You can be opening your Bibles
to the third chapter of Ephesians. Don't have much by way of notes,
but the notes I have are pretty important. I'm glad I found them
here, because they can pretty well get hidden. You know, they're
kind of like launch sequence for firing missiles. I've got to have something to
get started. And it is a delight always to
come here. Some of you, I have traveled
with you, so to speak, for what it would be, 1977, 35 years since
I first came among you. And I can't remember for sure
just, I remember the first time mine and I visited the church,
Henry wasn't there. And it was either Frank Tate
or Charlie Pennington that preached. I can't remember which one. I
came in late because the church I'd grown up, midweek service
was at 7.30 and they started at 7, so we were late. talking to Frank afterwards,
and it may surprise you, I'm the kind of person who'll just
push himself right into whatever's going on. You might not know
that about me, but I asked him, I said, I've got a statement
of faith, because with my background, that's how you tested churches,
you know, you went and got the, like getting a brochure, what
do you believe? And that's not altogether a bad place to start,
but I was rather surprised when He and Charlie kind of looked
at each other, and they said, do we have one of those? And I thought, how can you be
a church without a statement of faith? But one of them went
back and got the Philadelphia Confession for me, and I was
already familiar with that. But it has been a long and enjoyable,
peaceful, up-building, just about every
good adjective you can think of, relationship over the years. And I thank God for you all.
Thank God for the ones of you that were there when I first
showed up, and ones of you that have come on since. And I guess
we'll just keep doing this until the Lord calls us all home. And
we'll leave it to Him to take care of the next generation.
I was impressed one time reading about, I think it was in Stephen's
message, and he's given the history of Israel, and he said, concerning
David, and it said, when he had served his generation well, he
fell asleep. And I was a fairly young pastor
at that time, and I got to thinking, you know, I don't have to worry
myself about the next generation. Serve my generation well, and
go to sleep, and let the Lord take care of the next one. Because
after all, he's the one that's going to have to. Well, let me
get to the message. Ephesians 3, verse 18. He's listing things that he's
praying in behalf of the people of Ephesus. That is, Paul is
praying these things. And he says, that Christ may
dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, 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 ye might be filled with all the
fullness of God." Now, if a fellow stands up and says, the subject
tonight is the love of God, he's in over his head. And, in fact, Cary was playing The prelude,
she played a tune there to a hymn. I can hardly preach on the love
of God without quoting it. If we with ink the ocean filled,
And were the sky of parchment made, Were every stock on earth
a quill, And every man a scribe by trade, To write the love of
God above Would drain the ocean dry, Nor could the scroll contain
the whole Though stretched from sky to sky. We believe in what has been called
a particular love of God, but that in no way diminishes the
love of God any more than it would diminish the love of a
man for his wife if he were to say, this is the only woman I
love. In fact, I think that she would consider that a strengthening
of the love he had for her. It's not as though we rejoice
in the fact that there are those whom God evidently does not love.
That's not what we rejoice in. We are amazed at and rejoice
in and stand flabbergasted on the fact that he loves anybody. That should be just mind-boggling. We read, Jacob have I loved,
Esau have I hated, and I'm sure you've heard other preachers
say this. The startling part of that is not that he hated
Esau. Esau hated God. the startling things that he
loved Jacob. And if we say we're going to
try to speak on the subject of the love of God, we're out of
our depth, because Paul does pray that we would be able to
comprehend what is the breadth and length and depth and height
of that love. And yet, even as he prays it,
he says, it's something I want you to know, but it's beyond
knowing. I guess Paul's praying for the impossible, to know the
unknowable. The love of God is not known
in the same way other loves are known. In truth, it's not known
by anything that you can detect within your natural senses. People say, how can a loving
God allow this or that to happen? How can a loving God allow a
tornado to go through a town wipe out a bunch of houses and
kill a few people. How can God allow a plague or
some kind of pestilence, disease, or whatever to wipe out a bunch
of people? I don't know. The same way, I
guess, such a God could wipe out everybody in the world except
eight people with a flood. The love of God is not necessarily
revealed in the pleasantness of providence. For there are
many whom God does not love with an everlasting love, who does
not love in the way that Paul's speaking of here. He does not
love them that way, yet their way in life is good in the way
people speak of good. It's pleasant, it's easy, it's
successful, it's without struggle. I can't remember which of the
Psalms it is, but they're describing the ungodly. And it talks about,
you know, his eyes stand out with fatness. In our day, we
would suggest you run a few laps, but back then, to be way overweight
was an indication of them that you were really blessed, because
you had more to eat than certainly than you needed. And yet that man, while it says
with one hand he lays hold upon the earth and with the other
he lays hold upon heaven, he's a religious man, made his peace
with God. He doesn't toss and turn at night
wondering whether his sins are really forgiven. He doesn't have
any distress of mind over his relationship with God. He doesn't
have a lot of problems to deal with this life. God doesn't love
him. He's wicked. And yet we read of those whom
God does love going through the most horrible situations. Job, for example. special object
of God's eye. And you know, God, I'd say He allowed Satan to do
things, but then once Satan had done them, God says, see what
you made me do to my servant? You know, everything that happens,
God did it. Whether you use an agent or not is another question,
but everything that happens, God did it. And He did all those things And
he never explained to Job why. Job, in essence, said, why did
this happen? And God says, it's none of your
business. It just did. I did it. But who are you to
reply against me? When it's all said and done,
Job said, I abhor myself. I'd heard of you. And he'd heard
rightly of him. And he worshipped him according
to what he knew. When he said, now my eye sees you and I repent
in sackcloth and ashes, I abhor myself. And yet that was this
special object of the love of God. And if you think that it's
unusual that the objects of God's love should suffer, then all
I need do is point you to that one of whom God says, this is
my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. He didn't even say that
of Job. And though he were the most loved, and you know I'm
speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, though he were the most loved,
no one ever suffered at the hand of God like the man Christ Jesus
did. Nobody. And I'm not just talking
about the cross, though certainly that figure prominently. He was the man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief. We all have nicknames. People give us nicknames according
to what they perceive is unusual about us. And the nickname, so to speak,
that they gave to the Lord Jesus Christ was the man of sorrows
and according with grief. And yet there is the one whom
God loved above all. I said all that to make this
point. the love of God, as wonderful
as it is, you aren't going to be able to detect it by the natural
things that happen to you in this life. In fact, the only way to know
the love of God is to begin with that, to by faith begin with
that truth and interpret everything else in the light of his love
rather than look at events and try to discern his love from
it. His love is not defined by events. Rather, events are to
be defined by his love. When we were children in our
homes, there were pleasant days and there were unpleasant days.
And I know that in my home there were no unloving days. There
were days of Camden Park, and there were days of sore rear
ends. Both days were days of love. So I liked the Camden Park
days better than the others. To know the love of God. Well,
to know its breadth, its length, depth, and height. Of course, Paul is being expansive
in the way he speaks. It's hard to find words to describe
the emotions that well up in the heart when we talk about
these things. We tend to wax poetic about it.
But I know one measure that the Scriptures give us of the love
of God. God Himself says, I have loved
you with an everlasting love. therefore with lovingkindness
have I drawn you." Now, God doesn't love a man because a man comes
to Him. A man comes to God, a man comes
to Christ because God in love has drawn him there. God's love
is the beginning of all other love. We love Him because He
first loved us. And so we have this everlasting
love, and I like that because if you think of eternal love,
and quite often we use the words eternal and everlasting interchangeably,
but actually do have some subtle differences about them. But everlasting
means to continue, continue unworn by time. It lasts forever. And when we think of something
lasting, we're thinking of it enduring something. We put a
coat of paint on it, now it's going to last. And what do we
mean? Well, let the sun shine on it, let the rain hit it. Let
all kinds of things happen to it. We believe we've gotten a
good quality paint, it's going to last for a while, and we're
not going to have to paint real soon, as opposed to the cheap
paint, which isn't going to last very long. It can't take the
heat, it can't take the rain. God's love is everlasting. Well,
what's it lasting? Us and everything we do to it. All the wickedness that we commit
against it. All the rebellion that we exercise
against it. All the fussing, all the whining,
all the doubting of it. It lasts and lasts. Nothing ever wears out the love
of God for His people. Aren't you glad to know that? I suppose that if the love of
God could be worn out, I would have done it. I would have rubbed
through. Paint would be peeling. And I
know every child of God would say the same thing. It's everlasting. Look over at Romans chapter 8. It's everlasting. And this is
similar, certainly connected to it. It's invincible. It can last through or outlast
everything we throw at it. But it outlasts everything else,
too. For it says, verse 38 of Romans
8, for I am persuaded That neither death nor life. I'm glad he said life. Death nor life. You know, a lot
of times death's easier to take than life. And we say, yeah, death isn't
going to separate me from the love of God. I'm going to go
right into His presence. Life isn't going to separate
you from the love of God either. Neither death nor life. nor angels,
nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things
to come." Now, he didn't mention things past, because if we're
in the love of God right now, we don't have to worry about
what happened in the past. Evidently, that wouldn't put it away. So
he mentions only the present, not things going on right now,
and not what may come to pass in time to come, nor height,
nor depth. nor any other created thing shall
be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord." Isn't that amazing? I can't separate. I can't wear
it out. I don't want to, but I know that
plenty that I do wears on that love. God's never going to look
at me and say, I've had it with you. That's it. We're done. Never going to say that. Nor
will it ever be that anything that has ever been in this created
world, nothing's going to be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ. Now, the love of God, which is
in your works, if there is any such thing, you'd mess that up
real quick. The love of God in your church, well, who knows what will happen
with that? The love of God in mom and dad. Mom and dad are probably going
to die before you do what you're going to do then. The love of
God in Christ. And here is the conclusion, or
the summary we may draw from that. Until the father quits loving
the son, we are secure. in the love of God in Christ.
If I'm in Christ, if someone says, well, do you believe God
loves you? My only answer has to be, well, does he love the
Lord Jesus Christ? Because if he does, then he loves me, because
I'm in him. Now, as I said, we can't look
outward in our natural lives to find evidence or proof of
the love of God. Certainly we can't rely on it.
Because there are those who don't even know God exists, and yet
it seems their lives are quite pleasant and blessed. And then
there are those we feel quite sure they know God, and God knows
them, and they worship God in Christ Jesus, and yet their lives
seem to be just horribly difficult. And then there's everything in
between. So you can't find any correlation, any statistical
correlation, between the pleasantness of one's providence and the love
of God. How, then, can we know if God
loves us? That's a pretty important question.
One of the things, though, you'll find in answering just about
any of these questions that you come up with in your mind, there
is no answer to it out there. We live by faith, not by sight. to make light of the blessings
that God has given me, I am surrounded by goodness in this life. And so, you know, I want to be
careful that I don't step on people's difficulties and say,
well, yeah, it's easier for you to say that kind of stuff. You
don't have any problems. And I'll just admit, I'm just
going to say up front, I realize my life is at least as near as
I can perceive it. It's extremely nice. But the truth is the truth. And I see in scriptures and the
lives of God's people that it is impossible to determine from
the course of their lives whether or not God loves them. But there are three things that
if by faith we may lay hold upon them, then we may be certain
that God loves us and that we will be the beneficiaries of
all the goodness that comes from that love, if you'll look at
Ephesians chapter 1. You know this scripture probably
backwards and forwards. Verse 3. be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has 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. Now, I live in a Dutch Reformed
town, and nearly everybody in that town was raised on Calvinistic
doctrine. At least it's in their catechism.
Oddly enough, it seems like in eighth grade, once they're done
with catechism, they're pretty well done with any truth that
was written in it, too. But they do go through it. But I know in this area, it's
entirely different. You use the word election. I
don't believe election, people will say. You better believe
something about it, because the Word's right here, you know.
Well, I don't believe that predestination stuff. The Word's there. Don't say you don't believe those
things unless you are just going to say, I don't believe the Bible,
because the Words are there. The question is, what do those
Words mean? Well, they pretty well mean exactly what they say.
We know what an election is. It's a choice. He chose us in
Him before the foundation of the world. And then predestination,
what's that? Well, it's not. And some people
do get confused about this. It's not so much a matter of
God determining your destination. It's him determining your destiny.
And there's a difference in that. Our destiny involves our destination,
but involves a whole lot more than that, because predestination,
it never does say we're predestinated to heaven. It says we're predestinated
to the adoption of children. We're predestinated to be conformed
to the image of Christ. That's a destiny, not a destination. Predestination, it concerns not
where I'll be, but what I'll be. And here's the key, one of the
keys to it. The world, you mention election,
predestination, they get red in the face. They think you're
of the devil because you believe these doctrines. And so often,
unfortunately, so often those who believe them preach them
in bitterness, use them as a club to beat people. But what two
words are attached here to election and predestination? In love. See, people, because they begin
with the idea that they're worth saving, and therefore God's trying
to save everybody, they believe that if there's somebody He doesn't
try to save, that that must be some kind of negative action
on His part, an action for which He would be answerable to them.
But when you begin with the fact that there's not a one of us
worth saving... We went through a lot of junk at my mother's
house. Big question, is this worth saving?
And there wasn't much. Because you know what years do
to things. They become obsolete. But we're not worth saving. None
of us. Therefore, if God saves any of
us, it's to His credit. It's not to His debit that He
passes somebody by. It's to His credit that He chooses
to save somebody. Do you believe that? That's an
easy thing to say. Our pride makes it a hard thing
to believe. Sometimes we'll say or hear that
kind of thing and say, yeah, I'll hold them free with us.
You're going to hell. But us sovereign gracers, wait a minute,
not even sovereign gracers are worth saving. Just because you
believe the truth, that doesn't mean you're worth saving. I believe
that two and two equals four. That's truth. Does that make
me worthy of saving? I believe that Frankfort is the
capital of Kentucky. I hope I'm right or my illustrations
will fall apart. That's truth. Does it make me
worth saving? I believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God. Does that make me worth saving?
No, it doesn't. Therefore, if God loves me and
in love chooses to save me and in love predestinates me to the
adoption of sons and to be made like His only begotten Son, That had to be love. It didn't
have a foundation in me. You say, well, I can't see the role
of election. That is, you know, the names
that God has written down. You don't have to see them all,
you've just got to see one. You know what that name is? This
may surprise you, but it's not yours. Behold mine elect, whom
I uphold, whom I choose, in whom I delight." Here's he talking
about Christ. And if you can see Christ as
God's chosen one, He's chosen you too. Because only the chosen
can see that. And inasmuch as we were chosen
in Him, if by grace, through faith, we are enabled to see
the chosen Christ, we see ourselves in Him. And thereby do we know that in love
He has chosen us, and He has predestined us to the adoption
of children and to be conformed to the image of His Son. All
right, look over here at Romans chapter 5. In verse 7 it says, "...for scarcely
for a righteous man will one die." Romans 5, 7. What's a righteous
man? That's the man who gives you
what's right. He does what's right, no more than that, but
no less either. You give him a dollar bill, he
will give you a dollar's worth of change in return. He said, "...but scarcely for
a righteous man will somebody die." Usually righteous men are
also hard men. Yet, per venture, for a good
man, some would even dare to die. That's a man who will always
treat you right and better. He's not only will do the righteous
thing by you, he'll also help you when you're sick, you know,
and mow your grass for you when you can't, pick you up when you're
down, do community things. He's the good man. Maybe for
him, somebody would dare to die, though not many. that God commendeth
his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners." What does
he mean by that? While we were yet not worth dying for. Well,
back to this thing, not worth saving. Maybe a righteous man's
worth saving. Maybe a good man. I might say,
well, you know, it'd be worth me giving my life so that that
man could go on living. But when it comes to this spiritual
eternal life and spiritual eternal salvation, there are none righteous,
there are none good, there are none whom anybody would consider
worth saving, worth dying for. God commended His love in this
while we were worthless. Christ died for us. I'm sure you've seen, like I
have, and been nauseated by it when they say things, and they
always put it in the mouths of little kids because they want
you to think God looks at all of us like grandmoms and granddads
look at their grandchildren. But you don't. I must be something. God loves me. It's exactly the
other way around. You must be nothing. God loves
you. Because God has no love for the
somethings. If He does love them, before
He ever bothers revealing that love, He turns them into nothings. I want to be somebody. Okay.
God doesn't love somebodies. He loves nobodies. And He proved
it when He was here in the flesh. Who did He hang around with?
He hung around the people nobody else would hang around with.
He took as His close companions those whom the world considered
the off-scouring. And the only somebody among them,
the only worldly somebody among them, God unhorsed him and brought
him down very low to a nothing, then revealed his love to him. Christ died for us. Did Christ
die for everyone? No. Would God have been upset
if he did? No. But I know this, everybody he
died for, He died for them because God loved them. And everyone
he died for is saved, is redeemed. He may not know it yet. It's
not our business to tell him that God loves him any more than
it would be somebody else's business to tell my wife that I love her.
That's my privilege to tell her when and how I want to. And I do it often because I do
love her. It's not my job to tell you God
loves you. But I tell you how His love is
revealed, and if He enables you to see it, you'll see His love. Does God love me? Can you see
your soul under the blood of Christ? Did Christ die for me? Well, let me ask you this. Do
you hope that He did? Let's take it out of the abstract. People
like to ask abstract questions. It's useless. Did Christ die for you? Let's
start with this. Do you hope that He did? Would it delight
your soul to find out that He did? Or are you just trying to
argue a theological point? I'm certain of this. Anybody
who sees in that death the satisfaction of divine justice
and the putting away of sin and longs in his heart that it was
for Him, Because the Lord God would never
put that longing in your heart if he did not first put the fulfillment
of it in reality. Any man that longs for the blood
of Christ to put away his sin, such a man can be assured, I
believe, from the authority of Scripture. It is so. Look to
him. And then look here at 1 John
chapter 3. Verse 1, Behold, observe, take notice
of this with a sense of awe and wonder. Behold what manner of
love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called
the sons of God. Probably the most famous parable
in all the is the parable of the prodigal son. As famous as
it is, it's not understood by many. But I think one of the startling
aspects of that psalm is to see how the son approached the father
in contrast to how the father received him. That boy was laying
in hog filth and it occurred to him even the servants in the
household have it better than he does. And so he works up a
little prayer in his head. Father, I've sinned against Heaven
and you, and I'm not worthy to be called your son. Make me one
of your servants, and I can live in your house. And you can almost
imagine him walking home, practicing that little speech. Father, I've
sinned against heavenly men. I'm not worthy to be called your
son. Let me be one of your servants. Father, I've sinned against heavenly
men. I want to get it right. But he doesn't know the Father.
Even though he grew up in the Father's house, he still doesn't
understand the Father's love toward him. But he's going to
find out. And you get this scene. You see him coming down the street.
He lives in Iowa. I'm thinking of a gravel road.
Dusty gravel road. The father looks, and there he
sees him, and all he sees is this little figure, and by the
time he takes a step, dust comes up. Here he's walking. And it says, and while he was
yet a long way off, the father saw him. Others might have noticed
him, but nobody else knew who he was. The father did. And the father saw him because
the father had been looking for him. Finally, the son gets closer,
and here's what happened. He says, Father, I've sinned
against heaven and you, and am no longer worthy to be called
your son. And the father said, get a rope. Get some shoes. Here's my ring. The father never let him even
ask to be a son. No son of his is going to be
a servant in the house. You see, when the father loves,
he doesn't half love. His love is not in making it
easier than it has to be, easier than maybe justice would call
for. He turns slaves into sons. And over a process of time, he
turns slave hearts into son hearts. Because, you know, the fact of
the matter is, yes, the Lord has called us children. We still
don't feel like it. The flesh is still in bondage.
The flesh is still Ishmael. And the Isaac part, we hope it
grows in strength. And as time goes by, we grow
in grace and grow in our understanding and appreciation of and confidence
in the love of God that he has toward us. become less Ishmael and more
Isaac as time goes by. But the fact is, it takes a lot
of time and I don't know that we ever get to the point that
it's all Isaac and no Ishmael until Ishmael's dead. But no matter how much we may
be able to perceive it, it isn't us that called us children of
God. It's God that did. And therefore,
it says, One of the other translations,
and I don't know, I haven't examined it out in Greek, but it puts
this little addendum to it. It says that we should be called
the children of God, and that is what we are. He said it. It's so. You've seen the bumper
sticker. God said it, I believe it. That
settles it. Well, those are three good statements that need to
be put in a different order. God said it, that settles it. I believe
it. me believing it doesn't change
anything about it. Now that word called, we could reference that
to the call of God of us, and indeed that's involved in it.
That's when he revealed it, but that's not when he called us
children of God. To be called the children of God means to
be named the children of God. Old Hosea married a girl from
the wrong side of the tracks. Take a wife of Hortum's. Says
the Lord. So he does. And it's written
that she bore Hosea a son. And then it says she bore two
more children. She doesn't say she bore them to Hosea. She says
she bore two more children. It's my opinion. Can't be real
dogmatic about it, but it's my opinion. Those two children were
born from her trade with other men. They got stuck in Hosea's
house. Their names were essentially
not mine and not loved. That's what they were named.
Imagine that. Until God, in order to demonstrate
his sovereign love toward his people, told Hosea to change
their names. And what were they changed to?
Mine and loved. Therefore, where it is said,
in the very place where it is said, you're not my children,
They shall be called the people of the living God. Where it is
said they shall have no mercy, they shall. We are called by God His children,
not because we're natural born or properly born or legitimately
born, but because He said it. You can imagine it took some
time for that children to get used to their new name. But you
can imagine how much they loved Hosea. That though he did not
owe it to them, they had no claim on him. They bore no natural
relationship to him. He introduced them to everyone
else. Well, this one's mine. And this
one's loved. Well, Hosea, what do you mean
mine and loved? We kind of wore it. Mine. Loved. But they don't even look
like you. Mine. Loved. Well, all right. In one of these days, all God's people will be standing
in the presence of God and the Son of God, and all the rest
of the world's going to be there too. And God's going to say,
I told you, my love. Oh, how bitter that's going to
be for those who wouldn't believe. realize that even though the
preacher said that God loved everybody, they went through
their lives never questioning it, nor valuing that love that
supposedly existed. They thought God owed it to them,
and they stand there and look at those people who they realized
weren't worth loving, and God said, but I love them. They're
mine. Does God love me? I believe he
does. And that's because he's given
me eyes to see these things. I hope he's given you the same
eyes, but I'll add this to it. Inasmuch as we do not live entirely
spiritually, because we are spirit and flesh, there may be times
you can't see these things. You want to know why? It didn't
change anything. Because he didn't choose you
because you could see him choosing you. He didn't predestinate you
because you could see your predestination. Christ didn't die for you because
you feel like you did. And he didn't name you his children
because you felt like one. These are objective truths, seen
by faith, obscured by the flesh, but true nonetheless. May the
Lord God bless you.