I call your attention to John chapter 14, excuse me, John chapter 15, John chapter 15. In a few moments we will seek communion with our Lord by receiving the elements that he has commanded for us to receive. And we want to prepare our hearts for communion by giving our attention to the atonement of the Lord Jesus and particularly what his sacrifice for sin reveals about his character. And so we're going to take as our text the 13th verse of John chapter 15. John 15 and verse number 13. where we read this very familiar text, greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. This morning our theme is no greater love, no greater love. This is a passage we have spent some significant time in in previous weeks, and so we should all be well aware of the context in which this verse is spoken. We've spent at least four weeks here in John 15 in Jesus's illustration of the vine and the branches. I've set the stage for you often about this evening in the life of our Lord and in the life of His disciples. Jesus has told His disciples that He is departing and they cannot accompany Him. The disciples had often heard Him talk about His departure, but now they recognize it is imminent. and that He is really, actually, literally leaving them behind. And it troubles them greatly to contemplate this. They know everything depends on their attachment to Him. He has taught them. He has directed them, He has counseled them, He has defended them, He has empowered them, He has loved them. How can they go on without Him? What does His departure mean for their ministry? What does it mean for their relationship to Him? So every word in this discourse is calculated by Jesus to comfort these men, to assure their troubled hearts of his enduring love for them. He's assured them that he is going to prepare a place of permanent residence for them in his father's house. He's promised that He will return to gather them to be with Him forever. He's taught them that in the meantime, that they will experience even more power in their ministry, that they will see men and women converted by their preaching. He's promised to secure for them another comforter so that they will thereby have two comforters, one in heaven just where they need him and one who will dwell in them forever. He's promised that they will know personal manifestations of his love. He's told them that that second comforter, the Holy Spirit, would teach them personally by bringing his words to their remembrance. He's taught them that they are inseparably connected to Him, and that the Father will faithfully prune them with Scripture so that they will have the joy of bearing fruit. He's assured them that they will see tangible, visible evidence of their permanent attachment to Him. Evidence like branches bear when they are connected to a vine, they will bear fruit and the fruit of abiding in Christ is answered prayer. And all of these words were given to them so that according to verse 11 here in our chapter, their joy might be full in an otherwise very troubling night. All these words proved what John said in chapter 13 when he introduced this whole evening. And he said, having loved his own, which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. But all of these exceeding great and precious promises that we have gone through actually pale in comparison to what the ultimate display of Christ's love will be. It was one they had yet to experience. They had yet to really understand and comprehend this. It's that greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You think about those words as the disciples first heard them. they would have no doubt received them as a kind of truism. You can't argue with that, that's certainly true. The greatest display of someone's love is that they would be willing to die for the other person. It's certainly true. You couldn't argue, they would nod in agreement with verse 13. But they didn't really get it, did they? Did they have any conception whatsoever that this was exactly what Jesus was about to do? That in less than 12 hours, he was going to literally lay down his life for them as a sacrifice to take away their sins. Did they understand that when they heard verse 13? Probably not. So this verse is, first of all, a statement true in itself. It's a truism. But it does have a deeper meaning in speaking of the sacrifice of Christ, a meaning beyond that the disciples would have even understood. But there's a third thing going on too in this verse. The statement is true in itself, and it's deeper than their current understanding, but look how it follows verse 12. And it therefore is a challenge to these disciples, that they would love one another. This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, than a man laid down his life for his friends. So in verse 12, Jesus calls on us to love one another as he loved us, and in verse 13, he explains the depth of his love. So we're going to speak today on the theme of no greater love, and we have three things to talk about therefore. No greater display of love. No greater sacrifice made by love. and no greater challenge to our love. No greater display, no greater sacrifice, no greater challenge. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." First of all, no greater display. A man laying down his life for his friends is an uncommon thing. But it does happen in our world, doesn't it? We can think of examples of it. We've all heard stories from the battlefield of one man falling on a grenade in order to give his life, to spare the lives of all the men in his squadron. Or we've heard stories of someone giving up their seat on a lifeboat that was escaping the sinking Titanic and going down with the ship, giving his life for someone else. Or perhaps a first responder on 9-11 who perished after rescuing scores of people from the building. And know that about it, those statements and many more that we could come up with are wonderful displays of human love. There's no more valuable gift that a person could give than his own life. To lay down your life for your country, to lay down your life for your fellow soldiers, to lay down your life for people escaping a burning building or a sinking ship, it is certainly a noble display of love indeed. But there are many factors that make Jesus' statement here an infinitely superior display of love than anything we could come up with or witness in this world. For one thing, Jesus is immortal. In any other scenario, giving your life in the place of someone else is just hastening what will inevitably happen to you anyway. But not so with the Son of God. Had He not laid down His life, He never would have known death. He never would have known suffering of any sort whatsoever had He not laid down Himself. That makes this superior. And for another thing, Jesus laid down his life according to a predetermined plan. It is certainly a display of love to lay down your life in a moment of crisis, but it is a far higher display of love to premeditate and to choose to lay down your life for another. And that's what Jesus did. He took on human flesh in order to die. He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. His was not being placed in a tragic circumstance where he had to think fast and do the noble thing of laying down his life so that others might be spared. That's not his situation. he agreed from the foundation of the world to lay down his life for others. And that leads to a third distinction. Not only that he is immortal and that this was a predetermined plan, but Jesus died for others completely voluntarily. Completely voluntarily. Note the words in verse 13, lay down his life. He laid down his life. Sure, I suppose that in any other sense, the examples that I already gave, that you could say it was voluntary, but each one is a scenario where you don't really have a lot of options. The grenade's coming in, like it or not. And you can either be injured with the rest of your squadron, or you can fall on it and give yourself and spare them, but there's not a lot of options there. Sure, it's voluntary, but it's not like either choice was a great choice. The whole situation is unfortunate, to say the least. But Jesus had every opportunity to not go through with this at all. He is the self-existent eternal son of God. Nothing and no one could compel him to lay down his life. No one twisted his arm. No one placed him in a bad situation and then counted on him to make the best of it. That's not what's going on. There was no greater display of love than for Jesus to lay down his life completely voluntarily. There's a distinction in that he's immortal, a distinction in that it is a predetermined plan, a distinction in that it is completely voluntary, and then there's last, fourthly. In none of the examples that I gave did anyone give their life for people who hated them. In every sense, it was a man laying down his life for his friends. If not personal companions, well, at least it was fellow humans that he sympathized with being one of them, and they were welcome to see the rescuer come and show up, welcoming the spot on the lifeboat, rescuing the help from the man in flame-retardant gear getting you out of the stairwell. And that's how the truism goes. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. And yes, that is a great truth. But I can think of a greater display of love than laying your life down for your friends. How about if a man lays down his life for his enemies? And here is the greatness of Jesus' love, that though he does call us friends in this verse by virtue of sovereign election, the friendship was all on his side at the first. It was all on his side. It was not reciprocated. He called us friends, but we called him enemy while he was doing it. We were opposed to him. We did not love him in return. We hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we esteemed him not. We were polluted and we were depraved with hearts as hardened as concrete. We would not, we could not reciprocate his love. We were shaking our fists in rebellion against him, running the other way with our fingers in our ears. And when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So you see, there's no greater display of love than this. Jesus laying down his life for his unfriendly friends. But of course, if we stop there, we miss the point entirely, don't we? We can't just stop there. The purpose of Jesus laying down his life is not merely to display God's love. That would be a very liberal view of the atonement. that the purpose is just this God displaying love, being an example of loving others, kind of purpose to the atonement. That's not what's going on at the heart of the matter. At the heart of the matter, it was to make a sacrifice for sin. In Jesus, there's no greater display of love, and there's no greater sacrifice of love. no greater sacrifice. And this goes back to what we just said about our natural condition. Jesus has no friends who were not at one time enemies. Do you understand that about yourself? Have you ever come to grips with the fact that down in your soul God is not welcome to you? You may want to bail him out of a, you may want him to bail you out of a jam, but when it comes to him giving commandments and him ordering your life, and holding you responsible and someday calling you into account for every deed and word and thought and fleeting attitude that flickered across your mind during your life. When it comes to that, God is a very fearful being and he is not welcome. He's an enemy. That's our natural condition. And when Jesus died that next day, he died for a race of enemies. He died for those attitudes. He died for that willfulness. He died for our waywardness. He died for our animosity against him. He died for our whole life of disobedience against God. He died for our sins. And that could certainly be an overused phrase that hardly holds the depth of meaning that it ought to. But let it sink in. He died for our sins. He laid down his life for us. He didn't die in the same way that a person dies for their country. People who serve their country and lay down their lives for their country, they're heroes. They lay down their life for the freedom of others. They die for a good cause. But as wonderful and as noble as that is, it is not what Jesus did. He died as a representative. He died as a substitute. His death was the punishment for our sins. His death was the sacrifice for our sins to satisfy God for all of our rebellion. His death was the price for our redemption. You know what we need to do is do what Isaac Watts told us to do in that hymn we sang before the sermon. Survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died. Survey it. From his head, his hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did e'er such love and sorrow meet or thorns compose so rich a crown? Survey the cross, consider it, meditate upon it and all that was involved in it. and ask the Holy Spirit to give you an enlightened understanding and never view the cross apart from substitution. Think of the great exchange, my sins for Jesus's righteousness, the great exchange, that is the way to come to understand the love of God. There was no greater display. There was no greater sacrifice. And in light of this, Jesus says to us, verse 12, love one another as I have loved you. There's no greater challenge, is there? No greater challenge. Our master's expectation is that we would love one another in the same way that he loved us. That's hard to comprehend. Certainly, there is no greater failure in my life than my failure to love you as Christ loved me. Love is patient with the faults of others. It's kind toward those that irritate and ignore. Love bears or covers all things. It believes all things. In doubtful cases, it chooses to be generous. It hopes all things. It's optimistic about the future of other people. It endures all things. It keeps on loving, even when wronged. even when taken advantage of, it endures all things. There's no greater challenge than Jesus looking at us and telling us, love one another as I have loved you. You think about that next morning, just a few hours after he said verse 13. how he was going to drag a rough hewn, heavily splintered cross all the way through Jerusalem and up to Golgotha. And usually when those Roman soldiers in charge of those executions were doing their dastardly deed, they had to fling the person down on the timber. and hold them there as the person struggles so they can nail the nails into their hands and feet. And how they must have been confounded. When our Savior got to the top of that hill, laid down that cross, and then literally laid himself down on it. How they didn't even have to reach out for his arms. He put his arms out willingly. how he meekly crossed his feet so that they could drive the stake through the bones of his feet. Greater love had never been seen. And love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, and my all. To your congregation, there is no greater love. Let us pray. Eternal God and our Father in heaven, how we praise Thee for the love of Jesus Christ that passes knowledge. How we praise Thee for this eternal, faithful love. And how we praise Thee that we who were dead in sins are recipients of this sovereign love. And that the Lord Jesus loved us and gave his life for us. Oh Lord, we pray that you would fill us with thoughts and resolves that would be in keeping with the great truth we have considered this morning. Fill our hearts with your praise as we seek communion with thee at the table. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.