I hope that you have your Bible
open there to 2 Thessalonians. That's where we're going to be
today, 2 Thessalonians chapter 3. Last week we were looking at
the letter that the Lord Jesus Christ, through the apostle John,
sent to the church of Ephesus in the book of Revelation. In
Revelation chapter 2, And if you remember there, that the
Lord said, I have someone against you because you have lost your
first love. I don't want to lose my first
love, and I don't think you do either. He didn't mean that they
had lost it entirely. The word for lost in that verse,
in the fourth verse of Revelation 2, doesn't mean lost as if never
to recover. it means it's declined, it has
grown cold. And that is exactly what was
going on in that church. But as we began to look at that
last week, we We fled for refuge, didn't we? We fled for refuge to the fact
that our love to God is a result of His love to us. And so, thinking
along those lines and realizing that the Lord tells us that it
is our tendency our tendency to let our love for Christ, that
first love we had when we first heard the gospel as sinners,
to let that slip and to decline and grow cold. And then we wonder
when we consider that this is true of ourselves, we wonder
that the Lord would put up with us at all, don't we? And so it
gets us into this entire contemplation, really, and appeal
and supplication to the Lord that He would be gracious to
us and to forgive us our great sin. That we would act as if
we could live our lives independent of Him and do what we want to
do and presume upon His love and not have a concern about
the fact that what it costs to save us from our sins. And those
things actually give us great grief, don't they? They give
us great concern of our soul. And so I thought it would be
good if we would consider this morning, this verse of scripture
in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 that we find here. The apostle had
written to the Thessalonians because they had been tempted
by some who said that the resurrection was past. And obviously, if the
resurrection was passed and they weren't there, then the entire
message of the gospel was faulty. It was false. And they had believed
for nothing. They had not only believed for
nothing, but they had labored in faith, holding to Christ and
suffering all that they suffered because of their profession of
faith. trusting Christ and everything
that they endured would have been for nothing. And so the
apostle speaks to them. He tells them in 1 Thessalonians
that the day of the Lord won't come until there's this great
falling away first. And this man of sin needs to
be revealed first. And he then assured them that
the coming of Christ won't come upon them like a thief, because
they're children of the light, not children of darkness. And
this gives us great comfort. And then he went on in chapter
four of 1 Thessalonians to describe Christ's coming, that when he
comes again, he's going to raise his people from the dead bodily. bodily. They're in the grave,
their bodies are decomposing, and they will remain in that
condition until the Lord Jesus comes again. Now, these are things
that are true, and it's argued from Scripture, from the Gospel,
that these things are certain. And so, when the apostle is speaking
to them here in this text of Scripture, he tells them to pray
for us. Verse 1, that the word of the
Lord may have free course and be glorified, even as it is with
you. The work of the ministry is ongoing,
Paul is telling them. It hasn't come to an end. Christ
has not come. He says, pray for us. We are
now dependent upon God fulfilling his purpose of grace to save
his people, to make the gospel effectual in those he is saving,
in us and in them. He says in verse two that we
may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men for all men have
not faith. We wonder, we know that it says
in Romans chapter 11, God has concluded them all in unbelief. So not only do not all men have
faith, but those who do have it, have it because God has released
them from the prison of their own unbelief. Because when it
says in Romans chapter 11, And I think it's around verse 32
that God has concluded them all in unbelief. It's showing that
he shut them up to their own unbelief. And they're in that
prison until God, through the gospel, gives them light and
releases them. So he says not all men have faith
because God doesn't give that gift to all men. Faith is a sovereign
gift. All of God's grace is entirely
dependent on God. It's not dependent upon us. But
because not all men have faith, therefore, there are those who
are opposed to the gospel, opposed to Christ, and opposed to his
people. He goes on, but the Lord is faithful who shall establish
you and keep you from evil. Whatever the evil that comes
on us is, it's in God's hands. He's going to deliver us from
it. Ultimately, that will be in our resurrection. Verse four,
and we have confidence in the Lord touching you that you both
do and will do the things which we command you. So on that, he
then tells us, he gives us the way in which God causes us to
do the things which have been commanded of us. And you know
those commandments the Lord has given to us, don't you? He has
commanded us to believe on his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and
to love one another. Those are the two commandments
the Lord has given his church. And in these is everything. Everything
else flows from these. And you can read 1 Corinthians
13, the description of love there, and you'll see that by our faith
in Christ, we have this result of that, this work of love in
our hearts, and it produces the fruits of love, which are listed
in 1 Corinthians 13. And so he says, in accord, consistent
with his statement here that he knows that the Lord, that
they will both do the things which he commanded them, he has
confidence of this, he says, and the Lord, direct your hearts
into the love of God and to the patient waiting for Christ. So
this is a summary of our life right now. This is a summary
of the apostles' instruction to the church and to us. We're
part of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every local church
is part of the entire church, which is all of God's elect,
all of Christ's redeemed, all those who are given the grace
of the Spirit of God to trust Christ. So we want to look at
this verse, verse 5, the Lord direct your hearts into the love
of God. Because if we are grown cold in faith, then the only
way we can be revived is if the Lord directs our hearts into
the love of God. Because we saw last week from
1 John 4 that we love him because he first loved us. So we need
to be directed by the Lord in our hearts to the love of God. And so that's what this message
is about, the love of God. So the first thing we want to
consider here is where is the love of God? Where is it seen? Who are the
objects of this love of God? Now, you know that God is just. There are statements of scripture
that tell us who God is. God is just. That's a clear statement
in scripture. He is not only just, but he's
the justifier of them which believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. So
he's just. And God is holy. So we know that God is just.
We know that God is holy. But we know that God is not just
some kind of a composition of these different things added
together in some kind of an aggregate. We think of Play-Doh. You take
your yellow and your blue and your green and you stuff them
together and squish them around. Pretty soon they change colors
and they take on this merge of those colors. God is not a composition
of these things. He is holy in all of his character. His nature is holy. He cannot
do anything that is not holy. He is righteous in all his works.
and holy in all of his ways. It's from Psalm 147.15. So God
is all these things in all of his nature. So God is just, God
is holy, God is righteous. It says in Psalm 31.5, Lord God
of truth, God is truth, there is no truth. That doesn't come
from him. Pilate asked Jesus. It was such
a revelation of Pilate's ignorance. What is truth? When the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is God and who is the truth, stood before
him. I mean, what greater testimony to the utter blindness of our
natural hearts than that question? What is truth? He asked the one
who is truth itself. So God is truth. He's holy. He's
just. And God is eternal. He's eternal. So all these things are true
about God. And God is also love. But when we ask the question,
who are the objects of His love, we are often confronted with
the ignorance of sinful men who say, well, God is love, so God
loves everybody. How could he not love everybody?
I mean, just look at the quality of these people that he's created.
I mean, consider Satan and his devils and these people. I mean,
how could God deny his love to any of these? But the scripture
is so evidently plain that God does not love the devil. Everyone
will agree with that, won't they? Why? Well, remember when Jesus
was on the earth and a father or a mother would come to him
pleading, my son or my daughter is troubled. They're vexed by
this unclean spirit. And Jesus would command that
unclean spirit to get out of them. And they would leave, of
course, because they were opposing those whom Christ loved. And
so they had made themselves the object of his hatred. And His
justice. His justice. God is just. And can He not execute justice? If God does not punish and does
not defend and execute justice against those who oppose the
ones He loves, then how can you say He's love? Right? If God
doesn't come to the defense and deliver his people from their
enemy, then is God love? Well, no, we would say, of course
not. God's love obviously isn't doing much for these poor people
who are afflicted by the enemy of their souls when those people
are attacking the very ones God says he loves. So clearly, God
doesn't love the devil. He doesn't love demons. So we
understand that God's love doesn't have to cover all of his creation. And then we also read in Psalm
5, verse 5, that God hates all workers of iniquity. And so we
realize that yes, in all that God is in his character, it doesn't
mean that he is only love. It means that he is love, and
just, and holy, and righteous, and truth. And all these things
have to be true of God at the same time. So it makes sense
for us to see that if God is love, that he is also going to
hate the wrong, don't we? I mean, how often have you, when
your child, let's say you have children and one of them picks
on the other one, what are you doing? Why are you picking on
this one? And you immediately correct them.
You're attacking one of my children. Stop that. And we get a little
indignant that they would be so bold as to presume that they
could just simply unleash all kinds of words and actions against
this other one that we love. And so we correct them right
away, don't we? And how much more would God show his justice
in favor of his people, especially his son? when those who hate
his son would think to do what they want against him with impunity
and without any consequences. God, we would applaud the Lord
for being just, wouldn't we? There's a madman who's out murdering
and mercilessly and cruelly hurting and doing these things. And we
would expect God to stand up for the right, wouldn't we? We
wouldn't have any problem with that. We expect God to be just.
We applaud him for being just. We're thankful that God is just. But what happens is we don't
have the objectivity to stand outside of ourselves and say,
yes, God should be just with me too. Because look at the sinful
person that I am. And then we realize that there's
no basis in us why God would show us any kindness. And then
it begins to dawn on us. Of course, this is through the
revelation of the gospel. Once we've understood it, that
God's justice is sovereign and his love is sovereign. So he
shows justice according to his nature and love according to
his nature, but according to his sovereignty, his goodwill,
to make known his own nature and manifest who he is as God
and so that we would worship him and we would stand in awe
of him. And nothing draws forth this
awe and reverence of God. more than knowing He is sovereign
in all that He is. He is love, yes, He is love,
but He's sovereign in His love. He is gracious, but He is gracious
to whom He will be gracious. He's merciful, but He's merciful
to whom He will be merciful. And He is love, but He shows
love, saving love, to those He has chosen to love before. because he is also just and he
will not allow the guilty to go free. He won't. So that makes
me concerned, because I know I'm guilty, and you know you're
guilty. And God says that the law is
given to shut every mouth, that everyone would realize that they're
guilty before God does. And that leaves us in a terrible
predicament. Not only are we guilty, but we find in ourselves
this sinful, this wicked nature, this mind is corrupt and opposed
to God, and we think, How can I not only be delivered from
my guilt, but from the horrible person that I am in my mind and
my heart? And then we realize that something
has to be done by God. And is there anything that God
would do? Would God be so gracious as to
do the impossible and save me from my sin? And that's where
the gospel comes in. And so, you see, God first describes
our helplessness in Psalm 113 and verse 6. It says, God has
to humble himself to consider the things that are in heaven
and on earth. We don't have any appreciation, really, in comparison
to God's infinite character and nature and person. We naturally
think God is like us. He must be like us. No, he's
not. He's holy and we are not holy. And we don't even understand
what holy is because it's so foreign to our nature and our
thoughts. And so God, in his mercy and in his great kindness,
has been pleased to reveal his love upon the backdrop, in the
context of all of our corruptions and our sin and our helplessness
and the just wrath that we deserve for those things. And so he tells
us the objects of his love are those he chose to love. Look
at Deuteronomy chapter seven. I want you to see this. What
reason does God give for his love? Does he say, well, you
know, I found a good man over here. I'm going to love that
man. And here's a woman. She's lovely, but not this person. In Deuteronomy 7, in verse 7,
it says, the Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose
you, because you were more in number than any people, for you
were the fewest of all people. Here's the answer of the wisdom
of the Spirit of God. He says, but because the Lord
loved you. Well, wait a minute, because
the Lord loved you. You mean, the Lord loved you
because? No, because the Lord loved you. In other words, it starts and
ends with because the Lord loved you. Well, what reason does he
give? Because the Lord loved you. He
doesn't look for a reason outside of himself because there is no
reason outside of God. God is love and there is no love
outside of God. And so now we realize that there's
something much greater here than we ever considered before. If
the Lord just loves because he would love, because he is love,
and because it is his nature and will to love, then we can't
influence him, can we? Did we influence God before we
had a being? Did we step up out of our the
void of our uncreated nothingness, and give God counsel how He should
create us? Or before we were born, tell
Him that we should be conceived? No, of course not. It's ridiculous
to consider those things. What isn't ridiculous, though,
is that God did everything before He did it in His own mind and
purpose and will. Look at Acts chapter 15. Or is it 18? I think it's 15. Let me make sure I got this right
here. Acts chapter 15. He says in Acts
chapter 15, and this is James who is explaining this to those
who were opposed to the Gentiles, to God saving the Gentiles. After
this, in verse 13, these men held their peace because there
was a dispute among them. Because when Peter preached to
Cornelius and the Gentiles and the Lord saved them, they were,
how could these Gentiles be saved? And Peter said, well, we believe
that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be
saved even as they. So Peter turned it around. Instead
of saying, how could God save those Gentiles? We're Jews. He
said, no, God saved us like he saved them. So he puts them first
in that way. In verse 12, then all the multitude
kept silence and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring
what miracles and wonders God had brought among the Gentiles
by them. And after that, they held their
peace. James answered and said, men and brethren, hearken unto
me, Simon has declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles.
to take out of them a people for his name, and to this agree
the words of the prophet, as it is written." In other words,
God has said this before he did it. So, this is how James substantiates
the fact that this is God's work, that he did what he said before
he was going to do, because that's what God does. He always says,
before he did it, what he's going to do. And after this, God said
by the prophet Amos, after this, I will return, and I will build
again the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down, and I
will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up. Was he
talking about the building that David built or that Solomon built?
No, verse 17, that the residue of men might seek after the Lord,
and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the
Lord, who doeth all these things. So the calling of the Gentiles
was the building up, again, of the tabernacle of David that
fell down, because that tabernacle was just a type, a figure, a
representation of the whole building of Christ's church. And then
he says this most amazing thing in verse 18, known unto God are
all his works from the beginning of the world. All right, so these
men now who were called were from among the Gentiles. He says,
wherefore my sentence is that we trouble not them which from
among the Gentiles are turned to God. Now, this is what the
Lord has done. He called them, therefore they
were drawn. And so they were the objects
of his love, because God loves and creates and sets in place
all of his work before he does any of his work. And this is
before the foundation of the world. Known unto God are all
his works from the beginning of the world, or from eternity,
is the way it's translated in the literal translation. Not
just from the beginning, as if he started at creation, but before
time, from eternity. God knew everything he would
do. And that's a phenomenal thing, and I love to think about this.
What's done in time was determined before time. What's done in eternity
was determined before the world was created. In Matthew 25 and
verse 34, Jesus tells the sheep on his right hand, he says, enter
into the kingdom which was prepared for you by my father before the
foundation of the world. Now there you have it. God the
Father prepared a kingdom for those who are with Christ in
the end before he created the world. I should read that text
of Scripture to you as it is written there because I probably
paraphrased it, but in Matthew 25 and verse 34 he says this, Then shall the king, Christ,
say to them on his right hand, come ye blessed of my father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
the world. So there you have it. Known unto
God are all his works. And notice now in Ephesians chapter
two, this most incredible thing about the works of God. We think
of the works of God as, look at that mountain there. Oh, look
at that river, that ocean, that whale, that tree, that forest. But look at this in Ephesians
2. Are those the works God's interested in? Well, only insofar
as they are made subject to his son. But he says here in Ephesians
chapter 2, verse 1, you has he quickened, made alive, given
life to you, who were dead in trespasses and sins. Ephesians
2 verse 2, wherein in time past you walked, this is the way you
lived, according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, that would be Satan, the spirit
that now works in the children of disobedience. That's the way
you lived. Among whom we all, among whom
also we all had our conversation, our manner of life in time past,
in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind. We didn't hold back. and were
by nature the children of wrath, even as others." Notice, but
God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he
loved us even when we were dead in sins, has quickened, given
us life. Together with Christ, by grace
you are saved. What amazing words these are. We pounce on them, don't we?
We cling to them. We hold to them. That, oh, that
God would apply that grace to me. That He, who is rich in mercy
for His great love, wherewith He loved us, would give me life
together with Christ. And then he goes on, and He has
raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places
in Christ, already where He is, that in the ages to come, He
might show the exceeding riches of His grace. Think of it this
way. God has this book and He's going
to unfold it. This picture book. And all the
pages are going to be laid out in 3D format. And He's going
to explain. You see the love I had from eternity? You see how it unfolds, the evidence
of that love? Do you see what I did? He says
that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches
of his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that Not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not of
works, therefore it has to be of faith. Lest any man should
boast. No one's gonna have anything
to claim they brought to the table, God has done it all in
Christ. But here, known unto God are
all his works from the foundation of the world. We are his workmanship. You see that? Known unto God
are all of his works. We are his workmanship. So what
are the objects of this love? Those who were known unto God
from the foundation of the world, he already then had prepared
a kingdom for them to inherit. He knew them by name. He wrote
their names in the Lamb's Book of Life. The Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. The Lamb who was the one who
was also the husband who loved the church and gave himself for
it. Before the foundation of the
world, Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. It was
love. It was the love of God. And now
I want to consider these objects of his love. He says in Jeremiah, we see the beginning. When did
this love of God begin? Well, we should understand now
by these verses we've looked at, it had to come before time. If God knew his works, and he
knew his works before time, that he would do in time. And at the
end of time, he shows his works and parades them to the praise
of the glory of his grace. That he saved them by all of
this love that God had for made known in time. And he shows us
that then in Jeremiah 31, he says this, and this is something
you probably know, but even I have to go back and read it. It's
so incredible. We want to say, is this really
there? He says in Jeremiah chapter 31, he says, at the same time,
verse 1, saith the Lord, will I be the God of all the families
of Israel, and they shall be my people. Now, What does this
mean when he says that? He's saying, God is saying, I
am giving myself to these people. I'm giving myself to these people.
I'll be the God of these people. You see? What is God giving here? Himself. He's giving himself
in pledge, a covenant pledge. In Jeremiah 31, same chapter,
verse 33, he says, I will be a God to them, they shall be
my people. We know that's the everlasting
covenant spoken of in Hebrews. He goes on, Jeremiah 31, verse
2, he says, Thus saith the Lord, the people which were left of
the sword found grace. in the wilderness, even Israel,
when I went to cause him to rest. The Lord hath appeared of old
to me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love."
You see, God does not begin to be whatever he is. He has always
been. That's when Moses said, who shall
I say has sent me to you? He said, this is my name, I am. What I am, I have always been.
What I was, I am now. And what I am now, I always shall
be. There's no change in God. He
doesn't change. And that's the reason he can
say this, from everlasting. I have loved you with an everlasting
love, therefore, because of that everlasting love, I have drawn
thee. You see, the result of that love
is what? The Lord has drawn his people. If he doesn't draw us, no man
can come to me except the Father which has sent me draw him. Remember John 6, 44 and 45? He says, if God has loved us,
he will have drawn us. Look at Hosea. Hosea is just after the book of Daniel,
if I remember correctly. Hosea in chapter 3. This love of God, look at the
nature of this love. He said in verse 1 of Hosea 3,
then said the Lord to me, go yet, love a woman beloved of
her friend, yet an adulteress. You see, he's saying here, as
a prophet, I want you to dramatize the truth you're about to act
out. I want you to do this, and what
you do will be the message I'm going to convey to these people.
Go love this woman who is loved by another. She's an adulteress. And then he uses these words.
According to the love of the Lord, toward the children of
Israel. God's love to his people not
only was from everlasting, but it was, as he said in Ephesians
2, which we read a moment ago, when we were dead in trespasses
and sins, according to the love of the Lord for the children
of Israel, who were, when God loved them, harlots, spiritual
adulterers and adulteresses. Look at chapter 11 of Hosea. In verse one of Hosea 11, he
says, when Israel was a child, then I loved him and called my
son out of Egypt. And then in verse 11, I'm sorry,
verse four of chapter 11, he says, I drew them with the cords
of a man with bands of love. Now, what this means to us is
that when God created us, he made it so that The way that he would draw us
to himself is he would use those cords that woo us, cords of love,
and that hold us, bands of love. And that's why he speaks in this
way. And the Lord Jesus Christ, of course, is the one we see
the love of God in. And so when we're looking at
the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved his own, he loved them, he gave
himself for them, he loved them in the beginning, he loved them
to the end. All the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the
cords of love. This is the cords of a man and
the bands of love. The love of Christ to us is like
cementing bonds. constraining bands. And His love
to us holds us. God's love draws us and keeps
us and holds us. Not only is it objectively holding
us and bringing us, but it also operates in us by the Spirit
showing His love to us and produces in us our love for Him. His love for us produces our
love for Him. And this is why he says in 2
Thessalonians chapter 3, where we just read, the Lord direct
your hearts into the love of God. The Lord. The Lord here
is the Spirit of God. He directs your hearts into the
love of God, which is God the Father, and into the patient
waiting for Christ, which is the love of Christ. So the whole
triune God is in this one verse here, 2 Thessalonians 3. But the first thing, the objects
of God's love are those he knew beforehand, those he chose beforehand. And the other thing we see about
the love of God is that this love is conditioned. It's conditioned on conditions
God meets. And this is so important. The
conditions that God requires for his love to his people is
that everything required for him to love them would be met
in the Lord Jesus Christ. So if you look at Ephesians chapter
1, this is said in this one verse, in verse 4 he says, According
as speaking of God the Father, He has chosen us in Him, in Christ,
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy
and without blame before Him in love. Why did He choose us
in Christ? Well, He chose us in Christ in
order that we should be holy and without blame. But how could,
what was the purpose of us being holy and without blame before
Him in love? Well, without blame. It was so
that we could be before Him in love. In other words, By choosing us in Christ, God
fulfilled all of the prerequisite conditions for His love, and
He also made the way so that He would actually make us holy
and without blame, and this would all be so that we could be before
Him as His children in love as our Father. This was all by Christ. That's why the next verse says,
having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ. So in order for us to be holy
and without blame, in order for us to be as God's children, holy
and without blame before him in love, Jesus Christ had to
be the one who met all the conditions and did all the work necessary
to make us so. So God's love is conditioned,
but it's on conditions God himself fulfills in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it makes sense then that
the objects of God's love are in Christ. God has, the love
of God is in the Lord Jesus Christ. The duration of his love, how
long does his love last? Well, it's from everlasting and
it's to everlasting because he says in Romans 8, 35 and 39,
who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord? No one. He says, how about things
present? No. Things to come? No. Nothing,
nothing can because it's in Christ. And Christ is the eternal high
priest for his people, the eternal husband. They're joined to him
from eternity and they are in him to eternity. They were chosen
in Christ, given to him. He took their persons and loved
them and laid his life down for them. And then he quickened them. He gave them life and he made
them his own. He gave them his spirit. So the
duration of God's love is from everlasting. Now, how great is
this love of God? How great is it? Well, it's immeasurable. It's incomprehensible. Well,
how do we know? How do we know the love of God
then? How can we say that it's incomprehensible and immeasurable? Is there something God has given
us to know the love of God? And this is what's amazing about
the love of God. is as we saw in Ephesians 2,
He loved us when we were yet dead in our sins. Even when we
were dead in trespasses and sins, He made us alive because of His
great love. So it shows that in our conversion,
before we knew Him, before we loved Him, He saw us in our sins,
and He loved us, and He made us alive with Christ. Listen
to these words in Ezekiel. chapter 16 about this love like
we just spoke of in Ephesians 2, Ezekiel chapter 16. Listen
to these words in verse 5. He says, when you were born. He's talking
about all of God's people represented here as Jerusalem. He says in
verse 3, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem, thy birth
and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan. Thy father was an
Amorite, thy mother a Hittite. You were Gentiles before I called
you. As for thy nativity, In other
words, when you were first born, and the day that thou was born,
thy navel was not cut, neither was thou washed in water to supple
thee, thou was not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None
eye pitied thee. to do any of these to thee, to
have compassion upon thee. But thou wast cast out in the
open field to the loathing of thy person in the day that thou
wast born. And when I passed by thee and
saw thee polluted in thine own blood, the blood of your uncleanness
and filth and sin, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood,
live. Yea, I said unto thee, when thou
wast in thy blood, live. Isn't that what happened in Ephesians
2? I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and
has increased and waxing great, and thou art come to excellent
ornaments, thy breast are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas
thou was naked and bare. Now when I passed by thee and
looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love, and
I spread my skirt over thee, and I covered thy nakedness.
Yea, I swear unto thee, and I entered into a covenant with thee, saith
the Lord God, and thou becamest mine." It's all God's work, isn't
it? The greatness of God's love is
that He loved us when we were yet sinners. Look at Romans chapter
5. He loved us when we were yet
sinners. This is the love of God. The
Lord direct your hearts into the love of God. He says in Romans
5 and verse Six, when we were yet without strength, no strength
to do one thing in obedience, no strength to take away our
sin. Helpless as this cast out newborn, lying there wallowing
in our blood as a man filthy from his sins, and there we were
helpless in ourselves. No strength, no spiritual knowledge,
no spiritual life. when we were yet without strength.
In due time, Christ died. In God's appointed time, Christ
died for the ungodly, not for the righteous. He says, verse
seven, for scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Now here, the
Jews had a way, according to John Gill, of saying that a person
who strictly kept the law, but didn't do any more than the law
required, that would be a righteous man. And he says, scarcely for
a righteous man will one die. Yet perventure for a good man,
some would even dare to die. Someone who not only keeps the
strictness of God's law, but who goes beyond. They give their
money to help the poor, and the poor become affectionately inclined
toward this. good man, and the rich person
or the person who's able, they give more than they're required
in order to help the people of God. And he says, well, peradventure,
for a good man, some would even dare to die. A righteous man,
no. A good man, maybe. But God commendeth
his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, we were
the one in the town who was known publicly to be a despicable and
shameful, perverse, self-serving, ignorant, arrogant, stubborn
sinner. God commended his love toward
us then. when we were yet sinners. Unlike what you would rarely
find among men, God did this for us when we were sinners.
Christ died for us. Much more than being now justified
by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. You see
what God did here? Yes, God is just. Yes, He is righteous, holy,
and loved, but He chose to satisfy His justice for His people in
Christ. And this was His love that did
this when we were sinners. We contributed nothing. Now this
is love, isn't it? This love came before our knowledge
of His love. This love came while we were
yet sinners. And you might say, well, if God
loved us while we were yet sinners, then He loved us in our sin.
Well, what's wrong with saying that? Because that's the truth. And if He didn't, where would
we be? Well, if God loved us in our sin, then are we going
to say that God loves sin? No. No. God loved us and saved
us from our sin. You see, He poured out His justice
and His wrath upon our sin in His Son. So while he hated our
sin, he loved us and delivered us from our great enemy of our
own sin in the blood of his son. That's what he's saying here.
So God's love came before ours, and the demonstration of His
love by comparison, before we knew Him, that demonstration,
that evidence of God's love is greater, immeasurably greater,
than the evidence of His love afterwards. What's greater than
God saying, I will be their God, and giving His Son, and not sparing
Him, but giving Him, delivering Him up for us all? What's greater
than that? What's greater than giving His
Son and His Son loving us and giving Himself for us as a sweet-smelling
savor to God because He loved us? All these things are true. And so what we can conclude from
this is we contribute nothing to God's love toward us, do we?
Nothing. Nothing we have done will change
his love. God's love changes us, but the
changes that God's love makes doesn't change his love, does
it? It fulfills his love. Love is stronger than death.
And Christ has taken the sting of death in himself in order
to satisfy his love for his people, to have them. So these things
are amazing, aren't they? God's love is immeasurable. It's
incomprehensible. It's matchless, unparalleled. Because unlike what the best
of men might do for the best of men, the greatest of all,
the creator of all who stoops to humble himself to look on
things in heaven and earth, has given his son to be lower than
a worm of the dust in order to save us from our sins. I can't
understand it. The quality of God's love is
enduring. It's unchangeable. It doesn't change. It is as eternal
as God and as everlasting as God. And God's love makes changes
in us according to the will of God. He makes us holy. Now, it
says in 2 Thessalonians, and I'll close with this, it says
in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3, in verse 5, it says, the Lord
direct your hearts into the love of God. The word direct here
means to go in a straight line. He's not going to take a roundabout
method, you know, here's what you need to do in order to realize
the love of God. First you have to, you have to
get yourself into, you have to, you have to repent and you have
to have some measure of obedience in order for you to really enter
into the love of God. He doesn't say that, does he?
He directs us straight into the love of God. How does he do that? He holds up Christ to us. The
love of God is seen in Christ. All conditions God requires of
us are met in His Son. He did not spare His Son. He
delivered Him up for us all when we were yet sinners. And He quickened
us. He gave us life even when we
were dead in trespasses and sins. He held up Christ to us. What
did He do to those children of Israel who had been bitten by
the serpents? He holds up Christ and Him crucified
on that serpent, that pole of brass. There's nothing between
There's no conditions we meet in order to lay hold on the truth
of God's love for His people and Christ. There's no conditions
we can meet. What would we do? It would be
an insult. if we were to take up and to try to meet anything. And yet God's love directs us
into this. He gives us the faith to believe
on Christ. He gives us the life. He gives
us his spirit. He gives us all that love requires. He clothes us in his own perfections,
in his own beauty. And then he looks upon his own
work, and he assesses it. And he says, very good. And he's
glorified by the faith that he gives to us because that faith
ascribes our salvation and our life to him. And so he directs
us. And he directs us into a renewal
of this love. He's constantly renewing this
life in us, isn't he? By his Spirit. He's constantly
washing us with the waters of regeneration and renewing by
the Holy Spirit the waters of the Gospel. Reminding us how
he saved us. Reminding us the pit from whence
he dug us out. what love of God towards his
people. It's a specific love, a particular
love, a love that actually saves. God's love is saving. This is
an amazing thing. I want to show one more verse
to you. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Of all the verses
we could look at, look at this. 1 Corinthians chapter 13. I was struck by this as I was
looking at this just yesterday. He says in 1 Corinthians 13,
you know that this is about what love is, right? This chapter.
But look at verse 7. Love beareth all things. Now. Now when we understand what
love is, and we understand that love beareth all things, that
impresses us. But if you look at the literal
translation of this, as I did, in 1 Corinthians 13 verse 7,
it really says this, love quietly covers all things, all sin. And that's what Proverbs says
in Proverbs 10, 12, it says, love covers all sin. Hatred stirs
up strife, love covers all sin. Now, when we think about the
love of God and the claim that God loves everybody, and compare that to what the
scripture says, love covers all sin. quietly covers all sin. What do we have to say about
that? If God has loved us, then he has covered our sins. If Christ
loved us, then he died for us. If God loved us from everlasting,
then he draws us to Christ. And if Christ died for us, no
one can condemn us. If we were chosen in Christ,
if we're the elect of God, no one can lay anything to our charge.
And what does this do for us? Well, it directs our hearts directly
into the love of God, doesn't it? The Spirit of God, with the
Word of God, the Gospel of Christ, takes us straight through the
wilderness of this tangled mess, which is our mind and life in
this world, to see the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus,
our Lord. And to come to God at all times,
as the publican came the first time. Be merciful to me, the
sinner. We don't get better. We don't
have something now that we can bring to justify in our minds
why God would love us. That's going against the revealed
truth of scripture. God's love is conditioned only
on the conditions God met in Christ. And he determined to
make us holy and unblameable before him in love. And so he
chose us in Christ in order to make that happen. The Lord direct
your hearts into the love of God and to the patient waiting
for Christ. Everything that happens in our
lives, it would seem, by all of our senses, would contradict
these things. But we have something that's
incorruptible. Is there anything in this world
that's incorruptible? Have you ever seen anything incorruptible?
I only know one thing, it's the word of God. The word of God
is the only incorruptible thing, the only truth in this world.
And faith rests on what God has said. The Lord direct our hearts
into the love of Christ. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for
your love for your people. We can't claim one reason in
ourselves why you would love us and find every reason why
you wouldn't love us. But this serves only to accentuate
the greatness of your love and the sovereignty of it that you
would love those who deserve not to be loved. when we weren't
looking for love, when we were estranged from you, going our
own way and happy to serve ourselves, but you arrested us and saw our
great need when we didn't know it, and you saved us from our
sins and told us that you did so by the blood of your own Son,
and told us that you would preserve us and bring us to yourself through
faith in Him, and caused us to cry out to you to consider only
Christ for us and accept us in spite of our sins and look to
Him instead of looking upon our sins. Look to Him who bore our
sins and look to Him for our righteousness instead of looking
for obedience from us. And help us, Lord, to love You
who first loved us. Give us this faith to see your
love in the Lord Jesus Christ and to so stand in life against
all of the trials and troubles, knowing that nothing can separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Help us to have confidence by your words and not to doubt them,
not to consider them light or are insignificant, but help us,
Lord, to at all times esteem your word above our very food
and our life. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.