It is not that I did choose thee,
Lord, for Lord, that could not be. Cuba Sutter Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Rick
Warda. We currently meet at the Yuba
County Library, located at 303 2nd Street in downtown Marysville,
California, on the corner of 2nd and C Street. Weekly services
are held on Sunday at 11 a.m. at the library. For more information,
visit our website at ysgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Rick Warda. I have two scriptures I would
like to read for our sermon today. The first is found in Matthew
chapter 22. When the Pharisees had heard
that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered
together. Then one of them, which was a
lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him and saying, Master,
which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said to him,
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great
commandment, and the second is likened to it. Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang
all the law and the prophets. The Pharisees did all that they
did for show. They loved the praise of men.
Jesus did nothing for show. He did all that He did out of
pure love to His Father and love for His people. He sought only
to glorify His Father. His life and death were spent
to save His people. But because the Pharisees coveted
the praise of men, when they saw that Jesus did not covet
man's praise, and yet the people flocked to him, they envied Jesus
and sought to destroy him. In this scripture they sent one
of their own, a lawyer, to Jesus. He asked Jesus, Master, which
is the great commandment in the law? His motive was not to learn. He was confident in his own self-conceit
and blind arrogance. He thought he was wiser than
the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. His motive was to catch
Jesus in a fault, to discredit him before the people, and to
gain a victory over him in their eyes. But he was caught in the
trap he set, because Jesus answered from Scripture. His answer therefore
proved the lawyer's guilt, and it exposed his hypocrisy. And
his answer does the same even now. It proves our guilt and
exposes all of us. What is the first and greatest
commandment? What is the most important? What
is the one commandment which, if we keep, we actually keep
the whole law? It is this. We must love God
with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, and
all of our strength. And the second commandment, thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, is like it. Jesus said that on
these two commandments hang all of the Law and the Prophets.
Surely therefore, if we keep these two, we have kept them
all. But if we fail to keep these,
if we fail to love God with all of our heart, all of our soul,
all of our mind, and all of our strength, then we have not only
broken the first and greatest, but we have broken all of the
Law of God. Jesus said, He that is not with
me is against me. Matthew 12 verse 30. We are either
all in or we are all out. We either love God with all that
we are or we do not love Him at all. This lawyer failed to
keep the first and greatest commandment. His heart was full of hatred
against Christ. Hating Christ, he hated God,
and so do we if we fail to keep this commandment. The Apostle
James said, Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend
in one point, he is guilty of all. James 2.10. But who among
us can stand before God and claim to have loved Him with all of
our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind and all
of our strength, even one time? If we cannot keep this commandment
one time, then we have failed to keep it all the time, and
we prove that in ourselves we are nothing but sin. The fact
is, in Jesus' response, two things are accomplished. These two things
are accomplished throughout the Word of God. First, we, as this
lawyer, are proven to be guilty of breaking God's law, not only
in the least, but in the very first and most important commandment. Secondly, the gospel shows us
that Jesus' answer and our guilt is actually the starting point
for understanding the love of God. And this is where I would
like to spend the rest of this sermon. In 1 John 4, verse 10,
we read this most important text of scripture. Herein is love,
not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son
to be the propitiation for our sins. In these two scriptures,
Matthew 22, verse 37 and 38, and 1 John 4, 10, we find the
gospel of God's grace in two ways. First, in ourselves, we
have failed and continually fail to love God. We are guilty of
breaking the entire law of God all the time. Second, love can
only be known by God's love in Christ. To know the love of God
in Christ is the gift of God's grace, the gift of His own Spirit
who gives us faith in Christ to know the love of God. I've
entitled this sermon by the first words of 1 John 4 verse 10. Herein
is love. In 1 John 4.10, the first thing
we see is our need. God is just. We are sinners. God sent His Son. Salvation by
every other means was therefore impossible. Had there been another
way, God would have never delivered up His Son to death. If God's
love required so great a sacrifice from so great a Savior, it can
only mean that our sin is evil beyond comprehension. If God
required Christ to die, God must be holy beyond all of our ability
to understand. We need this love because God
is holy and our sin is bad and our eternal life depends on the
love of God in Christ. We cannot know the love of God
until we understand something of our own sinfulness, our own
failure at all times to keep God's law. Our text from Matthew
22 proves our failure. But 1 John 4 10 also proves our
failure. God says, Herein is love, not
that we loved God. There we have the very fact.
We do not in ourselves nor have we at any time loved God with
our whole heart, soul, mind and strength. Ironically, and this
is God's amazing grace, we cannot even know the love of God unless
we know something of our sinfulness before God for not loving Him. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. God's love is seen in making
propitiation for our sins by the death of His only begotten
Son. What is propitiation? Propitiation
is a wrath-appeasing sacrifice made to God. It is a sacrifice
made to His justice. It is an offering and a sacrifice
which God, in all of His uncompromising holiness, finds satisfying because
it is in accord with His perfect justice. But why is propitiation
needed? Our sins and our sin nature demand
that God, in His inscrutable, unfathomable justice, pour out
His unmitigated, undiluted wrath upon us for our sins, unmixed
with any kindness. Think of it. The measure of the
evil of our sin is the measure of the sacrifice God required
to pacify His wrath and satisfy His justice. And what is the
sacrifice that God's justice demanded? Why nothing less than
the free, voluntary offering of His only begotten Son. The
sacrifice God requires is Christ Himself, offering Himself to
God with His whole heart, His whole soul, His whole mind, and
His whole strength. It is Christ offering Himself
in love to God and in love for His people, bearing the full
cost of what God required to answer His holy justice, to appease
His righteous wrath, and to fulfill His eternal and holy will by
His one offering of Himself in the place of His people. That
is the offering Christ made by His death on the cross. Hebrews
9.26 says, In the end of the world hath he appeared to put
away sin by the sacrifice of himself. The evil of our sin
is seen in the sacrifice of God required to make satisfaction
for it. Christ Himself is the measure. It is Christ that died. Romans
8.34 Never let that thought leave your mind. Hold it before everything
else. It is Christ that died. The Holy
Son of God, equal with the Father in all things, did, in the councils
of eternity, engage His heart to approach His Father as surety
for His people. Jeremiah 30 verse 21 says, Who
is this that engaged his heart to approach to me, saith the
Lord? Jesus was made surety of a better
testament. Hebrews 7 verse 22, He became
surety to his father for his people to stand in their place
to answer for them with himself. He owned their debt as his debt. He humbled himself. He took our
nature. He bore our sins in his own body
on the tree. He made full payment for the
sins of God's elect by his suffering and death under the wrath of
God and the cruel hatred of men. God dealt with Christ in strict
justice and received from Him an answer of full satisfaction
to His justice. This is the measure of God's
justice. This is the measure of the evil
of our sins. But most importantly, This is
the measure of the love of God. Herein is love, not that we loved
God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. Now, by hearing from God's own
Word what He thinks of sin, by the sacrifice He required to
make compensation for it, In seeing that we, in ourselves,
were the very objects of God's just condemnation and wrath,
in seeing that we failed in every point to love God, then, in seeing
Christ stoop from the heights of glory, from heaven's throne,
to Bethlehem's manger, to Calvary's cross, only then can we see and
know the love of God. Herein is love. Look upon Christ. See your hateful self in the
estimation of God in the punishment that He brought upon His Son,
and consider that it was for God's love that He stood as surety
for His people. God in His wisdom found a way
to abundantly lavish grace on hell-deserving sinners. which
you and I are. Now, considering this truth from
scripture, find Christ to have made a full answer to God. Find His obedience in death to
be the complete righteousness which God owns as His very own
righteousness." Romans 1 verse 17. "...and which He gives to
all of His people in Christ." Romans 5 verse 17. Then, with
these things in the bosom of your conscience, go to God and
take His words and join the chorus with His people and say, Herein
is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and gave
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. From 1 John 4.10
we first see that God's love is giving. He gave His only begotten
Son. And we see that God's love is
holy. He required full payment for
our sins, nothing less than propitiation by the blood of His own dear
Son. We also see that God's love is gracious. He sent His Son
for sinners to make propitiation for their sins. And from scripture
we also see that God's love is eternal. Christ is the Lamb who
was foreordained before the foundation of the world to be the propitiation
for our sins, but is now set forth and made known in these
last times to sinners by the gospel of God's free grace."
1 Peter 1.20 Moreover, we see that God's love is unfailing. Propitiation has been made. God is well pleased with His
Son. The sins of His people have actually
been put away in the death of Christ. God is propitiated because
it is Christ that died in just proportion to what justice demanded. His wrath is now appeased. Listen to what Psalm 85 says,
Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people. Thou hast covered
all their sin. Thou hast taken away all thy
wrath. Thou hast turned thyself from
the fierceness of thine anger. The love of God covered a multitude
of sins. God's love does not hold our
sins to account because Christ bore them all away. In all of
this, we see that God's love is saving. He made propitiation
for our sins. He has forgiven the iniquity
of His people. He has turned Himself from the
fierceness of His wrath against His people because He fully expended
His wrath in His Son. Christ made full reconciliation
for sins. And in Christ, God made peace
between His justice and His people because of their sins. And next
we see that God's love is unfailing. Song of Solomon 8.7 says, Many
waters cannot quench love. God's love is unfailing. Therefore
in Zephaniah 3.17 he says, He will rest in his love. Jesus
said, Other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also
I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall
be one fold and one shepherd. God's love is long-suffering. For thousands of years, God refrained
himself from destroying this world for the sin of Adam and
for our own sins. And when His justice called for
destruction, His love already had found a Savior. Before the
world began, before there was a sinner, there was already a
Savior. Herein is love, not that we loved
God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. He found a ransom in Christ. How many years has God withheld
his judgment from me and you? And why? For one reason only,
because his love will not be satisfied until he saves all
of his elect. He must and he shall have them. When justice cried to destroy
the world by flood in the days of Noah, scripture says that
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Genesis 6 verse
8. The Lord said, Them also I must bring, therefore He saved Noah
and his family. And since the days of Noah, when
God's justice cried out to destroy this world by fire, the love
of God has said, Them also I must bring, He must and he shall have
all those on whom he set his love from eternity he must and
he shall have all those he gave to christ by his eternal election
to save he must and he shall have all those for whom christ
gave himself for whom he poured out his own blood for whom he
made propitiation for their sins to god Herein is love, them also
I must bring. Not one of them shall be lost,
not a hoof shall be left behind." Exodus 10 verse 26. God's love
is therefore unfailing, it is unstoppable. He will and shall
bring to himself all whom he loved from everlasting. Ephesians
2.7 says, In the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches
of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. The end purpose of his work will
prove that the foundation of it was his great love wherewith
he loved us. God's grace will be fulfilled
to His elect in Christ, and His everlasting kindness and love
to them will be proven by all of His grace towards them throughout
the ages of eternity. The end of God's love will be
the perfection of His chosen people in Christ. Every son of
His eternal choosing will be brought to glory. His love for
them from everlasting will be seen in the final accomplishment
of our redemption. In the ages to come, He will
show the exceeding riches of His grace in His loving kindness
towards us through Christ Jesus. Herein is love. And God's love
is not puffed up as 1 Corinthians 13 says, God humbled himself,
he reconciled his people to himself by the death of his son. They
made themselves his enemy in their minds and by their wicked
works. And Christ humbled himself. He took our nature. He forever
took our nature into union with his divine nature. He who sits
on heaven's throne is both God and man. God does not seek his
own. He humbled himself. Love does
not seek its own. Christ did all that He did, not
seeking His own benefit, but seeking the glory of God and
the salvation of His people. His chief desire was the glory
of God and the salvation of His people. His desire was to have
those upon whom He has set His eternal love The love of God
is not puffed up. He gives, not for selfish reasons,
but to have His people and to give Himself to them that we
might have eternal life and see His face. Eternal life is in
Christ, and it is enjoyed in seeing and knowing our great
God and Savior, John 17.3. God's love does not selfishly
seek His own. By seeking His own glory in the
salvation of His people, His love is magnified for the eternal
good of His elect. And God's love is holy. He does
not rejoice in iniquity. He sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. He accepted Christ as our surety,
not only to answer every demand of God's justice against us for
our sins, but to fulfill all of our righteousness. Isaiah
54, 17 says, their righteousness is of me. This is the name with which he
shall be called, said Jeremiah, the Lord our righteousness. The love of God rejoices in righteousness
because it was in love that he made Christ righteousness for
his people. The righteousness that God required
is the righteousness that God provided in Christ for his people. Romans 10 verse 4. All God gives
to His people, He has given them in Christ. Ephesians 1 verse
3 through 6. All that God requires of His
people, He has provided for them in Christ. Colossians 2 verse
9 through 10. The everlasting righteousness
that Christ established by His obedience unto death is the righteousness
of His people in Him. That is love. God's love loves
righteousness. The love of God does not compromise
His righteousness or His justice to show grace to sinners. It
is a love that establishes righteousness and magnifies justice by the
propitiating death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Herein is love,
not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son
to be the propitiation for our sins. and God's love is in Christ. Who shall separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord? God's love is
particular. God does not love every person
ever born to Adam. Christ did not die for every
person ever born into this world. He hated Esau. His soul hates
all workers of iniquity. Psalm 5, 5. The love of God and
the people for whom Christ died is a particular chosen people
out of all the peoples in this world. If God loved all men,
if Christ died for all men, then all must be saved because God's
love is saving and nothing can separate us from the love of
God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Herein is love, not
that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to
be the propitiation for our sins. God's love in Christ is particular,
it is saving, it is holy, it is eternal, it is unfailing. For God's love to be holy, saving,
eternal, unfailing, and unchanging, it must be limited to those whom
God chose in Christ before the foundation of the world. Jesus
said it in John 10, 16, Them also I must bring here in His
love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. God's love did
not give Christ to be an example, and God's love did not give Christ
to motivate us to love. His love gave Christ as an atoning
sacrifice for our sins. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. God's love in Christ is not merely
an example or a motive. It is salvation by His blood.
God the Father put away the sins of His people in the death of
His Son. He actually made propitiation
for our sins. Romans 5.10 says it, when we
were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. God sent His Son into the world. that we might live through Him.
He did not send Christ to make life possible through Him. He
sent Christ in order that we would live through Him. And life
includes all that we have in Christ. 1 John 2.25 says, This
is the promise, that He has promised us eternal life. And this life
is in His Son. 1 John 5.11 Because the love of God is in
Christ, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Romans
8.39 says, I am persuaded that nothing shall be able to separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Life cannot separate us from
the love of God which is in Christ. Death cannot. Nothing in the
present, nothing in the future can separate us from the love
of God that is in Christ. Angels cannot. Devils most certainly
cannot. The puny rulers of this world
cannot. Nothing in the world to come
can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord. Nothing can separate us from
the love of God because the love of God is in Christ Jesus our
Lord. When scripture says God's love
is in Christ it means that God has given all blessings and all
life to his people in Christ alone. Christ is heir of all
things. God has put all things into his
hands and he has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. Not only all blessings, but God
has provided and received fulfillment of every requirement for His
people in Christ. How do we come to be in Christ? If all blessings, if eternal
life, if the love of God is only in Christ, then how do I get
into Christ? Must I make a decision? Should
I exercise what men falsely call their free will? Must I raise
my hand? Is there anything I can do to
get into Christ? To all of these, God answers
no. Only of God are we in Christ. 1 Corinthians 1.30 says it. Of Him are you in Christ Jesus. Having been chosen in Christ,
having been given to Christ, God in His everlasting covenant
of grace made Christ to be wisdom, righteousness, sanctification
and redemption for His people. 1 Corinthians 1.30 The love of
God is in Christ. His love is everlasting. His
love is unchangeable. If we were to rise up on the
wings of faith and go back as far as we could to discover the
foundation of our salvation, what would we find? Why is it
that I, a poor, lost sinner, am crying out to the Lord to
look upon Christ for me? Why do I constantly implore Him
to receive me in Christ and to receive from Christ all that
He requires of me? Why do I look to His promises
to receive me, a sinner, as He receives His Son? John 17 verse
21 through 24. Why do I, a sinner, find indescribable
delight in knowing that Christ is everything in my salvation?
Why do I believe Him? It is because He has given me
His own Spirit of Grace in the new birth to believe Christ.
John 3 verse 14-15 But why am I born again? It is because the
Spirit of Christ lives in me and points me to Christ, crucified
for me, propitiating God for me, persuading me that Christ
is my all. But why did God give me His Spirit? It is because Christ died for
me. Galatians 4.4 says, When the
fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made
of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under
the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because
you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father, He redeemed me from all iniquity. He redeemed me from the law with
its bondage and its curse. He redeemed me from the wrath
of God and from death. Therefore He sent His Son into
my heart, because I am His Son by adoption. But why did Christ
die for me? Listen to these words from Jeremiah,
I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn thee. Jeremiah 31.3 When we go back
as far as we can, when we search the word of God, for the foundation
for why God saved us in Christ. We must come to this place and
read this writing on the foundation of all foundations. It was the
love of God. God is love. Herein is love. His love for his people finds
no explanation or reason in them. It finds reason and foundation
only in himself. Deuteronomy 7 verse 8. Nothing
came before God's love. He loved his people from eternity,
and he loved them with an everlasting love. Therefore, is the word
Jeremiah used, everything springs from God's everlasting love to
his people in Christ. I have loved Thee with an everlasting
love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn Thee. As the hymn
writer so endearingly says, Loved with everlasting love, led by
grace that love to know, gracious spirit from above, Thou has taught
me it is so, O this full and perfect peace. O this transport
all divine, In a love which cannot cease, I am His, and He is mine,
His forever, His alone, Who the Lord from me shall part. Ah,
with what a rest of bliss Christ can fill the empty heart! Heaven
and earth may fade and flee, Firstborn light in gloom decline,
But while God in Christ shall be, I am His, and He is mine.
May the Lord direct your heart and mind into the love of God
and the patient waiting for Christ. May we see and know ourselves
to be sinners, helpless and in need of the love of God in Christ. May we see that God's love to
His own in Christ is eternal, unchanging, saving, gracious
and unfailing. May the prayer that the Spirit
of God uttered by the mouth of the Apostle Paul be fulfilled
to you and me, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith,
that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend
with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height,
and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that
you might be filled with all the fullness of God. 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. Amen. Ephesians 3 verse 17-21 You've just heard a sermon by
our pastor, Rick Warda. You may contact us by email or
by phone, or download a copy of this sermon by visiting our
website at ysgracechurch.com.