…He loved them unto the end. – John 13:1

The Master displayed His love to His disciples throughout His life by the way in which He sought to comfort them when He foresaw that they would be cast down; especially was this true at the period before His passion-when one would have thought He might have sought for comfort, He was busy distributing it. Those choice words which have flown like a dove into many a mourner’s window bearing the olive branch of peace, were the fond utterances of a thoughtful heart. “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions.” Many such bottles of oil and wine did He apply to the wounds of His disciples. He would not have them suffer any kind of spiritual turmoil. “In the world ye shall have tribulation” said He, “but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” His peace He distributed right liberally and left it as His last legacy: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth give I unto you.” In the private life of every one of those chosen men, there must have been incidents of matchless tenderness; but they are not recorded, because if all were written which Jesus did, even the world itself would not contain the things, which should have been written. Enough is written to let us see that no tenderness of mothers, or care of friends, could match the ever, generous forethought of the Friend of man. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0810.cfm

Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end. – John 13:1

Our Savior’s faithfulness towards the chosen band whom He had elected into His fellowship was most remarkable. He had selected persons who must have been but poor companions for one of so gigantic a mind and so large a heart. He must have been greatly shocked at their worldliness. They groveled in the dust when He mounted to the stars. He was thinking of the baptism wherewith He was to be baptized, and He was straitened until it was accomplished, but they were disputing which among them should be the greatest. He was ready to deny Himself that He might do His Father’s will, and meanwhile they were asking to sit on His right hand and on His left hand in His kingdom.

Worse than the fact of their natural worldliness perhaps, was the apparent impossibility of lifting them out of that low condition; for though never a man spake as He spake, how little did they understand! And though He took them aside and said to them, “Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God,” yet after many plain teachings He was compelled to say to one of the best of them, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip?” They were dull scholars. There is no teacher here who could have had patience with such heavy intellects, but our Lord and Master’s love remained evermore at flood-tide, notwithstanding their incorrigible stupidity. His love was stronger than their unbelief and ignorance. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0810.cfm

“Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.”-John 13:1

“Having loved His own.” Those four words are a brief but complete summary of the Savior’s conduct towards His disciples. He always loved them. There was never a single action or word which was contrary to the rule of love. He loved them with a love of pity when He saw them in their lost estate, and He called them out of it to be His disciples; touched with a feeling of their infirmities He loved them with a tender and prudent affection, and sought to train and educate them, that after His departure they might be good soldiers of His cross. Even when He rebuked them, He loved them. He subjected them to many trials: for His sake they renounced all that they had; they shared His daily cross-bearing and hourly persecution but love reigned supreme and undiminished through it all. On Tabor or in Gethsemane He loved His own; alone or in the crowd His heart was true to them; in life and in death His affection failed not. He “loved His own which were in the world.” It is a multum in parvo, a condensed life of Christ, a miniature of Jesus the Lover of souls. As you read the wonderful story of the four evangelists, you see how true it is that Jesus loved His own. Let me cast in by way of interjection, this sentence, that when you come to read your own life’s story in the light of the New Jerusalem, you will find it to be true also concerning your Lord and yourself: if you are indeed the Lord’s own, He at all times deals lovingly with you, and never acts in unkindness or wrath. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0810.cfm

We love Him because He first loved us. – 1 John 4:19

If the ardent love of some saints often takes the shape of admiration of God, this arises from their familiarity with God, and this familiarity they never would have indulged in, unless they had known that He was their friend. A man could not speak to God as to a friend, unless he knew the love that God hath toward him. The truer his knowledge and the surer, the closer his fellowship.

Brethren beloved, if you know that God has loved you, then you will feel grateful; every doubt will diminish your gratitude, but every grain of faith will increase it. Then as we advance in grace, love to God in our soul will excite desire after Him. Those we love we long to be with; we count the hours that separate us; no place so happy as that in which we enjoy their society. Hence love to God produces a desire to be with Him; a desire to be like Him, a longing to be with Him eternally in heaven, and this breaks us away from worldliness; this keeps us from idolatry, and thus has a most blessedly sanctifying effect upon us, producing that elevated character which is now so rare, but which wherever it exists is powerful for the good of the church and for the glory of God…It may help those who aspire to mount high in grace, if they keep in mind that every step they climb they must use the ladder which Jacob saw. The love of God to us is the only way to climb to the love of God. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

We love Him, because He first loved us. – 1 John 4:19

Beloved, there are few of us who know much of the depth of the love of God; our love is shallow; ah, how shallow! Love to God is like a great mountain. The majority of travellers view it from afar or traverse the valley at its base; a few climb to a halting place on one of its elevated spurs, whence they see a portion of its sublimities: here and there an adventurous traveller climbs a minor peak, and views glacier and alp at closer range; fewest of all are those who scale the topmost pinnacle and tread the virgin snow. So in the Church of God. Every Christian abides under the shadow of divine love: a few enjoy and return that love to a remarkable degree: but there are few in this age sadly few, who reach to seraphic love, who ascend into the hill of the Lord, to stand where the eagle’s eye hath not seen, and walk the path which the lion’s welp hath never trodden, the high places of complete consecration and ardent self-consuming love. Now, mark you, it may be difficult to ascend so high, but there is one sure route, and only one, which the man must follow who would gain the sacred elevation. It is not the track of his works, nor the path of his own actions, but this, “We love Him because He first loved us.” John and the apostles confessed that thus they attained their love. For the highest love that ever glowed in human bosom there was no source but this-God first loved that man. Do you not see how this is? The knowledge that God loves me casts out my tormenting dread of God: and when this is expelled, there is room for abounding love to God. As fear goes out, love comes in at the other door. So, the more faith in God the more room there is for soul-filling love. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm