The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved

This morning we're going to be talking about a particular biblical nickname, a handle as it were, or a moniker in this case, a term of endearment. I recently heard a story about a little boy who on his first day of school when the teacher was asking for all of the names of the students, this boy replied, 6 and 7/8. And with a confused expression, the teacher asked him why his parents would name him 6th and 7th 8, and he replied, they just picked it out of a hat. Come on, you got to give me some love.

As we will see this morning, names God gives people are never just picked out of a hat. They have meaning, they have purpose. and nicknames or name changes are actually very common in the Bible. there's sometimes positive, sometimes negative.

We have Ahab who calls Elijah, oh troubler of Israel. Sometimes name changes are given in troublesome times like Hadessa became Esther to hide her Jewish heritage or Daniel became Beltahazzar when he became a eunuch of the Babylonian court. At other times, God changed the names of persons to indicate he wanted them to have a new identity and a new role like Abraham, who was exalted father Abraham, who was exalted father becomes Abraham, father of many nations. Sarai, my princess, becomes Sarah, a mother of nations.

Jacob is given a new name, Israel, and there's actually a lesser known term of endearment. Jesharron, one of my favorites in the Old Testament, which means beloved one, happens in Isaiah 44 and 4 times in the Book of Deuteronomy. Simon becomes Peter, Saul becomes Paul, and then there's the sons of thunder, James and John. In fact, sons of thunder is a name that Jesus gave to them.

We see in Mark 3:17 and we'll probably find out why a little bit later, but let me ask you, what is your handle? What is your nickname? What's your given name and then what do people call you when it's a term of endearment? my handle online that I chose a long time ago is very amusing.

Supposed to be a double entendre, but my wife will many times sign cards to me Megalito or she'll call me Megalito, that's a name that she's had for me since we were dating, and I call her Katie Lou and I spell it out K T L U. Her middle name is Lou. And then we many times end our writings to each other with Agape style. She just started saying Agape style when we're dating and I really like that when she would say agape style.

And so we still sign a lot of our stuff that way, so we're gonna talk about a particular term of endearment, a special handle. That goes like this, the disciple whom Jesus loved. The disciple whom Jesus loved. But why are we gonna talk about a nickname?

Well, a few weeks ago, we were reminded from Ephesians 5 that Christ has loved his church corporately despite all of her stains and wrinkles, but I wanna raise another question, does he love you individually in spite of all your stains and wrinkles? Does he love you? Well, one of Christ's disciples sure thought so. One disciple was so bold to call himself the disciple whom Jesus loved.

And what are we to make of that? And what are we to take away for ourselves from. This handle. Let's go ahead and read John 21, a few verses here if you, if you have your Bible.

John 21, we're gonna just read verses 20 to 25, and then we'll jump into our. Our, sermon Since then Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved, and whoever this disciple, we're going to find out it's the one who's writing this text. He saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, who had leaned on his breast at the supper and said, Lord, who is the one who betrays you? Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, but Lord, what about this man?

Jesus said to him, if that he remained till I come, what is that to you? You follow me. Then this saying went out among the brethren that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die.

But quote, If I will, he remained till I come, what is that to you, unquote. This is the disciple who testifies of these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true. And there are many other things that Jesus did which, if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.

Let's go ahead and pray. Lord, we ask that you would just guide us through your spirit, this time as you guided the apostle, this disciple to pin this gospel and even pin this moniker by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Help us to understand why it was important to him and how it can be important to us and encourage us. We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen. So this morning we will consider this topic through 3 questions and then several takeaways. So if you guys have your outline, 3 questions and several takeaways, the first question is this Who that you're filling children, who was the disciple whom Jesus loved? Who was he?

there has been some debate about this amongst some, not in church history or not in the early church, but let's look at some of the scriptural evidence and we'll look at some early church evidence. This phrase is only used 5 times in the Bible and it's only used in the Gospel of John. And one of the places, the first place it's used is around the Lord's Supper in John 13 when all of the. The fellows, the disciples are gathered around, not like Leonardo da Vinci's painting where they're all seated at a nice European table.

These guys were leaning the way Jews would lean, actually leaning on their left elbow, probably with a pillow, eating with their right hand with their feet out behind them, behind the table, so that someone's head could literally be really close to someone else's breast behind them. and so in John 13, 1 of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to Jesus. So the setting here is you've got Jesus at the seat of honor. Judas is leaning behind Jesus, which is actually, that's the next most honorable spot.

Jesus puts Judas right there. And then this particular disciple would be on the right side of Christ leaning on his left elbow dipping and so that he could lean back and actually whisper to Christ without anybody necessarily hearing and so in this setting he's called or calls himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. Then in chapter 19, same gospel, it's at the cross when Jesus looks down to the disciple whom Jesus loved and said, behold, your mother and mother, this is your son.

So Jesus actually gives the care of his mother over to this disciple.

So Jesus is thinking about his mother on the cross while he's dying. And, and so you have the, the disciple and Jesus love that monikers used there. Chapter later in chapter 2, this is the race to the tomb scene when Mary Magdalene comes and announces to the disciple whom Jesus loved and Peter, that I've gone to the tomb, somebody's taken him away, he's not there. Peter takes off running, but then we find out Peter's not a very good runner, and the disciple whom Jesus loved passes him up and gets there first.

So that's the third place where it's used. Then in the next chapter, chapter 21. we have the guys have gone out fishing with Peter and, and then suddenly we have this reoccurrence where they're not catching anything and Jesus says, well, throw the net on the other side of the boat and then they catch a big catch. It doesn't really hit Peter right away, but the disciple whom Jesus loved said, it's the Lord.

And then you guys know what Peter does. He jumps in, swims to the shore, leaves everybody else to do the work of dragging the net. And but that's the disciple whom Jesus loved. And then finally, the final occurrence is what we just read.

Where Peter has just been restored. Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me?

Yes, I love you. I should, feed my sheep. And then you have this scene where Jesus is moving in a direction. Peter's following him, and then the disciple whom Jesus loved comes following behind.

Peter turns around and says, What about this guy? Jesus says, You just take care of your own business, all right? And, and so that's the 5th time. That you have.

And in this instance, the person identifies themselves and says the disciple whom Jesus loved is me. I'm the guy who's writing this very gospel. But still, we're still left. He doesn't say, hey, I'm John.

He just says, I wrote this gospel. the disciple is, is never specifically identified, but the identity of this disciple seems obviously clear by what we read in, in chapter 21. He's the author of the gospel, and we know him to be John, one of the sons of Zebedee. Only John mentions this phrase again, it's only in this Gospel, we know that he is one of the ones that is there fishing, with Christ in that scene and, and he is one of the three disciples that Jesus would take with him in very special circumstances like the transfiguration and so you have James and John and Peter seem to have special access or backstage pass so to speak.

That others, other disciples don't get. we know that the disciple whom Jesus loved couldn't be Peter because Peter's the one that says, what about this guy? And Peter's also the one that's motioning to the disciple whom Jesus loved when they're all sitting around the table and Jesus makes the big announcement about betrayal, Peter's like. he just probably just nods his head to the disciple whom Jesus loved.

He's in the favored position. He's able to lean back and say, Lord, who is it? So it's not Peter. Neither would we think it to be John, because, James, because James was actually the first of the apostles to die in Acts 12.

So he's the very first apostle to die. John is the last apostle to die. So the Sons of Thunder actually book in. The death of the deaths of the apostles.

And so that's what makes textually and then in church history it's very early tradition that John was being referred to as the disciple whom Jesus loved or as the one who leaned upon Christ's breast or bosom and so early church tradition was unanimous in identifying John as this particular disciple and and it seems that. John had a very, very close relationship with Jesus Christ, so that's gonna bring us really to our second question is, is, if it's true, and I think we can verify this from the scripture and church history, that the disciple whom Jesus loved is John, why did he refer to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved?

And where did he get this moniker? We could even ask another sub question, when did he get this, handle.

well, let's start by asking this, where did he get this moniker? No one else called John by this nickname. There isn't anywhere else in the Bible in the New Testament where you have someone, oh, the disciple whom Jesus loved. He only, he's the only one that refers to himself in this way.

Did Jesus give him this name? That's a question. Did was this a name that Jesus like just granted to him? Possibly, but we don't have any evidence of that anywhere in the Bible.

We do see that Daniel was told that he was beloved of the Lord when he received revelation in a few different places like John chapter 10, for instance. Maybe when John was getting special special revelation, who knows. We're really left here with more questions than answers as far as where he got this particular nickname. could it be a title that he gave himself?

Well, we do know that it is the title that he uses of himself as the author of this gospel 5 times. So in a sense, yes, he did give himself this title. In another sense, we could say that since the Gospel of John is inspired by the Holy Spirit, that the Spirit gave him this title or at least put his stamp of approval on this title. So there's evidence that at least John came to own this title by the time he writes the gospel.

And the spirit of Christ breathes out, this, nickname onto the pages of Scripture. All we really know for sure is that John had taken this term of endearment to himself by the time he wrote this gospel, which is around 85 or 90 AD. This is what leads Barnes to say, and, and I agree with this that there this actually follows a motif that ancient writers were often shy to draw attention to themselves in their own writings, particularly if what they're talking about would put it would put emphasis on their place of honor.

So like John having this special seat at the table or him being handed over basically the the the responsibility to care for Mary, the mother of Jesus, these are exalted tasks for him to get revelations, for him to be at the transfiguration, an ancient writer, especially an ancient Christian writer would be very disposed to not put their name forward and say, look at me.

And so Barnes says the evangelists are not accustomed to mention their own names when any mark of favor, favor or any good deed is recorded, they did not seek publicity or notoriety. So that would actually explain why John isn't super upfront about who this is until chapter 21 at the end of, does that make sense to you? it's part of the issue too with that strange scene with, in the book of Mark where you have Christ's arrest, somebody grabs a garment and a young man runs away naked and nobody ever knows who this is, but some people think it's Mark.

He just doesn't want to say, oh yeah, that's me, the guy running away naked.

But another commentator raises this idea as far as wrestling with the question why John takes this name upon himself. Listen to this and see if you agree. he says that John was admitted special friendship perhaps because the natural disposition of our savior was more nearly like the amiableness and mildness of John than any other disciples. The amiableness and mildness of John than any of the other disciples, so Jesus looked at John, according to this commentator, saw a kinship with how amiable and mild he was, and then gave him the moniker the disciple whom Jesus loved.

I want to say I completely disagree. With that, viewpoint, no, I, I, I like this particular commentary in a lot of other areas. I think they missed the ship on that one. Why would we say that?

I, I just don't think it is probably it was not his works that so committed him to Christ that they made him especially beloved or that his amiableness or mildness was akin to Christ. We have evidence all over the New Testament that that was indeed not the case. first of all, he wasn't the most compassionate disciple. Jesus calls him one of the sons of thunder.

Remember the Samaritan incident in, in Luke chapter 9, when the Samaritans weren't overly hospitable to Christ, and then James and John said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them just like Elijah did? But he turned and rebuked them and said, you do not know what manner of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy lives, but to save them. And then they just went to another village. So John's not overly compassionate at this point in his life, but neither was he the most tolerant of the disciples.

Remember, he was one of the ones that was forbidding others to cast out demons, Luke 9. 49. Now, John answered and said, Master, we saw some casting out demons in your name, but we forbade them because, he does not follow us. But Jesus said, do not forbid him.

He who is not against us is on our side. So he's not all that compassion, he's not very tolerant. What about humility? Isn't John one of the most humble of the disciples?

Remember in Mark 10:35. Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus. We find out from Matthew that mom was mommy was actually involved in this too. Say, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.

He said, What do you want me to do for you? It's actually not a bad thing. Jesus loves it when people come to ask him of things and he wants to do things for them. They said, grant us that we may sit on your right hand and on your left in your glory.

And Jesus said to them, You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drank and be baptized with the baptism I'm baptized with? And they said, we are able. That's not humility, bro.

That's, that's, yeah, that, that would not commend him. So Jesus said to them, you will indeed drink the cup that I drink, the baptism, but, and then in verse 41 when the 10 heard it, they said, that's great. No, they began to be greatly displeased with James and John. So he's not very compassionate and tolerant.

He's not the most humble of guys. How about when he matures, he gets really. older in the Lord, he's now receiving revelation from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. We find him bowing down to angels two different times, committing idolatry.

so again, it raises this question, why this moniker? there are names that he could have given himself. He could have said I'm the disciple who received revelations from God. And the disciple who wrote one of the Gospels and 3 epistles.

I'm the disciple who had a special backstage pass at very special times in Jesus' ministry. But he doesn't mention himself as the disciple who did anything, but who received love from Jesus. He is not the disciple who even loved Jesus. He doesn't say the disciple who loved Jesus with all of his heart and all of his mind and all of his soul.

No, he's the disciple who Jesus loved. If he had any courage or faithfulness, Spurgeon says if he had any depth of knowledge, it was because Jesus had loved these things into him. Whatever growth he saw in his life had been loved into him. And, it wasn't because Jesus didn't love others, I don't think for Jesus, for, for John to say I'm the disciple whom Jesus loved, is he somehow excluding himself or setting himself apart from other disciples?

we see right in John's own gospel that Jesus is described one who loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and when Lazarus was sick, people are told the one whom you love is sick. in this very gospel in John chapter 13, verse 1, it says, having loved his own, who were in the world, he loved them to the end or to the uttermost, or one translation is all of them. In chapter 15 verse 9, Jesus is quoted as saying, as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, plural, all of the disciples.

And so John doesn't seem to have any narcissistic idea that it's all about him.

He's freely acknowledging the love that Christ has, but still he calls himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. I want to suggest that It seems that it must have been that John was overwhelmed by grace. By friendship that, he's one of the disciples there when Jesus says, no longer do I call you servants, I call you friends. Looking at his track record and then here Jesus is on the cross saying, take care of my mother.

How humbling would that be? After the track record that you have demonstrated, whatever the case, John is the author of Holy Scripture. He is the author of the Gospel of John, which is inspired by God. And so it is true that John was the disciple whom Jesus loved because the Bible says so.

He is the disciple whom Jesus loved. John Piper says this, perhaps this is John's way of saying, my most important identity is not my name, but my being loved by Jesus, the Son of God. He's not trying to rob anybody else of this privilege. He is simply exulting in it.

I'm loved. That's who I am. I'm loved by Jesus. And that encourages me.

To think that first that we've got John the disciple, who is the disciple whom Jesus loved. And it seems like he owns this moniker because he really did feel loved by Jesus Christ. And so let's look at a 3rd question, and that is, what can we learn about Jesus from this term of endearment? This term of endearment.

After all, this title is in the Bible for a reason. Christ is normally involved in every page page of scripture, and I wanna suggest a couple things here that I think we can learn about our Lord from this title. first of all, and this may seem overly obvious, Jesus had friends. Jesus had friends on the earth.

As a man, he was a man who had friends. In his humanity, it shouldn't surprise us that Jesus had friends of various, various levels. He loved the masses, no doubt. He loved his enemies.

But it was the 12, and then the 3 who got more of his time and perhaps John was his best friend, like David, that type of Christ who had a best friend in Jonathan. There's many pastors and theologians over the years that have suggested that perhaps John was Jesus' best earthly friend. And that should not surprise us that the human Christ had some friends that were closer. Than others.

After all, John is the one who. If you guys are, we've said this just a few minutes ago, but when they're all seated at the Last Supper, and Jesus makes that grand pronouncement, one of you is going to betray me. What does Peter do? He knows what to do.

He ain't gonna ask the question. He just nods to the disciple whom Jesus loved and say, hey, ask him. So Peter knew, even though Peter's one of the three, Peter knew who he could get to ask the question. And so Peter seems to know, and, and so John is the one that's leaning into Christ at that time and.

And, and John is the one that Jesus, Jesus could have handed his mother's livelihood over to anybody. But he handed Mary over to John. So there seems to be an indication there that there is a close human relationship. By the way, in heaven, we will have our time of fellowship with Christ in his humanity.

we fellowship right now with Christ, the Holy Spirit. When we go to heaven, we'll fellowship with Christ through the Holy Spirit and his deity. But Christ will be there in his humanity. And for Christ to be there in his humanity means that he will be in a time and location in the eternal state.

And we'll talk about this later when you take my eschatology class, but that means you'll have to make an appointment. With the human Christ, you'll never have to make an appointment with Christ and His deity. But to see Christ's humanity, he will meet with us. He can't meet with us all.

He, he, we won't, we don't believe in the Catholic doctrine of ubiquity of the humanity of Christ, right? come to my, come to our eschatology class, we can talk about that. So, surely John must have had, it seems, a sense of how much he had been forgiven. The Bible says he who loves much has been forgiven much.

Remember. It's John that was calling fire down from heaven. He was like, oh, I want to be seated on one of the sides of your throne in the kingdom. He's bowing before angels.

He's forbidding disciples who are casting out demons and so on. And yet Jesus is treating him this way, and then he takes on this, this moniker. So I think we've established that this is John. It seems like he owns this particular name for himself, and, and, and calls and through the Holy Spirit writes it in the text of scripture because he really did believe that he was loved by Jesus Christ and we learned that one of the things that we learned about our Lord Jesus Christ is that Jesus Christ loved everybody but in his humanity he had friends.

And I think there's some takeaways that we can take from these types of things that we've talked about. Let me give a few one takeaway that I'll just develop a little more is the fact that he had friends. Christ is the ultimate exalted human being, and if Jesus Christ had friends on the earth, we should have friends. He had friends.

He's setting the example of what exalted humanity does, and exalted humanity does not isolate themselves. Jesus didn't isolate himself. Yeah, there's times where he got off by himself to pray to the Father. But he had friends.

And, and he called John a friend. And he called his disciples friends. And as we're gonna argue here in a moment, he called others his friends. There is not a friend like the lowly Jesus, no, not one.

I want to suggest that you are his friend. If you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, you are his friend. If you like Abraham have believed. In his deity, we should not shy away from speaking of ourselves in the same way that John spoke about himself in his, in Christ's humanity.

Let me say it again. I believe that in Christ, in respect to Christ's deity, we should not shy away from thinking of ourselves in relationship to Christ the way that John thought of himself in relationship to Christ and his humanity. So let me just paint this picture. So Jesus is walking around with a real guy named John going throughout life, and they become really close friends, such good friends that John begins to think of himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved.

But now Christ is exalted in, and, and he has poured his spirit, and one of the jobs of the Spirit is to shed abroad in our hearts the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. To where he can communicate through his spirit that same intimate love to all of us. That's, I think one of the reasons why Jesus said it's better that I go away, because if I do not go away, I'm not gonna send the spirit, but if I send the Spirit, now all you all can feel like I'm the disciple whom Jesus loved. We can walk with that same intimacy today because Christ is exalted in his deity and he is communicating his love to us through the Holy Spirit.

So let's not resist that idea. If you are in Christ and you are beloved in the beloved, and you can claim this very title as your own, I believe we love him because he first loved us and it's this love that I think frees us will free you to love others. I don't know about you, but love is, is a big problem for me. I do not get out of bed.

Every morning, oozing with love for humanity. This does not flow out of me naturally. I'll tell you who I do love when I get out of bed in the morning. A guy named Mike Barry.

My mother and I are agreed on that. I love that guy. But when I start understanding and and drinking afresh of Christ's love for me in spite of my arrogance and my sin and my pride that melts my heart again and I feel the spirit doing things through me for other people that are not natural. And I find myself loving people that I would not naturally love.

That's part of, I think this whole idea of understanding ourselves as disciples whom Jesus. Loves, you are beloved in the beloved. Ephesians 1:6 says to the praise of the glory of His grace, which he has freely given us in the beloved inside of Christ, He has freely given us this love and then later in Ephesians, he calls us, he says, be imitators of God as beloved children. Let me spell out some things to the men here by way of takeaways.

I'm gonna say some things to the men, then I'm gonna say some things to the women, a couple things to the, the kids. To the men. I'm challenged by this relationship between Christ and the apostle John. there's a closeness and intimacy that John expresses.

That makes me quite frankly, a little uncomfortable. Sometimes my family will joke with me about my hugs. I hug from a distance, just not overly a huggy guy. And yet you have intimacy that's being described here between John and Jesus that kinda quite frankly crosses the boundaries a little bit for me.

I don't buy into the Leo Leonardo da Vinci and some of the medieval paintings and stuff like that, but even with the Persian Jewish setting, this is an intimate setting and the way that Jesus is describing his relationship with John and the way that John's describing his relationship. With Jesus here, should we not be comfortable with this an intimacy with the humanity of Christ? Is there an example here of how Christian men should relate to one another? Perhaps if dads and sons and brothers in Christ were more affectionate with one another, then we could provide an example of love between men that could serve as a preventative to the devil's sexualization of manly godly affection.

I think there's a reason for the rise of homosexuality in our culture and there's many reasons, but I think one of them is, is that men don't know in our culture, we don't know what good godly affection looks like without the devil getting in and messing it all up. I think there's some things we can learn about this, about the affection that we have between men on the pages of scripture. There are other cultures where affection between men is much more acceptable than here and without any suspicion or implication of homosexuality.

I asked myself these questions as I've been meditating on this concept for a while.

What do men do or what men do I have in my life whom I feel a strong affection for? Do my sons know that I have a strong affection for them and do I nurture an affectionate atmosphere in my home? Who are the men in my life whom I long to see and who long to see me? Am I too much of an island?

And, there people are different, but my default setting is I like being alone. I'm not like a dude that I'm not someone who's like, man. Who's a guy I can call tonight because I really, I need some brother love. That's just not me.

But what? I think there's some ways, there's ways I gotta grow and we've got to learn. We are not islands and I think that's a challenge to our men. I wanna say to the women, this is not just a Jesus man thing, obviously with in the very same gospel in chapter 11 we see now Jesus loved Martha and her sister.

And he adds Lazarus. So when he heard that he, Lazarus, was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was. That is a strange combination of verses. That Jesus is expressing his love or John actually is expressing Jesus' love for Mary and Martha, and then says, and so Jesus hung out until Lazarus died.

How is that an expression of love? You gotta tell me. Well, we know what happens is Jesus moves into that situation. He knew exactly what he was going to do and women, I just wanna challenge you and exhort you that you are the disciple whom Jesus loved, but his love does not always look the way you're expecting it to.

There may be things that you're expecting and you're hoping are gonna happen and they just don't happen in the timing that you're expecting and it can be very easy for us to say. I guess he doesn't love me. And that's just not true. And we have to be very, very careful, especially and I think in our culture that we don't get so off on this triumphal type of theology that we think it's all gonna get done here.

There is a theology of the cross, brothers and sisters, that says Christ suffered and then he entered his glory and the glory come cometh later. There's a lot of suffering to be endured in this life and thing doesn't, things don't always get wrapped up in a nice tidy bow on this planet, and that doesn't mean that God and Christ don't love you. he loves you and he's guiding things and even if Jesus waits two days and lets something tragic happen to you, that does, that's not a sign that he has stopped loving you.

Let me finally say just a couple of things to the children here that.

We see all over the scriptures that Jesus loves children. Luke 18, then some brought infants or young children to Jesus that he might touch them, but the disciples saw it and they rebuked them. They rebuked the people who are bringing the children, but Jesus called them to him and said, Let the little children come to me and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of God. And then, earlier in the context, Jesus or actually in Matthew 18, Jesus says, Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who's in heaven.

That's a crazy verse too, that Jesus saying, don't despise any of these little ones because guess what? They're angels. There are angels in heaven that are just looking at the face of the Father waiting for orders on behalf of these little children. What do you want us to do?

Oh. And they're just waiting for a command to get out and get busy on the behalf of children to to care about them and defend and bring them to himself and. And so there's a whole host of other questions we could get in there, but children, Jesus loves you. And all you have to do is just the faith of Abraham simply to believe that your sins are forgiven if you believe in Christ, that he died on the cross for you.

There's not a friend like the lowly Jesus, and he saves children. Let me ask, just a few other questions as far as takeaways as we just meditate on this stuff together is, is do you have people in your life who make you feel the way Christ made John feel? I got a feeling, and then I'm gonna spread the exegetical butter a little thin here. So why don't you roll with me.

This is, that's a phrase from Daniel Price, but I, I, I think that John felt that he was the disciple whom Jesus loved, partially because he was his close friend. Perhaps his best friend, but I also think Jesus probably just made a lot of people feel that way. That Jesus, when he walked into a room, look at Zacchaeus, right? Jesus comes marching in town, says, Zacchaeus, get down here.

I'm coming to your house. What does Zacchaeus do? Yeah, he's excited. He can't believe that Jesus would pay that attention to him.

And I think when Jesus just rolled into town, anybody whose heart was just stirred and, and longing for something from God and Christ, they just, they felt like his special attention and, and so ask yourself just by way of analogy and meditation, are there people in your life that make you feel that way? I, I can think of a few. I don't wanna name anybody because I don't wanna like leave anybody out, but who they are, right? There's people in your life that just.

They show up and when they're talking to you, you just feel like I'm. I'm getting all the attention. I'm their best friend. That's just the way you feel.

And that's the way Christ was, and I want to suggest that. That if we understand our identity that we can actually be more like that, I think through Christ. It's not that all of us are gonna be cookie cutter the same. But I think we can be more like Christ in that respect if we understand our identity properly.

So let's slide into this thought. Your identity as one who is loved by Christ matters. Are you the disciple whom Jesus loved? And I want to suggest that in respect to his deity and the Holy Spirit that is shed abroad in your hearts, every one of you in this room who have placed your faith in Christ like Abraham can say, I am the disciple whom Jesus loved.

That's you. You are the disciple whom Jesus loved. Paul felt this way. He says in Galatians 2:20, I've been crucified with Christ.

It's no longer I who live, but Christ is in me and the life that I now live in the flesh, live by faith and Son of God, who loved. Me and gave himself for me. Paul could have said that a lot of different ways. He loved the church, he loved the bride, he loved you.

No, he loved me. And he gave himself for me. Notice that sometimes Paul calls when he's talking about the gospel, he says, my gospel. It's like mine.

And, and that's the way Paul felt. And this is not just a New Testament thing, by the way, we, we, we do have a unique relationship to the Holy Spirit, but Abraham's called a friend of God. We've got Moses called a friend of God spoke to him face to face. Daniel is called the beloved of the Lord.

And then you get to the New Testament and one of my favorite verses in the book of John as the Fathers love me, Jesus says, so I have loved you. Think about that. The Father, as the fathers love me, how much does the Father love Christ? I turned that right around and I love you.

That's pretty crazy. You could meditate on that for a long time. And then Paul comes along later in 2 Corinthians 5, and he says, it's the love of Christ that compels us. It's really his love that motivates us.

And so we have a special name. beloved of the Lord, but even beyond that, think about this, John really owned that moniker, the disciple whom Jesus loved, but we've already studied in the book of Revelation, right? That Jesus is gonna give us a name. He's gonna get a name that no man knows, and then he's what?

He's gonna give us a name that nobody knows. Remember that from, chapter 19, in much the same way as Jesus has a new name. A name that God has given to him and which is only known between him and God, like, Jesus, each of us, who've all accepted him as our, our savior will be given a new name, actually Revelation 2:17, that is only known to us and Him, a nickname as it were, a special term of endearment that will be between you and the Lord. to me, that's a very exciting thought.

That the Lord, he doesn't just love the bride, that's true. He loves you, and you can think of yourself as the beloved disciple, but there's also some special term of endearment that Christ has for you. And that that's not presumptuous for us to think such thoughts because they're in the scripture. So knowing that I am a disciple whom Jesus loved frees me and empowers me.

I believe to do things that I cannot do of myself. Does it frees me to love my family differently? Does my family know that they are loved by Christ? I can pour into my family and remind them you are loved by Christ.

Could my family members say by virtue of my identity that as I'm understanding my identity could they then begin to say I'm the wife whom Mike loved I'm the son whom dad loved I'm the daughter whom dad loved. I think that's part of the fruit and overflow of us understanding ourselves as the disciple whom Jesus loved is then he can begin to use us in our family to make them feel like they're the ones that I love. That's something that can be imparted to us through the spirit. do people in our church know that I'm the person who my pastor loves?

We can grow as pastors and elders in this respect. I want to give you a, a quote from a guy named Daniel Emery Price, an article I just really, really love. he says this. We're Christians because Jesus took everything that's true of us as his and gave everything that's true of Him as ours.

Our sin for all his righteousness, he swapped name tags with us. Yes, Jesus knew what he was getting when he renamed Peter and John. And he knew what he was getting when he renamed you and me. He has named us saints, friends, beloved children, heirs, the righteousness of God.

And this good news remains forever, according to First Peter chapter one. Or his name isn't faithful and true. Let's go ahead and bow in prayer. Laura, there is So much for us here to meditate upon, and I pray that your spirit would pour the love of Christ that shed abroad in our hearts.

And I pray Lord that with all of the troubles that we see in our world and the things every day there's something else to be anxious about whether it's world events or health or car troubles or other worries worries about salvation of children. Lord, may we throw our anchor upward into the placid sea of your divine love and not downward into a troubled ocean. Lord, may it be our privilege as brothers and sisters to lean. Our weary heads on your bosom until the dawn breaks and the shadows flee.

We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.