and especially in Israel. [00:59:11] When people walked with sandals, their feet got grimed and dirty. Filthy. And the first thing you did when a person came to visit you as a mark of respect and love and hospitality was a slave came and washed the feet. Now, the master didn't do it normally, nor the owner of the house, but a slave was there on hand to wash the feet. [00:59:49] Now, you all know, I'm quite sure, especially since most of you folks over here never seem to wear sandals. [00:59:56] That feet. When your feet are hot, you're hot. [01:00:03] And when your feet are dirty, you feel dirty. [01:00:10] Thats why the Lord Jesus said to Peter, you dont need to be bathed. He thats bathed doesnt need to be washed again. Only his feet. [01:00:20] What we contract through the world in the day to day life. [01:00:26] Do you know here as a ministry, that most of us have overlooked and somehow not faced in the world? [01:00:40] Most of us have to go out into the world and have contact with the world. Many of you have jobs in the world. You rub shoulders with the world. You cannot help even though you are cleansed by the blood of the lamb. You cannot help in the way you have to walk each day, contracting the defilement and dirt of the world. [01:01:04] And you know, it is the job of the believers, one to another, just to wash that away, just to refresh the saint. [01:01:18] What a wonderful ministry. Now, I'm not trying to be funny, but we normally, when we go into a home, wash hands, don't we? I mean, we go off to the bathroom and we wash our hands. I mean, normally when you come into a nice home, the first thing they say is, do you want to go to the bathroom? [01:01:38] And then they say, there's a towel there and soap, and off you go into the bathroom. [01:01:46] Forgive me speaking about these things, but I want to tell you something. Hands are infinitely nicer things than feet. [01:01:59] Normally, hands don't smell. [01:02:03] Even when they get sweaty and dirty. Hands are refined. [01:02:10] Now, I know the Chinese never, ever shook hands because they didn't like to. They didn't feel it was clean. In the odds, they shook their own hands. [01:02:22] But the rest of us, we always shake one another's hands. And do you know why we used to shake hands? Because it showed with the right hand that there wasn't a dagger in it. [01:02:34] Perhaps you don't know that. That's why we used to shake hands. It came from the roman days. When you put your hand up, it was clear that there was nothing in the hand by which, if you put this hand out, you had a dagger here. And as you shook a hand, you stabbed him. [01:02:51] You laughed. But thats actually how the handshaking came. [01:02:56] Because amongst the jewish people, the hebrew people, it was kissing. [01:03:02] You kissed each other on the cheek, as the latin people do to this day. [01:03:10] But it was the roman way to shake hands. And that has slowly traveled through the whole world. Now, I say hands are very refined things. Even when they're sweaty and dirty, they're somehow refined. I don't mind taking your hands and shaking them. I don't mind. But your feet. [01:03:30] Now you laugh. But that brings us immediately to the point. There is nothing somehow more unrefined, more vulgar, more crude, more sweaty, more dirty than feet. [01:03:45] Jesus washed their feet. [01:03:53] It's inescapable it's very easy to be finished with one another. To be done with one another. To wipe, to write one another off. [01:04:07] But it was the feet. Jesus said we were to walk. [01:04:13] Perhaps we would say the crudest, most vulgar part of us. [01:04:28] This finds me out, and it must find you out. [01:04:32] Because all our problems in fellowship come down to feet. [01:04:39] Well accept the head. [01:04:42] Well accept the hands. But we cant accept the feet. [01:04:48] Jesus said, I am your teacher and master, yet I have washed your feet. I have left you an example that so you should do one to another. [01:05:08] Now, before we finish, there's one other thing also in John's gospel that I would like to also point to. Because, see, all this is what I've called the divine method. [01:05:20] It's one thing to lay down your life, four friends. One thing to lay it down in principle. It's another thing to take it to the nth degree. Love to the uttermost. That's first love to the. If you're going to go part of the way, why not go the whole way? [01:05:41] And then lastly, in John, chapter twelve and verse one. We'll read this little story so well known to you. Jesus, therefore, six days before the passover, came to Bethany. Where Lazarus was. Whom Jesus raised from the dead. So they made him a supper there. And Martha served. But Lazarus was one of them that sat at meat with him. Mary therefore, took a pound of ointment of purenard, very precious. And anointed the feet of Jesus. And wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the odor of the Oitl. But Judas Iscariot, one of the disciples that should betray him, saith, why was not this ointment sold for 300 shillings and given to the poor? Now this he said, not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief. And having the bag took away what was put therein. Jesus therefore said, suffer her to keep it against the day of my burying. [01:06:42] For the poor ye have always with you, but ye have not but me, ye have not always. [01:06:52] Now this same story, of course, is told again in Mark and chapter 26. And in Mark and chapter 14. [01:07:03] And I think again it reveals the divine method. [01:07:09] Not one of those disciples who had been with Jesus. Those twelve apostles who've been with Jesus for three years and a bit understood what he was facing. [01:07:25] Not one of them. [01:07:28] Indeed, every time the Lord Jesus spoke about the cross, they said, don't talk to us about it. [01:07:34] It's not becoming, it's not right. [01:07:38] It's darkness in you to think of such a thing, don't speak about it. [01:07:44] But this dear sister, with the perception of love, dimly, how? I do not know. But by the spirit of God, dimly perceived, dimly understood that Jesus was to die. [01:08:07] How great was the extent of her knowledge, I dont know. [01:08:14] But her perception led her to identification. [01:08:26] She took the most costly thing she had in her home. Now in those days, not today, but in those days, it was the common thing amongst jewish people to keep your savings because of inflation, nothing new under the sun, to keep your savings in some precious commodity. [01:08:54] And many would keep it in Spikenard or one of the other precious spices because they were really worth their weight in gold. [01:09:06] In other words, they would turn their money into spices or something like that and keep it. There was an added thing, an added value to turning your savings into Spikenard. [01:09:21] The burial ritual of the jewish people was a very costly ritual and required a lot of Spikenard. [01:09:34] And therefore people often used to keep their sort of savings in Spikenard so that if a member of the family died, or they died, the spikenard was there to be used for their burial. [01:09:52] Now, maybe it brings it home to you. If I tell you that this precious alabaster pot or alabaster cruise of Spikenard was in fact worth one year's wages, maybe that will bring it home to you. It was worth one year's wages. Now, Lazarus and Martha and Mary were not wealthy people. They were not necessarily the poorest of the poor, but they were not wealthy people. [01:10:27] And this represented something when by the spirit of God, because of the love of God in her heart, the sensitivity born of true devotion and love, Mary perceived that Jesus was going to die and sensed his loneliness, sensed the fact that maybe no one understood, no one was with him, no one was touching him. [01:11:02] She must have perhaps prayed, reflected, is there anything I could do to stand with him, to be with him? [01:11:17] And she suddenly thought, the alabaster cruise. [01:11:25] And she went and she took it and she broke it and she poured it over him. [01:11:37] Judas and the disciples were horrified. [01:11:44] A year's wages. [01:11:47] Judah said in pompous piety, we could have fed the poor the divine method. [01:12:11] When there's love, it will bring you to be identified with your lord. Whithersoever the lamb goes, you will go. [01:12:23] Wherever he leads, you will follow. If it is a shadow, a valley of the shadow of death, you will go through. [01:12:33] If it is into a place of green pastures and still waters, you will follow. If it is into the warfare, you will go wherever it is. You follow him into death, into resurrection, you follow him. [01:12:53] Maybe there is something very precious in your life. Normally there is something that is the most precious thing in our life and until we let it go, we are blocked. [01:13:13] I dont know what the Alabaster cruise is in your life, I know what it was in mine, but I think every single person intuitively, if they've never put it into words, we all know the Alabaster cruise. A precious Bikernard that's hidden somewhere in our being. [01:13:43] That is the thing that the Lord requires you to take. He will not push you, he will not cajole you, he will not pressurize you, he will not even say anything, he will leave you. [01:14:00] You know, you have to take that thing and he won't break it, you must break it. [01:14:12] He won't pour it over himself, you must pour it over him. [01:14:20] Two things came out of that. [01:14:23] The fragrance filled the house. [01:14:29] If I know anything about homes in the Middle East, I reckon it filled the houses next door as well. [01:14:37] The very street outside would have been permeated with the fragrance of that ointment. [01:14:50] Oh, I wish there was more fragrance of the Lord Jesus in my life. [01:14:55] Sadly, so often it's trapped in an unbroken alabaster cruise. [01:15:03] I wish there was more fragrance in our meeting, in our assemblies, in our fellowships. Sadly, it's in unbroken alabaster cruises. [01:15:15] We've trapped it inside. [01:15:20] The Lord will never thunder at us, break it. [01:15:25] He leaves us to the work of love. [01:15:30] If there is love in us, it will identify us so with our master that in the end, even if it's only on our deathbed, we shall take that alabaster cruise and finally break it and pour it all over the Lord. But why wait to a deathbed? [01:15:54] Why not do it now? [01:15:58] Jesus said in the other version, in Matthew and Mark, this that she has done shall be told for a memorial to her forever, wherever the gospel is preached. [01:16:11] What did he mean? Well, I think he meant simply this, that wherever the gospel of the saving love of God is told, the manifestation of it in a life such as Mary will also be told. [01:16:34] It is very easy for us with our understanding of church truth and of doctrine and of the purpose of God and the end of God, the goal of God, to sometimes think that we love the Lord and then suddenly we come face to face with some, with a person in a community that we would write off, many of us, and we meet an alabaster crew that has been broken and poured out. Such in my estimation. And I hope I don't cause any confusion by saying, this is Mother Teresa of Calcutta. [01:17:29] Many people could never believe that an abbess in a roman catholic convent could be a lover of the Lord Jesus. [01:17:43] But that kind of person rebukes those of us who have understood the purpose of God and church truth more than anybody else. [01:17:57] I don't believe it's just religion. [01:18:02] I only wish I had the same devotion and the same sacrifice that I could only by the grace of God, take any alabaster cruise in my life and break it and pour the whole upon him. [01:18:24] In the final analysis, it is our love for him that is going to determine our love for everyone else. [01:18:32] May God help us and may we be amongst that number, that company that are a manifestation of the love of God, that wherever the gospel is preached, there in our lives, in the companies of which we are part, the love of God is demonstrated in action. [01:19:00] The divine method. We talked about the divine command and the divine challenge and the divine diagnosis and the divine demonstration. [01:19:12] We've had this one last thing this morning. The divine method. God has no other way and no other method. The Holy Spirit will touch no other way and no other method. If we would see the house of God built up and completed, if we would see the bride making herself ready for the bridegroom, if we would come to the throne of God, if we, by the grace of God, should overcome, it will be by the love of God. [01:19:51] May the love wherewith the Father loved the Son be in you and in me. And may Jesus be in you and in me. Shall we pray? [01:20:10] O Lord, only you know where there is an unbroken alabaster cruise of precious ointments. [01:20:23] Help us, Lord, we pray by thy grace, as our love for thee is kindled, to take that precious thing, whatever it is, and break it at thy feet. [01:20:39] O Lord, help us in this matter. We pray. [01:20:43] It is no easy thing for us to go this way. But, Lord, we believe that if thou shouldst kindle our love afresh and cause that love to be shed abroad in our hearts and cause that love to abound yet more and more to the day of Jesus Christ, then, Lord, somehow we shall be enabled to fall into the ground and die, and so shall come a harvest for thee. [01:21:13] So, Lord, we shall be able enabled to wash one another's feet, even those who are failing the most amongst us. [01:21:27] We shall be enabled, dear Lord, by thy grace to take that whatever it is most precious to us, representing, as it were, our life's work, and break it for thee. [01:21:51] Help us, Lord, we pray, that that love may be in us and thou in us. [01:22:00] We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.