Good morning. For our scripture
reading, we're going to be reading Psalm 130. Psalm 130. Out of the debts have I cry unto
thee. And this is how every believer
cries to the Lord out of their debts. He places us in that debt. And if he doesn't, we don't cry
out. By the Lord's mercy, he places
us in debts, not only the first time that we looked at Christ,
but throughout our Christian life. He puts us in different
debts to cry unto him. Lord, hear my voice. Let thy ears be attentive to
the voice of my supplication." And this is our hope, that he
would be attentive to our supplications. If thou, Lord, should have marked
iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? If the Lord marks iniquities,
no one can stand. And he does mark iniquities on
the reprobate, on the unbelievers. He marked in the past our iniquities
in Christ. And it's the only reason that
he hears our voice. It is Christ. But there is forgiveness
with thee. Oh, what a blessing. What a hope. What a hope that there is forgiveness
with him. that thou mayest be feared. Only the children of God truly
fear the Lord, and that's not a fear of tumbling, that's a
fear of awe, of respect, of knowing that he's the one that holds
salvation in his hand. It's not us. The religious do
not fear God. They hold everything in their
hands. It's up to them. So God does not control, they
control. But by the Lord's grace, we know that everything is in
His hands, including our salvation especially. I wait for the Lord. My soul doth wait. And His word,
I do hope. And that waiting is a waiting
of hope. awaiting of looking to Him, awaiting and resting
that everything is His hand, resting that all our sins were
in Christ, and our righteousness is in Christ, and that it has
been accomplished. And we hope in the Word, the
written Word, and in the living Word that we hope. And that's
our hope. That's our only hope. It's the
living Word. Myself waited for the Lord more
than they that watch the morning. I say more than they that watch
the morning, meaning that we wait with anxious and we wait
even more than the next day comes. We wait on the Lord because he's
more sure than the next morning coming out as well. Let Israel
hope in the Lord. And we are, who is Israel? Those that have faith. Those
that God has given faith, those are the true Israel. And that's
the Israel when the scripture says that God will save all Israel,
he will save all his chosen, and his chosen are the Israel.
So let Israel hope in the Lord. For the Lord, there is mercy. What a gracious blessing this
is, mercy. That's what we need. We need
mercy from God. With him, there's plenty of redemption. This is in Christ we have redemption.
And that's why we hope in the Lord, because there is mercy,
there is redemption. Without Christ, there wouldn't
be any redemption. Without Christ, there would be
no hope, no mercy without the Lord Jesus Christ. And he shall redeem Israel from all of their
sins. Not that he might, not that he
tries, God never ever has ever and never will try anything.
God either does or does not and he shall redeem, he shall save
all the elect Israel from all the iniquities, from all of them. Father God, we come before you.
We thank you and we come before you in Christ by his righteousness
and by his shed blood. We come before you. We thank
you of your wonderful, wonderful blessing that is the Lord Jesus
Christ. We wait upon you and we wait
upon Christ. And we come before you. We thank
you. of the wonderful blessing that
it is to be together to hear your word and to have fellowship,
Lord. We desperately need the Holy Spirit to fill us, Father,
in order for us to hear your word, Father, in order for us
to see Christ more clearly. We beg that you do this for us.
We are in great need of this. We also pray for the rest of
the churches. that are preaching the gospel, Father, that they
also may preach Christ clearly, the gospel clearly. May you be
glorified in everything they do, Father. And once again, we
thank you that we have this great blessing that it is to hear from
you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We're going to sing to him now
from your hardback hymnal number 340. You can remain seated. Number 340. That hymn is my prayer for me
and for you this morning, right now. I want us to continue the
theme that we considered in the first hour on the love of Christ. And if the Lord is pleased to
cause His love to be shed abroad in our hearts in the person of
His dear Son, then the result of that will be that will be
drawn to Him. And that prayer that we just offered will be
answered. I want to begin by asking you,
if you would, to turn with me in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter
5. Hebrews chapter 5. The truths that we hold so precious
as they relate to the gospel of God's free grace in the accomplished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Absolute, total depravity and
inability to do anything for ourselves. The fact that God
has elected a people in the covenant of grace unconditioned on anything
he saw in them before the foundation of the world. The accomplished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ in redeeming those that God chose
and providing for them only an atonement. that was acceptable to God. The
grace of God that shed abroad in our hearts when He opens our
ears and our eyes of understanding and makes us willing in the day
of His power and draws us irresistibly into His presence. And then That
preserving grace that keeps us from falling and presents us
faultless before the throne of God. The promise that he will never
ever leave us nor forsake us. There's no gospel apart from
those truths. And yet, men in religion would
say that those truths are the deep things of God that cannot
be understood by all believers, that only those who are mature
in the faith are able to comprehend these things. God's Word says
that these things that I just described, are the ABCs of kindergarten
for God's children. They are the ABCs. And that there's
no salvation apart from believing these things. And everyone that
God's pleased to save will quickly and readily, though they may
not be able to describe them, they may not be able to turn
to the right scriptures to defend them, when they hear them, they
will quickly amen them as their experience in salvation. Every
child of God will. These are not deep truths reserved
for in-house debate among mature Christians. These are the gracious,
glorious truths of the gospel that are foundational for who
we believe and who we are. Now, with that having been said,
turn with me. You have your Bibles open to
Hebrews chapter 5. Verse 12, for when for the time
you ought to be teachers, you need that one teach you again,
which be the first principles of the oracle of God and are
become such as have need of milk and not of strong drink. Now you're gonna see in the context
of this passage that the things we just described are the milk
of the gospel. These are the things that the
sucklings draw from the breast at the very outset of their birth. So what is the meat of the gospel? What is the meat of the gospel? That's my question this morning.
For everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of
righteousness, for he is a babe. But strong drink, strong meat,
I'm sorry, belongs to them who are of full age, even those who
have by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both
good and evil." I know there's a chapter division
here, but he's still continuing the same thought. So just read
on to the next verse. Leaving the principles of the
doctrines of Christ, let us go on to perfection. Perfection
is the same as strong drink in this passage, strong meat. Strong
meat and perfection. Milk and babes, full age, mature
believers eat strong meat. What is the strong meat? What
is the perfection? Now he's not saying that these
principles, these ABCs of the gospel are not important. Not
in any means. We preach them gladly. We rejoice
in them. We declare them unapologetically. But if all you have is the doctrine,
And if you have to be convinced of these doctrinal truths, like
a child in kindergarten has to learn his ABCs over and over
again, and you never understand what it is these precious truths
are to take you to, then you've never matured out of kindergarten. What are these glorious truths
of the gospel? What are their purpose? What
is the perfection? What is the maturity of Christ
in the believer's heart? He says not laying again the
foundation. These things are foundational. Repentance from dead works, that's
total depravity. There was a time when we thought
that something that we did or something that we believed was
acceptable in the sight of God. And when the Lord made us to
be a sinner, we realized that all those good works were dead
works. But these are foundational. These are the principles of the
gospel. But they're the ABCs. Faith toward God, that's irresistible
grace. We know that we could not have
had faith had the Lord not opened the eyes of our understanding.
Had He not caused us to be born of the Spirit and drawn us irresistibly
into His presence and given to us the gift of faith, we wouldn't
have been saved. The doctrine of baptisms. being buried with Christ in baptism. We have here also a declaration
of the transfer of guilt in the, well that's actually in the next
point, but the baptisms is our union with Christ. and what the
Lord Jesus Christ accomplished on Calvary's cross in atoning
for our sins. The laying on of hands. In the
Old Testament, the priest would put his hands on the head of
the scapegoat as symbolically transferring the guilt of the
sins of Israel to that scapegoat. And here we have a picture of
the Lord Jesus Christ going out into the wilderness, bearing
in His body the sins of His people. this is resurrection of the dead
that God has accepted the sacrifice that the Lord Jesus Christ has
made and would not allow him to see corruption but raised
him glorious from the grave and that he is the firstborn among
many brethren and that his resurrection is the hope of our salvation
eternal judgment that God has judged in the sacrifice of Christ. As we saw from Psalm 711 in the
previous chapter, the judgment of God is for the righteous and
that God has judged eternally our sins and put them away from
His sight once and for all. These are the precious, glorious
truths of the gospel that are foundational And we preach them
and declare them, but their purpose is to bring us to maturity. Their purpose is to cause us
to be brought to perfection. Their purpose is to enable us
to eat strong meat. What is that strong mate? What is our perfection in Christ? One word. Love. Love. It's the love of God, shed abroad
in our hearts. It's the love of Christ that
constrains us. It's experiencing, comprehending,
as we're going to see in one of our passages, the love of
Christ and what He's done for us. It's the power of God. These doctrines, in and of themselves,
apart from experiencing the love of God, are just that. They're
just that. I heard a man say one time, I'd
rather be around a warm-hearted Arminian than a cold-hearted
Calvinist. I don't want to be around either
one. I don't want to be around either one. But the point is that the meanest
people in religion are Calvinists who know nothing of the love
of Christ. They would readily ascribe to the doctrines of grace,
as they call them, and then take you back to the law. And they're
just flat out mean. They know nothing about the love
of Christ. That's the strong meat. That's
the perfection of our salvation. Experiencing His love. Knowing something of the love
of Christ in our hearts. Now that love has to be built
on these foundational truths. If it's not, then it's not God's
love. It's a cheap counterfeit. But
if it's built on these truths, all that, as believers, having
these ABCs settled in our hearts, that we would move on to perfection
and cry out to the Lord to be pleased to make His love known
to us. What power there is in His love! There's no power in the doctrines
apart from His love. The power of the gospel is experiencing
the love of God in Christ. Let me show you that. Turn with
me to Romans chapter 8. Three times in the New Testament,
the phrase, love of Christ, is used. The first one is here in
Romans 8 verse 35. Who is he that condemneth? Verse
34, it is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession
for us. Now anytime there's an us, there's
implied a them. So it's not that the Lord Jesus
Christ is making intercession for all men, He's making intercession
for those for whom He died. And as our intercessor, as our
advocate before God, there's no condemnation. Who is he that
condemneth? Let the accuser of the brethren
bring all the accusations he wants. I have an advocate with
the Father who ever lives and makes intercession for me. Oh, that I could believe that. who shall separate us from the
love of Christ." The first phrase of the love
of Christ we see in God's Word is that there can be no separation.
If you've ever experienced God's love, if you've ever tasted of
His grace, if you've ever believed the gospel, you can't be separated
from it. As we saw in 1 John chapter 4,
we do love Him, but only because He first loved us. The focus
this morning is not on our love for Him. Herein is love, not
that we loved Him. We don't define our love by how
sincere and committed we are in our love for Him. Our love
for Him will be a reflection of His love for us. And the more,
as we sang in that hymn, the more He's pleased to make His
love known to us, the more manifest our love will be for Him. That's
what I want. I want to talk about His love
for us. His love for us. Where does this theme begin?
Well, it begins in verse 28. And we know. We know this beyond
any shadow of a doubt. It's a truth. contradiction about it, we know
that all things work together for good for them that love God. and those that are the called
according to His purpose. Our God is a God of purpose,
and He works all things after the counsel of His own will,
and that is for His glory and for our good, and we love it
that way. We just love it that way. Can
you say that I love thinking about that my God is controlling
all the events of my life? And as we're reminded by Hugo
in the scripture reading, most especially, he has controlled
everything about my salvation. Look what he goes on to say.
For whom he did foreknow. God didn't look down through
the corridors of time and in His omniscience peer into the
future and see who it was that was going to accept Him and then
choose them based on something. That doesn't even make sense. That's just foolishness. No, He foreknew us. He placed his love on us. He
said, I've loved you with an everlasting love. I've known
you always in Christ. And according to my foreknowledge,
I have predestinated you to be conformed to the image of my
son. You see that? And them that I have predestinated,
I have called. Every one of them, I've called
them. And them that I've called, I've
justified. You know what it means to be
justified. I know we justify ourselves all the time. What
are we trying to do when we justify ourselves? We're trying to remove
from us the guilt of what we've done, aren't we? That's what
justifying is. You know what it is to be justified
before God? That means that you are able
to stand in the very presence of a holy God and have no guilt. No guilt. No sin. No shame. Nothing. Perfectly holy in the presence
of God, accepted in the Beloved. who has become your propitiation
before God. I tell you what, if we learn
anything about the love of God, that's where it's going to start.
The love of Christ. This is the meat of the gospel.
This is it. It's not separated from these
doctrines. But let us move on to perfection.
Look, what shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who
can be against us? They that are with us are more
than they that are with them. God's on my side. God's justified
me. He's called me. He's placed me
in Christ, in the covenant of grace before. Why would he do
such a thing? Why would he do such a thing?
The first cause of your salvation, the very first cause, the original
cause, take it all the way back to its very beginning. You know
what it is? You know what it is? It's the love of God. It's the love of God. That's
what foreknowledge is. That's what foreknowledge is.
I foreknew you. I loved you with an everlasting
love. What are we doing? We're going
back to the beginning. This is where it starts and this
is what it leads to. It's all about the love of God.
And if we could experience it... He that spared not His own Son,
but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him freely
give us all things? If He gave us His Son, what else
is He going to give us? What's He going to hold back
from us? He's given us everything. Why do we doubt? Perfect love
casteth out fear. Why do we doubt God? Why do we
not believe Him? Because we don't believe He loves
us. We really don't. We're not convinced
of it. Why? Because we're still sucking
on the milk as babes. We've not moved on to perfection.
Our faith hasn't enabled us to believe that God loves us. And if we can ever get a hold
of that, just get a hold of a little bit more of it than we have,
that's what it is to grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ.
It's to comprehend the love of Christ. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who
is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea,
rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand
of God, and also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us
from the love of Christ? Who shall tribulation, affliction? It does, doesn't
it? And then the Lord adds enough
to it until we're able to say like David, before I was afflicted
I went astray, but now I've kept thy word. Now I've been brought
back into thy presence. Acts chapter 14 verse 22, confirming
the souls of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in
the faith that we must, through much tribulation, enter into
his kingdom. Paul and Barnabas were affirming
the believers and saying to them, you must, through much tribulation
and affliction, enter into his kingdom. These are God's necessities
for you. Why? So that you can experience
the love of Christ. These things aren't meant to
separate you from him. They're meant to draw you to
him. They're meant to make you dependent upon Him. They're meant
to expose your weakness, and His strength is made perfect
in your weakness. So that Paul was able to say,
when I'm weak, then I'm strong. He called them necessities. And the Lord said, in this world,
you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer, I've overcome
the world." I've overcome the world. Flee to me. These tribulations, they're not
going to separate you from Christ. The Lord's going to see to it
that whatever they are, whatever they are, He's going to see to
it that they're used to bring you to Him. Persecution? You see that? Shall persecution?
It's almost embarrassing to talk about persecution if you know
anything about the history of the church. When Paul's writing
this from a Roman prison, Nero, Nero is the Caesar. He's the king. He's building
the Colosseum to feed believers to lions He's setting the city
of Rome on fire and blaming it on the Christian church and then
arresting Christians and putting them on a pole and dipping them
in oil and using them as torches to light the city. It's almost embarrassing for
us to think about. You read about the things that
took place in the 9th, 10th, 11th century. when the Catholic Church was
interrogating believers and putting them to death by the thousands? And yet, we've almost become more vulnerable
to the subtle disapprovals of our friends, haven't we? It almost
seems like the The personal character assassinations and the subtle
disapprovals have had greater effect on quieting us than those
harsh persecutions were. All that will live godly in Christ
Jesus will suffer persecution. You stand for the gospel and
your friends are not going to want anything to do with you. Shall these things separate us
from the love of Christ? Oh, no. No, they're meant to
draw us to Him. What is the cause of persecution?
Paul said in Galatians chapter 5 verse 11, And I, brethren,
if I yet preach circumcision, why am I then yet persecuted? For then is the offense of the
cross taken away. Persecution comes when the when
the cross and the accomplished work of the cross is declared.
As long as you give men something to do, well, they're happy with
it, aren't they? But you declare the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ as the only hope of a sinner's
salvation, and men will hate you for it. But it won't separate
you from Christ. Look what He says, "...shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine..." Again,
We're almost ashamed, aren't we? We've got the opposite problem,
don't we? We don't have a problem with famine, not of bread and
water. But the Lord said in Amos, He
said, there's a famine in the land. And it's not a famine of
bread and water, but it's a famine of hearing the Word of God. Have you ever experienced that
famine? Have you ever experienced the famine of not being able
to hear, not being able to rejoice, not being able to delight, not
being able to experience the love of Christ in your heart,
being cold-hearted and spiritually dead? Shall these things separate
you from the love of Christ? Oh, no! Oh no, the Lord will
withdraw the awareness of His presence in order to put you
on your knees and cause you to seek Him with more earnest. Shall distress? No. David said in Psalm 118, I called
upon the Lord in my distress. And that word distress means
to be pressed into a narrow place. It means to be between a rock
and a hard place. You ever been there? You ever
been there? That's what it means. And David
said, I called upon the Lord in my distress, and the Lord
answered me and set me in a large place. in a large place. I'm not between
a rock and a hard place anymore. Where am I? I'm swimming in the
sea of the love of Christ. And there's no more distress. It's the love of Christ that's
going to deliver you from all these things. Persecution, famine,
nakedness. We don't know anything about
nakedness. We stand in front of our closets trying to decide
what we're going to wear today. And yet, when the north wind
of shame and guilt blows upon our naked flesh and we feel exposed,
we know something about that nakedness, don't we? Shall these
things separate you from the love of Christ? No! They are
purposed by God to cause you to flee to Him that you might
be clad warmly in the robe of His righteousness. These things won't separate you
from God. Peril? Sword? Again, we know nothing about
the peril and the sword and the threat of death that these early
believers experienced. And yet, how often times the
tongue of our own mouth wields the sword of destruction toward
others. Will these things separate us
from the love of God? Does God withdraw Himself from
us when we say things we ought not to say? Oh, no. He uses them to cause us to flee
back again to His presence for forgiveness and grace and mercy
and love. These things won't separate you
from Him. They will drive you to Him. This
is the meat of the Gospel. The love of Christ. which nothing, nothing can separate
you from. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, quickly. Why do we sin? You understand there's a difference
between sin and sins. We are before God, apart from
Christ, nothing but sin. We have no righteousness within
ourselves. Everything in us falls short
of the glory of God. And if the Lord ever makes you
aware of that, you'll become a mercy beggar, pleading the
righteousness of Christ as your only acceptance before God. But
don't think for a moment that because you are a sinner, that
that gives you license to commit sins. to disobey God. And yet we do. Why do we do it?
Why do we do it? You say, well, because I'm a
sinner, because I'm a child of Adam, because I'm a man of flesh,
because I'm weak. No, but go beyond that. Go beyond
that. John says it's because of the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
It's because of pleasure, popularity, and power. That's what we're
seeking. Why are we seeking that? Let's
go beyond that. Let's go beyond that. Why do
we sin? What is the root cause of our
sin? I'll tell you what it is. Looking for love. in all the
wrong places. That's it! That's it! We're looking to be loved. And our flesh is deceiving us
and thinking, well I'm gonna get love here, or I'm gonna get
love there. Somehow this pleasure is gonna
make me feel loved. Somehow The popularity of people
is going to make me feel loved. Somehow having power over my
circumstances is going to make me feel loved. And it's all unsatisfying,
isn't it? It's all unsatisfying. Like I said in the previous hour,
John Lennon had it right. When he said, all you need is
love. The problem is, he was asking the right question, but
he had no answers. He had no answers. I'm telling
you, according to what God says, here's your answer. God is love. And the love of Christ, shed
abroad in your heart, is the only thing that's going to constrain
you from sin. Look, you have your Bibles open
in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Verse 14, For the love of Christ
constraineth us, because we thus judge, if one died for all, then
are all dead. The only power you and I have
over our sins is the love of Christ. It's the love of Christ. You remember when in God's providence
Joseph was elevated to Prime Minister of the greatest nation
of the world? Second in command over Egypt. And Potiphar's wife tried to
tempt him. And here's what Joseph said.
I'll paraphrase. Joseph said, in all the kingdom
of Egypt There is no difference between Pharaoh and me. He has put everything into my
hands. What Joseph was saying is, when
I go out in the streets, people treat me like Pharaoh. I have
the same authority and the same power in this kingdom that Pharaoh
has. The only thing he's kept back
from me is you. How can I do this against the
one who has given me so much? As he is, so are we. We stand before God in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ and we have everything. Shall He
keep anything back from us? He's not spared His own Son.
Shall He not give us freely all things? We just read that in
Romans chapter 8. Why? Because He loves us and nothing
can separate you from the love of God. The only thing that's going to
restrain you and constrain you in your sin
It's not the law, not the threatenings of the law. The strength of sin is the law. You want to fall to your sins,
then you just consider the ramifications of the law, the threatenings
of the law, the fear of the law. Perfect love casteth out fear.
The law, you want somebody not to do something, just tell them
what they can't do. You want to do something, tell
them they can't do it. You know, we do it with our children, it's
reverse psychology, isn't it? It's just the way we are. Oh,
but the love of Christ, that'll constrain you. That'll constrain
you when you realize that one died for all, therefore we all
live. and that in Christ I am perfect. How can I sin against one who
has done so much for me? You see, we lose sight of the
love of Christ when we sin. If we could believe that He loves
us like He really does, we'd never sin. You can't sin against love. We can't do it. That's our cause. We're looking
for love. And we're being deceived and thinking that these things
are going to make us feel loved. It's the love of Christ that
constraineth us. And it's the only thing that
will constrain you. The law won't constrain you. But His love will. His love will. Ephesians chapter 3 verse 19. I told you there were three times
in the New Testament where the phrase the love of Christ is
used. First one's in Romans 8 to 35, the second one's in 2nd Corinthians
514, and the third one is here in Ephesians chapter 3 and we'll
begin reading in verse Verse 19. Verse 18, I'm sorry. Or verse 17. That Christ may
dwell in your hearts by faith, and that you, being rooted and
grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth, how wide is His love. It's wide enough
to reach every one of His elect. And the length? How long is His
love? It's long enough to keep you
for all eternity. How deep is His love? It's deep enough to go down into
the pit of your sin, the dunghill where you are and where I am,
and pull us out. How high is His love? It's high
enough to carry us into glory, to present us faultless before
His presence with much joy. You know what heaven's going
to be? Experiencing the fullness of His love. Read Romans 1 Corinthians
chapter 13. Faith, hope, and charity, and
the greatest of these is what? Love. Why? Because there's going
to come a time when we won't need faith anymore. Our faith
will be our experience. We won't need hope anymore. Our
hope will be our reality. But love will be what we will
glory in for all eternity. That's what heaven is. It's experiencing
the fullness of His love. This is the meat of the gospel. And if the foundational truths
haven't taken us to higher ground to experience this love, to know the love of Christ. Paul's praying for the church
in Ephesus. He said, I pray for you. I pray that you might know
or comprehend more fully. What is the love of Christ, which
passes knowledge, and that you might be filled with all the
fullness of God? Now unto Him that is able to
do it. You can't do it. I'm not saying that we need to
just work our way up to a higher life, you know, some kind of
walk in the clouds sort of thing. No. No. Lord, would you be pleased to
do something for me I can't do for mine? Would you show me more
of your love? Would you constrain me with the
love of Christ? Would you convince me that the
love of Christ, nothing can separate me from it? Nothing I do can
separate me from it? Now unto him that is able to
do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according
to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the
church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. And God's people said, Amen. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we ask that you would enable us to believe,
to believe that you love us for Christ's sake. We ask it in his
name. Amen. Brother Burt, say it again,
I'm sorry. Softback hymnals number three,
let's stand together. Behold my soul, the love of God,
Behold the grace most free,