Address—Chuck Hendricks
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
To introduce my subject this afternoon by reading 3 scriptures starting with John one John's Gospel chapter one.
Verse one.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
In him was light, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in darkness.
And the darkness comprehended it not.
And then in Genesis 1.
Genesis chapter one.
Verse one.
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void in darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light.
And there was light.
And then the First Epistle of John chapter one.
Verse one.
That which was from the beginning which we have heard.
Which we have seen with our eyes.
Which we have looked upon in our hands, have handled.
Of the word of life.
For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness.
And show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us and truly.
Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
And these things rightly unto you, that your joy may be full.
You've noticed in the reading of these three passages of Scripture there are three beginnings mentioned.
And I just want to make a brief comment upon each before going into my subject.
In John's Gospel, we have in the beginning was the Word.
And the Word was with God. And the Word was God in that one sublime sentence.
We have most profound truth brought before us in the beginning was the word brings before us.
The eternal being of our Lord Jesus Christ here called the Word.
The word being that which gives expression to the very mind of God.
God the Father and God the Spirit are not called in Scripture the Word, but here the Son, the eternal Son of the Father. He's given that title, the Word, the one who expresses who and what God is.
In the beginning was the Word, His eternal Being.
And the Word was with God his distinct personality. He was with God the Father distinct from him, and yet he himself a divine person, the next expression and the Word was God, his proper deity. So in that one sentence we have the eternal being and the distinct personality and the proper deity.
Of the Lord Jesus Christ, the person called the Word.
His name is Paul, the word of God.
If we want to know anything about God, it can only be known.
In its blessed fulness, in the person of Him who is the Word, he came to reveal the Father.
He came to tell us what God is. Like the 18th verse of our chapter one of John. No man has seen God at anytime. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, the hiding place of love, the source of ineffable joy and delights.
He was there in the bosom of the Father, From all eternity he hath declared him.
00:05:05
The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
Oh, do you want to know who God is? Do you want to know something about God? Who is he? What is he like? The one here called the Word is the one that tells us who God is. He came from the very heart of God to make known to us what in that bosom lies.
The very heart of God the Father. In Genesis one we have the creation. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. That was a point in time when He brought into being that which had no existence prior to that time. It says in the 100 and it says in the 33rd Psalm He commanded and it was done. He spake and it was done He commanded and it stood fast.
He spoke the world's into existence by faith. We understand that the world's were framed by the word of God.
So that that which has its being should not take its form from that which appears.
God spoke and it was done, he said. Let there be, and there was.
And then we have the epistle of John.
And there we read another expression in John's Gospel. We have the eternal past.
In the beginning was the word.
One asked what does that mean in the beginning? Well be when there was the first beginning of anything that had a beginning, the word was He did not begin, He did not begin to exist. He always was, from all eternity. It's an expression that refers to the eternal being of Christ. But then there was the beginning of creation, when God spake the world into existence.
That's Genesis One. But there's another beginning, and this is what I have before me this afternoon.
And that's what we have in John's epistle, and it's a different expression that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, and which we've looked upon and our hands have handled, of the word of life for the life was manifested.
And we have seen it, and declare unto you that eternal life that was with the Father, and was manifested to us.
I believe John's epistle begins with the 14th verse of the first chapter of John's Gospel.
And I'll read it. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.
The glories of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
That which was from the beginning refers to the point in time when the eternal person of the Word became a man.
When he took flesh. When He became flesh. When He became something that he was not before.
And all beloved Saints of God.
The most stupendous truth is that God the Son.
The eternal word became a man came down into this world.
Went to a cross of ignominy and shame, and now he's risen and glorified and seated at the right hand of the throne of God in heaven.
Interceding for us, bringing his redeemed people through this scene to the glory.
Well, I was thinking of that expression in John's epistle, that which was from the beginning we were saying in our meetings.
And I'm in full agreement with it that Christianity properly begins.
On the other side of the cloud.
But there's a sense in which Christianity began with the coming into this world.
Of the Lord Jesus Christ, that which was from the beginning, that which you and I partake of now by infinite grace.
Because we have eternal life and we are brought into fellowship with the Father and the Son.
This is the desire of the heart of God, the habits in fellowship with Himself. He's communicated to us his very life and nature, that He might have us near to Himself, not walking off in our own wills and ways.
00:10:19
And self will and independency of himself, he himself, the son the Word came.
Came down to where I was and where you were, that he might have us.
In fellowship with himself.
Well, we were reading in Hebrews 10 and I'd like to turn you to that chapter now.
An expression I'd like to read in Hebrews 10.
In verse 5.
Wherefore when he cometh.
Into the world, he said. Sacrifice and offering.
Thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. Now please hold your place here in Hebrews.
And turn back to Psalm 40. Turn back to Psalm 40.
Because the apostle the writer of Hebrews, I believe the apostle Paul.
Though he hides himself because Christ in this epistle of Hebrews is the Apostle and high priest of our profession. So it wouldn't have been fitting for Paul to set himself before us as an apostle. In this epistle Christ is the Apostle. He's the sent one of the Father.
In Psalm 40, verse 6 this is what he's quoting. In Hebrews 10, Sacrifice and offering, thou didst not desire.
Oh, it wasn't the desire of God to see all the sacrifices and the offerings of the Old Testament repeated over and over again. He was looking for truth in the inward parts. He was looking for reality. He was looking for something that could satisfy the hearts longing of his own heart.
Sacrifice and offering, thou didst not desire, mine ears hast thou opened, and in the margin of my Bible I believe that word is more correctly given literally in the Hebrew it, and I don't know Hebrew, but I take it from those that do know mine Ears hast thou digged?
Or hollowed out or prepared.
Now there is a translation that was made about 290 years before Christ, approximately. It's called the Septuagint translation. It was done at Alexandria, Egypt, I believe.
As was supposed by about 70 Jewish Hebrew Greek scholars and they translated the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek.
It's questioned whether there were that many.
But that's not the point. I was reading a note, Mr. Darby's translation allowed once, and someone was looking over my shoulder at the house and I came across the letters LXX, which is the Roman numerals for Al, means 50 and X is 10 and X is 10, so that would be 70. And as I read the note, I didn't read 70, I read the Septuagint, the person said. What was that?
How did you get Step 2? It is out of LX. While I said that's what it refers to, it's referring to the translation of the 70, approximately.
Jewish dollars that translated the Hebrew into Greek a couple 100 years before Christ. The Septuagint translation. And when they came to this verse six of Psalm 40, they puzzled over it. Mine ears hast thou did it says in Hebrews.
In the Hebrew tongue my nearest hast thou hollowed out? And they said among themselves, they must have pondered it.
Quite a bit. What does that mean? How are we going to render that in the Greek language? How is that going to be rendered? Well, they rendered it a body. Hast thou prepared me? That's the way they rendered it in the Greek.
And the Spirit of God in Hebrews 10 again, verse five of Hebrews 10. When he quoted, When the writer of Hebrews quoted that Psalm, he didn't quote it literally from the Hebrew, but he quoted it from the Greek translation of the Hebrew, the Septuagint translation. In other words, the Spirit of God put his stamp of approval upon.
00:15:12
The thought.
That what the Spirit of God really meant when he said, mine ears hast thou digged or hollowed out? When the Son of God became a man, he had his ears digged. That's the incarnation. That's what that is, that which is from the beginning. And what for? He had his ears digged, and that was the body that was prepared for the Lord Jesus, and so they rendered it.
In Hebrews, the very way that the translators translated into the Greek, some 200 and some years before Christ. Wherefore, when He cometh into the world, He saith, sacrifice and offering, Thou wouldest not but a body hast thou prepared me? I want you to remember that whenever we're talking here about the body of the Lord Jesus, it's connected with the thought as it's quoted here in Hebrews 10, with the fact that He had his ears digged.
Here was a man Stupendous thought. Oh, I've enjoyed it as I've pondered it recently. Here was a man that had only ears, only ears to hear the voice of his father. Only ears for the voice of God. His ears were digged to get instructions from only one. No one else but only to hear the voice of his father. What a man. Oh, he was down here in this world.
Not to do his own will, but the will of the Father that sent him so. His very coming, the very body that was prepared him, was a body that was specially formed by God, a body in which it was a vessel, a vessel of testimony, walking through this world, who had ears for only one, and that was the Father, ears for only one. His ears were digged. They were hollowed out to hear the voice of God, and only the voice of God.
I come to do thy will. Oh my God, oh beloved, we profess to be followers of him, and how often I confess it with shame, I have done my own will.
How often we have done what pleases us. If you read the four gospels, you see a man that never pleased himself.
He always was doing the will of his Father. His ears were digged and the Spirit of God says that means when his body was prepared for him. There was a man in this world that was all for God. All for God. What an object. No wonder the heavens were opened upon him at the River Jordan. No wonder that voice was heard. This is my beloved Son.
In whom I am well pleased, what an object for heaven to behold.
The spirit is sending, and it's a dove upon him.
The first time in Luke's Gospel the Lord Jesus is mentioned in as a as a man of prayer.
Was at the River Jordan.
I'll turn you to it. We won't look at them all but in Luke.
Chapter 3.
Verse 21.
Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also being baptized and praying, the heaven was opened.
First time that's mentioned in Luke's Gospel. Mentioned seven times. The last time, The last time, beloved Saints of God is on the cross and he looks down upon those that nailed him there, and we hear His last prayer. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. The prayer of the man that came into this world, who had his ears digged so that he could only hear the voice of God.
So that only he could only respond to the word of his father.
What a man.
What a man. Now let's turn to the 50th of Isaiah.
Isaiah 50.
Verse 2.
Isaiah 50, verse 2.
00:20:01
Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? When I called, was there none to answer?
Is my hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem or have I no power to deliver?
Behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea. I make the rivers of wilderness. Their fish stinketh, because there is no water and diet for thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth. They're covering, covering what a person we have here, one who is God, that can do all these marvelous things. But then we have him as a man in verse 4, the Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned or the learner.
Be instructed. Think of it. Think of it.
God over all blessed forever the eternal Son of God.
That eternal life that was with the Father has been manifested to us.
John said. We've seen him, we've heard him, we've looked upon him, we've handled him. He came so near.
He was a learner. He was one that gathered fresh instruction from his father every day. Read it here verse 4. The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learner that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning. Isn't that sweet? It says in the Psalms he giveth his beloved sleep. Just think of the Lord Jesus going to sleep at night.
The father giving his beloved sleep, and in the morning he wakens him.
There was one time on the sea when the disciples awakened him out of unbelief.
Master cares thou not that we perish, And he arose.
That sleeping man he arose, and he rebuked the wind and the seas.
Peace be still, He is the one that closed the heavens with blackness and makes sackcloth their covering. He's the one that came down so low that every morning as he awoke from the hand of his father, he received fresh instruction.
The Lord God has opened my ear. Now here's where the word opened I believe is appropriate. In Psalm 40, the the digged ear refers to the incarnation. The open deer refers to his life. Oh, what a man, young brother, young sister. Here is the person that was down here in this world.
Whose very meat and drink it was to do the will of his father.
He said in John Four. I have meat to eat that ye know not of. My meat, is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
The very words that characterized his coming into this world as, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.
Came, and in the 40th Psalm it says, I delight to do thy will.
The joy of his heart was to please his father.
In the Romans 15 Christ pleased not Himself.
All beloved Saints of God, how often we please ourselves, how little we know of the selflessness, the devotedness, the total giving over of Himself to the will of His Father.
When he came into the position of dependence. When he assumed humanity.
When he took that body which was prepared, him when his ears were digged, he came into a position where obedience was proper to him. He who had been the commander in chief, he who had spoken, and it was done who commanded, and it stood fast. He now learns obedience by the things which he suffers, says in Hebrews 5. Though he were son, yet learned he obedience, he learned the cost of obedience.
Now everyone of us who is a Christian is a follower of that blessed man.
A new order of humanity has come into this world a true and proper man, every bit as much man as we are.
00:25:04
Sin apart, but a true man, spirit, soul, and body. Blameless, he had a human spirit, and a human soul, and a human body, but without the taint of sin he came into this world.
To show in one way to show what true man.
Is.
Life of perfection lived with the thought.
Of only pleasing his Father. And when we think of it, is not this what ought to characterize every creature? The Lord Jesus was no creature, but he came into the creature place. He was God over all, blessed forever. But he became a man. He became a man. I would not say I would not go to the point. I believe it would be wrong to say he became a creature.
He was God, the Creator, but He did come into that place, the place where obedience, independence, was proper to Him.
Came down, down, down He was in the form of God. He thought it not something to be tenaciously held on to.
But he emptied himself for this Godhead glory and came down.
Into this world, and took upon him the form of the servant. What a servant.
That was a servant that never did his own will.
Always the will of his father. Oh, here we find him in Isaiah 50 being wakened every morning by his father's hand, as it were. And you know, it's good for us that we don't know the future.
It's good for us oftentimes, if a calamity is right ahead of us that we don't know it's coming.
We only have to trust him daily, but the Lord Jesus knew the end from the beginning.
He knew the end of this pathway was the cross and we read of him and Luke.
Nine that he set his face as a Flint to go to Jerusalem.
The most awful judgment that he had to endure and bear in order to put away our sins. And yet it was the will of God. He had come to do the will of God, And here daily, as a dependent man, he has the opened ear to hear as the learner.
What a person we have says the Lord God hath opened my ear. Verse 5 and I was not rebellious.
He received instruction from his father, and some of the things that lay before him were terrible, absolutely terrible.
Indescribably horrible, the Cross. We see how horrible it was through his holy soul in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he prayed with tears, and his sweat become, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground.
And he cried, Old Father, If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. The Father was leading him onto the cross. He had the cross before him, but it was it was an expression in the garden of his perfect humanity to shrink with horror at being made sin.
Of being made sin. He knew what that would cost him. He knew what that would cost him. He was going to be forsaken of God.
We use the words. We use the words He who never knew, a moment out of communion with his God and Father.
He who was always in the perfect intimate communion with his Father, he now faces the awfulness of being made sin, being made sin at the cross. And he says, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. I believe that's the only time.
The only time in the gospel narratives that.
He refers to his will.
00:30:02
In any way, independently of his Father, he was expressing the horror of his holy soul at being made sin. He could not find his meat in the wrath of God.
Can you imagine what it would mean to one who was always in perfect communion with the Father?
Who was always in the intimacy and the joy and the delight of his heart, Who never knew an inch of reserve.
Sin has so hardened our hearts. Sin has made me and you so insensitive to things that we ought to be sensitive to. Can you imagine how a being such as He whose ears were digged to hear the voice of the Father, what it was like for him to pass through a world the likes of which we're passing through, where everyone is doing his own will and everyone is doing what is pleasing to himself?
Everyone is.
Satisfying the cravings and the desires of his own sinful, lustful nature for that holy being who had only one object before his soul, the glory of the Father, and to do the will of the Father, to do thy will of God. And every morning he awoke, gathering fresh instruction from his Father, the dependent, obedient man, going through this world with the opened ear to hear the voice of his Father.
What was it like for that Blessed One, that infinitely holy one, to go through a world consisting of sinners like we are, like we were?
And then we only have to look at our own hearts. I only have to look at my own heart. I only have to see how much self seeking and wanting my own way and things which are just nothing but selfishness coming out over and over again.
O beloved, here was a man whose ears were opened every morning to receive instruction from his father.
And his father's instruction where go to the you're going to the cross. And he knew it. He told his disciples where he was going.
He knew he was going to the cross, and he knew what it would mean to be forsaken of God.
Brother Darby says only one thing remained unto him.
Up to the cross, and that was communion with his father, all the rest had forsaken him.
He says at the cross that was lost, that the obedience.
Might rise to new heights.
At the cross he accomplished the will of God, not now in the joy of communion.
But in the unmitigated, in the face of the unmitigated wrath of God, my God, my God, why, as thou forsaken me?
Turn with me to the 21St of Exodus.
So in Psalm 40 he has his ears digged, referring to the body that was prepared him by the Spirit of God to hear and do the will of God, to do the will of God, to have ears only for God.
In Isaiah 50 every day, every day, in the place of dependence and obedience, he received instruction from God, his Father.
To go on to the cross, and that involved the suffering of death at the cross in Exodus 21, where we have the Hebrew servant.
I'll read it. Verse two. If thou buy in Hebrew servant 6 years, he shall serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she had borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters, and he should go out by himself. Now we've read these verses many times at the breaking of bread and how precious they are as we apply them to the Lord Jesus.
And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master.
That would be God, whose father? My wife, the assembly, the church.
And my children, his own, that were in this world. I will not go out free.
00:35:07
Then his master shall bring him unto the judges, He shall also bring him to the door or unto the door post, And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him forever. I believe that boring through with the all refers to the cross. So we have in these three passages.
Psalm 40. His ears were digged, hollowed out. A body was prepared. Him that he might, that that vessel, that man, the 2nd man, the last out of that he might do the will of God. Isn't it wonderful? There has been an object here below. One has said it this way. There was an object here below that would commend the place, but now it is gone.
Jesus is with the Father. Yes, there was an object down here. Just think of that object, an object going through this world, gathering fresh instruction from his Father every day. His ears were opened first, His ears were digged, the body was prepared. Him and he went through this world.
As an obedient man, though he were son, he learned obedience. He had never obeyed before. He had commanded, and it was done. As God, he didn't have to obey anyone. He gave the orders. But now he becomes a man. Now he comes into the place of dependence and obedience, and he has ears digged, and he gathers fresh instruction every day from his Father. How often are we on our knees?
Oh, I have to reproach myself, and I'm sure each one of us. How often are we gathering that instruction from the Father?
How many motives characterize us? He says. I was not rebellious, neither turned I away back. How rebellious my own heart has been. How rebellious we are. Oftentimes we want our way, we want our will. Isn't it a delight to behold the object that heaven had to open upon and said, this is my beloved Son.
He never had a will of his own. He expressed it one time and that was in the garden, but then he said not my will.
Time we die.
And that meant draining that cup filled with the wrath of God.
To the very dregs while I'm on this point.
I've meditated on this recently. The thought has been exceedingly precious to me.
John's Gospel starts out with in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God, his eternal person.
Is distinct personality his proper deity? But the last verse that brother pointed this out just recently at all, I enjoyed it so much. The last verse of the gospel, the first verse is his eternal person and the glory of it. But I'm going to read it. John 21 got to read it because I don't want to misquote it.
Verse 25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did the which if they should be written. Everyone. I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen. Why is that said? Because here you have the works of such vastness, so infinite because it's done. It's that which this eternal infinite person did. The first verse of the gospel starts out with his infinite person.
And the last verse with the infiniteness of the works, which he did, but in the middle somewhere.
John 19 We read it twice. Lord's Day Morning, He said. It is finished. Oh, beloved, how do you know your sins are gone? How do I know my sins are gone? How do I know that the work that was done on the cross?
Has completely satisfied God.
Because he said he who is God and man in one inscrutable person.
He said it is finished.
He knows what he knew perfectly, what was required, and he offered what was required. I rest, and each of us can rest upon the word that came from the lips of the eternal Son of God, become a man, And hanging on that cross, he said, it is finished.
00:40:17
Nothing more to do. There's not one more drop of wrath remaining. He exhausted it. In the Old Testament, we see the fire on the altar consuming the sacrifice. At the cross, we see the sacrifice consuming the fire and exhausting it, and he who knew the requirements of God.
As only God can know, he cried out.
Finished all beloved, when we enter into that and the realization that the one that hung on that cross was God and man in one person, he knew what our sins deserved, and he bore the judgment in all its fullness. And then he had his ear bored through with an awe. He could have just come down.
To do the work.
But now he's going to be a servant forever.
He's serving us now. We've had some of that before us in our readings and know how precious he's serving us now. Is our great High Priest in heaven and is our advocate with the Father. And I'd like to just turn to John 13 for a couple thoughts before we close.
In John 13.
Here we find him serving us.
In it all together new way.
Says in verse one, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father.
That is in the consciousness that he was leading this scene, and going to the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. Verse 3 Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God and went to God, He rises from supper, and he lays aside his garments. He takes the towel and girds himself, and he pours water into a basin and he washes the disciples feet.
Well, we're well acquainted with this chapter. I won't go into the details. Peter says to him, Dost thou wash my feet? The Lord has to tell him in verse seven what I do. Thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. What the Lord was doing. Was something that Peter did not understand.
The significance of the feet washing was something he did not then enter into. The Lord was about to go to the Father. He's now in the Father's presence, having accomplished redemption by the sacrifice of himself. He enters the glory as the risen glorified man and he begins a new work as our great High Priest and as our advocate with the Father. And here he is washing the disciples feet. Why? Why?
Peter says Thou shalt never wash my feet.
And the Lord says in verse 8, if I wash thee not, thou is no part with me. He doesn't say no part in me, but no part with me. Oh, he wants our fellowship. That's why he saved us. That's why he went to the cross for us. He couldn't have done more. And if God hasn't won your heart, what more could He do to win it? Young man, young woman, you who may have thoughts of going out after the things of this world, that tinsel of this world.
The rubbish of this world. Oh, I tell you, he wants your fellowship. And every day you go on without the fellowship of the Lord Jesus. You're breaking his heart. He died that he might have you with him. He wants your fellowship. He wants my fellowship. He wants us to walk with him, the little while that remains.
But all in order to that. We need the basin. We need to have our feet in his hands. We need to have our feet washed from all the defilements that we contract as we walk through a defiling world. And he's serving us. He's a servant forever. At the cross, he had his ear bored through with an all.
He didn't just do a work on the cross, infinite as that work was, and then leave us to make our way through this world on our own. No. As soon as he enters the glory, he's saluted of God as High priest after the order of Melchizedek, and he undertakes a new work on behalf of his redeemed people to bring them through the wilderness all the way home to glory. And here he washes our feet. He removes the defilements of this world that we might have fellowship with himself.
00:45:18
He wants our fellowship. He wants it so intently that he's at our feet. That blessed servant be the one who had his ear dig to hear the voice of God, the one who was awakened every morning by the voice of the Father. His ear was opened the obedient dependent man. And at the cross he said, I love my master, my wife and my children. I will not go free. And so he was taken to the door post and his ear was bored through them all. And he's become his servant forever.
That he's serving us now as a man in the glory that we might go through this world undefiled, uncontaminated. And if we become defiled, he removes that defilement that we might have part with him. Have you ever heard of such love as this? Well, down farther in the chapter, verse 23.
Verse 21 When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and he testified, and said, verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall be training. There were 12 That accompanied him. A brother has said, there had to be a Judas, but it didn't have to be Judas.
There hadn't to be a Judas. There had to be a betrayer. But it didn't have to be the man who bore that name. He didn't have to betray his Lord, but there had to be a Judas.
Now there was leaning on Jesus bosom one of his disciples whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake. He then lying on Jesus breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it? Ah, there was an intimacy. There was an intimacy with intimacy here with John. He doesn't name himself. He's the disciple whom Jesus loved. He's the one that lay on Jesus bosom. Peter wasn't near enough.
No, he said. John, you ask him, you ask him. Peter wasn't.
He just there was something there. We don't know what it was, but John said, who is it? Who is it? But you know?
The bosom.
That's the place we can all occupy. We can all lie on Jesus bosom, but not unless we've used the basin. The basin comes first, but he hasn't washed our feet. There'll be no lying on the bosom. The basin, then. The bosom. All how needed, beloved. Oh, how needed to have our feet in his hands.
What love? What eternal love?
There's one more, one more chapter I want to just refer you to before we close Luke 12.
Luke 12.
Verse 34.
Where your treasure is.
Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Let your lights, let your loins be girded, and your lights burning, and you yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when he will return from the wedding. And when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching.
Verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meet.
And we'll come forth and serve them. There's the perfect servant. There's the man that never did his own will. There's the man that had his ears digged to do the will of his father. There's the man whose ears were opened to hear the voice of his father and receive fresh instruction every day. There's the man that had his ears bored through with an awe that he might be a servant forever. The man who is on high is our High priest and advocate.
To bring us through all the difficulties of the way to remove the defilements of this world.
And when we reach home, beloved Saints of God, he's going to gird himself once again as the perfect servant and sit down and service. We're going to sit down and he's going to service. You're a Christian. I'm a Christian. That means Christ is everything. Christ is all, and I am nothing.
00:50:19
And following him, the selfless man, the man who wouldn't take a step, but that he had a word from his father for it. The perfect servant, the dependent man, the obedient man, the man who is my savior and yours, the man who is now serving us and will serve us in the glory when we reach home.
What a privilege. What a privilege to serve him now.
He's he's going to serve us.
Then.