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

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

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

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)

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.

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

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

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:

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

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)

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

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

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

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.