The Love of Christ

The book of the Revelation is about the person of Jesus Christ that cannot be missed. John brings our attention very quickly to the person of Christ. He tells us about who he is and what he has done and those considerations promote worship and praise. You see that pattern in verse 5 where John is speaking of Jesus Christ and he says, and from Jesus Christ, and he says three things about him, about who he is. He is the faithful witness. He is the first born from the dead and the ruler over the kings of the earth and we consider that last Sunday night.

But tonight our attention is on what follows. John says, to him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and has made us kings and priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. And the logic here is, in the consideration of the person of Christ and in the work of Christ, we are provoked and we are moved toward worship.

There is this doxology that is recorded. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. So tonight we want to take up the subject of the love of Christ. And I find it significant that John tells us of who Christ is before he tells us what he has done or what he is doing.

I want you to see that pattern. Who he is. Who is he? He is the faithful witness. He is the first born from the dead. He is the ruler over the kings of the earth. John tells us that first before he tells us anything about what Christ is doing and what Christ has done.

Why is that? Well, what he has intended and purposed to do is guaranteed to be effectual because of who he is. Our confidence in what is revealed to us about the work of Christ is undergirded by the reality of who he is. He is the faithful witness. He is the first born from the dead.

He is the ruler over all the kings of the earth. Let me give you an example or an illustration. I could say as one of the pastors of this church that I intend to do you good. I intend to give myself for your improvement, your betterment.

I'm going to pour out my life and demonstrate love toward you. Well, that's wonderful and good, but my ability to do that is determined and dictated by who I am. I'm a man. I have limitations. There are times that I am selfish and I'm more concerned about me than I would be about you.

And there's only so much of me to go around. I could say that to the whole church, but my ability to do that for the whole church is terribly limited. And one day my pastorate will end, one day I will die, and my ability to do that for you will cease, but not so about the person of Jesus Christ. His ability to love you and to care for you is tied to who He is, and He's the faithful witness.

He's the unchangeable God. His love knows no boundaries, and therefore we can be encouraged. So I think it's very important that John would tell us first about who this one is, who Jesus Christ is, before he says anything about what he has done and is doing.

So tonight let's take up this subject of the love of Christ. John tells us about Him, to Him who loved us. Now you wouldn't know it by simply reading the text, but some of your translations may capture the nuance, the verb tense, that this is a present participle.

That this isn't just focused on what He did in the past, this is speaking of what He is presently doing. He has loved us, and He is presently loving us. One translation, the New International Version translates it, to Him who loves us. There's a second thing mentioned here, to Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. And although that is a truism that Christ has washed us in His blood, there's a textual variant here, and there are some translations that instead of saying He washed us in His blood, say that He freed us in His blood.

He's freed us instead of washed us, and I think, I know at least the English Standard Version renders it with that textual variant. And in this brief statement of what Jesus Christ has done and is doing, John, the beloved apostle, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, summarizes beautifully, I think, the Gospel for us. So let's consider together this great reality that Jesus Christ, He loves us.

He loves us. And there are four characteristics of the love of Christ for His people that I want to speak to you about. Four characteristics of the love of Christ for His people. Number one, that love is the great cause of all that He has done for us. Love is the great cause, the great explanation, we could say, for all that He has done for us.

When we're speaking about the redemption of man, there are many attributes put on display. When we think of the cross and what God has done in Christ, we see the wisdom of God and the justice of God and the holiness of God and the power of God, but first and foremost, we see the love of God. We might ask, why did Jesus suffer and die on the cross? And the answer simply is, because He loved us. Now there are other answers to that question, but for our purposes tonight, I want to draw your attention to that.

Well, if you ask, well, why? Why did He love us? And the only answer is because He chose to love us. And that's the dilemma that Old Testament Israel struggled to understand.

And God thought it necessary to communicate similarly to them. Deuteronomy chapter 7, we have these words, The Lord did not set His love on you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples. But because, here's the explanation, but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. The only reason to explain the love of God for sinners is that He simply loves them. All that Jesus Christ has done for us is because of His love for us.

This is the highest and purest and the best explanation that we have. God's redeeming purposes in Christ is rooted in His love. Love is the great cause of all that He has done for us. And with that understanding, it should not surprise us to find Paul, praying that we, along with all the saints, might comprehend the width, the length, the depth and the height of the love of Christ that I read to you from Ephesians chapter 1 earlier.

So when we hold up the diamond of our redemption to admire it, it is the facet of the love of Christ that should capture our attention. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God demonstrated His love toward us in that Christ died. Or as John expressed it in his first epistle, in this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world that we, through Him, might live. And this is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. So tonight as we think about this great reality of the love of Christ for His people, the first consideration is that love is the great cause of all that Christ has done for us. Secondly, He loves us eternally. The present tense of the verb expresses that He not only loved us, but He loves us. And if we are in saving relationship with Jesus Christ, we have scriptural warrant to believe that He always has loved us and He always will love us.

This love is an eternal love. Ephesians chapter 1 tells us that He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him in what? In love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will. That saving love was set upon us, set upon His people before the foundation of the world was laid. And having set His peculiar redeeming love upon His people before the foundation of the world, He loved them in life and He loved them in death and He will love them ever still. So the love of Christ for His people is an eternal love. And folks, is that not a sure foundation upon which to hang all of our hopes, to cast all of our cares, to rest our worries and our doubts and our fears?

Yes, it is a sure foundation. The eternal love of the ruler over all the kings of the earth has set His love on you if you're a child of His. Well not only does Jesus Christ love us eternally, He thirdly loves us unchangeably, unchangeably. Now, I drew your attention to the connection between what He is doing and has done to who He is. And what He does is made effectual by who He is. And the Bible says that He is the unchanging God, the same yesterday, today and forever. He will not change, therefore if it is His determination to love His people, His love towards them is an unchangeable love. He is the faithful witness that cannot lie. His character will not change, His purposes will not change, His love will not vacillate, alter or change. And this is the idea that undergirds Paul's teaching in Romans chapter 8 as he spoke of the love of Christ.

Listen to it. 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 your sake we are killed all day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, if you took the time to turn to Romans chapter 8 and follow me or if you are an acute student and a careful observer, you may have noted that I skipped verse 37 as I began to read at verse 35.

Now listen to verse 37. Yet in all things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. More than conquerors through Him who loved us. Perhaps tonight you struggle to have faith to believe that, that you are more than a conqueror because of Him who loved you.

And that's why God draws our attention to this. There in Romans 8 here in Revelation chapter 1, that our focus needs to be upon the eternal unchangeable love of the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, the ruler over the kings of the earth. Well, love is the great cause of all that He has done. He has loved us eternally. He has loved us unchangeably.

Fourth tonight, He loves us unconditionally. He loves us unconditionally. Did you notice in our text here in Revelation 1 that loving us comes before freeing us? That means that His love was set upon us even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, even when we were His enemies. God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. This means that His love for us does not depend upon our performance. If we could not merit His love when He died for us, surely we cannot merit the continuation of His love. His love is an unconditional love set upon those whom He has determined to save. Those four aspects about the love of Christ for His people.

But the text goes on. It says, to Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, or I think a better rendering is, He who freed us from our sins in His own blood. So let's seek to understand this work of Christ by observing four aspects here. Four aspects of what it means that Christ has freed us from our sins in His own blood. Well, first of all, the fact that He has freed us from our sins is the greatest example of His love. Just as we have noted that love is the great cause of all that He's done for us, even so, this truth is the greatest example of His love. God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

So this first thing, that the love of Christ is the great example to us. Secondly, He freed us, it says, in His own blood. He freed us, or washed us, freed us from our sins in His own blood. It is the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses us from all sin in the blood of Jesus Christ alone.

That is the focus of the writer of Hebrews. We won't take the time tonight to turn to Hebrews chapter 11, but there's a wonderful passage there that speaks to the superiority of the blood of Christ over the blood of beasts, the Old Testament sacrifices. Third, He freed us from our sins in His own blood, from the guilt of our sin and its penalty. And as we think about the necessity of the sacrifice of the blood of Christ, surely, surely we understand how great the burden of our sin was. Think with me, if it required the very blood of the Son of God to redeem us to Himself, what a dreadful condition we were in. The hymn writer of Tis the Christ, this third stanza, seeks to drive that point home.

You who think of sin but lightly, nor suppose the evil great, here may view its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate. Mark the sacrifice appointed. See who bears the awful load, Tis the Word, the Lord's anointed Son of Man and Son of God. You see, it's at the cross, it is the demonstration of the love of God where we see the dreadful reality of the guilt of man's sin. And if there was any other way for God to reconcile us to Himself apart from the death of His own Son, He would have done it. But our condition was such that it required the shedding of the blood of the Son of God. It required the blood of the spotless Lamb of God.

The guiltless one became the guilty. He who knew no sin became sin for us. And the fourth aspect here is we're thinking about what it means that He has freed us from our sins in His own blood. He has done that in order to make us His bondservants.

A doulos, one who serves out of love and devotion to His Master. You see, our sins bound us tightly and there was no means of escape in ourselves. We were slaves to sin and to Satan himself. Paul tells us in Romans chapter 8 that the Son has set us free by His own blood and if the Son shall set you free, you shall be indeed free.

That the power of sin has been broken. And though we were once slaves, the old man has been crucified with Christ. We are bound now to a new master for the purpose that sin should no longer have dominion over us. We are now slaves of righteousness where in time past we were slaves of unrighteousness. We are now enslaved to a new master.

Christ is our new master. I trust that that reality is manifesting itself in your life. That is the only explanation for you to be pursuing holiness. It is the only explanation of why you are continuing in the way. It is the only reason that you continue to love Christ and desire to grow in your understanding of Him. Why you're not drawn back into the world. Why you are not pursuing those old vices, those old passions.

Yes, they're powerful. Yes, they continue to pull on us, but we have been set free. Sin's power has been broken and for that we rejoice and we long for the day that we will finally and fully be delivered from the very presence of sin itself. You know the subject of the love of God, the love of Christ, it's everywhere. It's in our hymnody.

We sang about it this morning repeatedly. The hymn, chosen as His children. The refrain, I'm born again. I'm God's own chosen child of mercy, born again.

And then what follows? What love and grace. What love and grace and what does that love motivate us to do? Notice the hymn writer. What love and grace, Father, keep me walking worthy till I look upon Your face. Till I look upon Your face. Melanie played the prelude music this morning and incorporated Chris Anderson's hymn, Relentless Love. Relentless love embraced my soul. When?

In ages past. Love undeserved, unknown, yet deep and vast. God set His love on me, on me in spite of me.

Salvation's work is His from first to last. Unbounded love, unfailing love, love raised upon a tree. Unending love, prevailing love, my Savior's sovereign love for me.

And it goes on. Relentless love pursued my heart, though I would hide. Relentless love preserves my life from unbelief.

Relentless love transforms my soul and its delights, says Chris Anderson. So tonight, has the love of Christ captured your life? Has it changed you? Has it transformed you?

I trust that it has. That you know what I'm talking about here tonight is we're thinking about the love of Christ and what He has done for His people. And therefore, this is what we need. We need to continue to rest in Jesus. This is the Sabbath day. This is the Sabbath rest. And we are to rest in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Jesus, I am resting, resting in the joy of what Thou art. You see that? Of what Thou art.

Who He is comes before what He has done. I am finding out the greatness of Thy loving heart. Thou has bid me gaze upon Thee and Thy beauty fills my soul. For by Thy transforming power, Thou has made me whole. Oh, how great Thy loving kindness, vaster, broader than the sea. Oh, how marvelous Thy goodness lavished all on me. Yes, I rest in Thee, beloved. Know what wealth of grace is Thine. Know Thy certainty of promise and have made it mine. Have you appropriated this for your own soul? Has God made this effectual to you?

Is Christ real to you? Simply trusting Thee, Lord Jesus, I behold Thee as Thou art. And Thy love, so pure, so changeless, satisfies my heart, satisfies its deepest longings, meets, supplies its every need. Compass me round with blessings.

Thine is love indeed. Never lift Thy face upon me as I work and wait for Thee. Resting neath Thy smile, Lord Jesus, earth's dark shadows flee. Brightness of my Father's glory, sunshine of my Father's face, keep me trusting, resting, fill me with Thy grace. I trust that that hymn and the words of that hymn reflect your heart and your desire, that you would be prayerful about that, you would be earnest about that, you would be diligent about that, you would be pursuing that for your life and those that are dear to you.

Shall we pray? Father, we are moved as we think about the love of God in Christ for us, that you would have set your affections upon us in eternity past, a love so great that it would send your Son to this sin-cursed earth to redeem a people, to live the life that they would not live and to die the death that they deserve to die. Oh, how the love of God is on display. We thank you, Father, for such love that would stoop that low to rescue sinners like us. Fill our hearts with love for Christ. Enslave us to Him. Put delight in our hearts that we are bondservants of Christ. Help us as we dispense the stewardship of our life to live for Him who died for us. Thank you for this portion of your Word that speaks to us of first who Christ is and what He has done for His people and how it causes us to say, even as John said, Now unto Him who loved us and freed us from our sins in His own blood and has made us kings and priests to God and Father.