“III. Thirdly, here is THE COMPANION OF LOVE. ‘I in them.’ Look at the text a minute and just catch those two words. Here is ‘love’ and ‘I’—love and Christ come together. O blessed guests! ‘Love and I,’ says Christ; as if He felt He never had a companion that suited Him better. ‘Love’ and ‘I:’ Jesus is ever at home where love is reigning. When love lives in His people’s hearts, Jesus lives there too. Does Jesus, then, live in the hearts of His people? Yes, wherever there is the love of the Father shed abroad in them He must be there. We have His own word for it, and we are sure that Jesus knows where He is.
“We are sure that He is where love is; for, first, where there is love there is life, and where there is life there is Christ, for He Himself says, ‘I am the life.’ There is no true life in the believer’s soul that is divided from Christ. We are sure of that; so that where there is love there is life, and where there is life there is Christ. Again, where there is the love of God in the heart there is the Holy Spirit; but wherever the Holy Spirit is, there is Christ, for the Holy Spirit is Christ’s representative; and it is in that sense that He tells us, ‘Lo, I am with you alway,’ namely, because the Spirit is come to be always with us. So where there is love, there is the Spirit of God; and where there is the Spirit of God, there is Christ. So it is always, ‘Love and I.’
“Furthermore, where there is love there is faith, for faith worketh by love, and there never was true love to Christ apart from faith; but where there is faith there is always Christ, for if there is faith in Him He has been received into the soul. Jesus is ever near to that faith which has Himself for its foundation and resting place. Where there is love there is faith, where there is faith there is Christ, and so it is ‘Love and I.’
“Ay, but where there is the Father’s love toward Christ in the heart God Himself is there. I am sure of that, for God is love. So if there is love within us there must be God, and where God is there Christ is, for He saith, ‘I and my Father are one.’ So you see where there is love there must be Jesus Christ, for these reasons and for many others besides.
“’I in them.’ Yes, if I were commanded to preach for seven years from these three words only, I should never exhaust the text, I am quite certain. I might exhaust you by my dullness, and exhaust myself by labor to tell out the sacred secret, but I should never exhaust the text. ‘I in them.’ It is the most blessed word I know of. You, beloved, need not go abroad to find the Lord Jesus Christ. Where does He live? He lives within you. ‘I in them.’ As soon as ever you pray you are sure He hears you, because He is within you. He is not knocking at your door; He has entered into you, and there He dwells, and will go no more out forever.
“What a blessed sense of power this gives to us. ‘I in them.’ Then it is no more ‘I’ in weakness, but, since Jesus dwells in me, ‘I can do all things through Christ that strengthened me.’ ‘I in them.’ It is the glory of the believer that Christ dwells in him. ‘Unto you that believe He is precious.’
“Hence we gather the security of the believer. Brother, if Christ be in me, and I am overcome, Christ is conquered too, for He is in me. ‘I in them.’ I cannot comprehend the doctrine of believers falling from grace. If Christ has once entered into them, will He not abide with them? Paul saith, ‘I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ To that persuasion I set my hand and seal. Well, then, if Christ is in us, whatever happens to us will happen to Him. We shall be losers if we do not get to Heaven; but so will He be, for He is in us, and so is a partaker of our condition. If it is an indissoluble union—and so He declares it is—‘I in them,’ then His destiny and ours are linked together; and if He wins the victory we conquer in Him: If He sits at the right hand of God we shall sit at the right hand of God with Him, for He is in us.
“I know not what more to say, not because I have nothing more, but because I do not know which to bring forward out of a thousand precious things; but I leave the subject with you. Go home and live in the power of this blessed text. Go home and be as happy as you can be to live, and if you get a little happier that will not hurt you, for then you will be in Heaven. Keep up unbroken joy in the Lord. It is not ‘I in them’ for Sundays, and away on Mondays; ‘I in them’ when they sit in the Tabernacle, and out of them when they reach home. No, ‘I in them’ and that forever and forever. Go and rejoice. Show this blind world that you have a happiness which as much outshines theirs as the sun outshines the sparks which fly from the chimney and expire. Go forth with joy and be led forth with peace; let the mountains and the hills break forth before you into singing:
‘All that remains for me
Is but to love and sing,