Nothing Can Separate Us From the Love of Christ
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Transcript of Nothing Can Separate Us From the Love of Christ
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Nothing Can Separate Us from the Love of ChristSeptember 8, 2002
by John Piper
Scripture: Romans 8:35-39
Topic: The Love of God
Series: Romans: The Greatest Letter Ever Written
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or
famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As
it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all
the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be
slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor
angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to
come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to
separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus
our Lord.
Five times here in Romans 8 the apostle Paul has
asked questions to draw out the amazing
privileges of belonging to Jesus Christ. Verse 31:
"If God is for us, who can be against us?" Verse 32:
"How will he not also with him graciously give us
all things?" Verse 33: "Who shall bring any charge
against God’s elect?" Verse 34: "Who is to
condemn?" And now today verse 35: "Who shall
separate us from the love of Christ?"
The answers are so plain and so wonderful, Paul
lets us supply them and rejoice in them. Verse 31:
No one can be successfully against us – not even
terrorists. Verse 32: God will supply everything
we need, even when all seems lost. Verse 33: No
one can make a charge stick against us in the court
of heaven, no matter who accuses us. Verse 34: No
one can condemn us. And today in verse 35: No
one and no-thing can separate us from the love of
Christ.
And what makes this text so relevant near the
anniversary of 9/11 is that Paul spells out the
kinds of things that cannot separate us from the
love of Christ, and they are the sort of things that
happened that day: "Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril,
or sword?" The reason Paul chose to mention so
many terrible things is to make sure we knew he
was not saying: Well, there are some things so
horrible that they really could separate us from
the love of Christ. No. Nothing can separate us
from Christ’s love.
Notice three things from verse 35.
1. Christ is loving us now.
A wife might say of her deceased husband:
Nothing will separate me from his love. She might
mean that the memory of his love will be sweet
and powerful all her life. But that is not what Paul
means here. In verse 34 it says plainly, "Christ
Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who
was raised- who is at the right hand of God, who
indeed is interceding for us." The reason Paul can
say that nothing will separate us from the love of
Christ is because Christ is alive and is still loving
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us now. He is at the right hand of God and is
therefore ruling for us. And he is interceding for
us, which means he is seeing to it that his finished
work of redemption does in fact save us hour by
hour and bring us safe to eternal joy. His love is
not a memory. It is a moment-by-moment action
by the omnipotent, living Son of God, to bring us to
everlasting joy.
2. This love of Christ is effective in protecting
us from separation, and therefore is not a
universal love for all, but a particular love for
his people – those who, according to Romans
8:28, love God and are called according to his
purpose.
This is the love of Ephesians 5:25, "Husbands love
your wives as Christ loved the church and gave
himself for her." It is Christ’s love for the church,
his bride. Christ has a love for all, and he has a
special, saving, preserving love for his bride. You
know you are part of that bride if you trust Christ.
Anyone – no exceptions – anyone who trusts
Christ can say, I am part of his bride, his church,
his called and chosen ones, the ones who verse 35
says are kept and protected forever no matter
what.
3. This omnipotent, effective, protecting love
does not spare us from calamities in this life,
but brings us safe to everlasting joy with God.
Paul makes this crystal clear in verse 35: "Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine,
or nakedness, or danger, or sword?" No. But
someone might say, "O but what he means is that
God will not let these things happen to his bride."
Two things prove that this is not the case.
One is the reference to death in verse 38 ("Neither
death nor life . . . will be able to separate us from
the love of God in Christ Jesus"). Death will
happen to us, but it will not separate us. So when
Paul says in verse 35 that the "sword" will not
separate us from the love of Christ, he means:
even if we are killed we are not separated from
the love of Christ.
The other is verse 36, where Paul quotes Psalm
44:22 and applies it to himself and Christians in
general, "As it is written, ‘For your sake we are
being killed all the day long; we are regarded as
sheep to be slaughtered.’" This means that
martyrdom is normal Christianity. It is happening
all over the world. Pakistan, Nepal, Sudan,
Indonesia, Vietnam . . . an estimated 164,000
Christians will die this year because of their
faith(www.gem-werc.org). This is what Paul has in
mind. And it is what Jesus meant when he said,
"Some of you they will put to death. You will be
hated by all for my name’s sake" (Luke 21:16-17).
Our season of peace and tolerance in America is an
anomaly and should drive us to greater and
greater care for the suffering church (Hebrews
13:3). See http://www.persecution.com.
So the sum of the matter in verse 35 is this: Jesus
Christ is mightily loving his people with
omnipotent, moment-by-moment love that does
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not always rescue us from calamity but preserves
us for everlasting joy in his presence even through
suffering and death.
Now let’s let Lisa Beamer bear witness to this
sovereign love. Her husband Todd was on flight 93
that went down in Pennsylvania. He was the one
who said, "Let’s Roll!" He left behind Lisa and
three small children (one born last January).
Here are ten lessons from Lisa mostly in her
own words.
1. Embracing the sovereignty of God brings
strength and hope.
Lisa: "God knew the terrible choices the terrorists
would make and that Todd Beamer would die as a
result. He knew my children would be left without
a father and me without a husband . . . Yet in his
sovereignty and in his perspective on the big
picture, he knew it was better to allow the events
to unfold as they did rather than redirect Todd’s
plans to avoid death. . . . I can’t see all the reasons
he might have allowed this when I know he could
have stopped it . . . I don’t like how his plan looks
from my perspective right now., but knowing that
he loves me and can see the world from start to
finish helps me say, ‘It’s OK.’" (Modern
Reformation, 24-25)
"If we believe wholeheartedly, each moment, that
our destiny rests in the hands of Jesus Christ – the
one with ultimate love and ultimate power – what
do we have to be concerned about? Of course, our
humanity clouds this truth many times but
hanging on to glimpses of it keeps everything in
perspective." (Modern Reformation, 31)
2. Don’t presume to know better than God how
to run the world. It is pride.
Lisa: "My faith wasn’t rooted in governments,
religion, tall buildings, or frail people. Instead, my
faith and my security were in God. A thought
struck me. Who are you to question God and say
that you have a better plan than He does? You
don’t have the same wisdom and knowledge that
He has, or the understanding of the big picture."
(World, 25)
"We also aren’t privy to the perspective he has
and shouldn’t claim to know better than he does
what should happen and what shouldn’t. . . . Faith
means that, regardless of circumstances, we take
him at his word that he loves us and will bring us
to a good result if we just trust and obey him.
Obviously, the ramifications of this understanding
have been tremendous for me since 9/11."
(Modern Reformation, 25)
3. God has a good purpose in all the hard
things that happen to his people.
"God’s sovereignty has been made clear to me.
When I am tempted to become angry and ask
‘What if?’ and , ‘Why us?’ God says, ‘I knew on
September 10, and I could have stopped it, but I
have a plan for greater good than you can ever
imagine.’ I don’t know God’s plan, and honestly,
right now I don’t like it very much. But I trust that
He is true to His promise in Romans 8:28: ‘We
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know that in all things God works for the good of
those who love him.’ My only responsibility is to
love God. He’ll work out the rest." (Decision, 8).
Beneath her signature Lisa writes Genesis 50:20,
"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God
meant it for good." (Modern Reformation, 30)
4. Death and suffering press in on us the
perspective of eternity.
Lisa: "September 11 has shown me the reality of
eternity in a dynamic way these past few months.
When I’m overwhelmed with sadness at what I’ve
lost in this life, He is quick to give me His eternal
perspective. ‘Lisa, this life is just a blip on the
radar screen compared to your future with Me in
heaven,’ He says. ‘The best thing that you can
imagine on earth is garbage compared to what
awaits you.’" (Decision, 8)
5. God’s distribution of suffering is not equal,
and one hard thing may prepare for another.
When Lisa was 15 her father suffered an
aneurysm at work and died the next morning in
the hospital. Lisa: "When my father died, faith
wasn’t so easy anymore. . . . I spent five years
asking why, expressing my anger saying it’s not
fair, before God helped me realize that he is who
he is all the time – in good circumstances and bad.
He is all-powerful and all-loving, but that doesn’t
mean that as a citizen of this fallen world he
protects us from every ‘bad’ event." (Modern
Reformation, 25)
What a witness to God’s goodness and sovereignty
the world would be missing today if God had not
prepared Lisa Beamer for this loss by the death of
her dad!
6. God’s love takes care of us right now in our
suffering, not just later.
Lisa: "He knows that I am a hurting and in need
right now. Every day He provides encouragement
and resources just for me. Little things show me
that He is with me: a Scripture with just the words
I need to hear, a call from a friend when I feel
lonely, help with a task that I can’t do alone, or a
hug and ‘I love you’ from one of my children. God’s
love is truly sufficient to meet any need that I
have." (Decision, 8-9)
7. Calamity calls for quick practical love like
meals and baby sitting.
Lisa: "The picture of the church as the hands and
feet of Christ, with each person having a special
gift, has been well portrayed to me these last
months. In the beginning, it was immediate and
practical help I needed – meals, child care,
managing phone calls, and mail. Now that we’re
out of the crisis mode it is rebuilding help I need –
counseling , encouragement, prayer." (Modern
Reformation, 28)
8. Quiet, confidence in God’s power and
goodness through suffering create occasions
for witness.
Marilee Melvin said of Lisa, "Her disarming quiet
confidence in God’s purposes must be the reason
Larry King has had her on his show eleven times."
(Modern Reformation, 30)
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9. Trusting in God’s sovereign care in all
circumstances frees you from greed and
releases love for others.
Money started to flow in to Lisa Beamer. Some
letters were simply addressed, Lisa Beamer, New
Jersey, and got to her. Lisa: "I didn’t feel
comfortable keeping this for ourselves when there
were many unknown families who should share."
So she started the Todd M. Beamer Foundation to
assist children who lost a parent in the 9/11
calamity. (Modern Reformation, 30)
Her freedom for others comes out in another way:
"My family and I mourned the loss of Todd deeply
that day . . . and we still do. But because we have a
hope in the Lord, we know beyond a doubt that
one day we will see Todd again. I hurt for the
people who don’t have that same hope, and I pray
that they will see something in our family that will
encourage them to trust in the Lord." (World, 26)
Lisa’s way of encouraging people to trust in the
Lord is sometimes so straightforward that
Newsweek magazine called it "stern and even a
little grim." She wrote in her memoir, "You think
you deserve a happy life and get angry when it
doesn’t always happen like that. In fact you are a
sinner and deserve only death. The fact that God
has offered you hope of eternal life is amazing!
You should be overwhelmed with joy and
gratitude." (Newsweek, 42)
10. Without God the world is hopeless.
With hundreds of others she attended the
memorial service in Shanksville, PA at the crash
site where her husband died. The Christ-exalting
memorial service for Todd had been on Sunday,
the day before, and had strengthened her. "On
Monday," she said, "as I listened to the well-
intentioned speakers, who were doing their best
to comfort but with little if any direct reference to
the power of God to sustain us. I felt I was sliding
helplessly down a high mountain into a deep
crevasse. As much as I appreciated the kindness of
the wonderful people who tried to encourage us,
that afternoon was actually one of the lowest
points in my grieving. It wasn’t the people, or
event, or the place. Instead, it struck me how
hopeless the world is when God is factored out of
the equation." (World, 26)
So, together with Lisa Beamer and the apostle Paul
and Jesus Christ himself, I plead with you, Don’t
factor God out of your life, or Jesus Christ who
died and rose and reigns and intercedes for all
who trust him, that we might have eternal joy with
him in the presence of God.
The quotes are from:
"Let’s Roll [excerpts from her book]," World, Vol.
17, No. 31, August 17, 2002, pp. 20-28.
Lisa Beamer, "The Hope I Know," Decision, Vol. 43,
No. 9, September, 2002, pp. 6-9.
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Ann Henderson Hart, "Finding Hope Beyond the
Ruins: An Interview with Lisa Beamer," Modern
Reformation, Vol. 11, No. 5, September/October,
2002, pp. 24-31.
Evan Thomas, "Their Faith and Their Fears,"
Newsweek, September 11, 2002, pp. 36-48.
Consider Your CallingApril 25, 2010
by John Piper
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1:26-31
Topic: The Love of God
Consider your calling, brothers: not many of you
were wise according to worldly standards, not
many were powerful, not many were of noble
birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the
world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak
in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose
what is low and despised in the world, even things
that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29
so that no human being might boast in the
presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in
Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God,
righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts,
boast in the Lord.”
This is the last message I preach to you before my
eight-month leave of absence that starts May 1. I
see it as a continuation of last week’s message.
The point of that message was that God loves you
—you Bethlehem as a body of believers, and you
Bethlehem as individual sons and daughters in his
family—that God loves you in ways that are so
spectacular, you need supernatural help to believe
it and feel it.
Love So Amazing
I mean that very explicitly and seriously. The love
of God, the love of Christ, for you is so spectacular
that you cannot grasp it—know it as a conscious
experience—without omnipotent supernatural
help. This is why Paul prays in Ephesians 3:18–
19 like this: I pray that you “may have strength to
comprehend with all the saints what is the
breadth and length and height and depth, and to
know the love of Christ that surpasses
knowledge.” The love of Christ surpasses what you
are able to comprehend with your mere human
mind or heart. So what is needed to experience it?
God’s power. So Paul prays, “May you have
strength to comprehend the love of Christ.” Soul
strength. Heart strength. Mind strength. God, give
this to us, we pray.
This is why Paul says in Romans 5:5 that “God’s
love has been poured into our hearts through the
Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Without the
divine power of the Holy Spirit, we will not be able
to experience the love of God. So I paused in the
service last week to pray that God would give this
power and pour out the Holy Spirit in our hearts
like this—to help us experience the love of God.
Loved Enough to Be Saved from Self
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The question I posed last week was: Why is it that
the Bible reveals God’s love for us—including
God’s making much of us and delighting in us and
rejoicing over us—why does the Bible reveal
God’s love as a way of calling attention to his own
glory?
The answer is that if God didn’t do it this way, we
would be even more likely to turn the love of God
into a subtle means of self-exaltation. We would
use his love to make ourselves the deepest
foundation of our joy. God would become a
servant to our slavery to self. We would take our
preciousness to God and make that very
preciousness our god.
God Will Make Much of Us
But, I argued, God loves us so much—we are so
precious to him—that he will not let that happen
to his people. We are so precious to God that God,
in great mercy, will not let our preciousness to
him become our god. God will make sure that God
remains our God—that our supreme treasure is
not ourselves but God.
We will indeed through all eternity enjoy being
made much of by God. But God will so work in us
that the bottom of our joy will be that he himself is
the kind of God—the kind of infinitely gracious
God—who can and does delight in us. “For from
him and through him and to him are all things. To
him be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:36). God
himself will be the beginning, the middle, and the
end of our perfect happiness.
And because he loves you in this spectacular way,
we have reason to believe that these next eight
months will be a time of extraordinary blessing in
the life of this church, and in our lives personally
as part of this church. So let me take the message a
little further and give additional reason to believe
that and pray with expectation toward that
blessing.
A Double Purpose for Loving Us This Way
Let’s turn to 1 Corinthians 1:26–31. Here’s the
link with last week. In these six verses, Paul
describes at least four ways that God loves us. And
by “us” I mean all the sinful, broken people who
have seen our need for a Savior and embraced
Jesus as our only hope for forgiveness and our
only all-satisfying treasure. And besides
describing four ways God loves us, he gives a
double purpose for loving us this way. These two
things—how he loves us, and why he loves us this
way—give us added reason to believe God is
planning to pour out unusual blessing on
Bethlehem in the next eight months.
1. So That We Don’t Boast in Ourselves
First, let’s notice the double purpose for God’s
loving us the way he does. The first half of the
double purpose is in verse 29: “. . . so that no
human being might boast in the presence of God.”
The purpose God loves us the way he does is: so
thatnone of us would boast in ourselves before
God. In other words, God loves us—and he loves
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us so much that he will not let us diminish that
love by exalting ourselves in his presence. He will
not let us ruin the glorious experience of being
loved by turning God’s love for us into a reason for
us to boast in ourselves.
2. So That We Boast in Jesus
Rather, here’s the second half of the double
purpose God loves us in these verses. Verse 31: He
loves us this way “. . . so that, as it is written, ‘Let
the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” In other
words, verse 29 tells us that his purpose is that we
not boast in ourselves, and verse 31 tells us that
his purpose is that we instead boast in the Lord.
So this is what we saw last week: God loves us
more than we could ever dream, and part of what
makes his love so great is that it prevents us from
making ourselves to be our boast. And it secures
for us that God himself will be our supreme boast.
“Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.” This will
be our joy through all the ages: boasting in the
Lord, not in ourselves. The love of God will see to
it.
4 Ways God Loves You
Now focus on the four ways that God loves us in
these verses. In sum, they are: 1) God chose us; 2)
God called us; 3) God put us in Christ; 4) God
made Christ our wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. Let’s take them
one at a time.
1. God loved you by choosing you.
Verses 27–28: “God chose what is foolish in the
world to shame the wise; Godchose what is weak
in the world to shame the strong; God chose what
is low and despised in the world, even things that
are not, to bring to nothing things that are.”
The only other place this word “choose” is used in
Paul is Ephesians 1:4–5: “[God]chose us in Christ
before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and blameless before him. In love he
predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus
Christ.” So what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians
1:27–28 is that before we were made, God saw us
in our sin and our rebellion, and he graciously set
his favor on us owing to nothing in ourselves. Paul
calls it in Romans 11:5 the “election of grace.”
This electing love is absolutely unconditional. We
were not yet created. And we know that he
foresaw us as undeserving when he chose us
because the blessing of our election had to come
through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:4–7). We
needed a redeemer in his eyes when he chose us.
So be amazed. If you are believer in Jesus, God has
loved you from before the world and chose you for
his own possession—with all the biblical benefits
and all the biblical affections that implies.
2. God loved you by calling you.
Verse 26: “For consider your calling, brothers.”
What is Paul referring to? Their job? Being a
carpenter? Homemaker? Teacher? No. He is
referring to the work of God in calling them to
himself out of darkness into light, out of death into
life. You can see the meaning pretty clearly in
verses 22–24:
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For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block
to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who
are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power
of God and the wisdom of God.
So there are three groups in these verses: the
Jews, the Gentiles, and “the called.” Or to be more
precise: the non-called Jews, the non-called
Gentiles, and the called Jews and Gentiles. And
what’s the difference? The non-called Jews see
Christ-crucified as a stumbling block (verse 23).
The non-called Gentiles see Christ-crucified as
folly (verse 23). But “the called” Jews and Gentiles
see Christ-crucified as “the power of God and the
wisdom of God (verse 24).
Which means that the call is the work of God that
opens our eyes to see Christ as true and powerful
and wise and beautiful and compelling so that we
receive him for salvation. God’s call is his life-
giving command: Come! If you are a believer
today, that is how you got saved. God called you
out of darkness into his marvelous light. This call
was effective. It produced in you what it called for.
It was like the effectiveness of a command that
someone uses to wake you from a deep sleep. You
lean over their ear while they are asleep, and you
cry out: Wake up! And they bolt upright. They did
not hear the command and ponder it and then
decide to wake up. The command accomplished
what it commanded: Wake up! That is the way God
raises us from spiritual death. And only God can
do it. And he did it for you. He loved you this
way. Ephesians 2:4 says it was because of God’s
“great love” that he made us alive when we were
dead. You were about to sleep yourself into hell,
and God woke you up to the ugliness of sin and the
beauty of a great Savior. He loved you with a
“great love.”
3. God loved you by putting you in Christ.
Verse 30: “And because of him you are in Christ
Jesus.” Literally: “From him, or of him, are you in
Christ Jesus.” The idea is simply that we are united
to Christ, and the reason we are is because God did
it. He chose us. Then he called us. And in calling us,
he united us to Christ. This was a great act of love.
You could not do it on your own. Only God can
graft you into the life of his Son. He chose to do it
before creation. He called you to it. And he did it.
Your presence today in union with Christ is owing
to the love of God putting you there and keeping
you there (1 Peter 1:5).
Now what is the effect of that union with Christ?
4. God loved you by making Christ your
wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and
redemption.
Verse 30: “And because of him you are in Christ
Jesus, who [that is, Christ] became to us wisdom
from God, righteousness and sanctification and
redemption.” This is why it is so loving of God to
put us in Christ. Because, in union with Christ,
Christ himself becomes our wisdom and our
righteousness and our sanctification and our
redemption. I would love to take each of those and
explain how Jesus becomes that for us, but my
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focus today is different. Suffice it to say that
everything you need to bring you safely through
this life and into eternal life and joy with God, you
have in Christ Jesus. He has become for you
everything you need. God has loved you this way.
Christ has loved you this way.
Now we have seen how God loves us and why God
loves us this way. He loves us by 1) choosing us
for himself, by 2) calling us to himself, by 3)
uniting us to Christ, and 4) by making Christ
become everything we need. And the double
purpose of loving us like this was “so that no
human being might boast in the presence of God”
(verse 29), and “so that, as it is written, ‘Let the
one who boasts, boast in the Lord’” (verse 31).
God has loved us in all these ways—God has made
so much of us—so that we will enjoy making much
of him forever.
God Is Ready to Pour Out Blessing
Now here’s the way this text becomes an added
reason to believe God is planning to pour out
unusual blessing on Bethlehem in the next eight
months. We have left out an entire emphasis in the
text up till now—namely, that God regularly
glorifies himself by setting aside human power to
magnify his own. By setting aside
human wisdom to magnify his own. By setting
aside human honor to magnify his own. You see
this clear as day in verses 26–28:
Consider your calling, brothers: not many of you
were wise according to worldly standards, not
many were powerful, not many were of noble
birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to
shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the
world to shame the strong; God chose what is low
and despised in the world, even things that are not,
to bring to nothing things that are.
Here is one way to apply this to our situation.
Whatever natural wisdom or strength or honor I
may bring to this pulpit it may at times stand in
the way of God’s fullest blessing. It may be God’s
design that the blessing he has for this church will
reach a much higher level in my absence than in
my presence.
M’Cheyne’s 8-Month Leave
I wrote the Taste & See article this week about
Robert Murray M’Cheyne who took eight months
away from his Scottish parish in 1839. As he
struggled over whether to leave or not, he wrote
in a letter,
I sometimes think, that a great blessing may come
to my people in my absence. Often God does not
bless us when we are in the midst of our labours,
lest we shall say, “My hand and my eloquence have
done it.” He removes us into silence, and then
pours “down a blessing so that there is no room to
receive it;” so that all that see it cry out, “It is the
Lord!” (Andrew Bonar, Memoir and Remains of
Robert Murray M’Cheyne[Edinburgh: Banner of
Truth Trust, 1966], p. 85)
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After M’Cheyne had asked William Burns, the son
of the pastor at Kilsyth, to take over his pulpit
while he was away these eight months, he wrote
to him,
I hope you may be a thousand times more blessed
among them than I ever was. Perhaps there are
many souls that would never have been saved
under my ministry, who may be touched under
yours; and God has taken this method of bringing
you into my place. His name is Wonderful. (p. 89)
And the amazing thing is that the Lord did it.
Revival came to his church in Dundee in August
when M’Cheyne was very ill in Turkey. His
biographer wrote,
Two days after [the revival came to nearby
Kilsyth], the Spirit began to work in [M’Cheyne’s
church] St. Peter’s, at the time of the prayer-
meeting in the church, in a way similar to Kilsyth.
Day after day the people met for prayer and
hearing the word; and the time of the apostles
seemed returned, when “the Lord added to the
Church daily of such as should be saved.” (p. 109)
M’Cheyne did return to his flock in November,
1839, and served them faithfully till his death at
the age of 29 in March, 1843.
A Prayer for These 8 Months
I ended the article with a prayer that I will pray
for you (or something like it) every day.
O Lord, as you are often accustomed to do, show
your great power in my absence. Send a
remarkable awakening that results in hundreds of
people coming to Christ, old animosities being
removed, marriages being reconciled and
renewed, wayward children coming home, long-
standing slavery to sin being conquered, spiritual
dullness being replaced by vibrant joy, weak faith
being replaced by bold witness, disinterest in
prayer being replaced by fervent intercession,
boring Bible reading being replaced by passion for
the Word, disinterest in global missions being
replaced by energy for Christ’s name among the
nations, and lukewarm worship being replaced by
zeal for the greatness of God’s glory.
Lord, when Gideon had thousands of men you
said, “The people with you are too many for me to
give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel
boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved
me’” (Judges 7:2). You stripped his army to 300,
and with that you conquered the peoples of the
East who covered the ground like locusts and
whose camels were like the sand of sea (Judges
7:12).
O Lord, take the mighty 300 of Bethlehem and
bless this church beyond anything we have ever
dreamed. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
That’s what I’ll be praying in the months to come.
And my heart will be filled with love and
eagerness to see you again
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The Love of Christ for Paul
I want us to think for a few minutes about being
loved by Christ. I wish there were something I
could say that would give you the sense of being
loved by Christ that the apostle Paul had. Listen to
the way he talked about being loved by Christ:
The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the
Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
(Galatians 2:20)
His whole life was nothing but a daily experience
of working out what it meant to be loved by the
Son of God—what it meant moment by moment to
bank on being loved by Jesus.
In another place he said,
The love of Christ constrains us. (2 Corinthians
5:14)
Being loved by Christ was the controlling force of
his life. When he turned into any wrong way it was
the love of Christ that constrained, held him back,
and put him in the way of truth.
The most unshakable reality of his life was being
loved by Jesus Christ. It was the granite
foundation under a life of immense suffering. It
made Paul utterly indestructible in his confidence
toward God.
Who is to condemn us? (He asked) Christ Jesus is
the one who died, yes, who was raised from the
dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed
intercedes for us. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or
sword? As it is written, “For thy sake we are being
killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to
be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through him who loved us.
When Paul met the miseries of life and felt himself
threatened, like a lamb sent to the slaughter, he
never used this misery as an argument that he was
no longer loved by Christ. Instead, he threw the
love of Christ back into the face of misery and said,
“You cannot separate me from this massive love.
In fact, this love with which I am loved by the Son
of God will make me more than a conqueror in this
distress!”
To be loved by Jesus Christ is literally an
indescribable thing. It is deeper than any of us
knows. And O how Paul wanted us to know the
love of Christ the way he knew it! Do you
remember how he prayed for us in Ephesians
3:18-19?
… that you might have power to comprehend with
all the saints what is the breadth and length and
height and depth, and to know the love of Christ
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which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled
with all the fullness of God.
Paul virtually equated knowing the love of Christ
with being filled with the fullness of God. Being
loved by Christ means being full of God.
Jesus' Unique Love for His Own
And so what I want to do is take this single verse
from that last Thursday evening and hold it up
before you with the prayer that God would cause
you to know what it is to be loved by Jesus Christ.
Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus
knew that his hour had come to depart out of the
world to the Father, having loved his own who
were in the world, he loved them to the end.
First notice whom we loves: “Having loved his
own... he loved them to the end.”
“He calls his own sheep by name and they follow
him.” “The good shepherd lays down his life for
the sheep” (John 10:3, 15, 27). “Greater love has
no man than this, that a man lay down his life for
his friends” (John 15:13). “I do not pray for these
only but for all who will believe on me through
their word” (John 17:1).
“His own.” “His sheep.” “His friends.” “Believers.”
Here is something very precious and powerful and
life-changing. The love of Jesus for his own, for his
sheep, for his friends, for believers is more than
the love held out to the world—the compassion
that fed the hungry and healed the sick and
preached good news to the poor.
And in this verse John want those of us who are
“His own,” his sheep, his friends to hear something
uniquely for us. It is not by accident that Jesus’
love for the church is compared to the love of a
husband for his wife in Ephesians 5. It’s because
Christ has a love affair with “his own” that is not
like the general love that he has for the world.
There is a kind of love I can have for all women
and men, but when I have vowed in solemn
covenant to forsake all others and cleave to Noël
alone and to love her and cherish her for richer for
poorer, for better for worse, in sickness and in
health, til death do us part, our love becomes a
slight reflection of what it means for Jesus to love
his own, his sheep, his friends, his bride.
If you believe in Jesus Christ, don’t think of his
love for you merely in terms of the love he has for
the world. Think of the love that takes captive and
cleaves and unites and cherishes and defends.
Think of a marriage covenant between you and
him in which he has sworn by his holiness to love
you with a saving, cleansing, glorifying love. And
remember the words of Psalm 89:34, “I will not
violate my covenant, or alter the word that went
forth from my lips.”
Ponder in these final, awesome days of Holy Week
what precious reality there is in the words “his
own.” “Having loved his own who were in the
world, he loved them to the end.”
The Length and Depth of Jesus' Love
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Then, finally, ponder the two directions of his
love: “having loved… he loved to the end.” As I
pondered those two phrases this morning this is
what I heard.
He loved us in life and he loved us in death. Having
loved us in the easiest times he loved us in the
hardest times. Having loved us with words and
bread and touch he loved us with blood and pain
and death. Having loved us extensively over years
he loved us intensively to the depths.
We are moved to believe that someone loves us
when two things appear—they stick with us over
time, and they stick with us when it is costly.
These are the two things I see here in this verse:
having loved us over the years (patient with all
our sin and misunderstanding) he now loved us to
the uttermost, to the depths of suffering for us.
This is what we long for, and this is what we have
by faith—an experience of being loved with a love
that lasts, that is not fickle, or uncertain, or
capricious, but durable, constant, stable. But not
only a love that is extensive, that lasts over time,
all time, but also a love that is intensive. We long
to be loved radically, deeply, excessively,
passionately.
And the word tells us, “having loved his own who
were in the world, he loved them to the end.” It
went long and it went deep.
O, may God give us the power to comprehend with
all the saints what is the height and depth and
length and breadth and to know the love of Christ
which passes knowledge that we might be filled
with all the fullness of God.