Good evening. If you would, open
your Bibles back to 1 John chapter 4. 1 John chapter 4. If you would look at verse 19
with me. It was not planned this way,
but this morning, our pastor preached a message of the second
half of this verse. He loved us. And tonight, my
subject is going to be the first part of this verse. We love him. We love the Lord. About seven or eight years ago,
I preached a message, I didn't preach it here, but somewhere
else that was entitled, I Love the Lord Because. Now this message
has the same object of love, but I'm gonna change one word
in the title because it needs to go with this verse right here
in 19, we love him. So the title of my message is
We Love the Lord Because. This message is unique because
I am not going to try to teach anyone anything. I'm not gonna
be trying to tell you something. My goal is simply to say something
that every child of God believes. I wanna say something with you.
The title is We Love the Lord Because. It's not I love the
Lord because. It's so important as we do this
that we don't focus on what it seems like this is what this
message is about, our love. But our goal here is to look
at all the reasons that we love the Lord Jesus Christ. We want
to look at all these things and why we love him, all the things
that he's done for us. So look at verse 10 here. Herein
is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us. It's important that we know a
few things about the love of God. That we have to start with
His love for us. We not only wouldn't love the
Lord, we wouldn't know the Lord, we wouldn't have any interest
in the Lord, we wouldn't have anything to do with the Lord.
We would continue to hold our fists up, to fight against, to
talk against the Lord Jesus Christ. But because He loved us, we love
Him. But it's not enough to say that
because he loved us, we love him. He made us love him. This is not a reciprocal thing.
This is not the type of thing that we oftentimes feel our relationships
on earth are like. That someone loves me and I love
them because they love me. That's just something that I
choose to do. This is different. His love for
me is not enough for me to love Him. He has to make me love Him.
I can't do anything. And that goes along with everything
we'll talk about, every single reason we say in here. It's very
important to realize, and because I can't repeat it every time,
we don't have time to say this, but every single thing that He
has done for us, all the things that we do because of it are
because of His love for us. We haven't done any of these
things on our own. He makes us do these things. And before we
start, let me share with you an experience I have and something
I struggle with, and maybe it'll help some of you. Because my
goal in this is as I go through these, that everyone in here
will be saying these things with me. That when I say up here,
we love the Lord because you're saying in your heart, that's
right, we love him, I love him because of that reason. But a
phrase that I have struggled with my entire life, I'm 41 years
old, and to this day, I still struggle with this phrase. It
is hard for me to say these words. I love you, Lord. I don't know
why, specifically, I struggle to say that. Maybe it's because
I know that my love isn't adequate for him. Maybe it's because I
go back and forth with my love for him. Maybe it's because I'm
not sure if I do love him sometimes. As I get older, I have come to
realize that every child of God has the exact same thoughts.
And that's because our love isn't adequate enough to love him.
That there are times where not only do I not love him, but I
don't even think of him. But we need not be afraid of
the phrase, I love you, to the Lord. He is deserving of our
love. As sad as it is, our love is
so weak, he's deserving of our love. And also, it's important
to realize that no child of God, that no person has ever had anything
bad happen because from their heart and in a prayer has said,
I love you, Lord. He tells us to pray to Him, to
speak to Him. So with that being said, let's
move on to the first one. We love the Lord because He showed
us who we are. It's not comfortable to talk
about our sin and how awful we are, and we don't need to go
into it. But there's a great illustration in the Word of a
man named Mephibosheth that expresses knowing who we are and what the
Lord has done for us. Mephibosheth was the son of Jonathan,
who was the son of Saul. And when the Lord gave David
the victory over Saul and he became king, in that time, the
thing that was always done, the first act of the king was to
eliminate anyone in the family of the previous king. There was
no need to have a rival. You did not want a son, a grandson,
anyone around. So they would kill everyone in
that family. Well, Jonathan saw a son who
had made a covenant with David. He kept saving David and telling
him things his father was going to do. And in that, David made
a covenant that he would look after and have mercy on anyone
in his family. So when David became king, instead
of the first act searching out and hunting down anyone in the
other family, he said, is there anyone in the house of Jonathan
that I might have mercy upon? Well, they searched and went
and found Mephibosheth. And I think of Mephibosheth's
journey to see David knowing what was coming. There's only
one thing I would imagine to say in all of history before
this time. Every person that this ever happened
to, they had the same fate. He deserved death, and that's
what he was getting. But when Mephibosheth came before
the king, he was surprised to see that what he got was not
death, but he got mercy. that Mephibosheth was not killed,
but instead he was brought into the king's house. He was to forever
share the food at the table of the king. This is what we get. This is what the child of God
understands when we see who we are. There are plenty of people in
this story of Mephibosheth that were in the same place. There
were people in David's family, there were people that were servants,
there were a lot of people there in that kingdom. I promise you,
no one in that room loved and was more grateful for his place
than Mephibosheth. And the reason is because Mephibosheth,
like us, knew what he deserved. He knew he deserved death. He
didn't have a rightful place at that table. But God, in His
mercy for His people, has shown them life. He's given them a
place at His table. You love more when you know you
deserve death. And why did Mephibosheth get
this? Why do we have that? We love
the Lord because He chose us. Turn with me to Ephesians 1. Ephesians 1. Look at verse 2. We love the
Lord because He chose us. Grace be to you and peace from
God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. according as
He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the
praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted
in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace, wherein
He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having
made known unto us the mystery of His will according to His
good pleasure, which He hath purposed in Himself. that in
the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together
in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and
which are on earth, even in him, in whom also we have obtained
an inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him
who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will."
It was his will that chose us and his will that called us.
We can look at both of these at the same time. We love the
Lord because He chose us, and we love the Lord because He called
us. He called us. In 2 Timothy 1,
it says, God hath saved us and called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to His own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began. God hath saved us and called
us. He chose us and saved us before
our experience, before He called us. And we didn't have anything
to do with it. Over and over again in these
verses, the last two passages I've read, I think in four times
it says, in Christ Jesus. We were chosen in Him. We were
called in Him. And everything that we see for
the rest of this message is in the Lord Jesus Christ. How could
we have anything to do with it? It says here, before the foundation
of the world. It says we were predestinated before the world
began. Where did He call us? Where did
He call us to? In 1 Peter 5 it says, "...the
God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by
Jesus Christ." We have heard it preached enough,
so we make the assumption when we hear that the Lord called
us, we understand where He's called us to. But many of the
times, as a child, when I was being called, I was not looking
forward to what the result was going to be. When I heard Luke
come here, that did not usually mean something good was going
to happen. But our God, in His mercy, called us unto His eternal
glory, again, by Christ Jesus. We love the Lord because He prays
for us. Turn to John chapter 17. in the same way that I struggle
with saying I love you to the Lord, I struggle with the thought
of Him praying for me. It doesn't make any sense why
I struggle with that. All the things that we say here,
all the things we read in His Word, for it to be surprising
or not believable that He prays for me is just a sign of the
flesh and of sin. But look at verse 9 and 10 here
in John 17. I pray for them, I pray not for
the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they
are thine, and all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am
glorified in them. This specifically here does not
say I pray for everyone. It says I pray for them, a specific
people, and to be in that pronoun to be in the them is such a blessing. I heard a preacher who was preaching
from this passage say that the Lord prays consistently at every
moment for every single one of His children for eternity. There's never a moment that the
Lord's not praying for His children. Our Lord is in control of all
things. Our salvation is secure, it's finished, and we'll talk
more about that. There is nothing that could possibly
happen to a child of God, yet our Lord prays for us. That should make us to understand
the importance of prayer. It should make us and give us
a desire to pray more often. If our Lord, who is in full control
and knows what is going to happen, prays for us, that not only shows
His love for us, but that He never stops thinking of us in
our situation, our mindset, everything that's going on in our lives.
Our Lord knows of it. He's in control of it. It's in
the right place. When we're struggling, it's because
that's where He put us. That's where He wants us. That's
where we need to be at that moment. And He is praying for us. That
should be great comfort. In His praying for us, something
else we get, we love the Lord because He keeps us. Look at
verse 11 in this same chapter. And now I am no more in the world,
but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father,
keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that
they may be one as we are." Our Lord holds us, He protects us,
He keeps us. In the scripture, we see Him
keeping us under His wing. We see in His bosom. We see in
the cleft of the rock. We see in His hand. We see in
His arms. We see so many ways. But the
key to all of that is that our Lord keeps us. We are safe. He's praying for us and He's
holding us. He's keeping us. And it gets
better than that. Look at verse 12. While I was
with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. It doesn't
say, the first verse before that says, keep them, and then it
says, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou gavest me, I
have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition
that the scripture might be fulfilled. How can it get better than the
Lord keeping us? The Lord has kept us, and it
says, and none of them is lost. Now, if we weren't alive yet
when this happened, how could he have kept us? Well, on this
earth, the Lord did what was necessary for us to be kept forever. We'll go in a minute to another
characteristic of the Lord, His omniscience, His omnipotence.
Our Lord, when He chose us before time began, at that moment, He
had kept us. Our Lord, in His holiness, His
ability, His mercy and His grace, the moment He chose us, we were
kept. Now, we can't understand that. We can't grasp it because we
can't do it. If my wife and I want to go out and we have a babysitter,
or we take our kids to someone's house and we say, will you please
keep our children? We have confidence that you will do the best you
can. And you want to do the best you can. But we can't do anything. We do the best we can. But when
our Lord says He will keep someone, they are kept. It's done. All right? We love the Lord because
He feeds us. Look with me at Luke 12. Luke
chapter 12. When we think of the Lord feeding
us, our minds just naturally go to Him feeding us, feeding
our bellies and sustaining us. Though that is very true, and
He will always take care of His children, it goes much more than
that. Look at Luke 12, verse 22. And he said unto his disciples,
Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what
ye shall eat, neither for the body, what ye shall put on. The
life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. Consider
the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which neither have
storehouse nor barn. And God feedeth them, how much
more are ye better than the fowls? And which of you, with taking
thought, can add to his stature one cubit?" The Lord says, don't
take thought in what you're going to eat, the things of this world,
don't even consider it. And then He adds to that, and
if you do consider it, what could you possibly do anyway? He says,
there's nothing you can do about it. All right, keep going. Verse
26, if ye then be not able to do that thing which is least,
why take ye thought for the rest? Consider the lilies, how they
grow. They toil not, they spin not,
and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed
like one of these. If then God so clothed the grass,
which is today in the field, and tomorrow is cast into the
oven, how much more will He clothe you, O ye of little faith? And seek not ye what ye shall
eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be of doubtful mind."
Not only don't seek for it, don't worry about it, and don't stress
over it, but here's where we get to. for all these things
do the nations of the world seek after. This is what the world
does. And your father knoweth that ye have need of these things,
verse 31, but rather seek ye the kingdom of God and all these
things shall be added unto you. Our earthly needs are obviously
met. Our earthly needs are so far
beyond that. We have so much more than we
actually need. But instead, we should focus
on the spiritual things. It says there in verse 31, Seek
ye the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto
you. If you seek, they will be added
to you. Instead of focusing on these
earthly things, focus on spiritual things. They are equally secure,
but they are much greater. Our spiritual well-being, a child
of God, is as sure and secure as our earthly well-being, but
it is of much, much greater importance. How can all of this be possible?
These things that we're talking about, that He chose us, that
He keeps us, He feeds us, how is all this possible? Can all
this really be done? Well, we love the Lord because
He is omnipotent, because He's all-powerful, because He is in
control. This is a fact that is undisputable. It is pointless to argue, it's
pointless to debate it, though many men and women have and will
try to. Many of you have heard this illustration
before, but it's applicable here. When I was in college, we were
required to take a religion class. And so in that class, the first
day, the teacher started with the students and said, I want
everyone to go up on the board and write one word describing
God. So we started in the front left corner and we went around
the room. And I had a piece of paper and I just started writing
words down. I was 23rd in the room. I still
remember, I was 23rd because I was worried I wasn't going
to have a word to use. And I was writing words down, and the first
person went up and wrote holy. And somebody went up and wrote
merciful. And there was a good list of words going. And as they
did, I crossed off the ones that I had. And when it came to my
turn, the next one on my paper, it was all powerful. So I went
up and I wrote that word on the board. We went the rest of the
way. Well, I thought we had a pretty
good list. So the teacher then spent the next 15 to 20 minutes
talking about events that happened and the tragic things that happened
during the Holocaust, an event that many people died. And it was a horrible event.
But I knew of it, but I didn't know much about it. And in listening
to all the descriptions of it, I was just taken aback. I was
like, man, that was bad. But when it ended, this teacher
said, now, we're gonna start on the other side, and considering
all those events I just described, I want you to go up to the board,
and I want you to write another word about God, to describe God. At the time, I didn't have a
heart knowledge of the gospel. I understood it, I grew up in
it, but I didn't have a heart knowledge for it. And I was confused. I did not understand what was
happening. I remember sitting there thinking, we've used all
the good words. I don't know what else to write.
And the first or second person went up and wrote, I think it
was mysterious. And then another person wrote
confused. And it hit me. I didn't believe
it, but I knew at that moment what was happening. And it came
to my turn, and by the grace of God, I walked up and I wrote
S-T-I-L-L hyphen in front of holy. Nothing that has ever taken place
in this world, nothing that any person has ever said or has ever
done has any effect, cannot change, cannot move cannot steal the
glory or anything of the attributes of God. God is in control of
everything. God is so powerful that there's
nothing that anyone can do, say, or think that God has not already
seen happening in full control and in full, His hands are in
control of everything. His power is amazing. His strength,
Him being in control, it's awesome. It is awe-inspiring to see the
ability and the power of our God. and we're very thankful
for that and we love that. But the part that we truly love,
the thing that makes the sinner, the child of God, say, we love
the Lord because, is because someone that powerful, someone
that holy, has used it to save a people, to save sinners like
us. His power doesn't necessarily
help me. I'm a sinner. He's just and I
deserve damnation, but that he's used his power and his control
to save his children. We love him for that. Like Mephibosheth,
we deserve to die, but he saved us instead. And we love the Lord because
he has made us to believe this. Look in John 3. We love the Lord
because He's made us to believe these things. John chapter 3. The Word of God, this book, is
simple. Yet the smartest people in the
world can't understand it. It contains the greatest message
a sinner, any man or woman, could ever hear, yet there is such
little interest. And this book is the only place
to find hope and peace, yet no man or woman has the desire to
search for it. Look at John 3, verse 10. Jesus answered and said unto
him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and
testify that we have seen, and ye receive not our witness. If
I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall
ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things? An example of a way that maybe
we can illustrate this. If you've ever played a board
game where the question and the answer are on the same card.
So you have the card with the question, and the answer's on
the same card. But what they do is they take
that answer, and they put these different colors on it, and these
different lines, and you're looking right at the answer, and you
have no idea what it says. Until you take that little red
film, and you put the card in it, and there it is. There's
the word. It's so easy to read. This book, The Word of God, We
can look at it, we can read it, we can examine it, and we don't
have a clue. We can't understand anything
it says, we don't have a desire, it's just impossible, we can't
see it. It says here, if I've shown you
earthly things, if I talked of heavenly things, you wouldn't
believe those either. We love the Lord because he has
made us to see and to believe the word of God. Just like everything
else in this message, we just aren't capable of believing on
our own. We need the veil to be lifted. We need to be shown. We need
someone to tell us. And once we hear it, we need
the Lord, the Spirit, to make it effectual, make us believe
it and love it. And just like everything else in this message,
the Lord provides these things. We cry out, Lord, I believe,
but help my unbelief. What is it that He makes us to
believe? We love the Lord because He became
a man. He came to this earth. Right
here in John 3, look at verse 13. And no man hath ascended
up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son
of Man, which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal
life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into
the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him
might be saved. He that believeth on him is not
condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because
he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
In 1 John 4 it says, We have seen and do testify that the
Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever
shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him,
and he in God. He became a man to do what we
couldn't do. Someone had to provide a righteousness. Someone had to fulfill the law.
And we fail miserably on a daily basis of it. But someone, we
had to, in order for us to be saved, we have to be perfect.
We have to have a perfect righteousness. So he came to do that. He fulfilled
the law by being perfect and never sinning. And then, it's
not enough just that he became a man, but we love the Lord because
he died for us. Turn to 1 Corinthians 15. We love the Lord because he became
a man, and we love the Lord because he died for us. Our Lord being perfect, was enough for Him to be righteous. Him being perfect was His righteousness. But He had to die so that we
could have that righteousness. Our sin had to be paid for. The
reason He died is because our sin had to be punished. He is
a holy God. Look at verse 1 of 1 Corinthians
15. Moreover, brethren, I declare
unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have
received, and wherein ye stand. by which also ye are saved, if
ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed
in vain. For I delivered unto you, first
of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our
sins according to the Scriptures." The Lord Jesus Christ died on
the cross bearing the sins of His people, our sins. Do we ever consider the anguish
and the pain that the Lord Jesus Christ felt because of us? It was our sins. We deserved what he got. And
it was, and it's hard to think of this, but it's specifically
our sins. The sins that I've committed,
I caused that anguish for him to go through that. And then
do we also realize that when He proclaimed, it is finished
from the cross, that He was specifically referring to the payment of our
sins. The line, it is finished, has
a lot of specific meanings, but one of them is this, that when
He yelled it out, We, the child of God, every single sin that
we've committed, we would commit, and whenever we lived, all of
that sin at that moment was paid for. It was gone. It was off
our record. We did not have to be punished
for it. And to punctuate this, to finalize
it, His holiness and His perfection, we love the Lord because He arose
from the grave. Look at verse 4 in this chapter,
1 Corinthians 15. and that he was buried, and that
he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. And then go
down to verse 20. But now is Christ risen from
the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since
by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the
dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive. But every man in his own order,
Christ the firstfruits, afterward they that are Christ at his coming.
Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the kingdom
to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule
and all authority and power. For he must reign till he hath
put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be
destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under
his feet, but when he saith, All things are put under him,
it is manifest that he is accepted, that which did put all things
under him. The Lord Jesus Christ, God Almighty,
has successfully made us perfect and complete in Him. He paid
our sin debt. He gave us His perfect righteousness. He conquered sin and death so
that we didn't have to, that we couldn't. Now to review what
we've said so far, we love Him because He first loved us. We
love Him because He showed us who we are and what we deserved.
We love Him because He chose us and He called us. We love
Him because He prays for us. We love Him because He keeps
us. We love Him because He feeds us. We love Him because of His
power and in control. We love Him because He made us
to believe these things, the truth. We love Him because He
became a man, because He died for us, and because He arose
victorious and sits on the throne. And we love the Lord because
He currently is sitting on the throne of glory, ruling and reigning
as the whole host of heaven praise Him and shout glory to God in
the highest. We love Him because one day,
maybe today, maybe a ways off, we will be in that host. will be without this rotten flesh,
will be without the burden of sin. Instead, we will be clothed
in His righteousness. And we will be in that host,
and we will be shouting, we will be singing, and we will be glorifying
the Lord God of heaven as we finally can love Him as we truly
should. Now, in closing, I wish that
I could have said this or preached this in the way of, we love you,
Lord, because all of these comments we've made and all of these things
I've said that we believe need to be proclaimed to Him. But
in closing, what I want to do is I want us to bow our heads
and I want us to pray. And we're just gonna pray, I'm
just gonna say the things we just said, and we'll just say
them to Him, okay? So let's offer thanks. Our Heavenly Father, we love
you because you first loved us. We love you because you showed
us our sin. Lord, we love you because you
chose us. We love you, Lord, because you
called us. Lord, we love you because you
pray for us. Lord, we love you because you
keep us and you've kept us. Lord, we love you because you
feed us. Lord, we love you because You're
in control of everything. Lord, we love you because you
have made us to believe the truth about salvation in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Lord, we love you because you
became a man. Lord, we love you because you
died for us, bearing our sins. Lord, we love you because you
arose victorious from the grave. We love you because you sit on
the throne in glory as we speak. And Lord, we love you because
one day, because of all these things, we will be able to love
you and worship you in a way that you deserve. In Christ's
name, we say these things. Amen.