Let's turn this morning in the Word of God to the Gospel of John, chapter 13. This morning we turn again in God's Word to the exposition of Scripture. And as we come this morning to John's Gospel, chapter 13, we want to pick up in our reading with verse 31. You know the context. Jesus has washed the disciples' feet. Jesus has just predicted with the one would betray him, Judas Iscariot. This says in verse thirty one, therefore, when he was gone out, that is, Judas Iscariot. Jesus said, now is the son of man glorified. And God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him. God shall also glorify him in himself and shall straightway glorify him. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You shall seek me, and as I said under the Jews, whether I go, you cannot come now. So now I say to you. A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this, shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whether goest thou? Jesus answered him, whether I go, thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards. Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, Will thou lay down my life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, the cock shall not crow. Thou hast denied me thrice. Let's join now together in prayer. Father, we come before you. And Lord, as we come to your word, we do praise you. And we do come before you with hearts filled with joy as we acknowledge through the singing back of your words that you are the King who reigns forever. That you indeed are King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That you are reigning and ruling even now. And for all who are your true people, you are Lord. Savior and reigning sovereign. Father, as your humble servants, we come to your Word today. We do not come, Father, that we might somehow place ourselves over your Word, but that we would place ourselves under its authority. That we would receive your Word today as indeed the truth that is eternal, everlasting, and unending in all creation. Come before you, O God, today that we might learn from this episode in the ministry of Your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. That we might see in this story not merely the historical data about what took place while Jesus was here, But Lord, that we would see the profound theological and devotional context that for us today would be living and applying to our own service to you. Lord, it is our heart's desire that we would follow you faithfully, that we would receive your word with humility, and that we would allow its truth to change us and confront us and encourage us to serve Your Son with an ever enlarging reality in our hearts. Father, we pray that today as we gather those who have not come to faith in Christ, You would, by Your sovereign, selective Spirit, Move and speak to hearts today, Lord, that you would draw sinners to yourself, that you would show them that they need Christ and that Christ alone is sufficient for salvation. Lord, we praise you for all that you are and all that you do. And we ask for your hand to be upon us now. As we look to your word, we give you the honor and the praise and we ask it in Jesus holy name. Amen. As you are aware, this particular passage we have just read is part of a larger section known as the upper room or the farewell discourse. Jesus now speaking to his disciples. Jesus concerned with inculcating into them very significant truth that they would need as they sought to serve Him in the days ahead. Jesus Christ would die upon Calvary's cross the next day. Jesus, as I said a moment ago, has just dismissed Judas Iscariot, one of the disciples who would betray the Lord. And as we pick up our text, we note here that Jesus continues in that prophetic ministry of predicting the future. He has already predicted the betrayal of Judas. Now we have before us in the text that we have just read two more profound predictions. The predictions concerning this very reality of his great lifting up and glory. The great prediction concerning the betrayal and the denial, rather, of Peter himself, as we noted at the end of this passage. Now, if you'll look with me this morning, I want us to look, first of all, verses thirty one and thirty two. What I am calling these words of Jesus is Jesus announcing his coming glory. Look again at the text and notice what Jesus says. Jesus says in verse 31, now is the son of man glorified and God is glorified in him. God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself and shall straightway glorify him. These words, of course, that Jesus spoke were, in a sense, a little bit mysterious. Exactly what is it that Jesus is saying that he is now glorified and God the Father is glorified in him and he in him. What Jesus is referring to here is really a common theme he had already been developing in this gospel narrative. Indeed, if you'll look back just a page or two in your Bibles, look in chapter twelve. And notice here, we have a very real clue as to what Jesus is referring to when he speaks of this being glorified. John, chapter 12. Look at me, if you will, in this passage at the twenty third verse. John, twelve and verse twenty three, says Jesus answered them, saying the hour is come, the son of man should be glorified. Congregation, this statement, the son of man should be glorified now in chapter 13, Jesus saying, I will be glorified. God, the father will be glorified in me and I will be glorified in the father. It is a statement which refers to Jesus Christ and the events which were right directly before him. This phrase here refers to his humiliation, his passion, His crucifixion, the hour is now come, Jesus is saying, where I will be lifted up and I will draw all men to myself. The hour of my agony, the hour of my suffering, the hour where my ministry and my mission will find its fruition and its fulfillment in my dying on the cross. In a sense, when we think about Christ being glorified on the cross, we would look at the cross and we would say on a human level, how is it that Christ is glorified on the cross? Humanly speaking, the cross looks to be his greatest humiliation. It looks to be the very reversal of his glory. It looks, humanly speaking, as if the cross was actually the greatest defeat for Christ. Here he was dying between two sinners on Calvary's cross, there seemingly impotent, seemingly unable to do anything in terms of the circumstances before him. Jesus here is referring to is indeed this issue of the crucifixion, and it is one of the great mysteries and, yes, one of the great paradoxes of the gospel itself. Jesus says my crucifixion will be my glory and it will be my father's glory. Let's take this first of all, how will the crucifixion be the glory of God, the father? Well, just a few things, for example, it will glorify God, the father, in that it will glorify God's wisdom. For when Jesus Christ was nailed on Calvary's cross, there was the glorification of God the Father's wisdom in that how God the Father uniquely in this great display of salvation could be both just on the one hand and the justifier of sinners on the other. That is a statement glorifying the wisdom of God. Secondly, it glorifies God the Father in his faithfulness. Throughout all of the Old Testament, we have these prophecies about God the Father promising a Messiah, promising salvation. You go all the way back to the book of Genesis and you read about God promising that in that great promise of the euangelion, the gospel narrative there in Genesis, that the seed of the woman would indeed crush the head of the serpent. And that promise stated all the way back in the book of Genesis finds its fulfillment on Calvary's cross. Amen. And it glorifies God and showing God to be faithful and showing God to keep his promises and showing that God will do what he says he will do. Glorifies God's wisdom, it glorifies God's faithfulness. Thirdly, it glorifies God's holiness. But when we look at Calvary's cross, we see on display a statement about the holiness of God and the horribleness of sin. Amen. It tells us that God is a holy God, that God is not weak at sin, that it took the perfect substitute of God the Son in order that sinners might be made right before God. It shows us just how horrible God takes sin. It shows us that God deals with sin and deals with sinners as a serious issue before His perfect, pure, holy gaze. Congregation, whenever we look at the cross and consider these words about the Father being glorified in the crucifixion, we need to remember it glorifies the holiness of God. Fourthly, it glorifies the love of God. We've read in this very gospel, John 3, 16, for God, so what? Loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And whenever we see Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross, we see the love of God glorified and displayed and made very clear to humanity. If we would know something of God's love, if we would want to understand something of how much God loves us who are unlovable, we simply look at the cross. And the cross glorifies the love of God, the holiness of God, the faithfulness of God. It glorifies the wisdom of God the father. But look at verse thirty one again. Jesus says not only does this glorify God the father, he says this glorifies the son of man. Now is the son of man glorified. Certainly, when we think of the cross, as I said a moment ago, how can we see this is glorifying the son? Here He was, nailed to a stick of wood, naked, humiliated, suffering, bleeding on the cross. How is this glorifying to Him? Well, congregation, it certainly glorifies the compassion of Christ. When we look upon our Savior and when we consider what He endured and how He suffered and how He willingly became a curse for us, We see His compassion glorified. Amen. We see that He does indeed love us and cares for us and is compassionate for sinners who do not deserve compassion. We see in Christ He is glorified in all of His sufficiency as indeed a sufficient Savior. Jesus Christ sufficiently atones for our sins on this cross. Jesus Christ sufficiently defeats Satan on this cross. Jesus Christ sufficiently removes the curse of the law on this cross. And we see when Christ is there on that cross in his humiliation, in his passion, in his suffering, we see his glorification and all that he is and all that he has done on behalf of us who are sinners. Congregation, we need to have the attitude of the great apostle who said we will glory and nothing save what? We will glory in the cross. Jesus looked at the cross and he says, I see the cross as my glory, God, the Father, His glory. And we see the cross and we see the glory of God on display in the suffering of our Savior. Look at verse thirty three. In verse thirty three, Jesus continues in this account, giving instruction, giving prediction, and he predicts his soon departure. He says in verse thirty three, having made this statement about his cross, he says, little children, yet a little while I am with you, you shall seek me. And as I said unto the Jews, whether I go, you cannot come. So now I say to you, the statement of Jesus is a prediction about his soon departure. He says, I am going to be glorified and then I am going to leave. I am going to depart. All of this, this prediction of his suffering, his humiliation and his exaltation to the right hand of God. I believe that what Jesus, of course, is referring to in verse thirty three is the fact that not only would he die and be resurrected and be manifested among his disciples, but that he would be ascended. He would go back to heaven to be with God, the father. This is exactly what we have seen Jesus speak of before in this gospel. Turn back with me to chapter seven and note in chapter seven, as Jesus refers to this. The context, of course, in these passages is Jesus, as he speaks on this topic to those who do not accept him. Look at verse thirty four. John, chapter seven. In verse thirty four, Jesus says, You shall seek me. And shall not find me. And where I am, thither ye cannot come. Speaking to those who were murmuring against him, those who had rejected his ministry, those who had rejected his message, he says, I am going to leave and where I go, you cannot come. Look over in chapter eight, he says this again in chapter eight, verse twenty one. Johnny, twenty one, then said Jesus again to them, I go my way and you shall seek me. And I shall die and shall die in your sin, speaking of these rejecters of Christ, whether I go, ye cannot come. Jesus referring to his Ascension in John 13, he says this is consistent with my previous assertion. This is what I have been saying all along. I am about to leave. And the disciples, they heard Jesus say this now in this intimate setting, but perhaps they did not fully grasp as Jesus had said this before in the hearers of a larger context. Now, Jesus says to them directly in this intimate setting, he says, I want you to understand something then. I am about to leave. I will no longer be with you. I am going to depart from you. And as you have heard this before, as I've said before to the Jews, now I say to you and you need to understand that what is Jesus doing here? He is preparing them for his departure and their ministry, which would take place in light of his departure. Now, look back in chapter 13 again. I want to notice something in verse thirty three as a detail. Notice how Jesus refers to them with this tender affection. Verse 33, Jesus refers to them and he says, little children speaking to his disciples. Surely this is a phrase congregation of of tender affection and compassion. It's interesting that this way that Jesus refers to his disciples, he had never referred to his disciples as such until this time. It was not until after Judas Iscariot was gone that he refers to them as little children. And surely, congregation, this reminds us that those who are not followers of Christ or disciples of Christ have no claim to be called the children of Christ. Amen. Sometimes people talk about the the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men. Those who are Christ's children are those who are truly followers of Christ, them and them alone. He refers to them as little children. He says, I want you to understand. I want you to be prepared. I want you to be aware. I am about to leave. And you will have a mission to take care of when I leave. Look at verses thirty three or thirty four and thirty five, rather. And note here, as Jesus gives a new commandment, having said that he is about to depart. Now, he says, I want to give you your marching orders. He says a new commandment. I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another by this. All men shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have loved one to another. Now, Jesus here, first of all, in this new commandment he gives, he says that you're to love one another. He says this is a mark of my people and this is a mark which will identify you as such in the world. What do we make of this phrase, a new commandment? Well, congregation, I would suggest to us that this is not a new commandment in the scriptures. It isn't that Jesus is saying up to this point, you are not under obligation to love one another. But now I am giving you a new revelation. I am giving you a new word of instruction. And this new word of instruction is now in the present age. You're to love one another. The fact that believers were to love one another is found all the way back in the law of God and the Old Testament. God is love and we are to love one another. But I believe Jesus uses this phrase, a new commandment to give something of an emphasis to this command. He says, I want to give you this command to love one another, and I want you to understand its priority in this present age. He says, this is something of relative priority. This is something of very great significance. Yes, you're to love one another in this coming age. This is to be preeminent among you that you love one another. Jesus emphasized this idea of loving one another in all of his teachings and in his instructions and in his relationships. He over and over again emphasized this significance. Congregation as believers, we are to love one another. Amen. And notice, if you will, in verse thirty four, he gives us something of the pattern this love is to follow. He says that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. He says here is the supreme pattern. Here's the go by. Here's the example. This is how you are to love one another. Look at my love to you, Jesus, of course, in this context had just spoken about his glorification, about his crucifixion. He says, I love you and I am willing to die for you, and indeed, I will be dying for you. Jesus here is saying that your love for one another is to be a selfless love, a sacrificial love. It is to be an indiscriminate love one to another. Jesus says, follow my example, follow my pattern, follow me in this very real present priority for my people. You are to love one another as I love you. How did Jesus love us? How does Jesus love us? Jesus loves us without restrictions. Jesus loves us without requirements. And Jesus loves us without reciprocations. Amen. It is unconditional. It isn't based upon performance. It isn't based upon what you can do for me or not do for me. It isn't conditioned on anything other than I love you because you are my brother in Christ. Here was Jesus speaking to his followers who didn't have a clue about following him. Who were weak, who were vacillating, who were dense. And he says, you're to love one another as I love you. Look at verse thirty five. It gives us something of the very important impact of this love. He says, by this all men shall know that you are my disciples. If you have love one for another congregation, do you realize that the world is fully aware that we've been commanded to love one another? And the world looks at us. The world looks at us who claim to be followers of Christ, who claim to love Christ, and they look to see if our actions match our confession. They look and see whether we love indiscriminately one another, if we love without reservations, if we love without any kind of agendas. alliances or allegiances, but that we love universally and we love in all people this love that Christ speaks of. This is what the world looks at, and Jesus says, this is how the world will know that you are truly mine. The world knows a lot about the discriminating love, agenda ridden love, manipulating love, so-called. The world knows very little about unconditional, selfless, sacrificing, on agenda related loving of everyone universally. Congregation, it is a truism of the Bible, and we could quote verses all morning long. But we evidence our true conversion, not merely by the creed that we recite or the church which we attend. We evidence our true conversion by the affection we have for one another. Amen. And if that affection is waning, if it is selective, if it is withheld, if it is somehow conditioned, that says something about our spiritual condition. Jesus says to the disciples, he says, this is a new commandment. This is not a new commandment in that you've never heard to love one another before. It's a new commandment because this is the priority that must flow within your veins and within your common experience. He says this is an evidence and a witness to the world. Now, look, if you will, with me, verses 36 through 38. Jesus, having predicted his glorification and departure and having given this commandment to love, he then in verses thirty six to thirty eight, he predicts Peter's denials. Simon Peter said unto him, verse thirty six, Lord, whether thou wist thou. Jesus answered him, whether I go, thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards. Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered them, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, though thou hast denied me thrice. Congregation, these words, I'm sure, were perplexing and confusing and really shocking to the ears of Peter. Here, Peter is expressing a statement of undying allegiance to Christ. Jesus had just said, I am about to depart and you can't go with me. And Peter, not understanding the significance of this, not comprehending what he was talking about, he says, I want to go with you, Lord. I'm willing to die for you. I'm willing to go wherever you're going and I want to go with you. And I'm willing to lay down my life. That's how much I love you, Lord. That's how much I desire to follow you and do for you and show you my allegiance. I believe Peter is speaking with honesty and sincerity and with true devotion to Christ here. I believe that he is. He's not just speaking words that sound good. This is flowing from his heart. Yet. He did not fully understand even his own heart. Jesus says, oh, you're willing to lay down your life for me. You're about to deny me. Why is it that we have this record? Well, certainly it is a prediction for us that shows us Christ's ability to know and foretell. Congregation, I believe for us, practically speaking this morning, we should look at this prediction And we should consider this statement about Peter's denials. And we should not merely look at it in terms of Peter. We need to look at it in terms of ourselves. We should note how much self-ignorance can be present in the heart of a true believer. When we look at Peter and we consider his total unawareness of his own heart, this should be for us a red light, a flashing light that says, We can be true believers and not know our own hearts. Amen. It should tell us that our hearts can deceive ourselves, that there can be much in us that we do not even begin to comprehend. Here is Peter about to declare to his Lord, I'm willing to die for you. And Jesus says, you're about to die for me. You're going to deny me. Here is Peter as the representative of the disciples, the brightest, the boldest, in a sense, the best. And yet we see him as weak. Congregation, we may look at this denial of Peter and we could be hard on Peter. We could say, here is Peter. After all, he saw the resurrection of Lazarus. Here is Peter walking on the water. How could he deny Christ? Surely of all people, Peter should not have denied. Congregation, before we get too critical of Peter, let us realize that the seeds of every sin are found in every one of our hearts. Amen. And rather than look at Peter and roll our eyes and shake our heads and wrinkle our noses, What we do need to do, rather, is inspect our own hearts. This reality of Peter's denial should fill us with a renewed humility before God. It should fill us with a renewed humility before God. Let him who tanketh, thinketh, he standeth, take heed, lest what? Lest he fall. And if Peter can deny his Lord congregation, let us be aware of our own hearts and the own self deception and ignorance present in our own breasts. And this should call us to a great humility before God. So very often we are experts. At being able to identify sins, have you noticed that? Not necessarily our own sins, But the sins of other people. We are experts, we many of us have Ph.D.' 's in this regard. We are able to enumerate and elucidate and we are able to even alliterate the sins of others, pointing out their failures and their faults and their foibles and being able to identify, well, this and that and the other congregation, we need to be concerned with our own hearts. We need to be not so concerned with being able to identify the piccadillos in other people's hearts. We need to be saying with the disciples, Lord, is it I? Lord, is it I? Here is Peter, totally ignorant of his own heart. Let us as well learn this truth. It should call us to renewed humility before God. Secondly, it should call us to a renewed dependence upon God. Let us learn from this prediction of Peter's denial that we, as God's people, need to lean on God's strength. We need to cry out to God for his help. We as God's people need to realize that we are sinners saved by grace and we still have remaining sin and we need God's gracious strengthening and enabling for us to continue on that path of grace. Amen. Let this be for us a call to a greater dependence upon God. May it make us more humble. Make it make us more prayerful, diligent to search our own hearts. Secondly, this story of Peter's denial, not only does it show us how much ignorance can be in the heart of a true believer, it shows us how evident Christ's knowledge is of our hearts. Here is Peter. the boldest, brightest of the disciples, ready to die for his Lord. And yet Jesus Christ says to him, you are about to deny me. Congregation, this should remind us that Jesus Christ knows our hearts. Amen. He knows what we do and he knows why we do it. And what seemed to be the most unlikely of things, Christ perfectly for Saul. Christ knows our hearts. He knows our motives. He knows what we do and He knows why we do it. And this can be for us the greatest blessing and assurance or it can be the greatest motivation to fall on our faces before God and confess our sins to God. This prediction of Peter's denial, it tells us, it reminds us, it shouts out to us. God knows our hearts. He foresees us in every detail. But thirdly, congregation, certainly in this prediction, it is a profound expression of the kindness, the mercy and the love and compassion of Christ toward Peter. Here is Jesus Christ foreseeing Peter's denial, and yet there is no rebuking of Peter. There is no rejecting of Peter. Jesus could have seen this denial and said, Peter, you're going to deny me. I'd like for you to hit the road, too, just like Judas did get out of my presence. And yet Jesus sees this denial and there is not even a hint or a whiff of rebuke or rejection by Christ. Instead, what we read is Christ coming and restoring Peter after he does deny. Congregation, if this is not a lesson for us, showing us something of the patience the kindness, the mercy and love of Christ towards his true people. I don't know where you could find one in the Bible. Jesus Christ, he is loving towards his own. Amen. He is patient with his own. And as we see Christ patiently predicting this denial and then patiently Coming alongside Peter and restoring him, let us see in this story the hundreds of times where Christ has been patient with us. Has he not been patient with you? He's been patient with me and I need a lot of his patience, and I think if we would be honest before God, we would all say we need the patience of God. Because we are a work in progress. This is what we should make of this denial. Peter, the denial predicted showing us something of who Christ is in his knowledge and in his merciful grace. My dear friend, are you here this morning apart from Christ? Christ knows your heart. He knows you front and back and inside out better than you know yourself. You're here today. You have heard the preaching of the Word of God. He knows how you have received it. He knows if the Word of God is dear to your heart or if it's a burden to be endured. He knows whether or not you love this Christ we preach. He knows whether or not you love the brethren as Christ commanded? He knows you. He knows me. He knows us. Have you come to Him? Have you embraced Him? Have you received Him as your Lord and Savior? My dear friend, if you come to Christ, you will find a Savior who gladly receives His own. Come to Him. Embrace Him. Receive Him and you will find the mercy and the grace and the kindness of God in and through Jesus Christ, the Savior. As us who serve the Lord, may we take from this passage our very real call to love one another as Christ loves us. And may we do so with humility of heart and with gladness of spirit, seeing how much Christ has endured our failures. And may we acknowledge that as his people, it is all his grace alone. I want us to bow our heads and hearts before the Lord this morning. Father, as we come before You and as we consider this story, we are fully aware of the pride of our own hearts. We are fully aware, O God, that so often we would place ourselves on the judgment seat and dispense judgment. Lord, we acknowledge that there is only one who is the living, faithful, judicious judge. And He has declared us in Christ righteous. And this is for us a display of your glory. That you have shown us through the cross that you are indeed just and the justifier of men. O God, May we seek to fulfill the desires of our Savior in light of the glory of His crucifixion, in light of the clear instruction to love one another, and in light of the reality of our own hearts. May we, like Peter, seek to serve fully aware of our own remaining sin and seeking by all of your gracious enablement to be faithful to you and yet humble in your presence and realizing we are dependent upon your gracious power. Oh, Father, seal these truths to our hearts and call sinners to your son. And in all of this, we will give you the honor and the glory and the praise. In Jesus name we pray, Amen. Amen.