Let's open our Bibles to the Gospel of John, chapter 10. John, chapter 10. I want to ask a question. I trust the Lord will. answer this clearly to our minds and our hearts this morning. Is God's love conditional? Is God's love conditional? I hear people talk about unconditional love that God loves unconditionally. Is it conditional? And if it is conditional, Have those conditions been met so that God can love me?

John chapter 10, verse 17. Let's read verse 16 first. Other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, I will bring them, I must do it. Only reason God must do anything is because he's purposed in himself to do it. And they shall hear my voice and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.

All the Divisions that we see in Christianity, and I use that word very broadly, are all man-made. Speaking of the many denominations that exist, there's hundreds of them, not just the mainline denominations, but hundreds of others. They're all man-made. Paul asked this question, he says, is Christ divided? It was a rhetorical question. No, the Lord Jesus is not divided. And here the Lord himself says, there shall be one fold and there shall be one shepherd. All of God's people believe the same thing. They all have the same spirit, they all have the same scriptures, they all have one Lord, one shepherd.

That's why we can travel to places in the world and places in our country and visit other churches. And there's an immediate fellowship. There's a bond, there's an agreement. Verse 17, and here's where I want us to spend a few moments this morning. Therefore, Don't miss that word.

Therefore doth my father love me because I lay down my life that I might take it again. That sound like conditional love to you? It is. The love that the father has for his son though there was never in time or in eternity when the father did not love the son. Nevertheless, the love that the father has for his son is conditional.

If his love for his son is conditional, then how could I presume that God would love me unconditionally? And here's the hope that we have. The same condition that was met by the Lord Jesus Christ is the condition that is met through faith for every single one of God's people so that I can have hope.

I started to open this message by saying, does God love me? Does God love me? Majority of people hear such a question and they would discount such a message. They would say, well, that's a waste of time to listen to such a thing. Of course, God loves me. He loves everybody. He loves everybody. Is that what the Bible teaches? It is not.

The Lord Jesus is telling us right here that the Father's love for him is conditioned on his obedience to the Father. And God's love for you and for me is conditioned on our obedience to God. I hope there's a whole bunch of question marks going on in your mind right now. And I trust that we'll be able to answer those questions from God's word. And before we answer those questions, it is important for us to make it clear without any ambiguity that the Lord Jesus Christ as the son of God is impeccable.

And by that, it means that he was incapable of sin. He was incapable, was, is, and always shall be incapable of being disobedient. He was tempted, yes, in all ways that we are, yet without sin. What does that mean? It means that the Lord Jesus Christ understands by experience the consequences of sin.

It's not sin that bothers us. It's the consequences of our sin that bothers us. Sin is done with an open mind and open, sin is committed willfully. but it's the consequences of our sin that bothers us. It's the weight of that sin, the fear of separation from God Almighty eternally in the devil's hell. That's the consequence of sin.

It is the shame and the sorrow that comes as a result of sin by the spirit of God and even by conscience itself that bothers us when we sin. We have no idea how shameful sin is. We have no idea what the depths of sorrow really are. And we have no understanding of what it means to be separated from God like the Lord Jesus experienced on Calvary's cross.

When he bore the sins of his people in his body upon that tree, when he became our sin bearer and our sacrifice before God Almighty, Sorrow, shame, and separation from his father were experienced to the ultimate. What you and I get over pretty quick, what you and I experience a little bit here and there, as far as the consequences of sin are concerned, he experienced it to its infinite degree.

And so when the Bible says that he was tempted in all ways that we are, Yet he sinned not. He committed no sin. He is impeccable. He cannot sin. But as far as experiencing the burden of sin, yes, he knew it better than you and I could ever possibly know it. God made him sin who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Turn with me, if you will, to James chapter one. This is important that we clear this up before we talk about what the conditions for God's love are and that the Lord Jesus Christ had to meet those conditions in order for God to love him. Therefore the Father hath loved me because I lay down my life for my sheep. It was the perfect obedience of the Lord Jesus that met the condition of God's love. James chapter one, look with me if you will at verse 13.

Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. God cannot be tempted with evil. When the scripture says that the Lord Jesus was tempted in all ways that we are, yet without sin, you and I sin in our temptations. Even if we don't follow through with the thought of sin, the very fact that we thought it, we've sinned in our hearts and in our minds through the temptation.

For what it means to be tempted in all ways that we are yet without sin, I don't know what that means. I've never experienced that. I've never experienced that, but the Lord Jesus did. He experienced temptation to its infinite degree. and that even in their temptation he did not sin. Let no man say when he sins that I've been tempted of God, for God can tempt no man. God cannot be tempted with evil. The Lord Jesus Christ is God. He cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and when lust is conceived, it can reinforce sin, and sin can reinforce death. Ultimately, Our sin, the wages of sin is death. We're fully responsible for our own sin.

The Lord Jesus is impeccable. It was impossible for him to violate God's law in heart, in word, in thought, in deed. He was and is impeccable. He is above sin, and yet he knew sin when he bore it in his body on that tree like you and I have never known it. Second, is that God the Father has loved the Son for all eternity.

Let me show you that. Proverbs chapter 8. Proverbs chapter 8. The subject of Proverbs chapter 8 is wisdom. God has made him, the Lord Jesus, to be unto us wisdom. Righteousness. sanctification, and redemption. The Lord Jesus Christ is our wisdom, our understanding of truth, our understanding of who God is, our understanding of who we are. Our discernment is all found in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And James tells us, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask it of God, who gives to all men liberally and upbraideth it not. Ask for Christ if you want wisdom. Proverbs chapter eight, the Lord Jesus is being personified as wisdom.

It begins with doth not wisdom cry and understanding put forth her voice and look back, look down with me, if you will, all the way down to verse 27, when he prepared the heavens, I was there when he set a compass upon the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above." Now this is wisdom speaking. And he's talking about his father. This is the Lord Jesus Christ speaking of his father. When he established the clouds above, when he strengthened the fountains of the deep, when he gave to the sea his decree and the water should not pass his commandment, when he appointed the foundations of the earth, Then I was with Him, as one brought up with Him, I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him. Now that's the Lord Jesus speaking.

I've always been with the Father. Everything the Father's ever done, I've done. I am the self-existent, eternal Son of God. I have always been His delight. There was never a time when I did not meet the qualifications of His love. I have always met the conditions of my Father's love. Turn with me, if you will, about to the book of Hebrews chapter one. Hebrews chapter one.

Is God's love conditional? Yes, it was for Christ. Is it conditional for me? Yes, it is. Yes, it is. You hear people say, well, I'm doing my best. That's not God's condition. That's not God's condition. You've got to meet the same condition that the Lord Jesus Christ met. Exactly the same condition. He hasn't changed his standard. He hasn't lowered the bar for us. God's requirement is absolute, complete, total perfection. It must be the same requirement that he had. on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore has the Father loved me because I laid down my life for the sheep. The Father's always loved me because I've always been perfect in his sight. Hebrews chapter one, verse nine. Thou hast loved righteousness. Now the father is speaking of Christ, the one who is himself much better than the angels. The one who he said, sit thou here at my right hand until I make that enemy's thy footstool. The father is speaking of Christ and he's saying, this is why I love you. This is why I love you, because thou hast loved righteousness. and thou hast hated iniquity." Does God hate? Yes, He does. What is iniquity? Well, just think about that word iniquity as unequal.

What does the Bible say about us? All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The best thing about us is iniquity. The best thing that we can produce to qualify ourselves to meet the prerequisite, the condition that God requires in order for Him to be able to love us.

If we offered to Him the best thing that we had and He ignored everything else, our best prayer, our best intent, it would all fall short. Why? Because we did it. Because we did it, it would fall short of His glory. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It's inequitous, it's not equal. It doesn't measure up. It's not what God requires. This is so liberating if the Lord reveals this to us. It's so liberating, salvation's of the Lord. I can't do anything to mess it up. I can't add anything to it. I can't take anything away from it.

The Lord Jesus Christ is all, and he is in all, and he has done it all. And his righteousness is what God requires. God is speaking to his son, and he's saying to him, thou hast loved righteousness, thou hast aided iniquity, Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. Because you've loved righteousness, because you've loved iniquity, because you've been perfect, therefore I have poured out the oil of gladness upon thee and made you the Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah. This is the requirement. This is the condition. My love is not unconditional. It's not unconditional. It requires perfect obedience. Why?

If you'll find the end of your Old Testament, right there between Malachi and Matthew, and then turn back five of those minor prophets, you'll find the book of Habakkuk. Habakkuk. It's a hard book to find. but there it is. Five books before the end of you in Old Testament. Look with me at Habakkuk chapter one, verse 12.

Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One, my Holy One. Holy, that's who our God is. That means he is other than we are in every way. He is in the heavens, we are upon the earth. Holiness is not just moral perfection. Holiness is perfection in every way. Holiness is who God is. And it's who the Father is, and it's who the Son is, and it's who the Holy Spirit is. That's why the angels cried, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. All three persons of the triune Godhead are holy. They are all perfect.

We shall not die. Oh Lord, thou hast ordained them for judgment. Lord, you're gonna have to exercise your judgment if we're not gonna die. And almighty God, thou hast established them for correction. Yes, the unbelieving world, but all our sin. Now look at verse 13. Thou art of pure eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity. When the Lord Jesus bore our sins in his body upon that tree, hanging there as the God-man, hanging there as the mediator between God and man, suspended between heaven and earth, he cried, my God, my God, why?

Hast thou forsaken me? David penned those words in the Psalms. The Lord Jesus was experiencing them. He was experiencing them to their fullest degree. When God Almighty saw sin on his darling son, his eyes were too pure to look upon iniquity. The sky had to be blackened. The sun had to be darkened. The Father had to forsake Him. Justice demanded it. Holiness required it. It was the condition that brings about the wrath of God.

God cannot, He cannot have fellowship with sin. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, all three being holy, all three being of pure eyes to behold iniquity, had perfect love. As we read in Proverbs chapter eight, they had perfect love for all eternity before anything was ever created. How far back does that go? further than my pea brain can possibly comprehend. No beginning.

In order for God to fellowship with God, there had to be perfect. So, How can God love me? I've got to be holy. I've got to be like him. I've got to be perfect. I've got to be obedient. Not just in the outward appearances that men see. I gotta be obedient in every way before God Almighty.

What do we hear people say? Well, you know, nobody's perfect. Not only is nobody perfect, but nobody has anything about them that's perfect. Usually when people say, well, nobody's perfect, what they mean by that is, well, you know, I got a lot of good stuff going on, but I know I'm not perfect. I got a few things I still got to work on. Or I got a few things that'll never be exactly right.

God requires every part of you and me to be just as perfect as the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the prerequisite. That is the condition. God's love is not unconditional. The Lord Jesus, the Father's love for the Son was not unconditional. Therefore has the Father loved me because I lay down my life, because I am doing what I promised I would do and what he ordained me to do, because I'm a perfectly obedient son in every way, therefore the Father loves me. Because you love righteousness and hate iniquity, therefore, He hasn't lowered the standard for me and you. It's exactly the same. Hadn't changed, not a bit. His eyes are pure to look upon sin. Now turn with me to Ephesians chapter one.

This is why God had to choose us. That's why we had to be put in Christ before the foundation of the world. That's why God has loved his people with an everlasting love, because he's never seen them outside of Christ. He'd never seen them outside of Christ.

It's the only way he can love us. Does God love me? If I'm in Christ, he does. That's the only way he's gonna be able to love me. Verse five, Ephesians chapter one, having predestinated us onto 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. Now, who is the beloved? That's the Lord Jesus Christ.

God makes us accepted before him by putting us in Christ. So that as he is, so are we. And this is our boldness in the day of judgment, that we will be able to stand before God Almighty in the person of our substitute and be just as holy and just as perfect and just as righteous as he is. to His glory, to His glory. If there's nothing in me that measures up, if everything in me falls short of His glory, and I'm perfect in the sight of God, then someone else gets the credit for that.

How humbling is that? How worshipful is that? How glorious is that to Christ? Now turn with me to John chapter 17. Verse 22, and the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one. You hear that? To be one before God Almighty, even the glory that God had given to his son, he gave to his church, that we might be one with him. I in them and thou in me, verse 23, that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them. even as thou hast loved me. Ooh! Is that not glorious? That God would love me in the same way that he loves Christ? How can it be? How can it be? Someone else is gonna have to do something for that. Nothing I can make, no contribution I can make to that.

Henry and I were talking on the phone the other night about the book of Esther. He was doing a Bible study, and Esther chapter 1 called me to talk about it. An interesting book. Esther, when the children of Israel were brought back out of Babylon to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem with Nehemiah and Ezra and all that happened there, Not all the Jews left Babylon.

Some of them stayed behind. And after the Babylonian Empire fell, the Medes and the Persians took over. And that is modern day Iran. It's what's going on right now in the news. And this is the setting of the Book of Esther. So the children of Israel back in Israel, back in Jerusalem, rebuilding the temple, Esther and Mordecai and many of the other Jews who are dispersed among the land of Iran are under the authority of a king by the name of Ahasuerus.

And Ahasuerus makes a decree that everybody under his control, which was the whole world, Medes and the Persians controlled the whole world. Everybody under my authority will worship me. And if they worship any other god, well, that's where the story starts. And you remember Mordecai didn't worship the king and the whole story.

But I get ahead of myself. The beginning of the story. begins with a woman by the name of Bashti. She's the king's wife. And the king puts on this elaborate, month-long celebration to celebrate his glory. Celebrate his glory. And in the process of this celebration, he calls upon his wife, Bashti, to be paraded before his guest as an object of his glory. Now Bastai's name translated means beautiful. She was obviously a beautiful woman. King Ahasuerus wanted to make her an object of his possession.

Now I understand, we were in a free will Baptist church years ago and they have Sunday school classes And they were broken up between men and women oftentimes. And we noticed walking down the hall of this Southern Baptist Church that there was a Southern Baptist, there was a lady Sunday school class, middle-aged women, and they had taken the name Vashti as the name of their Sunday school class. And they labeled the name of their Sunday school class Vashti.

We are not going to be used as trophy wives by our husbands. We are not gonna be paraded as objects of their glory and our beauty used to their glory. And I get that. I mean, if I was a woman, I'd be offended by that. And so Vashti refused to come. She put her foot down. She said, I'm not going to that party. I'm not going to let my husband use me like that. I refuse to let him use me as a trophy wife. And so the king removed her. And that's when Esther becomes queen.

Now, Adam, you read it in Ezekiel chapter 16. Here's the point of the story. Vashti represents legalistic, free will, works religion. Represents the legalism of Judaism when the Lord Jesus came, who were so proud of their righteousness, so proud of their accomplishments, so proud of their beauty, and trusted in what they had done for the hope of their salvation.

And to have their husband humiliate them by claiming glory for their beauty? We'll not have that man reign over us. We accomplish these things on our own. We don't need him. You see, if that lady's Sunday school class understood the gospel story behind Vashti, they wouldn't have taken that name for their Sunday school class. Vashti was taken off. She was removed. Never heard of her again. Esther becomes queen. It's where the Jews are saved through that whole story. Let's go to Ezekiel. I just want to read one of the verses that Adam read earlier, Ezekiel chapter 16. The last verse that you read, Adam, verse 14.

And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty, for it was perfect. through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God." The proud, the self-righteous, the ones who think that they have done something to meet the condition of God's love, I've decided to follow Jesus. I've decided to let him come into my heart. I've done this and I've done that. I prayed this prayer. Look at all the things that I'm not doing, comparing themselves to other men. Those are the vast eyes of this world. I'm not gonna let my husband glory in my beauty.

And when the Lord Jesus appears and reveals himself to his people, Their experience is what Daniel experienced. When Daniel saw the Lord Jesus, he said this, my comeliness, my beauty, my strength, any hope of me presenting anything before God that would meet the qualifications and the requirements for him to be able to love me, my comeliness in me has turned into corruption.

I've got nothing to offer. If I'm gonna stand beautiful, if I'm gonna stand perfect, if I'm going to be accepted before God, if the conditions are to be met for me to be found in the presence of a holy God, my husband's gonna get all the glory for that.

He's gonna get all the praise Dare I not be paraded as a trophy of His grace before all of creation, that He might get all the glory and all the praise, whatever beauty I have in the sight of God, it's His beauty. I've been made perfect by His comeliness, which He has put upon me. I've got nothing to claim. He gets all the praise and all the glory and all the honor. Therefore, God hath loved me because I have laid down my life. Yes, the condition for God's love is absolute holiness. Absolute perfection, absolute sinlessness, purity before God Almighty.

What are we going to do when all that we have to offer falls short of that? What are we going to do? We're going to have to flee in faith to the only one that could make us so that could present us that way. Tom, let's stand together. We're gonna sing number 1 25. Let's stand together. you