Here in verse 5, I read this
this morning, I think. He talked about a good hope, and
a good hope maketh not a shame. Hope has its finality in the absoluteness of the person
and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That sound hope that
is drawn from the scriptures does not make us ashamed. We
are not ashamed of that hope. We are not ashamed of Him whom
we owe hope to, the Lord's Christ. The apostle in this book He said
once that he was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. He said it was the power of God
unto salvation to everyone that believed it. So he wasn't ashamed. He didn't cringe or draw back
when he was in a crowd that might have been more esteemed by the
world than Paul was, he was not ashamed to identify himself with
God's Christ. Hope maketh not ashamed. And the reason we talked this
morning about, there must be a reason. reason for this hope
and be able to explain this hope. Now, hope maketh not ashamed. We're not ashamed of Him. We're
willing to identify ourselves with Him, willing and glad and
willing to follow Him in baptism. And we remember Him on the Lord's
Day, and we remember Him each day of the week. And to our shame,
we don't remember Him like we ought to. He ought to be remembered
every hour of the day in some way. His love is so great that
it demands that. out of us. His love demands a
response, and our response ought to be seen in our conduct and our character,
that not only are we his by adoption, by new birth, but we're His by right, and we
ought not to be ashamed of it. So hope maketh not ashamed, and
the reason why is because the love of God has been shed abroad
in our hearts. The love of God being shed abroad
in a man's heart does not make him bashful as to identify himself
with the Christ of God. The love of God doesn't make
him reluctant to enter into a conversation with others and bring into it the love of
God and God Almighty and his holiness and his justice and
his righteousness and how he saves sinners. Sometimes we have that opportunity,
we lay back. We'll lay back and hope the conversation
can be turned around because we know generally what this group
thinks or what they would think of us if we begin this business. It's kind of a form of of coward,
cowardness on our part. We wouldn't want to be looked
down upon as some sort of a fundamental religionist or Christian. But this hope, that good hope
and that sound hope, it doesn't make us ashamed. It makes us
bold. Bold as a line. We won't give
in or give up. We won't change the trend of
the conversation. We'll stay in there and give
witness. Don't make us ashamed. And the
reason is because the love of God, that's what I'm trying to
say, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. And that's what I want to talk
to you, just a little bit here, not long. The love of God and the matchless
grace of God. And we'll get to that in a minute. Now, in this particular verse,
the emphasis certainly is on the love of God. But there is
a love. which God has as the God of nature. And it bears to creation as the
work of His own hands. And there in the book of Genesis
it says, He saw it, that is, His creation, the work of His
hands. And He said, on that seventh day, He said
He saw it and it was very good. Now there is a love of God that
He does bear to creation. It's very good. All that He does,
all the works of creation, He says is very good. The love of God in the context
as it's mentioned in this verse, the love of God as said abroad
into the hearts of his people far exceeds the love of God that
he has to nature. It far exceeds that. This love
that he has for his people exceeds the love that he has for his
nature as far as the east is from the west, the love of God
that is shed abroad in our hearts. This love of God to us is the
love of a covenant God. And not only is it the love of
a covenant God, but it is the love of each of the glorious
persons in the Trinity. It's the love of God the Father,
it's the love of the Lord Jesus Christ the Son, and it's the
love of the Holy Spirit. So you can see then that His
love, God's love to us, He has brought in our heart far exceeding. because any other aspect of his
love, because it is the love of the Trinity of his persons.
And that love is a shed abroad in our hearts. We talk about
tasting the love of God. It can be tasted, it can be felt. We've felt the love of God. We've
seen the love of God in action. as it finds a sin-smitten, stricken
soul and rescues him and delivers him from going down into the
pit. Love of God. Now, this love of
God as a covenant God and the love of each of His glorious
persons was fixed on his people without any reason assigned to
it. God never fixed a reason for
fixing his love upon the people that he selected or chose out
and put in Christ. before time was. No reason assigned
to it. And we oftentimes say, in order
to clarify things, I've said many times that God, when He saved me, it was not because of any reason
in me. There was no reason in me why
he would do anything for me apart from damning me. It would not
be a sin for God to damn my soul because justice has demanded
that my soul be damned and that I experience the death of hell
that of the next world. No reason in me. And God assigned
no reason for sanctifying you and I and setting us apart and
giving us to Christ as making Christ our surety. No reason
for it except His love. His love was shed abroad in our
hearts. We didn't deserve it. We didn't
warrant it. We didn't merit it. We wasn't
entitled to it. If we live to be 200 years old,
there'll not be a minute of that one year or month or week or
day that would entitle us. There's no short period of time
when we become so pure that God could say, well, there's a minute
or a second. nothing about us, altogether
unlovely. He who is altogether lovely looked
upon us who is altogether unlovely and had mercy on us and found
pity in his heart and brought the grace of God to us without
any reason assigned to it. Not because we were more lovely
than others in ourselves. That wasn't it. For considered as sinners, had God never loved us when He
considers us as sinners now, prior to the fixing of His eyes
upon us and sanctifying us considering us as sinners, had God never
loved us till our hearts turned from self unto him, or until
he had seen some beauty in us, he would have never loved us
at all. Never. Wasn't nothing there,
Bob. a black spot, a blank. It was
a blot. We're just a blot in time. Nothing there to entice God to
look in our direction. Not one redeeming quality. Not one. He would have never looked at
us at all. When the Apostle Paul was looking
into this great mystery of the love of God. He stands amazed, Paul does,
as he looks at this great and glorious thing that God has done
for his people. He loved them and gave himself
for them. Paul prays there. for the church at Ephesus, he
prays that they might comprehend what is the height and the length and the depth
and the breadth of the love of God. He prays that they might
comprehend that. And it cannot be comprehended.
The love of God is deeper than our miseries. The love of God
and the grace of God, matchless grace, goes deeper than the stain. So Paul stands amazed. Neither men nor angels can sound
the depth of it. or scan the height of it, or
measure the length of the love of God. It reaches throughout
all the streets of time and all the avenues and all the outlets. It's everywhere at all times,
all of it, all at once. Well, this love of God that cannot
be comprehended, cannot even be fathomed in any direction. What was it that induced, what induced the Father, God
the Father, to give His only Son to be stricken and smitten
and afflicted. What induced God to do that? The love of God that's been set
abroad in our hearts. That's what induced him to do
it. It wasn't anything that he'd seen in us. If he had waited
until he'd seen something in us that would give him reason
to do something for us, he never would have done anything. It
was out of his pure, unfathomed love for his people that he set
his affections upon it. Well, what induced the Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, to stoop and to come into this lower world
and take upon himself our nature and suffer and bleed and die? Well, it was the love of God. And he says, because the love
of God is here to broaden our hearts. Well, then there is such
a thing as the matchless grace of God. Now, the grace of God
and the love of God have similarities, But they're not the same. It
would be very difficult for me to attempt to try to show the
difference. But I do know that the grace
of God is the favor of God. I know that. And I know that
this grace, matchless grace, was given to me in Christ before
the world began. Not because He owed it to me,
but because it pleased Him to do it. It was according to His
good pleasure. What would we have done with old Peter? You know that Peter was considered
the kind of the chief honcho, the chief leader of the disciples. Many consider him to be that.
The scriptures might indicate that in places, that Peter was
kind of the leading apostle. I don't know for sure. But what
would we have done with Peter? You remember what Peter's crime
was. Peter committed a crime against
the love of God, against the matchless grace of God. I consider Peter's crime more
outrageous, worse than that of Judas Iscariot. I think one reason why I believe
that is because Peter held more intimate and lengthy conversations
with the Lord Jesus Christ himself than Judas did. I can't recollect
that Judas had many conversations with the Lord Jesus. I remember, though, when Peter
went up into the Mount of Transfiguration and he saw the glory of God descend
on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was an eyewitness
to the glory of God and the glory of Christ. Old Peter was. Just
Peter, James, and John. And they went up to the Mount
with him. I can't imagine, I can't depict the scene. These three
ordinary men with the Son of God who was more than man, God
and man in one person, they went up on this great mountain. They
went with him. And he saw the glory of Almighty
God. Judas did not have that privilege. Judas was not one of the three.
He didn't go with them. He was left behind. Now, when the apostle Peter confessed
his belief in the sonship of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord
Jesus Christ said to Peter, When Christ said, Peter, whom
do you say that I am? He said, Thou art the Son of
the living God. And our Lord said to Peter this.
He said, Peter, flesh and blood hath not revealed that to you,
but my Father which is in heaven. Judas had no revelation like
that. Not like Peter had. So I believe Peter is more to
be blamed than Judas Iscariot. And then Peter, who warmed himself
by the enemy's fire, and that little girl said, Why,
your speech betrays you. You must be one of them. No,
I'm not one of them. I never knew it. Judas, worse than Judas, I never
knew it. Well, Peter was told when he denied
the Lord, he said, Though all men forsake you, Don't worry
about me. I'll be there when everyone else
is gone. Well, he said, I've got to go
to Jerusalem. I've got to suffer and die. Not so, Lord. I'll go
with you. If everybody else forsakes you,
leave and go. But he said, I'll lay down my
life for you. Well, if Peter could fall, watch out. Remember I said the other night,
I said in this perseverance business, I said, remember, I'm not saying
that you can't fall or won't fall. I'm saying if you do fall,
you'll rise and walk again and follow him. But you're not limited
to strict perfection. You may fall. I may fall. I have fell. I have fell. I don't mean to tell you that
I've killed somebody or murdered somebody. I have my dreams. I've
killed a few of them in my dreams. Woke me up. Scared me to death.
Lived, you know, be awake for an hour trying to get that thing
straightened out. Trying to make myself believe
that I wasn't in there. I didn't do that. Worried about
that. I didn't kill anybody that way.
I haven't committed any great crime or all that, but I fell.
I fell. Thank God, the grace of God,
the love of God maketh a man not ashamed that he'll come and
confess his sin unto God and say, Lord, forgive me. Have mercy
on me. We can fall. Peter fell. Peter
fell, but he didn't stay down. He didn't stay down. Now, the
Lord came to him there in the book of 1 Peter and said, The
first John said, Peter, lovest thou me? So he met three times. The last time Peter said, Lord,
thou knowest. You are God. You know all things. Thou knowest in spite of what
I have done. I love thee. And the Lord Jesus
Christ said, Well, Peter, feed my sheep. Remember that? Well,
what would you have done with Peter? For instance, if we had
friends, bosom friends, close friends that we knew most of
our lives and knew their fathers and mothers and their children
and all, what would you do if our friends would deny us before
others? in our presence, what would we
do? Well, I'd be highly insulted,
wouldn't you? I'd be highly insulted. I'd be
hurt, and it'd bother me. And I'd probably tell them real
quick, stay away from my door, if that's the way you feel about
me. Just don't come around no more. and probably tell him to stay
away from her and leave us be. But that's not what the Lord
Jesus Christ is. Matchless grace, the love of
God, matchless grace. I'll tell you, the wounds that
Peter made in the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ brought forth
something. And the something that was brought
forth That was the grace of God, the grace of Almighty God. Grace, grace, wonderful grace,
amazing grace, matchless, matchless grace. The wounds that Peter
made in the heart of God brought forth grace, looked upon him
and pitied him, gave him forgiveness, restored his soul. I said, Peter,
feed my sheep the love of God and the matchless grace of God.
May that be of a help to us, encourage us, comfort us as we
go our way. In this world of war, if we're challenged, let's be
ready to give an answer. If a man asks us for a reason
for our hope, let's tell him the reason. What's the reason
for your hope? A hope in Christ. My hope is in Christ, in His
person, in His work, in His righteousness. entitles me to all the blessings
of heaven. His Word. I believe in Him. I trust in Him. And by the grace
of God, I'll follow Him.